English
1998 SEP International Summer School: Marxism and the Fundamental Problems of the 20th Century

The seven lectures presented here represent a milestone in the revival of classical Marxism in the international working class.

They were delivered at the Socialist Equality Party International Summer School, held in Sydney, Australia, from January 3 to 10, 1998, the first such international symposium organised by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI), the world Trotskyist movement.

The central premise guiding these lectures is that an answer to the burning issues of the day—growing social inequality, deepening economic crisis, the decline in the cultural level of society and the prevailing political paralysis in the workers’ movement—is bound up with examining and assimilating the great strategical lessons of the 20th century.

Presented over eight days by leading members of the ICFI, as well as the Russian Marxist historian Professor Vadim Rogovin, the lectures were not only the product of protracted theoretical work. They were exciting, insightful, original and thought-provoking.

Each presentation highlighted the existence of an alternative to the great betrayals of Stalinism, social democracy and the nationalist movements: the struggle for genuine Marxism undertaken by Leon Trotsky and the Fourth International.

The Second Congress of the Communist International in 1920 (Trotsky is third from the left, next to Paul Levi and Gregory Zinoviev)