Italy: II Internationalist Meeting
The sessions were held during the days 17 Y 18 February in Milan. The event brought together diverse forces, expressing important differences and limitations that altogether prevent going beyond a debate forum, although it is also a meeting place between those organizations that, without having previous political relations, defended very similar positions and the latter opens the door to new regroupings., which is very positive. The International Socialist League (LIS) has been participating in this space, whose next appointment was scheduled for the first months of 2025 on date and place to be confirmed.
ByHugo Tortorissi
The initiative and organization of these meetings has been in charge of a committee made up of different Italian organizations: Communist struggle, who was the host at his premises of the Bicocca Workers Club, and the Communist Workers' Party, the Controvento Revolutionary Marxist Association, Against the Current, Communist Revolution and Anti-Capitalist Left. This year's calling slogan was“The nerve centers of the struggle between the powers: from Ukraine to Taiwan, from Africa to the Greater Middle East. For a class response.”In the previous days, the written contributions were published in an internal newsletter. Participate 25 organizations of 12 countries[1], mostly European, coming from“the families of proletarian internationalism, Leninism, trotskyism, communist left, anarchism and libertarian communism.
The main debates focused on the definition of China and Russia, the policy that revolutionaries should have towards Russia's confrontation with Ukraine, to Palestine and, more generally, against the national liberation struggles.
Old and new imperialisms
Our opinion on the inter-imperialist dispute for hegemony that exists between the decadent US empire is known., which despite its weakening continues to be the main world gendarme and the new imperialisms, with China at the head of a bloc that includes Russia and other capitalist countries. Denying the imperialist role of China and Russia inevitably leads to giving in to them and bringing grist to the mill of campism., that defends them as progressive in their confrontation with the US. UU.. For example, the Partido Obrero falls into this theoretical and political error. (PO) and the Trotskyist Fraction (FT), directed by the PTS of Argentina. These were the only two organizations that in Milan defended that China and Russia cannot be defined as imperialist..
La FT, through his small Italian group (FIR), He explained in an academic manner that China is not imperialist and the transition to being so is not yet complete., which would imply that if there were an open military confrontation with the US. THE. they would surely support China, something that has been outlined in other debates. The PO developed a gibberish that led him to explain that the restoration process in these countries was not yet finished., which would imply that they are not even capitalists yet, although he then asserts that they are and that they are on the way to being imperialists., although they clarify that this leap has not yet occurred (sic). A real Russian salad!!
Support for the Ukrainian resistance or defeatism to favor Russia?
The biggest differences were made explicit in relation to the war between Ukraine and Russia. Several of the participants in the meeting characterize the war as Inter-imperialist. Even those who defend that Russia is not imperialist!! For these sectors, the right to self-determination of Ukraine does not exist or is completely secondary.. This leads them to not support the just struggle of the Ukrainian people and to propose that instead of defending themselves they put down their weapons..
Since the LIS, since the beginning of the Russian invasion, We have been maintaining that in war two processes are combined: the inter-imperialist friction on the one hand and the just struggle of the Ukrainian people in defense of their independence on the other and that any policy that does not take both elements into account ends up being wrong.. We reject the imperial interference of both Russia and NATO in Ukraine and Eastern Europe. We have raised an independent policy from the liberal and anti-worker government of Zelensky. But we uphold the right of the Ukrainian people to defend themselves against the Russian imperialist invasion with all the resources at their disposal.. This principled position allowed us to meet and bond in the meeting with the Italian comrades of the Partito Comunista dei Lavoratori (PCL) and the Germans and English of the League for the Fifth International since they defend the same characterization and policy as us. And continue to deepen the relationship with the leadership of the New Anticapitalist Party (NPA) from France, with whom we have coincidences and a relationship of several years.
Palestine from the river to the sea, two states or one binational?
The other important debate of the meeting revolved around Palestine and Zionism. Although the majority, not all, They emphasized continuing to promote mobilizations in support of the Palestinian people and repudiating the genocide being carried out by Zionism in Gaza., the coincidences only went so far. The interventions showed differences and confusion on various topics, mainly about what the strategic solution for Palestine should be. The PO presented an uncritical view of Hamas's policies and methods, anarchists that no state should be built, others defended the two-state policy, but socialists, several a binational State based on the fraternization of both working classes[2]. We stopped to explain why no solution was viable that did not start with proposing to destroy the Zionist State and build a single Palestine on its ashes., secular, Democratic, non racist and socialist. Proposal that could only be made viable within the framework of the extension of the socialist revolution to the entire Middle East.
The national question
When discussing Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Palestine, fundamental differences emerged strongly regarding how to address unresolved national conflicts and struggles in defense of the right to self-determination of peoples.. A position that polarized the debate and that we do not share at all was that ofCommunist struggle, who stated that“the problems nationalit is does not existn more” and that it is a mistake to support Palestine or Israel, since we cannot give in to nationalism and we must propose a socialist and internationalist perspective. In relation to this issue, the SEP of Turkey stated that national problems could be defended when the USSR was there as a counterweight., but now we could not remain attached to the nationalists who are at the forefront of national demands in different parts of the world. And there were proposals to forget about the aggressors-aggressors and oppressors-oppressed dichotomies to apply defeatism at all times and places..
Our intervention refuted these reactionary proposals, explaining that the demands for self-determination and sovereignty of attacked or oppressed peoples are not opposed to the fight for socialism and have to be part of our transitional program. And that by turning our back on the struggles for unresolved national demands felt by the masses, it is impossible to dispute the leadership of bourgeois nationalism and build strong revolutionary parties.
Positive balance
The delegation of the International Socialist League was made up of Vicente Gaynor, Rubén Tzanoff and Alejandro Bodart, Coordinator of the LIS, who presented our views on the various topics under debate. At the closing of the Meeting and as a balance, Bodart stated that“thedifferences are big, but it is positive to exchange opinions, and facilitates rapprochement between those of us who have positions Similar or we seek the regrouping of the revolutionaries”, something that in our case occurred with colleagues from theCommunist Workers' Party, theLigue for the Fifth International and theNPA. And he welcomed the announcement of the Third Meeting next year, suggesting that “sIt would be useful for the next meeting to address discussions related to¿how to confront the extreme right? How to apply to the Leftrevolutionaryas an alternative? Ytalkspecific processes oforganization andintervention, for example, the FITU in Argentina, Psol in BrazilO the NPA in France”.
[1] Argentina, Germany, Austria, Spain, France, Britain, Greece, India, Italy, Russia (in exile), Serbia and Türkiye.
[2] https://lis-isl.org/2024/02/26/el-dilema-de-la-clase-trabajadora-israeli/
