Il Partito Comunista 430

The “Decree on Security” was approved in the Italian Chamber of Deputies on September 18th, and has landed in the Senate for approval.

The measure introduces some 30 amendments to the Criminal Code. It creates 20 new crimes, extends penalties and aggravating factors, and, in some cases, expands the penalties for existing crimes.

Inside CPRs (detention centers for migrants who have arrived in Italy), prison sentences will be increased for those involved in protests and riots. Due to the degrading living conditions of these places, they are often the focus of protests. In fact, in recent months some of these facilities have been placed under investigation by the judiciary for abuse, mismanagement and inhumane conditions. The law, which even includes a ban on cell phones for irregular migrants (to keep incidents of violence and abuse under wraps) states: 

“Whoever, through acts of violence or threats or through acts of resistance, including passive resistance to the execution of orders given, carried out by three or more persons united, promotes, organizes or directs a riot shall be punished by imprisonment from one to six years. For the mere act of participating in the riot, the punishment shall be imprisonment from one to four years. If the act is committed with the use of weapons, the punishment shall be imprisonment from two to eight years. If in the riot someone is killed or suffers serious or very serious bodily injury, the punishment shall be imprisonment from ten to twenty years.“ 

In addition, the new law introduces the new crime of “riot within a penitentiary institution.” It says that “anyone who participates in a riot within a penitentiary institution through acts of violence, threat, or resistance to the execution of orders given, committed by three or more persons united, shall be punished by imprisonment from one to five years.” These punishable “acts of resistance” also include any passive resistance that obstructs the maintenance of order within the prison, or the implementation of official acts. As in the CPRs, the punishment is up to 20 years if the protest turns violent and someone is injured or killed. 

Another part of the bill is the introduction of the crime of “arbitrary occupation of property intended as someone else’s domicile.” This provision imposes a prison sentence of two to seven years for anyone who occupies a residence belonging to someone else using violence or threats.

Next, the law introduces a new crime for blockading the roads and railways, which is now a criminal offense, rather than an administrative penalty. This law punishes anyone who “prevents the free movement on an ordinary road or railroad by obstructing it with his own body.” The penalty is significantly increased if the act is committed by more than one person, demonstrating—as if it still needed to be proven—that the law is really aiming to attack collective mobilizations. 

In particular, the law will sanction any blockades of goods undertaken at large warehouses, actions which have been repeatedly taken during logistics strikes. 

“Even in the recent past, numerous protests have been organized close to the most important distribution centers, carried out without any prior notice in many cases,” said Piantedosi, the Minister of Interior. “These protests have also been characterized by moments of tension with the police, blockades at the entrances of industrial sites, and slowdowns of production.” But now, even a simple labor demonstration can be harshly repressed as long as a procession is blocking road traffic. This can now be considered a criminal offense, punishable by up to two years in prison. Further, it can go up to four years for passive resistance, and up to fifteen years for active resistance to public officials.

This is how the State and the bosses forge the legal framework: they seek to obstruct and suppress any working-class action that falls outside the control of the “official” unions. It’s no surprise that it’s the right-wing government who is tasked with carrying out this “liberticidal” work. Left-wing governments will later benefit from this when they are called upon to do their part. It’s also unsurprising that Italy’s “official” union confederations have responded weakly, without any significant mobilization. This has effectively signaled a tacit acceptance of these measures.

In recent weeks, the media has raised alarms about the Middle East, following the lead of diplomats and politicians of all stripes. They say that the current conflicts could escalate to general war within the region, going so far as to conjure the specter of a world war. Israeli raids on Iran and Iran’s response certainly seem to give credence to this apocalyptic future, which would see people across the Middle East drawn into the fray of this conflict.

The global economic crisis is only getting worse, and it brings austerity and worsening living conditions for workers. In this context, the threat of a world war could be a new weapon used to terrorize the proletariat.

As early as 1871, we Marxists made it clear that the bourgeoisies across the world are now united in the struggle against their one mortal enemy: the proletariat. In the Middle East, the workers are divided. To this day, they remain fully entangled in the conflicts between the region’s bourgeoisies.

Since October 2023, Israeli initiatives have become increasingly aggressive: the relentless and murderous rampage in the Gaza Strip, the repression in the West Bank, the assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah cadres and leaders, the attacks on civilians in Lebanon, and the raids in Iran are all proof of this. Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria have all received warning shots in recent months from Israeli forces—which are heavily supported both materially and financially by the United States. We are witnessing a growing alignment between Israel’s interests and those of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East.

As the US faces the economic advance of Chinese imperialism, its diplomatic maneuvers are aimed at preserving its investments in this region. But China is also going through an economic downturn and needs both a European market and a pacified Middle East for its economic interests.

Since at least March 2023, the Asian giant has played a lead role in the diplomatic breakthrough between historic rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. In June 2023, both Saudi Arabia and China announced investment agreements totaling $10 billion, spanning sectors like agriculture, renewable energy, electric vehicles, real estate, minerals, and tourism. These agreements were part of the 10th Arab-Chinese Economic Conference held in Riyadh and paved the way for Saudi Arabia to join the BRICS Development Bank. Established in 2014 under Chinese leadership, the BRICS Bank aims to finance development aid, and positions itself as a competitor to the World Bank.

We absolutely must take into account the fact that the Middle East is home to 60% of the world’s proven conventional oil reserves. General war in the Middle East would be catastrophic for economies that are heavily dependent on oil imports. Such a move would trigger an immediate and severe recession, not just in Europe and India, but in China too.

* * *

Regardless of all the speculation about “total war”, Israel’s response to Iran has so far been “measured,” thanks to American injunctions. Tehran has only reported damage to critical solid-fuel missile production facilities, which are the only ones capable of being deployed on short notice—the IDF did not target any nuclear or oil sites. In the hierarchy of the bourgeois world, small and medium-sized powers often find themselves having to avoid escalations that will affect the interests of the major powers. It is thus likely that Iran’s response will be equally calibrated.

Western economic sanctions have forced Tehran to strengthen relations with Moscow and Beijing. Russia and Iran are both major oil and gas producers and have thus forged economic (and also strategic) ties. Both militarily support the Syrian regime, Russia provides Iran with armaments like the S-300 missiles, and Iran had provided Moscow with the drones it needs in its war against Ukraine.

As for Iran and China, the two signed a 25-year strategic partnership in 2021, which includes a massive Chinese investment in energy, infrastructure, and telecommunication sectors. Despite US sanctions, China is also the main importer of Iranian oil, and Iran is a good importer of goods manufactured in China. Iran, China, and Russia have already participated in joint military exercises, like the one in 2019. In 2021, Iran, sponsored by China and Russia, began the process of becoming a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which would allow it to circumvent some US sanctions.

* * *

We briefly touched on the economic and social situation of Turkey in the previous issue of this paper. On several occasions, President Erdogan’s words have openly supported—or at least claimed to—the Palestinian “cause” against the “Zionist” danger posed by the Israeli state. These words must be “filtered” through the lens of Turkish imperialism’s special interests and its particular positioning. As it is already a stable member of NATO, Turkey benefits by looking eastward. It is no coincidence that it asked to join the two most powerful “Asian-led” international alliances: the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and BRICS. Turkey hopes to position itself so that it has access to these important sources of funding.

So, Turkey is pursuing its own ambitious expansionist plans in the region, which we already witnessed during the wars that followed the so-called “Arab Spring.” With the support of Qatar, Turkey attempted to strike at the Syrian regime, all while supporting Egyptian President Morsi and actively participating in the conquest of Libya both during and after the fall of Qaddafi. Now that the situation is centered around the conflict between Iran and Israel, Turkey is cunningly casting itself as the defender of the Palestinian cause. Turkey has a claim to gain legitimacy in the Middle East: its goal is to sit as a protagonist at the imperialist negotiating table, just as it had already tried to do during the Russian-Ukraine conflict.

* * *

The Arab countries that signed the Abraham Accords with Israel in 2020—Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, Sudan, and Bahrain—have expressed no desire to withdraw. Neither Jordan nor Egypt have recalled their ambassador to Israel, despite strong popular protests. These countries, like Saudi Arabia, are quick to denounce Israel’s actions publicly; meanwhile, they take great pleasure in watching Tehran-backed forces weaken.

As previously mentioned, in March 2023, Saudi Arabia initiated a conciliation process with Iran through the mediation of the Beijing government. However, these developments have faced significant setbacks as events have unfolded, particularly given the heightened attention drawn by the Houthis through their recent escalations in military activity. Similarly, attempts to soften its relationship with Israel gained some traction, but for the most part, they are now on hold—awaiting better times. Saudi Arabia’s position is simply ambivalent. On the one hand, it has strengthened trade cooperation with China. On the other hand, it still relies on the United States for internal and regional security.

The UAE has gained some significant prominence in recent years. It participated in the second conflict in Libya and supported the Tobruk government. It’s also stretched out to Yemen, where its intervention has put them in conflict with Saudi strategic interests—especially after the occupation of Socotra. Finally, in Sudan, it ranks among those who fuel the ongoing war (which we will cover in the next issue).

Despite its warmongering initiatives, Abu Dhabi’s strategic goal is to consolidate its so-called “soft power,” via major financial and commercial initiatives. For example, they’ve invested $35 billion in Egypt for the development of the Ras El Hekma peninsula. This is already a considerable amount, and there are even rumors that this might swell up to $150 billion. This major investment in Al Sisi’s Egypt underscores how important it is for the Emiratis to align Cairo with their interests. This need is also reflected militarily, as the two nations are cooperating in Libya and now in Sudan.

Largely due to Qatar’s increasingly close relations with Turkey, the UAE finds itself increasingly at odds with Turkey. This is evidenced by the signing of the Abraham agreements, support for Al Sisi and Kurdish forces in Syria, and even crocodile tears shed over the Armenian genocide. As is often the case in the Middle East, belligerent attitudes coexist with detente. Notable examples include financial agreements between the UAE and Turkey (mentioned in our previous issue), as well as recent military collaboration, like the sale of Bayraktar drones.

