May Day 2016 – In Mexico and around the Globe:
For a new World Party of Socialist Revolution in Order to Advance the Struggle for Liberation of the Workers and Oppressed!
Statement of the Liaison Committee of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) and the Agrupación de Lucha Socialista (ALS), April 2016
The RCIT and the ALS send their May Day greetings to all fighters for the liberation of the working class and the oppressed people throughout the world. The current world situation is marked by an accelerated economic, social and political crisis of the capitalist world system. The capitalist system is in decline since the beginning of the world historic revolutionary period in 2008 with the outbreak of the Great Recession. The world economy never recovered from this recession and stands now before the imminent next, even worse, recession. We see an acceleration of the rivalry between the imperialist Great Powers USA, EU, Japan, Russia and China (Ukraine, South and East China Sea, Africa, Latin America). Furthermore, the working class faces an intensifying wave of counterrevolutionary offensives of the ruling class – austerity programs, police state, imperialist wars in the Middle East etc.. However, the worker and oppressed are continuing their heroic resistance against these counterrevolutions.
But their struggles are seriously hampered by the devastating crisis of revolutionary leadership of the working class movement. Currently the workers and oppressed struggles are controlled by various official leaderships – treacherous labor bureaucrats, leaders of the Social Democratic parties, heads of Stalinist parties, Castro-Chavismo, their centrist fellow travelers, parties representing petit-bourgeois nationalism, and parties based on Islamism. These current leaderships consciously or unconsciously mislead the workers and oppressed. In major class struggles they often support the open counterrevolution or take a cowardly neutral position (e.g. on Assad, General Sisi, the looming coup in Brazil, the Euromaidan regime in the Ukraine, the state of emergency in France, the imperialist wars in the Middle East, the ANC regime in South Africa, Russian and Chinese imperialism, etc.).
Hence, the most burning task of revolutionaries consists in joining forces in order to advance the struggle to build a new World Party of Socialist Revolution as a clear and unequivocal alternative to reformism, centrism and petty-bourgeois-populism. The RCIT and the ALS are dedicated to jointly work for this task.
To replace these non-revolutionary leaderships it is, first of all, incumbent to openly denounce them. However, at the same time, it is absolutely necessary for revolutionaries to fight inside existing mass movements and to apply the united front tactic towards their leaderships.
Hence, revolutionaries have to combine fighting for a revolutionary program with concretizing this program to a series of strategies and tactics for the current major class struggles. Only those organizations which have a correct understanding of the Marxist program in the present period as well as of the current world situation and the corresponding tasks for the class struggle, can serve as instruments for the creation of new revolutionary parties and a new World Party of Socialist Revolution.
As revolutionaries, we take the following stands regarding current hotspots in the international realm:
* Down with all Great Powers – the US, EU, Japan, China, and Russia! No support for any imperialist camp! In the Ukraine, in East Asia, and in any other military conflict between these powers or their puppets, socialists must relentlessly remind the workers: The main enemy is at home! Turn the imperialist war into a civil war against your own ruling class!
* Brazil: No to the coup of impeachment and no to the calling for new elections! But no confidence in the Pro-Austerity PT-PMDB Government! Mobilize the masses to go into the streets and fight at one and the same time against the attacks of the Roussef government on the workers and the poor AND against the coup movement! For the creation of action committees in the factories, trade unions, neighborhoods, slums and outlying regions in defence of our rights and against any coup movement!
* Argentina: Down with the right-wing Macri government! For a broad united front of struggle against the government! Free Milagro Sala and all political prisoners now! For an independent workers’ party based on a revolutionary program! Drive the British out of the Malvinas!
* Venezuela: Defeat the right-wing coup attempts! Defend Venezuela against US imperialism! Down with the new “Pacto de Punto Fijo”! Mobilize the working class against the attacks of the Maduro government! Break the working class away from the Chavista leadership which defends the capitalist system and collaborates with imperialist China!
