Contents "The internationalist proletarian" n.16
INTRODUCTION TO THE 1952 SPLIT
The initial formal constitution of the Internationalist Communist Party in 1943 and the first period until 1951 was not exempt from a whole series of insufficiencies and deficiencies, from ambiguities about the anti-fascist partisanship, through the approach of democratic internal debate to the acceptance of participation in parliamentary elections[1].
Notwithstanding the above, in that period will begin to be published as a process of political clarification – and until 1951 as an external contribution – “Property and Capital” from 1948 and the series “Threads of Time” from 1949, as other fundamental texts of continuity and Marxist theoretical restoration had been produced before[2].
The true reconstitution on an integrally Marxist basis of the Party took place in 1951 when, on the basis of all the preceding work of political clarification, a clear and categorical delimitation of the positions of the Party with respect to the revisionist positions that were manifesting inside the Party was established. “Theory and action in the Marxist doctrine” (Rome and Naples meetings) and the “Characteristic Theses” (Florence meeting), initially published in the form of a synthetic extract as “Bases for the organization 1952”, collect this platform in perfect coherence with other fundamental texts published in that period. Both texts are expressly referenced in n. 5 of Battaglia Comunista of 1952, as delimiting texts of the approach and extension of the organizational framework, practical tasks and of the action of the Party.
The clarification of the fundamental positions according to the thread of the tradition of Marxism and of the Communist Left of Italy (and more specifically of its battle against the degeneration of the III International) led to the separation from the Party's leadership by those who would later kidnap the Party's publications by asserting their commercial ownership over them. The continuity of the historical thread of Marxism had to keep up the publication of the Party review under another headline: il Programma Comunista. Both Battaglia Comunista and Prometeo remained in the hands of the activist, alliancist, parliamentary and anti-union line which had resorted to bourgeois legality for this purpose.
We will synthesize beneath, for schematic facility of reference, the points of separation that led to the rupture, without prejudice to referring to the study of the mentioned fundamental texts and of others, from where it is truly important to study and assimilate them.
The current of integral Marxism, of the continuity of the lessons of the struggle of the Italian Communist Left against the degeneration of the III International, the current that represented the continuity of the historical Party, delimited itself from the revisionist current, in the following points:
- Understanding of the severity and depth of the counterrevolutionary situation and the distance of the resumption of the class struggle, preponderance of the work of theoretical restoration and publication of the review, of the defense of the historical line of preparation for the future resumption of the movement, without renouncing all forms of activity characteristic of favorable moments insofar as the situation allows it[3];
- Understanding of the bourgeois revolutionary process that was developing in Asia and Africa (later completely culminated around 1975) and of the necessary triumph of bourgeois revolutions over feudalism for the birth and generalization of capitalism (a process closed in Europe in 1871)[4];
- Rejection of any form of revisionism of Marxism and of the freedom of new doctrinal elaboration tending to the foundation of new theories or of pretended new schemes and explanations of the contemporary social world that assumes that the facts of capitalism in its present phase cannot be explained by the fundamental Marxist theory[5];
- Rejection of the revisionist and gradualist theory of a supposed descending branch of the curve of capitalism, which in reality develops through a series of ascending curves that lead to points of discontinuity (crisis)[6];
- Characterization of the Russian economy as tending towards State industrialism and rejection of the anti-Marxist position of the “bureaucracy” as a new social class that would have become the dominant class in Stalinist Russia[7];
- Rejection of the expedients and tactical maneuvers of the united political fronts, of the organizational fusions between heterogeneous groups;
- Necessity of the resurgence of the network of economic struggle (class union), as a connective tissue between the Party and the masses, outside the influences of the dominant class[8];
- Rejection of participation in bourgeois elections, not as a question of principle, but as a tactical limitation acquired and established for mature democratic capitalism;
- Rejection of personalism, slogan of anonymity[9];
- Revindication of organic centralism and rejection of democratic centralism;
The above points are closely interrelated among them and could be arranged in different ways as one leads to others. The evaluation of the depth of the crisis is linked to the reality of the development of bourgeois revolutions in Africa and Asia, without a proletarian movement in Europe and America. Faced with this situation, any form of revisionism of the original Marxist doctrine is rejected, under any situationist pretext, which leads to the rejection of the theorization of new capitalist forms (in Russia and outside Russia), of new dominant classes (the bureaucracy!) and of the theory of the decadence of capitalism, a convenient lever to try to alter and subvert the doctrinal and tactical positions of Marxism. Consequently, the tactical lessons of the degeneration of the III International are revindicated, rejecting the tactical maneuvers, the fusions and the political united fronts, rejecting the participation in the bourgeois parliament but revindicating the necessary activity in the class union field, field in which the integration carried out by fascism obliges to raise the necessity of the resurgence of organisms of class union struggle outside the influence of the bourgeois State. Derived from all the above and from the disastrous play of names in the course of the degeneration of the International, arises the necessity of anonymity and the definitive overcoming of the democratic fraud within the organization. All this in perfect coherence with the approach of the Communist Left of Italy in its struggle within the Italian Socialist Party, for the separation of the revolutionaries from the opportunists, and later within the Communist Party of Italy, against the degeneration of the International.
