On 25th-27th April 1997 the Internationalist Communist Party (PCInt), otherwise known by its newspaper, Battaglia Comunista, held its VI Congress in Milan. Also present were delegates from the CWO, Battaglia's sister organisation in the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party (IBRP), and messages of support were received from sympathisers in Europe and the USA. ⁽¹⁾

This issue is devoted entirely to the theses and documents accepted by the Congress. There is one omission - the comrades in Italy voted to accept an updated and amended version of the IBRP Platform to replace the old and now outdated PCInt Platform. Thus the ambiguity of having two platforms has been formally removed. The English version of the IBRP Platform will be published shortly as a separate document. (Translations are also being prepared in French, Spanish and Farsi.) The theses on the tasks of communists on capitalism's periphery are in fact a revision of earlier IBRP theses published originally in Communist Review 3. The political content of the theses remains the same but the new, updated version will be discussed by the CWO at its next AGM.

According to current “post-modernist” ideology anyone who calls themselves “communist” and any organisation which still sees class struggle as the sole force for revolutionary change - indeed, anyone who posits the possibility of an alternative to capitalism - quite simply has an anachronistic mindset which cannot explain or come to terms with the “real world”. The documents here prove otherwise. These are not the product of a political Neanderthal mindlessly repeating outworn formulaes. On the contrary, they have as their starting point the political and economic changes which have occurred since Battaglia's last Congress in 1983 and which are supposed to lead to new political “paradigms”. In the words of Battaglia* these “changes of scene” are first,

the implosion of the Soviet bloc as a consequence of the crisis at the weakest link of the imperialist chain and the subsequent change in the imperialist scenario that leads on to war. The other main product of the crisis in the cycle of accumulation - which the last Congress had already identified - is on the one hand the fundamental restructuring of the productive apparatus, known as the “third technological revolution” and which coincides with the microprocessor, and on the other the massive growth of the financial sector of the capitalist economy.. The theses here deal in detail with the consequences of these events as well as how they affect the prospect for revolution. ⁽²⁾

At this point we should add that it is above all the work of Battaglia on capitalist restructuring of the economy and workplace and their study of the economic impulses to financial and productive globalisation which have ensured that the Communist Left can provide an analysis of the world as it is today.

However, the Congress was not limited to acknowledging the changes that capitalism has undergone in the abstract. It also made no bones about the fact that,

The fifteen years which separate us from the last Congress have been marked mainly by the passivity of the class even as it has experienced the most severe attacks. Initially this weighed down the more traditional structures of the organisation: exhausting previously enthusiastic militants and sympathisers who retreated into private life. (Here it's worth noting a fact which is obvious to us but not to everyone, that despite these objective losses they have not given rise to political grouplets.) Now the situation is back to “normal”. For those who have worked, studied and struggled the situation has remained the same over decades, nor could anyone else have changed it. Yet for those who are convinced of the historical unviability of the present society and of the validity of our positions for the future the honour befalls them of preparing, not so much the foundation stones, but the instruments for laying them - which is the task of the hour.

Here is no blind repetition of the proletariat continuing towards its historic goal come what may, a dogma which is more akin to a religious litany than revolutionary Marxism. What stands out above all is BC's determination to understand the period we are living through in order to have a sound political practice. For this there is no better tool than historical materialism and, as the theses on globalisation remind us, there is no need for today's would-be revolutionaries to “go beyond” Marxism. The framework of a world capitalist system in the throes of economic crisis still holds and if an unexpected aspect of this was the collapse of the Russian imperialist bloc the basic premise - that this was state capitalist - remains and the revolutionary agenda has not altered one iota. What has changed is the appearance of some of our political opponents. In the words of Battaglia again,

... the more traditional adversaries (in the shape of the CP, classical social democracy) have, or seem to have, disappeared and others - apparently new - have appeared with correspondingly new vocabularies and ideological armouries. There is no doubt that anyone who advances to political maturity having dealt with these new opponents will be better equipped and in a word, less stale, than some of us who broke our political teeth fight other battles.

Which brings us to another significant aspect of the Congress, namely that for every one who has become demoralised and who has retreated into private life, two fresher comrades have taken their place. - A sign that despite all the talk about the death of communism the material reality of capitalism ensures that the old mole keeps burrowing away.

The documents here are not the product of a sclerotic organisation clinging to the past. They deserve to be read, studied and discussed by everyone seriously concerned with creating a viable alternative to capitalism. For there can be no talk of the proletariat pursuing its revolutionary goal unless and until there exists an identifiable international party with significant roots inside the working class. The first prerequisite for this is that we have an up to date analysis of the actual situation of the working class and an accompanying political practice which relates to that reality. Nobody in the International Bureau claims to have a monopoly of all the answers. However, the CWO has translated Battaglia's Congress documents not simply out of duty but from the conviction that they are an essential contribution to the revival of a revolutionary movement.

(1) For a fuller report of the Congress by the CWO, see Revolutionary Perspectives 7.

(2) All quotations are from the editorial of Prometeo 13 (Series V), which was devoted to BC's Congress documents.