* Mexico: Bring back the 43 students of Ayotzinapa alive and punish those who are guilty! Solidarity with the prisoners of the self-defense militias – support the struggle of peoples and communities who fight with arms against the organized crime! For popular councils and militias! ¡Support the teachers’ mobilization! ¡No to the Education Reform! ¡Down with the attacks on workers, down the Labor Reform! For a movement of the precarious and sacked workers! For an united national front of struggle of the teachers, students and workers to organize a general strike that will kick out President Peña Nieto and his allies of the pact (PRI-PAN-PRD)! For a party of the urban and rural workers! Support the struggle of the indigenous peoples of Mexico and those of all countries of the American hemisphere – for their rights to land, the preservation of their culture, and against discrimination in employment! We call for the immediate implementation of the San Andrés Accords of 1996 for the indigenous communities of Mexico! We support joint self-defense to thwart the occupation of lands belonging to the country’s indigenous peoples and communities and their dispossession by the Mexican government and foreign and domestic corporations.
* Defend the Syrian Revolution! Defeat the Assad Regime! Drive the Russians, NATO, and all other Foreign Aggressors out of Syria! No to the Great Power-imposed “Negotiations” Aimed at Liquidating the Syrian Revolution! No to Daesh/IS!
* Egypt: Down with the military dictatorship of General Sisi! Support the textile, public sector and other workers’ strikes and mass protests against the dictatorship! Defend the Muslim Brotherhood against repression, but give no political support to their bourgeois leadership! Release all political prisoners in Egypt! For a socialist federation of the people of the Maghreb and Mashriq!
* Libya: Stop the US Bombing of Libya! Mobilize against the Great Powers’ plans to intervene militarily in Libya and along its coast! Support the resistance against imperialist aggression! Defeat General Haftar’s alliance of imperialist lackeys, without giving any political support to the Islamists! No to reactionary sectarianism! Down with the Salafi-Takfiri Daesh!
* Iraq: No to reactionary sectarianism! Down with the corrupt, pro-imperialist government in Bagdad! Drive the US troops out of Iraq!
* Iran: Down with the reactionary Mullah regime! Self-determination for all national minorities in Iran! No to any threats of the US and other Great Powers against Iran!
* Defend Yemen against the Saudi Aggression! Support the resistance led by the Houthi rebels while not giving any political support to their leadership! No return of the reactionary lackey “President” al-Hadi! For a non-sectarian mass movement which unites Sunni and Shia workers and fellahin!
* Defend the Palestinian people against Israel, the Zionist Apartheid state! In any conflict we stand for a military victory of the Palestinian resistance and the defeat of Israel! No political support for the Abbas/Fatah collaborationist leadership or for the reactionary Hamas leadership. For an international boycott campaign against Israel led by the mass organizations of the workers and oppressed! For a Free, Red Palestine from the River to the Sea!
* Tunisia: Down with the government of President Essebsi! For a program of public works under the control of the UGTT and other mass organizations, financed by the expropriation of the super-rich cronies of the Ben Ali clan!
* Turkey: Down with the reactionary-capitalist Erdoğan government, but also down with the reactionary Kemalists of the CHP and the fascists from the MHP! Stop the repression against the Kurds, the media and the opposition!
* Support the Kurdish people’s right of national self-determination! No political support for the pro-imperialist PKK/YPG-leadership! For a free, red and united Kurdistan!
* Mali: Drive the imperialist French and EU occupation forces out of the country! Support the resistance!
* Somalia: Support the resistance against the pro-imperialist AMISOM occupation troops!
* South Africa: No support for the popular front ANC government! Call the NUMSA-led “United Front” to move forward and to create a new mass workers’ party! Such a new party should be based on a revolutionary program and not on a remake of the reformist “Freedom Charter”!
* China: Fight against the dictatorship of the ruling Stalinist-Capitalist party! Support the workers struggles for higher wages and against sacking! For full democratic rights! No to Han chauvinism – full national self-determination for the Uyghurs and the Tibetans!
* Pakistan: No to PML(N) government behind which the army command stand as the real ruling power! Support the workers struggle at PIA against privatization! Drive the army out of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA provinces! Support the national liberation struggles of the Baloch, Kashmir and other oppressed national minorities!
* India: Support the trade union struggles against the BJP governments’ neoliberal plans! Defend women’s rights in India! Mobilize against the reactionary rape culture! For armed self-defense units of women and progressive men to protect women! Support the struggle of the Adivasi for equal rights!
* Sri Lanka: No support for the bourgeois Sirisena government or for the opposition led by the reactionary long-time ruler Rajapaksa! Support the national liberation struggle of the Tamil people!
