[GM105] Party General Meeting

The party can neither bring about the revolution nor determine when the class struggle will pick up again, and no more can it influence the process of its own growth and geographical diffusion, which is due to social and historical causes. In this sense the will power of its militants, particular expedients in the realm of propaganda and language, and different approaches to practical activity all count for nothing. Whatever the party says, or whatever hoops it jumps through, it won’t bring communism nearer by even one day.

The party, as history has shown, is only «free» to the extent it is free to destroy itself, by betraying itself, that is, its historical programme, which is “already written”.

Conversely, we also know that the revolution is impossible without the party, indeed it is inconceivable. This is because the party is communism, and is the revolution, outside the parameters of time and space.

This is the key, the essential meaning of all of our work, which we carry out as passionately and as strictly as though the “great day” had already arrived, which for the party, in fact, is always “now” – free from that impatience which typifies the bourgeoisie, trapped in its balance sheet of individuals – precisely because it knows that our revolution has a past, a present and a future, and a necessary period of maturation, which we know about, study and coolly consider.

So it is within this dynamic configuration of objective social forces, rather than within the realm of sentiments and tasks, that we see our periodic meetings taking place; meetings in which we seek to ‘fuse’ the various and spontaneously convergent studies and battle experiences contributed by the party groups. It is a labour that always transcends the self and directs its energy towards the living working class and against the social classes that are its adversaries.

Origins of the trade unions in Italy, the post 2nd World War period — The Course of capitalism — The rearmament of the States — History of the Labour Movement in the United States — From the 3rd Volume of Capital — The Military Question: The American Revolution — Trade Union Activity