What we have described so far offers only a fragmentary glimpse into the intricate and complex power balance in the Middle East. This balance is not defined, nor far from being stabilized: it is in full swing. At a recent public Party conference in Florence, we said “Such a variable geometry of alliances can be seen, for example, in the conspicuous Russian presence in Syria. After more than a decade of war, the Israeli force has had almost daily raids on Iranian militias and Damascus’s forces. Yet Russia has never defended its allies in Syria and allows Israel to continue to carry out its deadly attacks. The only demand Russia makes of Israel is that they communicate in advance, so as to not involve Russian troops.”

For our part, we can only reaffirm the one certainty we hold: all national bourgeoisies in the Middle East, just like in the rest of the world, act solely to protect and advance their own interests. They continually forge and dissolve alliances based on whatever offers them the maximum possible benefit. Regardless of which imperialist camp is involved—be it the United States or Russia and China—no one is ready for the direct confrontation that an all-out war in the region would entail. The alliance structure remains too fluid for preparations for a total regional war to begin in earnest.

In any case, for us revolutionary communists, it is not enough to stop here. We must turn our gaze towards the prospects of social war and its articulation in the region. To this end, in late July, during the intercalary meeting, we developed an initial work plan to systematically study the Middle East. We highlighted several issues that certainly deserve to be studied through the lens of revolutionary Marxism.

• The region has one of the highest rates of youth unemployment in the world. These are the figures as of 2023: Algeria at 30.8%, Egypt at 19%, Jordan at 40.8%, Lebanon at 23.7%, Libya at 49.4%, Sudan at 18.2%, Morocco at 22.6%, Turkey at 17.6%, Yemen at 32.7%, Iraq at 32.2%, Iran at 22.8%, Syria at 33.5%, Palestine at 36% in 2022, and Tunisia at 37.5%. These figures are truly significant. They necessarily imply an increasingly difficult situation, with little hope for improvement for future generations.
• Due to the various brigand-like conflicts among both large and small powers in the region, millions have been forced out of their homes. They amass and seek refuge in relatively safer areas. It is estimated that by the end of 2024, 11.7 million people across the Middle East and North Africa will have been displaced within their own natural borders (UNHCR). In Lebanon alone, approximately 1.2 million people are fleeing conflict-affected areas, alongside 1.5 million Syrian refugees. 1.4 million Syrian refugees currently reside in Jordan, with an estimated 90% living below the poverty line. In Iraq, the war against ISIS has left 1.7 million people displaced within the country, unable to return to their native regions. Meanwhile, in Yemen, 4.5 million people (14% of the population) have fled their home regions due to the ongoing conflict.
• The Middle East is among the regions with the highest levels of “social inequality” globally, comparable to countries in South Africa and Brazil. Between 47% and 60% of national income is in the hands of the richest 10%, while the poorest 50% of the population contribute about 8-15% of total income. Countries like the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have the highest rate of “social inequality.” Masses of workers (predominantly immigrants) are subjected to the exploitative wrath of the “kafala” system. This system of laws and practices places migrant workers under the control of their employers, who dictate their ability to enter, reside, work, and, in some cases, leave the host country. Generally, these workers cannot leave or change jobs before their contracts are complete, a set period has elapsed, or they receive permission from their employer. Those who attempt to leave without authorization risk arrest and deportation on charges of absconding.
• The environmental and water crisis is hitting the agricultural sector hard in countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. It has produced devastating effects on agriculture, as more and more farmers are reduced to starvation and are being forced to abandon their lands by amassing in large cities. On top of that, the water supply issue magnifies the friction between the states themselves—like with the large dam projects in Turkey and Ethiopia. There is reason to believe that one of the many reasons (and not the only one!) for the current military operation in Lebanon is Israeli attempts to control the Litani River, which was mentioned in UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of 2006. Similarly, it works as a way to permanently prevent Lebanon from diverting the course of the Wazzani River, which feeds 25% of the Jordan River.
• In countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iraq, rapid urbanization and the concentration of large proletarian masses pose a significant “security” problem. To maintain social peace, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to simply pay off the plebs with the bare minimum: housing, work, and access to essential services. These countries will be forced to resort to more and more repressive measures to uphold the bourgeois order.

We have explored the likelihood of general war in the Middle East and emphasized the shifting alliances among the regional powers and the broader maneuvers of China and the United States. It is equally important to address the deep social fault lines within the region. These fractures signify the steady and inevitable ripening of the conditions for social warfare. For this war to set class-based objectives and to threaten the bourgeois world order, the International Communist Party—the only force capable of leading the proletariat to victory—must take root.

The 2022 Economic Crisis 

In 2022, Sri Lanka plunged into its worst economic crisis since gaining independence in 1948. Rampant inflation, depleted foreign exchange reserves, and critical shortages of essential goods devastated public health, daily life, and social stability. The country, which is extremely dependent on imports for fuel, food, and medical supplies, faced an inability to meet basic needs, which caused severe nationwide shortages.

Sri Lanka’s foreign exchange reserves fell to dangerously low levels, rendering the state incapable of importing vital items like fuel, cooking gas, and medicine. Hospitals face critical shortages of medical supplies, putting the healthcare system on the brink of collapse. Essential food items, such as rice and sugar, became scarce, and when available, they were unaffordable for much of the population. At the peak of the crisis, food inflation exceeded 90%, forcing families to ration meals and endure heightened food insecurity.

Sri Lanka’s financial situation is mirrored all over the world, like in Argentina and Greece. Foreign currency remittances have dropped significantly, partly due to external factors. To meet maturing debt obligations, both foreign and domestic, the Central Bank has been forced to supply foreign currency. Following the typical approach of financially troubled states, it has issued liquidity as needed, issuing Treasury Bills, thereby expanding the monetary supply. Nothing new under the sun for weak economies strangled by international finance.

Sri Lanka’s large foreign debt only worsened the situation. By 2022, the country’s foreign debt surpassed $51 billion, and in April of that year, Sri Lanka defaulted on its external debt for the first time since independence. After two years of the state’s attempts to tackle the fiscal deficit, the outcome was inevitable. By the end of 2021, public debt had soared to 119% of GDP, and external debt had surged to over $56 billion, or 66% of GDP, making it impossible to meet debt obligations.

The social impact of the crisis was devastating. In 2022, according to the World Bank, Sri Lanka’s economy contracted by 9.2%, the sharpest decline in its history. The proportion of the population living in extreme poverty—earning less than $3.65 a day—doubled to about 25%, pushing millions into hardship. The middle class saw their savings evaporate and livelihoods disappear. Fuel shortages crippled public transportation, leaving vehicles stranded in long lines at gas stations. Frequent power outages further disrupted economic activity, affecting schools, businesses, and essential services. The tourism industry, already decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic, saw further losses, while remittances from overseas workers, another key income source, declined sharply.

The mass protests 

The economic collapse sparked mass protests demanding political change. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was blamed for the financial meltdown and was forced to resign. Tens of thousands of workers, alongside their families, marched on the President’s House, and the Prime Minister’s residence was set on fire. The “triumphant” crowd exacted a small and pointless revenge on this despised bourgeois government.

The IMF’s bailout 

Ranil Wickremesinghe was subsequently installed as president by the ruling elite. One of Wickremesinghe’s first actions was to seek an IMF bailout to stabilize the economy. After months of negotiations, the IMF approved a $3 billion loan in March 2023 as part of a 48-month debt relief program, with the first $330 million tranche disbursed shortly afterward. Additional support totaling $3.75 billion was expected from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and other lenders.

Like always, the IMF bailout came with stringent austerity conditions aimed at restoring fiscal discipline, which placed additional strain on an already suffering population. Pensions were cut, income taxes were raised by 36%, and subsidies on food and fuel were removed, further increasing the cost of living. Electricity bills rose by 65%, adding to the financial burdens of ordinary proletarians. While inflation began to subside in 2023, prices remained over 75% higher than before the crisis in 2021. The Sri Lankan rupee remained significantly devalued, still more than one-third weaker against the U.S. dollar, exacerbating the cost of imports and further pressuring household budgets.

The IMF program and accompanying austerity measures triggered mixed reactions. While the financial aid was essential for stabilizing the bourgeois State’s economy, the immediate social costs for the proletariat were steep. The working class faced worsening living conditions, rising unemployment, and weakened social safety nets. These challenges highlighted the difficulty of balancing fiscal reforms with keeping social peace. As Sri Lanka moved forward with its recovery plan, the road ahead remains uncertain, with success dependent on effective structural reforms and sustained international support.

The JVP’s “Marxist” Clown Takes the Election Crown

It is in this context that the 21st of September, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, a candidate from the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a party often mislabeled as Marxist, has won the presidential election, placing this so-called “leftist” party at the helm of a bourgeois state that is oppressing the Sri Lankan proletariat. 

The JVP, like many political movements that claim leftist roots, adopts the usual rhetoric about adapting to “new knowledge” and local and global political conditions. However, this “adaptation” has meant nothing less than the abandonment of principles that were once only vaguely stated in order to sound revolutionary to the masses. In 2022, the JVP removed demagogic, revolutionary-sounding demands from its platform, like the “abolition of private property” and the “elimination of social classes,” which had previously been presented as “fundamental” to their program. These changes do nothing but highlight how a bourgeois, pseudo-working-class party must operate within a capitalist framework that it never truly challenged.

The JVP’s radicalism has gone as far as claiming to be the party willing to renegotiate the bailout package of the IMF. Nevertheless, right after the elections, the JVP assured an IMF delegation that the new government would implement the austerity and privatization measures previously agreed upon. These measures involve the elimination of more than half a million public sector jobs, increasing the electricity tariffs, and so on. The JVP may make loud statements in its electoral rethorics but it has never considered itself an alternative for the proletariat. After the JVP’s victory, the Modi administration of India congratulated them and expressed a desire for India and Sri Lanka to strengthen their ties. These ties, however, serve only to reinforce the power of the bourgeoisie in South Asia. Meanwhile, for the proletariat, poverty, exploitation, and suffering persist.  Indeed, after the talks with the IMF the JVP has stated that they had “agreed on the importance of continuing to safeguard and build on the hard-won gains that have helped put Sri Lanka on a path to economic recovery,” proving their commitment to hit the proletariat just as hard as their predecessors did.

