Belgique - België PB 2600 Berchem 1-2 BC 9925 International Communist Current

Summer 2019

Presenting the Review

Centenary of the foundation of the Communist International 1919: The International of revolutionary action

100 years after the foundation of the Communist International: What lessons can we draw for future combats?

Internationalisme nº 7, 1945 The left fraction Review Method for forming the party

Communism is on the agenda of history Castoriadis, Munis and the problem of breaking with Trotskyism (part II): On the content of the communist revolution

The world bourgeoisie against the October revolution (part II) International

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périodique semestriel Supplement à INTERNATIONALISME.FR Bureau de Depot: B-2600 Berchem 1-2 162 N° d’agréation P408982 International Review 162 Summer 2019 In French, English, Spanish, selections of articles in German, Italian, Dutch, Swedish

Contents

Presenting the Review 1

Centenary of the foundation of the Communist International 1919: The International of revolutionary action 3 From the death of the Second International in 1914 to the founding of the CI in 1919 The fight of the left for the construction of a new International The political programme of the Communist International From the difficulties of the Third International to its bankruptcy

100 years after the foundation of the Communist International: What lessons can we draw for future combats? 6 Defending the struggle of the working class in the heat of revolution A foundation in unfavourable circumstances A foundation in an urgent situation which opened the door to opportunism

Internationalisme nº 7, 1945 10 The left fraction Method for forming the party

Communism is on the agenda of history Castoriadis, Munis and the problem of breaking with 14 Trotskyism (part II): On the content of the communist revolution Breaking with the IVth International Castoriadis On the content of socialism: beyond Marx or back to Proudhon? The self-management of a market economy "Socialism" as a transitional society? Munis: For a second communist manifesto The later trajectory of Munis and Castoriadis Castoriadis deserts the workers' movement

The world bourgeoisie against the October revolution (part II) 24 The treason of social democracy Campaigns of slander accompany the bloody repression Stalinism: true executioner of the revolution Conclusion

Contact the ICC: http://www.internationalism.org Responsible editor: H. Deponthiere, [email protected] PB 102, 2018 Antwerp Central Station, [email protected] Antwerp [email protected] (rest of world)  Presenting the Review

Like the last two issues of the Review, this one continues the celebration of degeneration which led to the eventual centenaries of the historic events of the world-wide revolutionary wave of 1917- bankruptcy of the CI, just as had been the 23. case with the IInd International. This new Thus, after the revolution in Russia in 1917 (International Review nº 160), the International was also to succumb through revolutionary attempts in Germany in 1918-19 (International Review nº 161), the abandonment of internationalism by this issue celebrates the foundation of the Communist International. All these the right wing of the Communist Parties. experiences are essential parts of the political heritage of the world proletariat, Following that, in the 1930s, in the name which the bourgeoisie does everything it can to disfigure (as in the case of the of defending the “Socialist Fatherland”, revolutions in Russia or Germany) or simply to consign them to oblivion, as is the Communist Parties in all countries the case with the foundation of the Communist International. The proletariat has trampled on the flag of the International to re-appropriate these experiences so that the next attempt at world revolution by calling on workers to slaughter each will be victorious. other once again, on the battlefields of the Second World War. This relates in particular to the following struction of a new world without war questions, some of which are dealt with or exploitation. Against this process of degeneration, in this Review: the CI, like the IInd International, gave – The platform of the CI reflected the rise to left wing minorities which remained – The world-wide revolutionary wave profound change in historical period loyal to internationalism and to the slogan of 1917-23 was the response of the opened by the First World War: “A “The workers have no country, workers of international working class to the First new epoch is born! The epoch of the the world unite!”. One of these fractions, World War, to four years of butchery dissolution of capitalism, of its inner the Italian Fraction of the Communist and military confrontations between disintegration. The epoch of the com- left, and then the French Fraction which capitalist states with the aim of re-divid- munist revolution of the proletariat” subsequently became the Gauche Com- ing the world. (Platform of the CI). The only alternative muniste de France (GCF) carried out a for society was now world proletarian – The foundation of the Communist whole balance sheet of the revolutionary revolution or the destruction of human- International (CI) in 1919 was the wave. We are publishing two chapters ity; socialism or barbarism. culminating point of this first revolu- from nº 7 (January-February 1946) of the tionary wave. All these aspects of the foundation of review Internationalisme, dealing with the the CI are developed in two articles in question of the role of the fractions which – The foundation of the CI made concrete, the present Review, the first in particular: come out of a degenerating party (“The first and foremost, the necessity for “1919: the International of Revolutionary Left Fraction”) and their contribution to the revolutionaries who remained loyal to Action”. The second article, “Centenary formation of the future party, in particular the principle of internationalism, which of the foundation of the Communist In- the method that has to be applied to this task had been betrayed by the right wing ternational: what lessons can we draw for (“Method for forming the party”). of the Social Democratic parties (the future combats?”, develops an idea already majority in most of these parties), to These revolutionary minorities, more raised in the first article: because of the work for the construction of a new In- and more reduced in size, had to work in the urgency of the situation, the main parties ternational. At the forefront of this effort, context of a deepening counter-revolution, that founded the International, notably this perspective, were the left currents in illustrated in particular by the absence of the Bolshevik party and the KPD, were the Social Democratic parties, grouped revolutionary uprisings at the end of the not able to clarify their divergences and around Rosa Luxemburg in Germany, Second World War – in contrast to what confusions in advance. Pannekoek and Gorter in Holland, and happened at the end of the previous war. of course the Bolshevik fraction of the Moreover, the method employed in the Thus this new world conflict was a mo- Russian party around Lenin. It was on foundation of the new party would not ment of truth for the weak forces which the initiative of the Communist Party of arm it for the future. A large part of the remained on a class terrain after the CPs Russia (Bolshevik) and the Communist revolutionary vanguard put quantity, in had betrayed the case of the proletarian Party of Germany (the KPD, formerly terms of the number adhering to the new International. The Trotskyist current in the Spartacus League) that the First parties, above a prior clarification of pro- turn betrayed, although its passage into Congress of the International was called grammatic and organisational principles. the enemy camp engendered proletarian in Moscow on 4 March 1919. Such an approach turned its back on the reactions from within it. very conceptions elaborated and developed – The foundation of the new party, the Internationalisme nº 43 (June-July by the Bolsheviks during their existence world party of the revolution, was 1949) contained an article “Welcome to as a fraction within the Russian Social already late in that the majority of revo- Socialisme ou Barbarie” (republished in Democratic Labour Party. lutionary uprisings by the proletariat in International Review nº 161 as part of the Europe had been violently suppressed. This lack of clarification was an impor- article “Castoriadis, Munis and the problem The mission of the CI was to provide a tant factor, in the context of the reflux of of breaking with Trotskyism”). The article clear political orientation to the working the revolutionary wave, in the develop- by Internationalisme took a clear position class: the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, ment of opportunism in the International. on the nature of the Trotskyist movement, the destruction of its state and the con- This was to be at the root of a process of which had abandoned proletarian posi-  International Review 162 Summer 2019 tions by participating in the Second World and the liquidation of the Bolshevik Old War. The article is a good example of the Guard. From the moment that the USSR method used by the GCF in its relations became a bourgeois imperialist state, the with those who had escaped the shipwreck great democracies became its accomplice of Trotskyism in the wake of the war. In in the physical and ideological liquida- the second part of “Castoriadis, Munis and tion of October 1917. This ideological the problem of breaking with Trotskyism”, and political alliance was to last for many published in this issue of the Review, it is years and was to be re-launched, stronger shown how difficult it was, for those who than ever, when the collapse of the Eastern had grown up in the corrupted milieu of bloc and of Stalinism, a particular form of Trotskyism, to make a profound break with state capitalism, was falsely presented as its basic ideas and attitudes. This reality is the failure of communism. illustrated by the trajectory of two militants, This Review doesn’t contain an article on Castoriadis and Munis, who, without doubt, the burning questions of the current world at the end of the 40s and beginning of the situation. However our readers can find 50s, were militants of the working class. such articles on our website and the next Munis remained as such for his whole life, issue of the Review will accord the neces- but this wasn’t the case with Castoriadis sary importance to these questions who deserted the workers’ movement. 14.5.19 With regard to Munis, our article demonstrates his difficulty in breaking with Trotskyism: “Underlying this re- fusal to analyse the economic dimension of capitalism’s decadence there lies an unresolved voluntarism, the theoretical foundations of which can be traced back to the letter announcing his break from the Trotskyist organisation in France, the Parti Communiste Internationaliste, where he steadfastly maintains Trotsky’s notion, presented in the opening lines of the Transitional Programme, that the crisis of humanity is the crisis of revolutionary leadership.” On Castoriadis, it is underlined that “In reality, this ‘radicalism’ that makes highbrow journalists drool so much was a fig leaf covering the fact that Castoriadis’ message was extremely useful to the ideo- logical campaigns of the bourgeoisie. Thus, his declaration that marxism had been pulverised (The rise of Insignificance, 1996) gave its ‘radical’ backing to the whole campaign about the death of com- munism which developed after the collapse of the Stalinist regimes of the eastern bloc in 1989”. He was, in a sense, one of the founding fathers of what we have called the “modernist” current Also in this issue of the Review we continue the denunciation, begun in nº 160, of the union of all the national sec- tors and parties of the world bourgeoisie against the Russian revolution, to block the revolutionary wave and prevent its spread to the main industrial countries of Western Europe. Faced with the revolutionary at- tempts in Germany, the SPD played a key role in butchering these uprisings, and the campaigns of slander it used to justify this bloody repression, organised from the very summit of the state, were truly disgusting. Later on, Stalinism also took up its post as the butcher of the revolu- tion, through the imposition of state terror 

Centenary of the foundation of the Communist International

1919: The International of revolutionary action

100 years ago, in March 1919, the first congress of the Communist International It is therefore clear that the CI did not (CI) was held: the founding congress of the Third International. come from nowhere. Its principles and If revolutionary organisations did not have the will to celebrate this event, revolutionary programme were the emana- the foundation of the International would be relegated to the oblivion of history. tion of the whole history of the workers’ Indeed, the bourgeoisie is interested in keeping silent about this event, while it movement, especially since the Communist continues to shower us with celebrations of all kinds such as the centenary of the League and the publication of the Mani- end of the First World War. The ruling class does not want the working class to festo written by Karl Marx and Friedrich remember its first great international revolutionary experience of 1917-1923. The Engels in 1848. It was in the Communist bourgeoisie would like to be able to finally bury the spectre of the revolutionary Manifesto they put forward the famous wave which gave birth to the CI. This revolutionary wave was the international slogan of the workers’ movement: “The proletariat’s response to the First World War, four years of slaughter and military proletarians have no country. Proletarians clashes between the capitalist states to carve up the world. of all countries, unite!” To understand the historical significance The revolutionary wave began with the because of the existence of capitalist society of the founding of the CI, we must remem- victory of the Russian revolution in October a handful of imperialists were able to force ber that the Second International died in 1917. It manifested itself in the mutinies of the workers of the different countries for 1914. Why? Because the main parties of this soldiers in the trenches and the proletarian four long years to cut each other’s throats. Second International, the Socialist parties, uprising in Germany in 1918. Remember that the war of the bourgeoisie had betrayed proletarian internationalism. conjured up in Europe and throughout the The leaders of these treacherous parties The wave spread throughout Europe, world the most frightful famine and the most voted for war credits in parliament. In it even reached the countries of the Asian appalling misery. Remember, that without each country, they called the proletarians continent (especially China in 1927). The the overthrow of capitalism the repetition to join the “Union Sacrée” with their own countries of the Americas, such as Canada of such robber wars is not only possible, exploiters. They called on them to kill and the United States to Latin America, but inevitable.” each other in the world butchery in the were also shaken by this global revolution- name of defending the homeland, when ary upheaval. The foundation of the CI expressed first the Communist Manifesto affirmed that and foremost the need for revolutionaries We must not forget that it was fear of “the proletarians have no country”! to come together to defend the principle the international expansion of the Russian of proletarian internationalism. A basic Faced with the shameful collapse of revolution that forced the bourgeoisie of the principle of the workers’ movement that the Second International, only a few great European powers to sign the armistice the revolutionaries had to preserve and social democratic parties were able to to end the First World War. defend against wind and tide! weather the storm, including the Italian, In this context, the founding of the Com- Serbian, Bulgarian and Russian parties. In To understand the importance of the munist International in 1919 represented other countries, only a small minority of foundation of the CI, we must first recall the culmination of this first revolutionary militants, often isolated, remained faithful that the Third International was in histori- wave. to proletarian internationalism. They de- cal continuity with the First International nounced the bloody orgy of war and tried The Communist International was (the IWMA) and the Second International to regroup. In Europe, it was this minority founded to give a clear political orientation (the International of social democratic of internationalist revolutionaries who to the working masses. Its objective was parties). This is why the Manifesto of the would represent the left, especially around to show the proletariat the way to over- CI stated: Rosa Luxemburg in Germany, Pannekoek throw the bourgeois state and build a new “In rejecting the timidity, the lies, and the and Gorter in Holland and of course the world without war and exploitation. We corruption of the obsolete official social- Bolshevik fraction of the Russian party can recall here what the Statutes of the CI ist parties, we communists, united in the around Lenin. affirmed (adopted at its Second Congress Third International, consider that we are in July 1920): carrying on in direct succession the heroic From the death of the Second “The Communist International was endeavours and martyrdom of a long line International in 1914 to the formed after the conclusion of the imperial- of revolutionary generations from Babeuf founding of the CI in 1919 ist war of 1914-18, in which the imperial- to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. If ist bourgeoisie of the different countries the First International predicted the future Two years before the war, in 1912 the Basle sacrificed 20 million men. course of development and indicated the congress of the Second International was roads it would take, if the Second Inter- held. With the threat of a world war in the ‘Remember the imperialist war!’ These national rallied and organised millions of heart of Europe looming, this congress are the first words addressed by the Com- proletarians, then the Third International is adopted a resolution on the issue of war and munist International to every working man the International of open mass struggle, the proletarian revolution. This affirmed: and woman; wherever they live and what- International of revolutionary realisation, ever language they speak. Remember that “Let the governments remember that the International of action.”  International Review 162 Summer 2019 with the present condition of Europe in Lenin’s words, that “the struggle for period when the workers’ councils were the and the mood of the working class, they peace without revolutionary action is a form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, cannot unleash a war without danger to hollow and untrue phrase”. The left of as announced by the appearance of the themselves. Let them remember that the Zimmerwald had taken up Lenin’s slogan: soviets in Russia in 1905 and 1917. But Franco-German War was followed by the “Turn the imperialist war into a civil war!” one of the fundamental contributions of the revolutionary outbreak of the Commune, A watchword that was already contained in International was the understanding that that the Russo-Japanese War set into the resolutions of the Second International the proletariat must destroy the bourgeois motion the revolutionary energies of the passed at the Stuttgart Congress in 1907 and state in order to build a new society. It is peoples of the Russian Empire (…) The especially the Basle Congress in 1912. from this question that the First Congress proletarians consider it a crime to fire at of the International adopted its Theses on The Zimmerwald left would therefore each other for the profits of the capitalists, bourgeois democracy and proletarian dic- constitute the “first nucleus of the Third the ambitions of dynasties, or the greater tatorship (drafted by Lenin). These theses International in formation” (as Lenin’s glory of secret diplomatic treaties.” began by denouncing the false opposition companion, Zinoviev, would say in March between democracy and dictatorship “be- It was also in the Second International 1918). The new parties that were created, cause, in no civilized capitalist country, is that the most consistent marxist theorists, breaking with social democracy, then began there ‘democracy in general’, but only a particularly Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin, to take the name of “communist party”. It bourgeois democracy”. The International were able to analyse the change in the was the revolutionary wave opened up by thus affirmed that to defend “pure” democ- historic period in the life of capitalism. the Russian revolution of October 1917 that racy in capitalism was, in fact, to defend Luxemburg and Lenin had in fact clearly gave a vigorous impetus to the revolution- bourgeois democracy, the form par excel- demonstrated that the capitalist mode of ary militants for the founding of the CI. lence of the dictatorship of capital. Against production had reached its peak in the The revolutionaries had indeed understood the dictatorship of capital, the International early twentieth century.. They understood that it was absolutely vital to found a world affirmed that only the dictatorship of the that the imperialist war in Europe could party of the proletariat for the victory of proletariat on a world scale could overthrow now have only one goal: the division of the revolution on a world scale. capitalism, abolish social classes, and offer the world between the main rival powers It was at the initiative of the Communist a future to humanity. in the race for colonies. Lenin and Rosa Party (Bolshevik) of Russia and the Com- Luxemburg understood that the outbreak The world party of the proletariat munist Party of Germany (KPD, formerly of the First World War marked the entry therefore had to give a clear orientation the Spartacus League) that the first con- of capitalism into its period of decadence to the proletarian masses to enable them gress of the International was convened in and historical decline. But already, well to achieve their ultimate goal. It had to Moscow on 4 March 1919. before the outbreak of war, the left wing of defend everywhere the slogan of the the Second International had to fight hard Bolsheviks in 1917: “All power to the against the right, against the reformists, The political programme of the soviets”. This was the “dictatorship” of centrists and opportunists. These future Communist International the proletariat: the power of the soviets or renegades theorised that capitalism still had workers’ councils. good days ahead of it and that, ultimately, The platform of the CI was based on the the proletariat did not need to make the programme of the two main communist From the difficulties of the Third revolution or overthrow the power of the parties, the Bolshevik Party and the Com- International to its bankruptcy bourgeoisie. munist Party of Germany (founded on 29 December 1918). In March 1919, the International was un- The fight of the left for This CI platform began by stating clearly fortunately founded too late, at a time when the construction of a new that “A new epoch is born! The epoch of most of the revolutionary uprisings of the International the dissolution of capitalism, of its inner proletariat in Europe had been violently disintegration. The epoch of the communist repressed. In fact the CI was founded two In September 1915, at the initiative of the revolution of the proletariat”. By taking months after the bloody repression of the Bolsheviks, the Zimmerwald International up the speech on the founding programme German proletariat in Berlin. The Com- Socialist Conference was held in Switzer- of the German Communist Party by Rosa munist Party of Germany had just lost its land. It was followed by a second confer- Luxemburg, the International made it principal leaders, Rosa Luxemburg and ence in April 1916 in Kienthal, Switzerland. clear that “ the dilemma faced by humanity Karl Liebknecht, savagely murdered by the Despite the very difficult conditions of today is as follows: fall into barbarism, social democratic government during the war and repression, delegates from eleven or salvation through socialism.” In other bloody week in Berlin in January 1919. So countries participated (Germany, Italy, words, we had entered the “era of wars at the moment when it was constituted the Russia, France, etc.). But the majority of and revolutions”. The only alternative for International had suffered its first defeat. the delegates were pacifists and refused society was now: world proletarian revolu- With the crushing of the revolution in to break with the social chauvinists who tion or destruction of humanity; socialism Germany, this defeat was also and above had passed into the bourgeoisie’s camp by or barbarism. This position was strongly all a terrible defeat for the international voting for war credits in 1914. affirmed in the first point of the Letter of proletariat. Invitation to the founding congress of the So there was also at the Zimmerwald It must be recognised that revolutionar- Communist International (written in Janu- Conference a left wing united behind ies at the time were facing a terribly urgent ary 1919 by Trotsky). the delegates of the Bolshevik fraction, situation when they founded the Interna- Lenin and Zinoviev. This “Zimmerwald For the International, the entry of capital- tional. The Russian revolution was com- left” defended the need to break with the ism into its period of decadence meant that pletely isolated, suffocated and encircled social democratic party traitors. This left the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie of all countries (not to highlighted the need to build a new Inter- took on a new form. This was the period in mention the counter-revolutionary exac- national. Against the pacifists, it argued, which the mass strike was developing, the tions of the White Armies inside Russia). The International of revolutionary action 

