The ICC is not the only organization in the communist left milieu to find itself under parasitic attack in the current period. A similar attack has been launched by the Los Angeles Workers Voice (LAWV) against the International Bureau of the Revolutionary Party (IBRP). All of this follows the collapse of the IBRP's American affiliate that had been inaugurated at a conference of IBRP North American sympathizers in Montreal in April 2000. The IBRP-sympathizing section was a regroupment of the Los Angeles Workers Voice (LAWV) with another sympathizer (AS), then based in Wisconsin, now in Indiana. This US regroupment, which organized around the name Internationalist Notes (a newsletter published for several years by AS), quickly began to unravel.

By the summer of 2001 we were given a public glimpse of a bitter political and organizational internal dispute within Internationalist Notes that had apparently be brewing almost from very beginning on some very fundamental, basic questions pertaining to organizational functioning, centralization, and intervention in class struggle. By December there was a parting of the ways with LAWV, which had broken with the organizational orientations and practices of the IBRP, and for that matter, the communist left. Initially the IBRP offered to retain, cordial, fraternal relations with LAWV, and encouraged them to continue their political development. In a letter to LAWV in December the IBRP wrote, "Perhaps you may develop towards us in the course of time or perhaps you develop towards another tendency. The important thing is that you develop…We would though encourage you to investigate all the tendencies of the communist left own political basis." However, shortly afterwards, following outrageous charges of dictatorial practices by the IBRP, the IBRP denounced the LAWV for "resorting to slanders, which pre-empt all further discussion."

This collapsed regroupment is an unfortunate setback not just for the IBRP, but also for the entire communist left political milieu on the international level, especially here in the US. Whatever divergences separate the organizations of the communist left milieu, the political legacy and principles that we share far outweigh the differences. The class line separating the communist left milieu from the groups of bourgeois leftism is very real, and very critical. The ability to strengthen all the political organizations in the communist left milieu, both in terms of numerical growth and in political influence within the working class, is a reflection of the deepening of class consciousness within the proletariat. For nearly a quarter century Internationalism had been alone in defending the communist left perspective in the US. With the growth of the IBRP in the US there was an increased presence for this perspective.

The dispute that tore apart the American affiliate of the IBRP centered on a basic organizational question, long ago settled in the revolutionary workers' movement. There was apparently a heated disagreement on the need for a regular press, regular public meetings, a reasoned and purposeful political intervention in the class struggle, centralization on the organizational level. From what we are able to make of the debate, it appears that LAWV, a group that was in the process of breaking with leftism, was mired in localism, immediatism and activism. In the words of the IBRP, "What they (LAWV) object to is not a Bolshevik model of organization but any organization which goes beyond their little group. As it is, United States Workers' Voice (as LA now calls itself) remains a loose grouping of individuals which does not consistently hold a clear set of positions but consistently show themselves unable to work with anyone outside their immediate circle" (Statement Regarding the Relationship of Los Angeles Workers Voice (LAWV) with the IBRP). The texts published by LAWV draw heavily on stalinist vocabulary and ideological formulations, such as "party building," "agit-prop," the need to be with the masses in motion, etc., and a complete confusion about so-called "reforms" won by mass, interclassist movements in the US in the '60s, and '70s.

It's not surprising that the LAWV had political confusions. They were coming to the communist left after a terrible experience in bourgeois leftism, actually stalinism, bringing with them tremendous negative political baggage, which was bound to effect their political evolution, and required firm political discussion. Their immediatist and localist weaknesses were clearly apparent in the period before their formal affiliation to the IBRP from their continuous grinding out of leaflets for distribution at leftist and union rallies and demonstrations, without any political assessment of the appropriateness of the intervention. Indeed this was one of the weaknesses criticized by AS in his debate texts published in the IBRP press. But again militants coming from leftism often suffer from these immediatist, activist and localist confusions. Their break with leftism is often marred by sentimental attachments to "mass struggles" and "agit-prop," an antipathy towards theoretical reflection, and a lack of patience in regard to intervention in the class struggle. They often distrust organizational centralization because they mistakenly identify it with the totalitarian domination by central committees in leftist organizations that they were subjected to in their prior political experience. The only chance for the LAWV to overcome this leftist political baggage was to put themselves in a positive orientation towards the communist left, to learn and assimilate the lessons of the past, and to subject their own past to a severe self-critique.

But during its brief and stormy affiliation with the IBRP the LAWV's actions clearly reflect that the influence of alien class ideologies predominated. The LAWV carried out political intrigue and maneuvering within the IBRP, holding secret and private political and organizational discussions in Los Angeles, without the participation, or even the knowledge, of AS, or the rest of the IBRP. They disregarded the rules and mode of functioning in revolutionary organizations, and of the comportment of comrades within a proletarian organization. The fruit of this bourgeois leftist mode of operation was the unilateral taking of organizational decisions, and eventual announcement of abrupt changes in basic class line positions without even a murmur of discussion within the organization. When criticized for these gross organizational violations, the LAWV responded with personalized attacks against AS, and with slanders against the IBRP. A group of individuals who carry on secret, clandestine political decision-making within the organization had the temerity to denounce the organization as being undemocratic!!!