As the United States approaches the 2024 presidential election, we find ourselves repeating the same thing we’ve echoed for over a century: “The oppressed are allowed to decide, once every few years, which among the representatives of the ruling class will represent and oppress them in Parliament.” (State and Revolution, 1917) 

Although the election is set for a Tuesday, the following Wednesday will fundamentally be the same for workers as last week. Regardless of who wins, the bourgeoisie will tighten its grip and strangle the proletariat.

Not just in America, but across the whole world, new and old candidates alike prattle on with bloated platitudes and inane ramblings. These asinine comments have the sole purpose of addling the proletariats’ minds, in the hope they’ll endure greater and greater sacrifices.

Across the world, hacks and mouthpieces in the media have already re-animated the battle between “democracy” and “fascism.” In this supposed duel, the state is portrayed as this sacred force, somehow standing above society, which both sides claim they must save from the other.

Once more, crocodile tears are shed over the supposed “revival of fascism.” But whether bourgeois rule is “conservative” or “liberal” (whatever that means today), communists know that fascism is really the dictatorship of monopoly capital. Fascism has actually ruled the entire world for at least a century. No matter what those pretty words on the campaign posters might say, capital always tries to prevent any reorganization of the working class as a class for itself. One of the ways it does this is by strengthening the state, which is a tool for one class to repress the others.

While the proletariat is deafened by the cacophony of electoralism, the media conveniently prattles on about nothing, something, anything but the living conditions of the working class. If we look beyond decades of empty promises, “reforms,” and so-called “incremental change”—if we cut through the politician’s crap—we see bourgeois society for what it truly is: exploitation, alienation, and misery.

Whenever American workers try to claim their “fair share,” they’re met with chemical weapons, armored vehicles, and an increasingly militarized police force. It’s these so-called “friends” and “representatives” of the working class who call these forces upon us. And how does the working class respond to the oppressor? By casting ballots and medallions, registering record voter turnouts. This only serves as another stark reminder of how deeply the illusion of electoral change is ingrained in the working class.

This summer, the Democratic Party had to acknowledge that Joe Biden was better suited for an antique store than the White House. So, they hoisted this “responsibility” on Kamala Harris. She prides herself on representing everything that Republicans, and her “opponent,” are not: she says she stands for democracy, that she is anti-racist, pro-LGBT, and pro-worker (as if!). Simply put, she casts herself as the anti-fascist option to the billionaire tyrant Donald Trump. Yet, her nomination does not signal a break from the past but rather a total continuation (and we don’t just mean in terms of campaign strategy).

Trump easily won the Republican primaries. The “scandalous events” of January 6th, the subsequent courtroom farce, and his exoneration—given not by judge or jury, but by the ruling class—are all just filler in the long-running joke that is bourgeois democracy. Its increasing erraticness is yet another testament to the fact that the bourgeois regime actually relies on “divisive” and grotesque figures in order to reinforce democratic mystification.

We readily confess that a certain amount of conflict exists between the various factions of the haute-bourgeoisie. This conflict arises from their opposing interests—both immediate and long-term, calm and erratic—and manifests itself in the political parties that serve them.

But in this phase of capitalism, it is precisely finance capital—not elections—that determines how states are run. In the modern world, this is the reality everywhere.

So it isn’t a matter of being “blind” to Trump’s tough guy shtick, nor to his sincere disgust at anything resembling organized labor. It’s about recognizing that Kamala’s cheap talk on abortion, democracy, and LGBT rights is, at the most fundamental level, merely the flipside to Trump’s bigoted pandering. But this is mostly a game of charades, full of gimmicks designed to stir up outrage. When the time comes, we are certain that any topic of discussion will easily be brushed aside in favor of the supreme good of American capitalism.

America, like its competitors, relies on the continuous flow of cheap labor and must ramp up its exploitation of labor-power. Exploitation, the tendrils of imperialism, and the anarchy of the market are all features of capitalism, not defects. They will never disappear until capitalism disappears, and this will never happen through voting.

But as we’ve always said, the state apparatus only serves the interests of the bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie alone. Political theatrics is just one of the many ways in which the exploiters dominate the exploited. 

As it stands, all the different parties need each other. The third parties are either ballot spoilers, or the miserable cry of the radical liberal.

While US bourgeois interests remain unchallenged at home, they are being increasingly contested abroad. Kamala, as Biden’s Vice President, has been tasked with maintaining their stronghold overseas. Her “boss,” Biden, once held her job. Back then, the US boasted about its ability to “build” states in Iraq and Afghanistan. America exported “democracy” bomb by bomb, and raided precious resources to further imperialist interests.

These imperialist adventures were branded as pacifist missions, and were called “humanitarian successes.” This is as ridiculous as it is irrelevant. One must only look at what is left after this “liberation.” In Palestine, atrocities committed against the Palestinian and Israeli proletariat are met with empty platitudes (if not downright indifference) by the leaders of the world.

While it’s true that American workers have yet to confront the direct consequences of war on their doorstep, they are nevertheless subjected to an exacerbation of their conditions as proletarians. Rents are skyrocketing. Wages are falling while unemployment is rising. Food costs more and more every day. Childcare is unaffordable, and for that matter, healthcare is too. Simply making ends meet is now a challenge for more and more workers—even the ones with jobs. It’s no longer surprising to hear of people forced to work two, or even three, jobs to keep from starving.

Trump’s “solution” oscillates between straight-up dismissiveness and nostalgia. He sprinkles his calls for a tighter border with delusional rants based on conspiracy theory, chauvinism, and racism. This can’t be totally chalked up to senility—he’s rallying his base: the “more reactionary” layers of the rural middle class, the middle class in general, as well as the most fanatical and bigoted white evangelical proletariat. 

Harris’s campaign is basically a mimic of Biden’s, and is just as anti-proletarian as Trump’s. In the 2020 election, Biden, the self-declared “most pro-union president in U.S. history,” had won 57% of the unionized workers’ vote, surpassing Hillary’s 51% four years earlier. Biden and Harris have both intervened in the (unfortunately) timid struggles of the working class: first with the railroad workers, then with the UPS strike, and finally with the UAW. Biden cleverly offered mere morsels, spread out over the years, all in order to contain the strike. But where a strike would have done excessive damage to profits, they slammed their fist on the table—like with the railroad workers.

Collaborationist unions, for their part, chose to endorse a candidate, thereby securing themselves a place at the (bourgeois) table. All the while, working class energy is redirected towards the spectacle of electoral politics. The UAW, the largest union in the US auto-industry, and one of the largest unions in all of North America, had already supported Joe Biden and now supports Harris. Why? Their reasoning is fundamentally bourgeois: “Trump isn’t capable of running the government,” “Trump’s incompetence will hurt the economy,” “Trump is a threat to American democracy.”

Not only is engaging in electoralism useless from a working class perspective, it is actively detrimental to our movement. It stifles the communist impulse before it can even take its first steps. 

In Democratic Cretinism, published in Il Partito Comunista #1, we said that “[t]he proletariat is already defeated the moment it submits to the farce that is the ballot, whatever the objective, be it even an improvement in the living conditions of the workers.” 

So while it is obvious that the US presidential election won’t lead to any improvement in the living conditions of the workers—not even short term—we would still oppose the use of the democratic platform even in (the remote) instances where this could be the case. This is because “behind that pro-worker appearance, a new golden chain grips the proletariat, making it submit to capital, to capital’s ideology, and to the engorgement of capital.” 

Terms like “right and wrong” or “democratic and authoritarian” don’t really mean anything from a Marxist perspective. Above all else, in this phase of putrid capitalism, the proletariat has nothing to defend or gain through counting heads; no matter the case, it does not engage in the fight for a “lesser evil.” After all, there cannot possibly be any lesser evils among the various factions of the bourgeoisie—all united in their anti-proletarian fury—represented at the voting booth.

Just over a year after the Brandizzo tragedy, where five railway maintenance workers were struck and killed by a moving train, the same fate befell 47-year-old Attilio Franzoni. He was killed on October 9th, in San Giorgio del Piano on the Bologna-Venice line.

On September 6th, railway maintenance workers had been called to mobilize by the various rank-and-file unions. Then, on September 8th, train drivers and conductors joined the call. They protested the recent agreements signed by the mainstream unions, which, instead of strengthening safety measures, lowered the working conditions of RFI (the Italian railway infrastructure manager) workers to the worse conditions of external contractors, rather than the other way around.

On 12-13th of October, CUB Trasporti, the SGB (General Grassroots Union), and the Assemblea Nazionale PdM e PdB—Personale di Macchina e di Bordo (National Assembly of Engine and On-Board Personnel) called for a national strike of all on-board staff. They demanded significant wage increases, opposing the agreements signed by the Triplice (the three main confederations: CGIL, CISL, UIL), and the adoption of safety protocols for appropriate working and rest hours.

The “Commissione di Garanzia” (CGS, Italy’s regulatory body for strikes in the public sector), prompted by company management, ordered the unions to comply with the notice periods required by Law 146 of 1990, which mandates advance notice and minimum service levels for public services. The CGS declared the previous week’s maintenance workers strike, as well as any subsequent union action, “illegal.”

Railway workers across Trenitalia, Italo, and Lombardy-Trenord defied these domineering threats and took action, and upwards of 90% of workers participated. Their action effectively halted most local services and disrupted numerous long-distance and high-speed routes.

The railway workers are organizing and mobilizing outside and against the Triplice confederations, which knowingly imposes exploitative contracts. Let these struggles not only secure immediate demands, but also pave the way for the reorganizing of the Class Union in all sectors of the working class!

In Sweden, striking is illegal: this is the true face of the Nordic model today. 