The revolutionaries were caught by the World War. They understood that it was the one that the Communist International throat and it was necessary to act quickly “midnight in the century”: the proletariat clearly identified 100 years ago: socialism to build the world party. It is because of this had been physically crushed, massively or barbarism, world proletarian revolution urgency that the main founding parties of mobilised behind the national flags of or destruction of humanity in an increas- the International, including the Bolshevik anti-fascism and the victim of the deepest ingly bloody chaos. Party and the KPD, had not been able to counter-revolution in history. The historic ICC clarify their differences and confusions. situation was no longer favourable to the This lack of clarification was an important emergence of a new revolutionary wave factor in the development of opportunism against the World War. in the International with the reflux of the Nevertheless, throughout this long revolutionary wave. period of counter-revolution, the revolu- Subsequently, because of the gangrene tionary minorities continued to carry out of opportunism, this new International died an activity, often in hiding, to prepare for in its turn. It also succumbed to the betrayal the future by maintaining confidence in the of the principle of internationalism by the capacity of the proletariat to raise its head right wing of the Communist parties. In and one day overthrow capitalism. . particular, the main party of the Interna- We want to recall that the ICC reclaims tional, the Bolshevik Party, after the death the contribution of the Communist Inter- of Lenin had begun to defend the theory national. Our organisation also considers of “building socialism in one country”. itself in political continuity with the left Stalin, taking the head of the Bolshevik fractions excluded from the International Party, was the mastermind of the repres- in the 1920s and 30s, especially the Ital- sion of the proletariat which had made the ian Fraction of the Communist Left. This revolution in Russia, imposing a ferocious centenary is therefore both an opportunity dictatorship against Lenin’s old comrades to salute the invaluable contribution of the who fought against the degeneration of the CI in the history of the workers’ movement, International and denounced what they saw but also to learn from this experience in as the return of capitalism to Russia. order to arm the proletariat for its future Subsequently, in the 1930s, it was in the revolutionary struggles. name of defending the “Soviet Fatherland” Once again, we must fully understand that the Communist parties in all countries the importance of the founding of the Com- trampled the flag of the International in call- munist International as the first attempt to ing on proletarians, again, to kill each other constitute the world party of the proletariat. on the battlefields of the Second World Above all, we must emphasise the impor- War. Just like the Second International in tance of the historical continuity, of the 1914, the CI had become bankrupt. Just like common thread which connects the revo- the International in 1914, the CI was also lutionaries of today and those of the past, a victim of the gangrene of opportunism of all those militants who, because of their and a process of degeneration. But like the fidelity to the principles of the proletariat, Second International, the CI also secreted a were persecuted and savagely murdered left minority, militants who remained loyal by the bourgeoisie, and especially by their to internationalism and the slogan “The old comrades who became traitors: Noske, proletarians have no country. Proletarians Ebert, Scheidemann, Stalin. We must also of all countries unite!” These left-wing pay tribute to all those exemplary militants minorities (in Germany, France, Italy, Hol- (Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Leo land ...) waged a political fight within the Jogiches , Trotsky and many others) who degenerating International to try to save paid with their lives for their loyalty to it. But Stalin eventually excluded these internationalism. militants from the International. He hunted them, persecuted them and liquidated them To be able to build the future world physically (we recall the Moscow trials, the party of the proletariat, without which the assassination of Trotsky by GPU agents overthrow of capitalism will be impossible, and also the Stalinist Gulags). revolutionary minorities must regroup, today as in the past. They must clarify The revolutionaries excluded from their differences through the confronta- the Third International also sought to tion of positions, collective reflection and regroup, despite all the difficulties of war the widest possible discussion. They must and repression. Despite their scattering in be able to learn from the past in order to different countries, these tiny minorities of understand the present historical situation internationalist militants were able to make and to allow new generations to open the a balance sheet (bilan) of the revolutionary doors of the future. wave of 1917-1923 in order to identify the main lessons for the future. Faced with the decomposition of capitalist society, the barbarism of war, The revolutionaries who fought Stalin- the exploitation and growing misery of ism did not seek to found a new Interna- proletarians, today the alternative remains tional, before, during or after the Second  International Review 162 Summer 2019 100 years after the foundation of the Communist International: What lessons can we draw for future combats?

A century ago a wind of hope blew for humanity: in Russia first of all the working defeat caused by the war, and also of the class had just taken power. In Germany, Hungary and then in Italy it fought responsibility of revolutionaries to continue courageously to follow the Russian example with a single agenda: the abolition to defend the interests of the working class of the capitalist mode of production whose contradictions had plunged civilisation and the world revolution. into four years of war. Four years of unprecedented barbarity that confirmed the entry of capitalism into its phase of decadence. During the course of the congress it was said many times that the CI was the party of revolutionary action. As it affirms in its Manifesto, the CI saw the light of day In these conditions, acknowledging the Defending the struggle of the at the moment that capitalism had clearly bankruptcy of the Second International working class in the heat of demonstrated its obsolescence. From here and basing itself on all the work of the revolution on humanity entered “the era of wars and reconstruction of international unity started revolutions”. In other words, the abolition at Zimmerwald in September 1915, then As Trotsky’s “Letter of invitation to the of capitalism became an extreme necessity Kienthal in 1916, the Third, Communist congress” confirmed: “The undersigned����������� for the future of civilisation. It was with this International (CI) was founded on March parties and organisations consider that new understanding of the historic evolution 4 1919 in Moscow. In his April Theses the convening of the first congress of the of capitalism that the CI tirelessly defended of 1917, Lenin had already called for new revolutionary International is urgently the workers’ councils and the dictatorship the foundation of a new world party. For necessary (...) The very rapid rise of the of the proletariat: “The new apparatus of Lenin a decisive step was taken during the world revolution, which constantly poses power must represent the dictatorship of the terrible days of January 1919 in Germany, new problems, the danger of strangulation working class (...) it must, that is to say, be during the course of which the German of this revolution under the hypocritical the instrument for the systematic overthrow Communist Party (KPD) was founded. banner of the ‘League of Nations’, the at- of the exploiting class and its expropriation In a “Letter to the workers of Europe and tempts of the social-traitor parties to join (...) The power of the workers’ councils or America” dated January 26, Lenin wrote: together and further help their governments the workers’ organisations is its concrete “When the Spartacus League became and their bourgeoisies in order to betray the form” (Letter of invitation to the con- the German Communist Party, then the working class after granting each other a gress). These orientations were defended founding of the 3rd International became mutual ‘amnesty’, and finally, the extremely throughout the congress. Moreover, the a fact. Formally this foundation hadn’t yet rich revolutionary experience already ac- “Theses on Bourgeois Democracy”, writ- been decided upon, but in reality the 3rd quired and the world-wide character of the ten by Lenin and adopted by the congress, International exists from now.” Leaving whole revolutionary movement – all these focussed on denouncing the mystification aside the excessive enthusiasm of such circumstances compel us to place on the of democracy, on warning the proletariat a judgment, as we will see later, revolu- agenda of the discussion the question of the about the danger that it posed in its struggle tionaries at the time understood that it was convening of an international congress of against bourgeois society. From the outset now indispensable to forge the party for proletarian-revolutionary parties”. the CI placed itself resolutely in the pro- the victory of the revolution at the world letarian camp by defending the principles level. After several weeks of preparation, 51 In the image of the first appeal launched and methods of working class struggle, delegates met up from March 2 to March 6 by the Bolsheviks, the foundation of the CI while energetically denouncing the call 1919, in order to lay out the organisational expressed the will for the regroupment of from the centrist current for an impos- and programmatic markers which would revolutionary forces throughout the world. sible unity between the social-traitors and allow the world proletariat to continue to But it equally expressed the defence of the communists: “the unity of communist advance the struggle against all the forces proletarian internationalism which had workers with the assassins of the leading of the bourgeoisie. been trampled underfoot by the great ma- jority of the social democratic parties who communists Liebknecht and Luxemburg”, The ICC lays claim to the contributions made up the 2nd International. After four according the terms of the “Resolution of of the Communist International. This years of atrocious war which had divided the first congress of the CI on the position centenary is thus an occasion to salute and and decimated millions of proletarians towards the socialist currents and the Berne underline the inestimable work of the CI on the field of battle, the emergence of a Conference”. This resolution was evidence in the history of the revolutionary move- new world party was witness to the will to of the intransigent defence of proletarian ment, but equally to draw the lessons of deepen the work begun by the organisations principles and was voted on unanimously this experience and draw out its weaknesses who remained faithful to internationalism. by the congress. It was adopted in reaction in order to arm the proletariat of today for In this the CI was the expression of the to the recent meeting held by the majority its future battles. political strength of the proletariat, which of the social democratic parties of the 2nd again manifested itself after the profound 100 years after the foundation of the Communist International 

International which had taken up a cer- Fraction of the Communist Left (FFCL) optimism by affirming that the German and tain number of orientations openly aimed underlined in 1948: “revolutionaries tried Russian communist parties continue the against the revolutionary wave. The resolu- to fill the gap between the maturity of the struggle, firmly hoping that the German tion ended with these words: “The congress objective situation and the immaturity of proletariat will also lead the revolution invites the workers of every country to the subjective factor (the absence of the to the final victory and the dictatorship of begin the most energetic struggle against party) by a gathering in numbers of politi- the proletariat will equally be established the yellow international and to warn the cally heterogeneous groups and currents in Germany, despite all the national as- widest numbers of the proletariat about this and called this coming together the new semblies, despite all the Scheidemanns International of lies and betrayal.” Party”. and despite the national bourgeoisie (...) It is this which motivated me to accept your The foundation of the CI turned out to It’s not a question here of discussing invitation with joy, convinced that after a be a vital stage for advancing the histori- the validity or not of the foundation of the short delay we will struggle side by side cal struggle of the proletariat. It took up new party, of the International. It was an with the proletariat of other countries, the best contributions of the 2nd Interna- absolute necessity. On the other hand we particularly France and Britain, for the tional while discarding those positions and want to point to a certain number of errors world revolution in order to realise the analyses which no longer corresponded to in the way in which it was realised. objectives of the revolution in Germany”. the historic period which had just opened An overestimation of the situation in A few days later, between March 6 and 9, up. Whereas the former world party had which the party was founded a terrible repression struck Berlin, killing betrayed proletarian internationalism in 3000 workers including 28 sailors impris- the name of the Sacred Union on the eve Even though the majority of reports oned and then executed by firing squad of the First World War, the foundation of submitted by the different delegates on in the tradition of Versailles! On March the new party strengthened the unity of the situation of the class struggle in each 10, Leo Jogisches was assassinated and the working class, arming it for the bitter country took into account the reaction of Heinrich Dorrenbach met the same fate struggle that it had to undertake across the bourgeoisie faced with the advance of on May 19. the planet for the abolition of the capital- the revolution (a resolution on the White ist mode of production. Thus, despite the Terror was voted on at the end of the con- However, the last words of Lenin of the unfavourable circumstances and the errors gress), it’s striking to see to what point this closing speech of the congress showed that committed - as we will see - we salute and aspect was largely underestimated during it hadn’t moved one iota on the relationship support such an enterprise. Revolutionaries these five days of work. Already, some of force between the two classes. Without of that time took up their responsibilities; days after the news of the foundation of the hesitation it affirmed: “The victory of the it had to be done and they did it! KPD, which followed the founding of the proletarian revolution is assured through- communist parties of Austria (November out the entire world. The foundation of A foundation in unfavourable 1918) and Poland (December 1918), Lenin the International Republic of Councils is circumstances considered that the die was already cast: underway.” “When the German Spartacus League, led But as Amedeo Bordiga noted a year by its illustrious leaders known the world Revolutionaries faced with a massive later: “After the slogan ‘Soviet regimes’ over, these loyal partisans of the class strug- surge from the world proletariat was launched onto the world by the Russian gle such as Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, and international proletariat we first of all The year 1919 was the culminating point of Clara Zetkin, Franz Mehring, definitively saw the revolutionary wave resurface after the revolutionary wave. After the victory of broke all links with socialists such as Sc- the end of the war and the proletariat of the revolution in Russia in October 1917, heidemann (...) when the Spartacus League the entire world move into action. In every the abdication of Wilhelm II and the pre- became the German Communist Party, then country we saw the old socialist parties cipitous signing of the armistice faced with the foundation of the 3rd International, filtered out and the communist parties were mutinies and revolts of masses of workers the Communist International, truly pro- born, engaging in the revolutionary strug- in Germany, workers’ insurrections broke letarian, truly international, truly revo- gle against the bourgeoisie. Unfortunately out in numerous places, most notably with lutionary, became a fact. This foundation the period which followed has been a period the setting up of republics of councils in wasn’t formally sanctified, but, in reality, of check because the German, Bavarian Bavaria and Hungary. There were also the 3rd International now exists.” To add and Hungarian revolutions have all been mutinies in the fleets and among French a significant anecdote here: this text was wiped out by the bourgeoisie.” troops, as well as in British military units, finished and drafted on January 21 1919, refusing to intervene against soviet Russia. the date on which Lenin was told about the In fact, important weaknesses of con- In 1919 a wave of strikes hit Britain (Shef- assassination of Karl Liebknecht. And yet sciousness in the working class constituted field, the Clyde, South Wales and Kent). an unwavering certainty ran through the a major hindrance to a revolutionary de- But in March 1919, at the moment the CI congress and Lenin announced it with: “The velopment: appeared in Moscow, the great majority bourgeoisie can unleash its terror, it may – the difficulties of these movements to of uprisings had been suppressed or were assassinate millions of workers, but victory overcome the struggle against war alone on course to be. is ours, the victory of the world communist and go towards the higher level of pro- revolution is assured.” Consequently all the There is no doubt that revolutionaries of letarian revolution. This revolutionary reporters of the situation overflowed with that time found themselves in a situation of wave was above all built up around the the same optimism; like comrade Albert, a urgency and they were obliged to act in the struggle against the war; fire of revolutionary battle. As the French young member of the KPD who on March 2 expressed himself to the congress in these – the development of the mass strike . The Berne Conference of 1919 was “an attempt to words: “I’m not expressing an exaggerated through the unification of political resuscitate the corpse of the Second International”, to and economic demands remained very which the “Centre” had sent representatives. �������������������������������������������. “A propos du Premiere Congres du Parti Communiste . Dorrenbach was the commander of the People’s . For a fuller development see “Foundation of the Internationaliste d’Italie”, Internationalisme nº 7 Jan- Naval Division in Berlin, 1918. After the January Communist International”, International Review, Feb 1946. defeat, he took refuge in Brunswick and then Eisenach. nº 57. . Lenin, Works, volume XXVIII. He was arrested and executed in May 1919.  International Review 162 Summer 2019

fragile and thus did little to push it onto the left had been elaborating for the 20 also lacked clarity. The KPD delegate to a higher level of consciousness; years of ITS FRACTIONAL EXISTENCE the congress, comrade Albert, was thus AND STRUGGLE inside the old party.”  mandated to defend this position and not – the revolutionary peak was on the point to vote for the immediate foundation of of being reached. The movement no Thus the revolutionary milieu was the Communist International. longer had the same dynamic after the broken apart, composed of groups lack- defeat of the struggles in Germany and ing clarity and displaying a good deal “When it was said to us that the pro- Central Europe. Even if the wave con- of immaturity. Only the left fractions of letariat needed a political centre in its tinued it had lost the force it had from the 2nd International, the Bolsheviks, the struggle, we could say that this centre 1919-1920; Tribunists, the Spartacists (in part only already existed and that all the elements because they were also heterogeneous or which were found at the base of the system of – the Soviet Republic in Russia remained even divided) were up to it and were based councils had already broken with elements cruelly isolated. It was the sole revolu- on solid ground for the foundation of the of the working class which went towards tionary bastion with all that this implied new party. the democratic bourgeoisie: we noted that in favour of a regression in conscious- everywhere a rupture was being prepared ness both within Russia and the rest of Moreover a good number of militants and it is about to be realised. But a Third the world. lacked political experience. Among the 43 International must not only be a political delegates to the founding congress whose centre, an institution in which the theoreti- ages were known, five were in their twen- A foundation in an urgent cians discuss with one another with warm ties, 24 their thirties and only one was older situation which opened the door words, it must be the basis of an organisa- than fifty. Out of the 42 delegates whose to opportunism tional power. If we want to make the Third political trajectory could be traced, 17 had International an efficient instrument of joined social democratic parties before the The revolutionary milieu came out of struggle, if we want to make it a means for Russian revolution of 1905, whereas 8 only the war in a weakened state combat, then the necessary conditions have became active socialists after 1914. “The workers’ movement on the eve of to exist. Thus, in our opinion, the question the first imperialist world war was in a Despite their passion and enthusiasm, mustn’t be approached and discussed from state of extreme division. The imperialist the indispensable experience in such an intellectual point of view; we have to ask war had broken the formal unity of the circumstances was very much lacking if the basics of the organisation concretely political organisations that claimed to be amongst them. exist. I’ve always had the feeling that the part of the proletariat. The crisis of the comrades who are pushing so strongly for Disagreements among the proletariat’s its foundation have been greatly influenced workers’ movement, which already existed avant-garde beforehand, reached its culminating point by the evolution of the 2nd International because of the fact of the world war and the As the FFCL already underlined in 1946, and that they wanted, after the Berne positions to take up in response to it. All the “It is undeniable that one of the historic Conference, to impose it on the current marxist, anarchist and trade union parties causes of the victory of the revolution in enterprise. That seems less important to and organizations were violently shaken by Russia and its defeat in Germany, Hun- us and when it’s said that clarification is it. Splits multiplied. New groups arose. A gary and Italy resides in the existence of necessary, otherwise indecisive elements political delimitation was produced. The the revolutionary Party at a decisive mo- will rally to the Yellow International, I say revolutionary minority of the 2nd Interna- ment in the former and its absence or its that the founding of the 3rd International incompletion in the latter.” The foundation will not bring back the elements who are tional represented by the Bolsheviks, the nd German left around Luxemburg and the of the 3rd International was deferred for a re-joining today’s 2 , and that if they go long time by the various divisions inside there despite everything, then that’s their Dutch Tribunists, who already were not 10 very homogeneous, did not simply face a the proletarian camp during the episode of place.” revolution. In 1918-19, and quite conscious single opportunist bloc. Between them and As we see, the German delegate that the absence of the party was an irre- the opportunists there was a whole rainbow warned of the danger of founding a party deemable weakness for the victory of the of political groups and tendencies, more by compromising on principles and on world revolution, the avant-garde of the or less confused, more or less centrist, programmatic and organisational clarifi- proletariat was unanimous on the imperious more or less revolutionary, representing cation. Although the Bolsheviks took the necessity to set up a new party. However, the general shift of the masses who were concerns of the KPD very seriously, it there was no agreement on when to do it breaking with the war, with the Sacred was in no doubt that they were caught up and above all on the approach to adopt. Union, with the treason of the old parties in a race against time. From Lenin to Zi- While the great majority of communist of social democracy. We see here a process noviev, through to Trotsky and Rakovsky, organisations and groups were favorable to of the liquidation of the old parties whose all insisted on the importance of making the briefest delay, the KPD and particularly downfall gave rise to a multitude of groups. all the parties, groups, organisations or Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches opted These groups expressed less the process individuals who claimed to be more or for an adjournment, considering that the of the constitution of the new party than less close to communism and the soviets situation was premature, that the commu- the dislocation, the liquidation, the death join the new International. As noted in a nist consciousness of the masses remained of the old party. These groups certainly biography of Rosa Luxemburg: “Lenin contained elements for the constitution weak and that the revolutionary milieu of the new party but in no way formed . It’s this mandate that the KPD gave (in the first the basis for it. These currents essentially weeks of January) to their delegate to the founding . “A propos du Premier Congres du Parti Communiste congress. This is no way meant that Rosa Luxemburg expressed the negation of the past and d’Italie”, Internationalisme, nº 7, Jan-Feb, 1946. for example was opposed to the foundation of an not the positive affirmation of the future. . Founding of the Communist International: International - far from it. The basis for the new class party can only The Communist International in Lenin’s Time. 10. Intervention of the German delegate March reside in the former left, in its critical and Proceedings and Documents of the First Congress: 4, 1919, in Premier Congres de l’Internationale constructive work, in the theoretical posi- March 1919, Edited by John Riddell, New York, Communiste, integral texts published under the 1987. Introduction, page 19. direction of Pierre Broué, Etudes et Documentation tions and programmatic principles which . Ibid. Internationales, 1974. 100 years after the foundation of the Communist International  saw in the International the means to help rows” and the Romanian CP. But he’d had to come. In fact the programmatic clarity various communist parties to set themselves no contact with these three organisations of the first congress was circumvented by up and strengthen themselves”11 through since 1915-16.14 Consequently, despite the opportunist push in the context of the the decantation produced by the struggle appearances, this founding congress was weakening and the degeneration of the against centrism and opportunism. For the at root perfectly representative of the lack revolutionary wave. Within the CI frac- KPD, it was first of all a question of form- of consciousness within the world work- tions of the left emerged which criticised ing “solid” communist parties which had ing class. the insufficiencies of the rupture with the the masses behind them before endorsing 2nd International. As we will see in the All these elements show that a large the creation of the new party. following piece, the positions defended part of the revolutionary avant-garde’s and elaborated by these groups responded A method of foundation which did not objective was quantity to the detriment to the problems raised in the CI by the new arm the new party of a prior clarification on organisational period of the decadence of capitalism. principles. This approach turned on its head The composition of the congress is both the conception which the Bolsheviks had (to be continued) the illustration of the precipitation and the developed over the last fifteen years. And difficulties that it imposed on revolution- Narek, March 4, 2019. this is what the FFCL had already noted ary organisations at the time. Out of 51 in 1946: “As much as the ‘strict’ method delegates taking part in the work, taking of selection on the most precise principled account of lateness, early departures and bases, without taking into account im- brief absences, around forty were Bolshe- mediate numerical success, allowed the vik militants from the Russian party but Bolsheviks to build a Party which, at a also the Latvian, Lithuanian, Byelorussian, decisive moment, was able to integrate and Armenian and eastern Russian parties. Out- assimilate into itself all the energies and side of the Bolshevik Party, only the com- revolutionary militants of other currents munist parties of Germany, Poland, Austria and finally lead the proletariat to victory, so and Hungary had a real existence. the ‘loose’ method, immediately concerned The other forces invited to the congress above all with bringing together the largest were a multitude of organisations, groups numbers at the expense of programmatic or elements that were not openly “com- precision and principles, had to lead to munist” but products of a process of de- the constitution of the mass party, a real cantation within social democracy and the colossus with feet of clay which fell to its trade unions. The letter of invitation to the defeat under the domination of opportun- congress appealed to all the forces, near or ism. The formation of the class party turns far, which supported the Russian revolution out to be infinitely more difficult in the and seemed to have the will to work for the advanced capitalist countries – where the victory of the world revolution: bourgeoisie possesses numerous means to corrupt the consciousness of the proletariat “10. It is necessary to ally ourselves with – than was the case in Russia.” these elements of the revolutionary move- ment which, although they did not belong Blinded by the certitude of the imminent to the socialist parties before, today placed victory of the proletariat, the revolutionary themselves on the whole on the terrain of avant-garde enormously underestimated the dictatorship of the proletariat under the the objective difficulties which stood in form of the power of the councils. In the front of them. This euphoria led them first place we refer here to the syndicalist to compromise the “strict” method for elements of the workers’ movement. the construction of the organisation that the Bolsheviks in Russia and in part the “11. Finally, it’s necessary to win over Spartacists in Germany had defended be- all the proletarian groups and organisa- fore everything. They considered that the tions that, without openly rallying to the priority of work had to be given to a great revolutionary current, show a tendency in revolutionary coming-together, counter- this direction.”12 ing on the way the Yellow International This approach led to several anomalies which a few weeks before had re-formed which exposed a lack of representation of in Berne. This “loose” method relegated a part of the congress. For example, the the clarification of organisational principles American Boris Reinstein didn’t have a to the status of an annex. Little importance mandate from his Socialist Labour Party. was given to the confusions that could be S. J. Rutgers from Holland represented a brought in by groups integrated into the new league for socialist propaganda. Christian party; the struggle would take place within Rakovsky13 was supposed to represent the it. For now, the priority was given to the Balkan Federation, the Bulgarian “Nar- regroupment of the greatest numbers. 11. Gilbert Badia, Rosa Luxemburg, Journaliste, This “loose” method turned out to be Polemiste, Revolutionnaire, Editions Sociales, 1975. heavy with consequences since it weak- 12. “Letter of invitation to the Congress”, Op. Cit. ened the CI in the organisational struggles First Congress of the International. 13. One of the most influential and determined 14. Pierre Broué, History of the Communist delegates in favour of the immediate foundation International (1919-1943), Fayard, 1997, p. 79 (in of the CI. French). 10 International Review 162 Summer 2019 Internationalisme nº 7, 1946 On the first congress of the Internationalist Communist Party of Italy

