By Alejandro Bodart, MST leader and ISL coordinator
I am returning from Lahore, Pakistan, where I participated in the 38th Congress of the revolutionary organization The Struggle on March 13-14. Despite the difficulties of traveling amid the coronavirus pandemic, the visit was worth the effort, as it allowed for a new step forward in the construction of our International Socialist League.
The Struggle is the main organization of the Pakistani left. It has national extension, with a presence and political influence in the countries diverse regions. Its trade union organization, called the Pakistan Trade Union Defense Campaign, includes leaders and activists from dozens of sectors, from steal and railways to teachers and healthcare. Its Revolutionary Students Front led the 2019 student rebellion that has begun to recover the student unions that the Zia ul-Hac dictatorship banned in 1985. It is represented in the national parliament by its comrade Ali Wazir, leader of the Pashtoon Defense Movement, which has carried out a true popular rebellion in the last years.
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The history of Pakistan, with its 200 million inhabitants, is inseparable from that of the rest of the Indian subcontinent, marked by the artificial division that the British Empire imposed. For this reason, La The Struggle´s politics exceed the country’s borders, encompassing India, Bangladesh, as well as Iran and Afghanistan. But this visit allowed us to get to know the organization on a deeper level. It is a solid and dynamic group, with young leaders and numerous cadres who build revolutionary party and intervene in the class struggle throughout the diverse and complex Pakistani political scene, including their notable youth organization in the complicated Pakistani occupied Jammu-Kashmir.
The relationship we have built with The Struggle since we founded the ISL had a first milestone in August 2019, when one of its main leaders, the young Imran Kamyana, traveled to Turkey to participate in the youth camp that we organized. At that time, we coincided in that we had important agreements on how we viewed the world situation, on the need to build revolutionary parties and an international organization, and that we advance in developing a political relationship and international collaboration towards the formation of a common organization. On this occasion, we took a very important new step in that direction, since the comrades have confirmed that they will actively participate in our first World Congress, to be held this September.
The Congress that has just concluded was, according to the comrades, the most complex one in their history, and marked the beginning of a new stage for their organization. Days before it began, The Struggle´s founder and main leader, Lal Khan, died of the cancer he had been fighting against in recent times. Furthermore, the state’s refusal to grant legal permission to hold the event until the last minute and the coronavirus pandemic imposed serious obstacles. Regardless, nearly 2,000 comrades from all regions and the far reaches of the country, some traveling up to four days to arrive, filled Lahore’s largest public auditorium. There, they dedicated the first session to Lal Kahn, highlighting his history, legacy and lessons, as well as the challenges that his absence means for the organization, its cadres and militants.
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The second session discussed the international situation, in which comrade Gökçe Sentürk from the Turkish SEP contributed our analysis of the class struggle in the Middle East and our political work in that key region. And I shared the agitated political experience of the upsurge in Latin America and developed our ideas about the changes that are taking place in the world, as well as why it is necessary to build the ISL.
On the second day, the Congress debated the situation in Pakistan and the perspectives of The Struggle, before voting its national leadership and closing the event singing The International. The following day, we furthered the discussion on the ISL proposal with the recently elected Central Committee. With great joy, we confirmed that we have a high degree of agreement with the comrades on the need to advance in an international construction that can overcome the currents in which Trotskyism has been divided in since the postwar period to the present day. We agreed to jointly promote international campaigns and the comrades committed to start publishing their articles in Urdu on our website and to translate the ISL´s main articles and declarations in their language.
This new step, in addition to the advances that we have been making in different countries and regions, confirms the enormous opportunities there are to build a dynamic international organization based on the elaborations and conclusions that gave rise to the ISL. In the midst of an increasingly dynamic international situation in which capitalism shows its most monstrous face, its crisis and decline, meeting with revolutionaries who think similarly to us so many kilometers away makes us increasingly optimistic and renews our strength.
