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Activities Report of the Fraction of the International Communist Left
(October 2012)

1- A Report ?

Why an activities report ? What meaning, what sense can have such a report for a so small group as ours ? Why such an effort ?

The activities reports are a tradition for the organizations of the workers movement since they are a necessity in order these organizations can define their orientations and their perspectives of activities. For this definition be the most complete possible, it matters to draw a critical balance-sheet of the past activities. This means that the political organizations of the proletariat refer to and fit themselves within the historical organizational continuity, within a continuity of collective organization, which "obliges", which "compels", which imposes these political organizations, as political vanguard of the proletariat, to refer and to claim their own past. They can't, and their members must respect this obligation, "free" themselves of their history and of their class and political organizations' one. Any communist organization is responsible of its history and must take it in front of the proletariat. Nor their members, the communist militants - the communist commitment has no meaning but within a collective rejecting any individualism - are "free". Their only "individual freedom" lies in the fact they can dismiss militantism, they can quit the organization, the collective body, the very essence of the fight of their class.

Thus, for the proletariat and the communists, an activities report of organization is more than a simple mean to draw a balance-sheet and perspectives. Above all, it is the expression of a method that we qualify as "Party method" (and even as "Party discipline"') which belongs to the proletariat's vanguard organizations. It imposes the critical verification of the past orientations on the basis and the claim of the historical continuity and the Communist Program.

« Nobody ignores that before the formation of the Russian Social-Democrat Party, the revolutionary movement existed in our country under various forms. The following question has been often raised in our press : “Do we reject the legacy of the first generations of the cultured revolutionary class which was not marxist, which, actually, was not even socialist ; but which, without question, has had great merits in the past ?” That is our legacy, have we responded, and we accept it. We are the only continuators of the best part of the movement initiated by the cultured revolutionary class of 1850 up to 1880, and even well before. » (Zinoviev, The Origins of the Russian Communist Party, 1918, translated by us from French).

Even for a small group as ours, the necessity for making balance-sheets and drawing orientations of activities from these balance-sheets is imperative ; as disproportionate this work and this effort can seem to be at first sight in regards with our forces. We must point out the fact that our Fraction of the International Communist Left, coming from the Internal Fraction of the ICC, has been unable to realize such a balance-sheet before – while we had expressed its urgent need and while we had formally decided to do so more than a year ago –, manifested the growing difficulties and growing weaknesses we were confronted with. Some are peculiar to us. Others affects the whole proletarian camp and its main organizations – we'll try to come back on this in this report.

2- 2001-2008 : The Legacy of the Internal Fraction of the ICC and the defence of the "historical" ICC within the Communist Left

Though dissolved in 2008 – we come back on this after –, we carry on fully claiming the Internal Fraction of the ICC, its fight within the ICC against the opportunist drift which have openly and overwhelmingly overcome the latter since the 2001 organizational crisis and the expulsion of our fraction ; we carry on claiming its fight for the regroupment of the communist forces around the only organizational pole capable of being a genuine historical and political reference – we are talking of the ex-IBRP, today Internationalist Communist Tendency – and too claiming the validity of its intervention in the events of the classes struggle through its statements in the 49 issues of its bulletin as well as through its leaflets and communiques (the reader can refer to the web page http://fractioncommuniste.org/index_eng.php?SEC=b00 for the reduced English version of our bulletins¹ to get the list of the summaries of the bulletin of the Internal Fraction).

At first, within the ICC and then outside since we were expelled in March 2002, the activity of our internal fraction has been marked and defined by the fierce and daily fight against the political drift imposed on our organization by the new "leadership" and against the ceaseless attacks of any kind –  insults, false accusations, physical violence, censorship, expulsion of the "public" meetings – that the latter has only opposed to our political disagreements. Despite this daily battle and the nauseating ground on which the liquidationnist faction which imposed itself fraudulently², attempted to plunge us, we succeeded to determine our activities of fraction from the balance-sheet of the ICC drift. Our activity has been thus defined in various activities reports designed and intended to the members of the ICC as a whole which proposed a political alternative to the new opportunist orientation. One can still read them today and we proudly claim their political content³. More over, we have realized, from the minute of the weekly meetings of the International Secretariat and of the meetings of the International Bureau of the ICC of the years 1995-2001 an History of the IS (only in French : Historique du SI, 1e partie et 2e partie) which doesn't limit itself to refute the genuine falsification of the ICC history and the most extreme accusations against us (and other militants who could not then resist to the destruction work), nor even to highlight the dubious and indignous behaviour of a militant having things in common for the least with actions of a provocateur, if not worst ; this document goes further and, according to us, draws important concrete political and of principle lessons regarding the functioning of a communist organization ; in particular in a situation of internal crisis and with the presence of dubious individuals. These texts (the reports and the History) are constituent of the internal fraction, of its orientations and of its political development. They are and will remain, we are convinced, a reference not only for the "historians" who will want to establish the ICC history but above all for the militants and the political organizations of the proletariat of tomorrow.

We have carried on defending the political orientation, as weak and as questionable it could be, which have been adopted unanimously in the congresses of the ICC all along the 1990's and which still prevailed up to 2001. The defeat of this political orientation at the 14^th congress of the ICC in 2001 opened a Pandora's box and enabled opportunism and political and theoretical revisionism to rush into our organization at a speed we were far to imagine. In the space of a few months, theoretical and principle revisions were adopted at the congresses – without real debate, nor reflection, not discussion or "orientation" texts were published on the subjects – such as the abandonment of the notion of historical alternative "Imperialist War or Proletarian Revolution" (2003), the cycles crisis-war-reconstruction-new crisis (one of the basis for our conception of Capitalism Decadence) in 2005 and the rejection of the threat of any new generalized imperialist war (2007)... All these innovations, turning their back to the marxist principles and to the ICC basic positions, are the result of the replacement of the theory of "Capitalist Decadence" by the one of "Decomposition". We have systematically criticized and denounced through texts, all were published in our bulletin, the principle drift which was taking place.
As well, and to "theoretically" support all these fantasies aiming at destroying the theoretical and political legacy of our organization, the liquidationnist tendency had to set up woolly theories on Confidence and Solidarity, on Morality and Ethics, on the Culture of Debate, and including on Revolutionary Indignation ; the latter served as theoretical justification within the organization for the insults and the banning of speaking for the new minority that we were. Today the ICC is well discreet on all these fantasies. It is quite true that we have systematically denounced and ridiculed these great idealist and speculative theories which were marked by an a-classist, a-historical, approach up to pretend to the sanctification of a "Human Morality" above the social classes and history. All these bright ideas, terribly destructive for the consciousnesses and the communist convictions of the ICC militants who remained faithful to the original positions of their organization and more largely to those of the workers movement, could not but lead to political and concrete betrayals of the class struggle : first in the denounciation of the strike as a proletariat weapon by the German section at the very moment the OPEL workers of Bochum were on wildcat strike (2004) ; then in the public expression of solidarity of the ICC with the anti-riot policemen wounded during the repression of the students demonstrations in France (2006). But beyond these betrayals, it is all a councilist and petit-bourgeois approach which took hold of the ICC all along the years 2000, from the "fetishisation" of the General Assemblies – preferably the students' ones – up to the support to the ideology of the "Indignados" [the "Indignous" whose movement started in Spain up to the "Occupy Wall Street" in the United-States] and even the support to ideological themes put forwards by the bourgeoisie in order to counteract the workers struggle revival. The finale of this drift openly expressed itself in the opportunist opening and concessions towards anarchism that the Current has made the last years and which manifest a step in its drift up to the point this organization appears today, for the ones who are able to observe and read, in full deliquescence. Its apparent "good health" which is artificially maintained, won't resist to the first serious gust of wind of history and the Permanent Commission of Investigation – they call it Special Commission as the Stalinists called it Commission of Control – which is in charge of watching the loyalty and the ideological purity of the militants, and which was set up since 2001 and which has even justified a change of the Statutes in 2009, won't change nothing ; all the contrary.