To stimulate discussion around the formation of the future world party of the portunist basis on which the SAPD was revolution, we are publishing two chapters of an article from Internationalisme founded. Continuity also with the attitude nº 7 from January 1946, entitled “On the First Congress of the Internationalist of Rosa Luxemburg faced with the op- Communist Party of Italy”. The review Internationalisme was the theoretical portunism of the revisionist Bernstein the organ of the French Fraction of the Communist Left (FFCL), the group that was German Social Democracy 25 years later, politically the most clear in the period immediately after the Second World War. but also with that of Lenin on organisa- In 1945 the Fraction transformed itself into the Gauche Communiste de France tional principles against the Mensheviks. in order to avoid confusion following a split by militants in France who took the Continuity, finally, with the attitude of same name for their group as the French Fraction. Bilan faced with the opportunism of the Trotskyist current in the 1930s. It was thanks to this intransigence in the defence of This article (which we will publish in of the party were absent. Consequently programmatic positions and organisational full on our website), basing itself on the it stopped publication of its agitational principles that elements coming out of the lessons of the degeneration of the Third paper L’Etincelle, considering that the current around Trotsky (such as the RKD) International, develops on the criteria perspective for a historical resurgence were able to move towards the defence of which have to apply to the constitution of class struggle was not on the agenda. internationalism during and after the Sec- of a future world party. The two chapters The last issue of L’Etincelle came out in ond World War. Holding high the banner published in this Review – the first, “The November 1946. of internationalism against the “partisans”, Left Fraction” and the sixth, “Method for intransigently defending internationalism At the same time, the GCF severely criti- forming the party” – look at the political against opportunism was thus a condition cised the method used for the constitution questions posed since the foundation of the for the internationalist forces to find a of the Italian party, via “an addition of cur- Third International and provide a coherent political compass. rents and tendencies” on a heterogeneous argument for understanding them. They basis (“Method for forming the party”), in In this presentation we should make build a bridge between the post World War the same way as it criticised, in the same more precise a formulation concerning One period and the period of the Second chapter, the method for forming the CI, the Spartakusbund during the First World World War, on the basis of the balance an “amalgamation around a programme War: sheet drawn up by the Italian Fraction in that had deliberately been left incomplete”. the 1930s, whereas the other chapters are “The experience of the Spartakusbund And such a programme could only be an more devoted to a polemic with specific is highly edifying on this point. The latter’s opportunist one, which turned its back on currents of the 1940s, such as the RKD fusion with the Independents did not, as they the method which had been applied to the (Revolutionäre Kommunisten Deutsch- hoped, lead to the creation of a strong class construction of the Bolshevik Party. lands, a group of former Trotskyists from party but resulted in the Spartakusbund Austria) and Vercesi. These chapters are The merit of this article in Internation- being swamped by the Independents and to also very interesting but would not fit into alisme is that it insists on the rigour needed the weakening of the German proletariat. a printed Review. around the adoption of a programme, which Before her murder, Rosa Luxemburg and did not exist in the party that had just been other Spartakusbund leaders recognized Summarised briefly, the criteria for the formed in Italy. This article – written about the error of fusing with the Independents formation of the party are, on the one hand, a quarter of a century after the foundation and tried to correct it. But this error was a course open to the revival and offensive of the Comintern, and a few weeks after the not only maintained by the CI in Germany, struggle of the proletariat, and, on the other congress of the Internationalist Communist but it became the practical method for form- hand, the existence of a solid programmatic Party – was certainly the most consistent ing Communist Parties in all countries, basis for the new party. critique of the way the foundation of the imposed by the CI”. At that moment, after the first con- Communist International went against the It’s not quite right to talk about the fusion gress of the Internationalist Communist methods of the Bolshevik Party. Interna- of the Spartakusbund with the USPD. The Party, held at the end of December 1945 tionalisme was also the only publication USPD was formed by the SAG (Sozial- in Turin, the GCF considered that the first of the milieu of the communist left at that istische Arbeitsgemeinschaft – Socialist condition – a new favourable course – had time to highlight the opportunist approach Working Group); the Internationale group been satisfied. Thus, on this basis, they of the Internationalist CP. (the Spartakusbund) was integrated into it. saluted the transformation of the Italian In this sense, the GCF is an illustration But this was not strictly speaking a fusion, Fraction “by giving birth to a new party of of the continuity with the method of Marx which would imply the dissolution of the the proletariat”. It was only later, in 1946, and Engels in the foundation of the German organisation that has fused with another. that the GCF recognised that the period of Social Democratic Party at Gotha in 1875 In fact the Spartakusbund maintained their counter-revolution was not over and that (cf The Critique of the Gotha Programme), organisational independence and their ca- the objective conditions for the formation when they rejected the confused and op- pacity for action while giving themselves Internationalisme nº 7 11 the objective of drawing this formation We should also rectify a factual error in into the Labour Party itself! This error of towards their positions as a left wing this article where it says “In Britain, the detail in no way alters the basic argument inside it. Very different was the approach CI demanded that the communist groups of Internationalisme. of the CI through the fusion of different join the Independent Labour Party to 14.5.19 groups within a single party, abandoning form a mass revolutionary opposition the necessary process of selection through inside this reformist party”. In fact, the an addition, with “principles sacrificed to CI called for integration of communists numerical mass”.

The left fraction

At the end of 1945, the first congress of the were caught up in the struggle between and its opportunist and centrist agents young, recently constituted Internationalist revolutionaries and opportunists. The who were trying to take hold of the Party Communist Party of Italy took place. ideological struggle - which has to come and turn it into an instrument against the before and be the precondition for the for- proletariat. This new Party of the proletariat didn’t mation of the party, which can only offer The struggle between the Fraction of spring out of nothing. It was the fruit of a protection from the opportunist gangrene the Communist Left and the centrist and process which began with the degenera- through the enunciation of principles and right-wing fractions for the Party isn’t a tion of the old Communist Party and the the construction of the programme - only struggle for “leadership” of the apparatus Communist International. This opportunist took place after the constitution of the but is essentially programmatic. It is an degeneration brought about a historic re- parties. Through this, not only was the aspect of the general struggle between sponse from the class within the old party: germ of opportunism introduced into the revolution and counter-revolution, between the Left Fraction. communist parties from the beginning, but capitalism and the proletariat. Like all the communist parties set up it also made the struggle more difficult following World War I, the Communist for the revolutionary currents against the This struggle follows the objective Party of Italy, at the moment of its forma- opportunism that survived and was hidden course of situations and the modifications tion, contained both revolutionary and within the new party. Each defeat of the of the rapport de force between the classes opportunist currents. proletariat modified the balance of forces and is conditioned by the latter. against the proletariat, inevitably producing The outcome can only be the victory of The revolutionary victory of the Rus- the strengthening of opportunism within the programme of the Left Fraction and the sian proletariat and of the Bolshevik Party the Party, which in its turn became a sup- elimination of opportunism, or the open of Lenin in October 1917, through the plementary factor in further proletarian betrayal of a Party falling into the hands decisive influence that it exercised on the defeats. international workers’ movement, acceler- of capitalism. But whatever the outcome ated and precipitated the organisational po- If the development of the struggle of this alternative, the appearance of the litical contrasts and delimitations between between the currents in the Party became Fraction means that the historical and revolutionaries and the opportunists who so sharp so quickly it was because of the political continuity has definitively passed cohabitated in the old socialist parties of present historical period. The proletarian from the Party to the Fraction and that it’s the IInd International. The 1914 war had revolution came out of the spheres of theo- the latter alone that henceforth expresses broken this impossible unity between the retical speculation. From the distant ideal and represents the class. that it was yesterday, it became a problem old parties. Just as the old Party can only be salvaged of practical and immediate activity The October revolution sped up the by the triumph of the Fraction, the same constitution of new parties of the proletariat Opportunism no longer took the form of goes for the alternative of the betrayal of the but, at the same time, the positive influence bookish theoretical elaborations acting as old Party, thus completing its ineluctable of the October revolution contained some a slow poison on the brains of the prole- course under the leadership of centrism: negative elements. tarians. At the present era of intense class the new class party can only be formed struggle it had immediate repercussions on the programmatic basis given by the By rushing towards the formation of and was paid for with the lives of millions Fraction. new parties, it prevented a construction of proletarians and bloody defeats of the The historic continuity of the class, the on the basis of clear, sharp principles and revolution. As opportunism surged and process of this continuity is made through a revolutionary programme. This could strengthened itself in the CI and its par- the succession between Party-Fraction- only be elaborated following an open ties it was the main card and auxiliary of Party, is one of the fundamental ideas of and intransigent political struggle which capitalism against the revolution because the International Communist Left. This eliminated the opportunist currents and the it meant the strengthening of the enemy position was for a long time a theoretical residues of bourgeois ideology. class within the most decisive organ of postulate. The formation of the PCI in Italy the proletariat: its Party. Revolutionaries With the lack of a revolutionary and its first Congress provide the historic could only oppose opportunism by setting programme, the old communist parties confirmation of this postulate. were set up too hastily on the basis of up their Fraction and proclaiming a fight to a sentimental attachment to the October the death against it. The constitution of the The Italian Left Fraction, after a struggle revolution, opening up many fissures for Fraction meant that the Party had become of twenty years against centrism, achieved the penetration of opportunism into the the theatre of confrontation between op- its historic function by transforming itself new proletarian parties. posed and antagonistic class expressions. and giving birth to a new Party of the proletariat. Also, from their foundation, the CI and It was the war-cry of revolutionaries the communist parties of various countries to save the class party, against capitalism 12 International Review 162 Summer 2019

Method for forming the party

While it is correct to say that the constitu- These groups expressed less the process infinitely more difficult in the advanced tion of the party is determined by objective of the constitution of the new party than capitalist countries, where the bourgeoisie conditions and cannot be the emanation the dislocation, the liquidation, the death possesses a thousand means for corrupting of individual will, the method employed of the old party. These groups certainly the consciousness of the proletariat, than in constituting the party is more directly contained elements for the constitution it was in Russia. subordinated to the “subjectivism” of the of the new party but in no way formed Because of this, the CI thought it could groups and militants who take part in it. It the basis for it. These currents essentially get round the difficulties by resorting is they who feel the necessity for constitut- expressed the negation of the past and not to other methods than those which had ing the party and translate this into action. the positive affirmation of the future. The triumphed in Russia. The construction The subjective element thus becomes a basis for the new class party could only of the party is not a question of skill or decisive element in this process and in what reside in the former left, in its critical and savoir-faire but essentially a problem of follows; it marks the whole orientation constructive work, in the theoretical posi- programmatic solidity. for the ulterior development of the party. tions and programmatic principles which Without falling into a helpless fatalism, it the left had been elaborating for the 20 years Faced with the enormous power of would be extremely dangerous to ignore of its existence and struggle as a fraction ideological corruption wielded by capital- the grave consequences that result from inside the old party. ism and its agents, the proletariat can only the way in which human beings carry out put forward its class programme with the The October 1917 revolution in Russia the tasks whose objective necessity they greatest rigour and intransigence. However provoked great enthusiasm in the masses have become aware of. slow this path towards building the party and accelerated the process of the liquida- might seem, revolutionaries can follow Experience teaches us the decisive tion of the old parties who had betrayed the no other, as the experience of past failures importance of the method for the constitu- working class. At the same time, it posed has shown. tion of the party. Only the ignorant or the very sharply the problem of the constitu- hare-brained, those for whom history only tion of the new party and the new Interna- The experience of the Spartakusbund begins with their own activity, can have tional. The old left, the Bolsheviks and the is highly edifying on this point. The lat- the luxury of ignoring the whole rich and Spartacists, were submerged by the rapid ter’s fusion with the Independents did painful experience of the 3rd International. development of the objective situation, by not, as they hoped, lead to the creation And it’s no less serious to see very young the revolutionary push of the masses. Their of a strong class party but resulted in the militants, who have only just arrived in the precipitation in building the new party Spartakusbund being swamped by the workers’ movement and the communist corresponded to and was the product of Independents and to the weakening of the left, not only being content in their igno- the precipitation of revolutionary events German proletariat. Before her murder, rance but even making it the basis of their around the world. It is undeniable that one Rosa Luxemburg and other Spartakusbund pretentious arrogance. of the historical causes of the victory of leaders recognized the error of fusing with the revolution in Russia and of its defeat the Independents and tried to correct it. But The workers’ movement on the eve of in Germany, Hungary and Italy lies in the this error was not only maintained by the the first imperialist world war was in a state existence of the revolutionary party at the CI in Germany, but it became the practical of extreme division. The imperialist war decisive moment in the first country and method for forming Communist Parties in had broken the formal unity of the political its absence or incomplete character in the all countries, imposed by the CI. organisations that claimed to be part of the others. Thus the revolutionaries tried to proletariat. The crisis of the workers’ move- In France, the CI “created” the Commu- overcome the gap between the maturation ment, which already existed beforehand, nist Party by imposing the amalgamation of the objective situation and the immatu- reached its culminating point because of and unification of groups of revolution- rity of the subjective factor (the absence the world war and the positions that were ary syndicalists, the internationalists of of the party) through a broad gathering needed to take up in response to it. All the the Socialist Party and the rotten, corrupt of politically heterogeneous groups and marxist, anarchist and trade union parties centrist tendency of the parliamentarians, currents and proclaiming this gathering and organizations were violently shaken by led by Frossard and Cachin. as the new party. it. Splits multiplied. New groups arose. A In Italy, the CI obliged Bordiga’s ab- political delimitation was produced. The Just as the “narrow” method of selec- stentionist fraction to found a single or- revolutionary minority of the 2nd Interna- tion on the most precise principled bases, ganisation with the centrist and opportunist tional represented by the Bolsheviks, the without taking into account immediate tendencies of Ordino Nuovo and Serrati. German left around Luxemburg, and the numerical success, enabled the Bolsheviks Dutch Tribunists, who already were not to build a party which, at the decisive mo- In Britain, the CI demanded that the very homogeneous, did not simply face a ment, was able to integrate and assimilate communist groups join the Independent single opportunist bloc. Between them and all the revolutionary energies and militants Labour Party to form a mass revolutionary the opportunists there was a whole rainbow from other currents and ultimately lead opposition inside this reformist party,. of political groups and tendencies, more the proletariat to victory, so the “broad” or less confused, more or less centrist, method, with its concern above all to rally In sum, the method used by the CI in more or less revolutionary, representing the greatest possible numbers straight away the “construction” of Communist Parties the general shift of the masses who were at the expense of precise principles and was everywhere opposed to the method breaking with the war, with the Sacred programme, led to the formation of mass which proved effective in the building of the Union, with the treason of the old parties parties, real giants with feet of clay which Bolshevik Party. It was no longer the ideo- of social democracy. We see here a process were to fall under the sway of opportunism logical struggle around the programme, of the liquidation of the old parties whose after the first defeat they went through. The the progressive elimination of opportunist downfall gave rise to a multitude of groups. formation of the class party proved to be tendencies which, through the victory of the most consistently revolutionary fraction, Internationalisme nº 7 13 served as the basis for the construction of first wave of revolution between 1918 and that of the Italian Fraction and which it is the party. Instead the basis was an addition 1920 was one of the causes of its defeat, so abandoning today. And just as Bordiga was of different tendencies, their amalgamation the method for the formation of the parties the continuation of Lenin against the error around a programme that had deliberately in 1920-21 was one of the main causes for of Lenin himself, we are only continuing been left incomplete. Selection was re- the degeneration of the CPs and the CI. the policy of Lenin and Bordiga against placed by addition, principles sacrificed the abandonment by the Italian Fraction One of the most astonishing things we for numerical mass. of its own positions. are seeing today, 23 years after the discus- How could the Bolsheviks and Lenin sion between Bordiga and Lenin at the time The new party is not a political unity but follow this path, which they had condemned of the formation of the CP of Italy, is the a conglomeration, an addition of currents and fought against in Russia for 20 years? repetition of the same error. The method of and tendencies which cannot fail to clash How can we explain this change in method the CI, which was so violently combated with each other. The present armistice can for forming the party by the Bolsheviks by the left fraction of Bordiga, and whose only be very provisional. The elimination of before and after 1917? Lenin did not har- consequences were catastrophic for the one or other of these currents is inevitable. bour any illusions about the opportunist and proletariat, is today being taken up by the Sooner or later a political and organisational centrist leaders, on the conversion to the Fraction itself in the construction of the demarcation will be imposed. Again, as it revolution of the Frossards, the Lebedours, PCI of Italy. was 25 years ago, the problem that is posed on the real value of these last-minute is WHO WILL WIN OUT? Many comrades of the International revolutionaries. Lenin could not have been Communist left seem to be suffering from unaware of the danger represented by ad- political amnesia. And, to the degree that mitting this whole mob into the Communist they do recall the critical positions of the left Parties. If he did decide to let them in, it on the constitution of the party, they think was because he had been subjected to the that today they have gone beyond them. pressure of events, because he believed They think that the danger of this method that these elements would, by the very is being circumscribed if not completely unfolding of events, be progressively and removed because it’s the Left Fraction definitively eliminated from the Party. This applying it, i.e. the organism which for allowed Lenin to inaugurate a new method, 25 years was able to resist the opportun- based on two new facts which, in his eyes, ist degeneration of the CI. We are again offered a sufficient guarantee: the political falling into the arguments of Bolsheviks. preponderance of the Bolshevik party in Lenin and the Bolsheviks believed that the CI and the objective development of because it was them applying this method, the revolutionary course. Experience has the guarantee was given. History proves since shown that Lenin made a colossal that there is no such thing as infallibil- error in underestimating the danger of an ity. No party, whatever its revolutionary opportunist degeneration which is always past, is immunised against opportunist possible in a revolutionary party, and which degeneration. The Bolsheviks had at least is facilitated all the more if the formation as many revolutionary credentials as the of the party is done not on the basis of Italian Fraction of the Communist Left. eliminating the opportunist elements but They had not only resisted the opportunism on camouflaging them, adding and incor- of the Second International, its betrayal porating them as elements constituting the in the face of imperialist war; they had new Party. not only formed the party but had led the Against the “broad” method of addition proletariat to victory. But all this glorious which won out in the CI, the left vigor- past – which no other fraction can equal ously recalled the method of selection, – immunised the Bolshevik party. Each the method of Lenin before the October error, each fault is a breach in the armour revolution. And it was one of the great of the party through which the influence merits of Bordiga and his fraction that they of the class enemy can infiltrate. Mistakes were the most energetic in combating the have their logical consequences. method of the CI, highlighting the error The Internationalist Communist Party in the method for forming the Party and of Italy is being “constructed” through the grave consequences it contained for the fusion, the adhesion, of groups and the later development of the Communist tendencies which are no less opposed to Parties. If Bordiga’s fraction in the end each other than Bordiga’s Abstentionist accepted forming the Communist Party of Fraction was to Ordino Nuovo when the Italy with the Ordino Nuovo fraction, it did CP of Italy was formed in 1921. In the so out of submitting to the CI’s decisions, new Party we have, as equal partners, the after formulating the most severe criti- Italian Fraction and the Vercesi Fraction cisms and maintaining its own positions, excluded for participating in the Antifascist which it would seek to bring to victory in Coalition. This is not only a repetition of the inevitable crises within the Party and the error of method of 25 years ago but an in the wake of living, concrete historical aggravated repetition. experience. In formulating our critique of the method Today we can affirm that just as the for constituting the PCI of Italy we are only absence of communist parties during the taking up the position which used to be 14 International Review 162 Summer 2019

