[fse-esf] European Social Forum: a crisis of direction

[League for the 5th International]

http://www.fifthinternational.org/index.php?id=14,585,0,0,1,0

European Social Forum: A crisis of direction

The EPA takes place in the midst of an important period of sharpening class
struggle. The forces of resistance to the coalition waging the ³war on
terror² have inflicted significant defeats on it. The effectiveness of
resistance in Lebanon forced withdrawal of the Israeli invaders, the
occupation in Iraq has entered its final stage ­ where withdrawal is being
openly debated and the Afghan occupation has become a major war.
The mass upheavals in Latin America have led to the development of another
revolutionary crisis (Mexico). In Europe, many governments¹ neoliberal
reforms are stuck in the mud, whilst others are preparing for another
onslaught on the masses. The Franco-German axis of the EU is facing real
difficulties in launching the next step of imperialist unification of Europe
via a neo-liberal constitution.

The ESF in Athens ended with a huge and militant mobilisation on the streets
of the city. It saw the emergence of a left, anti-imperialist and
anti-capitalist wing ­ it was much more vibrant and militant than the
previous two forums, in London and Paris.

But despite this, the ESF failed once again to set up an international
co-ordination, which could unify the struggles against the imperialist and
capitalist offensive. It failed in a situation, where not only the
imperialist offensive is likely to become more brutal, aggressive and
barbaric in order to resolve its difficulties ­ but also where the chances
for a successful, victorious fight back on a global scale are increasing.

So why has the ESF failed to create a fighting body, a trans-European
co-ordination, to bring together the struggles and encourage the setting up
organs of struggle ­ locally and nationally - throughout Europe? Why has it
failed to make itself into a consciously anti-capitalist and
anti-imperialist assembly?

The answer is straightforward. It was blocked by the informal and
unaccountable leadership of the ³process². This leadership is made up of
thinly disguised representatives of the European Left Parties and members of
the Fourth International, the International Socialist Tendency and other
far-left groups.

Since the Italian elections Rifondazione Comunista has entered a bourgeois
government - a government headed by Romano Prodi - one of the central
architects of the Lisbon Agenda and the whole project of building a
strengthened European imperialist super state. Hence the sending of Italian
troops to Lebanon and their continued presence in Afghanistan with the full
and enthusiastic support of Rifondazione Comunista.

The most important sections of the European Left Party like the PDS in
Germany and the PCF in France are exercising or seeking office on the same
basis - i.e. a coalition with the ³social liberal² parties and we would add
social imperialist parties, like the SPD (Germany), DS (Italy), SP (France),
to take forward the European super state project.
The ESF has been a space where people deliver fiery speeches against the
Lisbon Agenda but where the major parties and trade unions go home to resume
their work of getting into governments implementing the neoliberal reforms.
It can survive this crying contradiction between its words and its deeds
only if effective criticism of them is smothered and above all if no action
against the Lisbon reforms is planned or coordinated by the ESF. It is no
accident that the enthusiasm for an annual ESF and regular EPAs has visibly
waned since the London ESF.

That is why these parties consciously and deliberately want to prevent the
ESF becoming a fighting body, which could fight their ³reform² policies,
their support for imperialist intervention and occupation if only it can be
given a United Nations fig leaf. Allied to the reformist apparatuses of the
European Left are the bureaucracy¹s of the European Trade Unions and NGOs
like ATTAC, who want to rescue the existing capitalist system via reforms,
rather than fight it to overthrow it.

But the bureaucrats and petit-bourgeois NGOs could not have succeeded so
easily, it they were not backed by important sectors for the ³radical² left
­ like the USFI so-called ³Trotskyist² USFI (LCR in France) and the IST (SWP
in Britain). Rather than challenging the reformist and petit-bourgeois
leaderships, they make excuses for it.

