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Open Letter to the ICC militants
The enthusiasm of the present ICC towards the CNT-AIT leads to the abandonment of its political Platform and to the "revision" of marxism

Comrades,

Despite we have never stopped to keep watching closely and to denounce the opportunist drift of our organization, we are today filled with consternation by the process of accelerated rapprochement towards anarchism that the ICC has entered into with the abandonment of the principles of the organization and, in general, of marxism which ensues from it.

In our two previous bulletins, we have already alerted to this "fatal trend"¹. Unfortunately we note that, since then, the turn of the ICC towards anarchism goes on and even manifests itself publicly. It does so with such a determination that it seems that now it does not encounter any internal resistance from the militants (if there has been any) even though the arguments utilized in order to justify this turn are so contradictory and so stupid - we don't find other words to qualify them - and even though they are so openly and so clearly opposed to the platform and the principles of the ICC itself.

Do revolutionary unions exist today ?

Reading the report about the late 19^th Congress of Révolution internationale (in English only on the "online" pages²), we see that the ICC has established "fraternal and mutually confident" political relations with the anarchist organization CNT-AIT that it defines as being part of the "revolutionary internationalist milieu". Moreover, it seems that this does not raise the least rejection, the least reticence or dissent ; that there is not the least internal debate on the relations of the ICC with this organization. How odd, is not it ? Though we find in the report-balance-sheet made of this congress a strong statement on the obstacles the working class is now confronted with in order to develop its struggle. It notably says that "The discussion also allowed us to better discern the present impact of the corralling of the working class by the unions. Although the workers are not yet near to getting out of the union grip and the union ideology in order to take their struggles in hand themselves, the debate brought out the existence, in the workers’ ranks, of few illusions on the role and effectiveness of the struggles advocated by the unions. If, despite this disillusionment, the working class is not yet ready today to mobilise itself outside and against the unions, it’s essentially because of the difficulty of again finding confidence in its own strength. The working class more and more feels the need to fight against the attacks of the government and the bosses, but doesn’t know how to struggle without going through the unions. (…) The union question thus constitutes a major stake in the future dynamic towards massive class confrontations" (we underline).

Thus, according to the presentation of the Congress, the union question, the union ideology, the unions carry on being one of the main obstacles that the bourgeoisie utilizes against the proletariat to ward off or, at least, to impede the development of its struggles. But just a few lines further, with no explanation, we can read a salute to the new fraternal collaboration of the ICC... with a union organization ! Is not unionism the basic, the principle and the goal of the CNT-AIT ? For this organization, union is not only a form of organization of the working class, it is the unique form of organization for the past as well as for the present ; and as well for the future up to the point where, according to its political principles, the unions will be the form of organization of the future anarchist society :
"The union, today grouping of resistance, will be in the future the grouping of production and distribution, base of the social reorganization, (…). The Congress declares that unionism, as natural and concrete expression of the producers, contains at latent and organic state all the activities of execution and direction for ensure a new life" (CNT-AIT, La Charte du syndicalisme révolutionnaire³, Constituent Congress of the CNT, 1946, we translate from French).

Should we recall to the ICC members what is the position of our organization about the unions such as it is set out in our political Platform ?
"Having lost all possibility of fulfilling their initial function of defending working class interests [in capitalist decadent phase], and confronted with an historic situation in which only the abolition of wage labour and with it, the disappearance of trade unions, was on the agenda, the trade unions became true defenders of capitalism, agencies of the bourgeois state within the working class. (…) The capitalist function of these organs also applies to all those ‘new’ organisations which play a similar role, no matter what their initial intentions. This is the case with the ‘revolutionary unions’ and ‘shop stewards’ as well as those organs (workers’ committees, worker’s commissions…) which stay in existence after a struggle - even in opposition to the unions - and try to set themselves up as ‘authentic’ poles for the defence of the workers’ immediate interests. On this basis, these organisations cannot escape from being integrated into the apparatus of the bourgeois state even in an unofficial or illegal manner. (…) After more than fifty years of experience of the anti-working class character of these organisations, any position advocating such strategies is fundamentally non-proletarian" (ICC Platform, point 7 on the unions - all the underlinings of the quotations of the ICC Platform in this text are ours).

