ABSTRACT
Leon Trotsky, founder in 1938 of the Fourth International (FI), is one of the great revolutionary figures of the twentieth century and an exceptional Marxist theorist, but he lacked any ecological consciousness. The legacy he transmitted made no reference to the precursory concepts of ecosocialism developed by Marx and Engels. Ernest Mandel (1926–1995), the main leader and theoretician of the FI after WWII, began to worry about the environment in the early 1970s but resisted admitting to any natural limits. Although increasingly aware of the ecological catastrophe, he did not conclude that an ecosocialist reformulation of Marxism was necessary. In 1991, the FI World Congress adopted a first document on ecology, but the concept of ecosocialism did not appear until Michael Löwy presented the resolution titled “Ecology and Socialism” at the 15th FI World Congress (2003), where it was approved by a large majority. This marked a turning point: despite its belated conversion to ecology, the FI became the first international organization to adopt ecosocialism. The next World Congress (2010) adopted a resolution drafted by Daniel Tanuro, titled “Capitalist Climate Change and Our Tasks.” It calls for attention to the need to reduce levels of production and consumption as a result of the ecological crisis conditions brought about by capitalism. By the 2018 World Congress, a comprehensive document was adopted calling for an ecosocialist alternative to stem the capitalist destruction of the environment. It points to a deep gap between the urgency of anti-capitalist responses and the current levels of consciousness and maintains that the gap can only be overcome through concrete struggles and the formulation of anti-capitalist reforms fulfilling both social and environmental concerns. The debates at that Congress were characterized by strong ecological argumentation by many activists, especially by those from the global South.