For us, it is clear that it is essentially the permanent and determined affirmation of our theoretical, political and organizational continuity with our ICC and our fight against its opportunist drift that made fail the destruction and disparition enterprise directed against our fraction and its members. This political fight and the maintaining of our organized activity had quickly got a very significant echo and, actually, reduced to nothing and made still more ridiculous the accusations, the slanders, the insults and the public sentences – the worst and more serious being that we were cops. It too matter to underline the political and fraternal role of the IBRP – to a lesser extent the one of the International Communist Party-Proletarian [Le prolétaire] notably by its militants in France – in the ICC liquidationnists' failure to isolate us and make us condemned by all, so hoping to muzzle us.

3- The Struggle for the Regroupment of the Communist Forces around the IBRP (today the ICT)

One year after our expulsion, we drew a balance-sheet which has been published – in English too - in our bulletin 13 – Presentation/balance-sheet [actually the original text title was Work Perspective for our Fraction and Balance-sheet of the ICC Crisis] – in which we put forward another aspect of our fight, a second axis of our activities orientations : to open up to and to intervene towards the proletarian camp ; uppermost to the main historical groups of the Communist Left :

“Since we've decided to open our internal bulletins to the whole proletarian political milieu, organisations and their contacts and sympathizers, we consider that our area of internal discussion is not any more limited to the single ICC but to the whole political milieu which will have to become the active and determining factor for the building-up of the future world communist party. We think that the questions which are raised by the ICC crisis, its opportunist drift, concern and "belong" to the whole components of this milieu. Moreover, if we think we are still in the phase of "internal fraction", of "redressment", of the ICC with its method and its very precise political requirements, we have also to make up for the responsibilities that the ICC is giving up, such as the struggle for the unity and the defence of the Left Communist. Or too, if it's the case, in front of a crucial event (such as September 11^th, the war against Irak, or significant workers struggles) which would need the widest and the most united intervention of the revolutionaries.”

In the course of time, this aspect of our activity has become more central. We have tried to give priority as much as we could to our relationship with the IBRP which we considered as the only pole of regroupment remaining after the political and organizational failure of the ICC. This resulted in meetings, political debates and clarifications (in particular on the question of class consciousness, the Party, and the formation of the Partito Comunista Internazionalista in 1943⁴), a political collaboration which resulted in common meetings of our two organizations, public meetings of the IBRP in Paris supported by us and through translations of articles of this organization in French and Spanish. At the same time and in addition to this central orientation, we have systematically sought to respond to the various contacts, individuals and groups or circles, emerging thoughout the world – it can be referred to several correspondences we have published in our bulletin. In particular, we have begun to develop a political work of clarification with the Internationalist Communists of Montreal (today the IC-Klasbatalo) on the basis of the IBRP and ICC political platforms. After a period of belonging – or at least of close collaboration – with the Canadian group, the
Internationalist Workers Group, member of the IBRP and after their split with the IWG, the comrades were able to open up to the whole Communist Left – the ICC, the “bordiguist” ICP, ourselves. Our first task was to avoid that these comrades adopted an “against” positioning towards the IBRP after an experience they valued as unfortunate.

According to us, one gain of this orientation has been the debates we had with the IBRP even though we can regret that they couldn't be continued and developed up to today as they should have been. The official ICC has quickly given up at the same time some of its principle positions and the ground of the political and fraternal confrontation within the Communist Left. It has prefered to turn towards leftist, unionist and anarchist groups so breaking with its original policy and, at the same time, it has adopted a Resolution aiming at discrediting and destroying the IBRP⁵ – “what matters is to discredit the IBRP (…) that it disappears at the political level. If this policy ends up with its physical disappearance, it is all the better“. Our fraction found itself to be the only organized form to defend the political legacy of the ICC and of the one of the 1940 and 1950 group of the Communist Left of France (Gauche Communiste de France) ; specially on the question of the class consciousness, the Party, and of the formation of the ICP in 1943 in Italy. In great part, the merit of this political confrontation with the comrades of the IBRP has been to clear up several misunderstandings and above all, even more important, to clear up the obstacle between the two historical currents regarding the formation of the ICP in 1943-1945. We refer to the bulletins of the internal fraction of the ICC for this debate (bulletins #33 and #37 mentioned in footnote #4).
These discussions have clearly specified that our two historical currents shared the same position about the fact that the class consciousness was not the mechanical and immediate product of the economical struggles of the proletariat and moreover that it didn't come from “outside the working class”. It is in that sense that our two currents claim Lenin's fundamental vision in What is to be done ? (Lenin's book) and that they reject at the same time the “Economism” – its modern version being the “Councilism” that we can define as “Anti-partidism” – and the “Substitutionism” of which the “bordiguist” current is, in our opinion, the more obvious expression within the Communist Left. We can't develop here and we refer to the articles (we fully claim) of the International Review⁶ of the CCI to grasp what is the position of the genuine ICC.
A point on this : for long the ICC has been marked by Councilism and the May 1968 “student” spirit. It is only through political debates and fights, all along the years 1970 and 1980, that it had succeeded, at least in its public and official statements, to free itself from its anti-partidism and anti-Lenin prejudices. With great difficulty, it has to be admitted, up to the point that, very quickly, during and above all in the following of the 2001 organizational crisis, it has rapidly fell in its “youthful mistakes”. The main consequence of the ICC crisis of 2001 is that the defence of the political lessons of this organization, in particular on these “Party” questions but not only, has fallen on our single fraction.