Communism is on the agenda of history Castoriadis, Munis and the problem of breaking with Trotskyism (part II)

On the content of the communist revolution

In the previous part of this series, we re-published the article “Welcome to Breaking with the IVth Socialisme ou Barbarie” written by the Gauche Communiste de France in 1948. International The article took up a clear position on the nature of the Trotskyist movement, which had abandoned its proletarian credentials by participating in the second There is no question that in the late 40s imperialist world war: and early 50s, both Castoriadis and Munis “Trotskyism, which was one of the proletarian reactions within the Communist were militants of the working class. Munis International during the first years of its degeneration, never went beyond this remained one all his life. position of being an opposition, despite its formal constitution into an organically separate party. By remaining attached to the Communist Parties – which it still As a young man in occupied Greece Cas- sees as workers’ parties –even after the triumph of Stalinism, Trotskyism itself toriadis quit the Communist Party because functions as an appendage to Stalinism. It is linked ideologically to Stalinism he opposed their policy of support for (and and follows it around like a shadow. All the activity of Trotskyism over the last even leadership of) the nationalist Resist- 15 years proves this.” ance. He found his way to the group around And it goes on to say: Aghis Stinas, which though officially part of the Fourth International maintained an “This doesn’t mean that revolutionary workers who only have a little political intransigent opposition to both camps in the education have not been drawn into its ranks. On the contrary, as an organisation, as a political milieu, Trotskyism, far from favouring the development of revolu- imperialist war, including the Resistance tionary thought and of the organisms (fractions and tendencies) which express fronts. Ill-informed about the real betrayals it, is an organised milieu for undermining it. This is a general rule valid for any of the Trotskyist movement, they assumed political organisation alien to the proletariat, and experience has demonstrated that this would be the “normal” position that it applies to Stalinism and Trotskyism. We have known Trotskyism over 15 for any internationalist group since it was years of perpetual crisis, through splits and unifications, followed by further splits in continuity with Lenin’s position on the and crises, but we don’t know examples which have given rise to real, viable First World War. revolutionary tendencies. Trotskyism does not secrete within itself a revolution- ary ferment. On the contrary, it annihilates it. The condition for the existence In danger from both fascist and Stalinist and development of a revolutionary ferment is to be outside the organisational agents, Castoriadis left Greece at the end of and ideological framework of Trotskyism.” the war and settled in France, becoming a member of the main Trotskyist organisation in that country, the PCI. After forming an Having constituted itself as a tendency had come to similar conclusions to those opposition tendency within the PCI (the within the French Trotskyist party, the of SouB well in advance of its break from Chaulieu-Montal tendency referred to Parti Communiste Internationaliste, the Trotskyism. by the GCF), they split from the Party in 1948 to found the SouB group. The ten- initial reaction of the GCF towards the In this new article, we will seek to  dency’s splitting document, “Open letter “Chaulieu-Montal tendency” was thus to show how right the GCF were to be cau- to the militants of the PCI and the IVth express severe doubts about its potential tious in their welcome to SouB, and how International….”, published in the first for evolution. And yet, with the rupture difficult it is for those who have grown issue of Socialisme ou Barbarie, develops from the PCI and the formation of the SouB up in the corrupt milieu of Trotskyism a far-reaching critique of the theoretical group, the GCF recognised that a genuine to make a really profound break with its vacuity of the Trotskyist movement and break had taken place, and was thus to be fundamental ideas and attitudes. We will its inability to function as anything more welcomed. This did not however prevent examine the political trajectory and work than an appendage to Stalinism, both in the GCF from warning that the new group of two militants - Castoriadis and Grandizo its view that the USSR was still playing a continued to be marked by vestiges of its Munis - who formed parallel tendencies in progressive world historical role in setting Trotskyist past (for example on the union the Trotskyist movement in the late 40s, up new (though deformed) workers’ states question, or its ambiguous relationship with and who broke with it at around the same in eastern Europe, or in its tail-ending the review Les Temps Modernes published time. The choice of these two militants of the Socialist Party/Communist Party by the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre) as is apt not only because they illustrate the coalition which had been made part of well as displaying an unwonted arrogance general problem of breaking with Trotsky- the reconstruction government in France towards the revolutionary currents who ism, but also because both of them wrote at length about the question on which this 1. “Communism is on the agenda of history: . On this subject, read: “Memoirs of a revolutionary Castoriadis, Munis and the problem of breaking with series is based: the content of the socialist (A. Stinas, Greece): Nationalism and anti-fascism”, Trotskyism”, International Review nº 161. revolution. International Review nº 72; “Revolutionary defeatists . Chaulieu being a nom de guerre for Cornelius in Greece” on the Libcom website. Castoriadis – along with Paul Cardan and others; . This document is available in French on the website Montal for Claude Lefort www.marxists.org. The problem of breaking with Trotskyism 15 and which was charged with overseeing a One of his first major criticisms of the whose three articles on “The Content of ferocious intensification of exploitation. Fourth International’s position on the war Socialism”(CS), published between 1955 It was particularly sharp in its critique of was contained in his response to James Can- and 1958 in Socialisme ou Barbarie are the Fourth International’s toadying to the non’s defence, at his trial for “sedition” in without doubt his most ambitious attempt dissident Stalinist Tito in Yugoslavia, which Minneapolis, of the policy of the Socialist to criticise the dominant falsities about the expressed a clear break with Trotsky’s view Workers Party in the US – an application meaning of socialism and to put forward that Stalinism could not be reformed. of the “proletarian military policy” which an alternative. These texts, but above all essentially consisted of a call to place the the second, were to have an influence on At the end of his life Trotsky had argued USA’s war against fascism under “work- a number of other groups and currents, not that if the USSR emerged from the war ers’ control”. For Munis this represented least the Situationist International, which without being overthrown by a proletar- a complete capitulation to the war effort took up Castoriadis’ notion of generalised ian revolution his current would have to of an imperialist bourgeoisie. Although self-management, and the UK libertar- revise their view of it as a workers’ state, quite late in clearly rejecting the defence ian socialist group Solidarity, which was and might have to conclude that it was the of the USSR, by 1947 Munis, also in an to rework article two in their pamphlet product of a new age of barbarism. There open letter to the PCI written with Natalia Workers’ Councils and the Economics of are traces of this approach in the group’s and the surrealist poet Benjamin Peret, was a Self-managed Society. initial characterisation of the bureaucracy insisting that rejecting the defence of the as a new exploiting class, echoing the “bu- The dates of publication are significant; USSR was now an urgent necessity for reaucratic collectivism” analyses of Rizzi in between the first article and the second revolutionaries. Like the Chaulieu-Montal and Shachtman, which defined Russia as there were momentous events in the “east- letter, the text denounced the Trotskyists’ neither capitalist nor socialist; although as ern” empire: Kruschev’s famous speech support for the Stalinist regime in the east the GCF recognises, the group soon moved about Stalin’s excesses, the revolt in Poland (though not yet putting forward a definite away from this notion towards the idea of and above all the proletarian uprising in analysis of its social nature) and for CP/SP a new bureaucratic capitalism. In a text Hungary, which saw the emergence of governments in the west. The letter is much from SouB 2, “The relations of production workers’ councils. These events evidently more focused than that of Chaulieu-Montal in Russia”, Castoriadis does not hesitate to had a major impact on Castoriadis’ thought on the question of the Second World War criticise Trotsky’s own view of the USSR and on the rather detailed description of a and the betrayal of internationalism by as a system with a capitalist mode of dis- projected socialist society in the second large parts of the Trotskyist movement tribution but an essentially socialist mode article. The problem is that these articles through their support for antifascism and of production. Such a separation between persist in the theoretical arrogance noted by the Resistance alongside their defence of production and distribution was, it argued, the GCF in 1948 with their claim to having the USSR. It also clearly rejects the idea contrary to the marxist critique of political understood key elements of capitalism and that nationalisations – the call and support economy. In line with this effort to apply a its revolutionary negation which had not for which was a central plank of Trotsky- marxist analysis to the world historic situ- been grasped in the workers’ movement, ism’s “programmatic demands”– could be ation, the group considered this tendency including by Marx. But in reality, rather viewed as anything but a reinforcement of towards bureaucratisation to be both global than going “beyond” Marx, they tend to capitalism. Although the letter still har- and an expression of the decadence of take us back to Proudhon, as we shall bours hopes for a revived IVth International the capitalist system. This position also explain. purged of opportunism, and to this end explains why the new group’s review called for joint work between his group and That is not to say that there are no posi- was entitled Socialism or Barbarism. In the Chaulieu-Montal tendency within the tive elements in these texts. They confirm particular, in its open letter and in the first International, in reality the current around Castoriadis’ rejection of the Trotskyist view years of SouB, the group considered that Munis soon broke all links with this false of Stalinism as a misguided expression of in the absence of a proletarian revolution, International and formed an independent the workers’ movement, insisting that it a third world war between the western and group (the Union Ouvrière Internationale) defends a class interest which is opposed eastern blocs was inevitable. which, like SouB, entered into discussion to that of the proletariat. Although Casto- As for Munis, his courage as a proletar- with the groups of the communist left. riadis freely accepts that his conception of ian militant was particularly remarkable. the post-revolutionary society is very close Along with his comrades in the Bolshevik Castoriadis on “The content of to the one put forward by Pannekoek in Leninist group, one of the two Trotskyist socialism”: beyond Marx or back his pamphlet Workers’ Councils, he does groups active in Spain during the civil war, to Proudhon? not fall into some of the crucial errors of and alongside the dissident anarchists of the “late” Pannekoek: the rejection of the the Friends of Durruti, Munis fought on We will return later on to the subsequent Russian revolution as bourgeois and of the barricades erected by the workers’ political trajectory of Castoriadis and Mu- any role for a revolutionary political or- uprising against the Republican/Stalinist nis. Our main aim is to examine how, in a ganisation. Instead the Russian revolution government in May 1937. Imprisoned by period dominated by Stalinist and social is still treated as an essentially proletarian the Stalinists towards the end of the war, democratic definitions of socialism, a experience whose degeneration must be he narrowly escaped an execution squad period of retreat for the working class and understood and learned from. Neither do and fled to Mexico, where he resumed of growing isolation of the revolutionary the texts fall explicitly into the anarchist his activity within the Trotskyist milieu, minority, both militants tried to elaborate position that rejects centralisation on prin- speaking at Trotsky’s funeral and becom- a vision of an authentic path to the com- ciple: on the contrary, he strongly criticises ing influential on the political evolution munist future. We begin with Castoriadis, . See “On the content of socialism” parts I to III on of Natalia Trotsky, who like Munis was the Libcom website. becoming increasingly critical of the of- . See for example the text of 1945 “Defence of . Available on the Libcom website. ficial Trotskyist stance on the imperialist the Soviet Union and Revolutionary tactics” on the . Pannekoek’s pamphlet was written during the war and the defence of the USSR. website www.marxists.org. war but published in full in the years that followed. . See “Open letter to the Parti Communiste The reference to it by Castoriadis is in part III of the Internationaliste” of 1947 in French on the website series “On the content on socialism” published on www.marxists.org. the Libcom website. 16 International Review 162 Summer 2019 the classical anarchist view and argues reductionist (albeit very common) carica- society. However, we prefer to look at the that “To refuse to face up to the question ture of Rosa Luxemburg’s theory of crisis ideas contained in the text and to show why of central power is tantamount to leaving as one that predicts a purely automatic so much of what Castoriadis puts forward the solution of these problems to some collapse of capitalism. would in any case not be part of a really bureaucracy or other.”10 evolving communist programme. Seizing on a quote from Marx about the Rejecting the Trotskyist view that a mere persistence of a “realm of necessity” even We have already mentioned Castoriadis’ change in the forms of property can bring in communism, Castoriadis thinks he has rejection of Marx’s theory of crisis in favour about an end to the mechanics of capitalist discovered a fatal flaw in Marx’s thinking: of his own innovation: exploitation, and exploitation, Castoriadis rightly insist that that for Marx, production would always the fundamental contradiction of “modern” socialism has no meaning unless it brings be a sphere of denial and essentially of capitalism, as being rooted in the division about a total transformation in humanity’s alienation, whereas he, Castoriadis, alone between order givers and order-takers. And relationship with all aspects of social and has discovered that alienation cannot be this bold “revisionism”, this shelving of economic life, a change from a society in overcome unless the sphere of produc- the economic contradictions inherent in which mankind is dominated by the prod- tion is also one in which our humanity is the wage relationship and the accumula- ucts of his own hands and brains to one in expressed. The reference (in CS II) is to tion of capital, means that Castoriadis has which human beings consciously control the passage in Capital volume 3 where no qualms about describing his socialist their own activity, and above all the process Marx says that “the realm of freedom society of the future as one where all the of production. For this reason, Castoriadis actually begins only where labour which essential categories of capital remain intact stresses the central importance of the work- is determined by necessity and mundane and present no danger of engendering a new ers’ councils as the forms through which considerations ceases; thus in the very form of exploitation and no obstacle to the this profound change in the way society nature of things it lies beyond the sphere transition to a fully communist society. operates can be brought about. The dif- of actual material production.”12 This In 1972, when the UK Solidarity group ficulty arises less with this general notion passage does imply that labour or material produced their pamphlet Workers’ Councils of socialism as the restoration of “human production can never be an area of human and the Economics of a Self-managed So- power as its own end”, but with the more fulfilment, and for Castoriadis this repre- ciety, their introduction was already rather concrete means Castoriadis advocates to sents a decline from the early Marx who defensive about the fact that the “social- achieve this goal, and with the theoretical looked forward to the transformation of ist” society described by Castoriadis still method that lies behind the measures he labour into free activity (especially in the retained a number of the key features of advocates. 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manu- capitalism: wages (although Castoriadis scripts). But presenting things in this way To begin with the idea of criticising the insists on the absolute equality of wages distorts the complexity of Marx’s thought. contributions of the past workers’ move- from day one), prices, labour value as the In the Critique of the Gotha Programme, ment: there is nothing wrong in this per source of accounting, a consumer market, written in 1875, Marx also insists that the se. In fact it is an essential element in the and “the criterion of profitability”. And aim of the proletarian revolution is a society development of the communist project. We indeed in a polemic written in 1972, Adam in which “labour has become not only a cannot disagree with Castoriadis’ idea that Buick of the Socialist Party of Great Britain means of life but life’s prime want”. We the workers’ movement is necessarily af- showed the degree to which the Solidarity can find similar ideas in the Grundrisse, fected by the dominant ideology and that it version had bowdlerised some of the most another “mature” work.13 can only throw off this influence through a embarrassing passages in the original: process of constant reflection and struggle. “Nobody who has read the original arti- But Castoriadis’ criticisms are very often The self-management of a market cle can deny that Cardan was an advocate inaccurate and lead to conclusions that tend economy of so-called ‘market socialism’. Solidarity to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” themselves clearly found this embarrass- – in short, they lead him towards a break A common criticism of “On the content ing because they have edited out its more with marxism that was to become explicit of socialism” is that it violates Marx’s crude manifestations. In their introduction not long after these articles were published, admonition against “drawing up recipes they apologise: and the premises of this break can already for the cookbooks of the future”. In CSII be seen in these texts. To give an example: Castoriadis anticipates this criticism by ‘Some will see the text as a major he already rejects the marxist theory of denying that he is trying to draw up stat- contribution to the perpetuation of wage crisis as a product of the internal economic utes or a constitution for the new society. slavery - because it still talks of ‘wages’ contradictions of the system. For him the It is interesting to see how much capitalist and doesn’t call for the immediate abolition crisis is not the result of overproduction society has changed since CSII was writ- of ‘money’ (although clearly defining the or the falling rate of profit but a result of ten, posing problems which don’t quite fit radically different meanings these terms the growing rejection, by those “below”, into the schema – above all the tendency will acquire in the early stages of a self- of the division of society into order givers towards the elimination of large factory managed society)’ (p.4) and order takers, which he sees not as the production at the centre of many of the and, again, in a footnote: inevitable product of capitalist exploitation, central capitalist countries, the growth of but its actual foundation: “The abolition of precarious employment, and the practise ‘All the preceding talk of ‘wages’, exploitation is only possible when every of “outsourcing” to areas of the globe ‘prices’ and ‘the market’ will, for instance, separate stratum of directors ceases to ex- where labour power is cheaper. We can’t undoubtedly have startled a certain group ist, for in modern societies it is the division blame Castoriadis for failing to predict of readers. We would ask them momentar- between directors and executants that is such developments, but it does show the ily to curb their emotional responses and at the root of exploitation.”11 By the same pitfalls of schematic anticipations of future to try to think rationally with us on the token, in CSII he offers us an extremely matter’ (p. 36). 12. See chapter XLVIII, “The trinity formula”. 10. “On the content of Socialism” part II. Referred 13. See our earlier article in this series “Capital and But Cardan did not speak only of “wag- to as CSII from here onwards. the principles of communism: The overthrow of es”, “prices” and “the market”. He also 11. CSII. commodity fetishism”, International Review nº 76. The problem of breaking with Trotskyism 17 spoke of “profitability” (rentabilité) and the road to communism.15 And of course Castoriadis’ inability to envisage a real “rate of interest” (“taux d’intérêt”). This Stalinism took full advantage of this idea overcoming of the wage relation is con- was evidently too much even for Solidarity’s to argue that the fully stratified economy nected to his fixation on the notion of the curbed emotion since these words nowhere of the USSR was already “real socialism”. socialist “enterprise” as a self-managed appear in the edited translation. But the problem with this idea lies not unit, albeit one that coordinates with other only in the way it was used by Stalinism. enterprises and branches of production at It is very revealing to give some examples A deeper difficulty is that it tends to freeze various levels. CSII‘s description of rela- of the way Solidarity has toned down the the transition period into a stable mode tions in the future socialist society begins “market socialism” aspects of Cardan’s of production, when it can really only be with a long section on how the factory of the original articles: understood in a dynamic and contradictory future will be managed, and only later in the – Original: shops selling to consumers manner, as a period marked by a constant text does it discuss how society as a whole (magasins de vente aux consomateurs) . struggle between the communist measures will be run at the political and economic Solidarity’s version: ‘stores distributing unleashed by the political power of the level. CSIII is almost entirely devoted to to consumers’ (p. 24). working class, and all the remnants of the analysing the reality of day to day resist- old world which tend to drag society back ance on the factory shop floor, seeing it – Original: The market for consumer towards capitalism. Whether the political as the soil in which a future revolutionary goods (le marché des biens de consom- regime of this “socialist” stage is envis- consciousness will develop. Castoriadis is mation). Solidarity’s version: ‘consumer aged despotically or democratically, the not wrong to stress the importance of the goods’ (heading p. 35). fundamental illusion remains: that you can workplace as a focus for the association – Original: This implies the existence of arrive at communism through a process of of the workers, for their collective resist- a real market for consumer goods (ce accumulating capital. One can even see ance, and in any revolutionary process qui implique 1'existence d'un marché Castoriadis’ attempt to develop a balanced the base assemblies at the workplace will réel pour les biens de consommation). economy, where production is harmonised certainly play a vital role as “cells” of a Solidarity’s version: ‘This implies the with the consumer market, as a reflection of wider network of councils. But Castoriadis existence of some mechanism whereby the Keynesian methods of the day, which goes further than this and suggests that consumer demand can genuinely make aimed to do away with economic crises in socialist society the factory/workplace itself felt’ (p.35) precisely by achieving such a planned will maintain itself as a kind of fixed equilibrium. And this in turn reveals the community. On the contrary, as Bordiga – Original: Money, prices, Wages and degree to which Castoriadis was bewitched for one always stressed, the emergence of value. Solidarity’s version: “money”, by the appearance of capitalist economic communism necessarily involves the end “wages”, “value” (heading p. 36).. stability in the period that followed the of the individual enterprise, and the real In fact Cardan envisaged a market Second World War.16 overcoming of the division of labour will surely imply that producers are less and less economy in which everybody would be In an early section of CS II, Castoriadis tied to a single unit of production. paid in circulating money an equal wage rightly takes up Marx’s view that the future with which to buy goods which would be on society of free producers must profoundly Perhaps more importantly, Castoriadis’ sale at a price equal to their value (amount simplify the whole process of production “factoryism” leads to a profound underesti- of socially necessary labour embodied in and distribution – must make its opera- mation of the primary function of workers’ them). And he as the cheek to claim that tions “perfectly simple and intelligible”, councils, which is not the management Marx also held that under Socialism goods 14 to use the term used by Marx in one of of the factory but the unification of the would exchange at their values…” the rare descriptions of communist society working class at both the economic and The real continuity here is not with Marx contained in Capital.17 But by retaining the political levels. For Castoriadis, a workers’ but with Proudhon, whose future “mutu- categories of value production, not only will council is essentially a council elected by alist” society is a society of independent any attempt to rationally plan production the workers’ assembly of a given unit of commodity producers, exchanging their and distribution be fettered by the concerns production, and towards the end of CSII he products at their value. of the market and of profitability, it will also clearly distinguishes this from the Russian lead sooner or later to the same old shit – to soviets which he sees as essentially based 18 “Socialism” as a transitional economic crisis and to hidden, then open, on territorial units: forms of exploitation. It also seems rather society? “Although the Russian word ‘soviet’ ironic that having developed, in the early means ‘council,’ one should not confuse the part of CSII, the argument that capitalist Castoriadis does not claim that the society workers’ councils we have been describing technology cannot be seen as neutral but is he describes is the final goal of the revolu- in this text with even the earliest Russian profoundly connected to the goals of capi- tion. In fact, his position is very similar to Soviets. The workers’ councils are based talist production, Castoriadis then appears the definition that arose during the period on one’s place of work. They can play both to opt for something of a technical fix, in of social democracy and was theorised by a political role and a role in the industrial which the “Plan Factory”, using very big Lenin in particular: socialism is a stage on management of production. In its essence, computers, is able to work out how the a workers’ council is a universal organ. self-managed market will achieve a perfect The 1905 Petrograd Soviet (Council) of 14. “Solidarity, the market and Marx”, available on economic balance. the Libcom website. The text is also interesting in Workers’ Deputies, although the product of that it welcomes the appearance of new groups like 15. For ourselves – and we think we are closer Workers Voice in Liverpool, Internationalism in the to Marx here, even if he much preferred the term 18. Interestingly, in a letter to Socialisme ou Barbarie US and the London group which, after splitting from “communism” – we take socialism and communism in 1953, Anton Pannekoek already noticed the French solidarity, formed World Revolution, who are much to mean the same thing: a society where wage labour, group’s restrictive conception of workers’ councils: clearer than Solidarity on the content of socialism/ commodity production and national frontiers have “While you restrict the activity of these organisms to communism. What it doesn’t do is take issue with the been overcome. the organisation of labour in the factories after the essentially national conception of socialism contained 16. See our article “The post-war boom did not taking of social power by the workers, we consider in CSII – a weakness also that inevitably afflicts the reverse the decline of capitalism”, International them as also being the organisms by means of which SPGB with their vision of a parliamentary road to Review nº 147. the workers will conquer this power”. Available on socialism. See below. 17. Capital Volume 1, chapter 1. the website www.marxists.org. 18 International Review 162 Summer 2019 a general strike and, although exclusively the working class to the organs of “society But it must always be recognised that any proletarian in composition, remained a as a whole”. such measures (like “war communism” in purely political organ. The Soviets of 1917 Russia) will be deeply distorted by condi- A final expression of Castoriadis’ failure were as a rule geographically based. They tions of isolation and scarcity and will not to envisage a real break with the categories too were purely political institutions, in necessarily have any direct continuity to the of capital: the limitation of his vision to which all social layers opposed to the old authentic communist reconstruction that the national level. Hints of this are given regime formed a united front.” will only begin once the working class has here and there in CSII where he talks about defeated the bourgeoisie on a global scale. Castoriadis does envisage a network how things might work “in a country like In the meantime, the essentially political of councils taking on the running of local France”, and how “the population of the en- task of extending the revolution will have and national political affairs, and Solidar- tire country” might run their affairs through to take precedence over the contingent ity helpfully draws us a diagram, but it an assembly of council delegates which is and experimental social and economic seems to involve a central assembly of depicted as existing on a national scale only. measures that will take place in the first factory delegates at national level without But the danger of seeing “socialism” in a stages of a communist revolution. anything in between. But, fixated on the national framework comes through much problem of managing the factory (an issue more explicitly in this passage: We will return later to the political trajec- that in Russia was taken up by the factory tory followed by Castoriadis, which would “…the revolution can only begin in one committees), Castoriadis underestimates be significantly moulded by this departure country, or in one group of countries. As a the significance of the fact that the soviets from marxism at the theoretical level result, it will have to endure pressures of ex- emerged both in 1905 and 1917 to coor- tremely varying kinds and durations. On the dinate the workplaces engaged in a mass other hand, however swiftly the revolution Munis: “For a Second Communist strike: they were a “council of war” of spreads internationally, a country’s level of Manifesto” delegates from all the enterprises in a given internal development will play an impor- town or city, and from the very beginning tant role in how the principles of socialism Munis returned to Spain in 1951 to intervene took up the direction of a movement that will be concretely applied. For example, in a widespread outbreak of class struggle, was moving from the terrain of economic agriculture might create important prob- seeing the possibility of a new revolution- defence to one of political confrontation 20 lems in France—but not in the United States ary upsurge against the Franco regime. with the existing regime. —or Great Britain (where, inversely, the He was arrested and spent the next seven It’s true that alongside, and often in main problem would be that of the country’s years in jail. It can be argued that Munis conjunction with, the soviets of workers’ extreme dependence on food imports). In failed to draw some key political lessons deputies there were soviets of soldiers’ and the course of our analysis, we have con- from this experience, particularly about the sailors’ delegates, elected from the barracks sidered several problems of this kind and revolutionary possibilities of the post-war and on the ships, and soviets of peasants’ hope to have shown that solutions tending period, but it certainly did not dampen his deputies elected from the villages, as well in a socialist direction existed in each case. commitment to the revolutionary cause. as comparable forms elected on the basis of We have not been able to consider the He took very precarious refuge in France urban neighbourhoods, blocks of flats, etc. special problems that would arise if the – the French state soon expelled him – and In that sense there was a strongly territorial revolution remained isolated in one country he spent several years in Milan, where he or residential basis to many of the soviets. for a long time —and we can hardly do it entered into contact with the Bordigists But this raises a further question: the re- here. But we hope to have shown that it is and with Onorato Damen of Battaglia lationship between the workers’ councils wrong to think that the problems arising Comunista, with whom he developed a and the councils of other non-exploiting from such isolation are insoluble, that an strong mutual respect. It was during this strata. Castoriadis is aware of this problem isolated workers’ power must die heroi- period, in 1961 that Munis, in company as his “diagram” envisages the central as- cally or degenerate, or that at the most it with Peret, founded the group Fomento sembly of delegates containing delegates can ‘hold on’ while waiting. The only way Obrero Revolucionario. In this context, from peasant councils and councils of to ‘hold on’ is to start building socialism; he produced two of his most important professionals and small traders. For us otherwise, degeneration has already set theoretical texts: Unions against revolu- this is the central problem of the state in in, and there is nothing to hold on for. For tion in 1960 and For a second Communist the period of transition: a period in which workers’ power, the building of socialism Manifesto (FSCM) in 1961.21 classes still exist, in which the working from the very first day is not only possible, At the beginning of this article we noted class has to exercise its dictatorship while it is