August 9th, 2020 FIT-U Latin America and United States Conference A meeting of the "Argentine section" of the "New Left" The FIT's virtual conference, which hoped to bring together different currents of the Latin American and the United States left, was a meeting of the FIT-U parties from Argentina with their groups and some guests. Neither the LIT, nor the official PSOL, nor renegade currents of United States Trotskyism of certain influence took part at the conference. The conference was an example of FIT policy, which has nothing to do with the fierce class struggles being waged in the United States, the Middle East, Bolivia or Chile, but does have much to do with the "anti-capitalist" parties of the world, which sets up class collaboration fronts and open alliances with Stalinism against the workers. The refusal to vote even for an international campaign for Syrian political prisoners in the hands of the fascist Assad shows that the FIT conference discussed anything but the world oppressed's interests. The conference of the "Argentine section" of the "new left” The only real forces at the conference were the national apparatus of the FIT-U of Argentina, that is, the Moreno fractions of the old MAS (PTS, MST, IS) and Altamirismo without Altamira (PO), all of which have now become social democratic forces with no link to Trotskyism’s program and strategy. These are the real forces of the so-called "New Left" in Argentina. The meeting revealed the spurious relations of the FIT parties with the "anti-capitalists" of the United States and Europe and Stalinism (the heart of the "New Left" International), which the FIT parties themselves whitewashed with mutual accusations throughout the conference. MST and Izquierda Socialista (Socialist Left) are part of the PSOL of Brazil, an ally of Lula's PT, which sent its leader Pedro Fuentes to meet with Bernie Sanders. The PSOL is an ally of the DSA, the party that supported Sanders' Democratic candidacy. They, together with the PTS, present Sanders as a "socialist" to the working class. In Peru, the sibling group of Izquierda Socialista, "Uníos" is a member of the Frente Amplio of Perú, together with the Church and sectors of Humala’s bourgeoisie. The PTS, which wants to unite Trotsky with the Stalinist Gramsci, has been part the French NPA for 12 years. This is the party that supports French CGT bureaucracy and serves the Fifth Imperialist Republic. In Syria, the PTS covers up the genocide of Al Assad and supports the PKK -Kurdish Stalinism-; in Spain it is submitted to the bureaucracy of the CC.OO., in Chile to the bureaucracy of the CUT. The Partido Obrero with Altamira and his ex-associates from the EEK (Greece) and the DIP (Turkey) called for an International with sectors of Russian Stalinism of Darya Mitina, a Putin’s official, admirer of Assad and traitor of the Ukrainian revolution. And they all were part of the seminar on Trotsky that the Cuban CP organized in Havana last year with the support of ex-Trotskyists from all over the world, where Trotsky was falsified to reconcile him with Castroism and to set up a cover-up by the left for capitalist restoration in Cuba. This is the "record" of the society of renegades from Trotskyism and "anti-capitalists" that supports class collaboration fronts and Stalinism throughout the world. The old national-Trotskyism not only broke away with the program and strategy of the Fourth International years ago, but even they have lost all organizational independence, establishing common organizations with Stalinism and calling for open support to the bourgeoisie. Struggle for partial reforms in "the perspective of the revolution": the reformist program of the conference FIT conference could not sign a unified position, except for generalities about "class independence", anti-imperialism, the coup in Bolivia, etc., which do not even say "Out with Trump" in the United States. But those parties do have a big agreement, expressed in their appeal and resolutions: "to fight for a program of transitional demands that we are agitating to contribute to mobilizing the masses in the perspective of the struggle for a workers' government and socialism" (March 12, 2020). What does this mean? That the revolution is not an immediate task of the working class in the face of the bankruptcy of the capitalist system and enormous mass political struggles in the US and the Middle East. When capitalism breaks down and objectively revolutionary conditions open up internationally, the FIT says that revolution is... "a perspective”. Its program is for times of peace and parliamentary reforms; it is a declared enemy of any struggle for the Soviet bodies and the arming of the masses, which are the immediate tasks in the U.S. today. That is why they do not even speak of "abolishing the police," as the U.S. masses are shouting! The "perspective" of the revolution is the classic position of social democracy or French Stalinism in the 1930's, which said, " While fighting every day in order to relieve the toiling masses from the misery which the capitalist régime imposes upon them, the Communists emphasize that final emancipation can be gained only by the abolition of the capitalist régime and the setting up of the dictatorship of the proletariat." (Once again, whither France?, 1935). Trotsky replied that these were remnants of reformism, which a revolutionary party should put forward: "While explaining constantly to the masses that rotting capitalism has no place either for the alleviation of their situation or even for the maintenance of their customary level of misery, while putting openly before the masses the tasks of the socialist revolution as the immediate task of our day, while mobilizing the workers for the conquest of power, while defending the workers’ organizations with the help of the workers’ militia – the Communists (or the Socialists) will at the same time lose no opportunity to snatch this or that partial concession from the enemy, or at least to prevent the further lowering of the living standard of the workers." (Our bold). Categorical: the program of the FIT is the one of Stalinism. Popular front and fascism: the FIT fails the test In civil war processes, the FIT policy is absolutely pacifist. In Chile, hours after the conference, fascist gangs attacked Mapuche peasants who demanded the freedom of their