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Resolution of Activities of the Internal Fraction of the ICC (January 2008).


[Warning for the English version : as we don't manage well English language, there can be some "mistakes", "confusions", or even "mistranslations" in this resolution from the original French and Spanish versions. As it's an "official" text of our Fraction which has been adopted and whose every term has been discussed and approved by our members, we urge our readers who would have doubts or even disagreements with some specific expressions, to refer to the French and Spanish version. In case they can't do so, they can write to us and ask to clarify any point.

In any case, whether they are for translations, whether they are for political questionings and disagreements, we invite our readers to send us their comments and criticisms in order we can discuss them].


1) The historical situation that capitalism is passing through - and specially the irreversible and every time more dramatic economical crisis - rests on, more and more directly since 2001, upon the historical alternative, generalized imperialist war or international proletarien revolution. The international proletariat is the only historical force capable of opposing this process driving to the bourgeois outcome, war, and to be able to offer another historical perspective. Contrary to what prevailed in the years 1930, decade which enabled the bourgeoisie to prepare World War Two, the revolutionary class is far from being defeated, nor physically, nor ideologically.

This means that the bourgeoisie is engaging itself in a march towards generalized war - whose term cannot be defined in advance - without having submitted the proletariat, and thus accentuating the major risk of confronting the latter in conditions far from being favorable. This process is already engaged as shows it openly the present reality the working class of all countries is living. Already, the evolution of the relation of forces between the two main classes of capitalist society, bourgeoisie and proletariat, is an essential element of the development of this perspective of decisive classes confrontations and of its final outcome.


2) Amongst the material elements, the material forces, which will participate of the evolution of the relation of forces between the two classes, the main one is class consciousness - consciousness of its historical mission as revolutionary class and of its communist program - and its extent amongst the great workers masses. The favoured expression of this class consciousness is today in the revolutionary communist groups and particularly in those which claim their legacy with the Communist Left and which belong to what we call the proletarian camp. The degree of influence of the proletarian camp depends, besides its own activity and own intervention in the working class, on the extension of the political consciousness in the class itself, in its great masses, extension which will drive to the formation of the world communist party.

Today, we must acknowledge that this camp is particularly weak. Besides its very reduced influence in the great proletarian masses, it suffers two main diseases : its dispersion and the weight of bourgeois ideology which is expressed by political opportunism, in particular through its councilist and anti-party variant.

Today, the situation of weakness and dispersion of the proletarian camp might well lead to a catastrophic situation from the proletariat's point of view : that the massive classes confrontations which will inescapably happen, see the international proletariat confront capitalism without its party (indeed without its vanguard organisations if the heterogeneity of consciousness in the class doesn't enable the constitution of a unique party) and thus to repeat the dramatical experience of the German proletariat in 1919 and in the years which followed, experience which has heavily weighed on the failure of the international revolutionary wave of that time.

Thus, it is on the difficulties which are of its own that the proletarian camp must, from today on, as a priority, deal with in order to overcome them. Here lies its first responsibility in regards to its class. Since its constitution and its expulsion from the International Communist Current, our fraction drew to itself two fundamental orientations for its activities : the struggle for regrouping - in the historical meaning of the term - of the communist forces and the struggle against opportunism which politically weakens it. These two dimensions remain at the core of our combat of fraction for the period to come.


3) The regrouping of the communist forces means much more than the simple gathering of different groups and elements in a unique organisation or the reinforcement of a pre-existing organisation through the integration of new militant forces. Of course, in fine, such is the historical aim which the consequent communists pursue by struggling for the constitution of the world communist party. But this historial goal cannot really be realized but on the basis of a theoretical and political clarification which is fully and voluntarily assumed by the whole components of the proletarian camp. It's in this way that a process of enrichment and homogenization of class consciousness - program, principles, positions, etc. - can come out within the communist vanguard whose first responsibility is to enable its development within the proletariat.

