I have been reading your platform...

Some brief comments and questions.

On page 3 of my booklet you say:

When the class once again takes the initiative and begins to use its collective strength against capital's attacks, revolutionary political organisations need to be in a position to lead the necessary political and organisational battles against the forces of the left bourgeoisie.

Is this the main role of the organisation as implied here?

Later, you say:

It is the task of the proletarian political organisation to return to the working class the lessons of its own historical experience so that they become a material force in the emancipation of our class.

How have you been doing this and to what extent can the class rediscover for itself?

Finally on page 3:

recognition of international meetings as part of the work of debate among revolutionary groups for co-ordination of their active political interventions...

Has this been upheld because it seems looking from the outside there isn't much co-ordination.

Page 5 points 4. & 5.

What is meant by a "meaningful existence inside the working class"?

How do propaganda groups become more than propaanda groups?

From Page 9:

"The Soviets are the expression of working class political power (the DoTP) and their decline and marginalisation from political life in Russia symbolised the strangling of the infant soviet state by the capitalist counter-revolution.

Do you envisge a soviet state in the future, a working class state?

Forum: 

RC

Some of your brief questions are a bit too brief for us to be certain we answer in the way you want so you may need to come back on this.

  1. You have inserted "main role" into your first question. If this refers to "combatting leftist organisations" the answer would be "no". Fighting positively for the communist programme is more "main" than that. Expanding the context of the question it is our strong belief (based on proletarian history) that the party/revolutionary organisation, or whatever you like to call the political expression of the communists in the class, cannot be the product of the last minute but we are working to create the nucleus of such in anticipation of future proletarian response. We redcognise we are not tehonly mebryo of that party. That's the "main" bit for us but we do expect that a major issue when the class starts to move will be the capitalist left trying to palm off a Stalinist or state capitalist programme as proletarian and this will have to be combatted.
  2. We have been returning to the working class the lessons of its own past wherever and whenever or strength has allowed us to do so. We do not belief that revolutionaries just do theory in isolation ("you don't make revolution behind a typewriter" - Onorato Damen) but try to be involved in struggles to test out our ideas on the ground. It's not adequate of course but then neither is the class current response and as the Committee of Intesa Platform (1925) makes clear you cannot make up a class movement through "expedients or manoeuvres".
  3. The statement about the international meetings is from the criteria for adherence to those meetings. Unfortunately they subsequently broke up and some years later the CWO and Battaglia who had participated in them formed the IBRP to coordinate activities between themselves. This has subsequently expanded to other countries and taken the name ICT.
  4. I think I answered a little of the question about a meaningful existence in the working class above but certainly we don't think we have one now! Our aim is to grow incrementally by our existing members participating in any movement which smells of anti-capitalist potential (however unpromising its beginnings) and winning over those in struggle to a wider agenda and longer term perspective (i.e not just fighting the cuts but fighting the system that causes them). Hopefully at a time of growth of general class resistance we will have sufficient material implantation in the class to be a more forceful contributor to its emancipation. We don't just do propaganda at the moment but communist propaganda linked to proletarian real experience we see as the only way for class consciousness to move forward.
  5. We do not envisage any "State" in the future except the one in "quotation marks". The soviets are the historically discovered mechanism through which the proletariat can exercise its dictatorship until the global civil war is won but which will then also be the mechanism by which political authority will pass into an economic administration under the control of the entire population (because by this time no classes would exist). This though is still a subject of debate and discussion in the revolutionary movement and as we do not know what condition capitalism will leave the world we can only outline general principles which are the basis for the transformation rather than paint detailed blueprints.

I am sure these answers do not meet all your enquiries but feel free to pursue them.