As if it was not enough, the CNT-AIT is characterized too by its claim of the "union production control" of the enterprises "as long as capitalism survives :
"Considering that in the pre-revolutionary periods, the role of unionism is to put up a constant opposition to capitalist forces, to weaken bosses' power while increasing the unions' one, the Congress considers that these results can't obtained but through the introduction of the union control in the capitalist enterprises, through the set-up of committees and councils of workshop, factories, offices, (…). While the documentation job, the technical and professional education with the view of social reorganization will be completed, the class training for the production control will be finally realized" (CNT-AIT, Charte du syndicalisme révolutionnaire, op. Cité, we underline and translate).

Should we recall to the ICC members what is the position of our organization about the "workers management of the enterprises in capitalism" such as it is set-ou in our political platform ?
"This is why ‘self-management’ (the management of enterprises by the workers in a society which remains capitalist), a petty bourgeois utopia last century when it was advocated by Proudhonist tendencies, is today nothing but a capitalist mystification. It is an economic weapon of capital in that it tries to get the workers to take up responsibility for enterprises hit by the crisis by making them organise their own exploitation.
It is a political weapon of the counter-revolution in that it: divides the working class by imprisoning it and isolating it factory by factory, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, sector by sector ; burdens the workers with the concerns of the capitalist economy when their only task is to destroy it ; diverts the proletariat from the fundamental task which determines the possibility of its emancipation: the destruction of the political apparatus of capital and the establishment of its class dictatorship on a world scale.
Any political position which (even in the name of ‘working class experience’ or of ‘establishing new relations among workers’) defends self management is, in fact, objectively participating in the preservation of capitalist relations of production. (point 11 of the ICC Platform).
"This mystification, which reached its culminating point with the experience of 'self-management' and the defeat of the workers at LIP in France in 1974-5, is today exhausted. However, it cannot be excluded that it will go through a certain revival in the future with the renewal of anarchism. In the struggles in Spain in 1936, it was the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist currents who were the flag-bearers for the myth of self-management, presented as a 'revolutionary' economic measure" (Additional note of this point of the Platform).

Thus the ICC Platform establishes that the "workers management within capitalism" is a mystification, a capitalist trickery, a weapon of the counter-revolution ; and the organizations which defend it, such as the anarchist and anarcho-unionist ones, are objective defenders of capitalist order.
Though the present ICC, in obvious contradiction with this position of principle, declares that an organization of that type is today... revolutionary !

Should we too recall to the ICC members that, still according to the Platform, the specific role of the "non-official", "revolutionary" or "rank and file" unions is precisely to be the last beater of the workers towards unionism and the unions which are organs of the bourgeois State in the proletarian milieu, and this in order the workers regain confidence in these same unions ? The present ICC, in full contradiction with its principles and its policy as well with its practice of the previous decades, claims to having met today union organizations, such as the CNT-AIT, which are not "necesarily on the counter-revolution ground" ; this organizations would even been "authentic part of the proletarian camp" (WR 336).

History of anarchism been "reviewed and corrected"

In our previous bulletin (see The ICC and its new Policy of Fraternization with Anarchism : To team up with anarchism, is to betray the proletariat), we have denounced the main aspects of the so-called "theoretical" line of argument with which the today ICC pretends to justify its collaboration with anarchist unionism. In this article, we have only recall the principles which establish the very existence of the ICC and to denounce the betrayal which these principles suffer every time more openly. We refer our readers and the ICC militants to this bulletin.

But, in order to assess the degree of aberration and stupid remark that the ICC militant presently give their support to through their silence, let's see the "new history" of anarchism devised by the present ICC.

