Towards a Fifth International

Excerpts from an article by Alan Woods reporting from the first congress of the PSUV (United Socialist Party of Venezuela). The emphases are mine:

At the opening session of the PSUV congress Chavez made a very radical left-wing speech, calling for the setting up of a new international, explaining that it was necessary to destroy the bourgeois state and replace it with a revolutionary state, but also referring to the bureaucracy within the Bolivarian movement itself. It was clearly a speech that reflects the enormous pressure from the masses below who are getting tired of talk about socialism, while real progress towards genuine change appears to be frustratingly slow.

[...]

The main emphasis of the first part of his speech was the need to set up a new revolutionary international, which he referred to as the Fifth International. Chavez pointed out that Marx had set up the First International, Engels participated in the founding of the Second International, Lenin founded the Third International and Leon Trotsky the Fourth, but that for different reasons, none of these Internationals existed today.

[...]

Chavez pointed out that the state in Venezuela remained a capitalist state and this was a central problem for the revolution. Waving a copy of Lenin’s State and Revolution (which he recommended all the delegates to read), he said that he accepted Lenin's view that it was necessary to destroy the bourgeois state and replace it with a revolutionary state, and this task remained to be carried out.

23-Nov-2009. Woods, Alan. First Extraordinary Congress of the PSUV - Chavez calls for the Fifth International. In Defense of Marxism.