An appeal for solidarity with the ICC in the proletarian milieu faced with a new parasitic attack

A close sympathiser of the ICC responds to an attack on our organisation by the so-called "International Group of the Communist Left"

Because of the importance and seriousness of the matter, the ICC has published an appeal for the defence of the proletarian milieu [1] against the activities of an element engaged in a very harmful activity and who systematically refused to clarify his behaviour. A few days after the ICC had published its appeal - in English, French, German and Spanish (at least, to my knowledge) - the “International Group of the Communist Left” (formerly the “Internal Fraction of the ICC”) published a statement in defence of this element [2] and, above all, as an attack on the ICC [3].

As an expression of solidarity, I will give my comments on certain passages of the declaration of the IGCL:

“The same is true of its only ’political’ reproach: Nuevo Curso has not responded to criticism, including ours, of its historical reference to the Trotskyist Left Opposition of the 1930s. But what authority can the ICC have in this matter, when it stubbornly refuses to respond publicly to those, of which we are also a part, who point to its successive and grave abandonments of Marxist principles?”

This is the logic of an ‘eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’. According to the IGCL, the ICC doesn’t have the right to demand a reply from Nuevo Curso, because the ICC itself does not publicly respond to the IGCL, or others whose name it does not even mention. To begin with, it is a big lie that the ICC has not replied to the IGCL (and you can check this on the ICC’s website [4]), and finally, this ‘eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth’ is a principle completely alien to the working class. It would be very important if elements of the proletarian milieu would call for a debate on certain issues, even if in the logic of their internal approach they, for the time being, refuse to respond to others.

“As we pointed out last summer: "the ICC is now launching a genuine parasitic attack – to use its own words – on these forces, particularly the Gulf Coast Communist Fraction, trying to convince them to discuss parasitism as a priority. It does not matter for the ICC that the GCCF is opposed to this position, the very fact it has succeeded in getting them to accept a meeting on this theme, instead of political issues related to the Communist Left’s experience and programmatic lessons, is already in itself a trap for new forces without experience."

The ICC sought to discuss this important issue as a matter of priority in order to clarify a major divergence with the GCCF (without even omitting "political issues related to the Communist Left’s experience and programmatic lessons", as if there would be any contradiction between the two! This is precisely one of the questions raised by this group!). According to the ICC, the GCCF’s close contact with parasitism is a major threat to the group. The ICC seeks to encourage discussion and clarification, and if the GCCF expressed a disagreement it is not something negative that closes the debate once and for all.

The ICC did not ‘make the GCCF accept’ anything, they decided to accept in principle the discussion and finally closed it. The ICC has neither the means nor the intention to force acceptance or to confuse the debate, but sought to continue it in order to achieve the greatest clarity [5]. The IGCL treats the elements of the GCCF as if they are followers without their own will, without courage or responsibility to be consistent in the defence of their position. This is the ambiguity to which those groups who are in close contact with parasitism expose themselves.

On the other hand, how can a group, which presents itself as "consistent with itself", use a concept with which it disagrees: "a parasitic attack - to use its own words"? This can only be a childish recourse to the playground principle of “he who says it, is it!”. This falls within the typical parasitic dynamic of accusing others of following their own logic, and projecting onto others what they do themselves. They even say it in the most sophisticated ways, accusing the ICC of the same thing. Perhaps some elements do so in a conscious way, and others are prisoners of the vicious circle of the ‘eye for an eye, tooth for tooth’ logic. It is important to get out of this circle of easy and unfounded accusations in order to distinguish them from serious and well-founded  allegations in defence of the proletarian milieu from slander.

In this whole smokescreen of accusations, everything could look the same. The ICC, however, does not deny the need for a serious, rigorous, well-founded and courageous denunciation, in defence of the milieu, and declares that this is a serious matter not to be taken lightly and that it needs discretion and a thorough investigation. This is not something new for the ICC but comes from the tradition of the working class (against Vogt, Lassalle, Schweitzer, the Alliance of Bakunin, etc.) and it is not a tool to crush people, but to clarify the attitudes that belong to the working class and those that do not, and to seriously investigate elements with a sinister behaviour, in defence of the milieu. The ICC also seeks to distinguish between this approach and the approach of slander and defamation. They are two things that are not part of a vague confusing unity but quite opposite to each other.