In reverse order, it was quite normal for those who desired their quota of individual nominal protagonism[10] and theoretical innovation saw with complete frustration this approach, demanded debates and sovereign congresses, made a fuss for the maintenance of the tactic of parliamentarism[11], let themselves be seduced by the theory of the bureaucracy as the new dominant class and by the simplifying (but erroneous) theory of the decadence, a gateway to the anti-union positions (theorizing that it will be another type of organs which will serve as a bridge between the Party and the masses[12]) and of abstraction of the bourgeois revolutions in course in more than half the world at that moment, and would throw itself into the most varied organizational caprioles of fusions with other currents[13], sighing for an unreal immediate resumption of the class struggle in the moment of more depth of the counterrevolution. And this is what characterized the current that appropriated Battaglia Comunista and Prometeo through the bourgeois courts, permeated by the revisionist positions of the French group Socialisme ou barbarie.
To conclude this synthetic introduction, we will quote an extract from another fundamental text, from 1965[14], entitled “The organic structure of the party is the other face of its unity of doctrine and program”, which reflects the moment of the rupture in these terms:
“In 1952 our Party was undergoing the phase we have recalled, and in which it was proceeding to expel from its inside counterrevolutionary residues and slags. In 1952, those pretended, among other things, that the democratic mechanism should be applied in the party. And with an argumentation typical of the opportunists of all times, they accused us of wanting to sterilize the party, of wanting to remain on the margin of the real class struggle. And they boasted, needless to say, of being truly “political”.
In this situation, the last number of Battaglia Comunista, organ of the Party, was published on September 12-28, 1952. The last, because the opportunists then succeeded with truly... “political” maneuvers to appropriate the headline of the newspaper and the review “Prometeo”. In fact, whoever reads n. 16-1952 of Battaglia Comunista, finds on the last page a “Notice to the readers” in which it is stated that those responsible for the “legal” theft of the newspaper from the revolutionary Party “will no longer be able to return on the ground of the revolutionary party. It is useless, therefore, to speak of their names and their motives, today and later”. The following number carries the headline Il Programma Comunista, reprints the “Notice to readers” and carries in large type the indication: “Year I-N. 1”.
It is thus a capital event in the history of the party, a crucial episode that irrevocably marks its tradition. In fact, the number of September 12-28, 1952, of Battaglia Comunista refers: “An important meeting of the Party in Milan on September 6 and 7”. In the same period, and also in Milan, the opportunists of whom we spoke above announced their “sovereign congress”, with votes, motions, presidency, debate and second rounds of voting, with the pleased presence of representatives of the ultra-opportunist review “Socialisme ou Barbarie”, today already unmasked as what it always was, an organ of social democracy. The important meeting of our Party was thus radically opposed, in the same city and in the same period, to all those opportunists. Two antithetical methods of understanding the nature of the revolutionary Party, its function, and its organization were then opposed forever.
The meeting had the character of a true mobilization of the forces of the whole party, and the themes presented later in the review “Following the Thread of Time” (Sul filo del tempo) were treated under the title: invariance of revolutionary Marxism, and impersonality of the class. Theses, these, which characterize us for years and years in opposition to all the opportunists. We transcribe from the summary:
“The two sessions of the seventh day, very well attended by comrades from Milan and from every region, had the character of a real Congress, although announced with the formula of the “Study Meetings” already proven to have a wide and advantageous effect. Comrades from the organizations of Turin, Asti, Casale, Genoa, Parma, Forlì, Ravenna, Bologna, Florence, Palmanova, Trieste, Milan, Luino, Naples, Rome, etc. and French comrades were present.