Lately, the ICC has published some articles⁴ on anarchism in which, little by little, it has introduced a new interpretation of the history of this current ; an invented history precisely for justifying its collaboration with anarchism. According to it, it would exist all along history two dissimilar currents in anarchism : one would be reactionary or reformist and the other revolutionary and internationalist ; the latter consistently striving for collaborating and getting closer to marxist communism. Once the "thesis" been established, in the pure speculative style - that we already had noticed in other "theoretical" rantings of the liquidationist faction of the ICC since 2001 -, our "unmaker" of history ventures to seek "examples" to "prove" its thesis... The "trick" of this new history of anarchism is very simple : making abstraction of the fact that, if some elements or anarchist groups came closer to marxist communism, they did it insofar as they gave up their own anarchist conceptions ; and this giving up has not been but the result of the influence of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat inspired by marxism, notably during the 1917-1923 revolutionary wave.
But let's accept for a moment the point of view of this "new history of anarchism" with the "two currents" worked out by the ICC in order to see where it leads : "Today, in France for example, the same name ‘CNT' covers two anarchist organisations, one which defends authentically revolutionary positions (CNT-AIT) and another which is purely ‘reformist' and reactionary (the CNT ‘Vignoles')" (WR 336, we underline).

Have the ICC militants wondered on which foundations this so marked distinction between the two « CNT »  : is based ? Is it because the history of each one is so different ? No, since both come (and claim) from the Spanish CNT which, in 1936, led the proletariat in the inter-bourgeois war between democracy and fascism. Is it on their program and principles ? Nor since both CNTs carry on claiming the same Charte syndicale [Union Chart]of foundation in 1946. Is it because the CNT-AIT tends to come closer to the marxist communist positions ? The so-called Charte immediatly rejects any political party (included the proletariat's) as well as the dictatorship of the workers councils (on the contrary, at this level, it defends a federative organization of unions). Let's see now what this organization thinks about marxism :
"The International Working Men's Association ["AIT" in French] was set up in 1864. (…) Since the beginning, the movement has been torn up between two tendencies : the authoritarian socialists regrouped around Karl Marx and the anti-authoritarians - or federalists - around Michel Bakunin. For the anti-authoritarian, it is the power, the domination, the authority which are the very foundations of this society and nothing will be really changed if the movement which claims to revolutionarize the world, organizes itself in an hierarchical, centralizing, authoritarian manner. We know now to which monstrousness the authoritarian socialism has led and still leads to. The « libertarians » of that time had also perceived very well the possible dangers and the bloody drifts of this doctrine (…). The marxist-leninist method has failed making running much blood up to the point where the very idea of revolution has become extremely suspicious to many and closely linked to the idea of terror" (CNT-AIT.L’anarcho-syndicalisme, c'est quoi?, translated by us).
So for the CNT-AIT, marxism is authoritarian, dangerous and could not but drive and still drives to terrible and bloody monstrousnesses.

In the end, is it the split within the CNT in 1993 (which opened up the set-up of the CNT-AIT and the CNT-Vignolles) which would have miraculously given birth to an "authentically revolutionary" current as the ICC claims ? Let the CNT protagonists themselves speak :
"Two lines nevertheless took shape which still became apparent in the following : for one side, a hard dogmactic line radically opposing to the [official] elections of the employees' union delegates and thus to the strategy of development of the local union organizations, actually withdrawing on an anarchist-anarchounionist propagandist line ; on the other side, a line put forward by our organization (oftenly called CNT-Vignolles) looking for developing a unionism of struggle, accepting selective participation to elections in order to protect its local union organizations, refusing the unique ideological reference of anarchism. These distinctions are to be relativized : it occurred in the following that the CNT-AIT unions participated themselves to elections of unions' official delegates and made excellent union work ; in addition, those of the CNT participate selectively to elections. Finally let's note that, locally, when the individuals old rivalries are absent, excellent relations do exist as well as a fruitful common work" (CNT-F. Petite histoire de la CNT-F - http:// www.cnt-f.org/spip.php?article712).
The CNT members themselves acknowledge not only that the split was based on secundary disagreements (personal or relative) and not on principles, but that both parties make still today the same kind of "excellent union work", that they are used to have "excellent relations" beyond the personal rivalries and even a "fruitful common work". As we can see, the distinction between an "authentically revolutionary" CNT and an other one "reactionnary" is not but a falsification of reality. Comrades of the ICC, do you realize where you walking to ? What do yo think, comrades, of the "fraternal alliance" that the ICC is forging with a union and selfmanagement organization which does not represent but the last car of the bourgeois compaigns against communism and, more globally, against the proletariat' class consciousness ?