Another consequence of the ICC past, of our past, appeared clearly during the debates with the IBRP. Though still carrying on claiming in particular the GCF (The Communist Left of France), we had to aknowledge that a great part of the criticisms that “we” had raised against the formation of the ICP in 1943-1945 shouldn't have been fundamentaly so all the more since the members of the GCF which the ICC comes from, agreed with the need and the formation of the Party in Italy at that time⁷.

Finally, it is following these discussions and these political clarifications that we realized that our ICC had never pronounced itself on the fundamental texts of the fraction of the “Italian Left”. Its claim has always limited itself to the review of the Fraction of the Left of the Communist Party of Italy, Bilan (1933-1938), and had never ventured further. And yet, in keeping with its political battles of the years 1970-1980 against Councilism and Anarchism, our ICC should have followed through the logical conclusion and re-appropriated and clearly claimed, even if in a critical manner, the Thesis of Roma of the CP of Italy (1922) and the Thesis of Lyon presented by the Left at the 3^rd Congress of the CP of Italy (Lyon, 1926).

The political implications of the political platform of the ICC, its principles and positions, as well as its political legacy, liberated from its “Councilist” and “Anarchist” infantile mistakes of its beginnings, lead to the special claim of the history, and the political legacy of the Italian Left⁸. Most of the positions of the ICC and the main ones, at the theoretical, political and organizational levels, come more from the experience of the Italian Left than of the Dutch and German ones.

After these discussions with the IBRP which had underlined our political closeness and the deep agreements on central and historical questions, a misunderstanding arose between the IBRP and ourself. Actually, one of the disagreements we keep on having with this organization – and which no discussion has come to raise – is about the conception of the organization today. For our part, we remain convinced that any communist organization, as small it can be, must consider itself and act as a centralized international group, with the same political platform in particular, what ever is its shape and its geographical presence. The IBRP, the ICT today, considers that the regroupment of the communist forces must be realized on the basis of the emergence of internationalist groups at the local and national levels and then, then only, it is possible to form a genuine international and centralized organization. Moreover the misunderstanding has increased by the fact the IBRP seemed to consider the final purpose of our discussions as a simple adhesion from our part to the political positions of the IBRP and the abandonment of the ICC positions. Except being finally convinced after a political confrontation of the positions – which we don't formally rule out in absolute terms –, we don't consider that the debates and the struggle for the communists' regroupment has the immediate and first aim to formally regroup in the same organization through the renunciation of political positions on which there is conviction. All the contrary, one of the first objectives of the struggle for regroupment is the exposition and the confrontation of the political positions in order they be clarified at the best – we refer to the results of our discussions with the IBRP on the question of consciousness and of the Party as an illustration of the validity of this method for political clarification and the rapprochement between different political currents.

4 – The End of the Internal Fraction of the ICC

This misunderstanding have had two important consequences for our internal fraction. First, it put a brake to the development of our rapprochement with the IBRP even though this one carries on developing. Second, it provoked a confusion amongst the members of our fraction which had not been discussed at the time – the comrades didn't raise it as a debate and preferred to silence their doubts and questionnings – and which ended up becoming a disagreement, amongst others, in our ranks in 2009.

We can't come back here on our past Conference in 2008. We refer to the Resolution of Activities of the Internal Fraction of the ICC (January 2008). On this occasion, we reaffirmed unanimously the general orientations of the fraction. If we read again this Resolution, we can note that it particularly puts the emphasis on two points that our fraction has not ceased to repeat since its constitution :

• the struggle for the regroupment around the IBRP as the only pole of regroupment ;

• the struggle against opportunism, particularly the one of the ICC still considered as a group of the Communist Left – it means a group to “defend” and to “redress” since it had not crossed the class frontier.

Unfortunately, and the experience of the years 1990 in the ICC had warned us up to the point we had strongly stressed that all the questions which had raised troubles within our ranks be discussed, the whole comrades of the fraction have adopted without real discussion the report of that time as well as the Resolution of Activities. One year later, the crisis of our fraction broke out. As usual, if so we can say, it appeared on organizational questions. We saw then reappearing a vision of the organization and of practices of functioning that the former majority of the ICC before 2001, of whom we are the continuity, had wanted to fight against and on which, despite the unanimous votes of the 1990's, it had been defeated. We had called this vision of the organization and of its practice in the ICC at that time, the “policy of injunction” [or the “policy of ordering”] by the Central Organs. We can sum up in broad outline the alternative as this : “whether the respect of the political orientations put forwards by the Central Organs by discipline what ever is the understanding and the conviction of the militants or whether winning the militant conviction over these orientations in order to gain the genuine communist conviction”.

But very quickly, other disagreements – sometimes contradictory – appeared which were questionning the whole orientation of the fraction. For some comrades :

• we had made a mistake when we refused to accept the conditions that the IBRP proposed us in order to join it, it means we should have accepted to give up our conviction on the political platform of the ICC ;

• we had made a mistake when we granted in a footnote the ICC statement which denounced an anti-terrorist campaign after the workers struggle in France against the attack on the pensions system in the fall 2008 (see only in French Le terrorisme n'est pas l'arme du prolétariat [Terrorism is not a proletariat's weapon]) ;

• the comrades also opposed to our first attitude of “openness” towards the comrades who had just quit the ICC and who were to set up the review Controverses. They considered that we had first and foremost to demand that they presented their excuses and formally retract on their active participation to the slanders, the insults, the violences exerted against us, on the public denunciations we suffered and on our expulsion during the 2001-2002 crisis of the ICC ;

• afterwards, it has been published in the bulletin 48 of the Internal Fraction [not in English], they opposed the proposal of web site made by the Internationalist Communists – Klasbatalo.

On each one of these questions, the comrades were challenging the orientations which had though been adopted at the 2008 Conference. Even worst, they were challenging questions of principle.
Very quickly, our fraction found itself paralysed. And the last two bulletins were realized by the only comrades called “minority” who were to form our present Fraction of the International Communist Left. Useless to come back here on the concrete conditions of this paralysis and the inevitable personal tensions such a situation provokes. We ended up agreeing on the conditions of separation. The comrades of the “majority” kept the name and the web site... they actually left to abandon since then. This end of the fraction and the desertion of its fight by the comrades is unfortunately not, we must aknowledge it, but a new manifestation of the bourgeoisie's pressure through its campaigns against communism which do attack directly, amongst other things, the militant conviction of the vanguard individuals.

