International Communist Current

Local militias, supported by regional and international imperialist powers, have turned Libya into a chaotic war zone and a veritable slave market for refugees

For several weeks now, we've seen the emergence of numerous social movements in several countries on different continents: Lebanon, Iraq, Ecuador, Bolivia, Haiti, Guinea, Algeria... Although these mobilisations have their peculiarities, they all express a reaction of protest and anger faced with the effects of the economic crisis which has shown a further descent these last months. We will treat these international mobilisations in a more global manner on our website soon. In the meantime, we are publishing below an article written by our comrades in Latin America on the subject of the present movement taking place in Chile. Some analyses drawn up in this article are applicable to other current mobilisations. All these movements, by their inter-classist and popular nature, as well as the democratic illusions in which they are imprisoned, lead to a fatal dead-end and constitute a trap for the world proletariat. Consequently, this raises the great responsibility incumbent on the proletariat of the central countries of capitalism, the most experienced when it comes to the traps laid by the bourgeoisie, and the only force capable of showing the way towards the autonomous struggle of the world working class.

Windrush workers are faced by RAF officials  as they arrive in the UK

During election campaigns political parties often turn to questions of immigration, with false alternatives posed over “freedom of movement”, with arguments over the deportation of “illegal” immigrants, but also a warm welcome given to skilled workers who will benefit the economy. The article that appears here, first published on our website in French, is a reminder that the Windrush scandal is not a matter of historical interest but shows the long-held approach of the bourgeoisie:  for the exploitation of labour power, the attempt to intimidate sectors of workers, the sirring up of xenophobia, and also the thin humanitarian veneer.

The destruction of the Amazon by flames is not an unfortunate natural disaster, nor is it the fruit of abnormally irresponsible local policies. It is symbolic of what capitalism has in store for all the planet, all species, and for humanity.

In this article, we will show to what extent, having fought the old "white power", the South African working class was able to deal with the new “black power”. Indeed the South African proletariat did not lose its combativity, as we will see later, but it faced many serious difficulties. In addition to its daily struggle for the improvement of its living conditions, it also had to confront diseases like AIDS with its terrible ravages, the corruption of the regime in power, and the many forms of social violence related to the decomposition of the capitalist system; murders, pogroms, etc. At the same time, as usual, it continued to face a repressive, bloodthirsty power, one that caused the deaths of many miners at Marikana in 2012. But the fact remains that the South African proletariat has already shown its capacity to play an important role as part of the world proletariat for the communist revolution.

Today, if you walk the streets of the towns and cities of Britain it seems that a permanent feature of city centres are desperate people, young and old, squatting in shop doorways begging for change...

We are publishing a contribution from one of our sympathisers, Mark Hayes, which criticises a number of formulations contained in the resolutions from our recent 23rd international congress, together with an initial reply to the comrade’s critcisms. As we say at the end of the reply, “it is the duty of any revolutionary organisation worth its salt to shine the starkest possible light on the reality of the challenge facing the proletariat. We are convinced that the analysis we are developing is best equipped to do this, but this discussion will certainly continue. We are still at the beginnings of fully understanding all the implications of the unfolding period, and criticism and debate is the only way to develop the clearest way forward for our analyses of the world situation”

Over a hundred years ago Frederick Engels stated that, if left to its own devices, capitalism would lead society into barbarism and ruin. Today, we can say that this is already happening and that if unchecked it will continue to do so and drag us down with it. The following article examines two important examples.

As this article was being finalised, the US experienced two more mass shootings on the weekend of August 3rd. These events underscore the deepening crisis of bourgeois social life and demonstrate that the bourgeoisie is itself experiencing an increasing loss of control over society, more and more unable to construct a shared civic narrative that binds the population together in a common identity, however mythical.

Thirty years ago, a terrible, particularly bloody repression took place on Tianenmen Square and in the main Chinese metropoles. The recently-released Tiananmen Papers fully confirm the facts as we published them at the time, detailing a savage repression involving machine-gun fire, round-ups, massive arrests and executions. Today as yesterday we insist that "the police-military terror and the democratic lie are complementary and both strengthen each other".

At the end of May, a report into austerity in the UK by the UN rapporteur on extreme poverty was issued - to the accompaniment of protests by the British government.

Those born in 2001, the year of the 9/11 attacks will be 18 in 2019. What have they grown up with? What have they been exposed to on the news? What sort of world have they been living in?

Following 9/11 there was Bush’s “global war on terrorism”. In reality, it was just “war” where, in invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (and in other campaigns as well) US imperialism attempted (and failed) to assert its position as the only surviving super power.

Brazil is wracked by increased repression, growing poverty and greater insecurity, further attacks on workers, threats of war and risks of chaos, all linked to the new president, Jair Bolsonaro, who took office on 1 January, 2019. Bolsonaro symbolises the epoch in which we are living which produces the most sinister and repugnant elements. It is a law that we can be sure will be verified, whatever the political moves of the new president: the exploited will pay more than their predecessors and the crisis of capitalism will only get worse...

Acknowledging the bankruptcy of the Second International and basing itself on all the work of the reconstruction of international unity started at Zimmerwald in September 1915, then Kienthal in 1916, the Communist International was founded on March 4 1919 in Moscow. 

The ICC lays claim to the contributions of the Communist International (CI). Consequently this centenary is an occasion both to salute and underline the inestimable work of the CI in the history of the revolutionary movement, but equally to draw the lessons of this experience and draw out its weaknesses in order to arm the proletariat of today for its future battles.

In the previous part of this series, we re-published the article ‘Welcome to Socialisme ou Barbarie’ written by the Gauche Communiste de France in 1948. 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 imperialist world war. In this new article, we will seek to show how right the GCF were to be cautious in their welcome to SouB, and how difficult it is for those who have grown up in the corrupt milieu of Trotskyism to make a really profound break with its fundamental ideas and attitudes.