Breaking off with the ICC positions of principles

The opportunist process of coming closer and fraternization with anarchism is accompanied by an obvious and accelerated process of theoretical "involution" by this organization. It clearly appears that this coming closer is not due to the fact that the anarchists have joined the marxist positions, but to the fact that the present ICC moves aways from marxism and that it increasingly gives up its positions of principles.
In that sense, the ICC has lately published a serie of three articles Communist Left and Internationalist Anarchism"⁵. The serie is signed : ICC. It means it is not simply a militant's opinion, nor of a territorial section's one. It is an official statement of the organization. It confirms that there is no internal debate, nor on the fraternization with anarchism, nor on the "new theoretical" argumentation which attempts to justify it. The three articles give us an idea much more complete and precise of the step the ICC has taken in the revision of its basic principles as well as marxism in general. Here is why it is our duty to warn you, comrades, about what you are supporting through your silence : the scuttling of the ICC as a proletariat's revolutionary organization. You may ignore or smile at our warning. The anarchists - and finally the bourgeoisie - will applaud you.
Comrades of the ICC, do you realize that this new serie on anarchism is above all an open and official break with all the statements on anarchism that the ICC had defended during more than 30 years, since its foundation in 1975 up to the beginning of the years 2000 ? The old ICC, our ICC, had the following position on the anarchist and anarcho-unionist political current :
"A political current, the anarcho-unionism, which always wallowed in the dirty waters of the counter-revolution, despite its « horror » for dictatorship, for all State and all government. The irresponsability, the historical incoherence of anarcho-unionism has remained manifest in this tragic game of seesaw in the permanent duplicity of the « authorities », of the « anti-authoritarian » CNT which revealed a criminal lack of historical vision and of clear revolutionary theory that cost the life of much of its militants committed to the cause of their class... The CNT-FAI, for its-political ideology and its misunderstanding of the class nature of the State which prevented it to exert any kind of action for its destruction, has been the last defence of capitalism against the working class" (ICC, España 1936, 1977, underlined and translated by us⁶).

Conscious of the danger that the anarchist current as a whole and its ideology represent for the new generation of workers and revolutionaries, the "old" ICC never stopped denouncing the historically and objectively counter-revolutionary character.
As we already underlined it in various occasions, still in the years 2000, the ICC was conscious of the direct link which existed between the world bourgeoisie's campaign about "communism death" and the revival of anarchism :
"In the years 1990, we have witnessed at the same time to an anti-communism campaign which followed the fall of the Berlin Wall in which communism has been denigrated through its assimilation to stalinism (while the historical reality shows us that it was the gravedigger of the October 1917 revolution) and to a promotion of anarchism as true revolutionary movement in front of the bolsheviks and Lenin who would have only been simple conspirators who set up their dictatorship by a « coup d'Etat ». To present anarchism as « vanguard » of revolutionary impulsion and Spain 1936 as « model » of social revolution, does not represent any contradiction with the anti-communist campaign. Actually, it is its continuation and its reinforcement. (...) Capitalism is very conscious that such celestial musics [« the triumph of democracy and capitalism »] need the critical counterpoint of ideologies and models which apparently are very radical but at bottom defend the capitalist order by other ways" (Introduction to the 3^rd edition of the ICC booklet España 1936 in Spanish, translated by us).