Then we set up the Fraction of the International Communist Left and created another web site. Actually, we decided to carry on the work of the Internal Fraction and we completely claim its history. It is thus in the framework of this continuity we can now tackle the balance-sheet of our activities since 2008.

5- Balance-sheet of the Fraction (FICL)

The period since 2008 and our last Conference is marked, by the violent explosion of the economical crisis of capitalism, crisis which can't be hidden any more, crisis that the bourgeoisie is compelled to acknowledge openly and in front of which it has passed through various moments of panic. From the American estate crisis – the “subprimes” – to the European countries sovereign debt crisis, the capitalist world reveals openly to every one its impasse and plunges the world into a generalized recession, misery, wars and the preparation for the generalized imperialist war. We can't come back in this report on the analisis of this situation. It just matters to underline its implications for the historical relation of forces between the two antagonistic classes, bourgeoisie and proletariat, on which depends the humanity's fate.

The first consequence of the open crisis is the world generalization of the attacks against the working class in all countries ; these attacks are frontal and simultaneous and they force the international proletariat, despite its weaknesses, to resist.

The second consequence is the intensification of the imperialist rivalries, increased economical and “geo-strategical” competition, which drives the main imperialist poles to define themselves, to precise themselves, and whose one manifestation is the persistence and the multiplication of local wars ; another one is the more and more direct tensions between great powers as we can see at the very moment between Japan and China ; and finally, other particularly important manifestation, the strengthening of the military expenses which obliges all national capitalisms and above all the main ones to redouble their efforts to follow the rhythm of militarization imposed by the crisis and the very dynamic of imperialist rivalries. This last manifestation of the imperialist logic imposes at its turn a doubling of the attacks against the proletariat who have not only to pay for the capitalist crisis but also have to pay for war. We don't develop any more here.

Consequently, our fraction carries on claiming the fundamental analysis of the ICC and of marxism in regards with the alternative “imperialist war or proletarian revolution” as the only possible – it was precisely one of the first fundamental points that the ICC of today had liquidated at its 15^th Congress in 2005. In particular, we carry on claiming the notion of “historical course” as our organization had defined it and specified it in the years 1970-1980.

So it is by the yardstick of our understanding of the situation and more widely of the historical course that we have to evaluate the validity of our activities. What is the situation of the historical course according to us ?

The bourgeoisie's offensive against the perspective of Communism

The anti-communist campaigns have provoked a withdrawal of the extending of class consciousness within the workers ranks. In particular, the “idea” that another society in stead of capitalism is possible, has been largely moved aside of the workers consciousnesses. Besides the withdrawal of the struggles of the years 1990, the success of the capitalist ideological offensive still determines today the content and the dynamic of the workers struggles which break out and generalize in all countries – and all particularly in Europe. But for all that, have we come back to the situation which prevailed in the years 1930 when the international proletariat tended everyday to let itself dragged in warlike ideologies – in particular nationalism and the opposition (through anti-fascism) between “democracy” and fascism ? Have we come back to the situation when the working class of various countries, in particular the ones of capitalism's central countries, adhered to great parties and unions as the Stalinists and Social-Democrats ones ?That is not the case. Nevertheless suffering, as never, the ceaseless offensive of bourgeois ideology, the great masses of the proletariat are far from submitting to it. Even though it is not yet capable to put forwards, not even the slightest bit, its own perspective, it is far from surrender hands and feet tied to its exploiters. Currently, above all since 2008, the objective reality of capitalism, it means its open crisis and the violent and massive attacks against the international proletariat, imposes to the latter to resist and to struggle more and more massively. If the proletarians may individually forget the reality of classes struggle, the bourgeoisie – since it knows where is the genuine danger for itself and for its system and while it doesn't stop declaring the inanity of such a concept – leads a class struggle, a true class war, in order to carry on defending its exploiting class interests. The crisis doesn't but accentuate its determination and the setting up of teams and men within its State apparatus corresponding to this war. In brief, since the international proletariat “is not defeated”, in particular it is not ready to accept the sacrifices the bourgeoisie wants to impose upon it because the crisis and the needs for imperialist war, and since the bourgeoisie has no other choice now but to attack violently, massively, frontally, simultaneously, the whole international proletariat, we consider that the “historical course” is towards massive confrontations between the classes. Obviously, this doesn't mean the path to revolution is great open – the proletariat can be well defeated in these historical confrontations.

There is in particular one factor which can not prevent the development of this dynamic to massive confrontations but which can limit its potentialities, and still worse becoming a cruel lack for the success of the “course towards revolution” : the situation of the communist forces.

These ones have also suffered the negative effects of the anti-communist campaigns even though with some interval in relation to the great majority of the working class. But before tackling this central and determining factor for the resolution of the historical problem we are facing, this activities report have to first evaluate the balance-sheet of our modest intervention in the situation.

Why an intervention ?

For any communist organization, the intervention towards the class – publications, leaflets, communiques, etc... – in the historical situation, in the workers struggles indeed but not only, is a central dimension of its activity what ever is its size and its immediate influence. It must be a permanent concern that only the concrete conditions of its realization – real state of the militant forces, relation of forces between the classes, degree of the repression of the enemy class and its State apparatus which is precisely determined by that relation of forces – can limit the extend and the intensity.

Linked and in coherence with our vision of the construction of the party, in particular in accordance with the understanding that any communist group must set up itself as an international and centralized organization, as an embryo of communist party, the intervention has to be international and historical which doesn't exclude, and even all the contrary do favour, its indispensable “declension” at the immediate and local levels according to the circumstances. Believing that resolute intervention, and thus the effort and even the political fight for its realization, is not but for the party of tomorrow because the weakness of both the workers struggles and the militant forces, their influence in the class – what is the point of mobilizing and contributing so much efforts to distribute a few thousands leaflets which won't change nothing to the situation since “nobody reads us” ? – turns the back to the responsibilities of the political vanguard of the proletariat. At their turn, these reluctances, hesitations, doubts – as expressions of the wrong understanding of the role of class consciousness in the classes struggle, in particular expressions of political concessions to anti-party and a-political visions which belong to the opportunist political current Lenin defined as “economism”, we today qualify as “councilism” – come to reinforce and to worsen the initial lack of militant conviction and to weaken it even more. It is also at that level that the “danger of councilism” manifests itself as the ICC had defined it in the years 1980 (see International Review 40 : The function of revolutionary organizations: The danger of councilism) and as such it is exerted within the very proletarian camp and its political organizations. In that sense, at the level of the “external” intervention as well as at the level of the “internal” functioning – see the first part about why a report ? – we claim a party method, included for a small group as our.

