continued from page 3 Forty years ago when small and isolated groups of Marxists from a number of countries came together to found the Fourth International, they pointed to what they considered was all that stood in the way of socialism in a world "rotten-ripe" for revolution: "The world situation as a whole", they wrote in the Transitional Programme, "is chiefly characterised by a historical crisis The workers were led by bureaucratic self-seekers who sought to block class struggle in favour of tompromise with a crisis-ridden capitalist system.
The world working class paid dearly in bload for their inability to throw off these collaborators with the bosses and develop a new revolutionary Marxist leadership of the labour movement. Sixty million working people fell to fascism and World War II. And millions more have perished since then in bloody defeats like the military coup in Indonesia in 1965 and Chile in 1973: as well as victories like that in Vietnam, which were made all the more costly because the main contingents of the world working class lacked revolutionary leadership.
In some countries such as China during this period, the pressure of the working people forced their Stalinist misleaders to break with imperialism and reluctantly stand at the head of socialist revolutions, revolutions which they sought to blunt and stifle at every stage. This has meant that today, despite the tremendous social and economic gains of the revolution, the Chinese workers and peasants are being sat upon by a totalitarian bureaucracy, which openly and cynically collaborates with US imperialism to try and hold back the world revolution, such as in its scandalous united front with Washington and Pol Pot against the Vietnamese and Kampuchean revolutions.
These counter-revolutionary policies by Peking (and the bureaucratic misleaders of the other Stalinised workers states) has had a tremendously disorienting effect on those working people, especially in the impoverished Third World, who looked to the great Chimese revolution as a model for the way out of imperialist exploitation and misery.
NEW LEADERSHIP But something entirely different is happening in the Caribbean and Central America. In Cuba, Grenada, Nicaragua and El Salvador, a new revolutionary Marxist leadership has emerged. They are people like us; except they stand at the head of hundreds of thousands and millions throw the imperialist-backed dictatorship and open the path to socialist revolution there too.
In short, the historical crisis of working class leadership pointed to in the Transitional Programme forty years ago, is beginning to be resolved. This extension of revolutionary Marxist leadership is the single most decisive feature of the of the leadership of the proletariat." world political situation today! It is the most important advance for the world working class struggle to abolish capitalism since Lenin proclaimed the first workers and farmers republic in Russia in 1917.
The imperialists recognise the decisive significance of the challenge to their domination that is developing in Central America and the Caribbean. They are responding in the manner of all ruling classes that have become an obstacle to the further advance of humanity. They are attempting to drown progress in blood, to halt the march of history with terror.
US imperialism has introduced political assassination into Grenada It brought down the reform-oriented Manley government in Jamaica in October 1980 through a campaign of economic destabilisation and political terror, leaving 1000 dead. It is encouraging an escalation of capitalist counterrevolutionary activities in Nicaragua. And it has stepped up its military threats against the Cuban revolution, while turning a blind eye to terrorism against Cuban officials abroad.
But most importantly, Washington has chosen El Salvador as the battleground for an all-out military and political effort to try to turn back and crush the Central American revolution.
The Castro current recognised that Washington's defeat in Vietnam opened new opportunities for extending the influence and example of the Cuban revolution internationally. It made it harder for imperialism to intervene and crush new revolutionary upsurges, without risking revolutionary crises within the imperialist countries themselves. Thus Cuba was able to send tens of thousands of its soldiers to help crush imperialistbacked military attacks on the Angolan liberation struggle in 1975 and the Ethiopian revolution in 1977.
These events paved the way for the historic new victories for the world revolution in Nicaragua and Grenada. Material aid from Cuba even tipped the balance at the critical moment in the struggle to overthrow the dictatorships in these countries and consolidate new revolutionary working-class regimes.
The Fidelistas deepened their understanding and confidence in socialist revolution as the only path forward in all continents, and in proletarian internationalism. In short, they enriched their understanding and practice of Marxism. No 1). League (SAL), spent three mon and studying developments in, t he reports on the significance of and the international workers m of one that originally appeared Revolution