Actually, the development of class consciousness in the international proletariat is heterogeneous until the final advent of communist society and the disappearance of the classes. This heterogeneity inescapably reflects itself within its vanguard and it can express - and most of the time it does express - through the existence of various communist organisations, and indeed parties. Today, this heterogeneity within the proletarian camp expresses itself through differences at the level of theoretical and political positions, at the level of methods of analysis of the situation as well as at the level of approaches of the question of political organisation and the party. But if this heterogeneity is a natural characteristic - even a richness - of the proletarian vanguard, the existence of different groups which tend to ignore each other, if not to despise each other, each one convinced that it holds THE program is sectarianism, it means a defect and an handicap for the class.

Affirming this doesn't mean, in no case, we should engage in regrouping at any cost or in a precipitated manner by ignoring o hiding the disagreements which really exist between the components of the proletarian camp. On the contrary, the struggle for revolutionaries' regrouping inescapably has to pass through the permanent and public confrontation between the respective positions and analysis. Such is the unique method to be able to overcome the differences, and thus to enrich and homogenize class consciousness.

In that sense and at first, the struggle for communist forces' regrouping needs the acknowledgement that does exist an internationalist and organised camp, or milieu, which represents the historical link and a fundamental contribution for the future party of the class at the theoretical, political and organisational levels. So this proletarian camp has the historical responsibility of considering itself as a whole that must be defended, as such, and whose aim is to serve as the proletariat's political vanguard. And this today already. Secondly, because it has divergences, this camp has the specific task of leading debates and the confrontation of the political positions in order to present them and to clarify them in front of the whole proletariat ; especially in front of the new generations of revolutionaries who emerge and who will appear even more. Finally, this international proletarian camp must intervene in the class as unitarian n as posible and must tend to assume the largest and the most consequent political presence that can be posible.

The proletarian camp as it does exist today - formed by organisations which represent the great currents stemming from the Left fractions, and more particularly from the Italian Left, it means the IBRP, the ICC, the different bordiguist groups, as well as the different groups and elements which look for tying with these historical currents and to this tradition - is at the core of the activity of our Fraction since its setting up.


4) Actually, since its setting up, and even before the exclusion of our Fraction from the ICC in March 2002, we addressed to the IBRP because, from that moment on, we considered it as the unique pole remaining within the proletarian camp, around which a regrouping of communist forces can organise itself. The political consequences to come of our exclusion upon the ICC itself couldn't but lead, amongst other things, to the rejection of its policy of regrouping - led, more or less correctly, until then - as well as to the quick triumph of sectarianism. Since then, the sectarian drift - which has been reinforced by political statements of this organisation that were every time more opportunist - has not denied our "prediction" - and our warnings - of that time. Furthermore, the situation of extreme dispersion of the so-called "bordiguist" current since the break-up of the ICP in 1982 doesn't enable it to assume this role that it succeeded to play beforehand.

Because of its direct organic continuity with the Italian Left, because its program, because its political analysis and because its international organisational existence, the IBRP remains so the only organisation which has today the means to assume a real policy of international regrouping. And, actually, it constitutes the only true pole around which the elements and groups which tend to come close to the positions of the Communist Left can refer to and around which they can really "regroup".

It's in that same line that we took contact with the IBRP and developed the most posible close relations and a common work. In particular, we could develop a certain number of discussions which enable to clarify and affirm points of agreement or strong convergence on the question of decadence, on the question of the party and on questions of analysis of the present historical situation. So, the basis for an immediate, and even in the long term, coming closer in order to work together to the formation of the tomorrow party have been posed.

Thus, it is proper to renew our respective efforts to carry on and to strengthen this work of coming closer, it means to consolidate our contacts, to relaunch the confrontation of theoretical and political positions on one part, and on the other, to develop our participation and our support to the IBRP intervention.


5) A certain number of groups and elements - who tend to come close to the positions of the Communist Left - has begun to appear these last years in different countries. Our policy towards them has been, before all, to make them understand and to share the idea of the existence of a proletarian camp whose central component is the IBRP. It has been the case of our intervention towards groups from Russia, from Germany, from Canada and also towards different isolated elements. For all the new groups and elements who are emerging in the present period, the clarification of political positions can't be done but within the proletarian camp and particularly through the debates which must animate it.

