For several days, a so-called ‘International Group of the Communist Left’ has been carrying out a frenzied activity, addressing letter after letter to the whole ‘proletarian milieu’, as well as to our militants and some of our sympathisers (those whose addresses they have got hold of) in order to save them from the claws of a so-called ‘liquidationist faction’.

This is clearly police work which has no other aim than to sow generalised suspicion, trouble and ill-feeling in our organisation. These are the same methods that were used by the GPU, Stalin’s political police, to destroy the Trotskyist movement from the inside during the 1930s. This is a real enterprise of destruction which is no less perverse than the methods of Stalin’s political police or of the Stasi.

To all the Parisian members of the group called the “Internal Fraction of the ICC”

We took note of your text published on your web site in which you support a "Declaration", dated October 2nd 2004, of a "Circulo de Comunistas Internacionalistas", which is presented in the form of a successor of the NCI of Argentina, to denounce the "ignominy" of "these bastards" (according to your own words) who direct the ICC. In this text, you denounce slanders of which you have been victims and that were used to justify your exclusion from our organisation...

Introduction (October, 2004)

At the time of its 15th international congress, in April 2003, the ICC excluded from its ranks several elements who had openly behaved like informers and who, under the name of "Internal Fraction of the ICC", had gathered around the individual Jonas (himself excluded from our organization for "behaviour unworthy of a communist militant", see 'A communique to our readers'). With regards to the attitude of Jonas and the members of the "FICCI", which consistied of refusing to defend oneself in front of the Congress of the ICC, our organisation, in accordance with the tradition of the workers' movement, had applied a policy of the defence of proletarian principles: it had proposed to them to call upon a Jury of Honour (which they refused) composed representatives of other organizations of the Communist Left, in order to make clearn the nature of their behaviour and the causes of their exclusion.

At the end of March, the ICC held its 15th Congress. This was a particularly important meeting for our organisation, for two main reasons.

First, since the last Congress held in spring 2001, we have witnessed a major aggravation of the international situation, at the level of the economic crisis and above all at the level of imperialist tensions. More precisely, the Congress took place while war was raging in Iraq, and our organisation had the responsibility to make its analyses more precise in order to make the most appropriate intervention.

The ICC has taken the decision to bar from its public forums and contact meetings members of the so-called ‘Internal Fraction’ of the ICC . This is the first time that our organisation has taken such a decision and it is necessary to explain publicly the reasons for it to the groups and elements of the proletarian political milieu and the working class in general.

The alleged "intimidation" of a militant of the PCI

Believing what the "IFICC" says in connection with the "Stalinist methods of the ICC" (and having apparently forgotten the sentence of Lenin: "Whoever believes the word of another is an incorrigible idiot"), the PCI continues on this topic: "It is inevitable that the climate which is created in the ICC is reflected on the outside. Thus, one of our comrades who had had the misfortune to criticise such methods in a public meeting of this organisation (while reaffirming that he did not in any way defend the Fraction), saw himself consequently informed of the 'rupture of any political relations' with himself. The significance of this curious declaration appeared a few days later, when he was insulted and jostled during a sale by an ICC militant. We do not want to attach a disproportionate importance to this incident, which is perhaps due to the excitement of local militants. But it must be clear that we do not intend to let the limits of our criticism be dictated to by anyone, and by any measures of intimidation, including physical. 'Learn from what we say, it shall not be repeated!'".

In May the ICC began a series of forums on the theme of the defence of the revolutionary organisation. Despite the very serious events taking place on an international level (the US ‘war on terror’, the massive anti-fascist campaigns in Europe, etc), the ICC felt that it was necessary to keep to this theme because it has been subjected to a very grave attack, in the shape of a campaign of slander being waged by a few ex-members of the ICC grouped under the name of the ‘Internal Fraction of the ICC’ around the element Jonas, who has been expelled from our organisation for political unworthiness . Faced with such a situation it was the responsibility of the ICC to carry out the public defence of its principles of functioning. Without an organisation, there can be no intervention, and this is precisely the aim of the bourgeois state and its accomplices in the parasitic milieu: to destroy revolutionary organisations from the inside and discredit them in the eyes of the working class, and above all in front of those who have been looking for a class perspective in this moribund social system.

The ICC has just excluded one of its members. Such a measure is not often taken by our organisation. The last exclusion of a member of the ICC goes back to 1995 and the previous one took place in 1981. We only apply such a sanction when we are faced with extremely serious faults, and this is why we generally accompany it with a communiqué in the press because we consider that the element being sanctioned represents a danger not just for our organisation but for the whole proletarian political milieu and the sympathisers of the communist left.