Let's carry on our remarks a little further. It would be erroneous to see in that method a kind of “training” for tomorrow, a kind of “formal” intervention and to “remain trained”. Not only the today intervention of the communist groups is necessary and – relatively – effective for the communist propaganda point of view but it can also be decisive for the communist agitation in some particular moments, all specially in some workers struggles and at crucial episodes of theses ones. An example amongst others : the “Black March” of the Asturian miners to Madrid July 11^th 2012. The demonstration has been organized and controlled by the unions and the Left political forces and these ones aimed at wiping out any concrete willingness for the extension and the generalization of the struggle to all sectors of the class. Nevertheless the “marchers” have been receiving the active sympathy and welcomes of the whole Spanish working class all along the road and in Madrid. Thus the march has been a particular moment which was containing a political stake for the two antagonistic classes : the transformation of this specific Union Day of Action into a moment of generalization of the fight to all the sectors of the class. As slim could we estimate this possibility, it was nevertheless real and the communists had to intervene with resolution putting forwards the alternative of the spreading and the generalization through concrete slogans for that day and even within the demonstration itself. What ever could be then the immediate effect of this intervention, the ability to present an immediate and concrete alternative would have inevitably crystallized the oppositions by highlighting them to the eyes of everybody and as so the communist intervention would have been decisive ; or if we prefer, it is so that the intervention would have been a concrete, material, factor in this instant of political confrontation between the classes. And the communists would have played the role of political vanguard assuming their role of political leadership by putting forwards concrete and clear-cut orientations of fight⁹.

Our intervention since 2008

We have published 9 issues of our International Communist Bulletin since the end of the Internal Fraction of the ICC at the end of 2009. We have to add to these issues the last two of the bulletin of the Internal fraction, the #48 and #49, we have entirely taken on and while the internal fraction was finding itself paralysed. With the exception of the Bulletin #2, we have always taken position on the global situation and in particular on the evolution of the classes struggle in front of the deepening and the spreading of the capitalist economical crisis. We have mostly defended the perspective of massive classes confrontations to come and whose process was starting with the massive struggles in Western Europe – fall 2010, Spain, France, Great-Britain, Germany... –, followed by the workers struggles and the revolts in the Arabic countries – North-Africa mostly, Tunisia and Egypt – while the workers mobilization in Greece kept on and even deepened, at the same time this renewal of the struggles found its expressions on the American continent up to China. This situation of struggles “responding” the ones to the others, spreading from Western Europe up to the Mediterranean Sea, going around it, even making a quick stop in Israel, before coming back to Europe via the Greek fire, starting with economical demands, then raising political questions up to directly confront the States – some governments had to be overthrown – to come back later at the economical level, in brief “mixing” struggle against economical misery and against the dictatorship of the States, whether they be democratic or not, is a situation, a process, that Rosa Luxemburg in particular had studied and revealed defining it as the process of the “Mass Strike”¹⁰. It is what we have attempted to highlight in various articles. Then in the followings, we have intervened more precisely on mobilizations and on more immediate stakes of the massive struggles in Greece and Spain both for supporting them and for calling to follow the Greek example – mobilization, refusal of austerity and of the attacks, politicization of the movement through the different attempts to paralyse the State, in particular the attempts of blockage of the Parliament against which the Greek bourgeoisie had no other resort but to utilize the Stalinist militia for preventing its realization ; and we criticized and denounced the ideological counter-offensive of the bourgeoisie through the use of the democratic mystification and its declension to the specific situations of each country, Tunisia, Egypt, etc. up to the more sophisticated with the movement of the “indignados” [indignous] in Spain we have first criticized, then denounced afterwards because it direct use by the bourgeois ideology. In this phase, we have reproduced several articles of the ICT whose statement was similar to ours ; at least it sets the one and the others on the same side of the class barricade while the whole councilist milieu, and in first place, the “official” ICC of today, took back into its own account the democratic fetishisation around the “indignados” – the “example” to be followed according to the ICC.

During this period, we have published and distributed two “international” leaflets” on the mobilization in Greece (March 2010 and October 2011). The first has been realized and distributed with the Internationalist Communists of Montreal (ICM), today IC-Klasbatalo. We have also published an additional communiqué on the struggle in Greece because its sharpening and the increasing political stakes that the situation raised in Greece itself as well as for the international proletariat. As well, with some lateness, at least two weeks, we have published a communiqué on the miners' struggle in the Spanish Asturias.

Our intervention didn't limit itself only to the workers struggles even though these ones have been at its core. If we intervened on several occasions in the bulletin of the Internal Fraction of the ICC about the bursting of the economical crisis since 2007 – Crisis of the real estate, financial crisis? Or more simply a capitalist crisis of overproduction ?, bulletin 41, October 2007 or even in the issue 42 Financial Crisis: A new manifestation of capitalism’s bankruptcy –, we did not came back a lot on the subject since it has become obvious for everybody that the open crisis is not but at its very beginnings. Even the bourgeois class, economists and media, even politicians, acknowledge it. There is no more immediate and decisive political stake between the classes on the reality of the capitalist economical dead-end. On the other hand, the question of imperialist war and of the historical alternative “war or revolution” remain a fundamental stake that the communists must denounce relentlessly. Four our part, we have intervened on the conflict between Russia and Georgia, on the war in Libya, and on the increasing definition of the great imperialist poles, polarization yet accelerated by the generalized fall in the economical crisis which worsens even more the economical and imperialist competition.

Globally, we think that in regards with our militant reality, our forces, above all since the split of the other comrades of the Internal Fraction of the ICC, we have succeeded to face our task of political intervention and we have made the good choices in terms of political priority. Nevertheless, we have suffered increasing organisational and militant difficulties for taking on this work.

6 – Internal Difficulties and Limits of the Fraction

Today, at the very moment of this balance-sheet, our fraction has formally no more than two comrades of which one is particularly and badly affected at the physical level. The concrete work, material work if so we can say, of our group doesn't rely but on one comrade.