We express our solidarity to AS, and to the IBRP, on this score. We, too, are very familiar with this type of behavior from the parasitic milieu that exists to attack and discredit communist organizations. Indeed this righteous charge of "undemocratic" and stalinist practices is incredibly reminiscent of the filth emanating from the so-called "fraction" recently causing problems within the ICC. There are obvious differences between the LAWV and the "fraction" formed by former members of the ICC, most notably that the LAWV were individuals in a process of breaking with leftism --actually stalinism -- and with only a minimal grasp of communist left principles, whereas our "fraction" was comprised of much more experienced militiants, some of whom had been entrusted with important responsibilities in the central organs of the ICC. Nevertheless, there are remarkable similarities in comportment; both are very much cut from the same cloth. There is the same influence of alien class ideologies, the same tendency to compensate for the inadequacy of their political arguments with peronsalizations in the debate, the same violation of basic rules covered with denunciations of stalinism and undemocratic practices against the organization, and the same attempt to insist that is they who are the continuators of the communist left tradition - the same parasitic behavior.

Once the LAWV had put itself into a negative dynamic in relation to the IBRP, it quickly fell into a sharp political regression. Thus, for example, the LAWV, which had affirmed its agreement with the platform of the IBRP since the mid-1990s, abruptly adopted the ridiculous notion that the Russian Revolution had degenerated into a state capitalist regime and the Bolsheviks had become counter-revolutionary by 1918. Indeed it was the appearance of this anarchist view in a publication that claimed affiliation with the IBRP, that help precipitate the IBRP's decision that a parting of the ways was necessary. While this is not the appropriate place to enter into a lengthy refutation of the LAWV position, we do wonder how the LAWV can explain the fact that these supposedly counter-revolutionary Bolsheviks of 1918 then undertook the formation of the Communist International in 1919, and exhorted the revolutionary proletariat of the world to break with the social democratic parties and prepare to spread the revolution throughout the world. For LAWV, the failure of the Russian Revolution is not due to the failure of the revolution to spread internationally, but because of the betrayal of the Bolsheviks and because conditions for socialism in Russia were not ripe. This pearl is actually a variant of the Stalinist theory of socialism in one country, since it implies that socialism in a single country is possible; the problem was that it was attempted in the wrong country, one that wasn't developed enough.

The political regression of the LAWV is continued in their new platform published in their new publication, the New Internationalist (LAWV bowed to pressure from the IBRP to abandon the Internationalist Notes name which has been used historically by ICP- Battaglia Communista). The platform is a poorly written, two-and-a-half page document, presented as a single, never-ending paragraph. Especially in the beginning, the LAWV text appears to follow very closely the Basic Positions that appear in all issues of the ICC's press (not as a platform but as merely a summary of the major points of the ICC platform), and borrows various formulations from the ICC.

The ICC is not flattered by this seductive imitation by a parasitic group. We are well aware that parasites often seek legitimacy by making overtures to established groups in the proletarian milieu, as part of an effort to play one organization off against the other. In any case, the LAWV redrafts and adds many formulations and points to what they have lifted from our Basic Positions document, which reflect their inconsistencies, confusions and political regression away from the communist left traditions. For example, instead of talking about the decadence of capitalism, the LAWV refers to a period of barbarism ushered in by World War in 1914. But later in the document there is a reference to "decadent capitalism" without any explanation what decadence is. The document is also unclear as to whether state capitalism exists only in the stalinist countries or as a universal tendency in all countries in decadent capitalism. The "dictatorship of the proletariat," a fundamental acquisition of the revolutionary workers movement going back to Marx and Engels, is totally unmentioned in the document. From the rightwing of the American bourgeoisie, the LAWV borrows the conception of "term limits:" "No delegate [to the workers councils] can serve consecutive terms."

Unfortunately, today in the US, not only do we have a weakened IBRP presence, and hence a weakened communist left presence in the US, but now we are confronted with the presence of a parasitic group of former leftists, with only a half-baked comprehension of communist left positions, heavily imbued with an amalgam of localist, immediatist, activist, and stalinist ideological conceptions from their past, and libertarian distrust of centralization and the Russian Revolution, affirming themselves as spokespersons of the communist left in America. At the same time they distort the positions of that political tradition and slander one of its most important organizations internationally, the IBRP. It won't be long, we suspect, before the ICC, too, is subjected to the slander and denouncement by such parasitic elements.

