The new international situation requires a new revolutionary international of workers

The new international situation requires a new revolutionary international of workers

The Fourth International is dead. Faced with war, we must build the "Fifth International, the world party of socialist revolution".

In two articles devoted to the preparation for the founding of the Fourth International, which would take place in 1938, Trotsky wrote :

The Bolshevik-Leninists consider themselves a fraction of the international movement being built
"Labels" and "Numbers" (August 7, 1935)

In a document dated July 14, 1935, Trotsky had determined the name of the Fourth International :

It seems to me that the only suitable name for our International is World Party of the Socialist Revolution.

World Party of the Socialist Revolution (July 14, 1935)

These two texts, ignored by all the parties that claim to "rebuild the Fourth International" and that call themselves "Trotskyists", with the blessing of the bourgeois media, are relevant to raise the question of the need for a new communist, Marxist international, the Fifth, against that of the parties which like LO, the NPAs, RP claim to be of the "Fourth International" founded by Trotsky, but which no longer have anything in common with Trotsky.

Marceau Pivert, the model of the French far left

One of the two texts by Trotsky cited above is a letter responding to that of Marceau Pivert, a member of the left wing of Léon Blum’s SFIO, whose party had just excluded Trotsky’s supporters :

Marceau Pivert’s letter concerning the expulsion of the leaders of the revolutionary youth of the Seine, despite its laudable aim, contains a number of inaccuracies which, in their development, could lead to serious errors. Warning young comrades against these errors is the true duty of a Marxist.

Pivert himself accuses our friends of making a major "psychological error" by adopting the name Bolshevik-Leninists. Since "original Bolshevism," according to Pivert, denied the democratic structure of the party, equality (?) for all tendencies, etc., by its very name, the Bolshevik-Leninists are giving the party bureaucracy a weapon against itself. In other words, the "psychological error" consists of an insufficient adaptation to the psychology of the party bureaucracy.

Trotsky’s supporters in France had joined the SFIO, the socialist party of the time, adopting the title of Bolshevik-Leninist Fraction. It is this latter term that Pivert disparages, describing it as "sounding awful".

Bolshevik-Leninists, that’s what we are in 2026 !

This Pivertist reproach has been incorporated into the language and identity of French far-left groups : none of them claim to be "Bolshevism-Leninism." They use the term "Trotskyist," a convenient but far less precise abbreviation.

Trotsky continues his letter :

Pivert’s judgment represents a very serious "political error," indeed a series of errors. It is not true that "initial Bolshevism" denied the democratic structure of the party. I assert the exact opposite : there has never been, and there is no, more democratic party than Lenin’s. This party was formed from below. It depended solely on the advanced workers. It was unaware of the hidden, masked, but all the more harmful dictatorship of the bourgeois "friends" of the proletariat, the careerist parliamentarians, the self-serving mayors, the armchair journalists—all that parasitic fraternity that allows the party rank and file to speak "freely," "democratically," but tenaciously maintains itself within the apparatus and, ultimately, does as it pleases. This kind of "democracy" within the party is nothing more than a copy of the bourgeois-democratic state, which also allows the people to speak "freely," but then leaves real power to a handful of capitalists. Pivert makes a very serious political error by idealizing and embellishing the hypocritical and deceitful "democracy" of the SFIO, which, in fact, hinders and paralyzes the revolutionary education of the workers by stifling their voices with the chorus of municipal councilors, parliamentarians, and others who are steeped to the core in selfish petty-bourgeois interests and reactionary prejudices. The task of the revolutionary, even if the course of development forces him to work in the same organization as the reformists, these political exploiters of the proletariat, consists not in taking the attitude of the protégé and adopting that of the deceitful friendship for these agents of the bourgeoisie, but in opposing in the face of the masses as clearly, as bitterly, as implacably as possible the opportunists, the patriots, the absolutely bourgeois "socialists".

"To oppose the opportunists, the patriots, the absolutely bourgeois ’socialists’ in the face of the masses as clearly, as fiercely, as relentlessly as possible" is what parties like LO, the NPAs and the RP never do.

Trotsky’s historical reminder, "This party was formed from below. It depended solely on the advanced workers,"
is fundamental for us. It is by building upon these worker nuclei that a revolutionary leadership will become an embryo, a fraction of a future workers’ party.

The tactic of these far-left groups is to obtain bureaucratic union labels for their activists, present them in local and national elections, which will allow them to claim bureaucratic union labels again and so on.

These small groups, which all claim to be the least sectarian in the world, are incapable of uniting as different factions of the same party because they are in competition with the union bureaucracies. "The reformists, those political exploiters of the proletariat," who are never referred to by those names.

