This is the second of two articles of orientation for the International Bureau, presented by the PCInt. It elaborates how the world party of the future will differ from previous communist parties and the III International and outlines the role of the IBRP today in moving towards the creation of that future party. Both articles are still being translated and discussed by Bureau members and sympathisers.

We concluded our previous article by maintaining that:

1. The old political category of “proletarian political camp”, which we ourselves gave to correct the erroneous definition of “revolutionary camp” insisted upon by the ICC at the time, has been superseded.
2. This largely excluded the possibility of the components of the old “proletarian political camp” (political components, evidently) from being able to positively contribute to the process of formation and foundation of the international Party.
3. We maintained that the Bureau is the only intermediary form between the present situation of isolation and dispersion of revolutionary vanguards and the future international party of the proletariat.

We are devoting this article to the argument behind the last of these three points, not least because the reactions evoked from the old “camp”, particularly from the ICC, demand it. We won't answer point by point the ICC's attacks and calumnies against the Bureau and ourselves because the splenetic nature of the writing does not merit it ⁽¹⁾.

A Camp Become Sterile

We have been asked polemically ⁽²⁾ why, after a distance of 23 years from the International Conferences of the Communist Left (which began on our initiative in 1976), we have only now drawn the definitive balance sheet. Well, we drew the political balance sheet at the conclusion of the said Conferences. It's not by accident that we say “conclusion”: the balance sheet had already been made and was repeated in the “thaw” which, on the one hand, heralded a new period of international circulation of positions and debate and, on the other, verified the profound methodological differences that run through the camp. To have pressed on with the Conferences would have meant (and we said so at the time) dragging the opposition between our tendency and the ICC into a useless and harmful inactivity, without any constructive outcome, either for us or, much less, for class perspectives.

But the end of the Conferences were not yet the signal for the end of the proletarian political camp. That is to say the category still made sense. In essence this means that it was assumed - also by us - that even if the process was going to be long and tormented, the components of that camp would somehow contribute to the birth of the international revolutionary party.

In the preceding article we referred to a whole historical process that has intervened in the meantime and which has indeed led to a definitive decantation. [Maybe it's difficult for some, amongst them the ICC, to distinguish between political events which are internal to a specific political sphere and the material processes that are happening completely independently of them, even though "the political sphere" defines itself in terms of these outside processes.] It is a process where the bourgeoisie has confronted the crisis in the cycle of accumulation by putting into action all the counter-measures to falling profits. First among them, the demolition of v (the amount of variable capital) by means of a veritable technological revolution - that of the microprocessor - which has led to a greater increase in productivity than the increase in the organic composition of capital and all with virtually no significant reaction from the working class. As a consequence the working class has had to submit to a process of break up and reconstitution (which is still underway) and though this has far from modified the fundamental relations of production and of class, it has changed the identity of the working class itself and the possible forms its reconstituted struggle and politics can take.

In addition to this process at the level of production there has also been an accompanying massive shift of capitals towards revenue and financial speculation, with the result that revenue and its division has become the main indicator in the classification of the world's powers and the cause of the major tensions between states and their still-fluctuating convergences.

The same quarter of a century also saw the implosion of the Soviet pole in the previous imperialist line up. This has shifted tensions to the inside of the remaining pole: which is apparently alone in the field, under the precarious condition of absolute dominance by the United States, something the old Atlantic partners find hard to swallow. It is in this framework of reshuffling of the cards of imperialism and of the generalised struggle for the appropriation of revenue that the various situations of war and "civil war" which increasingly punctuate the planet have to be examined.

Well, in the face of all this, how has the "proletarian political camp" responded? A large number of its components have simply put themselves out of the game.

The ICC

Now, who were the components of the famous proletarian political camp? - Essentially ourselves, the ICC and the Bordigists. The ICC, which we have defined from time to time as the idealist wing of the class movement, in keeping with its nature, not only has not revised, but has insistently repeated its schemas which we can resume thus:

• Until 1968 the historic defeat of the proletarian movement, signalled by the counter-revolution in Russia culminating with participation in the war behind the imperialist powers, made any revolutionary activity unthinkable. (Thus also the formation of the P.C.Internazionalista in Italy was accused of being an opportunistic operation).
• 1968 signalled the end of the counter-revolutionary period and opened the new course towards revolution (later corrected to the "generalised struggle between classes"): the proletariat no longer exists in a condition of defeat, and has returned to the slow and subterranean maturation of its consciousness, clearly something to which revolutionary minorities must fundamentally contribute.
• Though capitalism has entered its period of crisis and of decadence, it cannot instigate its classical solution, war, because the proletariat is strong and is not willing to fight; thus the chaos of "decomposition" has come to dominate.

