Rehammering nails: The “Clover” – a farce of the party builders

The article we are republishing here originally appeared in our newspaper in April 1975, after a “dirty split”, as we called it at the time, that is, one imposed from above by a diktat from the Center through an expulsion decree, had compromised the Party’s organizational integrity.

“Let’s come together, after all, we share the same principles and say the same things”, that was the refrain that accompanied that disaster, which, whether in good faith or not, emerged during that painful turning point.

We are republishing it in the same spirit as when it was written, with the firm and serene conviction that the path taken after every rupture must always be the same.

The name “Clover” stems from our tradition, which has always opposed political alliances between different organizations, alliances that seek to bring together diverse traditions with a common origin, much like the leaves of the small meadow clover, which would unite multiple leaflets, all on the same level and carrying a message that, in their view, might be different but compatible. Our sarcastic definition has forever denied such projects any political legitimacy.

When a rift occurs that tears apart a once-intact fabric, the disillusioned or bewildered reappear; seeing the fragments of what was once a cohesive and unified whole, they strive to establish a theoretical and organizational framework upon which to reunite those who have not accepted the split and are willing to rally once more under the same banner.

The reasoning is very simple, and it is always the same: if, under the given historical conditions, we were a tiny minority before, we are now an even tinier one, a constellation of micro-organizations that are all nearly identical, how seriously can we even think of presenting ourselves to the revolutionary class and claiming to lead it?

There is, of course, a fundamental misunderstanding, which our long-standing movement has denounced and clarified. We are not afraid of being a minority among minorities, and organizational splits have been a painful constant throughout our history.

Of course, if one believes that crises or splits occur because of personal animosities or for reasons related to misunderstandings among comrades, or simply because of some “grumbling”, then an attempt at reconstruction by appealing to the Left and its tradition might actually make sense.

But the dynamics of interpersonal relationships among comrades are never the cause of splits and separations.

Those who say this have forgotten the painful lessons inflicted upon us by the pressure of this rotten society and the rigorous doctrinal corrections of our teachers. Behind issues that appear to stem from clashes among comrades, there are always, though sometimes not immediately apparent, principled motivations that almost always revolve around the nature and form of the party organization, which exists and operates under specific historical conditions and which, with the exception of revolutionary situations, are not subject to its will.

The abandonment, or, worse, the rejection, of some of these principles, which the historic Party has formalized in its set of Characteristic Theses and in its organizational tradition, may, as we said, not be immediately apparent or may be mistaken for trivial incidents resulting from the normal dialectic among comrades; but it is only with time and under the pressure of concrete facts that their effects become apparent and that organizations which seemed identical are distinguished from one another.

The subsequent emergence on the scene of the ruthless “saviors of the Party”, who, in the name of a misguided discipline imposed on individuals or the leader, act against our principles, represents the final, notarized act that seals the organizational disaster. At this point, the existence of two different but seemingly similar, or even indistinguishable, organizations may be perceived as a mere hiccup, one that can be remedied through an act of “revolutionary” will; and, in perfect good faith, we can strive to reconstitute a unified whole.

But since the violation of fundamental principles persists, even while acknowledging the good faith, naivety, or spirit of forbearance of many comrades, it is a futile, idealistic exercise to think that we can keep the party united or try to rebuild it.

What we wrote back then has been confirmed yet again today.

* * * * *

The colorful underworld of “Party rebuilders” is nothing new. The premise is always the same: let’s get together, discuss, and exchange experiences, we are all on the same side. The need for the Party, these gentlemen assert, has been felt by a great many comrades; and there are quite a few groups that call themselves the “Party”: the experience of recent years has shown that these groups tend increasingly to close in on themselves and become entrenched in their positions, with none managing to “swallow up” the other, thus remaining sectarian minorities. Hence the need to begin discussions, on a common basis accepted by all, toward the formation of something that, being larger in number, is not merely a group, whose tactics, born of an “exchange of experiences,” are more palatable to the working masses, and which finally resolves the confusion that can arise from various quarters proclaiming “almost” the same things. In short, the watchword would be to overcome this “fragmented phase of the communist movement.” Without wishing to cast doubt on the good faith of those who have taken on this thankless task, one must ask whether this person, or these people, has fully understood what the Party is, how it is formed, what laws govern its development, and what its aims are. For otherwise, why the call to rebuild the Party today? Was this need not present in the aftermath of the so-called “liberation,” or even further back, in the dark years of Stalinism? It is not difficult to admit that an unprecedented counterrevolutionary storm destroyed at its roots a fighting organization that seemed permanent; however, what the consequences were for a “tradition”, for the guiding thread and programmatic line that binds and marks all the stages of the movement’s development, appears less clear; indeed, it is not at all apparent to these proponents of “comrades, let’s reunite.” What, in fact, is the Party that these people intend to reconstitute, and how should it relate to the entire past experience?

