Fascist Intimidation in Bolzano
Internationalist Solidarity with the Attacked Comrades
On the evening of 18 March two comrades of the “Friends of Spartacus” of Bolzano were attacked by two fascists, one of whom is a well-known militant of the Student Block, youth wing of the fascist organisation “Casa Pound”. Our comrades responded decisively to the attack and the attempt at intimidation failed.
It is not the first time that militants of the extreme right have attacked or tailed our comrades on some pretext because behind the democratic and respectable mask which has become the fashion recently amongst the fascists hides nothing less than the unmistakable thuggish and anti-working class style which characterises such organisations.
We want to make it known that internationalists have no interest in being dragged on to the anti-fascist terrain as such nor to contribute to the clashes between fascists and anti-fascists in defence of a so-called patriotic or constitutional democracy. Our anti-fascism is called anti-capitalism and starts on the basis of the class struggle which defends the interests of the exploited proletariat whose life and work is increasingly precarious, against the interests of the bourgeoisie, i.e the bosses who starve and exploit workers, young and old for the intrinsic need of capitalism to create ever more profit!
We fight fascism and the fascists with revolutionary militancy in our workplaces, with class solidarity inside the workers and proletarian students struggle promoting the self-organisation of struggles outside and against the capitalist system of representation, creating assemblies of students and workers which autonomously decide the aims and the times of their struggles, asserting themselves as a social class against the wishes of the bosses and organising themselves within and alongside their own political vanguards.
For a revolutionary, anti-capitalist and communist perspective!
Total solidarity with the Bolzano comrades from all sections of the Internationalist Communist Party, the affiliates of the Internationalist Communist Tendency in Italy, Britain, Germany, Canada, USA, and France as well as the comrades of the “Friends of Spartacus”.
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Comments
"Communists will not give in and will prevent other tragedies from once again striking the body of their own class." -This sentence is shown in the penultimate paragraph of the article 'Depth of the general crisis and historical delay in the proletarian revolution' of January/February 2012 on the website internationalcommunistparty.org (please note no dashes nor spaces when keying that in, to separate from similarly worded.websites).
Poverty, fascism and war are all products of the capitalist system. How soon can that be replaced ? And how ? The website and party mentioned above emphasises the necessity of a proletarian party.
It could be helpful to know if the CWO, ICT, which says it is not a party itself, wishes to be considered to be a part of the Internationalist Communist Party - again please note that it not the same as the party first mentioned in this comment.
I sent this article to a friend and he asked: who are the " Friends of Spartacus"? Can you tell me a little about them, please?
as i understand the situation today there are numerous revolutionary organizations, marxist and anarchist, that can be said to be on the same side of the ongoing class war. due to the still relevent theoretical differences, however, it is pontless (and the height of pretense) for any one of these groups to claim to be "the party". it is only through difficult collaborative work that the party will emerge. the truths which will orient our struggle are not eternal and passed down by a prophet; they are elucidated by cooperative work guided by dialectical reasoning. in this context, it may be to our advantage to have a somewhat heterogeneous "revolutionary milieu".
Responding to Stevan's comment of 2012-03-23, ' in this context' we need a party now. Perfection is an aspiration, but as long as the party is good enough, real progress can be made against poverty, fascism and the recurrent threats of imperialist wars. The size of the party will only increase by support, but at least it is not keeping the proletariat waiting.
DKTZ
I don't know whether it is relevant to you but this is an article about fascist attacks (something you got very heated about in the past when defending the Greek Stalinists). Now after Buddhism and Stalinism you have found Bordigism. Unfortunately you fail to tell us which International Commumsit Party we should be looking up to since there are at least 4 such parties with that name. All are splits from the original Bordigist party which parted company with our tendency (as represented by the Internationalist Communist Party) in 1952. You may not know it but one reason for the split was that Bordiga proclaimed that the founding of the Internationalist Communist Party (the PCInt) in 1943 was premature. After the split though the anti-party Bordigists not only formed their own party but argued that they had the solution and there was no need for interaction with the class as a whole and all we had to do was wait for the proletariat to catch up. The lack of internal discussion led to various splits (1966, 1972 and 1982 being the most significant).