“The common democratic and philistine position, typical of the “courters” and corrupters of the “base” will deny character of Congress to a session where only the speaker takes the word for a conclusive and profound exposition, and the meeting manifests its consensus by participating in the work only with an uninterrupted and serious attention and understanding: so that the report in its theses proves to be an effective expression of the common and unanimous thought. There is a lack, it is often said more or less hypocritically, of contradictory debate. It is forgotten that in 48 hours of stay in the city of the meeting the comrades, all or in groups, besides the 6 hours of session with the speaker, carry out a very ardent exchange of opinions, news, purposes and precise work programs; they do not dedicate the available hours to gossip and comments on the bravery of the leaders, on the tones of their voice or the color of their hair, but to the serious problems that can interest real militants. And among these there were young and old, who intertwined the questions of today with the solutions dictated by the experience of a struggle of more than half a century ago. Whatever the formal democracy and the votes on motions, historically the effects of the congresses have always been determined outside the official hall of parliamentary type sessions, to which it is time to turn our backs forever” (Battaglia Comunista, September 12-28, 1952, n. 16).
All comrades can verify that the description of the mode of functioning and the dynamics of the revolutionary party is identical here, even in words, to that found in points 7 and 8 of the “Theses on the historical task, action and structure of the world communist party”, published in n. 14, 1965 of Il Programma Comunista. We also recall that the text has been transcribed in its entirety, without adding any modification. And now, let us reread the last paragraph, allowing ourselves to underline the words, 13 years later:
“Whatever about the formal democracy and the votes on motions, historically the effects of the congresses have always been determined outside the official hall of parliamentary type sessions, to which it is time to turn our backs forever”.
[1] In fact, in 1946 the formal organ of the party still participated to the election to the Italian Constituent Assembly.
[2] Such as the texts known as “Theses of the Left” in 1944-45 (“The assault of revisionist doubt on the foundations of Marxist theory”, “The historical cycle of the capitalist economy”, “The historical cycle of the political domination of the bourgeoisie”, “The historical course of the class movement of the proletariat. War and opportunist crisis“), “Nature, function and tactics of the revolutionary Party of the working class” of 1945, the Tracciato d'impostazione (Setting down our approach) of 1946 or “Force, violence and dictatorship in the class struggle” (1947).
[3] “Activism (Small dictionary of the revisionist nails)” (1952): "We are eternally accused of making «abstraction of the situation», the same as Bukharin used to say. Well, let us observe for a moment this famous situation. Here is how it presents itself, the bourgeois world, year in course: The dominant class has managed, by maneuvering the levers of opportunism, to crush to the marrow the revolutionary movement, in a damned war that was to conclude the process of counterrevolutionary involution of the workers parties. A state machine of unheard proportions and repressive capacities keeps the masses chained to exploitation, worse than the lathe to the body of the condemned to torture. The chaotic confusion and the sufferings of the masses are such and so many that the working class is transformed into a bleeding trunk that moves unconsciously: its brain is obscured and intoxicated, its sensibility narcotized, the eyes do not see, the hands writhe over themselves. In the place of the class struggle, there is the horrifying ravage of the internecine struggle, typical of castaways on the life raft at the mercy of the waves. In the factories, and this is not a new thing in history, there prevails espionage, snitching, rancor, mean and mischievous vengeance, the most stupid and bestial opportunism, prepotency, neurasthenic abuse, but in the masses oppressed by the consequences of thirty years of tremendous defeats, there is not even the strength to feel authentical nausea, because this is expressed in the miasmatic exhalations of company syndicalism, of corporativism and, on the political level, of social conciliationism and impotent pacifism.”
[4] The Party carried out a work of theoretical clarification among which stand out “Factors of race and nation in Marxist theory” (1953) and “Multiple revolutions and the occidental anti-capitalist revolution” (Genoa meeting, 1953).
[5] “The historical 'Invariance' of Marxism – The false resource of activism” (Milan meeting, 1952).
[6] “Theory and action in Marxist theory. The inversion of praxis” (Rome meeting, 1951).
[7] The Party developed an in-depth study during the following years which was published in “Economic and social structure of today's Russia” (Naples and Genoa meetings of 1955), within the context of the general study of the Party on the Russian question which can be read among others in “Dialogue with Stalin” (1952), “Russia and revolution in Marxist theory” (Bologna meeting, 1954), “The great historical questions of the revolution in Russia” (1955), “Russia in the great revolution and in contemporary society” (Turin meeting, 1956) and in “Dialogue with the dead” (1956). More specifically, against the theory of the “bureaucracy” class and the specific positions of “Socialisme ou Barbarie”, see, among others: “The batrachomyomachy”, “Squawk of praxis” and “Dance of puppets: from consciousness to culture” (1953).
