[GM150] The Party’s General Meeting: The Century Old Tradition of the Left

On September 28th and 29th, the party held its general meeting, a tradition we have maintained every four months for over a century. The first day, Saturday, focused on organizational matters and the reports to be presented. Later that day, and on Sunday, the reports were shared. These traditionally represent the highest point reached in the work of elaboration and sculpting of the doctrinal, tactical, and historical themes to which the party has continuously dedicated itself since its origins.

We had very many reports, all of which were of high quality. But more importantly, our work is now well distributed among comrades young and old alike, and spread out across various countries and continents. 

Our first report was about the history of the Party. We wrote about the early years of the Party’s life, when comrades from the Left were forced to emigrate to France and formed groups that would become part of the French Communist Party. Through documents and testimonies, we saw how those comrades were perfectly in line with the revolutionary tradition of the Left. On the doctrinal level, nothing today distinguishes us from them.

As many as three reports were devoted to the organic functioning of the party. It is vital to periodically return to this topic, as keeping the thread of tradition is essential to our party functioning. This tradition is the only way to stop the party from losing its bearings,  since opportunism always penetrates into our ranks by adopting attitudes that are not our own. 

Then a work on centralism and the function of the center was presented. This text was almost exclusively quotations from text No. 1, which it is always necessary to refer back to for orientation about our way of working. 

We next presented a work on centralism and discipline, touching upon the delicate but fundamental relationship between two key aspects: the need to guarantee the most absolute operational discipline of every comrade, and the individual militant’s responsibility to actively verify that orders align with our clear and unquestionable doctrine. We highlighted the connections between the need for the party to be operational and centralized, and the inescapable obligation for everyone to adhere to the guidelines laid down in our theses and deep-rooted tradition of work. 

The third text explored the significance of the formal party and its connection to doctrine. We drew several quotations from Marx, and made reference to the obvious consequences and necessity of organic centralism. We recognize and place his concept at the center of the Party’s working structure.

Although there is no clear distinction between history, doctrine, and tactics, the next several reports were more or less of a historical nature. The first is called Capitalism at the Time of the Birth of the Second International and the SPD: Reformism and Revisionism within the Labor Movement and the Role of Trade Unions. It is the latest installment in a series on the German Revolution, which the party has been studying for several years now.

The second report continued our extensive study of the Bolshevik military campaign against the various White armies backed by international imperialism following the October Revolution. The section presented, titled The Donbass: Center of Gravity of the Southern Front, focused on events that unfolded during the spring of 1919.

During this rapid period, the Communist International supported the entry of communists into the Kuomintang. This was an unfortunate decision that led to the massacre of our militants by Chiang Kai-shek’s forces.

The history of the international labor movement receives preferential treatment in our studies. We do not simply present a collection of facts; we always integrate chronicles of struggles with theoretical and historical analyses. This report is the first step in a long-term project about the history of the labor movement in Australia. It begins with the earliest British settlements in the late eighteenth century, when the territory was mainly inhabited by convicts. The mother country, despite its liberal use of capital punishment, was overwhelmed by prisoners and had to export its surplus population. The narrative concluded with the formation of the first workers’ organizations in the mid-nineteenth century.

A similar report was presented that examined the history of the labor and socialist movement in Croatia. It provided a comprehensive historical introduction on the composite Austro-Hungarian Empire. The narrative was divided between the three different regions of the Empire that correspond to modern Croatia: Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Istria. The comrade noted that these three regions experienced slower economic progress compared to the rest of the Empire, while the report primarily concentrated on developments from the second half of the nineteenth century.

The extended reports will be published in upcoming issues of our press, both in Italian and English, and will also be available on our newly launched website, www.intcp.org.