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In T E R N a T I O N a L I S T Pa P E Int e r n a t i o n a l i s t Pap e r s A Publication of the International Communist Party (ICP) To the Reader: 1921-2001 – A Continuity of The Course of Doctrine, Program, and Organisation Capitalism: USA “Globalisation” and Proletarian Where We Come Internationalism From – A Brief Chronology Against All Democratic Illusions The Laboratory The Palestinian Question and the of Counterrevolution International Workers’ Movement Back To Basics: The 1921 Livorno Program Suplemento en Español La Asemblea Constituyente en Venezuela Movimiento obrero e internacionales sindicales El cadáver todavía camina Programa del Partido Comunista Internacional De dónde ven i m o s Prices: U. K. £. 2.50 – U. S. and Canada $ 4:00 – Belgium 250FB – France 25FF – Germany 6DM – 10 / 2 0 0 1 Italy Lire 5000 – 3 S P R I N G / S U M M E R Internationalist Papers Internationalist Papers 10 Spring/Summer 2001 A supplement to number 3/2001 of Il programma comunista TABLE OF CONTENTS To the Reader: 1921-2001... p. 1 “Globalisation” and Proletarian Internationalism p. 3 Against All Democratic Illusions p. 7 The Palestinian Question and the International Workers’ Movement p. 10 The Course of Capitalism: USA p. 17 Where We Come From - A Brief Chronology p. 27 The Laboratory of Counterrevolution: p. 31 A Brief History of Stalinism in Italy (And Elsewhere) p. 31 Gramscism: An Age-Long Bane of Communism p. 53 Back To Basics: The 1921 Livorno Program p. 69 Suplemento en Español La Asamblea Constituyente en Venezuela... p.73 Dos Textos de Nuestra Corriente: p. 76 Movimiento Obrero e Internacionales Sindicales p. 76 El Cadáver Todavía Camina p. 80 Programa del Partido Comunista Internacional p. 88 De Dónde Venimos p. 90 Editorial Office: Edizioni Il programma comunista Casella postale 962 20101 Milano (Italy) TO THE READER: 1921-2001 - A CONTINUITY OF DOCTRINE, PROGRAM, AND ORGANIZATION Eighty years ago, in January 1921, the Communist Party of Italy (Section of the Communist International) was born. For us, this is not a simple anniversary, in which to pay a purely ritualistic homage to the past. For us, to recall and re - mind such a date means to inscribe it in a veritable co n t i n u u m , which links to - gether 1848 (the year in which The Communist Manifesto ap p e a r ed), 1871 (the year of the Paris Commune, the first proletarian upheaval), 1917 (the year of the Red October, the first successful communist revolution), 1921, and the pres - ent, difficult years… A continuum which, through the ups and downs in the his - tory of the communist movement, rep r esents ou r history and reaches and em - braces our days as well. 1921: the party was born in an area of Europe and at a time in history which we r e strategically decisive for the sorts of international revolution; and during the first two years during which it was led by the Si n i s t r a ,1 the Marxistically sound and consistent Left which had led a relentless struggle within the Socialist Par - ty, it endeavoured to apply most rigorously the Bolshevik lessons to the capi - talistically advanced West. It was this very Si n i s t r a which, after the defeat of the revolutionary process in the mid-1920s (a defeat due to the converging force s of fascism, democracy, and stalinism) managed to keep alive the doctrine, the program, and the organization, and to consign them intact to the follow - ing generations. For us, it is thus clear that “1921” means “1848” as well as it means “today” and “t o m o r r ow”: in the sense that a single red thread keeps unrolling in history, and we are tenaciously and solidly holding on that thread. Today, recession deep - ens everywhere and, in so doing, brings to the surface (and increasingly will do so) the social issues and clashes which were suppressed or pacified in the post- WWII decades, thanks to the large reaping of profits in the years of economic reconstruction on the one hand and to the destructions brought about (theo - 1 “Sinistra” means “Left” retically, politically, and organizationally) by the stalinist counterrevolution on in Italian. We prefer to the other. Notwithstanding the veritable disaster produced by such totally use this term in Italian capitalist countries as USSR (or China, or Cuba, etc.) presenting themselves as (instead of the accept - ed and generic use of “socialist” or “communist”, the necessity of communism will ret u r n to make it - the term “Left”, desig - self felt, as the only real and plausible alternative to the purely destructive roa d nating a broad spectre capitalism is again entering. of positions) to indicate the current which To these issues – which are the