resolution on programmatic thesis

1. The national uprising taking course in Iraq represents a principle of transformation of imperialist war into international civil war against capital. We remark this new political development in class struggle at an international level and in the political crisis as a whole, in the frame of the following of imperialist wars that began in Balkans at later 80's and early 90's.

2. The Iraqi national uprising represents a tendency to a great intifada, from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, and a chance of putting an end to the Jordan monarchy. The development of this national movement against military imperialist occupation of Iraq could change the conditions under which the struggle of the Palestinian people is developed, as long as it would incorporate huge sectors of the Arab masses to the combat for the destruction of the Zionist State. This modification on the national struggle conditions in Middle East strengthens the chances of realizing the historical claim of the Palestinian national movement in favour of a united Republic, democratic and secular in the whole historical territory of Palestine. The exceptional international crisis of imperialism, as those, in principle, already in course, would give definitive hits to the Zionist State and would create conditions for the Jewish workers to acknowledge the historical necessity of an alliance with the Palestinian national movement and of the complete realization of the historical claims of it. The destruction of the Zionist State has an international character.

3. The national uprising in Iraq, and the chance that it has open of turning Middle East into a generalized intifada; the political crisis that is causing in several European states engaged in the imperialist war; the exceptional political character that mass demonstrations have achieved in France, in April of 2002, but over all, the demonstration in Spain, in march of 2004, that caused the fall of Aznar government; the political crisis that war against Iraq has began to develop in the United States, which adds to the one in course in Italy and in Britain; the continuous swamp of the restorationist Russian bureaucracy in Chechnya, and the crisis still in development in the whole Caucasus; revolutionary demonstrations that have taken place in several Latin-American countries; this factors as a whole characterize the beginning of a prerevolutionary period in an international scale.

4. The IV International supports the national self-determination and the national independence of the Chechnyan nation, independently of the character of the several nationalist or Islamic tendencies struggling for directing the national struggle against the Russian restorationist bureaucracy. The IV International calls all the national Chechnyan to a unique front against the Russian military occupation on the basis of a mass struggle and of a national war against restorationist bureaucracy and international imperialism. The IV International denounces the political exchange between restorationist bureaucracy and Yankee imperialism, which is unstable and provisional, in which Chechnya (¿?) is a piece in the distribution of influence zones in [el Cáucaso] and Central Asia, from which the European Union is partially excluded. To disarm (¿?) this international conspiration, the IV International points the necessity of struggling for a Socialist Federation of [el Cáucaso] to the masses of [Chechnya].

5. The organizations that struggle for the refoundation of the IV International have the duty to speak in name of the IV International, because the IV International is their root and historical aim. To speak in name of the IV International is an extreme need in the struggle against centrism.

6. The IV International denounces the treachery of the trade union bureaucracy and of bourgeois workers parties from all over the world against the unemployed workers. Remarks, in opposition to this treachery, the example of the piquetero movement in Argentina and calls all popular and working class organizations from all countries to organize unorganized masses of millions and millions of unemployed. Directs this call specially to trade unions.

7. The restorationist bureaucracies do not only represent the tendency to the ex [gendarme] of the workers' state to became private owners, but they have taken charge of the state protection of capitalist property and of private property of production means in general. In this way, the international proletariat cannot support them in any conflict of interests against classes and capitalist states. In the eventuality of an international war other factors should be evaluated, as the question of national independence of the intervening countries related to imperialism.

8. Secularism, as happens with democracy, has ceased to have a historical progressive character in nations which are in an imperialist stadium. Communitarism is used by this countries bourgeoisies in order to submition masses that follow different religions to the strict control of their own kind of clericalism and obscurantism, and to split them from the proletariat as a whole. The IV International denounces this situation, but calls, over all to the practical fight against persecution and repression of immigrant workers, of undocumented (sans-papiers) workers, and of workers of extra-European origin, in general from the imperialist bourgeoisie in their own states.

9. The extreme right European parties do not have a fascist character, even when, permanently or occasionally, get a high electoral register. For that they should be combat organizations of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. The draft of the programmatic thesis presented in this Congress has the huge virtue of characterizing the profound limitations that the so called (by the European left) "fascist" parties have, referring to masses, in which dominates the struggle against capital, and the own bourgeoisie, that feels well served by the democratic regime. The bourgeoisie uses the so called fascist parties as an aid for his attack against the masses and the immigrant workers. Those parties contradictions with bourgeoisie around the necessity of the European Union constitutes one of their main limitations to develop as an instrument of capital for civil war. The IV International denounces the democratizing European left and the Unified Secretariat for using the presence and action of this so called fascist parties to collaborate with imperialist democratic bourgeoisie from their countries. As long as those so called fascist parties try to hide their historical fascist roots and their underlying fascist tendencies using democratic demagogy, the IV International considers useful and necessary to unmask fascism in this organizations and also to unmask the collaboration that the so called democratic parties accepting their "reconversion" offer them.

10. We denounce globalization as an attempt of presenting the destruction of Workers States as a universalization of productive forces under its capitalist form. That means to present a typical historical regression as a progress, and the search of an exit for the overproduction crisis and for the low of the benefit rate as a tendency of former workers state to develop by the free movement of capital.

11. The programmatic thesis synthesize seven years of debate within the ranks of the IV International; that the preparation of its discussion was made by 11 Internal bulletins, since August of 2003; and also that, since the call for this Congress was decided, in December of 2003, "Prensa Obrera" developed a campaign of analysis and debates about the most part of the subjects in question. The voting of the Draft of Thesis by this Congress, in order to allow the text to be discussed by national Conferences and Congresses, has been duly prepared, within the limitations that we acknowledge. We take note of the resolution of the XIV Congress of the Partido Obrero, that calls for a National Conference of the PO, for the last week of next September, to vote the resolutions of this Congress of the IV International.

12. We emphasize that the method of the programmatic theses, which covers the historical particularities of the present period of the decline of capitalism, analyzing its political tendencies, extracting from it the slogans and axes of revolutionary intervention as well as the tactical conclusions, is seated upon the tradition and upon the methodological conquests of the Transitional Program of the Fourth International. Our starting point is the same as that of this historic and valid document: the crisis of humanity.

Submitted by: Partido Obrero (Argentina)

PASSED BY MAJORITY

Votes in favor: 79 votes

Votes against: none

Abstentions: 4 votes

INDICATIVE VOTE OF OBSERVER DELEGATES

Votes in favor: 5 votes

Votes against: 1 vote