1970 is indeed a year of anniversaries. Most notable, of course, will be the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth but we should not forget the centenaries of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht. August, 1970, will mark the 30th anniversary of the assassination of Trotsky at the hands of a Stalinist agent, Next year will mark the centenary of the great Paris Commune, forerunner of proletarian revolution in "advanced" capitalist countries. Will the 1970s live up to this heritage?
In the "under-developed" countries the struggle is now on the upswing and the heroism of the Vietnamese people has ended U.S. imperialism's dreams of holding back the colonial revolution. In the Middle East, imperialism's greatest "success" of the '60s - the Zionist/imperialism 6-day war against the Arab people - is turning sour. The great fight of the Palestine guerrillas is preventing imperialism (aided by the Soviet bureaucracy) from maintaining the status quo. Through-out the "under-developed" countries movements inspired by these two struggles (and the Cuban revolution) are growing.
In the workers states the bureaucrats have been unable to give their rule any stability. Despite the crushing of the Czech people's bid for greater democracy, the anti bureaucratic struggle continues. No bureaucrat sleeps soundly in Eastern Europe, China or - least of all - the Soviet Union. It is difficult to find words to express the courage of people like Grigorenko, Yakir, Krassin et al. In this centenary year, Lenin's words are being turned against the bureaucrats who have prostituted his teachings. In the 1970s the call for the return to Lenin will become louder and louder in the Soviet Union.
In the "advanced" capitalist countries the temporary economic breathing space, given to [illegible] rage by the treachery of the Stalinist and social democrat parties after the second world war, is coming to an end. The U.S. economy faces recession - at a time when nearly all the other capitalist economies face trouble - experts only disagree about the date.
The 1960s showed how wrong those people were who had written off the revolutionary potential of the western working classes. France in 1968 and Italy in 1969 showed the mighty force which resides in the proletariats of the "advanced" capitalist countries. Even in Britain, despite misleadership and downright betrayal, the workers put a stop to Wilson's plans to imprison strikers. The first cracks have appeared in the grip of bureaucracy over the U.S. trade union movement.
But everywhere - and most important of all - the young people are on the move. Whole new generations have come on to the scene which reject the opportunist leaderships of the traditional workers organisations. This new youth vanguard rejects Stalinism, social-democracy, imperialism and capitalism. It comes into action in a period of great revolutionary upsurge and is anxious to take part in the fray.
The International Marxist Group exists for no other purpose than to assist such revolutionary processes to achieve a successful conclusion. However, we know that the revolutionary process by itself is not enough to destroy capitalism - the only way to prevent the destruction of mankind in a nuclear holocaust (the other perspective we face). In addition to, and as part of, all these revolutionary struggles a world revolutionary party needs to be constructed.
Capitalism will always find a solution to its problems without the intervention of a conscious leadership. A new mass revolutionary international party is needed to take world revolution from its empirical to its conscious phase.
In the 1970s the IMG will join its comrades in every continent in fighting to construct this international party. The 1960s saw tremendous advances for our movement - the Fourth International. In many lands we have started the process of breaking the grip of the reformists and Stalinists upon the minds of the workers and the youth. We are absolutely confident that the 1970s will see much bigger strides by our movement - not least of all in Britain. We invite all those interested in turning the 1970s into a revolutionary decade to work with us for the construction of a revolutionary party in Britain - as part of the world party of revolution: the Fourth International.