It means that the development of anarchism was analyzed and understood by the "old" ICC as a complement and a logical reinforcement of the ideological offensive of the bourgeoisie against marxism and communism. Actually anarchism is characterized precisely by its permanent battle against marxist communism, assimilating it voluntarly to stalinism, to a frightening and bloody dictatorship, that the proletariat should reject. Two decades after the fall of the Russian imperialist bloc and of stalinism, anarchism carries on utilizing the campaign on the "death of communism". It is what we can practically see in all anarchist web pages and publications when they constantly "recall" the "marxist bolsheviks' atrocities".
What does today the "new" ICC say about it ? "The attitude of the majority of the Bolshevik party in the years 1918-24 (the indiscriminate banning of the anarchist press, the armed confrontation with Makhno’s army, the bloody suppression of the Kronstadt uprising, etc) opened up a huge gulf between revolutionary Marxists and anarchists" (Communist Left and internationalist anarchism, part 3, WR 338, October 2010).

In other words, the ICC of today participates to the bourgeois campaign supported by anarchism about the "crimes and the horrors of the communist bolsheviks" !

We could mention other examples which show that this "new" serie of articles of the ICC on anarchism breaks with its position on anarchism, that it says exactly the contrary of what it had supported since its foundation. It is enough to note that, in this serie, there is no reference, no quotation, of old texts of the ICC on anarchism to support the new affirmations. On the contrary, here the ICC goes back on its previous positions up "to apologize" for having criticized and denounced anarchism, up "to aknowledge exagerations and previous mistakes" in what it used to say on this current. Finally, in a footnote, the essential design of this serie of article is expressed with clarity :
"This being said, during the debate that has taken place recently, anarchist comrades have rightly protested against certain exaggerated formulae which appear to pronounce a definitive and unjustified sentence on anarchism [here stops the English version of this footnote, we think important to make known the whole original version in French,⁷ may be the English translator saw the open rejection of the past positions too obvious. Thus we translate it]. Going back again in some of our former texts, we have also found passages that we would not write today. For instance :
- « workers individuals can think they adhere to revolution from anarchism, but to adhere to a revolutionary programme one must break with anarchism » (International Review102) [this quotation is not too available in the English pages of the ICC web site, we thus translate it] ;
- « that is why the proletariat must resolutely turns away from these illusionmongers that are the anarchists » (http://fr.internationalism.org/ri321/anarchisme.htm) (...)" (WR 338, 2010, Communist Left and internationalist anarchism, http://en.internationalism.org/wr/338/internationalist-anarchism-part-3).

So, in a footnote, the present ICC has found "passages" of its old publications "that he would not write today". Comrades of the ICC, are you ashamed today of having called during three decades the workers to get rid of the counter-revolutionary traps of anarchism ? Should not we call anymore the proletariat and the elements searching for revolutionary coherence to get rid of its utopian and reactionary madnesses ? Is there no more need for the proletariat for resolutely break off with anarchism ?
Let's imagine for a while - sorry for the digression - that the present ICC is in Spain in 1936 and that it defends in front of the working class, its "new" slogan : workers, you must not break with the CNT-AIT because this one is "authentically revolutionary" ! Do you realize that you would oppose to the "majority" of Bilan, that you would be besides the POUM and the anarchists and that, finally, the ICC at its level would participate to the defeat of the proletariat in Spain and then to its massacre in the world imperialist butchery ?