The myth of Sweden as a unique beacon of workers’ rights, a so-called “exception” among capitalist nations, is one of the most pervasive lies of our time. This mythology, carefully cultivated by the bourgeoisie, suggests that Sweden operates outside the brutal mechanics of capital accumulation and exploitation. But in reality, Sweden is no more a bastion of workers’ rights than the United States or Italy—indeed, one could argue it is even worse. Beneath the surface of the ideology of the Nordic model lies the relentless suppression of the working class. At the same time, its democratic structures serve only to pacify labor and maintain the dominance of capital. The recent legal restrictions on the right to strike reveal the true face of Swedish social democracy: not a defender of the proletariat, but rather, as Lenin said “the liberal bourgeoisie grant reforms with one hand, and with the other always take them back, reduce them to naught, use them to enslave the workers, to divide them into separate groups and perpetuate wage-slavery.” (Lenin, Marxism and Reformism) Thus, withering the reforms to nothing, order prevails, and this fact is most evident in the 2019 decimation of the Co-Determination Act (MBL). 

Swedish labor policy has passed through several periods, and the Social Democrats first had to pass the Co-Determination Act to decimate it. So, from where did it arise?

The Co-Determination Act is among the most important laws governing the Swedish labor market. Like so many other important labor laws, it emerged from social democracy’s demands  for a more “democratic workplace” in early 1970s Sweden. 

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation (LO), particularly the LO’s metalworkers’ and heavy industry sections, made this corporativist  project their own. It was the first time since the Saltsjöbaden Agreement in 1938 that the labor movement challenged the mythical “collective bargaining line.” The reformists, in response to the unruliness of the working class, promoted the workers’ demand. Full of delusion, the reformists believed they could have challenged the well-established exclusive right of the employer to manage and distribute labor.

What distinguishes this social democratic maneuver from earlier attempts is that it promoted labor law reforms through  law itself, rather than through bargaining as was the practice before. 

The social democrats, and their union, were not proactive agents in the events that characterized the ’60s wave. Rather, the shift to the “legislative line” was a response to, and a restraint of, proletarian organization and militancy. This proletarian wave of struggle was a consequence of events like the closures of the shipyards in Gothenburg, Bohuslän, and Blekinge and the export of capital to various industries. An example of this social misery is the collapse of the Swedish weaving industry. This development especially hurt the proletariat in the city of Norrköping. 20,000 jobs lost in a city of 80,000 residents. The developments were mirrored elsewhere, with virtually every industry that laid the foundation for the boom of Swedish industrial production in the post-war period laid barren.

The discontent of the Swedish proletariat manifested itself in the wildcat strikes, a growing pro-Chinese and syndicalist left, and a social misery of a kind rarely seen in the history of Swedish social democracy. The Social Democrats saw the rise of working-class organizations as a threat and thus became keenly interested and engaged in how the labor movement could be restrained and pacified. 

The social democrats saw two solutions, which went hand in hand. The first was mass surveillance, the goal of which was to profile political opponents within the unions and systematically neutralize subversive elements. The second was a series of pacifying reforms. 

This was the context in which the Act on Co-Determination in Working Life (1976:580) was passed. The Social Democrats were not just pressured by a working class, who were demanding change, but by the national bourgeoisie, who needed to suppress the labor movement. Many laws still in place today were passed during this time period, such as the Trade Union Representatives Act (1974), the Employment Protection Act (1974), the Right to Education Act (1975), and the Work Environment Act (1978). This reformist wave ended in the mid-1980s, due to the failed implementation of the employee funds (1984) – which social democrats have continually viewed as the holy grail and “the democratic road to socialism” – along with the subsequent crash of the 1990s.

The Co-Determination Act must be placed in its historical context. It was an attempt by the social democratic government to rein in the organization of the working class and, as usual, to prolong the working class’s servitude. 

Content of the law

While the Act is not called the No-Strike Clause Act, a core component of the Act is an anti-strike law. The law requires employers to inform and negotiate with trade unions about essential decisions affecting workers, such as restructuring or changes to working conditions. The MBL was initially intended (or at least ostensibly promoted) to strengthen workers’ influence over the employer’s decisions and to promote dialogue between employers and trade unions.

This law is about the unions’ right to information and the individual right to union membership. However, some things are very different from the international context, such as the fact that in Sweden a strike cannot be called by a local union, but can only be called at the “federal” level. This aspect of the proletariat’s life in Sweden has long been a legal custom. All the rights and obligations under the MBL pertain to trade unions, namely the right to information, the right to bargain, and the individual commitment to the no-strike clause. Exactly what happens in the rest of the world.

Changes to the no-strike clause in the Co-Determination Act 2019

The changes were only possible because of the enormous passivity of the Swedish working class. The social democratic method has somewhat changed since the 1980s, from the carrot to the stick, from granting reforms on the one hand, to taking them away on the other. This game, as well as the increasingly common and intense crises that Sweden has been experiencing since the 1990s, are the roots of his widespread passivity. The demolition of the welfare state intensified with the 1990s crisis, which was, among other things, a speculative crisis on the Swedish currency (Sweden kept a fixed exchange rate much longer than countries like America, Great Britain, or Italy). The crisis showed social democracy’s true face. It showed the nay-sayers that even in Sweden, the government is run by the economy, not vice versa. The welfare state was created to subjugate the proletariat , and was destroyed to subjugate it even more, to one day be able to be rebuilt and do it once more. It showed that “the so-called ‘welfare state’ fulfills, in this case, a multitude of functions in an economic, social, and ideological sense, the result of which is the maximum mystification of reality.” (The International Communist 1, Against Union Nationalism)

For every cut that was asked, it was given; for what Capital sought, it found; and to those who knocked, it was opened. Some worth mentioning are the Free School Reform (1992), and the Pension Reform (1994). With no signs of stopping, this tendency continues, and we can now add the slaughter of the Co-Determination Act to this almost endless pile of curtailments in social democracy.

Still, the question of “why now?” remains unanswered.

It began in 2016 with the Dockworkers’ Union and the port-operation company APM Terminals. The Dockers, independent of social democratic and liberal unions such as TCO and LO, wanted to enter into a collective bargaining agreement directly with APM Terminals Gothenburg, instead of being bound by the social-democratic union Transport’s contract with their mutual employer. Especially since they make up a sizable minority of the workers at the ports, and oftentimes the most radical syndicalists, they sought not to be bound by the frequently unsatisfactory Social Democratic trade union organization, LO. Their goal was to have the same negotiation and information rights, in line with the Co-Determination Act. However, the employer fought this hard, arguing that they did not need to make an agreement with more than one union at a workplace and thus wanted the Dockworkers’ Union members to remain bound by the agreement with Transport. The conflict between the Dockers and APM Terminals escalated from 2016-2019, with a full-blown strike and lockout breaking out on January 23, 2019. The Dockers won and got the agreement they wanted on March 5 that same year.

The bourgeoisie, instead of coming to terms with their losses, decided to wage a full offensive against the Dockers and set their sights on the decimation of the Co-Determination Act. The Löfven II cabinet picked up a proposal from the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv), proposition 2018/19:105, which utterly crushed the right to strike. This move was aimed squarely at independent unions like the Dockers. This law was already in the review and consultation process in 2017, and was expected to exit this phase by Q3 2019. Nevertheless, before the report could be produced, the big three social-democratic and liberal unions, LO, SACO, and TCO, already signed an agreement with the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise, against the wishes of their rank-and-file membership. The social democrats threw the labor movement to the wolves. Restrictions on the right to strike were only supported by 2 of LO’s 14 affiliated unions, but after the union leaders reached an agreement with the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise (Svenskt Näringsliv), the party whip struck, and the unions voted in favor of the restrictions. This agreement became the basis for the government bill, which later became the law. Ultimately, the law came from the unions, even if parliament passed it.

So what’s changed?

In the 1976 version there were already strong restrictions on the possibilities reserved for workers’ organizations. Industrial action was illegal if it violated the no-strike clause of a collective bargaining agreement or if the purpose of industrial action was to:

1. Intervene in a dispute over the application of a collective agreement, its meaning, or whether something violated the agreement or the law.

2. Modify the contract.

3. Adopt a provision that would take effect after the expiration of the contract;

4. Acting in solidarity with an individual or organization in the presence of a no-strike clause.

Since 1976, successive governments have amended the law several times. For example, it is stipulated that if the labor confederations do not authorize a strike, it is illegal. A section of the law also contains the clause prohibiting strikes for purposes other than collective bargaining. Additional changes were made to this framework by the 2019 amendments.

The 2019 changes were as follows.

1. “Political strikes” are no longer allowed.
2. The strike weapon can no longer be used to modify collective agreements.
3. During the term of the contract, strike actions may be taken only those actions will be aimed at non-payment of wages.
4. Union A cannot strike without a collective agreement with union B. In this case, the agreement with union B applies to all workers, regardless of their organization.

The no-strike clause, which already existed, now applies to all trade unions at the workplace, even if only one of them has an agreement with the employer. The new law does not specify which union this must be or whether that union’s membership needs to constitute a majority of the trade unionists at the workplace. This has allowed an employer to choose which trade union they want to conclude an agreement with. Consequently, this has facilitated the creation of so-called yellow (company) unions. Although these have not yet materialized, they will be a new tool for the employer to further weaken the legal movement of the working class. Furthermore, this has led to the employer being able to pick and choose what union to bargain with, allowing them to select the cheapest contract, making a union such as the Dockers hamstrung and subordinate to the big three.

The law says that the only legal stoppages are those to collect debts, which must be accompanied by a clear demand. This means that strike action is de facto, if not de jure, illegal.

Thus, order prevails in Sweden. The order of the bourgeoisie—with their cohort of opportunist unions and opportunist parties—leads the proletariat to be sacrificed on the altar of profit. Their order, however, is built on sand.. Thus, Tomorrow, the revolution will rise on firm ground, and to their horror, it will proclaim with trumpets blazing: I was, I am, I shall be!

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.

The report we present here is an orderly collection of quotations from The Communist Party in the Tradition of the Left, our fundamental text.

Presentation

[This type of work becomes necessary] whenever the organisation swerves off course and which generally, at least so far, have taken the form of more or less conspicuous and comprehensive splits, more or less useful in terms of strengthening of party action on the basis of continuity and unity of theory, programme, tactics and organisation…. 

