Home | Home |
In the editorial article of its International Review 129, the new ICC affirms that “Today, the capitalist world increasingly offers another route to the apocalypse, complementary to that of imperialist war, through a “man- made” ecological meltdown that in the span of a few generations could make the earth as inhospitable to human life as Mars” (Editorial - Imperialist chaos, ecological disaster: Twin-track to capitalist oblivion, Ma y 2007, we underline in all the quotations).
We already had denounced the resolution adopted at the 15th international congress of the ICC when it affirmed that “the new period opens up a third alternative [“possibility” in the French version]: the destruction of humanity not through an apocalyptic war, but through the gradual advance of decomposition” (see our bulletin 32). Today, the opportunist ICC “deepens” its concepts, or more exactly, it sinks into the mess of the stupid platitudes of the most in vogue bourgeois propaganda to which it brings the credit of a “radical” appearance : the concrete form that, according to it, “the gradual advance of decomposition” could take. It would only be, no more, no less, the ecological catastrophe “man-made”. We'll get back to this. 1
But firstly, such as it is expressed and claimed by the present ICC, the statement about the rejection of the historical alternative 2 excludes any perspective of generalized imperialist war. Let's judge it : “While for all the brutality and mayhem of the previous two world wars last century, they still gave way to long periods of relative stability, there was still a perspective - even if ultimately illusory - of reconstructing social order in the interests of the dominant imperialist powers. All the military flashpoints of the contemporary situation, by contrast, offer no perspective from the warring factions except a further descent into social fragmentation at all levels, a real decomposition of the social order, of chaos without end.”
If we understand well this nasty gibberish – in which we're told that “there was still a perspective” during the two world wars of the 20th Century and that this perspective was “ultimately illusory” (!), this would mean that after every one of these two wars, a reconstruction was possible (it even took place) while today the only perspective is “a real decomposition of the social order, of chaos without end”. But, curiously, the contemporary epoch is not characterized by the threat of world war but, more simply, by the existence of “military flashpoints”. To say things straight, the preparation of the world war has gone away the field of the concern of the ICC opportunists and the classic position of marxism about the fact that capitalism inescapably brings war has fallen into oblivion.
Certainly, the reference to “imperialist war” remains - when it isn't replaced by the expression “military flashpoints” – but just as a matter of form, for the appearances' sake. And it loses any real and concrete dimension : “At the same time as capitalism in decomposition unleashed an imperialist trend towards a more clearly perceivable barbarism, so it also speeded up an assault of such ferocity on the biosphere that an artificially created climatic holocaust could also wipe out human civilisation, and human life [“a more clearly perceivable barbarism” helps here for concealing that one doesn't actually want to clearly define without equivocation, in a precise and concrete manner, it means from a marxist point of view and with marxist terms, this imperialist logic towards the world generalized imperialist war], so it also speeded up an assault of such ferocity on the biosphere that an artificially created climatic holocaust could also wipe out human civilisation, and human life”.
On one hand, the article evokes vaguely and abstractly an “imperialist trend” that nobody knows where it drives to - except to “any barbarism” - and which becomes vague and confused, thus hypothetical. On the other hand, it evokes precisely and “concretely” where the "the gradual advance of decomposition” leads to : towards a “climatic holocaust”.
Without dwelling at length on the ridiculous and theatrical side of the expression “climatic holocaust” which has more its place at the first page of a popular magazine, let's notice it doesn't have anything to do with the experience of the workers movement and that it has political consequences we must denounce and fight back the most firmly possible.
In first place, the today ICC breaks with the position of the whole experience of the workers movement and even with its own political platform : “Since 1914 imperialism, which has become the means of survival for every nation no matter how large or small, has plunged humanity into a hellish cycle of crisis - war - reconstruction - new crisis”. Our political platform is so clear on this question that it even explicitely rejects "any future to humanity, other than one made up of more and more murderous wars and a more and more systematic, rational and scientific exploitation". Useless to precise that the term “war” as it is used here, in particular in the cycle, means generalized imperialist war, world war.
