The IFICC 'revises' the contribution of MC

The following article appeared as a ‘box’ in the most recent publication of the ‘Internal Fraction of the ICC’

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Article from no 31 of the Bulletin of the ‘Internal Fraction of the ICC’

 

The ICC of today: “but in contrast to the 1968-89 period, when the outcome of these class contradictions could only be world war or world revolution, the new period opens up a third alternative: the destruction of humanity..” [1] (Resolution on the international situation, International Review 113, 2003, we underline once again) 

The ICC from yesterday, back to its origins (1974) :

‘This theory of the bureaucracy…claims that the historic dilemma is not between capitalism and socialism but that a third solution has arisen with the bureaucratic class. We categorically reject any theory which tends to spread the belief that history offers another alternative to capitalism that is not socialism” (‘Defence of the proletarian character of October’, 1965, reproduced in the Bulletin d’Etude and de Discussion de Revolution Internationale, no.4 January 1974) underlined by the IFICC.

When will there be a serious response on this question which develops this revision, this third way? Recognising it as a gross error and a revisionist and opportunist deviation? Another alternative that liquidationism cannot escape, whether they try to remain silent or not. In one way or another. The material, historical facts cannot be ignored. And what could be more historic, more material for a communist organisation, than a congress resolution?

A last word on this. This text (of 1965) was written by the comrade MC, now deceased, from whom the liquidationists are trying at any price to claim the exclusive inheritance, the ‘red thread’ being assumed by that great celebrity, Peter. ‘The IFICC doesn’t walk ‘in the footsteps of MC’, it walks over all the principles which he always defended’, they dare to affirm on their website – this article which is simply announced in the June RI: they no longer venture to put these kinds of documents in their papers [2]. And for good reason: it’s not the first time that the writings of the militant MC, and not confidences whispered (according to them) in the ears of …Peter and his partner are there to denounce their current policies. Here again, there are two opposing methods.

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Our comments

So the IFICC maintains its fiction: they are the Real ICC. They are the true heirs of MC, the militant of the Italian left who played a crucial role in the foundation of the ICC. (and in doing so, they also maintain their repulsive campaign of personalised attacks on our militants). 

The ICC’s website article they mention (see the French language pages) has already shown the falsity of their claim to be walking in MC’s footsteps. The greater part of MC’s political life was spent in unremitting opposition to the opportunist course adopted by that wing of the Italian left which formed the Partito Ccomunista Internazionalista  in 1943, an opportunism continued  by both descendants of the 1952 split in the PCInt, the Bordigists and the IBRP. The IFICC of today, by contrast, has become a professional flatterer of these currents, especially of the IBRP, and this at the very time that the latter’s abandonment of proletarian principles of behaviour and of fundamental theoretical acquisitions- above all the theory of capitalist decadence – has reached unprecedented depths. 

No less did MC lead the struggle against parasitism and gangsterism in the workers’ movement, in particular, the struggle against the political thievery of the Chenier tendency of 1981, which has not had any equal… till the IFICC’s blatant robbery of ICC money and resources (justified by the IBRP as being acceptable for “leading elements” of a proletarian organisation).

In the IFICC’s latest attempt to recruit MC against the organisation to which he devoted the last two decades of his life, we are presented with proof that MC’s words contradict the alleged revisionism of the ICC concerning the theory of decomposition, which argues that following the collapse of the eastern bloc in 1989 and the unchaining of a war of each against all on the imperialist front, humanity now faces the danger that it could be dragged into barbarism and even ultimate destruction not by third world war but by the acceleration of all the horrors of a decaying system – regional wars, ecological catastrophe, epidemics, etc. This is not a ‘third way’ which is neither capitalism or socialism, not some new form of social system – which is what MC was polemicisng against – but an alternative route into barbarism, even more insidious than that of a third world war. Socialism or barbarism remains the only historical alternative.

The members of the IFICC are not confused about this. They are deliberately lying. They know perfectly well that this vision of a ‘new’ route into barbarism was contained not only the congress resolution of 2003, but in all the fundamental texts on decomposition which the ICC has published since it developed this idea in the late 80s, not least the Theses on Decomposition adopted in 1990, which they voted for and defended for several years after that [3].

They also know perfectly well that the ICC militant who first put forward the theory of decomposition was none other than MC, who, following the terrorist attacks on the Paris metro in 1986, had begun to recognise that something profound was changing at the level of relations between states, and that the class struggle, for all its militancy, was not offering humanity the clear perspective of a new society. 

If there is a revision here, it is the members of the IFICC who are the revisionists. They have ‘revised’ (in fact, abandoned) the theory of decomposition, partly because it is unpopular with the groups they are trying to flatter. They have ‘revised’ (in fact, abandoned) the contribution of MC both at the level of theory and of organisational behaviour.  And in shamelessly declaring themselves to be following in his footsteps, they once again prove that they have revised their status as militants of the proletariat and joined the ranks of political parasitism.

Amos, 28/7/05. 

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[1] To someone unfamiliar with this question, the IFICC’s quotation is devoid of sense, because they cut off the ensuing phrase. The original ICC quote reads “the destruction of humanity not through an apocalyptic war, but through the gradual advance of decomposition, which could over a period of time undermine the proletariat’s capacity to respond as a class, and could equally make the planet uninhabitable through a spiral of regional wars and ecological catastrophes”.

[2] We are disappointed in the IFICC’s failure to keep up with the ICC press. Usually they scour our publications in fine detail to find proof of disagreements between sections, discords, and various forms of revisionism. They don’t seem to have noticed that the practise of publishing web supplements is now very widespread in the ICC, and that ICC Online is now a publication of the ICC in its own right. If we wanted to hide anything we have written, we would certainly not put it on our website, which has a wider readership than any of our printed papers.

[3] The 1990 orientation text is quite explicit: “today we have to clarify the fact that the destruction of humanity may come about as a result of imperialist world war, or the decomposition of society…the course of history cannot be turned back: as its name suggests, decomposition leads to social dislocation and putrefaction, to the void. Left to its own devices, it will lead humanity to the same fate as world war. In the end, it is all the same whether we are wiped out in a rain of thermo-nuclear bombs, or by pollution, radio-activity from nuclear power stations, famine, epidemics and the massacres of innumerable small wars (where nuclear weapons might also be used) the only difference between these two forms of annihilation lies in the fact that one is quick, while the other will be slower, and would consequently provoke more suffering”.

A reminder to the bold knights of the IFICC that they used to defend this point of view: “The longer the agony of capitalism goes on, the more devastating its ravages will be. The more the decomposition of capitalist social relations advances, the more it threatens to compromise the very perspective of the proletarian revolution and handicap the future construction of communism…The stakes are becoming more and more dramatic. The proletariat doesn’t have an unlimited time to accomplish its tasks. The victory of the proletarian revolution or the destruction of humanity – that’s the alternative”. Editorial of International Review 63, fourth quarter 1990, signed by RL, now a member of the IFICC. We can add that this issue also contained the ICC’s first major contribution on how capitalism is threatening the planet with ecological disaster -  a question on which the IFICC remains studiously silent, since it clearly raises the possibility of the destruction of humanity through means other than a world war between two blocs.