[A] party work rather than a polemical document or an indictment of secessionism against an alleged ‘other side’.

[…] 

The aim of this tenacious work wasn’t to arouse any sense of personal satisfaction about ‘winners’ and the ‘losers’ within the party, but rather to prompt a sound reaction, capable of bringing the party as a whole back onto correct positions[.]

[…] 

Centralism and discipline derive from monolithicity of programme. Rather than being construed as administrative or terrorist coercion, discipline in the party is, and can only be, spontaneous; the natural way of life of an organisational body which is entirely focused on one end, and well aware of the route and all the detours and dangers on the path to achieving that end…. [T]he call for discipline within the party doesn’t have recourse to coercion, since all that could be assumed, in any non-individual lack of discipline, was that it had to be something about the party’s work at a deeper level which was causing it to stray from its historical path.

[…] 

Similarly having a rigid framework to contain the shortlist of tactical options bolsters and reinforces unity, compactness, and therefore discipline within the entire party collective; which no longer has to be subjected to the tactical inventions of the movement’s leadership because the latter in its turn is obliged to respect norms and cardinal rules as binding on the rank and file as on the leadership; norms and cardinal rules shared by all and known by all, and on whose basis the Party itself was formed. Therefore, it is not to consultative assemblies, battles between minorities and majorities, or to more or less brilliant leaders that the carrying out of tactical plans will be entrusted, but to an organ of anonymous appearance, substantiated by an anonymous, impersonal and collective work considered as a task of the entire party collective, all the more efficient inasmuch as it is firmly connected to that tradition, and that historical method, which the Party has understood and made its own….

Part 1

Chapter 1 – Centralism and Discipline, Cornerstones of Party Organization

17 – Our Perception of the Theses, Then and Now, 1965

According to the left’s conception of organic centralism, congresses shouldn’t pass judgement on the work of the center or decide who does what, rather it should make decisions about questions of general orientation in a way that is consistent with the invariant historical doctrine of the world party….

Chapter 3 – Differentiation of Functions

Asserting the necessity of disciplined and centralized party organization clearly implies, amongst other things, a hierarchical differentiation which sees individual militants assigned different roles of various levels of importance. The party needs leaders and persons to fulfil various functions. There need to be order givers and order takers and there must be appropriately differentiated organs to perform these functions. Our conception of the party organization is of a many-faceted structure, which we define as pyramidal, in which all of the impulses deriving from the various points of the structure converge towards one central node, from which emerges the regulation and direction of the entire organized network.

20 – Lenin on the Path of Revolution, 1924

The organization as a party, which allows the class to truly be such and live as such, can be viewed as a unitary mechanism in which the various ‘brains’ (not just brains of course, but other individual organs as well) perform different tasks according to aptitude and capacity, all of them in the service of a common goal and interest which progressively unifies them ever more intimately ‘in time and space’. […] Therefore, not every individual in the organization occupies the same position or is at the same level. The gradual putting into practice of this division of tasks according to a rational plan (and what goes for today’s party-class will be the case for tomorrow’s society) completely excludes those higher up having privileges over the rest. Our revolutionary evolution isn’t heading towards disintegration, but towards an ever more scientific mutual connection between individuals.

21 – General Guiding Principles, 1949

The party isn’t an inanimate lump composed of identical particles, but a real organism brought into being and determined by social and historical requirements, with networks, organs and centers differentiated to carry out its various tasks. Establishing a good relationship between such real requirements and the best way of working leads to good organization, but not vice versa.

22 – Original Content of the Communist Program…, 1958

19 […] The party, which we are sure to see arise again in a more radiant future, will be composed of a vigorous minority of proletarians and anonymous revolutionaries who will carry out different functions as though organs of the same living being, but all will be linked, from the center to the base, to inflexible party norms which are binding on all as regards theory, organizational rigor and continuity, and a precise method regarding strategic action, in which the range of allowable possibilities, and corresponding vetoed possibilities, is drawn from terrible historical lessons about the havoc which opportunism wreaks.

23 – Reunion of Milan: Supplementary Theses…, 1966

    8 – Owing to its necessity of an organic action, and to be able to have a collective function, that goes beyond and leaves out all personalism and individualism, the party must distribute its members among the various functions and activities that constitute its life. The rotation of comrades in such functions is a natural fact, which cannot be regulated by rules similar to those concerning the careers within bourgeois bureaucracies. In the party there are not competitive examinations, in which people compete to reach more or less brilliant or in the public eye positions; we must instead aim at organically achieving our goal, which is not an aping of the bourgeois division of labour, but the natural adaptation of the complex and articulated organ (the party) to its function.

Part 2

Introduction

[C]entralized structure, existence of differentiated organs and a central organ capable of coordinating, directing, and issuing orders to the entire network; all members of the organization observing absolute discipline with respect to carrying out orders issued by the center; non-autonomy of the sections and local groups; rejection of communication networks which diverge from the unitary one which connects the center to the perimeter, and perimeter to center….

[I]t isn’t enough to perceive the party as a centralized organization, with all of its members responding as one man to impulses issuing from one central point. […] nor is it enough to stupidly maintain that, vice versa, we are for subjection to the principle of authority, and that consequently any centralism is good for us as long as it is centralism, any discipline goes as long as it is discipline. All this is something we have denied a thousand times over in the course of our party’s history….

But not any old centralism or any old discipline, a trivial description of which could be summed up in one phrase: “there must be a center which rules and a rank and file which obeys”; although we should add that, since we are antidemocratic, we don’t want head counts or leadership elections either, and that total rule by a small committee, or even by one man without the need for his power to be sanctioned by the democratically consulted majority of members, holds no fear for us. All these things we accept, but it doesn’t help explain the real dynamics by which the organ ‘party’ realizes its maximum centralization or, vice versa, loses it and degenerates during less favorable phases of the revolutionary class struggle; nor does it help us understand how the organ ‘party’ strengthens, grows and consolidates itself so as to be able to rid itself of the diseases that may affect it. All this needs to be explained if we are to reach an understanding of the essence of centralism and of communist discipline.

As is the case with all our theses, and the 1965 Naples theses in particular, it is not a matter of providing an organizational recipe (the ‘recipe’ here being expressed by the very term ‘centralism’), but rather of describing the communist party’s actual life, the ups and downs of its long history, the diseases that over and over again have afflicted it and the efficacy of the remedies we thought to apply on each occasion in order to effect a cure. We must study the party’s history from 1848 to the present, perceive it as moving through real historical events, traversing both the attacking and retreating phases of the revolution as it unfolds on the global scale. Only by doing this can we draw lessons which may, indeed must, be assimilated to good purpose by today’s party, making it stronger and better able to resist those material, negative events which destroyed three Internationals, and a proletarian revolutionary movement which seemed set to win a spectacular victory on a planet-wide scale in the post WW1 period.

Palming us off with the paltry doctrine that everything boils down to a lack of centralism, and claiming the only lesson to be drawn is the need for a structure even more centralized than the Bolshevik Party and the Third International, is tantamount to betraying the party and falsifying its entire tradition. How to obtain maximum centralization of the party? What diseases undermine absolute centralization and absolute discipline? Is it by having a cast of leaders who are even more rigid and totalitarian than, say, Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev? By having militants in the rank and file who are yet more disciplined, more devoted to the cause of communism, more obedient and heroic than the militants of the always under-centralized German party? Or is it by providing better instruction in historical Marxist doctrine to each of our militants, in the infernal sequence according to which a militant who has not properly studied all the party texts, who is not ‘programmed’, cannot serve in the organization in a disciplined way?

These questions can be answered by analyzing party history and the lessons derived by the Left from it….

Chapter 1 – Historical Party and Formal Party

What must become an absolutely essential part of our heritage is the notion of the existence of this strict connection between the militant organization’s action, between what they say and do today, and its theories, principles, and past historical experience; and that it is the latter (theory, principles, etc.), and not individual or even collective opinions which will always be the final arbiter as regards all party questions. Who gives the orders in the party? We have always maintained that the historical party, to which we owe unswerving obedience and loyalty, effectively gives the orders. And through what microphone does the historical party transmit its orders? It could be one man, or a million men; it could be the leadership of the organization, or even the rank-and-file recalling the leadership to observance of that data without which the very organization ceases to exist.

In the party—we quote a text from 1967—no-one commands and everyone is commanded; no-one commands, because it is not in one individual’s head that the solution of the problem is sought; and everyone is commanded, because even the best of Centers mustn’t give orders that depart from the continuous line of the historical party.

Dictatorship of the principles, traditions and aims of communism over everybody, from rank-and-file to Center; legitimate expectation of the Center to be obeyed without opposition as long as its orders respond to this line – a line which must be evident in everything the party does; expectation of the rank-and-file not to be consulted about every order it is given, but to carry them out only if they follow the impersonal line of the historical party which everyone accepts. In the party there are therefore leaders and hierarchies; it is a case of technical instruments that the party cannot do without, because every action it takes must be unitary and centralized, must aspire to maximum efficiency and discipline. But the course of action is not decided by party organs on the basis of flashes of genius issuing from particular brains; they in their turn have to submit to decisions taken, above all, by history; decisions which have become the collective and impersonal inheritance of the organ ‘party’.

Chapter 3 – The Party as Organization of People

But who then decides party policy? What is the party collectivity supposed to say and do? This is decided by translating the party’s programme, aims, principles and theory into activity; the activity of study, research and interpretation of social events and actively intervening within them. It is from this collective activity that the practical decisions emerge; decisions that mustn’t in any way be at odds with the historical foundations on which the party stands. It is the world center which issues orders to the rest of the network and although it is a role which can be performed by one person or by a group of people, the center itself is a function of the party, is the product of the collective activity of the party, and orders don’t emerge from it as result of its greater or lesser cerebral capacity, rather they constitute the nodal point within an activity that involves the entire organization and which must be based on the historical party.