This situation is not simply due to personal “objective” realities. Of course, the dispersal of the three comrades of the fraction, one in Mexico, the others geographically separated in France, of course too the respective personal difficulties of which some are real and important – the living conditions of the comrade in Mexico, the health of one of the two comrades in France –, are material elements which made more and more difficult the political commitment of the whole. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the events, pressure of the anti-communist campaigns, lack of immediate results – the contacts in general, the process with the IC-K, the slowness of the evolution of our relationships with the ICT, the relative isolation too – have contributed to shake our understanding of our orientations and to weaken above all our political and militant convictions. It is particularly clear as regards with our comrade in Mexico. The last two years, the comrade's commitment has reduced up to the point the rest of the fraction could not any more count on him for its regular activities which thus begun to be strongly reduced : the realization of the bulletin, the internal discussions, the intervention in particular towards the contacts relatively numerous in Mexico... Caught in personal and daily difficulties, our comrade has progressively disengaged himself and did not participate but formally and intermittently to the activities of the fraction.
This disease, the weakness of comprehension and conviction, is for the essential as we recall it, the result of the ideological offensive of the bourgeoisie.

7 – The Proletarian Camp, the ICT, the Regroupment and the Struggle against Opportunism

One of the key factors of the outcome of the massive confrontations between the classes whose process already engaged is speeding up, is the ability of the proletariat's political vanguard to fulfill its role of political leadership. And so to take on the political battles of any order which impose to it : the fight for the regroupment of the communist forces and for the Party, the struggle against opportunism in its own ranks, the fight for the intervention in the workers struggles, the fight against apolitism, the fight against the forces of the bourgeoisie in the workers' ranks (unions and Left parties), the defence of marxism and of the principles of the workers movement, in particular and above all the one of the revolutionary and communist perspective, etc...

Since the bursting of the present open crisis which marks for good the capitalism' s bankruptcy, and in order to look for reducing heavily the only fatal danger that the struggling proletariat do represent for it, the world bourgeoisie has above all doubled up its ideological anti-communist campaigns. Especially it is the automatic and constant offensive the international bourgeoisie leads against the working class since the end of the USSR and the fall of Stalinism (which it expands great effort to present as communism). This offensive presents itself at different levels : denigrating and disguising marxism (the theory of Communist Revolution), the historical experience of the working class (the Russian Revolution of 1917 above all), its political and organisational lessons (all specially the Bolshevik Party and Lenin).

These ceaseless campaigns led since 1989 carry on still today having a negative impact on the development of the workers struggles and on the proletariat's ability to defend itself as a class with a minimum of efficacy at the economical level as well as political (see The Historical Perspective of "Communism" is the Key of the Proletariat's Present Struggles in our International Communist Bulletin n°9, August 2012). But they also have a negative impact as well strong on the communist groups and their members. All the history of the workers movement, at first its political organizations, is marked by the theoretical and political fights between the revolutionary Left and political opportunism which expresses the pressure and the introduction of bourgeois ideology within its own ranks. It is a permanent feature. Nevertheless, it is not an abstract fight on general principles but it always passes through particular battles, through immediate and concrete political stakes.

We could have thought that the opportunist drift of the ICC during the years 2000 was not but a specific phenomenon whose cause and dynamic were only due to its own weaknesses and that they did not express nothing else. Today, it appears increasingly clear that the drift of this organization which used to be the main and the most important one of the Communist Left – at least in strength and international influence – in the years 1980-1990, was only the most striking result of the enormous pressure that the anti-communist campaigns has also provoked on the communist forces. The attacks against marxism, against the historical lessons of the workers movement, all specially against the inestimable experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in Russia in 1917, and against Lenin and the Bolshevik Party, but also against the rest of the Communist Left of that time and in particular against Rosa Luxemburg, have received some echo in the proletarian camp up to the point that today a number of individuals or circles – often stemming from the ICC even though not only – and this very organization itself do relay the ideological and political themes directed against marxism and the perspective of communism. With regards to the ICC of the years 2000, the introduction of idealist and a-classist concepts – we don't come back here on what we have briefly recalled previously – has opened the “theoretical” door to the adoption of openly opportunist and revisionist positions up to the opening and the practical and active collaboration of this organization with anarchism and up to its will to make the latter a full component of the... Communist Left ! And this to the detriment of the intervention towards the other real components of this Left. But the opportunist drift of the Current has largely favoured also the renewal of the milieu of councilist kind around a group as Internationalist Perspectives, the circle Controverses, indeed the publisher Smolny, around whom various “ex” and “disappointed of the ICC” have crowded and are living a “new youth” up to firing on all cylinders against marxism, the experience of the workers movement and all particularly against the Russian Revolution and Lenin's Bolshevik Party¹¹ ; but also against the present Communist Left that, in the following of the present ICC calling for the IBRP destruction, they have declared it was bankrupted.

In this way, the ICC has become incapable of playing a true role of pole of international regroupment because its opportunist drift, its opening to anarchism and leftism, and because the assertion of the sectarian tendency – it could be already affected by it while we were still in its ranks but it had not become then dominant and permanent – which asserts itself against the rest of the Communist Left and particularly against the Internationalist Communist Tendency (ICT, ex-IBRP).
Of course, we consider that the question of the revolutionaries' regroupment cannot be posed but in the theoretical and political framework of the Communist Left and the supporters of the fundamental, indispensable, essential, crucial role of the Communist Party as political vanguard and leadership of the proletariat. From this, all the “councilist” milieu can't but oppose to the process towards the formation of the Party and becoming objectively the relay for the ideological and political themes of the bourgeoisie. For instance, it has been the case of the l"Appel au milieu pro-révolutionnaire" (Appeal to Pro-Revolutionaries)¹² realized by Internationalist Perspective, supported with enthusiasm by several circles and groups, in particular French, Belgium and Italian. We rejected it at the time and we can't come back on it here.

The Internationalist Communist Tendency

“Because of its direct organic continuity with the Italian Left, because its program, because its political analysis and because its international organisational existence, the IBRP remains so the only organisation which has today the means to assume a real policy of international regrouping. And, actually, it constitutes the only true pole around which the elements and groups which tend to come close to the positions of the Communist Left can refer to and around which they can really "regroup" (Resolution of Activities of the Internal Fraction of the ICC - January 2008 - Bulletin #43, IFICC). Today we have not changed our mind. The ex-IBRP, the ICT, is the only organization which, for its history, for its programmatical positions, its statement on the question of the Party and for its ability to set itself at the political vanguard of every ideological and political battle imposed by the bourgeoisie, is actually the pole of reference and regroupment for the communist forces and individuals who want to work for the setting up of international Communist Party of tomorrow. Two concrete facts have come to confirm our assessment : the publication in English of an article Marxism or Idealism – Our Differences with the ICC written by the ICT comrades in Germany and the editorial article of Revolutionary Perspectives #59 – The Difficult Path to the Revival of Working Class Struggle. This two material facts are the expression that the ICT can, and must, be at the core of the theoretical and political confrontations within the communist camp – until today we have been the only ones to respond to this texts : Agreement with the ICT : the time of gathering around the "Communist Programme" comes and prepares itself (Communist Bulletin #7, FICL) – even though we could not do it as deeply as the comrades' texts required.