After that, in front of the perspective of a “climatic holocaust” provoked by an “assault of such ferocity on the biosphere ”, the new ICC takes back words by words the ideological themes of bourgeois ecology. It even becomes an active propagandist. It begins by lowering capitalism's responsibility (actually by absolving it) in the - real - ecological problems - "Capitalism of course can’t be blamed” [obviously our fierce “communists” have thought about “blaming capitalism” but they might have concluded it would have been too much terrible blow ! May be capitalism wouldn't have recover] with starting the burning of fossil fuels or acting on the environment in other ways to produce unforeseen and dangerous consequences. Indeed this has been going on since the dawn of human civilisation” . Finally, according to the present ICC, it's men's relations with surrounding nature, since the mists of time which are responsible. They gaily “forget” that men are full part of nature and that the relations they weave with their environment are in the image of the kind of relations of production in which they are. All in all, we're driven in a path where the basic contradictions are between man and nature and not any more between social classes. Goodbye Marx !
What then follows can't surprise anyone. The today ICC allows itself to “wash more white than white”, or more precisely more green than the Greens, presenting a radical ecologism - “the eco-policies of these parties, however radical they might appear, have deliberately obscured the seriousness of the problem". Of the “problem” dealt with and put forwards in the Editorial... it means the “climatic holocaust”.
The logical conclusion of this ecologist discourse is a call for reflection and for increasing consciousness of the danger of “climatic holocaust” : “In these conditions of developing class confidence, the increasing dangers represented by imperialist war [the recall, we already saw it, is purely formal] and ecological catastrophe instead of inducing feelings of impotence and fatalism, can lead to a greater political reflection on, and consciousness of, the stakes of the world situation, and on the necessity for a revolutionary overthrow of capitalist society. It is the responsibility of revolutionaries to participate actively in this coming to consciousness”.
This position of the ICC, an organisation which claims the Communist Left, is a real call for that the proletariat and the revolutionaries turn their back from the real classes struggle.
It is not by chance if this call to giving up the class fight appears today and if the new ICC joins the great ideological and propagandistic themes of the bourgeoisie.
When the process leading to a generalized imperialist war is practically taking place, when this process under way imposes to capitalism to unleash an economical, political and ideological offensive against the whole international proletariat, full of immediate consequences for the whole international proletariat - without mentionning the blood already spilled, the murders, the massacres and the massive sufferings it already provokes -, when the perspective of imperialist war not only determines the different imperialist lines up and their evolution, but also the historical relation of forces between the classes, between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, in short when imperialist war begins to rise up as a direct and undirect crucial question to which the proletariat and its revolutionary minorities are already confronted with, the new ICC, as the bourgeois propaganda, as the medias, as the ecologists of all countries, diverts the attention to a "through a “man- made” ecological meltdown that in the span of a few generations could make the earth as inhospitable to human life as Mars".
There where the international proletariat and its revolutionary minorities can and must develop the class struggle against all the consequences of the process leading to imperialist war, there where the relation of forces between the classes which will determine the outcome of the inescapable confrontations to come, must define itself, strengthen itself today - because it's today that it begins to play -, the ICC substitutes to it "a greater political reflection" about a climatic holocaust" which, according to the International Review will need "a few generations"...
The liquidators' ICC seems to be joining the ecological parties - it has opened the door. After some many others. In any case, no doubt it has become, we already underlined it, the ICC of fear and increasing desertion in front the class fight. And no doubt that more and more it plays a dirty work within the proletariat, and above all within its political minorities.
July 2007.
Notes:
1. We think we'll get back to it more widely and more deeply in our next bulletins since this new aspect of the political drift orchestrated by the Liquidators is particularly grave.
2. This openly opportunist position is in direct line with the supporters of the third way as Bernstein or Kautsky. It still matters to lead the proletariat outside its struggle field, the further possible of the decisive and direct historical stakes.
Internal Fraction of ICC - Communist Bulletin (Nš 40)