The elements of the proletarian political milieu must seek to clarify what is behind this attack by the IGCL not through the method of prejudicial contempt, but through analysis and the search for clarity. Not by taking its words out of context, but by the greatest possible clarity and the careful reading of its text in contrast to the document of the ICC and its overall activity. As well as following the rest of the texts published by the ICC on the IGCL or the IFICC, and those published by the both these groups on the ICC.

This is the only way we can deal with the confusion and the bamboozling in the milieu. Rigour and seriousness are most necessary. This methodical rigour and seriousness leads, in my opinion, to a clear denunciation of this kind of parasitic activity, and to distinguish what is part of the proletarian milieu and what, although it may claim the opposite for other reasons, is not. The search for clarity is fundamental, and this is indispensable for the working class. The ICC does not seek to distort the words of either the parasitic groups or the bourgeoisie.

“It is hard to see what interest the SP and the Spanish state would have in creating from scratch a group like Nuevo Curso whose denunciation of the capitalist character of the SP itself is systematic. And which, on the other hand, has played an active role in the emergence and international regrouping of new revolutionary and communist forces, particularly on the American continent.”

The ICC has never said that the PSOE has created Nuevo Curso. Anyone who reads the ICC article can see it. Therefore, this is a lie [6]. It is not that the IGCL is confused or unable to distinguish things. The IGCL has no other reason for existing than attacking the ICC. Here it puts forward the idea that everyone who talks about bringing together revolutionary forces must themselves be revolutionary. It is against the nature of the IGCL to accept that there are groups that, while denouncing the capitalist system, do not belong to the working class, even if they claim to do so, such as the Alliance of Bakunin, or the IGCL itself and to seek clarity in this respect. Instead they put everything in the same bag, to create a camouflage for itself.

The superficiality with which they defend Nuevo Curso (even though it is not NC, but Gaizka who is the main axis of the investigations of the ICC document) could equally be used even to defend leftism (even though NC is neither part of leftism nor of the Communist Left). What happens then? It doesn’t care in the least whether this element is honourable or not. Finding the tools to investigate and understand would help to clear up the smokescreen of confusion behind which the IGCL hides itself. The IGCL adds, with great hypocrisy, that to speak about specific individuals is to enter into “psychology of individual behaviour” and that this is by definition a “nauseating and destructive” area where it is impossible to verify anything. Once again the IGCL attacks the working class by preventing it from identifying non-proletarian behaviour and by instilling a great fear about seeking to understand individual behaviour.

In addition, ICC also clearly alerts “those involved in the Nuevo Curso blog who do so in good faith”. The aim of the ICC is to bring these elements back into the proletarian camp with the greatest possible clarity and quality, not to destroy, overthrow or demolish proletarian organisations, as the IGCL claims. In its denunciation of parasitism, the ICC offers a positive perspective.

“Did it not issue an internal resolution calling for the destruction of the ICT (ex-IBRP) at its 16th Congress in 2005? Today it is Nuevo Curso’s turn.”

The IGCL does not provide links to the texts of the ICC on the internet, citing only those parts that are convenient to them and taken out of context. They even want to interfere in the last ICC Congress [7] but, to begin with, they are totally wrong that the ICC rejects the class struggle. They neither understand nor seek to understand the theory of the historical course; they simply use it as a stick to beat the ICC.

Furthermore, they make allusion to and distort the internal affairs of the ICC since 2005! But the IGCL, formerly the IFICC, was excluded from the ICC in 2003. How would they have got hold of these documents? And they claim that the ICC called for the destruction of the ICT! [8] In this context, I ask, as a supporter of the ICC and as a member of the Communist Left, the ICT to show its solidarity with the ICC in the name of the defence of the proletarian milieu.

I will not elaborate further on the document, which must be analysed in depth. My intention is to express as soon as possible my solidarity with the ICC.