JG, 24/5/02.

In the context of the acceleration of political chaos and war around the world following the September 11th events, the Middle East is once again threatening to go up in flames. After being overshadowed for some time by conflicts in others parts of the world --Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Afghanistan -- this region is reclaiming its status as an imperialist powder keg. In a situation that changes daily, the bourgeois media is packed with a dazzling amount of information on and "analyses" of the region. For a start, the US bourgeoisie has made clear its intention to once again unleash a military intervention against Iraq. At the same time the chronic Israel/Palestine conflict has reached the level of an all out open war. There is not day passed without a new act of barbarism being committed by either the Israel State or its Palestinian rivals. The death toll on both sides has already reached the thousands, Palestine's economic infrastructure is in shambles, and Israel's is not much better. Both populations live in constant fear; the misery, the suffering, the desperation is reaching nightmarish levels.

As usual, the bourgeoisie, both left and right, all over the world exhort the working class to choose sides in this conflict, to either support Palestine's "freedom fighter" terrorists or Israel's Zionist defenders of the Jewish State. Anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim feelings are being stirred up all over the world. Pro-Palestine or pro-Israel demonstrations are organized in many countries. In the face of this campaign to push workers to choose between the capitalist cliques who are fighting in the Middle East, the working class cannot permit itself to be drawn into this nationalist war fever. The only way that workers -particularly in the industrialized countries where the main battalions of the working class are concentrated- can support their Palestinian and Israeli class brothers is by developing their class struggle in their own terrain. The working class has no country, no nationality or religion to defend. Against the present drive to war by world capitalism workers need to oppose their own international struggles for the abolition of wage slavery and all national frontiers. The creation of a Palestinian state or the defense of a Jewish state is not the task of the working class movement.

The Western democracies would like us to believe that they have nothing to do with the Palestine/Israel war. They present themselves as peace loving nations in the midst of barbarians stirring up chaos in an increasing unstable world. In the US, the Bush administration portrays itself as a concerned and fair "peace broker," while in fact it has provided political cover to Israel's scaled-up war against its Palestinian rivals. The latest Israel's military offensive in the West Bank aimed at weakening the Palestinian's militia groups could not have taken place without the "green light" of the American government. Despite the leverage that the Israel's bourgeoisie has with the US, as its most trustworthy ally in the region, it can't afford to go against American global imperialist interest. There is not secret that Israel could not have survived as a nation state without the economic, military and political support of the US for the past half century. Thus the US present support of the policies of Israel has nothing to do with a Bush government being somehow teledirected by the Jews, as some conspiratorial theories with an anti-Semitic flavor maintain, but it is mainly determined by the American bourgeoisie immediate political objectives in the region.

The US, paradoxically, needs this war to give a new lease on life to the "pax Americana" in the region, so that it can get underway its war against Iraq in the best possible conditions. The apparently contradictory policy of the Bush administration comes from this situation. It is impossible for the US to go into another war against Saddam Hussein with the Palestinian/Israel conflict at the level reached in the last months. The acquiescence of the US Arabs allies in the region to the US policies depends in great part on the US ability to reign on Israel expansionist policies. The 1990's "peace process" launched by the US in the wake of the Gulf war was supposed to create a balance of power in which Israel would resolve its outstanding rivalries with its Arabs neighbors. The resolution of the Palestinian question was in this context high on the agenda. This is why Arafat's PLO was given the task to police the Palestinian territories with the promise of the eventual formation of a national state. However this "pax Americana" particularly in relation to the Palestinian question has in the end come to a total failure. The Israel/Palestinian conflict has reached levels in the last year-and-a-half not seen since the 80's, jeopardizing the policies of the US in the region. Arafat's PLO - when it is not itself participating in the military activities against Israel -had proven unable to reign in the Islamic extremist terrorist groups. In fact, a group like Hamas is more popular among the Palestinian population than the famously corrupt, gangsters turned policemen of the "Palestinian Authority." This is why the Bush administration has no choice, despite the danger that its policy would alienate its Arabs allies, but to give Israel the green light to crush militarily the terrorist groups.

It almost seems ironic that as far as the Palestinian bourgeois cliques are concerned, the main beneficiary of the Israel latest military campaign is Mr. Arafat, Mr. Sharon's declared "hated enemy." After being humiliated and virtually held prisoner by Israel during the last 4 months, Arafat has gained a new political lease on life. Of course it is very likely that this has been Israel intention all along.

As far as the European powers are concerned, they also have their share of responsibility in the present mayhem in the Middle East. They of course do not have the imperialist stature to challenge directly the US hegemony in the region as Russia did during the so-called cold war period. However this has not prevented them from trying hard during the last few years to set foot in this strategically important area of the world. Thus their vociferous condemnation of Israel's latest military campaign betrays their past efforts to sabotage the "pax Americana" in the region. Furthermore they know that behind Israel's offensive, there is the American bourgeoisie preparation of a new and more devastating war in the Middle East that will weaken even more their imperialist standing in the region.