imperative. If it does not take place the similarities in the political trajectories of at the same time integrating the other non- the power held has already ceased to be 19 Castoriadis and Munis in their break with exploiting strata into political life and into workers’ power.” Trotskyism. But by the early 60s their paths the process of transforming social relations. The idea that a proletarian power can had begun to diverge rather radically. In Castoriadis envisages a similar process hold on in a single country by building its early days, the title Socialisme ou Bar- but he rejects the idea that this transitional socialism reverses the reality of the problem barie was consistent with the real choice organisation of society constitutes a state. and takes us back, finally, to the errors of facing humanity: Castoriadis considered In our view this approach is more rather the Bolsheviks after 1921, and even to the himself to be a marxist and the alternative than less likely to permit a situation where counter-revolutionary positions of Stalin announced in the title expressed the group’s the state becomes an autonomous force op- and Bukharin after 1924. When the working adherence to the notion that capitalism had posing the organs of the working class, as class takes power in one country it will, 20. See the article on Libcom: “1951: Barcelona happened rather rapidly in Russia given the of course be compelled to take economic general strike”. isolation of the revolution after 1917. For measures to guarantee the provision of ba- 21. Available on the Libcom website. This text was us, the real independence of the working sic needs, and as far as possible they should also published in Internationalism nº3 in the early class and its councils is better served by 70s, with an introduction by Judith Allen, “Unions and be compatible with communist principles calling the state what it is, by recognising Reformism”. Munis’ reply is published on the website and antithetical to the categories of capital. www.marxists.org. The “Second manifesto” has not its inherent dangers, and ensuring that been translated into English. A French edition can be there is no subordination of the organs of 19. CSII found on the website: www.matierevolution.org. The problem of breaking with Trotskyism 19 entered its epoch of decline.22 But in the stream where necessary: smothering force and capacity. Philosophi- introduction to the first volume of a col- cally the idea of an emancipating state is “For its part, the ‘Socialisme ou Bar- lection of his writings, The Bureaucratic pure Hegelian idealism, unacceptable to barie’ tendency, which also came out of Society,23 Castoriadis describes the period historical materialism.” the IVth International, operates at the tail 1960-64 as the years of his break with end of the decaying French ‘left’ on all And where Castoriadis in “The con- marxism, considering not only that capital- problems and in all important movements: tent of socialism” advocates a form of ism had essentially resolved its economic on Algeria and the colonial problem, 13 self-managed capitalism, Munis offers no contradictions, thus disproving the basic May 1958 and the Gaullist power, trade room for doubt about the economic/social premises of the marxist critique of political unions and contemporary workers’ strug- content of the communist programme – the economy; but also that marxism, whatever gles, attitude towards Stalinism and state abolition of wage labour and commodity its insights, could not be separated from the direction in general. To the point where, production. ideologies and regimes which laid claim to although it sees the Russian economy as a it. In other words, Castoriadis, like other “The aim of a really planned economy form of state capitalism, it has only served former Trotskyists (such as the remnants of can only be to bring production into accord to spread further confusion. By expressly the German RKD) went from a wholesale with consumption; only the full satisfaction renouncing the task of struggling against rejection of “Leninism” to a rejection of of the latter – and not profit or privileges, the current and by only saying to the marxism itself (and thus ended up in a “new nor the demands of ‘national defence’ working class ‘what it can understand’, look” kind of anarchism). or an industrialisation alien to the daily it dooms itself to its own failure. Lacking needs of the masses – can be considered Even though, as we shall also examine, in nerve this ‘tendency’ has given in to as the spur of production. The first condi- FSCM indicates the degree to which Munis a kind of versatility which has the air of tion for such an approach can thus only had not entirely thrown off the weight of existentialist tight-rope walking. To them, be the disappearance of wage labour, the his Trotskyist past, it argues quite clearly as towards other currents in the US, it’s foundation stone of the law of value, uni- that, despite all the contemporary propa- worth recalling Lenin’s words: ‘a few pitiful versally present in capitalist societies, even ganda about the affluent society and the intellectuals who think that with the work- if many of them claim today to be socialist integration of the working class, the real ers it’s enough to talk about the factory and or communist.” trajectory of capitalist society confirmed blather on about what they have already the fundamentals of marxism: that capital- known about for a long time’”. At the same time, this strength of FSCM ism had, since the first world war, entered regarding the content of the communist Again, in contrast to the evolution of its epoch of decadence, in which the cry- transformation also has a weak side – a SouB, FSCM has no hesitation in defend- ing contradiction between the relations tendency to assume that wage labour and ing the proletarian character of the October of production and the productive forces commodity production can be abolished revolution and of the Bolshevik party. In a were threatening to drag humanity to ruin, from the first day, even in the context document written about 10 years later, and above all because of the historic danger of of a single country. It’s true, as the text which takes up similar themes to FSCM, war between the two imperialist blocs that says, that “from the first day, the society Party-state, Stalinism, Revolution,24 Munis dominated the globe. The affluent society in transition born from this victory must argues against those currents from the Ger- was in essence a war economy. aim towards this goal. It must not lose sight man and Dutch left who had reneged on for an instant of the strict interdependence Far from blaming marxism for in some their initial support for October and decided between production and consumption”. But sense giving birth to Stalinism, FSCM that the Russian revolution and Bolshevism as we have already remarked, the proletariat eloquently denounces the Stalinist regimes were essentially bourgeois in nature. At the in a single country must also never lose and parties as the purest expression of same time, FSCM focuses on certain key sight of the fact that whatever measures it capitalist decadence, which, in different errors which accelerated the degeneration undertakes can only be temporary as long forms around the world, was engendering of the revolution in Russia and the rise of the as the revolutionary victory has not been a drive towards totalitarian state capitalism. Stalinist counter-revolution: the confusion achieved on a world scale, and that they From the same theoretical starting point, of nationalisations and state property with remain subject to the global operation of the text argues that all national liberation socialism, and the idea that the dictatorship the laws of capitalism. The fact that Mu- struggles had become moments in the of the proletariat meant the dictatorship of nis does not keep this in mind at all times global imperialist confrontation. At a time the party. In Party-State, Munis also has a is confirmed in particular in Party-state which saw a widespread dissemination of definite insight into the idea that the tran- where he presents war communism as a the idea that national struggles in the Third sitional state cannot be seen as the agent kind of “non-capitalism” and sees the NEP World were the new force for revolution- of communist transformation, echoing the as the restoration of capitalist relations. We ary change, this was a striking example position of Bilan and the GCF: have already criticised this approach in two of revolutionary intransigence, and the “From the Paris Commune, revolution- articles in International Review nºs 25 and arguments that accompanied it would be aries drew a lesson of great importance, 52.25 It is also confirmed by what Munis al- amply confirmed by the evolution of the among others: the capitalist state could not ways maintained about the events in Spain “post-colonial” regimes produced by the be conquered or used; it had to be demol- 36-37: for him the Spanish revolution went struggle for national independence. And ished. The Russian revolution deepened even deeper than the Russian revolution. it stood in contrast with the ambiguities this same lesson in a decisive manner: the This was partly because in May 1937 the of the SouB group on the war in Algeria state, however workers’ or soviet it might workers for the first time showed, arms in and other basic class issues. FSCM makes be, cannot be the organiser of communism. hands, an understanding of the counter- it clear that SouB has followed a path of As the proprietor of the instruments of revolutionary role of Stalinism. But he also compromise and workerism rather than of labour, as the collector of necessary (or considered that the Spanish industrial and fighting for communist clarity, against the superfluous) social surplus labour, far from 25. “The confusions of Fomento Obrero 22. See for example “The relations of production in withering away, it acquires an unlimited Revolucionario (FOR): on Russia 1917 and Spain Russia” on the website www.marxists.org. 1936”, International Review nº 25. “Where is the 23. La société bureaucratique 1: les rapports de 24. Parti-Etat, Stalinisme, Révolution, ed Spartacus, FOR going?” International Review nº 52. production en Russie, editions 10:18, 1973. 1975. 20 International Review 162 Summer 2019 agrarian collectives had established small It’s very characteristic that the FOR in 1975. Even so, the Ferment Ouvrière islands of communism. In sum: communist should put on the same level its reform- Révolutionaire (FOR), the group he formed relations are possible even without the ist slogans about democratic ‘rights and in Spain and France around the positions destruction of the bourgeois state and the freedoms’ for workers, and slogans which of the ‘Second Manifesto’, at first agreed to international extension of the revolution. could only arise in a fully revolutionary participate in the series of conferences of In these conceptions we see, once again, period. We thus find mixed pell-mell such groups of the communist left which began a renewal of anarchist ideas and even an slogans as: ‘expropriation of industrial, in Milan in 1977. But this attitude altered anticipation of the “communisation” cur- finance, and agricultural capital; work- during the course of the second conference; rent which was to develop in the 1970s and ers’ management of the production and the FOR walked out of the conference, which has a definite influence within the distribution of goods; destruction of all and this was the expression of a tendency wider anarchist movement today. the instruments of war, atomic as well towards sectarian isolation which up to now as classical, dissolution of armies and has prevailed in this organisation”. And while an incomplete break with police, reconversion of war industries Trotskyism sometimes takes this anarchist Today the FOR no longer exists. It was into consumer industries; individual direction, it can also manifest itself in more always highly dependent on the personal armament of those exploited by capital- explicit hangovers from Trotskyism. Thus charisma of Munis, who was not able to ism, territorially organised according to FSCM ends with a kind of updated version pass on a solid tradition of organisation to the schema of democratic committees of of the 1938 transitional programme. We the new generation of militants who rallied management and distribution; suppression quote at length from our article in Inter- round him, and which could have served of frontiers and constitution of a single national Review nº 52: as a basis for the continued functioning of government and a single economy to the the group after Munis’ death. And as the “In its ‘For a Second Communist Mani- extent of the proletariat’s victory in diverse tribute notes, the group suffered from a ten- festo’ the FOR considered it correct to put in countries.’ …..All these slogans display dency towards sectarianism which further forward all kinds of transitional demands in enormous confusions. The FOR seems to weakened its capacity to survive. the absence of revolutionary movements of have abandoned any marxist compass. the proletariat. These go from the 30 hours There is no distinction made between a The example of this attitude referred to week, the suppression of piece work and of pre-revolutionary period in which capital in the tribute is the rather showy departure time and motion studies in the factories to still rules politically, a revolutionary period of Munis and his group from the second the ‘demand for work for all, unemployed in which a dual power is established, and conference of the communist left, citing and youth’ on the economic terrain. On the period of transition (after the seizure his disagreement with the other groups on the political level the FOR demands of power by the proletariat) which alone the problem of the economic crisis. This is democratic ‘rights’ and ‘freedoms’ from can put on the agenda (and then not imme- not the place to examine this problem in the bourgeoisie: freedom of speech, of the diately!) the ‘suppression of wage labour’ detail, but we can see the core of Munis’ press, of assembly; the right of workers to and the ‘suppression of frontiers.”26 position in the FSCM: elect permanent workshop, factory or pro- “The recovery of the fighting spirit and fessional delegates ‘without any judicial The later trajectory of Munis and the resurgence of a revolutionary situation or trade union formalities’. Castoriadis cannot be expected, as claimed by certain This is all within the Trotskyist logic, marxists who lean towards economic au- according to which it is enough to pose the Munis died in February 1989. The ICC tomatism, to be the result of one of these right demands to gradually arrive at the published a tribute to him that began by cyclical crises, wrongly called ‘crises of revolution. For the Trotskyists, the whole saying that “the proletariat has lost a overproduction’. These are the tremors trick is to know how to be a pedagogue militant who devoted his whole life to the which regularise the chaotic development for the workers, who don’t understand class struggle”.27 After briefly tracing the of the system, and are not the result of its anything about their demands, to brandish political history of Munis through Spain in exhaustion. Managed capitalism knows in front of them the most appetising carrots the 30s, his break with Trotskyism over the how to attenuate them and besides, even if in order to push the workers towards their Second World War, his sojourn in Franco’s one of them does arise, it could easily favour ‘party’. Is this what Munis wants, with his jails in the early 50s and the publication of the tortuous designs of new reactionaries, Transitional Program Mark 2? For a Second Communist Manifesto, the who await their moment, five year plans in article takes up the story in the late 60s: one pocket, and production norms in the The FOR still doesn’t understand to- other. The general crisis of capitalism is its day: “In 1967, along with comrades from the Venezuelan group Internacialismo, he exhaustion as a social system. It consists, – that it is not a question of drawing participated in efforts to restore contacts summarily speaking, in the fact that the up a catalogue of demands for future with the revolutionary milieu in Italy. Thus, instruments of production as capital and struggles: the workers are big enough at the end of the ‘60s, with the resurgence the distribution of products, limited by to formulate their own precise demands of the working class onto the scene of his- wage labour, have become incompatible spontaneously, in the course of the tory, he took his place alongside the weak with human necessities, and even with the struggle; revolutionary forces existing at that time, maximum possibilities that technique could offer to economic development. That crisis – that this or that precise demand -- like including those who were to form Révolu- is insurmountable for capitalism, and in the 'right to work' for the unemployed tion Internationale in France. But at the the West as well as in Russia it gets worse -- can be taken up by bourgeois move- beginning of the ‘70s, he unfortunately every day.” ments and used against the proletariat remained outside the discussions and at- (labour camps, public works, etc.); tempts at regroupment which resulted in Munis’s position is thus not one of particular in the constitution of the ICC simply denying the crisis of overproduc- – that it's only through the revolutionary tion, and indeed earlier on in the FSCM he struggle against the bourgeoisie that 26.“Where is the FOR going?” International Review attributes them to a fundamental contradic- the workers can really satisfy their nº 52. tion in the system, that between use value demands… 27. “Farewell to Munis: A revolutionary militant”, International Review nº 58. and exchange value. Furthermore, in his The problem of breaking with Trotskyism 21 rejection of “automatism”, any idea that an “The crisis of humanity – we repeat this struggles at the end of the ‘60s. economic crash will mechanically lead to a thousand times along with L.D. Trotsky We pay our homage to this militant of the an upsurge in revolutionary consciousness, – is a crisis of revolutionary leadership. revolutionary struggle, to his loyalty and Munis is correct. He is also right to see All the explanations which try to lay the re- unbreakable commitment to the proletar- that the emergence of a truly revolutionary sponsibility for the failure of the revolution ian cause. To the comrades of the FOR, we consciousness involves the recognition on the objective conditions, the ideological send our fraternal greetings.” that the very social relations underlying gap or the illusions of the masses, on the civilisation have become incompatible power of Stalinism or the illusory attrac- with the needs of humanity. These are tion of the ‘degenerated workers’ state’, Castoriadis deserts the workers’ points which could have been discussed are wrong and only serve to excuse those movement with other groups of the communist left responsible, to distract attention from the and certainly didn’t justify leaving the real problem and obstruct its solution. An One of the best accounts of the life of Paris conference without even explaining authentic revolutionary leadership, given Munis was written by August Guillamon his real differences. the present level of the objective conditions in 1993. Its title – “G Munis, a little known for the taking of power, must overcome all revolutionary”31 – summarises one of the Again, in his pamphlet Mistaken Trajec- obstacles, surmount all difficulties, triumph main points of the article: that most of tory of Révolution Internationale,28 where over all its adversaries.”30 those militants who, through the trials and his views on the relationship between tribulations of the 20th century, remained economic crisis and class consciousness It was this “heroic” attitude which led loyal to the proletarian cause, were not are explained at greater length, Munis Munis to see the possibility of revolution rewarded by fame or fortune: alongside does sometimes hit the target, since, as just under the surface at all times during Munis he mentions Onorato Damen, we argued in our resolution on the interna- the decadent period: in the 1930s, when Amadeo Bordiga, Paul Mattick, Karl Kor- tional situation from the 21st international Munis sees the events in Spain not as sch, Ottorino Perrone, Bruno Maffi, Anton congress, the ICC has sometimes drawn an proof of a triumphant counter-revolution Pannekoek and Henk Canne-Meijer.32 By immediatist and mechanical link between but as the highest point of the revolution- 29 contrast, our obituary for Castoriadis was crisis and revolution. But reality was not ary wave that began in 1917; at the end of entitled, “Death of Cornelius Castoriadis: really on the side of Munis, since whether the Second World War, when, as we have bourgeoisie pays homage to one of its we like it or not, the capitalist system has seen, Munis saw the movements in Spain servants”.33 We can let the article speak for indeed been stuck in a very profound eco- 1951 as the precursor to a revolutionary itself, adding a few further comments. nomic crisis ever since the 1970s; the idea onslaught; at the height of the “boom” that economic crises are simply part of the period of the 60s, since the FSCM already “The bourgeois press, especially in mechanism for “regularising” the system refers to “the accumulation of formidable France, has made a certain amount of noise seems to reflect the pressures of the time revolutionary energies” taking place at the about the death of Cornelius Castoriadis. the FSCM was written – the early 60s, time it was written. And just as he rejected Le Monde referred to it in two successive the zenith of the post-war boom. But this the ICC’s efforts to examine the evolution issues (28-29 December and 30 December peak was followed by a rapid descent into of the economic crisis, he equally rejects 1997) and devoted a full page to it under a a global economic crisis that has proved our argument that even if decadence means significant title: ‘Death of Cornelius Cas- fundamentally intractable, despite all the that the proletarian revolution is on the toriadis, anti-marxist revolutionary’. This energies that a state-managed system has agenda of history, there can be phases of title is typical of the ideological methods expended in slowing down and delaying profound defeat and disarray in the class of the bourgeoisie. It contains two truths its worst effects. And while it’s true that during this period, phases which make wrapped around the lie that they want a genuinely revolutionary consciousness revolution almost impossible and which us to swallow. The truths: Castoriadis is must grasp the incompatibility between confer different tasks on the revolutionary dead, and he was anti-marxist. The lie: capitalist social relations and the needs of organisation. he was a revolutionary. To shore up the humanity, the visible failure of an economic idea, Le Monde recalls Castoriadis’ own But however costly these errors might system which presents itself as no less than words, ‘repeated until the end of his life’: have been, they are understandable errors of an incarnation of human nature will surely ‘Whatever happens, I will remain first and a revolutionary who desires with his whole play a key part in enabling the exploited to above all a revolutionary’. being to see the end of capitalism and the throw off their illusions in capitalism and beginning of the communist revolution. And indeed, in his youth, he had been a its immortality. This is why our tribute concludes: revolutionary. At the end of the 1940s he Underlying this refusal to analyse the broke with the Trotskyist ‘4th International’ “It’s thus clear that we have very impor- economic dimension of capitalism’s deca- in company with a number of other com- tant differences with the FOR, which has dence there lies an unresolved voluntarism, rades and animated the review Socialisme led us to polemicise with them a number the theoretical foundations of which can ou Barbarie. At this time SouB represented of times in our press (see in particular the be traced back to the letter announcing an effort, albeit confused and limited by its article in International Review 52). How- his break from the Trotskyist organisation Trotskyist origins, to develop a proletar- ever, despite the serious errors he may have in France, the Parti Communiste Interna- made, Munis remained to the end a militant 31. Available on the website bataillesocialiste. tionaliste, where he steadfastly maintains wordpress.com. who was deeply loyal to the combat of the Trotsky’s notion, presented in the open- 32. Curiously, he doesn’t include Marc Chirik in the working class. He was one of those very ing lines of the Transitional Programme, list, or in the article as a whole, which somewhat rare militants who stood up to the pressures deprives him of an important area of investigation. that the crisis of humanity is the crisis of of the most terrible counterrevolution the Not only did the discussions between Munis and the revolutionary leadership: Gauche Communiste de France in the late 40s and proletariat has ever known, when many early 50s play a part in Munis’ break with Trotskyism: deserted or even betrayed the militant fight; we can see throughout the writings of Munis about 28. Alarme pamphlet, undated, Fausse Trajectoire and he was once again there alongside the the economic crisis a continued polemic against the de Révolution Internationale. class with the historical resurgence of its conception of decadence defended by the GCF and 29. “Resolution on the international situation”, later the ICC. International Review nº 156. 30. Published on the website www.marxists.org. 33 World Revolution, nº 213. 22 International Review 162 Summer 2019 ian line of thought in the middle of the criticised by the GCF.34 But it is when he with the original post, an account of the triumphant counter-revolution. But in the finally abandons the idea of a working class life of Castoriadis written by the Anarchist course of the 1950s, under the impulsion revolution and begins to speculate about a Federation in the UK, which argues that of Castoriadis (who signed his articles kind of autonomous citizens’ utopia, when “In his last period, Castoriadis directed Pierre Chaulieu, then Paul Cardan), SouB he dives into the more obscure pools of soci- himself towards philosophical investiga- more and more rejected the weak marxist ology and Lacanian psychoanalysis, that he tions, to psychoanalysis. In this period, foundations on which it had been built. In becomes of interest to bourgeois academia his lack of knowledge of current social particular, Castoriadis developed the idea and the more sophisticated branches of the events and movements led him towards that the real antagonism in society was no media, who were quite willing to forgive a tentative defence of the West - because longer between exploiters and exploited but him the follies of his youth and accept him struggle still remained possible within it between ‘order givers and order takers’. into their very comfortable fold. - against Stalinist imperialism.”35 SouB finally disappeared at the beginning But our article accuses Castoriadis of a Julien Chaulieu replied: of 1966, hardly two years before the events more serious betrayal than giving up the of May 68, which marked the historic re- “As somebody who has studied all of life of a militant and seeking above all his surgence of the world-wide class struggle his works, alongside with Guy Debord and professional advancement. after a counter-revolution of nearly half many anarchists-libertarian socialists, I a century. In fact, Castoriadis had ceased “But the real test of Castoriadis’ radical- can confirm that the above statement is to be a revolutionary long before he died, ism had already taken place in the early utterly wrong. even if he was able to maintain the illusory 80s, when under Reagan’s leadership the Castoriadis never defended the west. appearance of one. western bourgeoisie launched a deafening This was a misunderstanding, based campaign against the military threat of Castoriadis was not the first to betray the on a propaganda by the Greek Stalinist the ‘Evil Empire’ of the USSR in order to revolutionary convictions of his youth. The social-fascist party (Communist Party of justify an armaments drive unprecedented history of the workers’ movement is littered Greece). In this interview-video (which is since the second world war. And it was with such examples. What characterised unfortunately only available in Greek) he precisely during this period that Castori- him, however, is that he dressed his treason claims that indeed USSR was oppressive adis published his book Facing War where in the rags of ‘political radicalism’, in the and tyrannical but that doesn’t mean we he tried to demonstrate that there was a claim that he was opposed to the whole should defend the western capitalist pow- ‘massive imbalance’ in favour of Russia, existing social order. We can see this by ers which are similarly brutal towards ‘a situation that was practically impos- looking at an article written in Le Monde the ‘Third World’. The fact he abandoned sible for the Americans to amend’. What’s Diplomatique in response to his final book, typical socialist ideas, moving towards more this ‘analysis” was frequently cited Done and to be done, 1997. autonomy caused massive reactions to by Marie-France Garaud, an ideologue of the (CPG). ‘Castoriadis gives us the tools to con- the ultra-militarist right and mouthpiece in test, to build the barricades, to envisage France for the Reaganite campaigns. In this interview he stated the follow- the socialism of the future, to think about ing: At the end of the 80s, reality demon- changing the world, to desire to change strated that Russian military power was ‘The western Societies are not just capi- life politically... What political heritage actually vastly inferior to that of the US, talist societies. If somebody is a Marxist can come from the history of the workers’ but this didn’t puncture Castoradis’ self- will say that the mode of production in the movement, when it is now obvious that the importance or silence the journalists’ Western world is capitalist, therefore these proletariat cannot play the role of motor praise for him. Neither was this new. From societies are capitalist because the mode force that marxism attributed to it? Castori- 1953-4, even before he openly abandoned of production determines everything. But adis replies with a superb programme that marxism, Castoriadis developed a whole these societies are not only capitalist. They combines the highest demands of human theory that capitalism had now definitively are self-called democracies, (I do not call polity with the best of the socialist ideal... overcome its economic crisis (see ‘The them democratic because I have a differ- Action and thought are in search of a new dynamic of capitalism’ in SouB 120). We ent definition on democracy), I call them radicalism, now that the Leninist paren- know what happened after this: capitalism’s liberal oligarchies. But in these societies thesis is closed, now that the police-state crisis returned with a vengeance in the late there is a democratic element which has marxism of history has fallen into dust..’ 60s. So when a pocket collection (Editions not been created by capitalism. On the In reality, this ‘radicalism’ that makes 10/18) of the works of Castoriadis was contrary, it has been created in contrast highbrow journalists drool so much was published in 1973, it missed out certain to capitalism. It has been created while a fig leaf covering the fact that Castori- not very glorious writings, which allowed Europe was exiting from the Middle Ages adis’ message was extremely useful to the his friend Edgar Morin to say at the time: and a new social class was being created, ideological campaigns of the bourgeoisie. ‘Who today can publish without shame, the so called middle class (which has noth- Thus, his declaration that marxism had indeed with pride, the texts that marked his ing to do with the capitalists) and they tried been pulverised (The rise of Insignificance, political road from 1948 to 1973, if not a to gain some freedom over the feudals, the 1996) gave its ‘radical’ backing to the rare spirit like Castoriadis?’ (Le Nouvel kings and the church. This movement is whole campaign about the death of com- Observateur)”. continuing after the Renaissance with the munism which developed after the collapse English Revolution in the 17th century, Did Castoriadis openly call for mo- of the Stalinist regimes of the eastern bloc the French and the American Revolutions bilising workers in defence of ‘western in 1989”. in the 18th century which resulted to the democracy’ against what he called the creation of the labour movement.’ We have seen some of the early signs of “stratocracy” of the eastern bloc? In a a search for recognition in the decision of thread on libcom in 2011, a poster who In fact, he appears to be very critical the Castoriadis group to write for Sartre’s signs himself “Julien Chaulieu”’ takes issue against capitalism, he uncovers the myth Les Temps Modernes, a practice strongly 34. “Communism is on the agenda of history: of ‘capitalism is the only system that works, Castoriadis, Munis and the problem of breaking with Trotskyism”, International Review nº 161. 35. Published on the Libcom website. The problem of breaking with Trotskyism 23 the less bad’, the dominant western ap- proach. Nothing pro-capitalist here. On the contrary, he speaks out the truth that has been destroyed by stupid liberals” But what we really find in this passage, with its hint that there remains a real demo- cratic and extra-capitalist substrate in the western forms of capitalism, and even more so with his alarmist analysis of Russian military strength is that the later Casto- riadis creates a zone of ambiguity which can easily be exploited by the real hawks of capitalist society, even if Castoriadis himself avoids incriminating himself with any explicitly pro-war pronouncements. Our article could also have added that there is another side to the “legacy” of Castoriadis: he is, in a sense, one of the founding fathers of what we have called the “modernist” current, which is made up of various groups and individuals who claim that they have gone beyond marx- ism (which, let’s recall, was always to an important extent the version Castoriadis inherited from Trotskyism) but who still consider themselves to be revolutionaries and even communists. Several members of the Situationist International, who tended in this direction, were even members of SouB, but the passing on of this flame is a more general tendency and not dependent on direct physical succession. The Situation- ists, for example, agreed with Castoriadis about putting forward the slogan of gen- eralised self-management, concurred that the marxist analysis of the economic crisis was old hat, but did not follow him into abandoning the idea of the working class as the motor force of revolution. On the other hand, the main trend of later modern- ism – which today tends to label itself as the “movement for communisation” – has read its Marx and its Bordiga and is able to show that this notion of self-management is entirely compatible with value relations. But what they do inherit from Castoriadis above all is the abandonment of the work- ing class as the subject of history. And just as Castoriadis’ “supercession” of Marx took him back to Proudhon, so the com- munisers mighty act of “aufhebung” takes them back to Bakunin, where all classes immolate themselves in the coming grand conflagration. But this is a polemic we will have to take up elsewhere. C D Ward, December 2017 24 International Review 162 Summer 2019 The world bourgeoisie against the October revolution (part II)

