We publish here an exchange of emails with a geographically isolated North American comrade who wrote to us after he began to learn about the historical positions of the Communist Left and the existence of the current proletarian camp. The discussion mainly focused on the question of the political organization of the proletariat, that is its world party to be built. As the texts of debate in this issue, the Party question and its construction becomes the central question to be debated and clarified within the international proletarian camp. It does not surprise us since this question, which goes far beyond the simple formal claim of the necessity of the Party, fundamentally divides the revolutionary camp between ’partidists’ and ’anti-partidists’, between the opposing dynamics that they express and materialize.

The comrade P to the IGCL

But any way, I am mainly interested in the organic creation of the class party. I have been reading on Bordiga’s conception of the party structure and also reading the party documents of the current ICC. I am very interested in understanding this more, but am running into problems as I haven’t anyone to ask questions to.

I am also hoping to expand my understanding of Marxist analysis and its application in a party structure; as well as an organization tool in connecting the Self-action of the proletariat to the wider class antagonisms of capitalism. But I find that the organizations that are easily accessible in my area are either ml and Trotskyist groupings absorbed in parliamentarianism or anarchists that have no desire to participate in parties and are resolute in their individualist actions.

As for my political development: during my time as [a student] I was more social democratic; I didn’t really get involved in politics. But as my studies went on and I was enrolled in what was considered social services courses it became clear that the ideas and solutions to problems that were being presented were either gentrification projects or development for the sake of capital investments in the wealth parts of the city (...).

I also started reading Marx and Lenin during that time. During this time I also started looking for groups that were in my area. I was involved with the WWP for a short period of time, but became dissillusioned as their focus was solely on parliamentarianism. I talked with the IMT as well, but their group is far out of my driving range and they seemed more interested in spreading their propaganda than anything else. I am presently in contact with the IWW, but their focus is on anarchist action and they have been spinning their wheels since I began correspondence. 

At some point after college I got involved with the reddit communist community as well, mostly as a good scource of reading recommendations. I discovered the left communist milieu there and they have been a phenomenal help as a source of readings and understanding. (...) I haven’t solidly considered my goals politically, though I have no interest in advancing a parliamentarian program. Something that I know stalinist organization push as a way of increasing a class consciousness that is ill-defined.

Our response :

Dear comrade P,

A comrade sent me the correspondence the two of you had. I am a native English speaker, so he asked me to reply to your question and to follow up with further exchanges. There are no groups that are formally affiliated with our group. However, we do have fraternal relations with other Left communist groups such as the ICT (leftcom.org), which has an affiliate in the US (Internationalist Workers’ Group), and Nuevo Curso (nuevocurso.org). We also know of other groups that claim the tradition of the communist left and that have a presence in the US, such as Workers’ Offensive (workersoffensive.org) and Communist League of Tampa (communistleaguetampa.org). That being said, we do not necessarily agree with all of the positions or statements of these groups, but we do consider that they are on the same side of the barricades as us, the side of the international working class. Therefore, we aim to be part of the process of consolidation of these various Left communist groups. We encourage you to contact these other groups as well. We do not consider Stalinist, Maoist, Trotskyist, or Anarchist groups to be in the revolutionary camp. For us, these traditions have long since betrayed the working class and are now historically-objectively against the working class.

(...) In the meantime, could you describe to us the evolution of your political convictions and what your goals are politically? What is the nature of your interest in the Communist Left?

Comrade P’s response:

I greatly appreciate you taking the time to respond, even if there are delays. I would like to apologize for the delay in my response to you as well, I have been meeting with my reading group here in order to answer these questions; as I believe they are better answered in a group than on one’s own. Our group has not yet meet face to face with our comrade in [my city], due to schedule conflicts, and me being tight on money because I’ve been laid off from work. We are still engaged in conversation with them and we are hoping to meet in the near future. In the mean time, the reading materials you have provided have been a great benifit and have given us much to discussion within our group.

The party itself must be, from the outset, an international organization and be centralized around its program and theory. As we work towards rebuilding the program the party operates on, we are also, in turn, rebuilding the party itself; as those who dedicate their time to the recreation of this program participate in the party itself. Our biggest hurdle is then to develop a program that both accounts for the historical demands and actions of the proletariat, but also takes into consideration the present demands and a path towards the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system, while retaining an international perspective (something you have already touched on and I echo here). The size of the party is dependent on the historical period that it finds itself in; these periods correspond to a time with greater or lesser activity in the party - from the dissemination of Communist propaganda and the program of the party to the entire mass of the working class, to actively participating in militant action when the situation calls for it. The party will only ever be a small minority of the class, and even during circumstances such as these will it be embryonic in size and function in comparison to a revolutionary situation. But even so, the party still makes no massive change in content between revolutionary and non-revolutionary situations, save for tactics and action.

We must be weary and heavily critical of small groups attempting to form the party. Those who wish to bring the development of the party back to the circles phase. This would be equal to a step backwards in history, where multiple parties had grown from their respective national contexts, and thusly had differing theories and programs form each other. The collision of these different theories and programs necessarily resulted in the obsfication of what was national and international in character within this mosaic of theoretical material. This obsfication made the international susceptible to the weight of one national party over the others and the generalization of its program and theory without holding a critical view to it at the international level; we speak here of the stalinization of the third international.