Once again the Palestinian question has no solution within the framework of capitalism. Palestinian state or no Palestinian state, the misery, exploitation and oppression of the Palestinian masses will continue unchanged. Once again it's only the world working class that can provide a way out of the increasing spiral of barbarism that is sweeping the world.

ES, 24/5/02.

On April 11th, opposition forces, including factions within the army, overthrew the Chavez government in Venezuela. Forty-eight hours later, Chavez and his government were restored to power. In both instances, the bourgeoisie invoked the rhetoric of democracy. When Chavez was overthrown capitalist propaganda told workers in Venezuela, and the U.S. as well, that the opposition forces were overturning a tyrannical populist president. The military forces involved in this action took great pains to insist this was not a coup, but rather manifestation of the "support of the army for civil society." When Chavez returned to power, capitalist propaganda declared that the overthrow of a democratically elected leader by wealthy oligarchs could not be tolerated.

The situation in Venezuela continues to be highly unstable. Chavez's restoration has not resolved the deep internal divisions within the bourgeois class that precipitated the crisis. On the one hand, there are the pro-Chavists who maintain their allegiance to the guerrilla methods of the 60's and 70's, their links with Cuba, Libya, ad the Colombian FARCs, and openly project an anti-American posture, which is unacceptable to Washington, particularly in a region that long been America's backyard. On the other hand, there is the opposition comprised largely of businessmen, the unions, the church, and various political parties. The military is divided with some factions backing Chavez, others the opposition. Chavez's return to power only exacerbates these serious tensions within the ruling class.

The U.S. regards Chavez as incapable of restoring stability to the chaotic national situation in Venezuela. In addition, Chavez's unwillingness to support American policy in Colombia and on the contrary to support the FARCs poses serious problems for Washington. There is no question that Washington would support the overthrow of Chavez, but at a time when the U.S. is so deeply engaged in an international war against terrorism that is purportedly designed to "help nations blossom through the use of democratic governments," the Bush administration requires that a democratic charade be employed to dump the bothersome populist. So, while the restoration of Chavez will not mean political stability in Venezuela, and bloody in-fighting is to be expected, the U.S. will have to intervene in Venezuela's politics more subtly, but also more decidedly. A campaign around bourgeois democracy will be unleashed to numb the working class and prepared the ground for ousting Chavez and his clique. Parliament will be used as a showcase for the disposition of political disagreements in a civil manner in a modern democracy, while the murders, backstabbing and Machiavellian scheming will occur behind the scenes.

The social chaos that reigns in Venezuela is not unique in Latin America. The recent economic collapse in Argentina also exposed the difficulties of the local bourgeoisie to find a common political front, as five different presidents were elected within the space of two weeks. What is "unique" to Venezuela is that the Chavez government represents the left Latin American style. His populist verbiage was necessary to quell the threat of hunger riots from the extremely poor social strata, which in Venezuela constitutes 70 percent of the population, and has consistently supported Chavez. The populist rhetoric is also used by Chavez to pit the poor, declassed strata against the working class, and to quash working class discontent by getting them to accept the imposition of tremendous austerity measures supposedly to help the poorest raise their standard of living.

Meanwhile, going back to last year, the opposition has developed a concerted strategy to manipulate the working class' anger both to legitimize its own action aimed at taking control of the government, and to derail working class struggles onto bourgeois terrain. For example, the CTV (Confederacion de Trabajorderes de Venezuela), the major trade union confederation, called for a 24-hour general strike for April 9 based on protests among public sector workers and the mobilization of executives and professionals within the petroleum industry. This strike was supported by the FEDECAMARAS, the bosses' federation, and by the opposition political parties. The strike was then extended by 24 hours, and finally, on April 10, the bosses and the unions decided on an indefinite national strike to oust Chavez. The Venezuelan bourgeoisie is trying to channel the anger and discontent of the various social strata and classes into an effort to bring some social stability, but above all, to prevent the workers for developing their own struggles on their own terrain.

The pro-Chavists took advantage the provisional junta's dissolution of all public powers - parliament, governors, majors, etc - to mobilize national and international support by claiming that there had been a coup that nullified the constitutional power and disregarded the democratic "popular will." We have not seen the end the ideological campaigns around bourgeois democracy. The working class in Venezuela will face the difficult task of developing its own struggles in a climate of democratic euphoria, against the tremendous weight of interclassism coming from the sheer size of the poorest strata, and the emboldened petty bourgeoisie within the opposition, a strengthened union apparatus, and all within the general framework capitalist decomposition.

An, 24/5/02.