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Public lecture held in different cities in the U.S. December 2024 - February 2025 |
Comrades, we find ourselves in a world where capitalism’s relentless advance plunges humanity into deepening crisis, exploitation, and the looming specter of global war. The working class must embrace its historic role in this unfolding drama. Today, we will share the deep and rich scientific foundations of the nearly 200 year history of the communist left tradition and our Party, our theory and the methods of action necessary to transform the struggles of workers into a decisive force for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. With the leadership of the International Communist Party, we can chart a course toward ending the capitalist epoch, and ushering in a new era of human liberation: the era of communism.
OUR TRADITION
The Emergence of Marxism and the Communist Party
For us the emergence of Marxism does not indicate the invention of an ideology by a single genius, but the birth of a scientific doctrine whose purpose is to guide the working class, the class of those who do not own the means of production and have to sell their labor power to survive.
The efforts of the proletariat to organize predates the emergence of Marxism.
The essential role and function of the party is elaborated in the Communist
Manifesto:
«The Communists are on the one hand practically, the most advanced and resolute
section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes
forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great
mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the lines of
march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian
movement.
«The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other
proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the
bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat» (Manifesto,
1848).
Founded in 1847, the Communist League operated in Western Europe, above all Germany until 1852 when it was repressed by the German police. Many of its members, including Marx and Engels, became exiles, however, and continued their militant activity. In 1864, the International Workingmen’s Association, also known as the First International was founded. Unlike the Communist League, the whole First International as an organization did not immediately corresponded to the party form, which was rather expressed by a tendency, called the Internationalists and led by Marx and Engels, whose views eventually came to dominate and determine the International.
This is reflected in the
organizational documents adopted at the Hague Congress of the International in
1872, where it is said:
«In its struggle against the collective power of the possessing classes the
proletariat can act as a class only by constituting itself as a distinct
political party, opposed to all the old parties formed by the possessing
classes.
«This constitution of the proletariat into a political party is indispensable to
ensure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate goal: the abolition
of classes.
«The coalition of the forces of the working class, already achieved by the
economic struggle, must also serve, in the hands of this class, as a lever in
its struggle against the political power of its exploiters.
«As the lords of the land and of capital always make use of their political
privileges to defend and perpetuate their economic monopolies and to enslave
labour, the conquest of political power becomes the duty of the proletariat»
(Resolution on the Rules, 1872)
It goes without saying that within the First International, a mass organization including many unions and with a membership expressed in the millions, were other political tendencies, representing the outlooks and interests of classes other than the proletariat. The tendency which proved most dangerous was the petty-bourgeois ideology of anarchism led by Bakunin, who formed a conspiratorial secret faction within the International and another secret faction within his own secret faction. In the climate of defeat following the repression of the Paris Commune of 1871, even transferring its headquarters to the New World didn’t save the International, which outlived the split with the anarchists only by four years, being dissolved in 1876. The Marxist current, however, born in battle, both against the bourgeoisie and the various kinds of anti-proletarian ideologies within the working class movement, persisted.
From the Second to the Third International
By the time the Second International was founded in 1889, the European proletarian political movement had already organized in parties, called social democratic or socialist, within which already multiple tendencies existed. We have described this process as follows:
«The fundamental characteristic of the 2nd International is that it was inspired
by revolutionary Marxist principles, but in the tactical field it made still
possible, for the individual national federated sections and the currents that
formed within them, to express different tactical programs, which the congresses
would define from time to time according to the balance of forces between the
reformist and the revolutionary Marxist fractions.
«Authentic Marxists, first Engels, and then Lenin along with the entire
international left, fought against all the various revisionists and opportunists
and tried to impose a revolutionary program.
«The old programme of social democracy, understood as its view of party action,
which in a historical sense was set within an allegedly “peaceful" phase of
capitalist development, included among the natural tasks of social democracy
that of calling for “democratic reforms” as a way of advancing the proletarian
cause. The Marxists in the 2nd International also recognized that in some of the
political and social demands there were elements which were historically
progressive, namely those with a tendency to complete the bourgeois revolutions
and which were therefore indispensable to the proletarian revolutionary process.
«But the Communist Left understood this path would never be able to avoid the
violent conquest of political power (...)
«After the 4th of August [1914], socialists on both fronts preached solidarity
with the national State at war, revamping the concept of patriotism which had
been definitively obliterated for the proletariat by the Manifesto. Only a few
groups of socialists would save themselves from the catastrophe of
social-chauvinism (aggressive or fanatical patriotism).
«Lenin and the Bolsheviks and with them the German group Die Internazionale and
the Italian Left continued to defend the tradition of revolutionary Marxism by
reasserting the imperialist character of the war, confirming their once and for
all condemnation of any kind of inviolable union or national alliance and by
defending the defeatist struggle inside the proletarian party against all of the
States and armies at war. And their watchword of transforming the imperialist
war into civil war is a powerful reaffirmation of the principles of
revolutionary internationalism» (Anti-Militarism in the Second International,
1984).
And as we wrote elsewhere:
«The First World War, the betrayal of social democracy organized in the Second
International, and the revolutionary wave which spread through Europe and the
entire world between 1916 and 1923 were the factors that prompted the birth of
the great Communist Party, the Communist International; an organization which
represented the final historical result of the world proletarian experience. The
moment had finally arrived for the practical realization of the watchword
outlined by the Paris Commune and clarified by Marx: dictatorship of the
proletariat – the one and only way to smash the yoke of bourgeois society on
humanity as a whole».