In our scheme, the orientation of the party is neither decided by the totality of individuals who compose it, nor by the group that happens to be performing the role of center, which only expresses decisions that are binding on all militants insofar as they derive from the party’s historical patrimony, and are the result of the work of, and contributions from, the organization as a whole. Our thesis, therefore, is that it is not individuals who are responsible for how well the party performs, and nor indeed are they to blame if the party falls apart. We will never consider the question as one of finding “the best people” to guarantee the work is carried out correctly; nor will we ever attempt, in accordance with our theses, to remedy a mistake by juggling individuals around within the party’s hierarchical structure. As to individuals separately considered our theory denies them consciousness, merit or blame and considers them exclusively as more or less valid instruments of the collective activity; likewise it considers their actions, whether right or wrong, not as the fruit of their personal intentions but due to impersonal and anonymous determinations. It is the collective work itself, based on sound tradition, which selects individuals for the various levels in the hierarchy and for the various roles and tasks that define the party organization. But the guarantee that the tasks will be performed correctly cannot be provided by the brain-power and will-power of an individual or a group: it is, on the contrary, the result of the development of the party work as a whole.

34 – Communist Organization and Discipline, 1924

Orders emanating from the central hierarchies are not the starting point, but rather the result of the functioning of the movement understood as a collective. This is not to be understood in a foolishly democratic or legalistic way but in a realistic and historical sense. We are not defending, by saying this, “the right” of the communist masses to devise policies which the leaders must then follow: we are noting that the formation of a class party presents itself in these terms, and that an examination of the question must be based on these premises. That is how we tentatively sketch out a set of conclusions with regard to this matter.

There is no mechanical discipline that can reliably ensure that orders and regulations from on high “whatever they are” will be put into effect; there is however a cluster of orders and regulations responding to the real origins of the movement which can guarantee the maximum of discipline, that is, unitary action of the whole organism, whereas there are other directives which if issued from the center could compromise both discipline and organizational solidity.

It is, therefore, a matter of demarcating the duty of the leading organs. But who is supposed to do that? The whole party should do it, that’s who, the whole organization, and not in the trite and parliamentary sense of a right to be consulted about the “mandate” to be conferred on the elected leaders and how restricted it will be, but in a dialectical sense that takes into consideration the movement’s traditions, preparedness, and real continuity in its thinking and action.

37 – Speech by the Left’s Representative to the Sixth ECCI Plenum, 1926

This also relates to the question of leaders that comrade Trotsky raised in the preface to Nineteen Seventeen, in an analysis of the causes of our defeat, and I entirely agree with the conclusions he came to. Trotsky does not speak of leaders as though Heaven needs to delegate men for this purpose. On the contrary, he approaches the problem quite differently. Even leaders are the result of party activity, of party working methods, and a product of the confidence the party is able to inspire. If the party, in spite of changeable and often unfavorable circumstances, follows the revolutionary line and fights opportunist deviation, then the selection of leaders, the formation of a General Staff, will go well; and during the final struggle we will have, if not always a Lenin, at least a compact and courageous leadership-something that today, given the current state our organizations are in, we have little cause to expect.

The 3rd International

Since its birth, the Left has said that “the party would cease to exist if its various parts were allowed to operate on their own account. No autonomy of local organizations with regard to political procedure.” (Marxism and Authority, 1956) Already at the time of the Third International, the Left’s aspirations and actions within it were already pointed towards this centralist direction. Again in Marxism and Authority, the Left went on to recall that these were “old struggles that were already being waged within the parties of the Second International […] against organizing the work of local sections or federations ‘on a case by case basis’ in the municipalities and provinces, against party members acting ‘on a case by case basis’ in the various economic organizations, and so on.” 

The Left continued its critique of the federalist tendencies typical of the Second International, which means purely local and national forms of doctrinal homogeneity and organization. It affirmed, from the outset, that the new International needed to constitute itself as a “true International Communist Party.” By doing so, it would establish a true centralism on a global scale, ensuring the monolithic nature of the directives and actions of the international proletarian movement. Thus, the representatives of the Left said this regarding the “Zinoviev Report” at the Fourth Moscow Congress, in November-December 1922:

“Every tradition of federalism must be eliminated, in order to ensure centralization and unitary discipline. But this historical problem is not to be solved by mechanical expedients. Even the new International, to avoid opportunist dangers and internal disciplinary crises, must base centralization on clarity not only of program, but also of tactics and method of work. […] This choice [in measures of organization and tactical means] must remain, we affirm, with the center and not with the national organizations according to the judgments they claim to give of their special conditions. If the extent of this choice remains too wide and sometimes even unpredictable, it will fatally result in the frequency of cases of indiscipline which break the continuity and prestige of the world revolutionary organization. We believe that the international organization must be less federative in its central organs; these must not be founded on the representation of national sections, but must emanate from the Congress of the International.” The Left has never abdicated these positions.

Less than two years later, the Left reiterated this point at the Fifth Congress of the Communist International, with the Theses on the Question of Tactics, in June-July 1924. The Left reiterated that the process of centralization could only be the fruit of “a real unity of method, which places in the foreground the common features of the action of the proletarian vanguard in all countries.” 

The text goes on to say that it it such a unity of method is only possible at the expense of all the old and new federalist tendencies: “These considerations rest on the rich experience gained during the transitional phase of the International, when it went from an organization of Communist Parties to being a single World Communist Party. These considerations categorically demand the unification of organizational and disciplinary normas, as well as the elimination of abnormal organizational methods. These abnormal methods include the merging of a section of the CI with other political organizations, the fact that certain sections are not founded on the basis of personal membership but in the collective membership of worker’s bodies, the existence of organized fraction and groups of certain tendencies within the Party, and the noyautage and systematic infiltration into organization of a political (and especially military) character. As long as the CI employs these and other such methods, federalism and indiscipline will manifest themselves.”

In 1925, the Left wrote against the “new” federalist “tendencies” in Platform of the Entente Committee. In line with its activity in the CI the Left, and only the Left, offered the international revolutionary movement an open critique of the cell system of organization. This was an organization based on factory groups, imposed by an International which embarked on the path of degeneration. “For us the cell system is equivalent to a federative system which is the negation of the centralization of the Communist Parties, meaning by centralization the maximum strengthening of the revolutionary energies of the periphery coordinated and reflected in the leading apparatus.”

In our 1986 Presentation to the Communist Party in the Tradition of the Left, we wrote “[O]nly the Left was capable of drawing the lesson of the counter-revolution, by recognising the Third International, in its first two congresses, as the anticipation of the world communist party; something which is an old aspiration of Marxist communism and a historical necessity. The Left would also denounce ephemeral forms, the survival of federalism and of doctrinal and programmatic heterogeneity within the party, and their degenerate consequences: the democratic mechanism and its complement, bureaucratism and abuse of organizational formalism.”

The CI’s irreversible degeneration was caused by real and objective obstacles to the revolutionary process. This ultimately led to the defeat of the proletariat’s vanguard in their attempt to storm heaven, as well as the CI’s eventual fall into the hands of opportunism. On an organizational basis, this process first manifested itself precisely by normalizing discontinuities and national-federalist tendencies which the Left always opposed. Indeed, in 1986, we wrote in The One World Party: “The composing and decomposing of the party was guided by the seesaw of positions imparted by the International until it came to the aberrant necessity for the center to create its own particular fractions in the national sections of the CI. At that moment the CI ceased to orient itself in the direction of the one, world party, and went backwards toward the federation of national parties. The inner workings of the CI were opening up to opportunism, even by this route.”

The Postwar Period

We wrote in The Name of the Party, a work contained in Materials for the Final Theses on Internal Organization from 1965: “Justified by the decisions of the Second World Congress of 1920, the Party took the name ‘Communist Party of Italy (section of the Communist International).’ When the International dissolved, at the end of a degeneration, long foreseen by the Left, its present monstrous remnant took the name ‘Italian Communist Party,’ while actually carrying out a national policy. And so in 1943, even while reconstituting ourselves for Italian territory alone, we chose the name ‘Internationalist Communist Party’ to distinguish us from such shame. Today, due to the reality of dialectical unfolding, our organization is the same inside and outside the borders of Italy, and it is nothing new to note that it acts as an international body, albeit with great quantitative limits.”

The same formation, in full continuity with the past, constitutes the Communist Party today. Today it is organized even outside the limits of national borders, unique and worldwide. Unique because it rests on a single and indivisible “programmatically monolithic and unmodifiable doctrinaire structure, centered on the gigantic tradition of the Left,” and worldwide because it is a network organized on an international scale with a single, centralized direction and that “rejects any federalist weakness.” (Foreword to Comunismo #13)

We wrote in our Characteristic Theses, and in those that followed, that in our ceaseless activity of defending and sculpting theory, we were laying “the cornerstones not of an ‘Italian’ party, not only of today’s small and weak party, but of tomorrow’s strong and compact international communist party.” (The One World Party) In our past, it was to the same extent that “[the Left’s] work carried out within the CI was concerned not only with the Italian party, but also and above all with the world party.” (The One World Party) To this party, history has entrusted the grand task of directing the international proletariat toward its victorious revolution on a global scale.

The International Communist Party aims to create and distribute a paper for the world proletariat. Over time, this paper will be published in languages other than English, in proportion to the material possibilities provided by the growth of our movement.

The content of our press will be ideologically homogeneous, complete in line with the international principles of revolutionary Marxism. While we may include discussions on local specificities, such concerns will always be subordinated to the universal class struggle. In this way, we will avoid any and all tendencies towards opportunism and federalism.

The production and distribution of this central organ will have to be a top priority for the Party. Only through coherent and internationally coordinated communication will it be possible to prevent the re-emergence of factionalism, revisionism, and internal crises. All the energies and resources of the Party will have to be devoted to this instrument of political battle. It will be the centerpiece of the strategy for strengthening our movement, constituting the leadership of the working class toward world proletarian revolution.

Party investigation is more than a simple matter of transmitting information to the working groups or the center. Its role goes far beyond a mere mechanical functioning, such as the superficial copy-paste activity found on social media. Instead, the working group’s mission is deeply rooted in understanding the needs and directives of the Party, which are then elaborated into collective work plans. This work is not just about collecting data or news, but analysis and interpretation. Working groups must determine what these facts mean for the revolutionary struggle, and ultimately, for the party. Every piece of information must be analyzed through the lens of communist doctrine to understand its political and strategic implications. This theoretical and political reflection is essential to ensure that the Party’s investigation serves the cause of the proletariat, steadfast in the ideological and operational unity of the Party. 

