Political party
The
International Communist Current
(ICC) is a
left communist
international organisation. It was founded at a conference in January 1975 where it was established as a centralised organisation with sections in
France
,
Britain
,
Spain
, United States,
Italy
, and
Venezuela
.
[1]
It would go on to establish sections in
Belgium
,
Germany
,
Netherlands
,
Sweden
,
India
,
Turkey
,
Philippines
,
Brazil
,
Peru
,
Ecuador
and
Mexico
. The ICC published the first issue of its theoretical journal International Review in April 1975 and since then has published it quarterly, mainly in English, French and Spanish.
History
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In 1976, the ICC held its first international congress; among the participants was
Jan Appel
, a veteran of the
German Revolution
and the 1920
Ruhr Uprising
. In the years that followed, contact was also opened up with
Onorato Damen
of the
Internationalist Communist Party
in Italy, and with
Cajo Brendel
of Daad en Gedachte in the Netherlands.
[2]
In 1977, two years after both the formation of the ICC and
Communist Workers Organisation
, the Aberdeen and Edinburgh sections of the CWO left to join the ICC.
[3]
In 1981, many of those same members would split from the ICC to form the
Communist Bulletin Group
.
With Marc Chirik's death in 1990, having given his last 15 years to the organisation, the ICC published a brief summary of his life.
[4]
[5]
Political positions and intervention
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The ICC outlines its political positions in their short Basic Positions published on the back of every ICC publication as well as in their manifestos and platform.
[6]
It claims to have created a "synthesis" of the different elements of the left communist tradition, in particular those targeted by
Vladimir Lenin
in his famous
"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder
: against participation in parliament or the trades unions, and against "entryism" into the
Social Democratic
, Labour, Communist or
Trotskyist
parties.
[7]
However, at the same time they reject varieties of
councilism
which reject the
Russian Revolution
, saying that they express "a movement away from the conceptions of revolutionary Marxism".
[8]
The "Basic Positions" published on the back of every ICC publication define the organisation's activity as follows:
- "
Political and theoretical clarification of the goals and methods of the proletarian struggle, of its historic and its immediate conditions.
- Organised intervention, united and centralised on an international scale, in order to contribute to the process which leads to the revolutionary action of the proletariat.
- The regroupment of revolutionaries with the aim of constituting a real world communist party, which is indispensable to the working class for the overthrow of capitalism and the creation of a communist society.
"
From the beginning, the ICC attached considerable importance to the republication and critique of texts from the workers' movement.
[9]
Over the years, it has published a number of books and texts including:
- A history of the British Communist Left
[10]
- A history of the Russian Communist Left
[11]
(recent issues of the
International Review
have included a previously unavailable complete edition of a document by
Gavril Myasnikov
[12]
)
- A history of the Italian Communist Left
- A history of the Dutch and German Communist Left
[13]
- A history of the left wing of the Turkish Communist Party
The ICC's conception of practical activity within the day-to-day struggles of the working class was set out in a "Reply to our critics".
[14]
The organisation's French section was heavily involved in the steelworkers' struggle in 1979.
[15]
The ICC has defined itself as
anti-freemasonry
, stating that "As exploiting classes, these enemies of the proletariat necessarily employ secrecy and deception both against each other and against the working class."
[16]
Member parties
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Publications
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The ICC publishes its theoretical quarterly
International Review
in English, French, and Spanish.
It publishes regular agitational articles (in its printed press and/or on its web site), in the following languages: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Dutch, Turkish, Tagalog, and Portuguese.
It also publishes less regularly or occasionally in Russian, Hindi, Bengali, Korean,
Persian
, Japanese and Swedish.
It has also published basic texts in Greek, Finnish, Chinese, Arabic and Hungarian.
India
[
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]
Communist Internationalist is the press of the International Communist Current in
India
. It publishes pamphlets, leaflets and statements in
English
,
Hindi
and
Bengali
.
Notes
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]
Sources
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]
- Hempel, Pierre (1993).
Marc Laverne et la Gauche Communiste de France, Tome 1
. France: Chatillon.
- Bourseiller, Christophe (2003).
Histoire generale de l'Ultra-Gauche
. Paris: Editions Denoel.
ISBN
2207251632
.
- Internationale situationniste 1958-69
. Amsterdam: Van Gennep. 1970.
External links
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