The Environment
This congress notes the environmental disasters of recent years, including the Bhopal disaster, the oil spills in Alaska and off the coast of Scotland, and Chernobyl. In the coming period, new disasters of an even greater magnitude are almost inevitable. It is entirely possible that entire regions, especially in newly industrialized areas such as northern Mexico, will be shown to be so poisoned as to be uninhabitable. In particular for the youth, the environmental crisis will be of mounting concern.

Up until the present, the environmental movement has tended to be dominated by middle class types. Many environmental organizations have sought to make their peace with this or that layer of the capitalist class. This Congress believes that this issue cannot be left to these middle class reformists. We adamantly oppose capitalist propaganda that workers must choose between having jobs and environmental preservation.

One reason that the middle class types have tended to dominate the question is the failure of the leadership of the traditional organizations. Just as on the question of wages, hours and working conditions, these leaders have tended to take the position that whatever is necessary to assist "their" capitalists to make profits must be supported by the workers. This has tended to include freeing industry from environmental regulations.

The union leaders should take up the question of the environment, not only because it is the general responsibility of the working class, but also because pollution usually starts first in the workplace where the workers are the first to suffer. In addition, the workers are in the best position to first be aware of and put a stop to pollution.

The development of the regional trade blocs such as the EC and NAFTA as well as GATT, is also being used to further free the corporations from what environmental regulations do exist. It is planned to label such regulations as unfair trade restrictions as well as to further remove their enforcement from publicly elected officials.

A tendency toward what is called "environmental racism" in the US should also be noted. Capitalism is tending to dump its toxic wastes in the poor, and especially poor minority, communities. It is seeking to use Indian reservations for disposal of nuclear wastes. In a similar vein, imperialism is seeking to use the underdeveloped world to dump its garbage and toxic wastes. Many pesticides (such as DDT) and other chemicals banned in the advanced capitalist countries are still being produced for sale in the underdeveloped world.

The more capitalism has forced its way into every corner of the globe, the more science and technology have developed, the more capitalism goes into crisis (as well as the crisis of the former Stalinist regimes and those that remain), the more does the question of the environment become critical. Just as capitalism cannot control the economic and social forces it has unleashed, so even the technological forces also threaten to destroy it along with the human species as a whole. In order to fully resolve the problem of the environmental crisis, what is required is "a complete revolution in our hitherto existing mode of production, and with it of our whole contemporary social order". (Engels, Part Played By Nature). It is the capitalist system itself that has proven completely destructive of the environment - the globe on which we live. The same is the case for Stalinism.

This congress declares that this question is one of great importance for the working class movement, and especially for the youth, and it is incumbent upon us to pay close attention, to intervene and to take initiatives on this issue.

It is agreed that the IS and IEC will prepare a more extensive document on this question as soon as possible.

First Draft September 1993, proposed by RJ, USA
Adopted by the Congress