[8] “Theory and action in Marxist theory. Revolutionary Party and economic action” (Rome meeting, 1951) whose Summary states: “In the several phases of the bourgeois trajectory (revolutionary, reformist, counter-revolutionary), the dynamics of labor union action underwent profound changes (interdiction, tolerance, submission); but this does not alter the fact that it is organically indispensable to have among the mass of proletarians and the minority within the party an additional layer of organizations that are politically neutral in principle, but constitutionally accessible only to the workers, and that organizations of this type must resurge in the phase in which the revolution is approaching.“
[9] In “The individual as puppet of history” (1953) we read: “Now, it seems to us that the juice of the hard lessons of so many decades is this: to renounce to remove men and to win through men is not possible, and precisely we, the left, have maintained that the collectivity of men that fights cannot be the whole mass or the majority of it, it must be the not too big party and the vanguard circles in its organization. But hook names have dragged forward by ten, and then ruin by a thousand. Therefore, we stop this tendency and as soon as possible, in practice, we suppress it, not by the way the men, but the Man with that given Name and with that given curriculum vitae... (...) The cult to the leader, of the entity and person, no longer divine, but human, is an even worse social narcotic, and we will define it as the cocaine of the proletariat. Hope in the hero who inflames and leads to struggle is like the injection of sympamine (a drug that stimulates the nervous system); the pharmacists have found the appropriate term: heroin. After a brief pathological exaltation of energies, chronic prostration and collapse follow. There are no injections to be given to a revolution in liquidation, to a society awkwardly eighteen months pregnant, and still infecund. Let us throw away the vulgar resource of extracting successes from the name of the man of exception and let us cry out: another formula of communism: it is the society that has discarded the puppets.”
[10] This current continued to publish its works under the author's name, generating a specific personalism around its best-known representative, Onorato Damen, a former parliamentarian who continued to dream of his seat, as it is recalled in “Activism” (1952).
[11] At the Congress organized by the activist, parliamentarist and anti-unionist current (see below for more details), the following motion was approved which maintained the nefarious tactic of parliamentarism: “The II Congress of the Internationalist Communist Party approves the set of theses presented by the Congress Committee as the political basis of the organization and activities of the party and, delegating their application to its central organs, reaffirms the following: (...) The Party, from the Congress of Livorno onwards, has never made abstentionism in electoral campaigns its own as an informing principle of its policy, just as it has never accepted systematic and undifferentiated participationism, as is its class tradition. The Party will evaluate each time the problem of its participation according to the political interest of the revolutionary struggle and whenever it is possible to mobilize around it a part, however modest, of conscious proletarians.”
[12] Letter of O. Damen: “I believe that the present corporativist trade union (fascist, social-democratic or communist it does not matter) by its function of indispensable organ for the vivification of the capitalist system is destined to live to the end the economic, social and political vicissitudes of dying capitalism and will only be broken with the imperialist state by the attack of the revolutionary proletariat. In such a phase of advance or conquest of power, the regroupment of the forces of the proletariat will not wait for a repetition of the traditional practice of the trade union, (…)”.
[13] Such as the creation of the Quadrifoglio, a heterogeneous aggregate called Movement of the Communist Left, formed in 1956 by the then Battaglia comunista together with the Trotskyists of the Gruppi Comunisti Rivoluzionari, with the Gruppi Anarchici di Azione Proletaria and Azione Comunista (which together with the former will end up forming Lotta Comunista) or the later creation of the International Communist Tendency (TCI), an organization which at the same time claims not to be the Party while continuing to publish Battaglia Comunista as an organ of the Internationalist Communist Party. A critique of Quadrifoglio can be read in “Diarrheic Microphonies (the quadrifoglio interviewed on the radio)” in il Programma Comunista n. 5, 1957.
[14] Written at a moment when the Party once again had to fight against the current that tried to reintroduce the democratic lie, at the same time that it was fighting against the mystical-idealist current that served as a complement to the previous one; a fight that gave rise to the Theses of Naples (1965) and Milan (1966) as well as to the previous Notes (1964) and Considerations (1965).