Increasing open break with the ICC Platform

The new serie of articles considered as a whole, gives us a much clearer overview of the tendency of the present ICC to let aside, to globally bury, its own political Platform.
According to it, "fundamental points of agreement [do exist] between the internationalist anarchists and the communist left. For the ICC, without denying that important differences exist, the crucial thing is that we are all determined defenders of workers’ autonomy, since we refuse to give our support « even in a ‘critical’ or ‘tactical’ way, or in the name of the ‘lesser evil’, to a sector of the bourgeoisie - whether the ‘democratic’ bourgeoisie against the ‘fascist’ bourgeoisie [let's forget the role of the CNT in 1936 !], or the left against the right, or the Palestinian bourgeoisie against the Israeli bourgeoisie, etc. Such an approach has two concrete implications:
1. Rejecting any electoral support or cooperation with parties which manage the capitalist system or defend this or that form of this system (social democracy, Stalinism, ‘Chavismo’, etc)
2. Above all, during any war, it means maintaining an intransigent internationalism, refusing to choose between this or that imperialist camp. » (‘The Communist Left and Internationalist Anarchism’, Part one, WR 336).
All those who defend these essential positions in theory and practice need to be aware that they belong to the same camp : the camp of the working class and the revolution" (Communist Left and internationalist anarchism, part 2, WR 337, we underline).

All in all, for the "new" ICC, it is enough to shout "workers autonomy", "rejecting electoral support" and "an « intransigent » (?) internationalism" to find favour with it. Actually, this ICC draws these "basic points" not from its political Platform but from the "principle gruel" of various groups and individuals marked with dilettantism, verbal radicalism, confusion and who claim themselves as "anti-bolsheviks", "autonomists", "anarcho-councilists", "situationists", "pro-revolutionaries", etc. Let's have a look to the positions of a group of this kind which names itself Círculo internacional de comunistas antibolcheviques [International Circle of Anti-bolsheviks Communists] :
"1) Communism is not a philosophy nor a political programme to which the thought and the action of the working class can be ajusted. It is the action of the working class itself (...) [or as says the present ICC, "marxism is not but only a label"]  ;
2) we defend the development of the autonomy of the proletarians in struggle (...) ;
3) we are for the consequent revolutionary internationalism (...) [intransigent ! Would add the present ICC] ;
4) we struggle for the radical and full self-liberation of the proletarians ;
5) we defend the proletariat's central place as revolutionary class, (...) the proletariat's central place as revolutionary class means moreover that the proletarians' emancipation does not depend but only on their own efforts⁸" (we translate from Spanish).

As we can easily notice it, it does not exist any difference with the points that the ICC considers as "fundamental". With these approximate generalities, the ICC puts aside thus its marxist political programme.
The very list of "important disagreements" that the present ICC says it has with anarchism, is significant of its "new" policy :
"And there are indeed important divergences between them :
- Centralism/federalism
- Materialism/idealism
- Period of transition or ‘immediate abolition of the state'
- Recognition or denunciation of the October 1917 revolution and of the Bolshevik party" (Communist Left and the internationalist anarchism, part 1, WR 336).
The affirmation of some divergences (certainly important) enables it to avoid carefully questions as the union one, which can only lead to an uncompromising confrontation with the practical policy of the anarchists and other anarcho-unionists (with whom it fraternizes today). It does the same in regards with two other basic questions which have marked the antagonism between marxism and anarchism :
- the need for the proletariat's political party : for marxism, "the existence and activity of the party are an indispensable condition for the final victory of the proletariat" (point 16 of the ICC Platform), while for anarchism, the political party is the worst evil that the working class can suffer from. Marxist communism so struggles for the settting up of the party, for the proletariat's vanguard organization, while anarchism (of which the CNT is one of the finest pieces) makes all it can to prevent the working class to set up one ;
- the questions of the proletariat's dictatorship which clearly reveals to which point the present ICC gives up non only its own political Platform but also marxism in general.