ever central issues of communist doctrine, pro - founded and originally gram, and organization – Internationalist Papers 10 is entirely devoted. The led the Communist Par - ty of Italy, before being co r e of it is occupied by a thorough, two-article analysis of what Stalinism ac - ousted by a rising Stalin - complished in Italy as a veritable “laboratory of counterrevolution”, and of the ism. See below the arti - role played in it by Antonio Gramsci, a veritable “man for all seasons” for both cle “Where We Come the opportunist parties and the spontaneist groups – a kind of myth not only in From. A Short Chronolo - Italy (where it lately grew hazy, in fact), but especially in the Anglo-American gy”. Also see “What Is the International Com - a rea (where it has become a sort of embarrassing passe-partout in all fields), munist Party. A Presen - an icon which the future revival of class struggle on the international level will tation”, in International- have to overturn and shatter impiously. “Where We Come From – A Brief ist Papers 9 (2000). 1 I N T E R N ATIONALIST PAPERS 10 Ch r onology” and the “1921 Livorno Program” complete this part, providing the reader with all the necessary historical background and developments, and with a synthetic outline of our current through those terrible decades. To our present, a present still weighed down by the long-term effects of that counterrevolution, the rest of the articles are devoted: the so- called globalization, the still persistent democratic illusions, the deepening recession (espe - cially in the U.S.), the ever critical situation in the Middle East, and how to react to all this on the ground of a solid Marxist programme. The “Suplemento en Español” contains an analysis of recent developments in Venezuela (the Constituent Assembly), one article written in 1949 which clearly detailed the nature, role, and course of trade unions, and the attitude of communists towards them, and one written in 1953 which historically examines the issue of parliamentarism and rea ff i r ms our an - ti-parliamentary (because anti-democratic) position. Our program and the Spanish transla - tion of “Where We Come From – A Brief Chronology” complete this section, once again link - ing past and present – a continuity which distinguishes us. No, we aren’t simply celebrating an anniversary. VISIT OUR WEB SITE: ww w . i l p r o g r a m m a c o m u n i s t a . c o m WRITE TO US: Edizioni il programma comunista casella postale 962 20101 Milano (Italy) THE WORKING CLASS IS REVO L U T I O N A RY OR IT IS NOTHING (K. MARX) 2 “Globalisation” and Proletarian Internationalism ‘Globalisation’ (a term currently much in cian or – worse still – any particular country, vogue, almost as if it were a new phenome- which in e v i t a b l y drove capitalism down the non) is understood to signify a process which path of the slave trade (with its four-sided e- Marxism identified at the very beginning as quation: England-Africa-America-England), an inherent aspect of the capitalist mode of colonialism, and, lastly, imperialism, the so pr o d u c t i o n . called ‘supreme phase of capitalism’. Capitalism was, then, global from its birth, In contrast to the feudal mode of production insofar as it sought to subjugate the world (inflexible and static, characterised by iso- (as far as it was conceived at any given his- lated productive units and with very little torical moment) to its own design. At the end interchange or movement of commodities of the eighteenth century, this world corre- and human beings), the capitalist mode of sponded to present day western Europe; production is dynamic. It expands continu- during the nineteenth century the ‘capitalist ally, constantly seeking out new sources of wo r l d ’ came to be identified with most of Eu- raw materials and energy, and new mar- rope and the Americas; in the twentieth cen- kets. It is systematic in its contempt for ex- tury a great leap was made in the direction isting limits and borders, and gradually at- of Africa and Asia. Naturally, this was a tracts all the regions of the earth into its bloodstained process: a never ending cycle of own sphere. wars and armed conflicts – which culminat- ed in two World Wars – brought about de- Such dynamism was implicit in capitalism struction and hardship, and today, as the from the beginning, even when the new powers that be seek to muscle in on new ter- mode of production was barely out of the cra- ritories and carve out new markets for dle. In this regard, it is worth remembering themselves, we await the latest in a long that the future capitalist nation par excel - line of inter-imperialist butcheries.
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