François Sabado

Daniel left us today, Tuesday the 12th of January 2010. Born in 1946 he gave his life to the cause of defending revolutionary Marxist ideas right to the end. - read article...

World congresses are always significant moments in the history of the Fourth International. Delegates from all the organisations, currents, and militants meet to discuss the international situation, key questions of the revolutionary Marxist programme, and the significant and diverse experiences of construction of anti-capitalist, socialist and revolutionary parties. - read article...

This report was presented to the Executive Bureau of the Fourth International for discussion at its session of October 17, 2009, with a view to debate at the 16th World Congress of the Fourth International. . - read article...

During an international meeting of left parties held in Caracas from 19-21 November, 2009, Hugo Chavez launched a call for a Fifth Socialist International which, according to him, should bring together left parties and social movements. According to the president of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the Fifth International must be “an instrument for the unification and the articulation of the struggle of the peoples to save this planet”. In a world political situation marked by a total crisis of the capitalist system, this is a fact important enough to be underlined. - read article...

At the centre and south of Europe — in Germany and Portugal — parliamentary elections on September 27, 2009 marked a historic electoral setback for social democracy. In Germany the SPD lost a third of its electorate, or more than 4.5 million votes, in five years, and with 23% of those voting obtained its lowest score since 1949. In Portugal, the PSP of the outgoing prime minister José Sócrates lost a fifth of its electorate, or more than 500,000 votes, and with 35.56% of the votes it no longer has an absolute majority in Parliament. This was its worst result since 1991. - read article...

The principal lessons of the European elections of June 7, 2009 are the following: massive abstention; a progression of the Right flanked by the far Right; a collapse of social democracy; an increase in the votes for the ecologists; the radical Left, left reformist or anti-capitalist, maintains its positions, without making new advances, except in Portugal and in Ireland. - read article...

We are not yet at the stage of building a European anti-capitalist party, far from it, the organizations each have their place, their history, their activity, but we are moving towards an anti-capitalist pole on a European scale, which has its particular profile, takes its own initiatives, has its own exchanges of views. - read article...

These European elections have first confirmed a broad popular abstention. Nearly 60% of voters did not go to the ballot boxes. This abstention can give only a deformed vision of the real relationship of forces in Europe. But it confirms the crisis of legitimacy of the European Union and of the governing parties who implement their policies within this framework. - read article...

Report given at the meeting of the International Committee of the Fourth International in February 2009. This report is situated within the framework of and in continuity with the report submitted at the Executive Bureau meeting in November 2008, which was published in International Viewpoint, issue 406, November 2008, under the title “Taking the measure of the crisis”. - read article...

At the initiative of the PSOL (Brazil) and the NPA (New Anti-capitalist Party, France) a conference of the international anti-capitalist left took place during the World Social Forum with representatives from 20 countries and around twenty organisations. - read article...

This contribution was written as part of preparations for the January 2009 congress of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR). The congress agenda includes the political “self-dissolution” of the LCR, to set the stage for the new challenge of the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA). The authors of this piece belong to the generation of activists from the 1960s and 1970s; so while principally addressed to members of the LCR, it may be of interest to many others. - read article...

Alex Callinicos’s article shows well the changes that have taken place in the radical left in recent months. The characteristics of the situation, and in particular the deepening of the crisis of the capitalist system and the social-liberal evolution of social democracy, confirm that there is a space “to the left of the reformist left”. - read article...

From the beginning of the “subprime” crisis of September 2007, we noted that this banking and financial crisis was the forerunner to a total economic crisis, that marked a historical turning point in the world economy and situation. Today, for all commentators, the historical bench mark for estimating the extent of the crisis is “the crisis of 1929”, with differences… but it is of this breadth. - read article...

The Fourth International was founded when it was “midnight in the century”. Fascism was on the rampage, the counter-revolution had triumphed in the USSR and Stalinism was suffocating the revolutionary workers’ movement all over the world. In contrast with the preceding Internationals, it was not carried forward by waves of workers’ struggles and a growth of the working-class movement. - read article...

This international conference of the radical, anti-capitalist and revolutionary European left was undoubtedly a big success. For the first time since May 68 nearly all the anti-capitalist left was brought together. - read article...

