On the site of the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party (IBRP, http://ibrp.org) appears a document untitled "Towards the German section of the IBRP" (from Battaglia Comunista – June 2004). This document is of real political interest by its immediate contents, but especially for the political significance of the reported facts. We thus encourage highly the readers who would have passed beside this text, to take note of it.
This text briefly gives an account of the intervention of the IBRP in Berlin where it lately held two public meetings devoted primarily to the international situation. But especially, it was for them the opportunity of a discussion with the Gruppe Internationaler Sozialistinnen (GIS), group in a breaking with Trotskyism and which is in the course of bringing closer with the positions of the Communist Left, more precisely of the IBRP. The document greets this step which contains the possible constitution of a new section of the IBRP in Germany
Whatever the exit of this process, we can right now underline the significance and the political importance of the reported event.
The constitution of a new section of the IBRP in Germany, i.e. the possibility that the internationalist positions defended by this organization can have a broader echo, the widening of its capacities of intervention is, in itself, an enthusiastic prospect.
The phenomenon is all the more significant as it is held in Germany, a key country for the future of the working class (and for that of humanity), by its geographical situation in the heart of the developed capitalist world, by the experience that this fraction of the proletariat has developed before the counter-revolution did take it as a privileged target at the end of the years 1920. A fraction of the working class which, recently, expressed its dissatisfaction by strikes and demonstrations at the time when the bourgeoisie, as in all Europe, heavily put into question its jobs, its living conditions, its pensions, etc. A fraction of the working class which expressed itself again by massive strikes during several weeks (June-July 2004) in the German-American car manufacturer Daimler-Chrysler who threatened "to delocalize" (thus to remove) some 6000 jobs. A central geographical area in which the working class does not intend to subject to the numerous attacks that tries to carry the bourgeoisie and which has started to express it in the tread of the struggles engaged since about three years (Argentina, France, Great Britain, Italy…).
The fact that, in this context, questions as fundamental as the evolution of the present situation, the prospect for the working class, etc. could gather around the same table in Berlin, about fifty elements to discuss on the basis of the positions of the IBRP, gives a rather precise idea of the need for clarification which exists among the workers of this area of Europe "In February the theme was "The Crisis, the Tendency towards War and Perspectives for the Proletariat". The speaker put forward the position of the IBRP and the Internationalist Communist Party (Battaglia Comunista) on this subject. This was followed by an articulate and rich discussion in which fifty or so comrades participated on all the issues but particularly on the theme of the new composition of the working class and the perspectives which flow from this" (from BC June 2004, English version on the web site of the IBRP).
The IBRP, contacted by elements in research, without no a priori, answered to this need for discussion and clarification ; it supports and contributes actively to the will of moving closer to the revolutionary positions from the part of these elements ; all that constitutes a concrete testimony that the IBRP actually remains the essential pole of regrouping around the positions of the Communist Left. It shows, here, its willing and its ability to gather and orientate the reflexion amongst the minorities which emerge today under the effects of the sharpening of the situation. " The current priority is to construct, with the available proletarian vanguards an international reference point which can begin to act effectively within the body of the world working class. The present dispersal of forces has to be overcome in order to build the international proletarian party" (idem).
The step started by the comrades of the GIS confirms, by itself, that a political reflection is effectively developing on the essential questions concerning the working class, from the point of view of an overthrow of capitalism. It expresses especially the fact that this reflection, instead of confining itself within the strict limits of an isolated thought, is brought quickly to be posed as an objective to be part of the combat for the regrouping and drives to consider and pose as vital the need to gather around the organizations carrying a serious analysis for the historical alternative "The meeting which followed the public meeting led the outline of a plan of work for the sympathising comrades in Germany, including regular meetings with representatives of the IBRP which should lead to the constitution of a new organisation the German section of the Bureau" (idem).
The move towards the positions of the communist Left on behalf of the GIS constitutes a step forward as much more remarkable than one knows at which point the rupture with the Trotskyism is difficult. At the same time it constitutes the inescapable way and the condition to join and reinforce the camp of the proletariat.
To all the destroyers of the concept of Party, to all the troublemakers who try to introduce the unnatural idea that it would be superfluous for the proletariat to organize itself to struggle, that it is much more effective to only think in its corner between "initiates", that the open and public confrontation of the political positions is only superfluous, that the revolution first of all is a matter of individual will, and who invariably conclude to the impotence of the working class and to the uselessness of the revolutionary organizations, to all those ones who are traditionally agitated as soon as the class struggle points its nose, the history is giving a masterly lesson.
Yes, the evolution of the international situation, its immediate and historical stakes, fitting more than ever in the alternative of "war or revolution", rises thousand questions. And these questions can only find a field of expression, of development around and in a militant and struggling structure, experienced and able to gather these minorities, to provide them the essential historical reference marks not only to understand this situation but also to be able to intervene in it, to actively contribute to support the proper dynamics of the proletariat " Our view is that it is both necessary and possible to build a barrier against the mounting tide of war ideology" (Idem). It is also what, at their level, the facts reported in the text come to highlight.
It is only a matter, through our remarks, to greet a step, but a step which is the only possible and sure in direction of the construction of the party.
July 2004
Bulletin 27 (english version) of the Internal Fraction of the International Communist Current