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From The Militant, Vol. 12 No. 19, 10 May 1948, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
PARIS, April 26 – The Second World Congress of the Fourth International has just concluded its sessions in this city. Its work extended over a period of three weeks from the beginning of April.
Approximately 50 delegates, representing 22 organizations of the Fourth International coming from 19 different countries took part in the Congress. This was the most representative international gathering ever organized by the Trotskyist world movement.
Present at the Congress were representatives from most European countries, including countries under U.S. or Soviet occupation, from North America, Latin America, Africa, the Middle and Far East. There were also a considerable number of representatives from colonial and semi-colonial countries.
A number of political leaders of the world movement of the Fourth International participated in the Congress, including comrades J. Haston, secretary of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Great Britain; Colvin R. de Silva, leader of the Trotskyist group in the Ceylon Parliament; S. Santen, secretary of the Revolutionary Communist Party of Holland; Pierre Frank, Favre-Bleibtreu, J. Privas, of the Political Bureau of the International Communist Party of France, etc.
During three weeks of hard work, the World Congress adopted important political resolutions, the principal ones being the following: Resolution on World Political Situation and Tasks of the Fourth International; Theses on USSR and Stalinism; Report on Activity of the International since the Outbreak of the Second Imperialist War; Resolution on Situation in the Colonial Countries and Tasks of the Fourth International; Statutes; political resolutions on Germany and Italy. The internal situation of certain sections of the International and other organizations claiming allegiance to the International were carefully studied, and resolutions were adopted in each case.
Furthermore, the Congress adopted a programmatic Manifesto addressed to the exploited of the whole world, summing up the chief political ideas elaborated by the Congress.
Commemorating the centenary of scientific socialism, the manifesto confirms, in the light of present-day events, the analysis of the functioning of capitalism made by Marx and Engels a century ago. Applying this analysis to the study of capitalism, it shows that in spite of the increasingly totalitarian form of its state and economy, monopoly capitalism is incapable of overcoming the chaos and the crises resulting from its rule. The manifesto defines the nature and role of the USSR in the midst of declining capitalism, emphasizes the advance of U.S. imperialism towards world domination, and examines the problems of the communist revolution for Europe, the colonies, Latin America and the United States.
Warning the workers of all countries of the barbarous consequences of the new world war now under preparation, the manifesto clearly contrasts the communist program of working class emancipation, which can only be realized by the workers themselves – from the Stalinist practice of placing a bureaucratic straitjacket on the workers’ movement. The manifesto outlines a program of transitional demands, enabling the working class to beat the offensive of the world capitalists against its standard of living and its freedoms, and to raise the struggle to a higher level for the socialist reorganization of society.
A new International Executive Committee, composed of 19 members, was elected. The new IEC, which held its first, meeting immediately after the conclusion of the Congress, elected a new International Secretariat.
The Congress sent greetings and the expressions of its solidarity to Comrade Natalia Trotsky, to the imprisoned Trotskyist militants in Greece, China, Indo-China, India, Bolivia and other countries, to the Trotskyist militants of the USSR, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Germany and Austria, to the workers and colonial peoples of the whole world engaged in a fight for their social and national liberation.
[This was the second World Congress of the Trotskyist movement and its fourth international gathering. The founding congress of the Fourth International was held in September, 1938. An emergency conference was held after the beginning of World War II in May 1940. Another international conference was held in April 1946.]
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