World party

I'm a newcomer to WSN.  I'm chair elect of the ASA Marxist section 
and active on PSN.  I've been reading Wallerstein's "The End of the 
World as We Know It."  I don't agree with some of it, but Wallerstein 
continues to address significant questions with new insights and 
perspectives.

I expected the world party discussion to be more rooted in the
sociological and historical insights of world systems theory and
Marxism and the experiences of previous internationalist political
organizations.  Instead, with a few notable exceptions, most of the
discussion has been rooted in reformism and liberalism.

Here are a few of my thoughts.  I'm sure some will disagree with 
them.

In this period of crisis and decline of the capitalist world system, 
a "world party" is certainly needed.  We face sharpening 
interimperialist rivalry, intensified by a crisis of overproduction 
that has plunged most of Asia, Russia, and Brazil into a depression.  
Nationalist/fascist forces dominate some major countries and are 
gaining strength in others.  Wars reflecting nationalist and 
inter-imperialist rivalries have been occurring in the Persian Gulf, 
the Caspian, central Africa, West Africa, and the Balkans during the 
past decade.  These wars, with their genocide and ethnic cleansing, 
are harbingers of a third world war--an imperialist war to redivide 
the world.  Wallerstein sees the U.S. as the declining imperialist 
power, and European and Asian imperialists as the main contenders for 
the position of new hegemon.  That might be correct.  Right or wrong, 
the workers of the world will be slaughtered until they organize to 
end imperialism.  Under these circumstances, a reformist or pacifist 
strategy is suicidal.

The goal  of an international party of the working class must be to 
wipe out capitalism and make the working class the rulers of the 
world.  It's immediate struggles must focus on opposition to 
imperialist wars, to the symptoms of growing fascism, to racism and 
nationalism.  It's main constituency must be workers, especially the 
super-exploited workers: black, immigrant, and women workers in the 
U.S., immigrant workers in all core countries, and the masses of 
urban and rural workers in the semi-periphery and periphery.  It's 
constituency should also include young people, students, and the 
working class youth who are drawn into the military to fight for 
capitalist interests.  They must be won to transform these wars into 
"civil wars" against capitalism.

An example of an organization that is attempting to organize an 
international party along these lines is the Progressive Labor Party, 
which was formed in the early 1960s.  They are actively involved in 
the UNAM strike in Mexico City, in workers' struggles in Central 
America, the Caribbean, and South America, and among workers and 
students in the U.S.  They reject all forms of nationalism and are 
trying to build one international party, not separate national 
parties in each country.  Their website is at www.plp.org

Steve Rosenthal