Latest in English
Capitalist barbarism is let loose! There's only one way out: class struggle!
The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the terrorist attacks in Russia, uncertainty about the US presidential elections are all signs of the growing destabilisation of the capitalist world system
War tensions between Venezuela and Guyana: workers must reject the call to defend their country
With the growing conflict between Guyana and Venezuela, and the recent storming of Mexico's embassy by Ecuadorian police in Quito, it's clear that national and imperialist rivalries are spreading in South America as well as other regions of the world
New response to Steinklopfer
Continuation of a debate within the ICC about the growing drive to war, its nature in the phase of decomposition, and the state of the class struggle.
"Guaranteeing peace by preparing for war"
The ruling class in the west wants the exploited to accept austerity and war preparations in the name of " national defence"
Against the Barbaric War of Israel and Iran. Capitalism Means War and Barbarism!
The ICC welcomes the rapid reaction by Internationalist Voice to the escalation of the war in the Middle East: analysing the attacks between Israel-Iran and putting forward an unswerving denunciation of the Israeli and Iranian bourgeoisies.
Internal Documents j) COUNTER-RESOLUTION PROPOSED AT THE IIND CONGRESS OF THE ICC
IInd Congress of the ICC
We must take into account the impossibility of arriving at a transitional phase with notions that are fixed, complete, which don't allow any logical contradiction and which exclude any idea of transition.[1]
A) The period of transition from
capitalism to communism
Internal Documents i) DRAFT RESOLUTION PROPOSED AT THE IIND CONGRESS OF THE ICC
The platform of the ICC contains the essential acquisitions of the workers' movement concerning the conditions and content of the communist revolution. These acquisitions can be summarised as follows:
Internal Documents h) A REPLY TO CERTAIN CRITICISMS
Some of our recent discussions seem to have lost track of the aim of this whole debate. With all the different exegeses on "gentile" society, the dissertations on absolute monarchy and the scholastic war of quotes back and forth, we risk losing sight of the fact that the ICC did not embark on these discussions to show off our reading notes or to rival academic treatises on “the state”. We are trying to shed some light on questions which will become extremely urgent and tangible in a moment of revolution and we do this from a direct commitment to the revolutionary process.
Internal Documents g) THE ORIGINS OF THE STATE AND ALL THAT
The discussion going on now about the resolution concerning the state after the victory of the proletarian revolution must not be seen as some sort of speculation on an abstract theme. The theoretical work of a political group is different from that of a bourgeois centre for scientific research. The latter is composed of specialists who study this or that discipline by placing themselves “outside it”. Their “objectivity” resides in their professed “neutrality”. Research is a professional business.
Internal Documents f) THE STATE IN THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION
Introduction
Internal Documents e) CLASS AND STATE IN THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
1) INTRODUCTION
Internal Documents d) CLASS AND STATE IN THE PROLETARIAN DICTATORSHIP
Internal Documents c) POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC DOMINATION IN THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION
In opposition to the draft resolution on the state in the period of transition, which asserts that there is no mode of production in the transition period, the Toronto comrades state that: "When the workers dominate politically, they dominate the economy since they already have the levers of production, literally, in their own hands". And: "Socialised production is the mode of production, that is, production of use values, the communist mode of production in embryo".
Internal Documents b) WHO WILL DOMINATE THE ECONOMY?
Definition: When the class conscious world proletariat has overthrown the bourgeois order on a world scale, when all states have been over-thrown, when all opposing armies have been defeated, in short, when the “civil war” has been won, then, by definition, the so-called period of transition has begun.
Internal Documents a) DEFINING THE FRAMEWORK OF OUR DEBATES
To begin with, we must recognise the importance of the problem of the period of transition. The platform itself points this out in the section concerning the dictatorship of the proletariat:
The experience of the Russian revolution has shown the complexity and seriousness of the problem of the relationship between the class and the state in the period of transition. In the coming period, the proletariat and revolutionaries cannot evade this problem, but must make every effort to resolve it.
Basic Texts 7: THE STATE AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
In the Platform adopted at the First Congress of the ICC in January 1976, the question of the relationship between the proletariat and the state in the period of transition remained "open":
The experience of the Russian Revolution has shown the complexity and seriousness of the problem of the relationship bet-ween the class and the state in the period of transition. In the coming period, the proletariat and revolutionaries can-not evade this problem, but must make every effort to resolve it.[1]
Basic Texts 6: STATE AND DICTATORSHIP
The following text is an attempt to put for-ward a general conception of the state and the dictatorship of the proletariat without trying to come to any definite conclusions. It is a contribution to the present discussion on the period of transition dealing with the basic question of the form and content of the proletarian dictatorship. A more detailed explanation, especially of the more problematic points, will be under-taken in another document.
Basic Texts 3: PROBLEMS OF THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION (1972-73)
The following text is a report of a meeting held by the group Révolution Internationale in February 1972. The subject under discussion was “the content of socialism”. This was the first time the group as a whole had dealt with such a subject. The aim of the meeting was not to pretend to end up with a ready-made, immutable theory on what the content of socialism should be, but rather to open up the discussion, to begin dealing with the problem by studying the experience of past revolutions and the theories put forward by revolutionaries throughout the history of the workers' movement.
Basic Texts 2: THE STATE, THE PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION AND THE CONTENT OF SOCIALISM (1972)
In the period of decadence when the private bourgeoisie has been replaced by the state bourgeoisie, the confrontation between the working class and the “state-boss” is always a direct one.