In this scheme of thinking the whole of what has actually happened and everything we delineated earlier, disappears. There are also other, more general and/or accessory schemas, such as the one which divides the history of capitalism into counter-revolutionary and revolutionary periods or "courses". According to this schema, the 2nd World War marks the triumph of the counter-revolutionary period where the proletariat, having been defeated in the preceding revolutionary period, allows itself to be lined up on the imperialist war fronts and any attempt at reconstitution of the class party is bound to fail. The predecessors of the ICC thus judged the constitution of the P.C.Internazionalista and anything that the Party did to be opportunist and completely inappropriate ⁽³⁾. Then 1968 arrived to signal the end of the period of counter-revolution and the beginning of the new course towards "the general confrontation of classes", herald of revolution. And, according to this scheme of thinking, this is basically still the reason why world war has not burst out - because the proletariat is holding its own and is not prepared to line up with imperialism. This is despite the fact that the planet has never ceased to be studded by wars.

Finally (but only because of the need to summarise) there is another schema. One which divides the history of capitalism into two big epochs: of ascendance and decadence. Almost everything that was valid for communists during the first epoch is no longer valid in the second, for the simple fact that there is no more growth and only decadence. An example? The trades unions: before decadence they were okay and it was correct for revolutionaries to work there to take over the leadership, afterwards this is no longer valid. And that's that. Not even a passing reference to the historical and institutional role of the unions as mediators; much less to the relationship between this role and the various phases of capitalism, or rather of the objective relationship between profit rates and bargaining space.

We, with Engels, see the union for what it is: an organ of mediation between capital and labour, that has never served as a tool of revolutionary struggle. We therefore evaluate its function directly in terms of how far it gives an advantage to the price and to the condition of sale of labour power, and against how much room for negotiation and mediation capitalism can allow. In the upswing of the accumulation cycle the union, as "lawyer", can wrest concessions on wages and working conditions (even if immediately reabsorbed by capital); in the downward swing of the cycle the opportunities for mediation are reduced to zero and the union, continuing its historical function, is reduced to mediation, yes, but in favour of preservation, operating as agents for the interests of capitalism inside the working class. The ICC instead splits history into two parts: when the unions are positive for the working class - without specifying how and on what basis - and when they have become negative.

They demonstrate a similar schematic approach on the matter of national liberation wars. Hence a formal statement of positions which are undeniable and therefore apparently held in common is accompanied by a substantial divergence from, if not something outside of, historical materialism and an incapacity to examine the objective situation. Yet this is the essential condition for drawing correct lines of action for the party both now and in the future. It is no accident that for some time we have been following the current dynamic of capitalism in its various aspects, and bringing any firm conclusions into the definition of our perspectives.

The very fact that, despite the many idle polemics, the ICC has completely ignored this process speaks volumes. Here's a clear example: the existence of the GLP ⁽⁴⁾. Despite the adhesion of its founders to the Party, this continues to be "criticised" fiercely by the ICC without any reference to our elaboration about the changed composition and distribution of the working class, the consequent changed perspectives for the genesis of struggles, the relationship between all this and our traditional policy of factory groups and the consequent widening of their role and function to a territorial one. The resulting "criticism" is therefore completely out of place, one of the many polemics of the ICC against the IBRP and its components which demonstrates how far the ICC is outside the process that we have set ourselves.

Here it is perhaps also worth remembering the ICC's oscillations towards the CWO: once accused of encouraging "parasitism" then praised for its "common" initiatives (with the ICC trans.) in contrast to the closed nature of BC.

We have now reached the level of polemical jokes. However, they cannot hide the fundamental fact that the IBRP and the ICC are travelling on different roads, possibly parallel, maybe divergent, but never convergent.

