[GM113] Party General Meeting in Cortona

19-20 May 2012

Amongst the ruins of all the bourgeois myths, there rises the unadulterated revolutionary science of Marxism

On the weekend of 19-20 May, the party’s general meeting took place in Cortona, in a very pleasant venue booked by local comrades for the exposition of our work. Almost all of our groups, from Italy, France and Great Britain were well represented.

As several of the reports on economy, finance and the trade union movement would clearly show, the stagnation of capitalism, the ongoing overproduction of commodities, and the social crisis have not been resolved. It is a phenomenon which is now irreversible, due to the petering out of the long cycle of accumulation which began after the Second World War. Only war could potentially extend its life a bit longer.

The crisis is also hitting the gigantic young capitalisms of Asia and America, which although still expanding have seen their momentum significantly reduced, as well as serious tensions accumulating within their financial sectors.

In the West, where we still aren’t quite at the edge of the precipice, which might take a few years, the reaction of the working class to the crisis has inevitably been weak, bound up as it has been for far too long – at a attitudinal level more than in a material sense – with the needs of capitalism, at both company and national level. No longer accustomed to generalised struggle and class solidarity, the working class still fails to see how powerful it would be if it took a stand, equipped with its defensive movement and its party, outside and against today’s society.

The party cannot bring about the revolutionary situation, but it can anticipate and prepare for it, based on its scientific knowledge of this dying bourgeois society, and the vivid and joyous notion of the society of the future.

We list here the themes reported on over the course of the two days:

Course of the Capitalist Crisis – Critique of Bourgeois Theories of Finance – The Military Question (2nd War of Italian Independence) – Communism against Democracy in the Early days of the Workers’ Movement in Italy – Trade Union Activity – Historical Trends in Gold Production and Gold Prices – The rearming of the States