Report on the CWI World Congress — Building the Forces of Socialism Worldwide

Published on

The Ninth World Congress of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) took place in Belgium in mid-January. Over 130 delegates and visitors, from 25 of the 36 countries in which the CWI organizes, gathered for a week of political discussion on the tasks facing the working class internationally and how to best build the forces of Marxism. Socialist Alternative, which is in political solidarity with the CWI, sent an eight-person delegation.

Below are excerpts from a report on the Congress by Hannah Sell of the Socialist Party of England and Wales. The full report as well as the political documents discussed at the Congress are available on the CWI website (www.socialistworld.net).

A Global Struggle
Internationalism has stood at the heart of genuine socialist ideas since their inception. Today, however, when just 500 giant multinationals dominate the globe – employing 46 million people and controlling 45% of world production – the need for a global struggle against capitalism is more pressing than ever.

At this stage, the forces of the CWI are still modest, particularly in comparison to the tasks that we have set ourselves. However, the experience of 21st century capitalism is leading growing numbers of people to search for a socialist alternative. The CWI Congress showed the significant progress we have made and the important role we are already playing in taking the class struggle forward in a number of countries.

In Nigeria, the Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM), the second largest section of the CWI, played a leading role in a rising tide of class struggle from 2000 to 2004, when a series of general strikes against fuel price increases paralyzed the country.

However, the trade union leaders’ last-minute calling off of a general strike in November 2004 led to a loss of confidence and a sharp downturn in the activity of the labor movement. In a situation of deepening social crisis, most working people’s lives are dominated by the struggle to survive. However, the DSM has been able to raise socialist ideas with considerable success, and has a high profile in the press and on national television.

The CWI section in Kazakhstan, Socialist Resistance, is facing brutal repression by the state. However, its determination to struggle for the rights of the working class and poor has won its members enormous authority.

As a result of their role in the ongoing struggle of the Almaty shanty town dwellers, a national Kazakh magazine published a four-page spread on the work of Socialist Resistance. One headline called it an “echo of Leon Trotsky.” The article explained the coverage by simply saying, “Socialist Resistance won the sympathy of journalists because of their courage.”

New Workers’ Parties
One of the key tasks facing the working class internationally is the creation of political parties that act in its interests. It is widely recognized by working people that parties such as New Labor in Britain and the Social Democratic Party in Germany no longer in any sense represent their interests, but are brutal neo-liberal parties. The CWI fights for new mass workers’ parties to be founded.

In Belgium, against the background of the first general strikes in over a decade, the campaign CWI members helped to initiate is taking the first steps towards setting up a new party.

However, it is far from guaranteed that these new broad parties will reach their potential. As well as fighting to build them, we must also campaign to make sure they stand firmly against cuts and privatization, in deeds as well as words. The potential limitations of such formations, if they do not do so, are shown by developments in the WASG, the new left party in Germany.

In the 2005 general election, they stood together with the PDS (Party for Democratic Socialism – the former ruling Stalinist party in East Germany) and received 8.7% of the vote and got 54 Members of Parliament elected. This gives a glimpse of the possibility for a sizeable new workers’ party to be built in Germany. However, the leadership of the WASG has successfully argued for a merger with the PDS, which is part of regional coalition governments that have carried out major attacks on the working class.

The CWI section in Germany, Socialist Alternative (SAV), successfully argued within the Berlin WASG that they should stand independently of the PDS in the recent regional election. Despite the attempts of the WASG national leadership to use bureaucratic means to prevent it, the Berlin WASG went ahead and stood, receiving an excellent 52,000 votes.

In Brazil, we play an important role in another new formation, the Party for Socialism and Liberty (P-SOL). The potential for a left alternative was shown by the 6.6 million votes that P-SOL candidate Heloisa Helena received in the recent presidential election. The CWI section in Brazil campaigns within P-SOL for it to develop as a socialist, campaigning, struggle-based party rather than as a primarily electoral organization.

In the rest of Latin America, the continent where class struggle has reached its highest pitch in the recent period, the CWI has also made important steps forward. We have begun to build a base in Venezuela, and the CWI section in Chile has made a turn to young people as a result of the magnificent school student movement last year.

There is much that Socialist Alternative can learn from its sister sections internationally. Two of them, Belgium and Greece, are currently the fastest growing sections of the CWI.

In every country of Europe, big business’s neo-liberal offensive is being stepped up. Increasingly – for example, in Italy, Portugal, Belgium, France, and Greece – the working class is entering the scene. There have also been magnificent movements of young people in France and Greece. CWI sections have turned to these movements energetically – with audacity and a clear program, and as a result have made important steps forward.

The CWI world congress gave us all renewed confidence that the CWI is capable of building a force that will play a critical role in the future socialist transformation of society.

Latest articles

MORE LIKE THIS

International Women’s Day 2024: Demonstrate Against War, Oppression, & Capitalism!

This year’s International Women’s Day has a very dark setting. We have a climate crisis to solve. We have hundreds of thousands of hungry...

China’s ‘Involuted’ Economy

The Chinese economy is tipping into a deflationary crisis with a worsening debt crunch, falling wages and prices, and increasing reliance of fraudulent economic...

What Ideas Do We Need To Change The World? 100 Issues of Socialist Alternative

In the 1980s, 50 companies in total owned about 90% of American media, from newspapers, to music, to TV, to movies. Today, that landscape...

Right-Wing Politicians Throw Migrants Under (and onto) The Bus

Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent the first busload of immigrants to Washington nearly two years ago in a cruel and dramatic effort to hold...