We must carry out seriously, together or separately, reflexions and debates which bring up to date the perspective of socialism, of a socialism for the 21st century. - read article...

This is the written version of the report that he presented at the meeting of the International Committee of the Fourth International, as introduction to the debate on the international situation, on March 1, 2008. - read article...

We reproduce here the report on the international situation which was presented by François Sabado at the conference of Enlace - one of the currents within the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSOL) of Brazil, which includes, among others, members of the Fourth International - held in Sao Paulo on December 15 and 16 2007. - read article...

Hugo Chavez lost the referendum on changing the constitution. But the Bolivarian revolution is far from over. - read article...

The new political situation puts two demands on the agenda: unity to resist the plans of Sarkozyism and a new workers party. - read article...

With the development of the revolutionary process in Bolivia and Venezuela, and the sharp left debates and divisions on overall strategy in countries like Brazil, France and Italy, the issue of revolutionary strategy is coming back on the agenda. - read article...

In the run up to next year’s presidential elections, intense skirmishing is taking place to determine who will stand for the anti-neoliberal left. - read article...

We reproduce here the written version of the report which François Sabado presented to the International Committee in February 2006 to introduce the debate on the international situation. - read article...

Document discussed at the recent meeting of the Fourth International’s International Committee (IC). - read article...

By identifying itself for more than two and a half years with the Lula government, which is carrying on the neo-liberal policies started by Lula’s predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the Workers’ Party has gone into a deep crisis. The roots of the crisis are to be found in the rapid change in the identity of the PT. - read article...

LCR leader Francois Sabado says that May’s referendum has the potential for a major shift in the French political terrain. - read article...

Is Brazil’s president Lula following the same course as his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez? Francois Ollivier argues that to the contrary there is a strong divergence between the direction of the two leaders. - read article...

François Sabado recently represented the LCR and the International at the congresses of Espacio Alternativo (which groups together militants identifying with the Fourth International) in the Spanish State and of the Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSR) in Portugal. We publish here the main lines of his interventions at these two congresses. - read article...

We publish here a contribution by François Sabado, member of the Political Bureau of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR, French section of the Fourth International), and of the Executive Bureau of the Fourth International. (subtitles by IV) - read article...

The national congress of the Revolutionary Communist League (LCR, French section of the Fourth International) took place at the beginning of November 2003. Coverage of the congress figured largely in the press and television, even making the front page of the “left” daily Liberation. - read article...

Our articles on the floods in Pakistan have given details of how to send financial aid to the Labour Relief Fund. If it is more convenient for you, you can also send funds through the Europe Solidaire Sans Frontieres account. - read article...

Pakistan is facing worst ever floods of its history. Torrential rains have unleashed flash floods in different parts of the country since last three weeks. Water levies broke leaving the people exposed to flood water. More than 12 million people have suffered due to these floods. More than 650,000 houses have collapsed, mainly in villages. Thousands of acres of crops have been destroyed due to flood water. Houses, live-stock such as cattle’s and goats, household goods, clothes, shoes and other items have been destroyed. Residents of villages are currently without drinkable water, food, shelter and in need of clothes. In particular, the situation is dire for children and women and they are in desperate need of food and clothing. Disease is spreading fast in the areas affected due to lack of drinkable water. In particular, flu, fever, diarrhea, cholera have been noted and are spreading. - read article...

An unexpected, unthinkable, yet - concerning current circumstances - quite expectable and natural thing has occurred yesterday night. Three public social activists that have always expressed a consistent antifascist attitude and shunned civil indifference have been detained. - read article...

We, the participants at the Istanbul ESF, affirming that we have a strong engagement aganist all war and occupation and that we are for a politial resolution of the Kurdish issue, have made the following resolution : - read article...

Under the impulse of the World Bank and international capitalist institutions, the Moroccan regime started a privatization process of the universities and attacks against the right to studiy. The announcement of the “Emergency plan” to the university at beginning of the academic year, i.e. of the brutal aggravation of these attacks, put a spark to the powder. The class-struggle trade unionists of fight, organised within the UNEM, are at the forefront of the mobilization against the “Emergency plan”. - read article...