Social democracy and Stalinism forever in the bourgeois camp

In the first part of this article we highlighted the response of all the great imperialist Social democracy at the forefront of the powers to stem the revolutionary wave and prevent it from spreading in the counter-revolution major industrialised countries of Western Europe. Having fought each other for four years the bourgeoisies of Europe now made common cause against their In these conditions, there was no doubt historic enemy: the world proletariat. Among the many forces that the ruling that German social democracy was at the class committed to the preservation of its system was social democracy (whose forefront of the counter-revolution. On 10 leadership and right wing had voted for war credits in 1914, thus consecrating November 1918, the Berlin Workers ‘and their long-standing opportunism and leading them to definitively pass into the Soldiers’ Council, the supreme body rec- camp of the bourgeoisie), which was to play a decisive role in the repression ognised by the new government, decided and the mystification of the world revolution. The German Social Democratic to immediately re-establish diplomatic Party (SPD) placed itself in the forefront of this offensive since it was the true relations with the Russian government executioner of the German revolution in January 1919. As Lenin and Rosa pending the arrival of its representatives Luxemburg had foreseen, the impossibility of the extension of the revolution in the great industrial centers of Western Europe led to the isolation and degeneration in Berlin. of the Soviet Republic and the victory of the Stalinist counter-revolution, which This resolution was an order that the Peo- still weighs heavily in the ranks of the world working class. ples’ Commissars should have respected but they did not do it. Although they had defended themselves from the charge in the publication of the Independent Social The treason of social democracy Republic Wilson guarantees us the sending Democratic Party (USPD), the betrayal of flour and bacon necessary to the German and sale of the revolution to the imperialist The rejection of solidarity with the Rus- population to get through the winter.” powers was accepted by the Independents, as proved by the minutes of the meeting of sian proletariat As Karl Radek later said, “the out- the Council of the Peoples’ Commissars of stretched hand hung in the void”! The During the revolutionary wave that reached 19 November 1918: “Following discussion “socialist” government preferred the aid Germany in November 1918, social de- on relations between Germany and the of a capitalist power rather than that of mocracy played the role of the bridgehead Republic of the Soviets, Haase advises the Russian workers. Instead, the German of the bourgeoisie in order to isolate the adopting a delaying policy (...) Kautsky government accepted American flour and working class of Russia. agrees with Haase: the decision must be bacon, huge quantities of luxury items, and deferred. The Soviet government cannot When the revolution broke out in Ger- other superfluous goods that drained the survive long; in a few weeks, it will not many, Soviet diplomats were expelled by German Treasury dry. On 14 November, the exist (...).” However, while the right wing Scheidemann (under-secretary of state government sent a telegram to US President of this centrist party was gradually moving without portfolio in the cabinet of Max Von Wilson: “The German Government asks towards the counter-revolution, the left Baden). At that time, the working masses the United States Government to telegraph wing was moving more clearly towards had not really perceived the progressive the Chancellor of the Reich (Ebert) to say the defence of proletarian interests. abandonment of marxism by the SPD. On if it can count on the supply of foodstuffs. the eve of the First World War, hundreds on the part of the United States Govern- But the zeal of the “socialist” govern- of thousands of workers in Germany were ment, so that the German Government can ment did not stop there. Faced with the still members. But its dissociation from the guarantee domestic order and pay fairly irritation of the Entente with the slow- Russian revolution confirmed its betrayal for such supplies.” ness with which the German troops were and passage into the bourgeois camp. withdrawing from the Eastern territories, In Germany, the telegram was widely the German government responded with a After the mutiny of sailors in Kiel, broadcast to convey the following message diplomatic dispatch which, although sent Haase transmitted a teletype message to to the workers: “renounce the revolution after the expulsion of the Independent the People’s Commissars of the Soviet and destroying capitalism, and you will Social Democrats from the government, government, thanking them for sending have bread and bacon!” But no condi- had been developed with them. This is grain; but, after a pause, the message con- tion of this kind had been imposed by the what was stated: tinued: “Knowing that Russia is oppressed Americans. So, social democracy not only by hunger, we ask you to distribute to the blackmailed the workers but brazenly lied “The Entente’s conviction that German starving Russian people the grain that to them that these conditions had been troops would support Bolshevism, either you intend to sacrifice for the German imposed by Wilson himself. on their own initiative or by higher order, revolution. The President of the American directly or by obstructing anti-Bolshevik measures, does not correspond to reality. We Germans, and therefore our troops, 1. See International Review nº 160. . See P. Frolich, R. Lindauy, A. Schreiner, J. Walter, remember that Bolshevism represents 2. See in particular Rosa Luxemburg’s pamphlet on Revolution et Contre-revolution en Allemagne (1918- the Russian Revolution. 1920), Editions Science Marxiste, 2013. . Quoted in P. Frolich et al, Op. Cit., p.25. The world bourgeoisie against the October revolution 25 an extremely serious threat that must be ceived themselves merely as transitional who had collaborated daily with the SPD contained by all means.” organs until the holding of elections to the and the unions during the war as head of National Assembly. The councils should armaments projects, explained: If the SPD illustrates in the most extreme also be open to all layers of the population. way the passage of social democracy into “We allied ourselves to fight Bolshevism. In Germany for example, the SPD created the camp of the bourgeoisie, especially in It was impossible to restore the monarchy “Committees of Public Safety” welcoming its open struggle against the revolution in (...) I had advised the Feldmarschall not all social strata with identical rights. Russia, most of the other major socialist to combat the revolution by force, because parties in the world were not left out. The Moreover, the leaders of the SPD/USPD given the state of mind of the troops, it was tactics of the Italian Socialist Party were, sabotaged the work of the soviets through to be feared that such a method would end throughout the war, to curb the class strug- the Council of People’s Commissars by in failure. I proposed that the military high gle under the guise of a falsely neutral posi- imposing instructions other than those command should ally with the SPD, since tion in the world conflict, illustrated by the given by the Executive Council (EC), which there was no party with enough influ- hypocritical slogan “neither sabotage nor was an emanation of the workers’ councils, ence among the people, and the masses, participate”, which amounted to trampling or by ensuring that the EC did not have its to rebuild a governmental force with the on the principle of proletarian international- own press. Under an SPD majority, the EC military command. The parties of the right ism. In France, alongside the fraction that even took a position against the strikes had completely disappeared, and it was out passed bag and baggage into the camp of of November and December 1918. This of the question to work with the radical ex- the bourgeoisie through the vote of the war demolition job on the self-organisation of tremists. In the first place, we had to snatch credits, the socialist movement remained the class also took place in Italy between power from the hands of the Berlin workers’ gangrenous with centrism, which only 1919 and 1920 during the great strike wave, and soldiers’ councils. An undertaking was encouraged hostility towards the October since the PSI did everything possible to planned with this aim in view. Ten divisions revolution and the Bolshevik party. turn the factory councils into vulgar works were to enter Berlin. Ebert agreed (...) We committees incorporated into the state had worked out a program which planned, Nevertheless, a left-wing current began and calling for the self-management of after the arrival of the troops, to clean up to emerge at the end of 1918 and the be- production. The left of the party led the Berlin and disarm the Spartakists. This ginning of 1919. Even as the bourgeoisie fight against this illusion, which could only was also agreed with Ebert, to whom I was surfed the wave of victory to strengthen lock the struggle of the workers inside the especially grateful for his absolute love patriotic sentiment, the French proletariat narrow perimeters of the factory: for the fatherland (...) This alliance was paid mainly for the absence of a true marx- sealed against the Bolshevik danger and the ist party. This is what Lenin pointed out “We want to prevent the absorption system of councils.” (October-November very lucidly: “The transformation of the by the working class of the idea that it is 1925, Zeugenaussage).10 old type of European parliamentary party, enough to develop the Councils solely to reformist in its work and slightly coloured take hold of the factories and eliminate The social democratic government also with a revolutionary tinge, into a truly com- the capitalists. This would be an extremely did not hesitate to appeal to the Western munist party, is an extraordinarily difficult dangerous illusion (...) If the conquest of European bourgeoisie in the operation to thing, and it is certainly in France that this political power has not taken place, the maintain order during the crucial days of difficulty appears most clearly.” Royal Guard and the carabinieri will be January 1919. For all, it was a point of in place to see to the dissipation of all honour to occupy Berlin if the revolution Social democracy sabotages and torpe- such illusions, with all the mechanisms emerged victorious. does the workers’ councils of oppression, all the forces which the On March 26 1919, the English Prime In Russia, as in all countries in which bourgeoisie wields through its apparatus Minister Lloyd George wrote in a memo- soviets were hatching, the socialist parties of political power.” (Bordiga) randum addressed to Clemenceau and played a double game. On the one hand, But German social democracy showed Wilson: “The greatest danger in the current they gave the impression that they favoured its new, true face when it directly assumed situation lies, in my opinion, in the fact that the development of the emancipatory strug- the repression of the workers’ strikes. The Germany could turn to Bolshevism. If we gle of the workers through the soviets. On deployment of an intense ideological cam- are wise, we will offer peace to Germany, the other, they did everything possible to paign in favour of the Republic, universal which, because it is fair, will be better for sterilise these organs of self-organisation suffrage, the unity of the people, was not all reasonable people to the alternative of of the class. It was in Germany that this enough to destroy the fighting spirit and Bolshevism.” Faced with the danger of the enterprise took on the greatest importance. the consciousness of the proletariat. Thus, “Bolshevisation of Germany”,11 the main Apparently favourable to the workers’ now in the service of the bourgeois state, political leaders of the bourgeoisie did not councils, the socialists proved to be fiercely the traitors of the SPD made an alliance show themselves so eager to disarm the hostile to them. In this way, their destruc- with the army to suppress in blood the mass enemy of yesterday. During a debate in tive action within the soviets shows that movement which was in continuity with the Senate on the issue in October 1919, they behaved like true guard dogs of the the one born in Russia and which put in Clemenceau did not hide the reasons: bourgeoisie. The tactic was simple; it was danger one of the most developed imperial- “Because Germany needs to defend itself to undermine the movement from within, ist powers of the world. The commander- and we have no interest in having a second to empty the councils of their revolution- in-chief of the army, General Groener, Bolshevik Russia in the centre of Europe; ary content. The intention was to sterilise one is enough”.12 the soviets by subordinating them to the . The Council of People’s Commissars was nothing more than the name taken by the new government on bourgeois state and ensuring that they con- November 10 1918, composed of Ebert, Scheidemann While the armistice had just been signed, and others. This appellation gave the impression . Quoted in P. Frolich et al, Op. Cit., p.26. that the SPD leaders were in favour of the workers’ 10. Quoted in “The German Revolution part II: The . Cited in Anne Kriegel, Aux origines du Communisme councils and the development of the class struggle start of the revolution”, International Review nº 82. francais, Flammarion, 1978. in Germany. 11. Cited in Gilbert Badia, Les Spartakistes. 1918: . For a more complete approach see the article . Quoted in “Revolution and counter-revolution l’Allemagne en revolution, Editions Aden, 2008, “Revolution in Germany: The beginnings of the in Italy (1919-1922), Part 1”, International Review p.296. revolution (II)”, International Review nº 82 nº 2. 12. Ibid, p.298. 26 International Review 162 Summer 2019 the Ebert-Noske-Scheidemann-Erzberger by giving to some women both votes and Arguing that fascism expressed a peculiar- government sealed the peace with Clem- the right to be elected.” (Workers’ Dread- ity of Italian history, Gramsci advocated enceau, Lloyd George and Wilson by a nought, 15th December 1923)13 the establishment of the Constituent As- military pact directed against the German sembly as an intermediate step between Moreover, the bourgeoisie was very proletariat. Subsequently, the violence Italian capitalism and the dictatorship of good at using the outcome of the war by with which the bloodhound Noske and the proletariat. According to him, “a class playing on the division between the ‘victo- his freikorps unleashed during the “bloody of an international character must, in a rious’ and ‘vanquished’ nations in order to week” from January 6 to 13, 1919, was certain sense, become nationalised”. It break the dynamic of generalisation of the matched only by the terrible repression the was therefore necessary that the proletariat struggles. For example, following the dislo- Versaillese waged against the Communards make an alliance with the bourgeoisie in cation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the during the bloody week of May 21 to 28, a constituent national assembly where the proletariat of the various territorial entities 1871. Like 38 years earlier, the proletariat deputies of “all the democratic classes of was subjected to the propaganda of national was subjected to the “unmasked savagery the country”, elected by universal vote, liberation struggles. In the same way, while and lawless revenge” (Karl Marx) of the would elaborate the future Italian consti- in the vanquished countries the proletariat bourgeoisie. But the bloodshed of January tution. At the 5th world congress, Bordiga was steered towards gaining “revenge”, in 1919 was only the prologue to a much more responded to these mistakes that led the the conquering countries, where the prole- terrible punishment, which subsequently proletariat to leave its class terrain in the tariat aspired most for peace after four years fell on the workers of the Ruhr, Central name of democratic illusions: of war, the news from Russia provoked a Germany, Bavaria ... new wave of class militancy, particularly in “We must reject the illusion that a The democratic mystification in the France and Great Britain. This momentum transitional government would be naive “victor” countries was channelled into chauvinism and the enough to allow a situation to occur in hype of the victory of civilisation against which, through legal means, parliamen- In the main allied countries, the victory the “dirty boches”. tary manoeuvres and more or less skilful over the forces of the Triple Alliance did expediency, we could lay siege to the Faced with the deterioration of living not prevent the reaction of the working class bourgeoisie, ie legally deprive them of their conditions, following the worsening of the to the barbarism experienced by Europe whole technical and military apparatus, crisis from the 1920s, workers’ struggles between 1914 and 1918. But despite the and quietly distribute arms to the workers. erupted in England, France, Germany and resounding echo of October 1917 in the This is a truly infantile conception! Making Poland. But these movements, in many proletariat of Western Europe, the Entente a revolution is not that simple!”15 bourgeoisie used the outcome of the war to cases violently repressed, were in fact the channel the development of the proletarian last gasps of the revolutionary wave which reached its final convulsions during the Campaigns of slander accompany struggles between 1917 and 1927. While the bloody repression the imperialist war was the expression terrible repression of workers in Shanghai of the general crisis of capitalism, the and Canton in 1927.14 The bourgeoisie had bourgeoisie managed to push the lie that it thus succeeded in coordinating its forces in Propaganda organised at the highest was just an anomaly of history; that it was order to finish stifling and repressing the levels of the state “the war to end wars”, that society would last bastions of the revolutionary wave. “Parallel to the military preparation of the recover stability and that the revolution Thus, as we have already shown, it must civil war against the working class, they had no place in it. In the most modern be recognised that war does not create proceeded with the ideological prepara- countries of capitalism, the bourgeoisie the most favourable conditions for the tion” (Paul Frölich). Indeed, very early hammered home the argument that from generalisation of the revolution. In fact the on, in the weeks and months following now on all classes should participate in global economic crisis as it has unfolded the revolution in Russia, the bourgeoisie the construction of democracy. The time since the 1960s appears as a much more worked to reduce this event to the seizure was for so-called reconciliation and not valid material base for the world revolu- of power by a minority who had hijacked social confrontations. With this in mind, tion, since it affects all countries without the will of the masses and led society into in February 1918 the British parliament exception and cannot be stopped unlike the disorder and chaos. But this intense anti- adopted the Representation of the People imperialist war. The socialist parties had a Bolshevik and anti-Spartacist propaganda Act, which enlarged the electoral popula- central role in promoting democracy, and campaign was not the product of a few tion and granted the right to vote to women the republican and parliamentary system zealous individuals determined to act as over thirty. In a context where social strug- was presented as a step forward on the road the guard dogs of the ruling class but a gles were raging in Great Britain, the most to revolution. In Italy, as early as 1919, the policy of all the main bourgeois factions experienced bourgeoisie in the world, with PSI unambiguously advocated the recogni- directed from the highest levels of the state great skill, was trying to divert the work- tion of the democratic system by pushing apparatus. As we developed in an article of ing class from its class terrain. As Sylvia the masses to vote in the 1919 elections. International Review nº 155, the First World Pankhurst said at the time, this clever An aggravating circumstance was that the War was a defining moment in the state’s manoeuvre was motivated by the threat electoral success that followed was ap- massive takeover of control of information of the spread of the October Revolution proved by the Communist International. through propaganda and censorship. The to the western countries: However, once in command, the socialists goal was clear; to put ideological pressure ran the state just like any bourgeois fac- “Those events in Russia evoked a on the population to ensure victory in this tion. In the following years, the antifascist total war. With the opening of the revolu- response throughout the world not only theses propagated by Gramsci and the amongst the minority who welcomed tionary period, the goal of state propaganda Ordinovists led the Italian working class was equally clear: to pressure the masses the idea of Soviet Communism, but also no more and no less towards inter-classism. amongst the upholders of reaction. The to ensure that they moved away from the latter were by no means oblivious to the 13. See the article in ICC Online: “Suffragism or organisations of the proletariat and ensure growth of Sovietism when they decided to communism”, February 2018. 