The ability to interpret reality correctly—without falling into superficial or piecemeal approaches—distinguishes the activity of the International Communist Party from that of any other organization. It ensures that all of its actions and communications respond to a coherent and well-defined revolutionary goal.

Today’s society is, frankly, characterized by an overabundance of information and—most of all—noise. This noise is almost always confusing and disorienting, and makes it difficult to discern what is truly relevant to the revolutionary cause. In this chaos, the task of our movement becomes crucial: it must be able to rigorously and methodically filter this incessant flow of data, selecting and transmitting to the Party only the information which is genuinely useful and relevant to its collective action and strategy.

When communicating information within the Party, it is essential to take an organic and clear approach. First, militants must always state why they are communicating, making sure the context of this information is explicit and explaining its potential value. Second, they must precisely state to whom that particular information may be useful, ensuring that it is targeted to the right comrade(s) or group(s). Third, it is necessary to cite where (or how) the information was obtained, allowing the Party to verify it, and, if necessary, investigate it further. Finally, and perhaps most importantly of all, all communication must be accompanied by political reflection according to the Party’s point of view, making sure that the information is not conveyed as mere raw facts, but already contextualized and understood in the light of our doctrine.

In this way, this information will not only be immediately usable, but will actively contribute to the Party’s theoretical and practical development, avoiding any dispersion of energy and ensuring that all correspondence is directed toward strengthening collective action. This is the only way to effectively counter the constant noise generated by capitalism, transforming information into an instrument of conscious (and ultimately organized) struggle.

The Party’s internal communication requires consistent coordination and attention, which at minimum necessitates commitment and reflection. It cannot be left to chance or the superficial nature of everyday modes of interaction. Internal communications must be transmitted in a structured and formal manner through tools such as e-mail, which allows for systematic organization and careful archiving of the correspondence; they must not be left to inappropriate means such as cell phone calls, social media, or forums, which encourage distraction and fragment collective thinking.

The habits of communication imposed by capitalism on society, which delight in nothing but immediacy and, of course, superficiality, are incompatible with the needs of the Party. The shapeless masses of people, lacking conscious organization, express themselves on social media in a chaotic and passive manner, reducing communication to a trivial copy-and-pasting of links, accompanied, at most, by a few extemporaneous comments. There is no real sender nor a defined recipient; each message is dispersed in an indistinct tide of information, with no constructive logic or clear purpose. In this context, every discussion on social media is bound to fade quickly, buried by new conversations lacking continuity. Nothing preserved, nothing constructed.

In the Party, on the other hand, communication is an integral part of a long-term project. Each contribution is treated carefully and systematically, not to be forgotten, but to be archived and enhanced over time. The work is not dispersed, but rather rigorously organized, so that it can build, brick by brick, a solid foundation for the Party’s collective intelligence. Each intervention, each analysis, each correspondence,  is intended to endure and contribute to the strengthening of revolutionary action, with a clear and forward-looking vision. This method not only guarantees the continuity of the Party’s theoretical and practical work, but also represents the fundamental difference between our approach and the fragmented and scattered communication typical of bourgeois society.

One cannot give in to the temptation to adopt the communication methods typical of social media within the Party, simply because it might be “easier.” The Party cannot, and will never, choose the “easy way out.” Doing so would betray its historical nature and mission. Those who would delude themselves into thinking that they could transpose typical mass communication habits into the Party would actually just fall into a distorted conception of the Party itself. Such a view would end up confusing the Party with the formless and disorganized mass, assimilating its emotional instability, restlessness for restlessness’ sake, and the inconclusive frenzy of communication without any purpose, plan, or program.

The Party, on the other hand, is a compact organism driven by theoretical clarity and strategic coherence. Internal communication cannot, and must not, be random or impulsive, but rather must always respond to a definite purpose, fitting harmoniously into the work plans and traditional line of action.

The petty-bourgeois leftist, on the contrary, finds his natural habitat in social media, where he spends hours in incessant agitation. He constantly seeks confrontation and approval, drawing attention to himself with empty “revolutionary” buzzwords, which he repeats without any connection to the material and objective conditions of a given situation. He puffs up his chest, exalting himself with high-sounding and suggestive speeches, which do not, however, rest on any real basis. This attitude is not only alien to Party action, it is dangerously illusory, for it masks the absence of any concrete analysis of reality with empty slogans which are incapable of really affecting the class struggle.

In the Party, it is the opposite; every word and every action must be rooted in knowledge of the objective conditions and the needs of the working class. There is no room for superficiality or self-aggrandizement. What counts is the clarity and effectiveness of the revolutionary message, always geared toward building collective consciousness and action. Only in this way can the Party remain true to its historical role as the vanguard of the proletarian class, without getting drawn into the inconclusive whirlpools of petty-bourgeois agitation.

The Party has no need to rely on individuals whose popularity or visibility on social media allow them to exert significant influence on the opinions and attitudes of the masses. The Party rejects the very idea of tying itself to individual figures; it has no need to personify itself through the face—or name—of any particular character. This principle is not new, but consistent with its historical vision. The Party has always firmly rejected the demagogic personification of its enemies, and likewise refuses to fall into the trap of entrusting its image or goals to individuals, no matter how “charismatic” or influential they may appear.

Even in the age of social media, with the spread of personal visibility and the cult of the celebrity, the Party will continue to carry out its propaganda in complete anonymity. Its strength lies not in faces or names, but in the unity and consistency of its doctrine and collective activity. Renouncing the figure of the “talking head” is not a loss, but an act of consistency and strength, which guarantees that the Party will never deviate into forms of personalism or aping the protagonists of the bourgeoisie. 

Revolutionary propaganda does not need to make a spectacle of itself or appeal to individual authority. Its legitimacy derives from the soundness of Marxist theory, which gives it the ability to organize and lead the working class toward revolution.

In this sense, anonymity is not a weakness, but a hallmark of the purity of the Party’s struggle, which distances itself from the corrupt and alienating dynamics of the capitalist system, where everything is reduced to images and spectacle. The Party should remain a collective entity immune to these mystifications. It shall be strong not in individuals, but in organizational compactness and the clarity of its historical project.

Social media work, like any other propaganda activity, must be carried out by militants with proven experience, and only following central approval. Their actions must be constantly reported to the center and documented in detail, while maintaining strict organization. It is essential that militants engaged in this activity do not express anything in a personal capacity, nor try to build a persona around their character. Their presence on social media must always be functional for the dissemination of texts, newspapers and leaflets produced by the Party, without deviating into individual or personal initiatives.

At this historical stage, characterized by the relative weakness of the proletarian class, this is certainly not the time to produce “new” specific content to feed the volatile dynamics of social media. Propaganda must follow a precise, pre-established and periodically checked plan, avoiding any dissipation of energy and any temptation to adapt to the ephemeral rhythms of modern communication. The first priority is to strengthen the organs of our movement, especially the party press, which is the fundamental tool for organizing and directing the revolutionary struggle.

The Party has its own specific organs of information and propaganda, and comrades must devote themselves exclusively to these. Collaborating with external press or media that do not belong to the Party, as well as making propaganda through personal channels such as social profiles or blogs, is alien to the Party’s method and must be avoided. In reality, communist propaganda does not rely on ephemeral or individualistic means, but is based on collective and centralized action, aimed at building a solid and lasting collective intelligence.
The Party’s first task in this context is to enable new contacts to devote all their energies to correspondence with the Party itself. This flow of internal communication is essential to nurture the Party’s ability to develop a more comprehensive and articulate press, one which can respond to the needs of the working class and guide it toward revolutionary consciousness-raising and organization. Action on social media, therefore, must be conceived not as an end in itself, but as an integral part of a larger and more structured project, always at the service of strengthening the Party’s central organs.

We view the party as a “school of thought and method for action”; a school that all comrades attend and all comrades learn, from the youngest to the veterans. Obviously not all comrades are equal, but all learn and study, and differences in ability and knowledge are used by the party to organically assign each comrade to the most suitable function. This aspect is also well made clear in Lenin’s book What is to be done?

The opposite of this way of understanding the party and the militant’s role is to annihilate ourselves in submission to an unquestioned authority, a leader. This “leader” would regularly provide us with instructions and solutions, without ever struggling to find these out for ourselves. We reject this tendency, which parallels the presumption of those who claim to have it all figured out.

“So, our long, tragic experience should have taught us that whilst it is necessary to utilize everyone’s particular skills and aptitudes in party operations, ‘we should not love anyone’; indeed we need to be prepared to chuck anyone out, even if they’ve spent eleven out of twelve months in prison every year of their life. At important junctures, decisions about the course of action to follow have to be made without relying on the personal ‘authority’ of teachers, leaders or executives, and on the basis of rules of principle and of conduct that our movement has fixed in advance. A very difficult concept, we know, but without it we cannot see how a powerful movement will reappear…. Polemics about persons and between persons, and the use and abuse of personal names, must be replaced by the checking and verification of the statements on which the movement, during successive difficult attempts at reorganization, has based its work and its struggle” (Politique d’abord, 1952).

It is obvious that we feel love for each other in the party, a love that flows from the common struggle and the common ultimate goal, but it is certainly not something that can be imposed. It would be infantile to claim that one must regulate such sentiments, even if that were possible in the first place.

All that we have mentioned does not mean that the party has an open door through which anyone can enter by simply professing their faith, like entering a church, synagogue, or mosque. The party has a duty to make an assessment of the individual, denying admittance to figures who might endanger it. Moreover, membership must always, without any exception, take place on an individual basis.

“The party must effect a strict organizational rigour in the sense that it does not accept self‑enlargement by means of compromises with other groups, large or small, or worse still through bargaining over concessions with alleged bosses and leaders in order to win rank-and-file members” (Force, Violence, Dictatorship… 1948).

