'I was proud to be at that historic moment'
1988Charlie van Gelderen 1988-09Read it in the scan (PDF at ETOL), page 1 →
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The following letter by Charlie Van Gelderen, a veteran South African Trotskyist, was read at the Aug. 6 rally.
Dear comrades,
As perhaps the only person still active in the ranks of the Fourth International who was present at that historic founding conference of the Fourth International in 1938, I send you my warmest revolutionary greetings.
Throughout this half century, I have never doubted that, within the historical conjuncture of the time, we took the correct decision. The Third (Communist) International was dead—the victim of Stalin's policy of "socialism in one country."
In Germany, a heroic proletariat, betrayed by the leaderships of the Communist Party and the Social Democrats, was suffering under the jackboot of triumphant fascism. In Spain the civil war was drawing to an agonizing close, the sacrifices of the worker and peasant combatants not enough to overcome the misleadership of its traditional parties.
In the Soviet Union, scene of the first victorious proletarian revolution, the monstrous Moscow Trials were underway; the leaders of October were being physically destroyed by the Stalinist bureaucracy.
It was in these conditions that, inspired by Leon Trotsky, the Fourth International once more unfurled the banner of revolutionary Marxism and proclaimed its faith in the ultimate victory of the international working class and announced a program which could meet the task of the day: the Transitional Program.
I was proud to be present on that historic occasion and I remain proud to still find myself in the ranks of the Fourth International.
Of those who were there with me, many are now dead; others proved too faint-hearted to withstand periods of retreat and defeat. Despite our still small numbers we can look back with pride on our achievements. The Fourth International and only the Fourth International has carried forward the red flag of revolutionary socialism unsullied to hand to the next generation who will surely carry it on to victory.
Long live the Fourth International, builder of the world party of the socialist revolution!