14. See the article: “The first revolutionary wave of the 15. “Revolution and counter-revolution in Italy part popularise the old Parliamentary machine world proletariat” in International Review nº 80. II: Facing fascism”, International Review nº 3. The world bourgeoisie against the October revolution 27 the victory of the counter-revolution. The the war to manipulate public opinion, dis- and the minority Socialists held the same great German industrialists were the most seminated hundreds of millions of leaflets, view. In our defence we can only point to determined and broke their piggy banks for pamphlets and posters, most often written mitigating circumstances: we were not the the “good cause” of the bourgeois order. by the Social Democrats, in support of least bit informed about the situation in Thanks to the donation of a few thousand the reaction. Shamelessly distorting the Russia and, further, newspapers of every marks from the banker Helfferich and the meaning of previous revolutions and the stripe printed fabrications and falsified politician Friedrich Naumann, a “General teachings of Marx, Kautsky proclaimed documents to prove the corruption, cruelty, Secretariat on the study of and fight against his indignation at the ‘prolongation of and unscrupulousness of the Bolsheviks. Bolshevism” was founded on 1 December the revolution’. They made ‘Bolshevism’ The theme of a seizure of power by this 1918 in Berlin. On 10 January its founder, a a scarecrow for children. This concert ‘gang of bandits’ had a major impact in certain Stadtler, brought together nearly 50 was also led by the Social Democrats, the France. The slanders hiding the true face German industrialists to hear their views. same gentlemen who during the war had of Russian communism became even more Immediately after, Hugo Stinnes, one of acclaimed the Bolsheviks (described as vicious with the signing of the Brest-Litovsk the biggest magnates of German industry, faithful followers of Marx’s thought) in peace. Anti-Bolshevik agitation reached a rallied the top-hatted troops: the columns of their newspapers because fever pitch.”18 they thought that the struggles of Russian “I am of the opinion that after this pres- Although the governments of the Triple revolutionaries would help Ludendorff and entation all discussion is superfluous, I fully Entente were able to play on the momentum company to definitively defeat the Western share the speaker’s point of view. If the of victory to calm discontent within the powers. Now, on the contrary, they spread world of industry, commerce and banking working class, they still had to divert all terrible stories about the Bolsheviks, go- does not have the will and is not able to pay its revolutionary inclinations towards the ing so far as to circulate fake ‘official an insurance premium of 500 million marks ballot box. Here the bourgeoisie showed documents’ according to which the Russian to guard against the danger just revealed its true face; vile, manipulative, lying! revolutionaries had made women common to us, we do not deserve to be considered The anti-Bolshevism spread by the press, property.”17 as representatives of the German economy. the media and the academic world for I ask that we close this meeting and ask Revolutionaries reduced to the level of several decades therefore took root very Messrs. Mankiewitz, Borsig, Siemens, bloody savages early, during the revolutionary wave, in the Deutsch, etc., etc. (he quoted about eight highest circles of the state apparatus. The From then on, the revolutionary forces names) to go with me to the next room for military offensive on the Russian frontiers defending proletarian internationalism us to agree immediately on a method of and the bloody repression of the German were the main targets, especially after the apportioning this contribution.”16 working class in January 1919 had to be Russian workers seized power in October accompanied by an intense propaganda With these hundreds of millions of 1917. Aware of the danger that the extension campaign in order to deflect the growing marks of subsidies, several offices could of the revolution posed to world capital, sympathy for the proletarian revolution be created to carry out the anti-revolu- the most developed states carried out a among exploited strata around the world. tionary campaign. The Anti-Bolshevik veritable campaign of slander against the Among the many counterrevolutionary League (formerly the Reich Association Bolsheviks in order to prevent any feeling propaganda posters produced in France, against Social Democracy) was certainly of sympathy or attempt at fraternisation. England and Germany, the main targets the most active in spitting venom on the During the 1919 elections, the French remained the political organisations of revolutionaries of Russia and Germany by bourgeoisie took the opportunity to focus the proletariat, who were made out to be distributing millions of leaflets, posters, the campaign on the “red peril” by fuel- responsible for unemployment, war and leaflets and posters or organisation of meet- ling the demonisation of the revolution hunger, and regularly accused of sowing ings. This first office was part of one of the and the Bolsheviks. Georges Clemenceau, disorder and crime.19 As Paul Frölich sums two counter-revolutionary centres with the one of the great actors of the counter- it up, “the posters in the street represented Bürgerrat and the Hotel Eden, where the revolution, was particularly active since Bolshevism as a wild beast with a jaws headquarters of the Guards Cavalry Rifle he campaigned on the theme of “national wide open, ready to bite”. Division were located. unity” and the “threat of Bolshevism”. A booklet and a famous poster titled “How to The call to kill the vanguard of the The propaganda organisation “Building fight against Bolshevism?” even painted a proletariat and becoming, society for the education portrait of the Bolshevik like a beast, with of the people and the improvement of By November 1918, the German bourgeoi- shaggy hair and a knife between his teeth. national labour forces”, founded by Karl sie had made Spartacus the main target. To All this helped to portray the proletarian Erdmann, was directly financed by Ernst neutralise the influence of the organisation revolution as a barbaric and bloodthirsty Von Borsig and Hugo Stinnes. The latter with the masses it tried to accuse it of all enterprise. At the founding congress of the also subsidised the nationalist press and evils; Spartacus became the scapegoat, a Communist International, George Sadoul far-right parties to carry out propaganda real plague for social order and German reported on the extent of the slanders poured against the Spartacists and Bolsheviks. capital, to be done away with. The picture out by the French bourgeoisie: portrayed by Frölich, ten years after the But in most cases, social democracy was “When I left Paris in September of 1917, events, is edifying: the mastermind in manipulating opinion just a few weeks before the October revo- within the working class. As Paul Frölich “Every crime committed in the big cit- lution, public perception of Bolshevism in relates: ies had only one culprit: Spartacus! The France was that of a hideous caricature of Spartacists were accused of all robber- “It began with the dissemination of socialism. Bolshevik leaders were viewed ies. Delinquents in uniform, protected by insipid speeches celebrating the victory as criminals or madmen; their army was official documents, true or false, rushed of the November Revolution. Promises, depicted as a horde of several thousand lies, reprimands and threats followed. The fanatics or outlaws (…) I am ashamed to 18. John Riddell (Ed.), Founding the Communist Heimatdienst, an institution created during confess that nine-tenths of both the majority International, Pathfinder, 1987, p.101. 19. See our article: “The birth of totalitarian 16. Cited in G. Badia, Op. Cit., p.286. 17. Quoted in P. Frolich et al, Op. Cit., p.45. democracy”, International Review nº155. 28 International Review 162 Summer 2019 into houses, smashing and pillaging eve- Not one of them is there, not one of so to say, and to hallow their names to a rything: it was Spartacus who sent them! them is there! certain extent for the ‘consolation’ of the All suffering, all menacing danger had Proletarians!” oppressed classes and with the object of only one origin: Spartacus! Spartacus, it’s duping the latter, while at the same time We all know that these calumnies had anarchy, Spartacus, it’s famine, Spartacus, robbing the revolutionary theory of its sub- tragic results since on 15 January 1919, it’s terror!”20 stance, blunting its revolutionary edge and Karl and Rosa, these two great militants of vulgarising it. Today, the bourgeoisie and The ignominy of social democracy and the revolutionary cause were murdered by the opportunists within the workers’ move- the entire German bourgeoisie went even the freikorps. The completely false account ment concur in this doctoring of Marxism.” further, as Vorwärts21 organised a campaign that Vorwärts gave of these crimes alone (Lenin, The State and Revolution). of denigration and hatred against Karl illustrated the mentality of the bourgeoisie, Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and other in- this “pitiful and cowardly” class as already fluential activists of the Spartacus League: emphasised by Karl Marx in the 18 Bru- Stalinism: true executioner of the “Karl Liebknecht, a certain Paul Levi and maire of Louis Bonaparte. According to the revolution the impetuous Rosa Luxemburg, who have newspapers on the evening of 16 January, never worked at a vice or lathe, are ruining Liebknecht was killed during an escape The failure of the revolutionary wave our dreams and those of our fathers (...) If attempt and Rosa Luxemburg lynched by makes a bed for Stalin the Spartacist clique wants to ban us, we the crowd. As reported by Paul Frölich, The bloody crushing of the revolution in and our future, then Karl Liebknecht and the commander of the Guard Cavalry Rifle Germany was a terrible blow to the world company are also banned!” Division, whose members carried out the proletariat. As Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg two murders, issued a statement completely Hate speech succeeded in organising affirmed, the salvation of the revolution falsifying the events which was repeated a real witch hunt for revolutionaries. The on a world scale depended on the ability by the entire press, all this “giving vent to League for the Fight against Bolshevism of the workers of the great capitalist pow- a web of lies, cover-ups and law-breaking promised to offer 10,000 marks for the cap- ers to seize power in their own countries. that provided the backdrop for a shameful ture of Karl Radek or for information that In other words, the future of humanity series of comedies as interpreted by the could lead to his arrest. But the main targets depended on the extension of the revo- judiciary.”23 remained Liebknecht and Luxemburg. In lutionary wave that began in Russia. But December 1918, a manifesto placed on the After considerable labours, all these this did not take place. The failure of the walls of Berlin called for nothing less than fabrications were exposed by Leo Jogiches proletariat in Germany, Hungary and Italy their murder. Its contents set the tone of the who, in collaboration with a commission sounded the death knell of the revolution in degree of violence which social democracy of inquiry created by the central council Russia, a death by asphyxiation because it unleashed on Spartacus: “Worker, citizen! and the executive council of Berlin, re- no longer had sufficient breath within it to The homeland is on the brink of ruin. Save stored the truth by bringing to light the give impetus to the workers of the whole it! The threat does not come from outside, unfolding of these crimes and publishing world. It was in this agony “precisely that but from within: the Spartacus group. the photograph of the murderers’ feast Stalinism intervened, in total rupture with Strike their leader! Kill Liebknecht! And after their crimes. He thus signed his own the revolution when after the death of you will have peace, work and bread! The death warrant! On March 10, 1919, he Lenin, Stalin seized the reins of power and, soldiers of the front.” A month before, the was arrested and murdered in the prison from 1925, put forward his thesis of ‘the soldiers’ council of Steglitz (a small town in of the Berlin Police Headquarters. As for construction of socialism in one country’, Brandenburg) had threatened that soldiers the culprits, they escaped with acquittals through which the counter-revolution was would shoot Liebknecht and Luxemburg or short prison sentences. installed in all its horror”.24 on sight if they went to a barracks to give Yesterday, Rosa Luxemburg was this And now, for decades, historians, jour- “incendiary speeches”. The bourgeois press red witch devouring “good little Germans”, nalists and other commentators of all kinds was in reality spreading a real pogrom today she is the “good democrat”, “the anti- falsify history by trying to find a continuity atmosphere, “it sang of walls splattered Lenin” – who is still generally presented as between Lenin and Stalin, and feed the lie with the brains of those shot, transforming a “dangerous revolutionary” and “inventor that communism is equal to Stalinism. In the entire bourgeoisie into a bloodthirsty of totalitarianism”. The ruling class is full of fact, there is an abyss between Lenin and horde, drunk with denunciations, drag- contradictions, but it must be said, the two the Bolsheviks on the one side and Stalin- ging the suspects (revolutionaries and sides of this treatment of Rosa Luxemburg ism on the other. others, perfectly harmless) before the are not strictly speaking in contradiction. rifles of the firing squads, and all these The state that emerged after the revo- They are a new illustration of what the howls culminated in a single murderous lution more and more escaped from the bourgeoisie does with the memory of great cry: Liebknecht, Luxemburg!”22 The prize working class and gradually absorbed the people who dared to challenge their world for ignominy can be awarded to Vorwärts Bolshevik Party, where the weight of the bu- “without heart and without spirit”: which, on 13 January, published a poem reaucrats had become preponderant. Stalin that made the main members of Spartacus “During the lifetime of great revolution- was the representative of this new layer of out to be deserters and cowards who had aries, the oppressing classes constantly rulers whose interests were in total opposi- betrayed the German proletariat and de- hounded them, received their theories tion to the salvation of the world revolution. served only death: with the most savage malice, the most The thesis of “socialism in one country” furious hatred and the most unscrupulous served precisely to justify the policy of this “Many hundred corpses in a row— campaigns of lies and slander. After their new bourgeois class in Russia to fall back Proletarians! death, attempts are made to convert them on the national economy and the state as Karl, Radek, Rosa and Co — into harmless icons, to canonise them, guarantor of the status quo and the capitalist mode of production. Lenin never defended 20. P. Frolich et al, Op. Cit., p.45. 23. P. Frolich, R. Lindauy, A. Schreiner, J. Walter, such positions. On the contrary, he always 21. The main press organ of the SPD Revolution et Contre-revolution en Allemagne (1918- 22. P. Frolich, Rosa Luxemburg, L’Harmattan, 1991, 1920), Editions Science Marxiste, 2013. 24. ICC pamphlet, The collapse of Stalinism (in p. 137. French). The world bourgeoisie against the October revolution 29 defended proletarian internationalism, place for an implacable dictatorship of the the other countries of the world, and will considering this principle as a compass party-state over the proletariat.”28 radically alter the course of development preventing the proletariat from straying which they have followed up to now, while Since Stalinism was the product of the onto the bourgeoisie’s terrain. Although he greatly stepping up its pace. It is a universal degeneration of the revolution, it never could not anticipate what Stalinism would revolution and will, accordingly, have a belonged to any other camp than that of do, in the last years of his life Lenin was universal range.”30 the counter-revolution. Moreover, it found aware of some of the dangers threatening its full and complete place in the great Socialism in one country meant the the revolution and in particular struggled concert of bourgeois nations precisely for defence of national capital and participa- against the conservative attraction of the this reason. It was a masterful force for tion in the imperialist game. It also meant state for the revolutionary forces. Although mystifying the working class and making the dissipation of the revolutionary wave. he was unable to prevent this, he warned it believe that communism did indeed Under these conditions, Stalin became a against the bureaucratic gangrene without exist in Eastern Europe, that its progress respectable man in the eyes of the Western finding a solution to the problem. Similarly, was momentarily slowed down, and that democracies, now anxious to facilitate the Lenin was very suspicious of Stalin and was its total victory rested on the support of insertion of the USSR into the capitalist opposed to him receiving any significant the workers of the whole world for the world. While the world bourgeoisie had responsibilities. In his “testament” of 4 political line decided by Moscow. This not hesitated to establish a military cordon January 1923, he even tried to remove him great illusion was of course maintained by around Russia at the time of the revolution, from the post of secretary general of the all the communist parties around the world. this policy changed radically once the dan- party where Stalin was “concentrating a In order to spread the lie on a large scale, ger had dissipated. Moreover, following the huge power which he abuses brutally”. A Moscow and the national CPs organised, crisis of 1929, the USSR became a central vain attempt since Stalin already controlled among other things, the famous trips to issue and the whole Western bourgeoisie the situation.25 the Soviet Union of workers’ delegations, tried to attract the good graces of Stalin. As we highlighted in our pamphlet, The a stay during which all the “pomp” of the Thus, the USSR joined the League of Na- Collapse of Stalinism: regime were shown to “political tourists” tions in 1934 and a mutual security pact who were then mandated to preach the was signed between Stalin and Laval, the “It was on the ruins of the 1917 revolu- good word in their factories and cells on French Minister of Foreign Affairs, whose tion that Stalinism was able to establish their return. Here is how Henri Guilbeaux communiqué the following day illustrated its domination, thanks to the most radical described this masquerade: the anti-working class policy of the USSR: negation of communism constituted by the “Mr. Stalin understands and fully endorses monstrous doctrine of ‘socialism in one “When the worker goes to Russia he is the national defence policy made by France country’, totally alien to the proletariat carefully selected, he can only go there in to maintain its armed force in terms of its and to Lenin; that the USSR became again groups chosen from Party members but also security”. As we showed in our pamphlet not only a capitalist state in its own right elements known to be ‘sympathizers’ from The collapse of Stalinism: but also a state where the proletariat has the trade unions and the socialist party, who been subjected more brutally and more are very suggestible and easy to brainwash. “It was this policy of alliance with the ferociously than elsewhere to the interests Delegates thus ‘elected’ form a workers’ USSR that would allow, in the aftermath of national capital renamed ‘the interests delegation. Once arrived in Russia, these of the Laval-Stalin pact, the constitution of the socialist fatherland’.”26 delegates are officially received, escorted, of the ‘Popular Front’ in France, signal- pampered, celebrated. Everywhere they are ling the reconciliation of the PCF with The USSR: an imperialist bourgeois accompanied by guides and translators. social democracy for the needs of French state against the working class They are given presents. (...) Wherever capital in the imperialist arena: after Stalin Once in power, Stalin wanted to stay there. they go, they are told: ‘This belongs to decided in favour of the arming of France, By the end of the 1920s he had in his hands the workers, and here it is the workers suddenly the PCF in turn voted for military all the control levers of the soviet state who direct’. On their return, the workers’ credits and signed an agreement with the apparatus. We have shown, in one of the delegates who have been identified as being radicals and the SFIO.” first texts we produced on the revolution in the most able to say good things about the The Stalinist terror, or the liquidation of Russia, the process that led to the degenera- USSR are put on a pedestal. They are then the old guard of the Bolshevik Party tion of the revolution and the emergence invited to come and give their impressions of a new ruling class making this country in public meetings.”29 The whole bourgeoisie understood that a capitalist state in its own right.27 Stalin was the man of the situation, the one These political brainwashing trips had who was going to eradicate the last vestiges Thus, the Union of Soviet Socialist Re- as their sole objective to maintain the of the revolution of October 1917. Besides, publics was “Soviet” only in name! myth of “socialism in one country”, a true the democracies were more benevolent to- falsification of the programme defended “Not only was the slogan of the entire wards him when he began to break up and by the revolutionary movement which, revolutionary period – ‘All power to the exterminate the generation of proletarians since its origins, has been an international soviets’ - abandoned and banned, but the and revolutionaries who had participated movement precisely because, as Engels dictatorship of the proletariat, through in the revolution of October 1917. The liq- wrote in 1847, the political offensive of the which the power of the workers’ councils uidation of the old guard of the Bolshevik working class against the ruling class takes had been the driving force and soul of Party expressed Stalin’s determination to place from the outset at a world level: “The the revolution and which so revolts and avoid any form of conspiracy around him communist revolution will not merely be a upsets our dear “democrats” today, (...) in order to consolidate his power; but it also national phenomenon but must take place was totally destroyed and became an empty struck a blow to the consciousness of the simultaneously in all civilised countries shell devoid of meaning, leaving room in its proletariat of the whole world by pushing (…) It will have a powerful impact on 25. Ibid. it to defend the USSR against so-called 26. Ibid. 28. The collapse of Stalinism. traitors to the revolutionary cause. 27. “The degeneration of the Rusian Revolution”, 29. H. Guilbaux, La fin des soviets, Societe francaise International Review nº 3. d’editions litteraires et techniques, 1937, p. 86. 30. The principles of communism, 1847. 30 International Review 162 Summer 2019