The Bordigists

The Bordigist zone is characterised by three essential aspects, two of which are obvious for all to see. The first is its increasing fragmentation: all its components refer to Amadeo Bordiga, they all attribute their origins to the "international Party," which in 1952 came out of the Internationalist Communist Party; everybody says essentially the same thing, with imperceptible differences of tactical line towards the unions - but they are becoming more and more divided amongst themselves. It is clearly impossible to build together with those who are only capable of becoming increasingly fragmented between themselves. The original configuration of Programma Comunista (Communist Programme) experienced its first split when Bordiga was still alive, at the beginning of the 60's. This gave birth to Invariance which landed up in the most obsolete post-modernist idealism. A second split in 1966 gave life to the second International Communist Party (Il Partito Comunista); then yet another in 1972, bringing a third International CP (Rivoluzione Comunista); until the last explosion of 1980-82 from which a fourth International CP (Il Comunista - Le Proletaire) was born. We won't mention the other minor groupings, amongst which can be found a World Communist Group (except that it's now defunct) in France or Internationalist Notes (Quaderni Internationalisti) in Italy.

The second characteristic feature of Bordigism is the pretension to “invariance” which - since nothing else needs to be added - allows newspapers to be filled with texts from 1921-22 or 1952-56, or with pages and pages of incompre-hensible “interbordigist” polemics while the world passes by.

The third element, perhaps less glaring to the average reader, is the involution of various groups toward the limbo of the most obsolete mysticism, dangerously implicit (and sometimes explicit) in the writings of the “founder”, Amadeo Bordiga.

• The “historic party”, in its various “forms” of the immanent future liberation, straddles the whole process of human civilisation after the abandonment of the primitive communist Eden.
• That party, precisely because it is the expression of the immanence of communism, will gather to it the totality or almost the totality of the class at the moment of its emancipation and is therefore also the subject of the proletarian dictatorship.
• The party's “organic centralism”, justified on the basis of the identification of its members with the individual parts - by definition deprived of life and of subjectivity - of a superior organism which is itself the unique subject, would extend to the proletarian dictatorship, that is, precisely to the dictatorship of the party.

These are some of the salient features of the picture in which it is possible to gather such pearls of idealism as the “social brain” that would transcend the poor limited brains of individual mortals ⁽⁵⁾. Perhaps Bordiga did not have the intention of fostering the mystical vapours that emanate today from his disciples, but the fact is that this remains part of Bordigism, along with the repeated harping on about 1922 which, drawn out of context, is useless today.

Initial Conclusion

We think we have explained the reasoning behind the phrases in the document “War and Revolutionaries” that has so vexed the comrades of the ICC.

Not one of the components of these currents has provided an analysis of the situation of capital and its relationship to the working class that takes into account the real dynamics of the situation and thus they are all way behind - above all, when it comes to method and appropriate analytical tools - current and prospective events ⁽⁶⁾. That's why we deem the period in which it was permissible to think that the Party could come from that “political proletarian camp” is definitively closed. As with any other category, its validity is limited to the historical circumstances in which it is being defined. Change the circumstances, then its potential could also change radically.

As it is, the whole of what we defined as the “proletarian political camp” has been a failure. Given what has happened to that camp over the past twenty years, there should have been a process of convergence by those who claim to be part of the revolutionary vanguard, if only they had lived up to their task. Armed with a critique of political economy and historical materialism (Marxism), the massive impact of the crisis in the accumulation cycle and the corresponding violent attack of capital on the proletariat, would have necessarily found such a vanguard on the same analytical and critical ground and with a similar programmatic perspective. They would have moved closer towards each other. Instead the opposite occurred: the components of what was once a “unitary” proletarian political camp are today effectively on different planets.

This situation has to be recognised because it is the precondition for understanding what's going on and being able to move forward. Our objective is the International Party of the Proletariat: homogeneous, centralised internationally, in which the national sections will act on an international level as the local sections of our Party do today. Not an International of Parties, but the international Party.

A lot of political ground will have to be covered before the situation of today is transformed into one which sees the rise of that party. We cannot predict whether the process is also going to be a long one chronologically.

Whether or not the bourgeois dynamic towards war is realised will depend on the time it takes for the international party to come into effect. But there is no alternative to this path, just as there are no alternative means of traversing it.

Now, it is a certain fact that the famous proletarian political camp does not exhaust the universe of the groups and advanced elements who appear in the world and who try to take on the onerous tasks dictated by historical necessity. Although they may all differ from each other, they all may have a degree of clarity and completeness of positions, a certain amount of homogeneity and a proximity to what we maintain must be the programmatic basis of the Party. And in fact this is the case.

The objective is a homogeneous party of cadres, but the condition of departure is heterogeneity. On the other hand, it was Lenin who said in One Step Forward, Two Steps Back that "before we can unite we must be divided". Here is the reason for the political length and complexity of the process. And here lies the difficulty facing the “national” political bodies who assume responsibility as a driving force.