However, we have to acknowledge that, from our point of view and as far as we can judge it from “outside”, it means without knowing the all internal reality and all the tasks of this organization, the ICT doesn't take on with the necessary resolution and conviction this role of pole or axis of reference and regroupment. It is true, it seems to us, from the international regroupment point of view which is often seen and understood as a simple “adhesion to the ICT” and not as a confrontation and clarification of the political positions and as common work, collaboration, intervention as united as possible, which can lead to – it is the aim at full term – the formal regroupment in a single and same organization. It is also true, it seems to us, in regards to the hesitation that the ICT can show for criticizing and even denouncing the opportunist erring ways of the other components of the Communist Left and the attacks against marxism led by the councilist milieu.

For all that, the forces do exist within the ICT for engaging resolutely in the work of regroupment at the international level as well as the will to fight against the opportunist attacks coming from the proletarian camp itself. We have welcomed the articles of the CWO which denounced the political drift of the ICC ; we have supported the ICT statement about the setting up of the Istituto Damen ; at its time, we had also underlined the importance of the IBRP Conference of May 2008¹³, in particular for having decided to engage into the path of a greater international centralization with the setting up of the genuine International Bureau¹⁴.

But above all, we carry on thinking that the ICT should engage more resolutely than it seems to do in the political orientation put forwards by the editorial of Revolutionary Perspectives #59 :

“In short, serious revolutionaries have a real battle on their hands to dismiss both the illusions of the “anti-capitalists” and the manipulations of the old Left. We need to create a movement which unites all those who can see the problems we are talking about here. This movement (or party) has to have at its head a clear vision of the society we want. We would call it a communist programme. It has to be based on the autonomous struggles of the working class as they increasingly break free from the shackles a hundred years of reaction has imposed on us. Its goal has to be that we abolish the exploitation of wage labour and money, as well as the state, standing armies and national frontiers. We have to reassert the original view of Marx that we are fighting for a society of “freely associated producers” where the principle is “from each according to his ability and to each according to his need”.
At the moment there are many groups and individuals around the world who recognise this but we are either too scattered, or too divided, to take a lead in forming such a united movement. Some object to it on principle declaring that the spontaneous movement will take care of itself. We wish we could share their confidence. We think responsible revolutionaries should re-examine their differences, asking ourselves if the things that we thought divided us now do so in the light of this new period in working class struggle. We should emphasise not the little we disagree on but the much that we agree on. We should seek to work together in common struggles not simply to recruit this or that individual to our own organisation, but to widen the consciousness of what a real working class struggle means. In the face of the obstacles we have outlined above it would be suicidal not to” (we underline).

We fully fit into this orientation - Agreement with the ICT : the time of gathering around the "Communist Programme" comes and prepares itself (Communist Bulletin #7, FICL) – and we regret that this one seems not to be really taken on, or understood, up to our knowledge by the whole ICT as a central and international orientation for this organization. On the contrary, we think this orientation should be one of the axis of the ICT international intervention and of any consequent communist group above all in the historical period of massive classes confrontations which begins.

8 – Relationship with the IC-Klasabatalo

Guided by this political orientation since the formation of the Internal Fraction of the ICC, we have systematically attempted to respond to the contacts and groups who wrote us, indeed to take contact by ourselves.

Since 2006, we have developed particularly close relationships with the Internationalists Communists of Montréal (ICM), today the Internationalist Communists-Klasbalo (ICK) – http://klasbatalo.blogspot.fr/. In a first time, our intervention – correspondences and trips – towards the comrades aimed at avoiding them to fall into an “anti-IBRP” attitude and statement after their unfortunate and painful experience with its Canadian group the Internationalist Workers Group (IWG). We refused to “take sides” and struggled for convincing the comrades that the IBRP remained the only pole of international regroupment and that their future as militants and as a group newly constituted could not be but in the framework of this understanding. We then tried to develop discussions and a process of political clarification with the comrades in particular around the political platform of the IBRP and the ICC. Even though this process remained largely incomplete, according to us, it has developed positively for the essential : despite the discredit they received from the ICT, the comrades carried on – as our fraction – to fit clearly their positions and their activities in the perspective of the regroupment of the Communist Left considering that the ICT was at its core ; they ended up adopting basic positions which, even though close to the ICC ones, are not far from those of the ICT (see Basic positions of the ICK). It meant that, at the programmatical point of view, we found ourselves on the same positions of principles. Thereafter, the ICK intervened with us through leaflets in various occasions and our two groups have published on their respective web site statements of both groups. In short, a process of collaboration and common intervention begun to develop. Finally, the comrades, convinced – at least apparently – by our vision of the proletarian camp and of the process of regroupment, had begun to be involved in the same orientations as ours ; it has been very clear when they presented their Proposal for an online discussion forum within the Communist Left¹⁵.

In this dynamic and after another direct meeting, our present fraction, the FICL thought it was time to propose to the comrades to engage more concretely in a process of organizational rapprochement. Far for being in contradiction with our aim of regrouping around the ICT, this organizational perspective fitted into the framework of the communists' reinforcement and unity around the ICT. It is true that the difficult and contentious state of relations between the ICT Canadian group and the ICK did not enable and still does not enable these comrades to consider in the short term any collaboration. Determined to set up this orientation of rapprochement, we proposed to the comrades the realization of an internal bulletin of the two groups which would be the tool of the confrontation and the clarification of the positions. Two issues of this bulletin have been realized. It has been materially taken on by our fraction at the expense of important efforts that the enthusiastic perspective towards a larger international regroupment greatly justified.

