"Why I Am Joining the WIL"

I have been a revolutionary socialist for over 45 years, from the time that I joined the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in the United States in 1961. I joined because I was inspired by the Cuban Revolution and the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. I learned, when I joined, from the SWP’s proletarian leadership, that the world socialist revolution was the revolution of the international working class and that it could not be achieved in one country alone. From reading the Struggle for a Proletarian Party, I learned the necessity of a party of world revolution.

At that time, the Cuban Socialist Revolution, led by non-Stalinists, was the vanguard of the World Revolution. Many of the non-Stalinist revolutionary forces,
throughout the world, who were able to recognize this fact, came together into the reunified Fourth International.

After 20 years, the SWP degenerated, canceled a convention, and undemocratically expelled me for defending Permanent Revolution and the traditional positions of American Trotskyism. The process of the fragmentation of revolutionary forces had occurred during this period of a decline in the world revolution. After failed attempts to build a new organization (Socialist Action and Socialist Workers Organization) in this country, I became a revolutionary without a party.

In 2001, when this happened, I started to read the Internet in search of newly radicalizing forces. I became a regular reader of In Defense of Marxism (www.marxist.com). I became aware of the events in Venezuela. I also became aware of and inspired by the exemplary work of the International Marxist Tendency in building the world wide defense of the Venezuelan revolution and the role of their co-thinkers in Venezuela.

I also began to realize that many people throughout the world see the capitalist system destroying our environment. Under the present conditions of global capitalist competition, it is not economically feasible to invest the capital necessary to reverse this destruction.

Thomas Jefferson’s words that human rights are “unalienable” means that these rights can never be superseded. At all points of conflict the rights of humanity to survive must supersede the right of the few to make a profit. The right to a safe environment is an unalienable human right! In the present world, the rights of the capitalists to make a profit are in direct confl ict with our basic rights. In this sense, the capitalist system has become a threat to humanity and outlived its usefulness.

Since environmental illness and destruction are a global concern, it requires all of humanity to act collectively, in our overall interests for our survival as a species, to correct the problem and to remove the obstacle of capitalism. It requires a society where humanity has social, economic, and political control over the entire environment. Such a society, a socialist society, is needed to ensure that all decisions affecting the environment are under the democratic control of humankind so that the production of goods will be done for the needs and survival of humanity instead of the production and the destruction of humanity and other species for profit.

With common ownership of the means of production, and common control and protection of all property and wealth, science and society will be in harmony with the ecosystem and humanity’s future. With these goals we can begin to build a more effective environmental movement. As we continue to organize against capitalism and its destructive course, we can and will transform the world.

Today, there is a reawakening of the world working class and new opportunities. I agree with the section from the Statement of the International Marxist Tendency and the Venezuelan Revolutionary Marxist Tendency (CMR) for the VI World Social Forum, that, as Cuba was in 1961, “Venezuela is the Vanguard of the World Revolution. Venezuela is the best example of how the masses, the workers, take their destiny into their own hands in order to transform society. The Bolivarian revolution is the best answer to all those who are skeptical about the ability of ordinary working people to face their enemies, the capitalist oligarchy and imperialism.”

There is the very real possibility of a Socialist Revolution being carried out in Venezuela and Latin America and the possibility of a Socialist World is now before us.

I also agree with the statement’s concluding remarks: “For the revolutionary aspirations of the masses to become reality, the only thing that is missing in Venezuela, in Bolivia, in the U.S. and around the world, is for the most advanced revolutionary activists, workers, students and peasants, who already share many of these ideas, to gather in one revolutionary organization armed with a socialist program and the method of Marxism. This is the central task today in all countries.

“The crisis of capitalism, developing at different tempos, is creating the conditions for mass upheavals and revolutionary movements in all countries. Today more than ever it is indispensable for revolutionary Marxists to come together in one international Marxist movement to struggle for genuine socialism.”

In addition to responding correctly to the world political situation, the Workers International League (WIL), the U.S. group in solidarity with the International Marxist Tendency, has recognized the class struggle as it is emerging in this country from Katrina to Delphi. They are one of the few tendencies supporting and in solidarity with the struggle of the Soldiers of Solidarity and the battle that is taking place between the UAW auto workers and Delphi and the bureaucracy of the UAW in “partnership” with Delphi.

In this spirit, I am joining the ranks of the WIL, not to debate past differences, but to help build and support the building of a mass socialist international in the building of a future for humanity – a socialist world.

I urge all to join with me to make John Lennon’s Imagine a world reality:

Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today…

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace…

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world…

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one

Please send us your comments, questions, criticisms, ideas, and suggestions.
Letters do not necessarily reflect the views of Socialist Appeal.

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