Shouldn't a multinational “expansion” of the strongest and most representative organisation be considered? No. Because revolutionary politics is a serious thing: a “section” comprising a set of comrades beyond the “mother” country cannot concretely constitute an element of true organisation. It is important to have the courage to recognise the difficulties of really making an organisation work at a national level: the necessary level of co-ordination of a “country” is not always complete; the distribution of the press, in our organisational condition of “small numbers”, is again influenced by the smallest variation in the availability of militants; and so on - we could continue with the concrete elements of organisation.

Furthermore, a mini-section parachuted into a country doesn't have the same potential for implanting itself in the political scene of that country as an organisation which arises from that political scene and which is oriented towards revolutionary positions - in which case, size is not the issue. Thus we reject as nonsense the criticisms of those who reproach us with not having “exported” Battaglia Comunista and we challenge anyone to demonstrate that Battaglia Comunista hasn't made known its positions abroad and thus contributed to the maturation of other groups. And what counts is not the name of the organisation, much less the copyright, what counts is the substance of the political positions on which their actions are based and their perspectives toward the international party.

The origin of the IBRP itself is instructive here. The CWO's original positions were framed in the disheartening framework of 1975/76. A criticism of their Platform appeared in Prometeo that was taken seriously on the part of the CWO. A debate ensued which led to the common line we now hold and which we present to the rest of the world.

Towards the International Party

Why do we maintain that the IBRP is the only possible “intermediary” form of organisation today between the scattered revolutionary organisations in the world and the future party?

We begin by saying that it is - or it should be - evident that there is a substantial difference between the situation of today and that of tomorrow and that it would be foolish to claim at all cost that the party of tomorrow is prefigured in the organisms of today. True, there are those (in particular the Bordigists) who claim - each group enclosed with its own followers - to represent the future “international party” and, in keeping with their formulation present themselves as centralised internationally (in the rare cases in which detachments of the same parish exist in more than one country). The ICC also presents itself as centralised to internationally. In fact, during the Seventies the ICC proclaimed itself to be the pole of regroupment to which the others could only adhere without divergences.

But this doesn't mean that intermediary forms between today's situation and the party of tomorrow will come into existence, and not just because we are excluding such formations as useful elements in the construction of the party. In any case, these specific experiences cannot hold as valid examples to follow so as to reach the point where tomorrow's party can be built.

Let's begin, therefore, with the “theoretical” alternatives that are from time to time put forward. They are, in essence,

1. The immediate formation of an international organisation, gradually extending itself country by country.
2. A federation of the organisations from different countries on the basis of a common denominator (a minimum platform?) as diverse as the defining positions of each.
3. Leave things as they are, with no more than the circulation of information and statements of positions, with occasional convergences over this or that long term outcome of this or that problem.

As far as the first case is concerned, we have already explained: this would be a movement of self-consolation and deprived of any real organisational content, therefore more counter-productive than useful as regards the problem of the real formation of the international party. This certainly obeys formal logic: if the objective is the centralised organisation, then centralise as soon as possible, that is as soon as anyone in the world supports the positions of the organisation. But formal logic is one thing, objective political dynamics are another, and they almost never coincide.

Somebody else says to us (an Austrian comrade) ⁽⁷⁾ that there appears to be a contradiction between our critical revision of the experience of the III International and our present-day resistance to “centralisation”. We deny that there is a contradiction. The III International presented itself to the world precisely as an International, complete and finished, with all the defects of a lack homogeneity and of a hasty affiliation of parties whose own development had been far from the cardinal principles of the International itself. The IBRP is not the International Party but wants to contribute to its construction and to the maturation and homogenisation of the existing revolutionary vanguard. The distinction - which we will go into more below - between members and sympathisers of the IBRP seems to us sufficiently expressive of the way in which we understand our own progress towards the centralisation of the international party.

The federation of the second option would presage more theoretical and political confusion than homogenisation since it would encourage the behaviour of self-preservation at the expense of serious methodological and political confrontation and thence a common maturation.

The third option describes the pre-1976 situation - apart from the occasional convergences, since the material condition was absent then - and would exhibit the defects of the second only much worse.

Thus, we come to the defining characteristics of the IBRP, listing and reiterating what we have said and written many times before:

The IBRP is not the party. It is striving to prepare the methodological, political and organisational pre-conditions, but it is not the party. If a comparison can be made, we could say that the IBRP is not the Party just as putting together flour and water in the pasta cutter is not tagliatelle: they are all necessary for making it, but they are not yet such.