Marx clarifies in a letter to Freiligrath what is meant by “party”:

“The ‘League’, like the société des saisons in Paris and a hundred other societies, was simply an episode in the history of a party that is everywhere springing up naturally out of the soil of modern society”, and further: “I have tried to dispel the misunderstanding arising out of the impression that by ‘party’ I meant a ‘League’ that expired eight years ago, or an editorial board that was disbanded twelve years ago. By party, I meant the party in the broad historical sense.”

That is, as a foreshadowing of the future society, of the future Man, of the human Being, which is the true Gemeinwesen of humankind. It is the attachment to this Being, which in periods of counterrevolution seems to be denied by history (just as today the revolution seems to the general public to be a utopia), that allows us to resist. The struggle to maintain this position is our action.

Thesis 12 of “Considerations on the Organic Activity of the Party When the Situation Is Historically Unfavorable” (dated 1965) reiterates the same concept:

“Historical party and formal party. This distinction is in Marx and Engels and they had the right to deduce from it that, being with their work on the line of the historical party, they disdained to be members of any formal party. But no one of today’s militants can infer from it he has the right to a choice: that is of being in the clear with the “historical party”, and to care nothing about the formal party.” Or to do the opposite, one might add. Then, further on: “Marx says: party in its historical meaning, in the historical sense, and formal, or ephemeral, party. In the first concept lies the continuity, and from it we derived our characteristic thesis of the invariance of doctrine since its formulation made by Marx; not as invention of a genius, but as discovery of a result of human evolution.”

An organization, then, of men, based on a program not invented or borrowed by them, but chosen, and definitively so, by history. That organization no longer exists, but the continuity of the program has not been broken, precisely because of the Left’s staunch defense of it on all levels, theoretical, programmatic, and tactical. The programmatic principles have been organized into a set of theses, not with the pretense of having discovered anything new to be attributed to some brilliant mind, but to strengthen the ancient “chain of revolutionary Marxism,” so that the traditional common thread might condense the experience of events and generations, to be passed on to younger generations, and to establish the permanent tenets of the program, which new events have only confirmed. The stages of this struggle, after 1921, are also known as the Rome Theses, the Lyon Theses, The Work of the Overseas Fraction in the Interwar Period, Nature, Function, and Tactics of the Revolutionary Party of the Working Class, Characteristic Theses of the Party, and Theses on the Historical Task, Action, and Structure of the World Communist Party, According to the Positions Forming the Historical Patrimony of the Communist Left for More Than Half a Century. In this historical continuity of positions and orientation, unchanged despite shifting times, people, and situations, revolutionary Marxists clearly see the party, the party of all time. Throughout the entire course of the class struggle, there is evidence that the proletariat abandons its program during periods of defeat: this program is then steadfastly upheld by a small minority, but it does not emerge from this weakened or negated in any way; on the contrary, it is precisely in such situations that it is strengthened and confirmed, and this is proven by the struggle waged from 1926 to the shitty present day. The core of militants who remain steadfast—whatever their number!—on these positions knows full well that the foundations for the movement’s rebirth on a global scale, and for the reconstruction of the party as a broad-based organization, do not depend on mere will or on strange hodgepodge schemes based on the “let’s meet” formula, but precisely on an intensification of social tensions, until they erupt, until broad masses of people rise up under the pressure of material facts, the determinism of which communists have no doubt, since the understanding of the development of the productive forces and the certainty of capitalism’s cyclical general crises, a theoretical and practical achievement of materialist determinism in the face of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois schools, is the source of our revolutionary catastrophism. It is precisely through these crises that broad masses will be set, whether they like it or not; it is not a matter of “consciousness”, on the path to revolution, where they must rediscover their traditional positions, their party, and their tradition of struggle. Such determinism does not, however, imply a fatalistic waiting for events to unfold, because the Party’s fundamental task is to instill within the body of the class the positions of the revolution, which have been supplanted by the distorted doctrines and practices of opportunism. From the Characteristic Theses of the Party dated 1951 (nos. 8 and 9):