Charlie
Re the Friends of Spartacus they are made of young comrades of the ICT and others. In Italy they publish a magazine of the same name and have ambitions to extend internationally but perhaps it would be better if one of them explained more. They have been very active in the occupy movement in Italy adn we have translated a few of their articles into English. If you google "Amici di Spartaco" you can get a flavour of what they do.
Cleishbotham, in reply to your comments of 2012-03-23-16:46, surely by following the detail of the relevant website to which I referred, namely internationalcommunistparty.org, you would have come to know the party concerned, which has an address in Milan. It provides a full statement of its main views, and articles of its Internationalist papers, some of which can also be seen on the website sinistra.net.
Thanks for your swift reply Cleishbottom. But if the Friends of Spartacus are already part of the ICT, why have a separate magazine, and aren't their ambitions to extend internationally, the same as those of the parent organization? Are they the youth wing of the ICT perhaps?
Incidentally, the fact that some fascists have identified and attacked a couple of comrades, suggests that the "profile" of the ICT, and Internationalism, is gaining wider recognition. I hope the comrades weren't hurt.
Charlie
Not all of the Friends of Spartacus are members of the ICT although not that far from it. It fits in wioth our strategy of having territorial and workplace groups where ICT members link up with others. FoS though is taking on a life of its won so it will be intersting to see where it goes.
The comrades, as far as I know were not hurt, and you are right, it is no coincidence that these attacks came soon after our public presence in a demonstration in BZ in the piazza.
DKTZ you have not taken on board the political significance of what I said. I am well aware of which ICP you are now touting for (we call it "Programma" from its paper in Italy) to differentiate it from the other Bordigist ICPs. These "parties" (which they are in name only) which all calime to be THE party do not even talk to each other let alone to the rest of the world.
Cleishbotham - on 23/3, 16:46, you said that I had "failed" to say to which party I was referring. On 24/3, 13:40, you said that you were "well aware" of it. So far so good on that one. As for my not having "taken on board the political significance" of what you said then, please allow me to deal with the subjects you mentioned one by one.
Cheers. DKTZ. 24-3-2012 - 22:37.
DKTZ said that: "I reckon that Marx was correct in regarding matter as primary and consciousness as secondary, thus atheism is the truth." But as Engels pointed out: consciousness is the highest product of matter so far. Incidentally, Stalinism isn't a perversion of communism, it is in it's own right an aspect of capitalism, like fascism. The perversion is the claim by the bourgeoisie that Stalinism and communism are the same thing. But we seem to be growing out of that these days, for which thanks are due in part to left communism, which is what makes it so
relevant today. After all, left communism, and Internationalism, is the only coherent politics on the planet at the
present time.
Charlie, thanks for your comments of 25/3, 03.15. Stalinism is a term that covers both the years of his personal power within the USSR and of followers of his doctrine since then. Looking only at the former part, do you consider that when you say that it was 'an aspect of capitalism', do you think that, despite the 1917 revolution, capitalism continued to exist under his rule, or do you think that he changed things back from an emerging socialist economy to a capitalist one ? As he became leader of the CCCP, either way it seems reasonable to describe what happened as a 'perversion' of what the CCCP had intended, if you disagree with what was done under his rule. Yes, of course the bourgeoisie claim that Stalinism and communism are the same thing, whereas they are don't even come close historically.
I am no expert so what I say could be wrong. As I see it, there was a proletarian revolution in Russia in 1917, and the working class attained power through it's councils in which the Bolsheviks played a leading part, by clarifying the goals to be aimed for. But you can't have communism in one country. The revolution failed throughout Europe - possibly because there was no communist party up and running, to point the way forward - and so the revolution in Russia was doomed. As Kronstadt showed. The Bosheviks were left in charge of a capitalist state (having substituted themselves for the class, and seized control) and it was downhill all the way from then on. So there never was communism in Russia, and thus no communism for Stalin to "pervert". Yes, there was a proletarian revolution in Russia, but capitalism could not be dismantled in one country alone, and so it continued. Not just under Stalin but under Lenin and the Bolsheviks as well. The difference is that the latter didn't intend this outcome, whereas tbe former... Well what can we say? This is my way of looking at it. Thanks for asking, DKTZ.