The danger to the party is not so much physical, vis-à-vis the safety of comrades and the organization (although in certain moments we must also contemplate this possibility), but related to the party’s doctrinal and organizational integrity. Party members are able to assess the passion and sincerity of the sympathizer by working with them for a certain period of time. This is not the definitive criterion, but the senior comrade’s sensibility and experience allows them to get a general picture of the sympathizer, and there are aspects that are not difficult to identify. Ljudvinskaja narrates:

“In Paris Lenin directed all our activity…. Lenin’s harshness and intransigence toward opportunists upset some comrades. One of them said to Lenin, ‘Why expel everyone from the section? Who are we going to work with?’ Lenin replied with a smile, ‘It matters little if we are not very numerous today, because, on the other hand, we will be united in our action, and conscious workers will support us, since we are on the right path.’ He taught us to have a strict attitude, a principled attitude toward the conduct and acts of comrades” (Lénine tel qu’il fut, 1958). Radek, when commenting on the issue of the famous paragraph 1 of the statute, debated at the 2nd Congress in 1903, wrote: “On the question around the first paragraph of the statute of the Social Democratic Party Lenin posed a problem that is no less important than all other political differences with the Mensheviks. Instead, it can be said that this first paragraph of the statute prepared the possibility of the practical realization of Lenin’s political line…. In the rejection of tsarism, which aroused the indignation of the broadest strata of petty-bourgeois intellectuals, there was no jurist who did not shelter himself under the aegis of socialist thought. He who welcomed him into the party on the simple condition that he recognize the program of the proletarian party and provide financial support, put the divided labor movement at the mercy of the petty bourgeoisie.

“Lenin, by making it a condition that only those who were active in the organization of the proletariat be admitted into the party, aimed to limit the danger of the workers’ movement falling under the influence of petty-bourgeois intellectuals. It is true that even those who, by joining the organization and becoming professional revolutionaries, showed that they had broken all ties with bourgeois society, did not give complete assurance that they would remain loyal to the cause of the proletariat. Nevertheless, these choices represented in some way a guarantee” (Lenin, 1924).

Lenin’s attitude on this issue is well understood from the discussion of Paragraph 1 of the Statute at the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1903. This is particularly important because it raises the broader question of party organization.

Even though the Bolsheviks who agreed with Lenin had a majority at the congress, they did not side with him on this issue. Martov made a different proposal, and got a temporary majority. While Lenin did not make a big deal out of this, it is still beneficial to understand his attitude on this issue.

Lenin proposed a paragraph (number 1, to emphasize the central importance of this issue): “A member of the Party is one who accepts its programme and who supports the Party both financially and by personal participation in one of the Party organizations.” Are you really in favor of a distinction between party and class? Prove it by accepting these conditions.

Below is the report that Lenin later gives of it, which we published in our text Lenin the Organic Centralist. Says Lenin:

“The definition given in my draft was: ‘A member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party is one who accepts its programme and who supports the Party both financially and by personal participation in one of the Party organisations.’ In place of the words I have underlined, Martov proposed: ’work under the control and direction of one of the Party organizations’. My formulation was supported by Plekhanov, Martov’s by the rest of the editorial board (Axelrod was their spokesman at the Congress). We argued that the concept Party member must be narrowed so as to separate those who worked from those who merely talked, to eliminate organizational chaos, to eliminate the monstrous and absurd possibility of there being organizations which consisted of Party members but which were not Party organizations, and so on. Martov stood for broadening the Party and spoke of a broad class movement needing a broad—i.e., diffuse—organization, and so forth. It is amusing to note that in defense of their views nearly all Martov’s supporters cited What Is to Be Done? Plekhanov hotly opposed Martov, pointing out that his Jauresist formulation would fling open the doors to the opportunists, who just longed for such a position of being inside the Party but outside its organization. ‘Under the control and direction’, I said, would in practice mean nothing more nor less than without any control or direction” (VII, 27-28).

Martov hoped for a mass party, but in doing so he opened the doors to all sorts of opportunists, and made the party’s limits indeterminate and vague. This was a serious danger, as it was not easy to distinguish the boundary between the revolutionary and the idle chatterbox: Lenin says that a good third of the participants at the Congress were schemers.

“Why worry about those who don’t want to or can’t join one of the party organizations,” Plekhanov wondered.

“Workers wishing to join the party will not be afraid to join one of its organizations. Discipline doesn’t scare them. Intellectuals, completely imbued with bourgeois individualism, will fear entering. These bourgeois individualists are generally the representatives of all sorts of opportunism. We have to get them away from us. The project is a shield against their breaking into the party, and only for this reason should all enemies of opportunism vote for Lenin’s proposal” (Proceedings of the Second Congress, session of August 2 (15)).

Trotsky spoke against Lenin’s proposal, considering it ineffective. Lenin replied to him:

“[Trotsky] has failed to notice a basic question: does my formulation narrow or expand the concept of a Party member? If he had asked himself that question, he would easily have seen that my formulation narrows this concept, while Martov’s expands it, for (to use Martov’s own correct expression) what distinguishes his concept is its ‘elasticity’. And in the period of Party life that we are now passing through it is just this ‘elasticity’ that undoubtedly opens the door to all elements of confusion, vacillation, and opportunism.”

Those unstable elements are the harbingers of uncertainties and deviations, without much work to show for it. The danger can be great: “The need to safeguard the firmness of the Party’s line and the purity of its principles has now become particularly urgent, for, with the restoration of its unity, the Party will recruit into its ranks a great many unstable elements, whose number will increase with the growth of the Party” (VI, 499-500).

On the other hand, where is the danger of a rigorous delimitation of the party, through specific limits to the definition of “Social Democrat?”

“If hundreds and thousands of workers who were arrested for taking part in strikes and demonstrations did not prove to be members of Party organizations, it would only show that we have good organizations, and that we are fulfilling our task of keeping a more or less limited circle of leaders secret and of drawing the broadest possible masses into the movement.”

But the party, a vanguard component of the working class, cannot be confused with the whole class, as Axelrod did.

“It would be better if ten who do work should not call themselves Party members (real workers don’t hunt after titles!) than that one who only talks should have the right and opportunity to be a Party member…. The Central Committee will never be able to exercise real control over all who do the work but do not belong to organizations. It is our task to place actual control in the hands of the Central Committee. It is our task to safeguard the firmness, consistency, and purity of our Party. We must strive to raise the title and the significance of a Party member higher, higher and still higher” (VI, 500-502).

In 1955 we wrote in Russia and Revolution in Marxist Theory, Part 2, §37:

“Apparently it seems that Lenin was distinguishing between mere party militants and the ‘professional revolutionaries,’ whose smaller groups formed the leadership backbone. We showed several times that here we are dealing with the illegal network, and not with the superimposition on the party of a bureaucratic apparatus of paid people. Professional does not necessarily mean salaried, but dedicated to the party’s struggle by voluntary membership, disengaged now from any association for reasons of defending collective interests, although this remains the determinist basis for the rise of the party. The whole importance of the Marxist dialectic lies in this double relationship. The worker is revolutionary out of class interest, the communist is revolutionary for the same end, but elevated beyond subjective interest.”

And in Croaking of Praxis, from Il Programma Comunista No. 11/1953:

“The right wing of the Russian party wants the party member to come from a professional or factory worker group federated in the party: the trade unions were called professional associations by the Russians. In a polemical sense Lenin forges the historic phrase that above all the party is an association of professional revolutionaries. They are not asked: are you a worker? In what profession? Mechanic, tinsmith, woodworker? They may be as well factory workers as students or perhaps sons of nobles; they will answer: revolutionary, that is my profession. Only Stalinist cretinism could give such a phrase the sense of revolutionary by trade, of being salaried by the party. Such a useless formula would have left the problem at the same point: do we hire employees of the apparatus among the workers, or even outside? But it was about more than that.”

For the Bolsheviks, the communist militant is one who accepts the program, without necessarily knowing it or understanding it in detail, and is willing to work at the party’s orders: qualities of self-sacrifice, willingness to fight, that any proletarian can have, even if illiterate. Such an acceptance of the program can be based on an understanding of a few essential aspects, sometimes just slogans, but which coincide with their deepest aspirations, their needs. An acceptance based more on passion than intellect. Understanding will come, in time.

This understanding will never be complete, however. The total understanding of doctrine cannot be of the individual but of the party collective, and is expressed in its press, its theses, its revolutionary tactics.

“Doctrinal knowledge is not the single fact of even the most learned follower or leader, nor is it a condition for the mass in motion: it has for its subject a proper organ, the party” (Russia and Revolution…, Part 2, § 37).

This concept is repeated in the Characteristic Theses of the Party, of 1951:

“The Party is not formed on the basis of individual consciousness: not only is it not possible for each proletarian to become conscious and still less to master the class doctrine in a cultural way, but neither is it possible for each individual militant, not even for the leaders of the Party. Consciousness consists in the organic unity of the Party alone.”

“Beyond the influence of social democracy there is no other conscious activity of the workers” Lenin says at the Second Congress. We add, “It is heavy, but it is so. Proletarian action is spontaneous insofar as it arises from economic determinants, but it does not have consciousness as a condition, either in the individual or in the class. Physical class struggle is spontaneous fact, not conscious. The class achieves its consciousness only when the revolutionary party has been formed in its bosom, which possesses the theoretical consciousness resting on the real class relation, proper, in fact, to all proletarians. The latter, however, can never possess true knowledge—that is, theory—either as individuals, or as a totality, or as a majority as long as the proletariat is subject to bourgeois education and culture, that is, to the bourgeois fabrication of its ideology, and, in good terms, as long as the proletariat does not win, and ceases to exist. So, in exact terms, proletarian consciousness will never be there. There is doctrine, communist knowledge, and this is in the party of the proletariat, not in the class” (“Russia and Revolution…” Part 2, § 39)

Concluding on the discussion on paragraph 1, it is obvious that there was a difference between working under the leadership of one of the organizations and participating in it, being part of it, in the sense that participating in one of the organizations required a path that not all sympathizers or kindred were able or willing to take. Thus, there was a process of acceptance into the party, which presuppose characteristics that Lenin describes elsewhere, and which we pointed out above that we fully share.