“In spite of the small number of its members, determined by distinctly counterrevolutionary conditions, the Party continues its work of proselytism and of oral and written propaganda, even though its meetings are attended by only a few people and its publications have a limited circulation.”

And then 9:

“It is events, and not the desire or the decision of militants, which determine the depth of the Party’s penetration amongst the masses, limiting it today to a small part of its activity. Nevertheless, the Party loses no occasion to intervene in the clashes and vicissitudes of the class struggle, well aware that there can be no revival until this intervention has developed much further and become the main area of Party activity.”

Historical events have selected, shaped, and reaffirmed, not through theoretical debate, but in the heat of struggle, a whole series of facts that only our current, the Communist Left, has been able to interpret in a manner consistent with Marxist theory. Historical events have charted a course for the proletarian class that only our current has been able to follow. This is the actual historical path of the class party, codified in texts and theoretical theses, because theory is nothing other than the codification of the experience of the proletarian class struggle on a global scale. The party is this body of doctrine, and therefore of the historical experience, of the proletariat. And with regard to this unified body of doctrine, theory, program, and tactical norms, there can be no “distances”, whether great or small. Either one accepts it all, or one accepts none of it. The figure of the “partial” communist, or one who is “on the way” to becoming a 100-percent communist by virtue of educational enlightenment, has never existed, much less does it exist today.

“The party, therefore, differentiates itself from all the others, whether declared enemies or alleged kindred spirits, and even from those who claim to recruit their followers from the ranks of the working class, because its political praxis rejects the maneuvers, alliances and blocs that are traditionally formed on the basis of postulates and slogans common to several parties.

This party position has an essentially historical value, which distinguishes it in the tactical domain from all the others, exactly as does its original vision of the period that capitalist society is currently going through.” (From “Nature, Function and Tactics of the Revolutionary Party of the Working Class”, 1945).

These are the definitive conclusions for the Party, which our organization has adopted as its own, and which are not to be “discussed” with anyone; either you accept them and take a very clear stance, or you are perfectly free to follow your own inclinations and go with the flow.

Just how far removed from the only conception of the party that is acceptable to a revolutionary Marxist is the person who publishes those impassioned appeals to “let’s come together”, every line of our texts makes this clear, and “let’s discuss it” is the epitaph that the Party has inscribed on the tomb of all the reconstructors: past, present, and future.

“There are no ready-made recipes that will accelerate the resurgence of the class struggle. No manoeuvres and expedients exist that will get proletarians to listen to the voice of the class; such manoeuvres and expedients would not make the party appear to be what it truly is, but would be a misrepresentation of its function, to the detriment and prejudice of the effective resurgence of the revolutionary movement, which is based on the situation having really matured and the corresponding ability of the party to respond, being fit for this purpose only because of its doctrinaire and political inflexibility.
The Italian Left has always fought against resorting to expedients as a way of keeping its head above water, denouncing this as a deviation from principle which in no way adheres to Marxist determinism.
Along the lines of past experiences, the Party therefore withholds from making and accepting invitations, open letters or agitation slogans aiming to form committees, fronts or agreements with other political organisations whatever their nature.”  (From  “Characteristic Theses of the Party”, 1952).

