International Communist Party

WHAT DISTINGUISHES OUR PARTY: The political continuity which goes from Marx to Lenin, to the foundation of the Communist Party of Italy (Livorno, 1921); the struggle of the Communist Left against the degeneration of the Communist International, against the theory of „socialism in one country“, against the Stalinist counter-revolution; the rejection of the Popular Fronts and the Resistance Blocs; the difficult task of restoring the revolutionary doctrine and organization in close interrelationship with the working class, against all personal and electoral politics.

On 13 October last in Teheran, Masha Amini, a twenty-two-year-old girl from Iranian Kurdistan was arrested by the religious police for “improper use” of the veil. Three days later the girl died of the blows she had received at the police station. As is well known, Masha’s death was the spark that ignited the explosion of the contradictions which had been brewing in Iranian society for some time, giving rise to a wave of harsh protests that is still far from being placated. The State replied with a viciously violent campaign of repression: attacks on demonstrations, arrests and imprisonment, shots fired into the crowds and cold-blooded murders (even of a child). The demonstrators are mainly young girls who were soon supported by their peers and by adults of both genders. They were also joined, with determined strikes, by the Iranian proletariat who had been in a state of unrest for some time, such as the workers from the Damavand petrochemical complex in Assalouyeh, the Abadan and Kangan refineries, the Kian Tire tyre factory in Teheran and tractor factories (it is estimated that there have been around 2000-3000 strikes yearly in the country over the past few years), as well as other plants and workplaces around the country… The anger that had long been seething over the daily oppression of young proletarian women (or those destined to join their ranks), obliged by unemployment to turn to domestic and care work due to the long economic-social world crisis – oppression totally functional to the need for control and suppression by the State, the armed wing of capitalism – this anger finally exploded, becoming the spark that lit a fire spreading to other sectors of society.

This is a watershed moment. The economic, social and political crisis has converged with war to make for a situation steeped in uncertainty. Any attempt to decipher the complex web of factors leading to the new scenarios and pinpoint – albeit approximately – the trajectory of events in terms of their inevitably catastrophic outcomes, is fraught with difficulty. After the Second World War, the “Italian” Communist Left made a valuable contribution to the restoration of the staples of revolutionary Marxism and, to help us find our way, we may turn to some of their keys of understanding. One of these touches upon the historical trajectory of the “aggression against Europe”, which was elaborated upon in a 1949 article of the same name, and published in what was then our theoretical organ, Prometeo. The article contained an assessment of the differing relative importance of Russian and American imperialisms.

In the metropolises of the oldest States, as in those of the youngest, and in the peripheries of the entire capitalist world, the economic living and working conditions of the salaried workers (and, alternatively, of the half classes in decline and the proletarianised masses) worsen day by day: across-the-board increases in the cost of energy and staple commodities (housing included) and galloping inflation (resulting from the “monetary policy” of state banks that continue to deposit and lend money without managing to generate enough capital and surplus value to increase the average rate of profit). The unrelenting crisis of overproduction that has brought about a worldwide restructuring of economic enterprises (multinationals, individual or family-run firms, co-operatives, state-run companies, nationalized or otherwise), continues to spawn growing numbers of jobless and temporary workers, and an increasingly unsustainable work rate – the first and only cause behind the dizzying rise in the number of murders, serious traumatic injuries and diseases in the workplace. And the farcical wage increases of renewed contracts – for the most part dependent upon so-called ‘productivity’ – have proved worthless.

Since the end of the Second World War (the second imperialist massacre to be more precise), Capital has never ceased to bathe the planet in blood, as well as disrupting it with its poisons and its need for self-valorization. The list of the greater or lesser wars that have followed suit since then is striking and demonstrates, even just in the black words written and printed alone, that for a long time now its rule has become one long and destructive agony, a bloodbath that grows and spreads year after year. What is happening in Ukraine is the last “episode” in time: but an “episode” which, because of its dimensions and implications, can only serve as the antecamera to others, up until the outbreak of a third inter-imperialist massacre of worldwide dimensions.

Over three decades have passed since our party published this work. During this time the main cast and supporting actors of the tragi-comedy of economic, political and military conflicts among capitalist States really got their act together. Switching roles among themselves, and improvising to the best of their ability, they never strayed from the story line imposed by capitalist relations of production.

During this thirty year period, and following hard upon the expansionary phase generated by the second gruelling inter-imperialist conflict, the crisis period of capital accumulation continued unabated its rollercoaster ride of pseudo-recoveries and far more tangible collapses (that of 2008 being the most significant), intensifying the deeply embedded causes of the imperialist clashes that are set to spark off a new, and necessary, inter-imperialist conflict.

If and when the Russians’ so-called “special military operation” in Ukraine concludes, it will become evident to those who are not content to view reality through the deforming lens of mainstream ideology, that whatever “peace” (armistice? ceasefire? what else?) may come, will merely represent a longer or shorter pause before another chapter opens up in the headlong rush towards a third, inter-imperialist bloodbath.

There’s no going back.

This is certainly not written in the stars or in the psychology of one individual or another, called onto the stage of history to play the part of the ruler of the moment, but in the material reality of the dynamics of the capitalist mode of production.

The blast of cannons draws ever nearer to the heart of Europe. But if the truth be told, the cannons have never ceased their rumbling since the end of the Second World massacre, openly declaring that “capitalism is war.” No surprises there: long before even the First world war broke out, we communists had been demonstrating that that was in the DNA of capitalism – a mode of production that made a huge leap forwards when it supplanted the previous historically superseded modes of production, but which is now itself at the end of the line: more and more massacres, more devastation, more extreme poverty and instability, ever greater daily challenges facing the vast majority of the world’s populations. The opening twenty years of the 21st century speak volumes: only the deaf and blind, and those who do not wish to hear or see, fail to realize what’s going on!

1949. Only four years had passed since the last act of worldwide butchery, and the furious winds of war were blowing again across Europe. The famous walls had yet to be built, but there were already discussions as to whether the security of New York and San Francisco should be shored up by risking the lives of the German proletariat on the banks of the Rhine or the Elba. Almost eighty years on, the location has changed: will democracy, peace and stars-and-stripes liberty be defended on the banks of the Dnieper or, more modestly, along the European-Atlantic axis from Gdansk to Konstanz? The world eagerly awaits the outcome of the war unleashed in Ukraine: will the endless Russian armoured columns stop in Donets, or will they plough on through to Odessa or Transnistria? Will the Baltic States be attacked? And what of Scandinavia?

In Ukraine as in the whole world, in the face of the imperialist war, the proletarian watchword once again must be: revolutionary defeatism against all bourgeoisies and against all bourgeois states! (a leaflet)

Category: The internationalist n. 08, 2021/2022

Published: 23 February 2022

War is the natural habitat of capitalism: imperialism means, in fact, increased international competition, sharpened trade wars, the export of capitals which inevitably come into conflict with each other, control of the sources of raw materials and their transport routes and therefore an attempt to exclude competitors, up to the uncontrolled explosion of conflicts first local and then, in perspective and in the presence of favorable and necessary material conditions, worldwide.