Of course they recognize the crisis of the ESF ­ who could deny it? But what
do they propose to resolve this? The SWP thinks that the ESF was ³too
ambitious², set itself targets that were too big. No, it was not ambitious
enough. The ESF either has to become relevant to the struggles of ordinary
people, to become an organising and networking centre for activists across
the continent or stay as it is, organising occasional days of action but
failing to connect them to the unions and mass organisations.

The Fourth International hoped that they could ³regroup² with the left
reformists, who could be cajoled into an electoral block (the European
Anticapitalist Left) with diplomatic phrases, plus their services as
grassroots organisers and campaigners. This block, they believed, would win
substantial numbers of seats in the European and national parliaments. Alas
the ELP sections wanted the spoils of office not the duties of opposition.
Now the Fourth International¹s hopes lie in ruins ­ even in France. The left
reformists of the RC have entered a bourgeois government, continuing the
occupation and butchering of the Iraqi and Afghan people, disarming
Hezbollah and pressing on with a neo-liberal cuts budget against the working
class at home. The PCF will do exactly the same, if it can form a government
with the Socialist Party.

We hold out no hopes most of the existing leaders of the ESF will change
their course. We call on the rank and file militants in the parties and
unions, already opposed to their leaders policies, to unite their forces and
fight their way out of the blind alley that the ESF is in.

But this means that those organisations who want to win the thousands who
have been attending the ESFs, the working class militants and youth of the
trade unions and the reformist parties too, must demand that the ESF changes
its structure and its objectives NOW and at the same time that they start
their own anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist initiatives to co-ordinate
resistance.

We think the emergence of the Anti-imperialist Space and Assembly at Athens
ESF was a step towards this. The question is, will the forces that launched
it, continue to take such steps? We believe that it is these forces and
other left organization, political parties or trade unions like COBAS, who
have already mobilised against the Prodi-government, have to unite on a the
basis of joint initiatives and mobilisations against imperialism, racism and
capitalism.
For this, we propose the setting up of a joint initiative on the following
basis:

* Against imperialist war, occupation, boycotts and blockades against the
countries of the so-called ³Third World². Immediate withdrawal of all
imperialist troops and their allies. For coordinated action by the working
class and youth ­ strikes, blockades, general strikes ­ and active support
for the resistance.
*  No to European Imperialism. No to fortress Europe. For the right of
self-determination ­ including independent statehood- for all peoples in
Europe. For full citizens rights for all who live in Europe. Down the
European Military Union. Not a Euro, not a person for the EU-army. Down with
the security laws of the EU. Scrap the ³terrorist² list of the EU!
*  No to the European neoliberal offensive on the working class. For
co-ordinated action against the implementation of the Lisbon agenda. For a
European wide campaign and working class action to raise workers rights to
the highest standard ensure a 35-hour week throughout the continent. For
co-ordinated strike action against closures and neo-liberal attacks by the
EU and the bosses.

In order create this united struggle, the EPA has to take the initiative to
bring together a co-ordination of the already existing struggles and
initiatives. It has to invite them for a European assembly early in 2007 and
make this a central focus of the counter summit in Rostock against the G8.

These are the primary tasks.

But obviously the EPA and the ESF have to go beyond this if they want to
have a future. They have to address what we fight for. Another European
reformism, which will end up in another neo-liberal government or another
round of rotten compromises with the bosses? Or for a United Socialist
States of Europe, fighting for the over-through of the capitalist and
imperialist system via world revolution?

We propose that the EPA mobilises on a European level against the G8 in
Rostock in June 2007. We propose it does so in order to get the largest and
most militant action possible against the summit with the aim of shutting it
down.

We also need to campaign to incorporate the thousands upon thousands
mobilised into the work of the ESF to turn it into a fighting body and to
win them to a perspectives well beyond the reformist policies of the ELP,
the trade union leaderships and NGOs like ATTAC ­ for a world wide movement
fighting for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and imperialism, for
a new international of the workers and youth - a Fifth International.