“Adopting the attitude of the protégé and adopting a false friendship with these agents of the bourgeoisie” is therefore precisely what LO, the NPA-R, and RP are doing with regard to LFI, the CGT, or Sud Solidaires. For today’s Bolshevik-Leninists, “agents of the bourgeoisie” is the only accurate label to apply to LFI, the CGT, or Sud Solidaires, and this is something these small groups never do.

A lack of trust in the working class is what characterizes these small groups. Yet, Trotsky reminded us that for Marxists, the decisive factor lies in the working class, not in individual "personalities" :

Those who will ultimately choose and decide will not be the Blums and the Zyromskis, but the masses, the millions of exploited. It is with them that we must align ourselves, it is for them that we must build a party. Pivert’s misfortune is that, until now, he has not severed the umbilical cord that binds him to the small world of the Blums and the Zyromskis.

Certainly these groups denounce personalities like JL Mélenchon but not as class enemies, agents of the bourgeoisie, only as "institutional", therefore moderate, and to put forward "personalities", JP Mercier, N. Arthaud, fitting into the mold of bourgeois politics, which selects "talking heads" who "speak well".

We are Bolshevik-Leninists

It is time to reclaim this name. It is the one Trotsky chose for his supporters in France. The LO and NPA-R parties solemnly repeat : we are for the construction of a revolutionary communist party. But this abstract term has always been claimed by the "so-called communists" :

At every new opportunity, [Pivert] looks at his “friends” and anxiously takes their pulse. And it is this false, illusory, unrealistic policy that he demands of the Bolshevik-Leninists ! They must, it seems, renounce their own name. Why ? Does this name frighten the workers ? On the contrary. If the so-called “communists,” despite all the betrayals and crimes they have committed, retain a significant portion of the proletariat under their banner, it is solely because they present themselves to the masses as the bearers of the traditions of the October Revolution. The workers fear neither Bolshevism nor Leninism. They simply ask (and rightly so) : “Are they true Bolsheviks, or false ?” "The duty of consistent proletarian revolutionaries is not to renounce the name of Bolsheviks, but to show in deeds to the masses their Bolshevism, that is to say, the consistent revolutionary spirit and absolute devotion to the cause of the oppressed.

The term Bolshevism-Leninism clearly refers to October 1917, to the dictatorship of the proletariat, as Trotsky explained :

But why, Pivert insists, stick a label on one’s navel (?) instead of "following the lessons it contains" ? But doesn’t Pivert himself bear the "label" of socialist ? In the realm of politics, as in other areas of human activity, it is impossible to proceed without "labels," that is to say, without denominations and qualifiers as precise as possible. The name "socialist" is not only insufficient but absolutely misleading, since in France anyone who wants to can call themselves a "socialist." By their name, the Bolshevik-Leninists tell everyone that their theory is "Marxism," that it is not the distorted and prostituted "Marxism" of the reformists (like Paul Faure, Jean Longuet, Séverac, etc.) but the true Marxism restored by Lenin and applied by him to the fundamental questions of the imperialist era ; that they draw upon the experience of the October Revolution, as developed in the decisions of the first four congresses of the Communist International ; that they stand in solidarity with the theoretical and political work carried out by the "Left Opposition" of the Communist International (1923-1932) ; and finally, that they rally under the banner of the Fourth International. In politics, the "name" is the "flag." He who renounces a revolutionary name today for the sake of Léon Blum and his ilk will just as easily renounce the red flag tomorrow for the tricolor.

"The experience of the October Revolution, developed in the decisions of the first four congresses of the Communist International ; (...) [the] theoretical and political work carried out by the ’left opposition’ of the Communist International (1923-1932)" are references never invoked by these extreme-left groups.

Regarding the first 4 congresses : the famous "21 conditions" which were stated there in 1920, these parties do not fulfill any of them, which is why they no longer claim to follow these texts.

Regarding the Left Opposition : when Trotsky was expelled from the USSR by the counter-revolutionary bureaucracy in 1929, he rallied the international "Left Opposition" around three points, one of which was the denunciation of Stalin’s collaboration with British trade union leadership within the Anglo-Russian Committee. Now, collaboration with French trade union leadership is the alpha and omega of the "tactics" of our far-left groups. Their spokespeople are systematically union delegates loyal to the leadership that appointed them : Sud-Solidaires for JP Mercier (LO), Anasse Kazibe (RP), and Gaël Quirante (NPA-R).

