During Easter week, the Fourth International held its Third World Congress since the reunification of the Trotskyist movement in 1963 (the Ninth World Congress since the World Party of Socialist Revolution was founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938). Including delegates with full voting rights, fraternal delegates, and observers, it was attended by ninety-eight persons from thirty countries.
The high point of the congress was the affiliation to the Fourth International of the newly formed Communist League of France. This is the strongest organization, numerically, to join the world Trotskyist movement since its foundation.
The congress reflected in various other ways the progress made by the sections of the Fourth International and sympathizing organizations during the recent period as a result of the worldwide upsurge of a new youth vanguard and the new advance in the world revolution that began last year.
A resolution, "The New Rise of the World Revolution," discussed and voted on at the congress, summarizes the turn in the world situation in six main points:
1. The imperialist counteroffensive launched by American imperialism following the victory of the Cuban revolution, after scoring important temporary successes in Brazil, Indonesia, and a number of African countries, has been repulsed by the heroic Vietnamese people, who took the military initiative with the Tet offensive of 1968.
2. The victorious resistance of the Vietnamese people coincided with a general decline in the rate of economic growth among the imperialist countries, leading in most of them to an intensification of the social contradictions and class struggle.
3. The May 1968 events in France marked the beginning of a new revolutionary upsurge in Europe.
4. The successful defense of the Vietnamese revolution and the rebirth of revolutionary struggle in many imperialist countries have opened up new possibilities for the colonial revolution to overcome the obstacles in its path.
5. Simultaneously with the strengthening of the Vietnamese revolution and the opening of the revolutionary crisis in France, the ripening of conditions for a political revolution in the bureaucratically degenerated workers states led to mass mobilizations in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and political revolution is knocking at the door in the USSR itself.
6. The appearance of a new youth vanguard on a world scale, largely free from the control of the traditional mass organizations, favors the solution of the central task of our epoch -- building a new revolutionary leadership of the world proletariat.
The discussion at the congress centered around evaluating these key developments and around working out a strategic and tactical line to enable the movement to utilize the present favorable conditions for further expansion of the Fourth International. The conclusion was that the revolutionary Marxist organizations themselves are making a major turn. In a series of countries they have already been able to undertake the political initiative and launch effective mass actions, especially on the level of the vanguard.
The main documents adopted by the congress will be printed in various languages. They were taken up in the following order:
• "The New Rise of the World Revolution." This was approved by an overwhelming majority along with the report by Ernest Germain on this subject.
• A resolution on the perspectives of the Latin-American revolution, approved by a two-to-one majority along with the report by Roca.
• A resolution on the "cultural revolution" in China, approved by a majority of more than three to one along with the report by Livio Maitan.
• A resolution orienting the work of the international Trotskyist movement in the coming period toward the radicalizing youth. This was adopted by an overwhelming majority along with the report by Albert as the basis for a discussion to be opened on the problems posed by this orientation.
The delegates adopted a report on activities under the outgoing United Secretariat. This was presented by Ernest Germain. A report on the finances of the movement was likewise adopted as well as resolutions dealing with specific questions in Argentina, Ceylon, Germany, and Great Britain that had arisen since the previous congress.
In Britain, where previously there was no official section, the congress recognized the International Marxist Group as the British section of the Fourth International.
Resolutions on the tactics of revolutionary Marxists in Western Europe and on the Algerian revolution were referred to the next session of the International Executive Committee.
The delegates elected as honorary chairmen of the Ninth World Congress of the Fourth International revolutionists who are suffering repression at the hands of imperialism, its agents, or the Stalinist bureaucracy because of their activities in the service of world socialism.
These included Hugo Blanco, Eduardo Creus, and Pedro Candela in prison in Peru; Daniel Camejo Guanche and Carlos Sevilla in prison in Mexico; the Greek Trotskyist victims of the terror unleashed by the military dictatorship in their country; the Spanish Trotskyists in Franco's jails; Jacek Kuron and Karol Modzelewski in prison in Poland; Neville Alexander and his comrades, imprisoned on Robben Island in South Africa; the oppositional Soviet communists arrested for protesting against the occupation of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic by the armies under the command of the Kremlin's bureaucracy; and two Argentine comrades gravely wounded during a strike of oil workers in their country.
The congress likewise honored the memory of all the cadres of the world Trotskyist movement who had died since the previous congress. These included Rose Karsner and Beatrice Hansen in the United States; Mallikarjun Rao in India; and the leading cadres of the Partai Acoma, killed by the fascist dictatorship in Indonesia.
The delegates also paid tribute to Ernesto Che Guevara as a symbol representing the new generation of revolutionists all over the world.
The last point on the agenda of the congress was the election of a new International Executive Committee of thirty-seven members and nine alternates. An International Control Commission of five members was also elected.