In this sense the IBRP is not even - at least not necessarily - the original nucleus of the Party. It might be, but we remain open to any turn that the history of the revolutionary vanguard at an international level might present. What we can say with certainty is that the strategic positions and tactics of the IBRP, together with its legacy of theoretical analysis and elaboration, are the most advanced and complete of the Marxist vanguard today.

The IBRP is therefore the organism which coordinates (it is not yet centralised) the national and international work of its constituents. In this respect it is the organisation that represents the international tendency of the vanguard towards the party, on the basis of the platform that will define the party itself.

... In Practice

Coordination of the national and international work of several organisations obviously presupposes a certain level of theoretical-political homogeneity between those same organisations. And this is partly the explanation for the difference between members of the IBRP on the one hand and sympathisers on the other, i.e. the fact that the members of the Bureau are still its two founding organisations (BC and the CWO).

The Italian and British organisations have reached such a level of homogeneity that they only remain distinct due to the factors we have already noted concerning the concept and practice of organisation. In fact this is the basic reason why the activists of both organisations accept the distinction, being fully aware that such considerations are important.

Whoever doesn't understand, or pretends not to understand, that political identity alone is not enough to make an organisation, either doesn't grasp the question of organisation or else is so deprived of organisational experience to think that the subject is irrelevant.

So much for the nature and “internal” functioning of the IBRP as it is at present and for the immediate future.

The widening of the IBRP, which entails a broadening of the area of organisations which homogenously move towards the international party, will come about the moment other revolutionary groups are ready, on the methodological, political and organisational level, to adhere to the Bureau itself.

Thus, amongst the essential tasks of the Bureau is the obligation to contribute to the maturation and political growth of emergent groups in the world, pointing them towards its framework and its platform and to the correct organisational orientation which anticipates a direct and militant role for it in the country or location in question. Tiny groups of pseudo-intellectuals who are incapable of dealing with the issues and becoming part of the working class political scene in their own country are not elements for constructing the party.

The forces that will come together in the international Party will not only have matured theoretically and in terms of how they defend political positions - though these are essential - but they will build organisations based on the revolutionary political positions which they have brought to the working class, in constant awareness of the dynamic reality of capital and of the relationship between capital and labour. These are the organisations which in future will carry out the tasks of political leadership during the revolutionary assault and organisation of proletarian power, of the proletarian semi-state.

The ability to fulfil these future tasks will not develop unless the elemental one of putting down roots inside the class, even if they are as yet quite feeble, is begun today.!This is one of the principle tests of the political maturity of any group aspiring to be a section of the international Party.

The revolutionary programme serves no purpose at all if it exists only in the minds of a limited number of “thinkers” who are deluded into assuming their ideas are being transmitted “to the class” when they appear in a journal of equally restricted readership, or on the html files of some site on the Internet. If these ideas are going to have an impact they must be circulated amongst the working class - which doesn't read a lot and doesn't visit the Internet - by militants who find the organisational and practical means for doing so. Thus, it is a matter of intervening where the class works and lives, planning the best places for gaining a hearing, organising advanced workers who are capable of conducting the daily political battles and gaining the experience to lead a revolutionary struggle. The shape of the working class has changed so much as a result of restructuring that the very objective of putting down roots - even minimally - inside the proletariat today presents quite different problems and the possibility of quite different solutions from in the past.

It is not an accident that we have found it necessary to make a close examination of the present situation of capital: the cyclical crisis, the bourgeoisie's responses to the crisis and their effect on the capital-labour relationship and on the structure of the working class. Given everything that has happened, it was certainly no longer possible to think in terms of reviving the communist perspective on the basis of the political and operational schemas of a bygone period. Neither can a valid approach stem from those once Stalinist organisations which have transformed themselves with the collapse of the Wall, and now repeat in modernist tones the old ideologies of the bourgeoisie ⁽⁸⁾.

It is at this level, therefore, that any emergent vanguard group in the world must address itself, comparing the theoretical analysis and politics of the IBRP with the reality of their countries and, having verified their agreement through correspondence, involve themselves in the subsequent political and organisational work.

Members and Sympathisers

At this point the distinction between members and sympathisers of the Bureau should already be clear, but it is appropriate to make this explicit for anyone who still has difficulty with this.

As was said above, members of the Bureau are those organisations which are already politically homogenous enough to coordinate their national and international work. Sympathising organisations of the IBRP have a direct relationship with the Bureau itself, and, whilst often starting out from a different political and organisational frame, are working for homogeneity amongst themselves and with the Bureau.