The examples of the Internationalist Communists of Montreal comrades and of a comrade from Greece underline the importance of our intervention and the meaning of its orientation. The first ones have moved away from the IBRP in Canada to come close to the ICC positions ; the comrade in Greece has taken the "opposite path". Both cases represent the illustration of two similar dynamics of comrades who succeeded in turning their back to dispersion and confusion, in particular of the networks, internet or others, and of the milieu of circles and "revolutionary" individuals, it means to the councilist, anti-party and anti-organisation tendencies and to orientate themselves towards the proletarian camp which is the camp of those who truly fight for the world party constitution. While, without giving up his links with us, the comrade in Greece has joined the IBRP - which we strongly salute -, the ICM comrades has begun deep discussions with our Fraction and a work of coming close which enables us to develop today a work in common.

It's in that line that our Fraction wants to carry on to work towards the new contacts and groups which emerge in the world. Even though we present here the process of revolutionaries' regrouping essentially at the level of confrontation and clarification of the different positions existing within the proletarian camp, this doesn't mean we ignore the necessary numerical strengthening of the already living organisations, even indeed of our Fraction, by the integration of new militants. All the contrary. Nevertheless, it seems to us necessary to conceive and to develop this last aspect in close relation to the first one.


6) Today, the proletarian camp has the priority task of confronting and clarifying to the eyes of the greatest number the different political positions which pass through it. For this, it must give itself the means to present the frameworks for discussion and political clarification in order to serve as reference for the elements and new groups who emerge. Unfortunately, the sectarian weaknesses it suffers, are expressed by the fact that such proletarian political spaces are seriously lacking today - except a few too rare public meetings and occasional polemics between the groups in their respective press.

In particular, besides the fact that for the moment it's not possible to hold one or two cycles of international conferences of the proletarian camp which would enable to offer an international space of reference, putting forwards the common positions and the disagreements which exist between the main currents and groups which form it, none of the theoretical review which are published today is capable of being a place of discussion and political confrontation which could really serve as international reference.

It belongs to our Fraction to push for the constitution of such tools and such places, or spaces, of proletarian life and to participate to the animation of those already existing. It is the reason for which we must try to attend all the public meetings of the groups in relation to our means - included the ones of the "official" ICC from which we are still "forbidden" and violently expelled. As well, we must participate more actively to the few polemics which take place between the groups.

But all this seems to us still largely insufficient in regards to the needs of the proletarian camp (and of the class as a whole). We have begun to discuss with some comrades, in particular with the ICM, of the need and the possibility of realizing a "bulletin of international discussion and information" which would called every one - groups, militants, isolated elements - who would want to actively participate (politically and materially) to make it a place of permanent debate and a point of reference for all the elements and groups that the classe makes and will make emerge. This bulletin, far from being another revolutionary publication coming to add itself to the ones already existing, would like to be a necessary and efficient tool for the regrouping of the communist forces, regrouping which can't be conceived today but around the IBRP.


7) Political opportunism is a permanent danger for the proletariat's vanguard. Today, no communist organisation is been sheltered from being overwhelmed by the permanent pressure of bourgeois ideology, and thus to slip into political opportunism - not even our Fraction of course. For the class political organisations, the struggle against opportunism is not only a necessity in itself, it is also an essential element of the struggle they must lead for their regrouping.

In particular, "the danger of councilism - even though it fully expresses in revolutionary events - is a danger from today on", we said in 1985 (International Review 40 of our ICC, translated by us from French version). Today, this pressure of councilist, anti-party, anti-political, indeed even anarchist, ideology exerts even more against the proletarian camp. The proliferation "of groups of work and studies (...) ; of cenacles where one takes a detached observation of class struggle" - even more favoured by the increase of Internet and of the "networks", the development "of anti-bolshevik ideology where all the revolutionary past of the bolshevists is voluntarily denied" and "the sub-estimation of the role of the organisation", contributes to create and develop around the proletarian camp an atmosphere of militant renouncement and pessimism, of un-formalism, of lack of real political confrontations and clarifications on behalf of democratism and freedom of criticism, etc., introduces within the camp "the petit-bourgeois and individualist councilist ideology" (idem) which pushes numerous militants to move away from political organisations, to turn their back to collective organised and centralised work, to denounce the "party spirit" and to engage into individual processes and often into individual "ambitions".

