Alan Woods lashes out at US imperialism’s hypocrisy regarding Venezuela ‑ “Socialism is international or it is nothing”

Alan Woods was interviewed by the Venezuelan daily Correo del Orinoco, where he comments on the importance of the Fifth International, but stresses the need for it to be under the control of the rank and file and warns against bureaucratism.

The Welsh writer and leader of the International Marxist Tendency stated that, faced with capitalist globalization, the progressive forces of the world must unite. Woods underlined that the V International should not fall into the hands of bureaucratism.

“This call for the V International is an event of historical importance, not only for Latin America, but for the whole world. Socialism is international or it is nothing. Throughout the history of the socialist movement, the great historical leaders of the working class never built purely national parties, but made an effort to build an international organisation of the workers”, explained Welsh writer and Trotskyist leader Alan Woods to Correo del Orinoco.

“We could go back to the times of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, who founded the First International, which was the first attempt to consolidate a body which would gather all the working class movements of the world around a socialist and revolutionary program,” Woods stressed, during his visit to Caracas.

“That [Second] International, founded at the end of the XIX century, collapsed in 1914, with the First World War, when most of the socialist leaders of the world, with a few exceptions, supported the war. That gave rise to a division in the international socialist movement and the Third International arose, which was proclaimed by Vladimir Illich Lenin after the victory of the revolution in Russia. That meant a great hope and a real possibility to achieve our aims”, he said. “After the dissolution of the Third International, Leon Trotsky attempted to found a IV International, but it didn’t succeed, and the initiative was reduced, after the death of its mentor, to a few small sects which still exist today, but which do not represent the ideas of Marxism-Leninism nor the working class”, stated Woods.

“Today there is no International, and that is why I appreciated the speech by president Chavez, in November last year, during the Extraordinary Congress of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). One has to admit that, after many years, the world working class movement has suffered an important set back. There is a great vacuum”, he said.

“Chavez had the idea to raise the banner of socialist internationalism because capitalism knows no borders, neither does the class struggle. We need to unite the working class around socialism”, he stressed.

“President Chávez said that the programme of the new International should have three basic component parts: anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, and finally, the struggle for world socialism. Despite the differences that there might be between the different organisations, this is a programme which any revolutionary can support”, continued Woods.

“This invitation raised a lot of enthusiasm in Latin America and the world, but I have to confess that there is confusion regarding the arrangements”, he pointed out.

In the hands of the rank and file

In Woods’ opinion, the rank and file “must take the leadership of the V International into their own hands, because if this body is going to be led by bureaucrats and reformists, then it would be bad. The V International should reflect a genuine workers’ democracy, which should be, once again, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist and for world socialism”, he underlined.

“As it is well known, I am a Marxist and a Trotskyist, and I understand that if the International is to go forward it must gather different tendencies and there should be full freedom to express different views, as long as we are united in this struggle for the three basic points that we have pointed out. Sure, there will be debates, but that is interesting, this was always the case and it brings oxygen to the discussion”, he expressed.

“I make an analogy with the First International, which originally was not Marxist. There were anarchists, Proudhonists (after the French revolutionary Pierre-Joseph Proudhon), all kinds of tendencies, and Marx and Engels struggled successfully to defend the ideas of scientific socialism”, Woods pointed out.

“President Chavez, at the beginning, did not talk about socialism, but later, like many others, he started to draw correct conclusions about the class struggle. I think that the line of the President is being defined in the direction of Marxism. He quoted Lenin at the PSUV congress, when he pointed out that in Venezuela the bourgeois state must be destroyed, which I think is completely correct”, he asserted.

Sectarian dangers

Woods continued with his reflections: “I understand that if the International is to be something more than a sect, it must, necessarily, gather different traditions and interests, like the environmentalists, the indigenous movements, amongst others, as long as it is based on the basic principles that we have already pointed out. With that I think it will be enough, and then, we will have to clarify any doubts on the basis of debates and the struggle for our common aims. In this way we will reach the necessary ideological clarity”.

The revolutionary emphasizes the political weight of Fidel Castro. “The figure of Fidel Castro is very important; he is an icon of the revolutionary deed, not only in Latin America, but beyond. I do not think he will be able to come and participate because of his health, but surely this movement will go beyond figures and personalities, because we are all mortal, we are all human beings”.

The V International, if it is to be successful, “has to be the work not of one or two leaders, but of the working class of all countries. Obviously, President Chavez has played an outstanding role and will continue to play it, but an International is a mass of people with different ideas which agree and contribute to the great cause which is world socialism” he said.

T/ Modaira Rubio, F/ Luis Franco, Caracas

[Original published in Spanish in:
http://www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Web-CO234.pdf]