In recent years a number of sections of the Fourth International have adopted resolutions permitting the organization of women's caucuses—that is, internal meet ings open to women comrades only. While we support and fight for the right of women to form such caucuses in non- Leninist organizations, we are opposed to such groups within the revolutionary party.
The emergence of women's caucuses in some sections has reflected very real political problems and leadership defaults. There has been insensitivity to the depth of the special problems women comrades face, failure to understand the po Htical importance of the women's Hberation movement and its place in the class struggle, slowness in responding to the rise of the feminist movement, or reluctance to assign comrades to women's Hberation work and integrate it into all arenas of our po Htical activity. Because of these errors we have unnecessarily lost valuable cadres and po Htical opportunities. This kind of situation has frequently led to an explosion of resentment by comrades, especially women, who recognize that sex ist attitudes often under He these errors and make them more difficult to correct.
In an effort to change this kind of situation, women comrades in a number of sections have demanded the right to meet together in caucuses, from which all male comrades are excluded, to discuss the internal situation in the party. Our support for the right of women to caucus in organizations in the mass move ment flows from the fact that other or ga ni zations are not based on a revolutionary Marxist program that represents the historical interests of women and the working class. Their leaderships are not democratically elected to defend such a program. There is a contradiction, for example, between the interests of the trade-union bureaucracy and the needs of the union membership and of women. In that situation the right to organize women's cau cuses becomes a question of elementary democracy and part of the struggle to put the union on a class-struggle po Htical course.
But the revolutionary Marxist party can accomplish the historic tasks it has set itself only if it is capable of uniting in its ranks and leadership the most conscious and combative representatives of the work ing class and especially its most oppressed and exploited layers. To do this it must overcome the deep divisions fostered by capitalism and forge a cadre that has profound confidence in its common commitment and understanding of the tasks. This is concretized in the program of the revolutionary Marxist party, which syn the sizes the experiences, demands, and interrelation between the struggles of all the exploited and oppressed and integrates them in a strategic line of march toward the proletarian revolution.
From this program we derive our organizational norms. Just as we have only one program, we have only one class of membership. Every comrade, male or female, Black or white, worker or petty bourgeois, young or old, literate or illiterate, has the same rights when it comes to determining the party's program and activity, the same responsibilities for implementing those decisions. The party's po Htical program, line of intervention, and internal function ing must be democratically discussed and decided with all members participating. All internal fractions, commissions, ten dencies, or other formations must be organized democratically—i.e., open to all members assigned to a particular area of work or all members who agree on the platform of a tendency, regardless of sex, race, age, language, class origin, or what ever.
In a revolutionary Marxist party, what ever its shortcomings and weaknesses may be, there is no inherent contradiction between program, leadership, and ranks. Thus the organization of women-only cau cuses cuts across the internal democracy of the parly and the construction of the kind of organization we need to realize our working-class program. Since they are usually established for the express purpose of discussing internal problems only, women's caucuses are in capable of charting a course to resolve internal contradictions. That can only be done by charting a correct course of intervention in the mass movement to build the party. In the process the membership is educated and transformed.
Repeated experiences have shown—in practice as well as in theory—that the formation of women's caucuses does not help to resolve the problems that led to their formation. Rather they create centrifugal dynamics, fostering the impression that the party is a federation of conflicting interest groups each one fighting for its own program and priorities rather than an organization united on the basis of a common program and assessment of tasks. Often the caucuses reinforce the attitude that it is only the women comrades who are responsible for resolving the problems. They turn the women in on themselves in a destructive way. They deepen the frustration and political disorientation of both male and female comrades, and often hasten rather than prevent the departure of women from the organization. Because they are not based on internal democracy caucuses also undermine our centralism in action. They stand in contra diction to our program and our democratic centralist organizational norms. Strong pressure to organize such cau cuses is a danger sign that the leadership has failed to meet the political challenge of educating the party on all aspects of the struggle for women's Hberation and its place in the work of the party. The prob lems cannot be resolved by condemning the women comrades who are seeking a solution. The response must be fundamentally political, not organizational, and the leadership must take the responsibility for correcting errors, and educating and lead ing.
The problems that exist can be resolved only through a full political discussion leading to (a) the implementation of consistent work on women's liberation, in te grated into all are as of activity; and (b) conscious measures of cadre development which can integrate women comrades and overcome sex ist habits and attitudes. November 1979