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After the communique about the IGCL constitution, we have received various reactions. They all were positive and most of them encouraged us to fulfill our political orientation, in particular the fact we disolved "our former groups" and regroup in a single one and that we want to work for the communist forces regroupement. Amongst them, some expressed questionnings or doubts about our ability to put it into practice and about the constitution of a new group while we affirm that we want to struggle for the regroupment around the ICT. Thus why not adhering to this one ? One of the questionnings has been sent by a comrade from Canada in regards with the relationship that our group, present in this country, could develop towards the Canadian group of the ICT : the IWG. Actually that's public knowledge in this country that the latter had developed up until now a policy of "ignorance", and even of hostility, towards the Klasbatalo - Internationalist Communists whose militants are now members of the IGCL and constitute the Canadian "section" of our group. We publish here our response to the comrade's letter. We think our response presents in a very concrete manner - far from the "good intentions" - the policy and the attitude we want to develop towards the unique pole of international regroupment which do exist today : the Internationalist Communist Tendency.
Hey,
Thanks, but I just received your communiqué yesterday. I have one question in particular. The following passage mentions a regroupment with the ICT, ex-IBRP: “our group will orient its intervention in order to facilitate the process of regroupment around the Internationalist Communist Tendency - around its positions and its organization as a unique international pole capable of embodying the legacy of the Communist Left”. And here I thought you were at daggers drawn with the IWG here in Montreal...
Soon, F
Dear comrade,
We’d just like to respond to the political question of your November 13th mail about our communiqué: “The following passage mentions a regroupment with the ICT, ex-IBRP: “our group will orient its intervention in order to facilitate the process of regroupment around the Internationalist Communist Tendency - around its positions and its organization as a unique international pole capable of embodying the legacy of the Communist Left”. And here I thought you were at daggers drawn with the IWG here in Montreal..."
First, the position that our new group adopted on the “Proletarian Camp” in general - i.e. the communist forces - and the ICT as the international organization claiming the legacy of the historical current of the Communist Left, continues the contradictory debates that Klasbatalo-IC and the FICL has developed since 2010 on this matter. Just prior to our constitutional conference, May 2013 to be exact, the two groups came to define a common statement and intervention on this question. We can’t go over the given arguments in detail, here, but you can easily refer to the K-IC’s text [in French only, for now], Retour sur une "contribution à un état des lieux de la Gauche communiste"1.
However, it’s worth noting that we intend to deal with this question from an historical and international point of view - rather than immediate and local, namely non-contingent and... not ‘particular to Montreal’. Both dimensions, historic and international, are essential in evaluating the place and the potential role that this or that historical current, indeed this or that group linked to one of these currents, can and must play in the process of international regroupment of revolutionary forces. At the end of the debate, these were K-IC’s conclusions and those that our group adopts for its own account today.
“Finally, the way we now understand the position of the FGCI is no longer (...) but to really struggle in order that the ICT, the sole organization of the present Left which has the political potential to act as a pole of regroupment, becomes this pole of regroupment that small communist groups such as ours obviously need.” (this we emphasize)
Speaking of the process of regroupment around the historical and international pole, that the ICT represents, does not therefore mean that we can reduce this process to a pure and simple adhesion to the ICT. If that’s the case, fine! But it is not always possible, nor even desirable in itself, particularly when a certain number of non-clarified, or at least ‘unidentified’, political divergences remain. A process of regroupment from the communist point of view, presents diverse dimensions of which the adhesion and organizational regroupment are but one expression amongst others; and quite often they are merely the end, the last stage, the result, of other dimensions. Amongst these, exists the fundamental one, especially today, of developing debates at the international level around the positions of this pole and aiming to reinforce and support it as much as possible at the political and organizational levels as well as in its international intervention towards the working class and within the revolutionary milieu, or camp.
These fundamental criteria determine our position and our intervention as an international group at general and international levels, as well as at the various local and more immediate levels. These criteria already determine, and will continue to determine our fraternal attitude and if possible our collaboration towards the Canadian group of the ICT, the IWG.2
So, we are not, as you say, “at daggers drawn with the IWG in Montreal”. On the other hand, it is true that the IWG, up to now, has not really recognized the K-IC as a group of the Communist Left. In this respect, it was their problem, not ours; sooner or later, it would have been up to them to clarify their position towards the K-IC, while remaining faithful to the traditions and political positions of the Communist Left and the ICT as a whole. However, the ICT as a whole had been able to develop fraternal relations with K-IC for some time, now.
Now, it is up to the IWG to take its stand on our new group. Does it consider the IGCL a group of the Communist Left, with which it has to develop fraternal relations since we are historically in the same class camp and since, in particular, we generally defend the same programmatic positions and platform? From the first reactions of its members, this would seem to be the ICT’s position. Or does it really consider itself the only group of the Communist Left intervening in Montreal by ignoring, or what’s more rejecting, the reality, namely the existence and political intervention of our group? But then it would find itself in a political quandary that, in the end, will drive it into a political dead-end, which will only weaken it, indeed putting its political existence into question. This is not what we wish, far from it.
We hope these few commentaries will clear things up for you and answer your question. Don’t hesitate to send us your comments and possible criticisms.
Fraternally,
The International Group of the Communist Left, November 15th.
2. . This does not preclude that we can have divergences and even political critiques vis-à-vis the positions of the ICT as a whole, as an international organization. And, of course, this does not prevent us from having divergences and even more important political critiques vis-à-vis certain positions that the IWG can, at times, develop and which are not always, in our view, consistent with the positions of the communist Left and ICT. But it is not for us to resolve differences and internal ICT debates.
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