Thus, this new serie of articles of the ICC about anarchism is significant non only for what it says but also for what it forgets to say. It is notable that the fundamental axis of the opposition between marxism and anarchism, it means the dictatorship of the proletariat, is not even mentionned in the three articles dedicated to the exposition of "the points of agreement and disagreement" between the two currents ! The present ICC has "forgetten" this fundamental concept of revolutionary marxism, historically key and verified in the practice of our class (the Paris Commune and above all the Russian Revolution in 1917) ; this concept is though clearly posed and defended in its own Platform, but it prefers today to speak about it with modesty, maybe for not hurting the sensitive ears of the anarchist "friends".

In opposition to this basic principle of marxism, the anarchist current defends as a basic principle "the immediate abolition of the State". It is the reason why, consequently, it violently rejects the proletariat's struggle for political power, it means that it rejects and fights against the proletariat's dictatorship. This basic opposition, of principle, is as clear for the communists as for the anarchists, and this since Marx and Bakunin themselves. For instance, let's see how the greatest figure of anarchism- that up to today no consequent anarchist disowns - presents it :
"The Difference Between Authoritarian and Libertarian Revolution. It is this point which mainly divides the Socialists or revolutionary collectivists from the authoritarian Communists, the partisans of the absolute initiative of the State (...) Only the Communists imagine that they can attain through development and organization of the political power of the working classes, and chiefly of the city proletariat (...) whereas the revolutionary Socialists, the enemies of all ambiguous alliances, believe, on the contrary, that this common goal can be attained not through the political but through the social (and therefore anti-political) organization and power of the working masses of the cities (...). Hence the two different methods. The Communists believe that it is necessary to organize the forces of the workers in order to take possession of the political might of the State. The revolutionary Socialists organize with the view of destroying, or if you prefer a more refined expression, of liquidating the State. The Communists are the partisans of the principle and practice of authority, while revolutionary Socialists place their faith only in freedom" (M. Bakunin, Stateless socialism : anarchism).

On the contrary, for communism - since Marx -, the destruction of the bourgeois State and the instauration of the dictatorship of the proletariat is, no more no less, the immediate historical goal of the proletarian revolution. It is what gives a true class meaning (totally different to the one anarchism gives to it) to "workers' autonomy", to "intransigent internationalism" and to all the proletariat's fight against capitalism ; it is the point of departure of the communist revolution, of the struggle for the abolition of the salaried exploitation and the division of society in classes. Is it necessary to recall to the ICC comrades the abc of Marx's theory ?
"Long before me, bourgeois historians had described the historical development of this struggle between the classes, as had bourgeois economists their economic anatomy. My own contribution was 1. to show that the existence of classes is merely bound up with certain historical phases in the development of production; 2. that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; 3. that this dictatorship itself constitutes no more than a transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society" (Marx's letter to Weydemeyer, March 5^th, 1852).

"In these circumstances, proletarian dictatorship is not only an absolutely legitimate means of overthrowing exploiters and suppressing the resistance, but also absolutely necessary to the entire mass of working people, being their only defense against the bourgeois dictatorship which led to the war and is preparing new wars. (...) In capitalist society, whenever there is any serious aggravation of the class struggle intrinsic to that society, there can be no alternative but the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or the dictatorship of the proletariat. Dreams of some third way are reactionary, petty-bourgeois limitations. That is borne out by more than a century of development of bourgeois democracy in the working-class movement in all the advanced countries, and notably by the experience of the past five years" (Lenin, Thesis and Report on Bourgeois Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, March 1919, 1st Congress of the Communist International).

As well, the ICC Platform affirms that : "The seizure of political power by the proletariat on a world scale, the precondition for and the first stage in the revolutionary transformation of capitalist society, means in the first place the total destruction of the apparatus of the bourgeois state. (...) As the lever of economic transformation of society, the dictatorship of the proletariat (i.e. the exclusive exercise of political power by the working class) will have the fundamental task of expropriating the exploiting class by socialising the means of production. (...) On the basis of its political power, the proletariat will have to attack the political economy of the bourgeoisie by carrying forward an economic policy leading to the abolition of wage labour and commodity production and to the satisfaction of the needs of humanity (ICC Platform, point 15).

