The history of the Italian Communist Left is not neutral, looking down on the social battlefield. In today's world of decomposing capitalism, the alternative posed fifty years ago by the Communist Left is more valid than ever: "communist revolution, or the destruction of humanity."

Of course, according to the ruling class everywhere today, communism, the revolutionary perspective of the working class, has died with the collapse of stalinism. But this is a monstrous lie. Stalinism was the gravedigger of the 1917 October Revolution and therefore the deadliest enemy of the communist perspective. Stalinism was the main vehicle for the greatest counter-revolution in history. In the midst of this defeat the Italian Communist Left remained faithful to the internationalist principles of the working class, and tried to draw the lessons of a counter-revolution which terminally infected even the Trotskyist Opposition.

The aim of this brief history of the struggle of the Italian Communist Left is to help all those who have thrown in their lot with the revolutionary working class to bridge the gap between their past and their present.