To claim that LO, RP, and NPA-R betrayed the ideals of the Fourth International would be to flatter them : these small groups are in no way the heirs of the Third International of 1919-1922, of the left-wing opposition to Stalinism within the Communist Parties in 1923-1933. They belong to that constellation of non-Stalinist groups that called themselves socialist or communist, but were irredeemable and against which Trotsky polemicized.

The Fifth International is a current issue.

Regarding the numbers, Trotsky replied to Pivert :

Pivert proclaims the right of every socialist to hope for a better International "with or without a change of number." This somewhat misplaced irony about the "number" represents a political error of the same kind as the irony about the "label." Politically, the question is this : can the world proletariat succeed in fighting war, fascism, and capitalism under the leadership of reformists or Stalinists—that is, under Soviet diplomacy ? We answer : it cannot. The Second and Third Internationals have exhausted their content and have become obstacles on the revolutionary path. "Reforming" them is impossible, because their entire leadership is radically hostile to the tasks and methods of the proletarian revolution. Anyone who has not fully grasped the collapse of the two Internationals cannot raise the banner of the New International. "With or without a change of number" ? This phrase is meaningless. It is no coincidence that the three former Internationals were numbered. Each "number" corresponds to a specific era, program, and methods of action.

Trotsky’s observation is unfortunately still relevant today : "The Fourth International (resulting from splits within the one founded by Trotsky) has exhausted its content and has become an obstacle on the revolutionary path. ’Reforming’ it is impossible, because its entire leadership is radically hostile to the tasks and methods of the proletarian revolution."

The fact that there are currently several Fourth Internationals is analogous to the fact that, at the time Trotsky was writing, there were the Second and Third Internationals. These internationals, including that of the NPA-A and NPA-R (these parties excommunicate each other in France but congratulate each other internationally in their joint organization, like Marion Aubry falling into Van der Leyen’s arms in the European Parliament !), are "two corpses whose summation would be futile, their negation being the path to follow" :

The New International must be not the sum of two corpses, as the old social-patriot Zyromsky dreams, caught in his unexpected recognition of the "defense of the USSR," but the living "negation" of these corpses and, at the same time, the "continuation" of the historical work accomplished by previous Internationals. In other words, it is the Fourth International. The "number" here signifies a definite perspective and program, that is to say, a "flag." Let the philistines mock this. We must not imitate them.

Trotsky founded the Fourth International, continuing the legacy of the Third, which itself was founded in opposition to the social-patriots. For LO, the NPA, and RP, the very term "social-patriot" doesn’t exist ! In this sense, these parties are no longer even worthy of the left wing of the Second International, where Rosa Luxemburg inaugurated the Marxist struggle against these social-patriots by founding her Polish newspaper "The Workers’ Cause" as early as 1893.

Trotsky founded the Fourth International in opposition to the Popular Front policies implemented by Stalin’s Comintern in 1935 at its Seventh (and final) Congress. However, in 2024, the NPA-A joined the new Popular Front. The NPA-R denounced this but wanted to maintain its position within the same Fourth International as the NPA-A. The NFP of the NPA-s in 2024 is comparable to the Popular Front of 1935 for the Communists.

To be a revolutionary leader is to decide

The typical argument of LO or the NPA-R is the "lack of worker consciousness." This argument is typically Stalinist, already well known to Trotsky :

The aversion to "labels" and "numbers" in politics is as dangerous as the aversion to precise definitions in the scientific field. In both cases, we have the infallible symptom of a lack of clarity in the ideas themselves. Invoking the "masses" in such cases only serves to mask one’s own hesitations. The worker who still believes in Vandervelde or Stalin will undoubtedly be an opponent of the Fourth International. The worker who has understood that the Second and Third Internationals are dead to the cause of the revolution will immediately rally to our banner. This is precisely why it is criminal to hide this banner under the table.

Haughty and brutal contempt for the alleged lack of conscience of workers ; on the contrary, obsequious modesty towards reformism when it comes to taking responsibility, these are two poles between which centrists oscillate.

The far left in the Sacred Union

The Third International held its founding congress in 1919, but it was the betrayal of the Second International, which joined the Sacred Union, that made it necessary to announce its foundation as early as 1914.

The Fourth International was founded in 1938, but its necessity had been proclaimed by Trotsky as early as 1933, in the face of the capitulation of the Stalinist parties after Hitler’s rise to power. With the Stalin-Laval Declaration, the French Communist Party openly joined the Sacred Union in 1935, the equivalent for the Communist parties of August 1914 for the Socialist Party.