Fraternally,

TV / 2020.02.19

Notes

[1] https://en.internationalism.org/content/16802/who-who-nuevo-curso

[2] More than defending this element, the GIGC claims to defend the Nuevo Curso group, seeking to present Gaizka as a kind of bugbear conjured up by the ICC. Its accusations of “personalising the political issues” actually serve to disguise the individual and to hide them behind the group, while distorting and misrepresenting the arguments of the ICC. The GIGC has of course no interest in theorising a distinction between, on the one hand, the rigorous investigation of the honour of individuals suspected of being adventurers in order to defend the proletarian milieu and personal attacks on the other hand. However, it had no scruples in practising, against the ICC, what it now claims to denounce, by revealing the names of militants it sought to discredit. (See: “The real ‘political disagreements’ of the friends of Jonas”: https://en.internationalism.org/262_infraction.htm) The ICC has seriously investigated the individual Gaizka by giving him the opportunity to explain himself several times. If he would be honest and considered the ICC's investigations to be a mistake, it would be his responsibility to clarify his more than suspicious activity, as well as his refusal to explain himself in the past.

[3] https://igcl.org/New-ICC-Attack-against-the

[4] It has replied to the attacks of the IGCL, although it has of course not entered into its game by treating it as a group of the Communist Left. Nevertheless, it has defended itself against their attacks by responding to its slanders and misrepresentations since it created its fake internal fraction of the ICC. One need only type ‘ificc’ or ‘igcl’ in the search engine of the English ICC website to see that the ICC has not ignored the IGCL, but has sought the most profound clarity concerning its behaviour.

[5] The ICC, and here one can see the maturity of the resolutions of the last 23rd Congress, understands that the struggle against parasitism is one of the fundamental political struggles in this period of decomposition. This phenomenon is nothing out of the ordinary in bourgeois society; it is far from being a foreign body to it.  Faced with this, it is necessary to struggle for the defence of the organisation against groups that pretend to be part of the proletarian political milieu (with diverse, heterogeneous origins) but whose collective activity (in spite of including contradictory elements) is aimed at destroying the real revolutionary organisations as covertly as possible; not necessarily with continuous frontal attacks that would expose themselves. Their origin is not necessarily that of paid bourgeois agents, as the IGCL tends to misrepresent in order to turn the ICC into a bugbear (although it is a good breeding ground for the infiltration of such elements, as well as for political adventurers, and ambitious declassed elements who do not feel recognised by present-day society). Distinguishing these groups from genuine revolutionary organisations is a matter to be addressed methodically and rigorously, seeking clarity and discussion with searching elements for whom it is difficult to go beyond appearances. It is important to distinguish, for example, parasitism from both leftism on the one hand and the swamp on the other, or from searching elements, since the actual confusion within them could be confused with the use and spread of such confusion for their own purposes. The tools to make this distinction are fundamental and are not an ICC invention.

[6] The deformation is very clear for anyone who has read the two texts. The ICC argues that “he is the main animator of Nuevo Curso”, and that today Gaizka aims to “create Nuevo Curso as a ‘historic link’ with the so-called ‘Spanish Communist Left’”, but at no point does it say that the PSOE created NC. The fact that an individual was in regular contact with the high functionaries of the bourgeoisie (alternating with elements of the right as well) at the same time as he was in contact with the ICC, and was the main animator of NC, does not necessarily mean that the bourgeoisie created this group

[7] “In particular the one from its last congress which liquidated the fundamental and central principle of marxism that the class struggle is the motor force of history”: “the general dynamic of capitalist society… is no longer determined by the balance of forces between classes.” (Resolution on the international situation, 23rd ICC Congress)

[8] For the ICC, the ICT is an organisation of the communist left! There may have been an internal debate on the ICT at that time (but surely not in the terms advanced by the IGCL!), but if that had been in a resolution of the ICC, it would have been published. Or are we talking about a quote taken out of context? We don’t know. I don’t know anything about this internal debate, fictional or real, or about its content. What is clear is the malicious nature of the IGCL, which makes the ICC document the equivalent of a secret and internal plot against the ICT: so the question is, why does the IGCL seek to break the necessary solidarity between the two organisations?