If the line defining and distinguishing the class party from all other political groupings, even those that claim to represent the proletarian class, the revolutionary struggle, and even the tradition of the Communist Left, is the one we have outlined, a consequence follows in the realm of practical action. Just as the class party, a “compact and powerful” fighting force “indispensable to the conduct of the revolution”, will not be reconstituted through the convergence of multiple groups, all more or less self-styled Marxists and self-styled revolutionaries, onto a “common platform,” but exists today solely and exclusively within the very small core of those proletarians who are active on the basis of the positions contained in the texts we have cited, thus the strengthening of this core, its return to contact with and to the forefront of the proletarian masses, will not occur through maneuvers, overtures, or contacts with supposedly like-minded groups and forces that do not exist and cannot exist, but through the convergence of the current party’s coherent theoretical, programmatic, and tactical framework with the “simmering of social reality”, that is, the proletariat’s return to the class struggle, a return that will be determined not by anyone’s “will,” but by the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production that will drive the proletarian class to act and struggle. But if one believes in this and advocates it, and all our theses state this, it follows that the party excludes any joint action, front, or maneuver with other political groupings, even on the practical and immediate level. A wretched distortion of the united-front tactic adopted by the Left is the idea that one can diverge on the level of theory, program, and principles, and converge on the level of practical action, even regarding immediate demands. Since 1921, the Left has fought against the tactic of the “political united front”, alliances between forces of different political persuasions on any front. The Left has opposed, and continues to oppose, this aberrant and stupid view, which would have political forces maintain their distinct principled characteristics while acting together in practice, with the tactic of the “united trade-union front”, also known, for the forgetful, as the “united front from below”, through which it called not on other parties or political groups, but on proletarians who were members of other parties or of no party at all and who were active in the unions, to unite around specific demands affecting the lives of the proletarian masses. The aim of this tactic, advocated and implemented by the Left, was to demonstrate in practice to the workers in struggle that the other parties were not only against the revolution but even opposed to defending the workers’ living and working conditions, and that only the Communist Party was capable of leading the class struggle, even for their immediate interests. The aim was therefore to wrest the proletarian members away from the other political parties by demonstrating to them, through practical action within class-based organizations, that the policies of those parties ran counter to even the most limited interests of the workers themselves. The Communist Party led by the Left never issued an appeal to the PSI or the anarchists to join forces with the Communists in some form of “practical action” “without prejudice to differences of principle.” We knew all too well, and this was the basis of our struggle from 1922 to 1926 against the tactics advocated by the International, that in this way we would have endorsed, in the eyes of the workers, the idea that these parties had anything proletarian or revolutionary about them; and we knew just as well that, sooner or later, even the “difference in principles”, reduced to a purely cultural matter, would go out the window. It was the militant communist workers in the unions (the communist union faction) who proposed to the socialist and anarchist workers, also active in those same unions, that they unite their respective forces for joint practical action on the union front, that is, in the union struggle, which by definition involves workers affiliated with any party or with no party at all. Everyone is free to follow “any path other than ours,” but no one is permitted to misrepresent, under the guise of the Communist Left, positions and attitudes that have never had, and have nothing to do with, the Left. Everyone is free to think that the Left “was wrong” and to accuse our tradition of abstract thinking and pedantry, but no one is free to smuggle, under the banner of the Left and the International Communist Party, which is its current expression, the tainted goods of political united fronts. A wretched parody of the very positions of the Communist International, which dealt with political forces that had a real following among millions of workers whom the situation was driving into the arena of struggle (the overwhelming majority of the proletarian masses in all European countries), and not with fanciful splinter groups whose ties to the class are less than nonexistent, and in a situation where Stalinist opportunism still manages to block any struggle, even a partial one, on the part of the proletariat.

“The party, therefore, differentiates itself from all the others, whether declared enemies or alleged kindred spirits, and even from those who claim to recruit their followers from the ranks of the working class, because its political praxis rejects the maneuvers, alliances and blocs that are traditionally formed on the basis of postulates and slogans common to several parties…”

“Along the lines of past experiences, the Party therefore withholds from making and accepting invitations, open letters or agitation slogans aiming to form committees, fronts or agreements with other political organisations whatever their nature…”

Everyone is free to stay or leave, but the decision to stay or leave must be tested not by labels or promises, but by these precise, clear, well-known, and universally understandable statements of our Party’s tradition.