Who are the true sectarians comrades? The answer whether any of us want to admit it or not is THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST CURRENT.

If you don’t believe me just peruse their webpages and look up the things they’ve said about every other tendency in this “pro-revolutionary” milieu. Why should this “pro-revolutionary” milieu enter into any front with them at all? Why is a slightly larger front of “pro-revolutionaries” supposed to make any larger of an impact than their smaller component organizations?

When a group has spit in your face and stabbed you in the back often enough, it would only be expected to stop trusting the culprit. That is not a sectarian view, that is a sensible view.

One disclaimer here, I am saying these things because if you seriously want, as I do, any genuine unity between elements who are pro-revolution, you will need to answer some of these criticisms in a serious and non-dismissive manner.

We greet and support the appeal of Internationalist Perspectives (IP) addressed at groups and circles of the revolutionary milieu. We share all the essential conclusions and their implications :

The dramatic situation of the crisis puts the stakes of the present situation far higher. The proletariat is still the only social force capable to give an answer to the crisis of an outlived system. More than ever, the generalised character of the crisis of the capitalist system needs clear replies about the ways and means revolutionaries have to put forward before the world proletariat during the inevitable clashes of the class in which it will have to engage itself to save humanity from the disastrous future the bourgeoisie is preparing for it.

Internationalism will be nodal point of recognition and of gathering of the most conscious elements within the vanguards of the proletariat. Unfortunately, these are not only dispersed and split up by profound disagreements, but also by conflicts which left painful wounds. That is why we support all efforts which will be made to overcome these heritages of the past.

Therefore, on top of the necessities and goals underlined in the Appeal of IP, we think that, not withstanding the different historical period, we need to follow up with the spirit and orientations which gave life to Bilan when it noted in the introduction of its first theoretical bulletin that: “Our fraction, in bringing out the publication of this bulletin does not think to bring definitive solutions to the terrible problems which are posed to the proletariat of all countries. [...] it does not refer to its political precedents in order to ask for adhesion for the solution it promotes for the present situation. On the contrary, it invites revolutionaries to subdue the actual positions it defends to the verification of the events just like the political positions contained in its basic documents. [...] October 1917 has been possible because in Russia there was a party which had been prepared for for a long time, which had, through an uninterrupted series of political struggles, interrogated all the questions posed to the Russian and world proletariat after the defeat of 1905. It was from this defeat that the executives came forward to lead the battles of 1917. These executives were formed in the heat of intense criticisms aimed at reestablishing the ideas of Marxism in all sectors of knowledge, economy, tactics, organisation: no dogma could stop the works of the bolsheviks and it was precisely for that reason that they could fulfil their mission. [...] Those who opposed this indispensable work of historical analysis with the phrase of the immediate mobilisation of the workers only sew confusion, prevented the real resurgence of the proletarian struggles [...] And this knowledge cannot endure any ban or ostracism. Our fraction would have preferred that such a work would be undertaken by an international organism, convinced as it is of the necessity of the political confrontation between the groups who are capable to represent the proletarian class of several countries. We would also be very happy to put this bulletin before an international organism applying serious methods of work and with the will to conduct a healthy political polemic.”

We thus think that the resurgence of contacts within the revolutionary milieu should also take care of the tasks of “reestablishing the ideas of Marxism in all sectors of knowledge”, and this with “no dogma” nor “any ban or ostracism”, without opposing this indispensable work of historical analysis with the phrase of the immediate mobilisation of the workers” and with” the will to conduct a healthy political polemic.” Because it is only on the basis of such a balance sheet that, in the image of the bolsheviks, the basis can be gradually developed for a successful new October 1917.

Nevertheless, whatever choice will be made by those who reply positively to this Appeal, we commit ourselves already to support all initiatives, however modest they might be, going in the same direction. As for ourselves, we have already committed ourselves: (a) by positively participating in the debate on “The Crisis” organised by IP in March 2009 in Brussels; (b) by replying favourable tot its Appeal; (c) by committing ourselves to participate with all our means; and (d) by proposing shortly other concrete initiatives in the same direction.

We wish all success to the initiative of PI and we are convinced that it will meet gradually an ever stronger support in the weeks to come, as we have ever more echos of intended positive replies by other groups and elements with whom we have contacts.

With our best revolutionary greetings, Forum for the Internationalist Communist Left.

First of all, the workers’ movement had discovered the necessity of a “dictatorship of the proletariat” well before 1871. As early as 1852, Marx insisted in no uncertain terms that it was his most important contribution to the theory of the working class.

Second, when the writer says that “under the false banner of the dictatorship of the proletariat, Lenin et al shut down…” Does this mean that the dictatorship of the proletariat is a faulty notion or that it was used in a wrongheaded and counterrevolutionary matter? Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the author’s meaning here.

Third, what’s up with the author’s defense of Allende’s state capitalism?

Anyhow, this really isn’t a bad document. It’s actually better than 95% of the stuff that claims to be “socialist” in one form or another. But it’s still lacking, imo!

You say that this was sent to you for discussion, yet I see nary a comment on it; hopefully this doesn’t mean that IP agrees with it!