This isn’t to say that there won’t be geographicly dependent groups in the party. These groups must still follow the program and theory developed at the international level, but will also need to take into consideration material conditions dependent on their geographic context. Changes in the international program and theory, spurred on by changes in the social relations of capitalism, will also still need to be done at the international level. Geographic groups will need to adjust their practical action and how they approach their geographic context accordingly. These groups will also relay the material contexts they operate in to the international to inform it of the developments in the communist movement in each respective area. I suppose the short of it is, though there are groups based on geographic location, and they might conduct different actions than another group in a different location, they all must follow and uphold and develop the program of the party. 

Having said that, what do you mean by conssesions to localism? I fear that our conception of geographic groups might fall into this category, depending on what is meant by this. Would you also explain what you mean by the hesitation of more experienced groups in relation to less experienced groups in regards to critique? If any group is not following the program of the party, or advocating for a deviation from it, they must be confronted by the rest of the party and a discussion must be had; And, if it is the cas

Our second response [extracts] :

Dear comrade P,

In your most recent emails you further developed your positions on how the Party is to come about. You mentioned that the Party “must be, from the outset, an international organization and be centralized around its program and theory”. This position is shared by all members of the IGCL. You also stated that:

“ We must be weary and heavily critical of small groups attempting to form the party; Those who wish to bring the development of the party back to the circles phase. This would be equal to a step backwards in history, where multiple parties had grown from their respective national contexts, and thusly had differing theories and programs form each other.”

The problem is that the revolutionary milieu is composed of a large number of just such circles, as well as several small Bordigist groups that claim to be the one and only Party. In terms of our intervention in the revolutionary camp, that is what we have to work with. We maintain that it is necessary to intervene in the revolutionary camp with the ultimate goal of consolidation of the forces that do exist, a process that inevitably implies also a decantation or a separation of the groups and traditions that are politically harmful or counterproductive from the point of view of the objective interests of the class. In this it is a question of, among other things, purging the party in becoming of eclecticism. An example of this eclecticism is those failed attempts to reconcile Marxism and Anarchism. Moreover, these multiple different groups, which often coexist in the same region, are frequently not the result of their supposedly particular national contexts since in some cases they have sections in the same city. It is not clear to me from your emails how you view the emergence of the Party from the starting point of the concrete situation.

You wrote that there will still need to be some geographically dependant groups in the Party. I prefer to call them national sections of an international and internationalist Party. Having sections is not a concession to localism, because the proletariat of a given country is most directly confronted by “its own” national bourgeoisie. What we must be wary of are any assertions that specific parts of the Communist Program do not apply to a given section because of supposed national particularities, or “special tasks” (e.g. establishing a bourgeois democratic republic in countries with authoritarian systems of government) that the proletariat must accomplish there.

“The party itself must be, from the outset, an international organization and be centralized around its program and theory. As we work towards rebuilding the program the party operates on, we are also, in turn, rebuilding the party itself; as those who dedicate their time to the recreation of this program participate in the party itself. Our biggest hurdle is then to develop a program that both accounts for the historical demands and actions of the proletariat, but also takes into consideration the present demands and a path towards the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system, while retaining an international perspective...” (my emphasis).

We agree wholeheartedly with the first part of the statement, that the party must be international and centralized around its program. I also want to firmly salute the part of your formulation above that I put in bold. We could not have said it better ourselves. However, at the risk of being accused of being a pedant, I take issue with the formulation “rebuilding the program”. Perhaps it would be more correct to speak of reappropriating it. The program is already largely complete. Questions that were controversial in the 2nd and 3rd Internationals — such as the national question and the role of the unions — have been adequately dealt with by the various Communist Lefts that emerged in response to the Stalinist counterrevolution. Certainly, it is important to demonstrate the correctness of these programmatic positions in light of current events. For example, we don’t simply denounce the unions in the abstract; we back up our arguments by pointing to their actual policies of accommodation to management as well as the statements of their leadership that betray economic nationalism, such as the support given by the AFL-CIO for trade war with China [1]. The major hurdle is not in developing the Program, but in organizing a framework, fundamentally linked to the Program, that the present groups of the Communist Left can use to regroup into something more closely approximating “the Party”, which will require overcoming many of the weaknesses that affect our camp, such as sectarianism/opportunism.

You mentioned also that “Changes in the international program and theory, spurred on by changes in the social relations of capitalism, will also still need to be done at the international level.” A minor quibble here. While there can be differences in the Program of the Party during different stages of capitalist development, for example between the ascendant and decadent epochs of capitalism, the method for determining what is in and what is out is invariant. Basically, while concrete policies may change according to the level of development of capitalism, or according to the balance of forces between the classes, the method for determining the correct course of action – dialectical materialism – is a constant.

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PS: We encourage you to get in touch with all of the groups that claim the tradition of the Communist Left, but in particular the Gulf Coast Communist Fraction (GCCF), with which we hope to continue corresponding, and the IWG, which (as far as we know) has a militant that is not far from where you live.