* Thailand: Down with the military dictatorship and the reactionary, pro-monarchist “Yellow Shirts” movement! Defend the “Red Shirts” movement against the repression without giving political support for the capitalist Thaksim leadership! For a new independent workers party!
* Down with imperialist aggression of the US and South Korea against North Korea! No support for the Stalinist dictatorship!
* Open Europe’s Borders for all Refugees! Put an end to the racist and Islamophobic backlash in Europe! For a public works program with jobs for all refugees as well as all native workers! Native workers and migrants – fight together against your common enemy: the imperialist ruling class in the EU and Russia as well as against the dictatorships in the Middle East and Africa!
* Greece: Stop the imperialist EU-Memorandum austerity dictates! No to the sell-out of the SYRIZA government! For a mass united front against the fascist Golden Dawn party! Fight for equal rights for nationally oppressed migrants and the super-exploited layer of the Greek working class!
* Spain: Stop the neoliberal austerity offensive! Support the struggle of the people in Catalonia and Basque Country for national self-determination!
* Portugal: Force the reformist PS government to halt the austerity policy! For mass mobilizations of the workers and youth! But no political support for the government!
* Ireland: Stop the austerity offensive! For non-payment of water charges! Free all political prisoners in Ireland! For a United 32-County Irish Workers’ Republic!
* Britain: Down with the Tory government! For a general strike to stop the austerity program and to bring down the government! No support for either of the two reactionary camps – pro-EU or Brexit – at the EU-referendum on 23 June: For Abstention! For a United Socialist States of Europe! British troops out of Northern Ireland!
* Germany: Defend migrants and refugees against the racist attacks!
* France: Down with the social-imperialist Hollande government supported by the “Communist” Party! For a general strike against the neoliberal labor-law reforms of Labour Minister Myriam El Khomri! Against any “State of Emergency” regime and mobilization of the army! Fight racism and repression directed towards Muslim migrants in Europe!
* Ukraine: Down with Ukraine’s right-wing government which is merely a puppet of US and EU imperialism! But also no support for the Donbass republics leaderships which are lackeys of Russian imperialism! For joint resistance against the IMF-dictated neoliberal programs! For the right of self-determination of the Russophile population in the eastern Ukraine!
* Russia: No to the Putin regime! Against the restriction of democratic rights! Support the struggle of the healthcare personnel against cuts! Defend the heroic resistance of the Chechen people to drive out the Russian occupation forces and their lackey Kadyrov!
* USA: No support for any candidate (including Bernie Sanders) of the two imperialist parties – the Republicans and the Democrats! For a new Labor Party! Support the#BlackLiveMatters movement! For full equality of the Afro-American minority as well as Latino migrants!
Revolutionaries must intervene in the class struggle and combine all necessary tactics with propagandizing for a program of working class power which can only be achieved by a socialist revolution. Such a program must be built on the methods outlined by Trotsky’s Transitional Program of 1938:
* Build action committees in work places and in workers living areas! Purge the trade unions of bureaucrats and collaborators with the capitalists! For democratic rank and file control over the trade unions! Build revolutionary communist fractions inside the trade unions! Transform the trade union in militant instruments for the socialist liberation struggle of the working class!
* For a sliding scale of working hours until everyone is employed without loss of pay!
* For the right of self determination for all oppressed national grouping deprived of the right to secede!
* For revolutionary movements of women, migrants, blacks, youth, unemployed, and national minorities! For the right of the oppressed to caucus in workers’ mass organizations and their movements!
* Build committees and action councils of the workers, peasants, and poor to organize the struggle!
* For armed workers and oppressed militias!
* Expropriate the capitalist class! Nationalize the large enterprises and banks under workers’ control!
* For a workers’ government allied with the peasants and urban poor and based on local councils and militias!
* Fight for new workers’ parties and for a new World Party of Socialist Revolution!
No future without socialism!
No socialism without revolution!
No revolution without a revolutionary party!
Note: While the RCIT considers Russia and China as an imperialist power, the ALS is still in a discussion process on this issue.
Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Brazil, Israel/Occupied Palestine, Yemen, Tunisia, USA, Germany, Britain and Austria):www.thecommunists.net, rcit@thecommunists.net
Agrupación de Lucha Socialista (Mexico): agrupacion.luchasocialista@gmail.com