It is this fundamental opposition (and not a simple "disagreement") between marxism and anarchism that the ICC of today voluntarely forgets. Here is why, finally, all the supposed "basic agreements" that it presents in its serie of articles, aren't but pure quackery, a smoke-screen to attempt to hide a major political fact, it means that the ICC fraternizes with anarchism by abandoning its own Platform of political principles and marxism in general. Is not there the purest expression of political opportunism ? Unfortunately, this fundamental opposition is not only "theoretical" : history has already resolved and enabled to see where the struggle leads to when it is based on one or the other principle ; in the first case, to Russia 1917, in the second to Spain 1936 ; in the first case to the triumph of the proletarian revolution, in the second to the proletariat's bloody defeat and to its enlistment behind a bourgeois fraction. As says Lenin : "there can be no alternative".

Comrades of the ICC, do you remember the Internationalisme formula from which the ICC claims to be the heir ? "Whithout revolutionary theory, there is no revolutionary movement". Is it necessary to recall you the first point of our political Platform about the theory of the communist revolution ?
"Marxism is the fundamental theoretical acquisition of the proletarian struggle. It is on the basis of marxism that all the lessons of the proletarian struggle can be integrated into a coherent whole. By explaining the unfolding of history through the development of the class struggle, that is to say struggle based on the defence of economic interests within a framework laid down by the development of the productive forces, and by recognising the proletariat as the subject of the revolution which will abolish capitalism, marxism is the only conception of the world which really expresses the viewpoint of that class. Thus, far from being an abstract speculation about the world, it is first and foremost a weapon of struggle for the working class. And because the working class is the first and only class whose emancipation necessarily entails the emancipation of the whole of humanity, a class whose domination over society will not lead to a new form of exploitation but to the abolition of all exploitation, only marxism is capable of grasping social reality in an objective and scientific manner, without any prejudices or mystifications of any sort. Consequently, although it is not a fixed doctrine, but on the contrary undergoes constant elaboration in a direct and living relationship with the class struggle, and although it benefited from prior theoretical achievements of the working class, marxism has been from its very inception the only framework from which and within which revolutionary theory can develop."

Comrades of the ICC, we demand and require a clear response : is "marxism the fundamental theoretical acquisition of the proletarian struggle"? Yes or no ? Yes or no, is it "the only conception of the world which really expresses the viewpoint of that class" ? Is marxism the indispensable weapon of the working class struggle ? Yes or no ? Is it "the only framework from which and within which revolutionary theory can develop" ? Yes or no ? Or rather... "should we go beyond the labels of marxism and anarchism"⁹ ?

We demand and require a clear response. Is there within the present ICC a single militant who still defends marxism and opposes to anarchist and anarcho-unionist ideology ? If so, then he must rise up and fight before revisionism ends up suffocating the ICC for good, before he becomes accomplice of the ICC liquidation as Communist Left organization, as marxist organization, as organization of the proletariat !

October 2010.

Last minute : In this end of October 2010, it appears that the process of "internal liquidation" of the ICC is living a strong speed up. After having politically open the door of the Proletarian Camp to anarchism, now the ICC opens it its own press : two articles of the CNT (How to struggle ? By mean of an autonomous popular resistance and What is a general assembly ?) with a strong "libertarian" tonality, have found their place on its web site ; and it seems to just be the beginning.
As militants excluded (by force) from the ICC, we have the right to wonder if all the members of this organization - which is still, normally, marxist - have been "informed beforehand", if they have had the possibility to debate and decide collectively of this incredible initiative, or if they have simply been put in front of the fact already done ? What ever it is, where are they going to let the ICC drift goes to ? Up to its death for the proletariat ?

October 2010

Fraction of the International Communist Left