The call by Venezuela's President Hugo Chávez for discussion of the formation of a "Fifth International" has generated a lot of debate amongst the left around the world. As an addendum to the "Caracas Commitment" of November 2009, a resolution was passed to form a preparatory committee to convene a global conference of left parties in Caracas in April 2010 to discuss the formation of a new international.
Fifth International
Eric Toussaint interviewed by Igor Ojeda for the Brazilian weekly paper Brasil de Fato. Translated from French by Judith Harris and Chris
By
Luis Bilbao, translated by Janet Duckworth for Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal
February 2, 2010 -- The first step has been taken. It has extraordinary strategic implications. It will shake up the left and right, the West and the East. It will blow in like a whirlwind through every political organisation, trade union or social, in every corner of the planet. On the evening of November 20, 2009, the day before the opening of the first extraordinary PSUV [United Socialist Party of Venezuela] congress, a feeling of vertigo swept over tens of thousands of people who heard Hugo Chávez, either on TV or on the internet, speak before delegates of parties from 30 or so countries, and launch a proposal that was as long desired as it was unexpected: to set to work to build the Fifth Socialist International.
By Ann Robertson and Bill Leumer
January 15, 2010 -- Critics who have planted themselves firmly on the sidelines have been lobbing all kinds of disapproving missives at Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez’ call for a new international, urging others who have been carried away by enthusiastic support to join them on the sidelines. The laundry list of complaints is extensive: Chavez is the head of a bourgeois government; Chavez only pursues reformism, not genuine revolution; he made his call in the presence of an audience that included avowed supporters of capitalism; and so on.
The Labour Party Pakistan's National Committee meeting on December 26-27, 2009, held in Islamabad agreed to endorse the declaration for the fifth international. The LPP leadership discussed in detail the different aspects of the declaration and found in agreement on the issues.
The National Committee is the highest body of Labour Party Pakistan, elected at the national congress every two years. The fifth LPP congress is taking place from January 27-29, 2010, in the industrial city of Faisalabad. On January 29, an international conference of the workers and peasants is aiming to mobilise over 30,000 people at a main political centre used by Bhuttos and other main leaders in Pakistan.
The Labour Party Pakistan (www.laborpakistan.org) is a left-wing socialist party formed in 1997 by several different trends of the left movement, trade unions and peasant organisations. It is the main left party in Pakistan in terms of its membership and influence within social and class movements.
Translated by Lara Pullin of the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network
December 10, 2009 -- Venezuelanalysis.com/Correo del Orinoco -- Marta Harnecker remains ardent, audacious, reflective and perceptive. A collaborator of the Miranda International Centre [in Caracas], she will today [December 3] attend a reception in her honour in the Teresa Carreño Theatre for her outstanding career, fundamentally in the study of the mechanisms to effective take power at the community level and her contributions to Marxist theory.
In carrying out an assessment of the correlation of forces in Latin America, she laughs at those who reproached her about the “failure” of the left... She is passionate about journalism, although she never studied the profession. In fact she was the editor of the magazine Chile Hoy (Chile Today), published during the government of Salvador Allende.
[English translation below.]
por Unión de Militantes por el Socialismo (Argentina)
Al Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela
Queridos compañeros y compañeras
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez addresses the conference of left parties in Caracas.
By Reuven Kaminer
December 7, 2009 -- Venezuelanalysis.com -- It seems more than a coincidence that two important conferences of the international left took place in November 2009. One, the 11th International Meeting of the Communist and Workers’ Parties, was held in Delhi, India, on November 20-22 and issued the “Delhi Declaration” (DD) and the other, a World Meeting of Left Parties, met in Caracas, Venezuela, on November 19-21 and issued a document entitled the “Caracas Commitment” (CC). There were approximately 50 organisations at each conference. I will try to relate here to some of the main issues raised by these two meetings and the calls that they issued.