In these conditions, the European de- factories passed resolutions approving the history of humanity, this moment where mocracies did not hesitate to support and execution of these “Trotskyist terrorists”. the working class demonstrated that it is participate in this macabre enterprise. If The newspaper L’Humanité also distin- possible to envisage a society where the they were very enthusiastic when it came guished itself by calling for the murder of exploitation of man by man will end. to bleating beautiful hymns to Human the “Hitler-Trotskyists”. But perhaps the Rights, they were much less willing to most foul celebration of Stalinist terror is welcome and protect the main members Hymn to the GPU, a so-called poem by Narek , January 27, 2019. of the workers’ opposition, starting with Louis Aragon32 in 1931, who, after being Trotsky, its principal representative. After a poet in his youth, became a Stalinist being expelled from Russia in 1928, the preacher and never, till his last breath, latter was greeted by a Turkey hostile to stopped singing the praises of Stalin and Bolshevism, who, in cahoots with Stalin, let the USSR! him enter the territory without a passport at Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Smir- the mercy of the residue of white Russians nov, Evdokimov, Sokolnikov, Piatakov, determined to kill him. The former chief Bukharin, Radek ... to name only the of the Red Army escaped several murder best-known of the condemned. Although attempts. His Calvary continued after leav- some were more or less compromised in the ing Turkey when all the democracies of process of Stalinisation, all these fighters Western Europe, in agreement with Stalin, of the proletariat embodied the legacy of refused to grant him the right of asylum; October 1917. By liquidating them, Stalin “Chased by murderers in the pay of Stalin murdered the revolution a little more; for or the remains of white armies, Trotsky behind the farce of these trials was hid- would be sentenced to wander from one den the tragedy of the counter-revolution. country to another until by the mid-30s, These great purges, far from expressing the the whole world became for the former purification of society for the “construction head of the Red Army a ‘planet without of socialism”, marked a new assault on the a visa’”.31 Social democracy proved the memory and transmission of the legacies most zealous to serve Stalin. Between of the revolutionary movement. 1928 and 1936, all Western governments collaborated with him and closed their Cultivated or discredited, the myth of borders to Trotsky or, as in Norway, put communism in the Soviet Union has always him under house arrest by prohibiting any been utilised by the bourgeoisie against political activity and any criticism of Sta- the consciousness of the proletariat. If it lin. In another example, in 1927 Christian had been thought that the break-up of the Rakovsky, USSR ambassador in Paris, was Eastern bloc between 1989 and 1991 would recalled to Moscow following the request bring about the fall of this great deception, of the French government who considered it was not so. On the contrary, the equation him “persona non grata” after he signed of Stalinism with communism has only the platform of the Left Opposition. The been reinforced during the last thirty years, “homeland of the rights of man and of the although among the revolutionary minori- citizen” delivered him ignobly to his execu- ties Stalinism is recognised as the worst tioners and added its stone to the building product of the counter-revolution. of the great Stalinist purges. And yet today these same democracies and their shoddy Conclusion intellectuals denounce them loudly in order to make people forget that they themselves One hundred years after the events, the participated in these killings. spectre of the October 1917 Revolution still For all the oppositionists, the “great haunts the bourgeoisie. And to try to guard democracies” were nothing more than against a new revolutionary episode that antechambers of the Stalinist death camps would shake its world, it is bent on burying or the playgrounds of the GPU agents, the historical memory of the proletariat. authorised to penetrate their territories to For this, its intelligentsia tirelessly strives silence the oppositionists. Similarly, the to rewrite history until the lie takes the Western press relayed the smear campaign, appearance of a truth. designating the accused as Hitler’s agents, Therefore, faced with the propaganda of justifying the purges and convictions by the ruling class, the proletariat must plunge relying, without questioning them, on the back into its history and strive to learn from minutes of the court sittings. Of course, the past episodes. It must also question, and Communist parties, oozing with zeal, went we hope that this article will give food for the furthest in the slander and justification thought, the reasons that push the bourgeoi- of such a mockery of justice. After the sie to denigrate in an ever more infamous conviction of the sixteen defendants of way one of the most glorious events in the the first Moscow Trial, the central com- mittee of the PCF and the cells of several 32. Poet, novelist and journalist. He joined the PCF in 1927 and would not leave until his death. He 31. ICC pamphlet, The collapse of Stalinism (in remained faithful to Stalin and Stalinism all his life French). and approved of the Moscow trials. 31

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Previous issues of the International Review Previous issues of the International Review

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International Review 160 International Review 161

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BASIC POSITIONS OF THE ICC

The International Communist Current reactionary. All the so-called ‘workers’, goals of the proletariat’s combat. defends the following political positions: ‘Socialist’ and ‘Communist’ parties (now ex-’Communists’), the leftist organisations OUR ACTIVITY * Since the first world war, capitalism has (Trotskyists, Maoists and ex-Maoists, been a decadent social system. It has twice official anarchists) constitute the left of Political and theoretical clarification of plunged humanity into a barbaric cycle of capitalism’s political apparatus. All the the goals and methods of the proletarian crisis, world war, reconstruction and new tactics of ‘popular fronts’, ‘anti-fascist struggle, of its historic and its immediate crisis. In the 1980s, it entered into the final fronts’ and ‘united fronts’, which mix up conditions. phase of this decadence, the phase of de­ the interests of the proletariat with those Organised intervention, united and composition. There is only one alternative of a faction of the bourgeoisie, serve only centralised on an international scale, in offered by this irreversible historical to smother and derail the struggle of the order to contribute to the process which decline: socialism or barbarism, world proletariat. leads to the revolutionary action of the communist revolution or the destruction * With the decadence of capitalism, the proletariat. of humanity. unions everywhere have been transformed The regroupment of revolutionaries * The Paris Commune of 1871 was the into organs of capitalist order within the with the aim of constituting a real world first attempt by the proletariat to carry proletariat. The various forms of union or­ communist party, which is indispensable out this revolution, in a period when the ganisation, whether ‘official’ or ‘rank and to the working class for the overthrow of conditions for it were not yet ripe. Once file’, serve only to discipline the working capitalism and the creation of a communist these conditions had been provided by the class and sabotage its struggles. society. onset of capitalist decadence, the October * In order to advance its combat, the revolution of 1917 in Russia was the first working class has to unify its struggles, OUR ORIGINS step towards an authentic world communist taking charge of their extension and revolution in an international revolutionary organisation through sovereign general The positions and activity of revolutionary wave which put an end to the imperialist assemblies and committees of delegates organisations are the product of the past war and went on for several years after elected and revocable at any time by these experiences of the working class and of that. The failure of this revolutionary wave, assemblies. the lessons that its political organisations particularly in Germany in 1919-23, con­ * Terrorism is in no way a method of struggle have drawn throughout its history. The demned the revolution in Russia to isolation for the working class. The expression of ICC thus traces its origins to the successive and to a rapid degeneration. Stalinism was social strata with no historic future and contributions of the Communist League not the product of the Russian revolution, of the decomposition of the petty bour­ of Marx and Engels (1847-52), the but its gravedigger. geoisie, when it’s not the direct expression three Internationals (the International * The statified regimes which arose in the of the permanent war between capitalist Workingmen’s Association, 1864-72, the USSR, eastern Europe, China, Cuba etc states, terrorism has always been a fertile Socialist International, 1889-1914, the and were called ‘socialist’ or ‘communist’ soil for manipulation by the bourgeoisie. Communist International, 1919-28), the left were just a particularly brutal form of Advocating secret action by small mi­ fractions which detached themselves from the universal tendency towards state norities, it is in complete opposition to class the degenerating Third International in the capitalism, itself a major characteristic of violence, which derives from conscious and years 1920-30, in particular the German, the period of decadence. organised mass action by the proletariat. Dutch and Italian Lefts. * Since the beginning of the 20th century, * The working class is the only class which all wars are imperialist wars, part of the can carry out the communist revolution. Its deadly struggle between states large revolutionary struggle will inevitably lead ICC postal addresses and small to conquer or retain a place the working class towards a confrontation Write to the following addresses without in the international arena. These wars with the capitalist state. In order to destroy mentioning the name: bring nothing to humanity but death and capitalism, the working class will have to destruction on an ever-increasing scale. overthrow all existing states and establish Spain, France, Brazil The working class can only respond to the dictatorship of the proletariat on a Mail Boxes 153, 108 rue Damremont 75018 Paris them through its international solidarity world scale: the international power of the and by struggling against the bourgeoisie workers’ councils, regrouping the entire Mexico, Venezuela, Peru, Equador in all countries. proletariat. Apartado Postal 15-024, * All the nationalist ideologies - ‘national * The communist transformation of society CP 02600, independence’, ‘the right of nations to by the workers’ councils does not mean Distrito Federal, Mexico. self-determination’ etc - whatever their ‘self-management’ or the nationalisation pretext, ethnic, historical or religious, are of the economy. Communism requires the Belgium a real poison for the workers. By calling conscious abolition by the working class BP 102, 2018, Antwerp Central Station, on them to take the side of one or another of capitalist social relations: wage labour, Belgium faction of the bourgeoisie, they divide commodity production, national frontiers. It means the creation of a world community Great Britain, Australia, workers and lead them to massacre each United States other in the interests and wars of their in which all activity is oriented towards the BM Box 869 exploiters. full satisfaction of human needs. London WC1 N3XX * In decadent capitalism, parliament and * The revolutionary political organisation Great Britain elections are nothing but a mascarade. constitutes the vanguard of the working Any call to participate in the parliamentary class and is an active factor in the generali­ India, Phillippines circus can only reinforce the lie that sation of class consciousness within the POB 25, NIT, Faridabad, 121001, presents these elections as a real choice for proletariat. Its role is neither to ‘organise Haryana, India the exploited. ‘Democracy’, a particularly the working class’ nor to ‘take power’ in its name, but to participate actively in Italy hypocritical form of the domination of the CP 469, 80100, Naples, Italy bourgeoisie, does not differ at root from the movement towards the unification of other forms of capitalist dictatorship, such struggles, towards workers taking control Germany, Switzerland, Sweden as Stalinism and fascism. of them for themselves, and at the same Postfach 2124 * All factions of the bourgeoisie are equally time to draw out the revolutionary political CH-8021 Zurich, Switzerland