The first lie of the French far left is to whitewash reformist leadership by suggesting they are no longer part of the Sacred Union. As if after each war, we start from scratch, waiting for the next one. But the question regularly posed by these parties is not whether these leaderships will rejoin the Sacred Union during the next war. The CGT and the Socialist Party (like its successor, La France Insoumise) have been part of it since 1914 and have never left. The Communist Party has been part of it since 1935.

By repeatedly claiming that "we are heading towards a national unity government," these organizations conceal the fact that we are already there, positioning themselves as the "vigilant" far-left wing of Sud-Solidaires and the CGT, endorsing them with their "critical support." Support without participation is the worst form of support for the bourgeois government, because it is the most hypocritical. This was the CGT’s policy in 1936 in the face of the Popular Front government.

The leadership of the CGT and Sud are in the Sacred Union, and their policies are becoming increasingly openly reactionary.

One of the forms that war takes is fiscal racketeering against workers through indirect taxes, which are one of the components of inflation.

While the French Workers’ Party, whose program was written under Marx’s supervision around 1880, included the abolition of indirect taxes in its economic component, far-left organizations denounce this type of measure as "a diversion," imitating union leaderships that want to confine the working class to symbolic wage increases granted during annual salary negotiations. Wage increases are purely economic demands ; the issue of taxes is a political one. Not only would the elimination of fuel taxes represent an almost unprecedented increase in the standard of living for the majority of workers, but by seizing this slogan, the working class would also bring along the middle class, already burdened by these taxes. Politically and economically stifling the proletariat is what this rallying of the opportunistic far left to the sole issue of wages, under the guise of Marxist orthodoxy, means. It is to pay their share of the tax racket that workers should demand wage increases !

Covid, sanctions against Russia, war against Iran, customs duties, public debt – all these extra-economic means of generating profits are typical of a period of war :

The war has brought about a transformation in capitalism. The systematic exploitation of surplus value, which was once the sole source of income for the entrepreneur, now seems a rather dull pursuit for the bourgeois gentlemen, who have grown accustomed to doubling, even multiplying tenfold, their dividends in a matter of days through sophisticated speculation based on international plunder. The bourgeois has shed some of his former prejudices and, in return, acquired a certain knack for it that he previously lacked. The war has accustomed him, as to the most ordinary of activities, to reducing entire countries to famine through blockades, to bombing and burning peaceful towns and villages, to infecting springs and rivers by dumping cholera crops into them, to transporting dynamite in diplomatic pouches, to issuing counterfeit banknotes imitating those of the enemy, and to employing corruption, espionage, and smuggling on an unprecedented scale. The methods employed in warfare remained in force in the commercial world after the conclusion of peace. Commercial operations of any significance are conducted under the aegis of the state. The latter has become akin to a criminal organization armed to the teeth. The scope of global production shrinks daily, and the control of production becomes all the more frantic and all the more costly. Prevention : that is the ultimate word of capitalist policy, the motto that has replaced protectionism and free trade !

By denouncing the slogan "Abolish fuel taxes (excise and VAT) !" as a "National Rally diversion," when it was actually Marx’s program, a party like Lutte Ouvrière (LO) is embarking on a reactionary path, asking workers to "win the battle of taxation," just as the Communist Party (PC) asked them to win the post-war "battle of production." These so-called heirs of Trotsky are opposing the proletariat’s struggle for its economic survival.

The warning shot that heralded this war capitalism was the 2008 financial crisis. None of the major far-left organizations saw it as the collapse of capitalism. Yet the seeds of revolution are essentially economic.

Conclusion : going to war is now a possibility.

Pseudo-Trotskyist parties are becoming increasingly open political satellites of La France Insoumise (LFI) and the bourgeois state. The recent demonstration of support for the LFI mayor of Saint-Denis marks a further step in this direction. The mayor of a major city is no longer an agent of the bourgeoisie because he is "on another level" ; he is no longer the enemy of the workers, but "someone who won’t change much" ; anti-racism in defense of the poor replaces class struggle—it is with such nonsense that Lutte Ouvrière (LO) justifies its support for LFI.

This elite group thus found itself not only opposed to Bally Bagayoko, but above all to the impoverished population of a working-class city. Even if the election of a rebellious mayor will not change much for the residents of these housing projects, given that their problems lie on a completely different level, this vile campaign is a clear indication of the bourgeoisie’s and its political class’s desire to silence anything resembling a challenge to its policies.

But the march to war is accelerating. Isn’t it time to plant the flag of a Fifth International, reiterating Trotsky’s observation :

The Bolshevik-Leninists consider themselves a faction of the emerging International. It seems to me that the only suitable name for our International is World Party of Socialist Revolution.