Capitalist society, in the final phase of decline, is giving birth to a whole variety of "identity crises". The atomisation inherent in the system of generalised commodity production is reaching new levels, and this applies both to social life as a whole and to the reactions against the increasing misery and oppression spawned by the system.

The current situation in Germany is in a sense, a concentrate of a whole series of issues of major importance in the present situation: Germany is at the heart of the refugee crisis, the rise in populism and the threat this poses to political stability, the imperialist confrontations with Russia, to name but a few. This report, adopted by the February 2016 joint conference of the ICC sections in Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland, does not claim to be complete but rather to open up a reflection on these difficult questions.

This quote was originally included in the report, but omitted because of its length.

The ICC’s 21st Congress adopted a report on the ICC’s role as a “Fraction”. We publish here the first part, giving the historical context and a reminder of the Fraction as a concept.

The ICC’s section in France recently held its 21st Congress which took place over two sessions. The first, devoted to debates about the organisational problems of the oldest section of the ICC, took place during our Extraordinary International Conference last May[1]. The second session of the Congress was devoted to two questions:

1. The analysis of the balance of forces in the social situation in France, on the basis of a critical examination of our difficulties in analysing the movement against pension reforms in the autumn of 2010. The debates on this question led to the Congress adopting a ‘Resolution on the social situation in France’ which we publish in this issue of WR.
    
2. The defence of the organisation faced with pogromist and police-type attacks (fuelled by certain social networks, blogs and websites) which targets us as the main internationally organised current of the communist left.

The congress of a communist organisation is one of the most important moments of its life and activity. It has a responsibility to give an account of its activity to the working class as a whole.

The ICC Section in France held its 20th Congress recently. As with the plenary gatherings of our other territorial sections, an important part of the work of the RI Congress was devoted to the discussion of the activities of the ICC. Moreover, in the way in which in recent years our organisation has devoted its congress debates to analysing the evolution of the economic crisis and the class struggle in particular, this Congress of RI gave itself the task of conducting a specific discussion on the dynamics of the imperialist conflicts by placing them in a historical and theoretical framework.

The ICC held its 19th Congress last May. In general a congress is the most important moment in the life of revolutionary organisations, and since the latter are an integral part of the working class, they have a responsibility to draw out the main lessons of their congresses and make them accessible to a wider audience within the class. This is the aim of the present article.

 The text that follows is, apart from a few minor changes, the economic part of the report on the situation in Britain for the 19th Congress of the ICC’s section in Britain. We thought it would be useful to publish it to the outside since it provides a number of factors and analyses which enable us to grasp how the world economic crisis is expressing itself in the world’s oldest capitalist power. 

Crisis of overproduction, state capitalism, and the war economy

(Extracts from the report on the international situation, 5th Congress of Revolution Internationale.)

After having turned the globe into a gigantic slaughterhouse, inflicting two world wars, nuclear terror and countless local conflicts on an agonised humanity, decadent capitalism has entered into its phase of decomposition, a new historic phase first marked by the collapse of the Eastern bloc in 1989. In this historic phase, the direct employment of military violence by the great powers, above all by the USA, becomes a permanent phenomenon.

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The ICC has just held its 10th Congress.

The International Communist Current has just held its 8th Congress.

Economic crisis: Descent into the abyss and the impasse of the capitalist class