International Communist Current

The series we are publishing on the radical differences (class differences) between on one hand the left and extreme left of capital and, on the other, the small organisations which claim the heritage of the Communist Left, has so far had three parts: an erroneous vision of the working class; a method and mode of thought at the service of capitalism and a way of functioning that is against communist principles. This fourth part is given over to the moral question in order to demonstrate the abyss that separates the morality of the parties which pretend to defend the exploited and the proletarian morality that any real communist organisation has to practice.

We are publishing a number of documents emanating from the 23rd ICC Congress: reports that were discussed and ratified (or extracts from them) and resolutions that were adopted. We add to this collection a report aimed at updating our analysis of decomposition which was ratified by the 22nd ICC Congress and which provides a framework for some of the reports to the 23rd Congress.

We will also publish in due course a statement by the ICC on the work of the Congress.

For the 75th anniversary of the Normandy landings of 6 June 1944, the bourgeoisie has once again pulled out all the stops to exploit all the emotions stirred up by witness accounts of the slaughter and spread its nauseating nationalist propaganda. Yet another parade of the weapons of war, yet another mass spectacle. All the figureheads of the great powers were there, from Merkel to May and Macron, and of course Donald Trump. The aim is to glorify patriotic sacrifice and to justify the bloody carnage in the name of “freedom”. And thus capitalism hopes we will forget its daily exploitation and present itself as the highest point of civilisation. Let’s recall that no sooner had Europe been “liberated” than the “civilised world” rained atomic fire on Japan, and in the Cold War that followed the “peace”, the two newly emerging imperialist blocs engaged in numerous massacres by proxy and threatened to plunge the world into a third global conflagration. The real horror of the invasion has been covered in lies despite the official recognition, in the 1990s, of the civilian victims of the Allied bombings of the Normandy coast.  But it’s not unusual for the bourgeoisie to own up to its crimes after the event, as long as it can present them as simple mistakes or painful necessities.

Today, it’s because the bourgeoisie continues to serve up the same lies that we thought it useful to republish the article we wrote to mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings. As well as denouncing the lies, the article aims to look at the significance of this historic event from the point of view of the working class.

To stimulate discussion around the formation of the future world party of the revolution, we are publishing two chapters of an article from Internationalisme no. 7 from January 1946, entitled “On the First Congress of the Internationalist Communist Party of Italy”

In the first part of this article we looked at some of the most important developments in the international proletarian milieu after the events of May 68 in France. We noted that, while the resurgence of the class struggle gave a significant impetus to the revival of the proletarian political movement, and thus to the regroupment of its forces, this dynamic had begun to run into difficulties by the beginning of the 80s. Here, we take up the story from this point. 

We look at the environmental journalist's claim that he is now for the overthrow of capitalism as the only solution to the ecological crisis.

This article, written by a close sympathiser, examines a contribution by the group Internationalist Voice on the strengths and weaknesses of recent workers’ struggles in Iran.

A close sympathiser reviews a new book on the Chernobyl nuclear disaster which exposes the cynicism of the ruling class, whether in Stalinist Russia or the "democratic" west.

The confrontation between the bourgeois factions in Venezuela  - between Chavismo and the opposition  parties -  has undergone a qualitative leap since the beginning of 2019. It takes place in a context of an unprecedented worsening of the economic and social crisis, the most evident sign of which is the increase in poverty experienced by a large part of the population. But it is part of a scenario marked by worsening rivalries between the great powers - some giving their open support to the regime of Nicolás Maduro, others to the proclaimed interim president Juan Guaidó. The US threat, as voiced by senior officials and Donald Trump himself, does not exclude a US military intervention, using "humanitarian aid" as a justification. Support for Nicolás Maduro has come mainly from countries such as Russia and China, the main allies of Chavismo. However, rather than a direct military confrontation between the great powers, the potential danger lies in the use of the population and workers as cannon fodder in a war between bandits.

In the two previous articles in this series, we have looked at the historic significance of the reawakening of the class struggle after decades of counter-revolution. In this article we want to look specifically at the evolution of the proletarian political milieu since 1968.

Anti-Bolshevik propaganda poster 1919

In the first part of this article we highlighted the response of all the great imperialist powers to stem the revolutionary wave and prevent it from spreading in the major industrialised countries of Western Europe. In this article we look at the decisive contribution of social democracy to this reactionary project, and of Stalinism as one of the worst products of the isolation and defeat of the world revolution.

In November 2018 the two main groups of the communist left in Britain, the ICC and the Communist Workers Organisation, held meetings in London on the centenary of the German revolution. From both meetings it was evident that there is fundamental agreement on a number of key points arising from this experience. And yet there were also definite disagreements between our two organisations, which emerged at the CWO meeting and were further debated at the ICC meeting the following week, which was attended by a member of the CWO. This article looks at the principal differences that emerged.   

The real, organised, systematic violence on the streets of France in recent weeks was that unleashed by the state which had encountered the anger of "the people" folowing years of austerity. But this "popular revolt" of all the "poor" of "working France" who can't "make ends meet" is not as such a proletarian movement, despite its sociological composition, as the following article explains.

A hundred years ago we were at height of the world revolutionary wave – more precisely, the outbreak of the revolution in Germany, a year after the proletariat took power in Russia, in October 1917.