But this pressure of councilist ideology isn't limited to the single area of militant organisation and of political confrontation and clarification, nor to the "anti-party" nebula. More subterranean and discreet, it can express also in repeated concessions by the groups of the proletarian camp and in the confusions of the new groups in regards to the working class struggles : for instance, in the apology of "self-organisation", in the renouncement of the struggle for disputing the political leadership of the struggles to the unions and leftist organisations.

Thus it matters that our Fraction doesn't relax its efforts to warn against this opportunist danger and to arm the proletarian camp against councilism.


8) The opportunist drift of the ICC - which is engaged since 2001, it means since the "liquidationnist" faction has taken the leadership of the organisation - has still increased these last years. We can say that the present ICC has quickly become the spearhead of opportunism today within the proletarian camp by taking back at the same time the main ideological themes of the bourgeoisie to develop its analysis of the situation - the ecology for instance through the giving up of the perspective of imperialist generalised war to the benefit of "an ecological apocalypse" -, by advocating positions and an intervention which are more and more councilist (see its apology of the French student movement and of its exemplary "assemblies"), by more and more orientating its work of regrouping towards the leftist milieu and by putting into question, indeed by giving up, a great number of its programmatical positions (the giving up of the historical alternative war or revolution and of the cycle "crisis-war-reconstruction-new crisis" as foundation of the theory of capitalist decadence) which drives it every time more to defend positions which are in contradiction with our political platform.

Thus, for our Fraction, it is a matter to carry on the struggle against this opportunist and even revisionist drift of our organisation. In particular, it belongs to us to defend our political platform and the method of analysis of our current in order they don't purely and simply disappear from the proletarian camp. Whether we want it or not, the true positions and the true analysis of the ICC are a component of the proletarian camp whose disappearance or ignorance, because their caricature that this organisation presents today, would be a considerable weakness of this camp.


9) This fight is even more important since the present ICC remains an organisation of the proletarian camp despite its accelerated opportunist drift. It remains so since it has not openly betrayed the fundamental principles of proletarian internationalism and of the classes struggle - even though its theoretical and political arming has terribly weakened because its opportunist drift and it will have more and more difficulties to face the different events of the present historical situation. Nevertheless, only its statement in front of decisive events such as generalised imperialist war or proletarian revolution will decide of its fate : whether it will make it definitively cross the class frontier and definitively join the bourgeoisie's camp, whether it will enable it to react and to take back its place within the proletariat.

In that sense, and as long as we share the same political platform, our place remains within the ICC - despite the exclusion we suffered and that we still don't accept - and we carry on considering ourselves as an internal fraction of the ICC, and more precisely as the only part of this organisation which remains faithful to its principles and its fundamental positions and which continues to fight to restore them within it. From this point of view, whether we are formally outside the organisation, or whether we could again be formally part of it - hypothesis very unlikely to come but that we don't exclude - doesn't change nothing to our orientations in regards with the revolutionaries' regrouping - around the IBRP - and our fight against opportunism such as we specify them in this resolution. What ever it the valuation we can have on the potentialities of the present ICC to stop its drift - they are very weak -, it nevertheless remains that the revolutionaries can't leave a communist organisation falling into opportunism without carrying on a struggle ; and this not only to defend it but also to fight against the introduction of opportunist positions, it means the introduction of bourgeois ideology, within the proletarian camp. The time still remains to the struggle for the ICC redressment and to the fight against its opportunism which represents one of the dimensions of the struggle for the communist forces' regrouping.


10) From the previous points, it ensues that the existence and the work of our fraction can't set but in the long run. It thus matters to conceive our activities and our functioning in relation to that and to reject any expression of immediatism which could appear in our ranks.


January 2008