Objectively a wide variety of conditions are likely to apply after the first moment of agreeing with the Bureau: theoretical and political differences may emerge mid-way through the process; differences in political and organisational consistency; differences over ambiguous areas, or rather, over the significance of points to clarify and deepen. This means that the length of time it takes for integration into the Bureau will vary, and, even that some groups will not adhere as a whole and will fall apart internally. We are dealing with political processes which cannot be predicted in the abstract.

Whether an organisation, homogenous or otherwise, develops to become a national section of a centralised international party is not a matter of our will, no more than it was a question of the will of Lenin and the Bolsheviks in the past. Nor is the length of time it takes simply a matter of will. Rather, it depends on the international organisation's political determination and the acceptance, or otherwise, of confused, immature or politically inefficient sections. The founding Congress of the international party must see all the participants at the same political level, converging together unanimously on the basis of the political method, principles and platform they have developed in common. Until 1915 Lenin moved towards a new international in the frame of the legacy of the Second, and, still in a minority, passed beyond the Two and a Half International which represented the generally more pacifist groups and currents of Zimmerwald and Kienthal. Concrete preparations for the IIIrd International developed between 1917 and 1919, in the full thrust of the momentous experience of the Russian revolution, and still virtually alone, while the majority of the Bolshevik party itself dallied in the “Two and a Half International”.

For some time now, and well before the reawakening of the class and an even minimal self-defence against capital's violent attacks, we have embarked on this preparatory Party work which many still find incomprehensible. The IBRP is the instrument we have adopted and which we offer to the small advance guard of today.

(1) The article which appeared in the French and English version of International Review 103 of the ICC (“Marxist and Opportunistic Visions of the Construction of the Party”) is ironically subtitled “Debate with the IBRP”. A strange way of debating that blindly attacks, disparages and vilifies. An example of their ideological deception:

opportunist practice... a series of militants who had openly broken with the programmatic and organisational framework to which they had been committed, to throw themselves into explicitly counter-revolutionary adventures, such as the minority of the Fraction Abroad of the Italian CP who went to "participate" in the War in Spain in1936...

To condemn comrades as counter-revolutionary when they acted in good faith and very quickly recognised their error is ideological dissemblance. An example of delirium:

And once more a heavy responsibility fell on the shoulders of the IBRP, who, for the sake of shop keeper opportunism, allowed the working class to confront one of the most difficult episodes in the present historical actual period, the war in Kosovo, without its vanguard being able to express a common position.

It is absurd to imagine that the ICC + the IBRP, i.e. the yowlings of four cats (instead of four here and four there) would have changed the situation of the world proletariat one iota. The notion that our coming together would break the isolation of the proletariat, in truth implying a functioning communist party that would somehow modify, even minimally, the political relationships between the classes is to completely misjudge concrete class relationships. Without exaggeration, this is raving.

(2) The ICC again, in the same article.

(3) It's worth the trouble, even in a footnote, to discard the aspersions of opportunism that the ICC, but not only them, cast regarding the behavior of the P.C.Internationalist during the so-called Resistance. Only someone who has no idea of what constitutes revolutionary political activity of a party could fail to understand the significance, in many ways heroic, of the work of our comrades in the partisan movement. We recommend inveterate doubters to read and think over the leaflets and manifestos of the Party in that period, available in Notebooks of Battaglia Comunista no.6: The Process of Formation and Birth of the Internationalist Communist Party (1943).

(4) Gruppi di Lotta Proletari [Proletarian Struggle Groups], young militants who broke away from Autonomism in the mid-Nineties.

(5) See the first number of the magazine of the ex-Quaderni Internazionalisti, [Internationalist Notebooks].

(6) See “I rivoluzionari, gli internazionalisti di fronte alle prospettive di guerra e alla condizione del proletariato” in Battaglia Comunista no.1/ 2000; published in English in Internationalist Communist no.18 as “Revolutionaries faced With the Prospect of War and the Current Situation of the Working Class”.

(7) We refer to the letter of comrade RS, in Austria, who declares himself to be in agreement with the principal positions of the IBRP and with our work, but criticises our attitude towards the “milieu” and related conceptions. The letter is available on the IBRP website.

(8) We refer here to the various splits from Autonomia, not accidentally linked to the ingrained social democrats around le Monde Diplomatique, that respectable organ of documentation and social democratic denunciation of the damage done by “globalisation”.