Unfortunately, at that very moment the relatively homogeneous dynamic of the ICK on the political orientations we had in common reversed itself. Besides the demobilizing effect that could have provoked the split within the Internal Fraction of the ICC amongst the comrades, the political offensive of the councilist milieu, in particular the new seemingly “brilliant” circle around the publication Controverses and its web site declaring “the historical bankruptcy of the Communist Left” and calling for the destruction of its organizations – logical continuation for “former ICC members of the years 2000” of the policy of this organization aiming at destroying the IBRP –, has provoked a real trouble amongst the comrades of the ICK and the calling into question of the political orientations we shared – up to their adoption of a point of view largely influenced by Controverses on the reality of the Communist Left. It is important to note that this offensive against the Communist Left is not only developed by the only franco-belgium councilist milieu – to which we see today adding an Italian group Connessioni – but also that it has its Italian variant and anti-ICT with the creation of the Istituto Damen which takes back the thesis about the Communist Left bankruptcy. This direct attack against the very existence of the main organizations of the Communist Left which defend and fight for the vital necessity of the Party – since they call implicitly or explicitly for their dissolution – by groups or political circles which claim communism, relays a particular component of the ideological offensive of the bourgeoisie against communism.

We have published the ICK text which expressed this “change” (only in French : Contribution à un état des lieux de la Gauche communiste internationale (les Communistes internationalistes-Klasbatalo) and our critical response (only in French and Spanish) in our Bulletin communiste international n°4. As a result, the essential content of the internal bulletin focused on this question until the discussion begun to block itself. Our fraction decided then, advising the ICK, to take note of the break, at least of the suspension, of the process of organizational rapprochement with the stoppage of the publication of the bulletin.

We can't come back here in detail on the ICK's path since then and up to a few months back. The comrades begun then quite quickly to realize the dead-end the Controverses and councilists' orientation was driving them to. Afterwards they launched into risky initiatives towards the IWG-ICT in Canada without principles and without any clear orientation which damaged even more their relation with the ICT. Then we had to send them several critical letters which have certainly helped to provoke amongst them contradictory debates (see on their blog : Vues et positions politiques divergentes dans les CIK).
For our part, we can assess that we had also our part in this momentary failure. We have lacked of determination in our initial approach whose expression has been some lateness in our intervention towards the ICK. The result has been that our more resolute intervention towards a rapprochement overlapped with an ICK's important political withdrawal. The other lesson it matters to draw¹⁶ is our incapability to lead a serious and sufficiently thorough debate on the positions of principles, on the political platform, on the positions of the Communist Left (and thus on the uncompromising criticism of councilism), and above all on the indispensable political break the individuals coming to the communist positions must fulfil with the leftist positions.

Despite our reorientation towards them, we have carried on remaining open to the debate and to the fraternal confrontation with the ICK. These ones – it is their strength and the expression of their vitality – realized quite rapidly that their erratic political “orientations” of the last two years could not but drive them to the dead-end and at last to their disappearance. After their internal discussions, they ended up coming back on their previous statement on the state of the Communist Left – Retour sur une "contribution à un état des lieux de la Gauche communiste (Bulletin communiste #9). The text is from May 2012. The fundamental obstacle which had stopped the process of organizational rapprochement so seems to be removed.

Perspectives for our fraction

Today more than ever, the proletariat requires its political vanguard and the revolutionaries' responsibility is multiplied. Capital's crisis is unsolvable and it reveals this system's bankruptcy ; the bourgeoisie's attacks against the working class can't but intensify until demanding the final sacrifice in the generalized imperialist war ; the proletariat has no choice but to resist and the historical course leads to massive confrontations between the classes. In these massive fights, the international proletariat can't do without its more resolute fraction, it means its political vanguard. The bourgeoisie's attacks don't limit to the only economical level but also to the political and ideological levels. It is in particular at the level of the class consciousness, and notably the one which corresponds to the proletarian perspective of Communism, that the revolutionaries work in the direction of their regroupment in order to form the leading political Party of the class without which, we can be sure, the proletariat will fail and humanity will be destroyed.

The fundamental orientations of our fraction are confirmed and even reinforces for it as well as for the whole communist vanguard. In this sense, we fully agree with and we fully support the “appeal” put forwards by the ICT in the editorial of Revolutionary Perspectives #59 (and which confirms what we have always said : this organization is at the core of the communists' regroupment) : “We think responsible revolutionaries should re-examine their differences, asking ourselves if the things that we thought divided us now do so in the light of this new period in working class struggle. We should emphasise not the little we disagree on but the much that we agree on”. In front of these elements, dramatical speeding up of the situation, communists' lateness, orientation of regroupment of the ICT as unique existing pole of regroupment, we are led to raise the following question : is our fraction still the best tool for taking on this reconfirmed and strengthened orientations ?

The question of the “recovery” [“redressement”] of the opportunist ICC has now become, according to us, of secondary order which doesn't mean ruling out the necessary struggle against opportunism. And the communists' regroupment is the central question for the situation especially as they have seriously fallen behind on that level. Facing these requirements, it seems to us that our fraction as it presently exists is no more the best tool. In this sense, we propose to those who are politically the closest to us, notably the ICK, to engage a process of setting up a new organization after, of course, thorough discussions and an agreement of a platform of positions and common political orientations.

For us, it is obvious that the ICT, as unique and genuine pole of reference today, must be an active factor in this process and help in order it starts positively. For us, we will carry on placing the whole of our activities, in particular the fundamental ones aiming at the regroupment of the communist forces, around the ICT and what it does represent from the historical point of view. For we are more than ever convinced of the imperious necessity of the Party, organ of the proletariat's political leadership, as expression of the higher class consciousness, for the success of the massive confrontations between the classes which are brewing. Without a communist vanguard's minority, it means regrouped in an international and centralized Party, the proletariat runs to historical defeat.

More than ever, and despite the anti-communist campaigns at all levels which provoke doubts, abandons, despair, fatalism, resignation, scepticism, even cynicism, we are convinced that the communists' duty

" ... is, at any moment, without fear and without reproach, to « tell the truth », it means to make the masses see, clearly and avoiding any subterfuge, what are their duties in a given situation, to proclaim the program of action and to put forward the slogans the situation requires. The concern of knowing if and when the revolutionary masses will rise up is not a socialism's matter [today the communist groups]. This concern, socialism can put it to history. If it has complied with its duty in the sense we have just indicated, it will strongly contribute to unleash the revolutionary elements that the situation entails and it will have made the necessary for speeding up the movement of the masses. But, even if assuming the worst, even if socialism first seems to talk to a brick wall, if the masses don't follow it, in the end it will always and inescapably present a morale and political situation of which it will harvest the fruits a hundredfold when the historical hour will come” (Rosa Luxemburg, The Alternative, 1917, www.marxism.org, translated by us from the French version).

October 2012

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