A useful party does not have to be a section of the Fourth International. It does not have to become one later. Having the political will to build a section is necessary; proclaiming one at all times is a tactical question, decided by circumstances.
For an organisation whose entire identity is its International, that is a substantial concession, and it is the point of the concept. Over several years the FI has developed the “useful party” to name something specific: an organisation capable of assembling forces and deciding on actions that have an effect and advance the class struggle. Not an organisation with correct positions. One that can do things.
The concept exists because the alternative has been tested. The FI’s own formulation is that useful parties are a transitional form suited to the current level of politicisation and radicalisation, and that it recognises the limits of the traditional small vanguard party. The forces required for meaningful political impact are larger than the forces available to any group holding the full historic programme.
What “broader” actually commits you to
The FI’s strategic objective has not changed: mass revolutionary parties and a mass revolutionary International. What has changed is the route.
The useful party gathers forces more widely than the people who would immediately subscribe to the FI’s historic programme, and it is meant to include various revolutionary Marxists rather than only those inside one tradition. It is open to other anti-capitalist organisations and to new activists coming out of social movements.
The commitment this places on FI members is the demanding part. They are to be an integral and loyal part of building and leading these parties, which is not the same as recruiting from them. The process may take different stages and organisational forms depending on the national context. The Workers’ Party in Brazil and PSOL in Brazil are the experiences behind the formulation.
At the same time, political and organisational independence is maintained inside the broader formation, and the FI’s programme and strategic line are argued for openly. Loyal and independent at once is a difficult posture to hold, and the concept does not pretend otherwise.
Programme: converging, not identical
The FI is based on its historic programme, and building an FI section rests on adherence to it. The useful party does not.
What the useful party runs on is a class struggle approach and a programme that guides action, with the transitional programme and transitional demands as the guide. The implication, stated plainly, is that a useful party may operate on a programme that converges with the FI’s without being identical to it.
That does not license vagueness. Defending Marxism, political elaboration and education remain tasks for revolutionaries inside these formations, because they are what develop cadres and keep the politics legible.
What the party has to be able to do
Three verbs: agitate, educate, organise. A useful party is action-oriented, actively mobilising and organising the working class, and effective organisation is what coordinates the three.
Building a political base for socialism in the working class comes through consistent campaigning and the politicisation of that base, which means intervening in social movements and struggles to press demands and programmes that challenge capitalism.
The example given for agitation is worth keeping, because it shows what the word means here. Anti-militarist agitation educates people in socialism and works to make the instruments of the state unreliable against the proletariat. Agitation is not publicity. It has a target and a mechanism.
The line
Here the flexibility stops. These parties have to resist the pressure to enter bourgeois governments, and the reasoning is not tactical.
Governments that manage the capitalist state are not governments of the exploited and oppressed. The FI, and the formations it works inside, therefore do not join them. Class independence from the bourgeoisie and its state is the fundamental principle, and it holds while engaging in united fronts in mass action and in electoral work.
The argument about progressive governments is where this gets tested, and the FI’s answer is that what is needed is an independent anti-capitalist party arguing for a radical rupture with neoliberal policy, rather than subordination to or alignment with parties of the state. PSOL and the debates over participation in Lula’s government are the live case, with sections opposing any disregard of party resolutions on non-participation.
The general danger is named directly: broad left parties come under pressure to drift right or to cross lines of principle by entering governments. That pressure is structural, it arrives with success rather than with failure, and it has to be resisted and fought.
Why this matters here, now
Britain is having exactly this argument, without the vocabulary.
A new party that requires everyone to sign the full programme before it starts will be small enough to be safe and too small to matter. A new party with no line it will not cross will be captured by whoever wants it most, usually by an offer of office.
The useful party is a proposal for the space between: assemble broadly, argue openly for your own politics inside the formation, and fix in advance the one thing that would end it.
The question worth putting to any new formation is not what it believes. It is what it has decided in advance that it will not do, and whether that decision is written down anywhere.
Further reading
New Parties of the Left – Experiences from Europe, a 2011 book from the IIRE, is an excellent guide to the FI’s early experience with European broad parties.
Here are some specific sections, articles, and contributions that offer Fourth Internationalists further reading on how the themes discussed, particularly concerning the strategic orientation of building revolutionary parties and the analysis underpinning this task, emerged in the 1985-1990 period:
"Building revolutionary parties in Europe" - 13th World Congress International Discussion Bulletin no3 1990 - This section is explicitly dedicated to constructing revolutionary parties in Europe, including a report debated at the Congress. It directly addresses the task of building the types of organisations discussed in the concept of the "useful party".
"The stage of building the Fourth International" - Resolutions of 12th Congress - This broader section discusses the historical trajectory and current tasks in building the Fourth International, which provides the overarching strategic context for the useful party concept. It touches upon the necessary political and organisational forms at the current level of politicisation.
"The strategic challenge for the revolutionary left" - Thirteenth World Congress resolution on Latin America - This article outlines a contemporary political landscape and the strategic challenges faced by revolutionary forces, which directly informs the necessity and nature of the parties they aim to build.
"The national question" - International Marxist Review v5 no1 Summer 1990 - Numerous sections are dedicated to the national question in various contexts (Notably including Ireland and the Spanish state). These discussions are relevant as revolutionary parties must develop a programme and practice that addresses national oppression and integrates it with the class struggle, often operating within or across national boundaries.
"Learning from each other" and "A school of democracy" - For a revival of Internationalism in International Marxist Review 11/12 - These sections highlight the importance of international exchange of experiences and fostering a democratic internal life within revolutionary organisations.
Demands and Alternatives in response to ecological problems - World Congress resolution, also in 13th World Congress IDB no7a December 1990 - These sections, related to the ecological movement, illustrate the programmatic demands and alternative proposals that revolutionary parties can raise, demonstrating their active engagement with contemporary social issues and their capacity to link these to the fight for socialism.
These specific references should offer deeper insights into the theoretical underpinnings, strategic considerations, and practical challenges related to building the "useful party" and advancing class struggle.