EDITORIAL OF BULLETIN 38

Since our bulletin #4, we stress about the gravity of the historical stakes present in the situation.

"If the brutal world acceleration of the situation since three months [since the event of September 11^th 2001] has revealed and confirmed something, it's first and above all : the imperialist nature of all the States, the bankruptcy of the mode of capitalist production, its diving in a mortal crisis in front of which the bourgeoisie has only one answer, only one possible policy : the drive to war, and finally the fact that, to impose the war on the society, in particular in the central countries, the dominant class must confront its mortal enemy : the working class" (The New World Situation and the present tasks for the revolutionaries, Bulletin n°4, December 16^th 2001, available in english on our web site).

This frenzy of the whole bourgeoisie towards its warlike solution hasn't stopped since to confirm and to concretly been verified through :

"- an acceleration of the process of polarisation of the imperialist alignment which tends towards a structuring of the alliances around two rival poles : on one side the United-States representing the «pole of war» ; and on the other, Germany and its allied, France, representing the «pole of peace» ;

- the setting up to power of more adapted political teams in a great number of country (...) to face a situation which imposes a more determined commitment at the imperialist level but also to adopt measures without concession (in regards to the working class as well as to the direction to give for the economy throught the increasing and leading implication of the State) ;

- the setting up of economical plans aiming at submit the economy to the needs of the crisis and of war : in particular through the increasing with no precedent of the military and defence budgets, through the drastic cut of the social budgets and the thorough attacks against workers' living conditions ;

- a true militarisation of the whole society, through legislative and repressive measures which affect all the levels of social life even spreading to the very working conditions of the salaried ;

- an ideological offensive against the working class aiming at making it choosing a camp (democracy) against the other (terrorism), or the one of «peace» against the one of «war» and vice versa" (Imperialist Alignments, Pacifist Campaigns, the Bourgeoisie carries on its March to War, Bulletin n°18, March 2003, not available in english).

As Communists, we have the convictions that today the bourgeoisie makes all it can to drive humanity, by forced march, towards a new world cataclysm. Though this perspective isn't immediate, nor for sure - as long as the international proletariat won't be physically and ideologically submitted -, our first responsability will remain the one of alerting our class of this major danger. Furthermore, how revolutionaries worthy of the name could escape this responsability ?

Well before 1914, while the first world conflict was only in its preparatory phase, the marxist vanguard didn't stop alerting against the tempest which was looming on the horizon by analyzing what was occurring immediatly under their eyes at the level of the imperialist politics and rivalries.

Even through secundary events or conflicts without gravity, nor immediate consequencies, they were able to reveal to the workers the threat under way ; thus, for instance, August 14^th of 1911, Rosa Luxemburg showed that, behind the "Marrocco question", it mattered to understand it as an episode of preparation for the first world conflict : "Finally the Marrocco adventure won't be but, as every episode of world policy, a step towards the acceleration of capitalist collapse (...). Today, the same State men and the same members of Parlement become heated for a political colonial adventure driving the peoples at the brink of the precipice of world war" (translated by us from french).

But besides their specific role of precisely putting their finger on the process under way, revolutionaries have also the major responsability of drawing all the implications for the proletariat, to give to their class clear political orientations to confront such a situation : "For the conscious proletariat, above all it matters to understand the Marrocco event in its symptomatic significance, to make the estimation of its large connections and its consequences" (idem)

And finally, to be consequent with their political clarity as well as their responsability towards the working class, these same revolutionaries must make all they can to act together and, in any case, to favor everything which goes in the sense of the confrontation of their various positions and analisis. This is the first condition for an effective and determined intervention within their class. To carry on in continuity with Rosa Luxemburg, let's quote this passage of The Junius Pamphlet where she goes back again to the period preceding 1914 : "In the summer of 1911, when the Panther made its lunge to Agadir and the noisy agitation of the German imperialists put war in the immediate offing, an international meeting in London accepted the following resolution (August 4, 1911): «The delegates of the German, Spanish, English, Dutch, and French workers' organizations declare themselves to be ready to oppose any declaration of war with all the means at their disposal. Every represented nation undertakes the obligation, according to the resolutions of national and international congresses, to act against all criminal machinations of the ruling classes»".

Here is why, since 2001, our fraction is convinced that it's fully right to alert the working class about the stakes of the situation ; here why we don't stop speaking loudly to the proletariat that the historical alternative is more than never "war or revolution".

But beyond, we think it's up to the whole proletarian camp to be fully conscious of this situation, of its consequences and its implications. It's up to it to favor the conditions for fraternally debating, to engage in a policy of regroupment of all the revolutionary forces, in order to consolidate and to make grow what is still only represented by weak minorities around the planet.

From this, and only from this, can appear the ability to speak with one voice, to defend with strength clear and common statements directed at orientating the proletariat in its march against capitalism.From this, and only from this, can arise the Party the class needs to overthrow capitalism and led its insurrection up to victory.

February 2007.

Internal Fraction of ICC - Communist Bulletin (Nº 38)