.
Hi!
"Amici di Spartaco" is a small youth internationalist organization of the Partito Comunista Internazionalista (ICT in Italy). It was born at the beginning of 2008. At first it was made up my a small group of highschool students in Ostia, the port of Rome. By the year 2009, all young members of the Partito Comunista Internazionalista joined Amici di Spartaco, there for it got extended to Naples, Florence and Parma. Untill in 2011 it began to be more likely an organization than just a small collective that published a mag: since, it was organized in territorial units, where the internationalist youth tries to trigger to socialism the proletarian youth of the outskirts of Rome, Naples, and other towns. At the moment in Ostia, it counts a territorial unit that directs small struggle commetees in most of the local schools, and has other units around Rome. The units all refer to the Party's roman section, Arnaldo Silva. Other units developed in other towns, like Bolzano and Milan this year.
Our mag used to be monthly published, at the moment we are doing a quarterly. We write in Amici di Spartaco mostly articles that are meant to be read and understood to all the youth that isn't familiar with socialist litterature.
We try to have contacts with other groups and comrades in the world... it would be nice to develop something like our experience in other countries, but we are familiar with the differences among countries and the difficulties.
It is important to underline the fact that the Party hasn't prevented the Youth Organization, it arized naturaly. So it will exist untill more youth gathers around the Party. It isn't therefor a strategy but only a tactic, to try and build a gym for internationalist struggle.
Hope I have been clear, enough!
Charlie, thanks for your response of 26/3, 06:08. Yes, I agree with what you said, it makes sense to me.
Karim, it's good to know that 'Amici di Spartaco' is producing articles for youth that isn't familiar with socialist literature.
Charlie, I'm no expert either. It is encouraging whenever 'experts' write articles which are not just for other experts, but which help bring the less informed to a greater knowledge of marxist views. Years ago the CP biologist J.B.S. Haldane wrote many articles on science in a way which was of great educational value. As well as writing for adults, he wrote a brilliant book for children entitled 'My Friend Mr Leakey', all about a magician, which included many attractive but also analytical concepts.
As I see it, today there could be considerable advantage to the working class by repeatedly focusing on the causes and effects of the key word - overproduction. A wider and greater understanding of that could be well worth efforts.
Thanks Karim for explaining about the Spartacus Amici: I like the idea of a "gym" for internationalist struggle.
Thanks also to DKTZ. I woodier if Haldane's 'Mr Leakey' is the Leakey that did so much anthropological work in Africa?
Charlie, thanks for your interesting question of 27/3, 02:52. I've looked through wikipedias on J.B.S. Haldane and L.S.B. Leakey. Whether naming Haldane's 'My friend Mr Leakey' , the magician in his story, as a tribute to the anthropologist is not known to me. In fairness to the editor Cleishbotham, as this, my comment, is also far from the original subject of the article, it seems best to refrain from making any more on it.
Charlie
I think your summary of the proletarian tragedy that was the Bolshevik Revolution is pretty expert and certainly beautifully succinct. Thanks
On behalf of the ICC I would like to extend our solidarity to the ICT and the Friends of Spartacus faced with the attack they have suffered. We fully support the statement you have issued, particularly the following
Please pass on our solidarity to the comrades directly affected
It shall be done ICC comrades!
cheers!
Thank you Karim
Communist greetings
should i believe the solidarity of ICC comrades is initiative of new international confronce with left communist
The solidarity we have sent is that of comrades who want to stand shoulder to shoulder with comrades and their organisations who have been attacked. Obviously this cannot be separated from the wider relations within the Communist Left but it is not part of some initiative.
Thanks ernie, we appreciete your solidarity, and we agree on your last tread,
the comrades of Bolzano