prisoners. In Bolivia, the fascists of the Unión Juvenil Cruceñista launched public threats against the exploited. The resolutions of the conference on Chile and Bolivia did not contemplate any of this. Faced with the rise of fascism, the FIT does not fight for setting up the worker and peasant militias. Their democratic slogans do not seek to arm the workers and peasants, but rather to submit them to the "democratic front" of Morales (MAS) or the trap of Piñera's plebiscite and the Concertación in Chile (see boxes). The FIT, from the outside, speaking of "class independence", ties the fate of the working class to the "camp" of the "progressive", "democratic" bourgeoisie, which play the role of lulling the masses into demagoguery and preparing the conditions for the attacks of fascism, as seen in Chile and Bolivia. For the FIT, "defeating Bolsonaro" means calling Haddad to vote; "Everybody against Trump", support Sanders; "Everybody against Macri" means supporting Kirchner laws in parliament. Once again it is clear how the FIT takes the classic program of class collaboration of the old Stalinism, which subjects the workers to the popular front and leaves them disarmed in the face of fascism. The "workers’ government" that proclaims the FIT-U leadership: in the image and likeness of Stalinism At this conference, the different members of the FIT-U boasted that their struggle is for a “workers' government” and they stated this in the convening document. This is a sham. The leaders of the FIT-U speak of a "workers' government" when they are in common fronts and blocs with Stalinism that liquidated the dictatorship of the proletariat and restored capitalism in the USSR and other former workers' states. Recently, PTS leadership participated in common symposia for the 80 years of Trotsky's assassination at the hands of Stalinism, together with members of the Castro Communist Party, the same one that has just handed over Cuba to the U.S. and the ones who welcomed Mercader with honors, Trotsky's assassin! But in addition, these leaderships have copied their worst methods from Stalinism in the labor movement, as happened in the SUTNA (tire workers’ union), led by the PO. Just a few days before this Latin American FIT-U conference was held, the “private security” hired by the SUTNA leadership physically assaulted Víctor Ottoboni, a member of the union's leadership and a member of the PTS, and did not allow him to enter a shop stewards meeting. This cowardly aggression, which we strongly repudiate, is totally at odds with the basic principles of workers' democracy. It is the typical behaviour of Stalinism, which has constantly used physical attacks and slanders against its dissidents, starting with the Trotskyists. If this happens in a union led by these currents, it is not very difficult to imagine what the "workers' government" that they proclaim is like: a Stalinist "workers' government", made in the image and likeness, not of Bolshevism and its irreducible defense of workers' democracy, but of Stalin and the bureaucracy of the former USSR. A conference outside the processes of radicalization of the working class of the continent The conference had nothing to do with the radicalization processes of the exploited at the international level: the masses of Portland, the socialist youth in Hong Kong, the proletarian rise in Iran, the fight against layoffs in Mexico, the call for a continental struggle of the masses in struggle of Colombia. The FIT did not launch any call for a unified continental struggle with Portland and the exploited in the United States against US imperialism. Leaders of the Combative Unionism Plenary in Argentina such as "Pollo" Sobrero took part of the conference, but there was no call for Conlutas from Brazil, for example, to convene together a day of continental struggle of the exploited in the United States, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, etc. against Wall Street and the IMF. They even refused to promote actions for the release of prisoners in Syria and Egypt, as had been proposed by a member of the US anti-war committee. The only action voted was a march to the U.S. Embassy in 3 weeks (!!!) and support for the march for abortion rights… in September! Really shameful. The only force capable of uniting the proletariat of the American continent:  the Fourth International of 1938 The FIT parties speak on behalf of the Fourth International to hide that it has been a while since they erased the river of blood that separates Stalinism from Trotskyism. They want the party of Stalin and Trotsky. They are all under the discipline of the Cuban CP that launched this policy from the blog "Comunistas Cuba", where a group of shameless Castroites call to set up the parties of Castro, Trotsky and Gramsci and hold the aforementioned seminars on Trotsky in Havana. Now the second seminar in Brazil is being prepared. Undoubtedly, the FIT is part of the “New Left” and the forces of reformism that subject the working class to bourgeois regimes country by country. Those parties tied their luck to the semi-colonial bourgeois regime of Argentina. That is why they would never call the Latin American working class to unite behind the North American masses who face the US imperialist beast from their very core. The relentless struggle against American imperialism and the unification of the working class from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego is only inscribed in the flags and program of the Fourth International of 1938. The Trotskyists of the FLTI have set up our forces in the fight for refound it. We fight in Syria and Iran alongside the revolutionaries of the Middle East. From El Alto and the Huanuni mines in Bolivia we face the coup government and its pact with the MAS. The discussions with the revolutionary Marxists in Japan have nothing to do with the pose and the common places of the FIT. Conscious workers and youth have a banner to fight for: the Fourth International. We call them to organize together to fight for it.   Juan Carballo and Nadia Briante

Pedro Fuentes of PSOL in the meeting organized by DSA   Savas Matsas, Jorge Altamira and Mitina   Pablo Oprinari, leader of MTS of Mexico (PTS), presenting the book “Escritos Latinoamericanos” edited by PTS, with organizers of the seminar on Trotsky in Havana   Revolutionary struggles in USA