Presentation

After a break of three years, the International Bolshevik League restarts to publish the Revolutionary Marxism Magazine. This edition has fundamentally been dedicated to spot the role that the popular front type of government plays in Latin America, particularly, at this moment, in Chile, Brazil and Bolivia. After the fall of the USSR and the Eastern European workers’ states, the Latin American reformist directions left all of the national developing politics which took place until the 80´s and embarked in the “Washington Consensus”. By adopting an openly pro-imperialist political program and by keeping the masses’ movement under a bureaucratic control, they transformed themselves from the bourgeoisie’s last resource against the revolution to the imperialism’s favorite option to manage the capitalist crisis. The South African ANC’s (African National Congress) governments and the Chilean Socialist Party have confirmed this thesis since the 90´s and Lula has been reinforcing it since 2003.As analyzed in this volume, even with the turbulences suffered by his government in 2005, Lula is still Bush’s principal bet in Latin America. It can be verified since the Brazilian corruption scandals did not alter the classes’ struggle correlation forces and, even when slowed down, the Worker’s Party (PT) is still applying the Brazilian re-colonization plan on the same rhythm.

The recently elected Chilean “socialist”, Michelle Bachelet, firmed a compromise to continually take over the Chilean natural resources and the proletarian working force as practiced by Lagos in the past. Coming from the same type of politics, the Bolivian elected President Evo Morales’ Movement Towards the Socialism (MAS), was at the beginning seen by the US government with some reservations. However, after being diplomatic pressured, Morales has already announced its disposition to guard the oiliest transnational interests by suppressing the campaign for the nationalization of the hydrocarbonate companies defended by popular raises that have shaken the country in the last years. It is valuable to pay attention that Bush and Lula have already established unity in order to monitor Morales. So, he would not oscillate to follow the pro-imperialist way already tracked by his Chilean and Brazilian neighbors if pressured by the Bolivian masses, which has been in the last years the Latin American struggler vanguard.

For the revolutionary Trotskyists, the ascension of this popular front type of government on US’s backyard is not contradictory, but a complementary escalation towards the Nazi exasperation of the Yankee imperialism. Even though it was born carrying the masses’ illusion, the popular fronts have betrayed the working class since the beginning of its government. The popular fronts have puzzled the workers and, through the cooptation of its organizations, they have softened the re-colonization resistance in order to intensify the imperialism parasitism.

The International Bolshevik League also included in this volume the other and much more active epicenter of the classes’ struggle, the Middle East. There, the degree of struggle between the masses and the imperialism has assumed, all long the years, an armed conflict character. With ups and downs, it is still permanently. We analyze here the perspectives of a new imperialist crusade in the region against Iran and, probably, Syria as well. At this time, the Israeli Zionist enclave is threatening to play a much more and direct protagonist part, supported, of course, by the United States. This new war is part of Bush’s intention to obscure the failure of the Iraq occupation. With popular war armament methods, the heroic Iraqi resistance is defeating the most powerful and torturing army in the planet. The new war against Iran will try to minimize the global economic crisis expected for 2007 with a new bloody pillage against the oppressed people.

Facing the conflagration of this upcoming classes’ struggle, the new edition of the Revolutionary Marxism Magazine has the aim to pragmatically contribute in the fundamental task of guiding the intervention of the world’s vanguard. We assume this titanic task because we know that the oppressed people will not take charge through Latin American “socio-betraying” governments or the Arabian fundamentalist bourgeoisies. To believe on that is a criminal illusion. It is on the hands of the Worldwide Revolutionary Socialist Party and the reconstructed Fourth International, the task to firmly explain to the proletarian vanguard how to leave from the defensive position towards the attack against the imperialism. It is necessary to have as a strategy, not democratic reactionary governments, but the construction of mass’s bodies for the revolutionary political action. It would push the masses toward the implementation of its own power against any type of variable presented by its enemies.

This new volume in English of our political theory magazine is part of the International Bolshevik League’s effort to restart the debate for the reconstruction of the Fourth International with the revolutionary Marxist parties with principles dispersed in the world. Our aim is to construct a new international Trotskyist organization which can drive the oppressed people from the “barbaric” radicalism to a revolutionary communist program and to the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship in a planetary scale. The resolution of publishing this new number and its orientation was approved in our IV National Conference realized in December of 2005. This is an important step to minimize, at first, our isolation imposed by the Portuguese language. There are no gateways: either the humanity overcomes the revolutionary crisis of direction and move towards the socialism or it will be, without dough, swallowed by the barbarity that is threatening us. We who created the Revolutionary Marxism Magazine employed the best of our lives and strengths in the construction of this first alternative.

The editors,
February of 2006.

HOME