From the Communist Left to the International Communist Party
For the Bolsheviks as well as all the other comrades of the Communist International, the problem of liberation of socialism could only be posed in the economically backward Russia where the proletarian takeover of political power occurred during a bourgeois revolution; its conclusion would only be possible through its expansion to all parts of the world, above all the industrially well-developed regions of Western Europe. This situation would soon lead to the degeneration of the revolution in Russia.
Despite its noble intentions of achieving a high level of centralism in its organization, different tendencies emerged within the parties of the Communist International: on the one hand were various kinds of Rights, sometimes nationalistic, sometimes democratic and generally in favor of some kind of class collaborationism; on the other hand were the internationalist Lefts whose leaders tended to be among the founders of the parties and continued to defend the principles of the Marxist doctrine. The clearest and strongest of these Lefts in Europe was the Left of the Communist Party of Italy. There were others too, less clear in terms of doctrine though made of comrades, such as the heterogeneous Left Opposition in the Bolshevik Party, the KPD Left and the Archeomarxists in Greece. There were Lefts in Communist Parties outside Europe too, such as the Communist Parties of Iran, Turkey, South Africa, China, Korea, the Caucasus and Central Asia etc. All these currents resisted the wave of revisionism that was sweeping the Communist International under the leadership of the Stalinist “center”, in fact the most right wing and unprincipled of all the tendencies that emerged in the movement.
The international Lefts, overall politically heterogeneous, never managed to put forward a united alternative to the Stalinist Comintern. To do so required a patient work of drawing the lessons of the immense experiences of the past ten years. Most of the international Lefts were lured by Trotsky's impatient call to immediately establish an international organization. Others faced severe repression and were unable to continue their activities after a point. Under these circumstances, the International Bureau of Left Factions, or the International Communist Left, led by the Left fraction in Italy and bringing together small groups of communists in Belgium, France, the United States and Mexico eventually came together. In the period leading up to the second imperialist slaughter, the International Communist Left firmly stood on the revolutionary principles of the Marxists who opposed WW1, while so many others, even of the anti-Stalinist variety, failed to do so.
OUR THEORY
Past and Future Communism
Communism is the solution to the riddle of human history and more particularly the history of civilization not only because communism is in its future but also because communism is in its past.
As Engels wrote in, Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State
in 1884:
«At all earlier stages of society production was essentially collective, just as
consumption proceeded by direct distribution of the products within larger or
smaller communistic communities (...)
«In the old communistic household, which comprised many couples and their
children, the task entrusted to the women of managing the household was as much
a public and socially necessary industry as the procuring of food by the men.
With the patriarchal family, and still more with the single monogamous family, a
change came. Household management lost its public character. It no longer
concerned society. It became a private service; the wife became the head
servant, excluded from all participation in social production. Not until the
coming of modern large-scale industry was the road to social production opened
to her again – and then only to the proletarian wife. But it was opened in such
a manner that, if she carries out her duties in the private service of her
family, she remains excluded from public production and unable to earn; and if
she wants to take part in public production and earn independently, she cannot
carry out family duties. And the wife’s position in the factory is the position
of women in all branches of business, right up to medicine and the law. The
modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of
the wife, and modern society is a mass composed of these individual families as
its molecules».
Consequently, we have written that:
«All Marxists consider the following theses to be given: private property is not
eternal; it was unknown to the era of primitive communism and we are moving
towards the era of social communism; the family and above all the monogamous
family is not eternal, it appeared late in human history, and it will have to
disappear at a higher level of development; the State is not eternal, but rather
appeared at a very advanced stage of “civilisation” and it will disappear along
with class-divided society, that is to say, with classes themselves» (Factors
of Race and Nation, 1953).
In today’s world, between the hundreds of thousands of years of primitive
communism of the past of our species, and the communist horizon of the future,
stands the communist militant:
«The violent sparks flashing between the rheophores of our dialectics have
taught us that a revolutionary a militant a communist and a comrade is one who
has managed to forget, to renounce, to wrench from his heart and his mind the
classification under which he has been inscribed in the registry of this
putrefying society; one who can see and immerse himself in the entire millenary
trajectory linking the ancestral tribal man, struggling with wild beasts, to the
member of the future community, fraternal in the joyous harmony of the social
man» (Considerations, 1965).
The Historic and Formal Party
Marx explains the concept of the historic party as follows:
«The ‘League’, like the Société des Saisons in Paris and a hundred other
societies, was simply an episode in the history of a party that is everywhere
springing up naturally out of the soil of modern society... I have tried to
dispel the misunderstanding arising out of the impression that by ‘party’ I
meant a ‘League’ that expired eight years ago, or an editorial board that was
disbanded twelve years ago. By party, I meant the party in the broad historical
sense» (Marx, Letter to Freiligrath, 1860).
In our text The Communist Party in the Tradition of the Left, 1974 we put
forward that
«There have been times, due to various pressures and influences, when this
historical inheritance – comprising theory, principles and final goals but also
historical experience, derived from the relentless march of the revolution – has
been abandoned. Every time this has happened the formal party, that is, the
fighting organisation of a given epoch and given proletarian generation has
inevitably abandoned the correct path and found itself, eventually, on the side
of the class enemy. For us, then, the party exists, and grows, and marches
towards victory only insofar as it is capable of remaining faithful to its base
in the historical party. If this base is even so much as scratched then you have
all those betrayals and desertions of which the history of the formal party is
so full.
«Now the fact of the revolutionary organisation remaining faithful to
the cardinal principles of the historical party from which it emanates isn’t
guaranteed by factors of the cultural or didactic variety, according to which,
once you’d learnt a couple of theses by heart, you’d have satisfied all the
historical party’s requirements or some-such rubbish. The party’s historical
heritage, even on a day-to-day basis and with regard to strictly limited
actions, has to shape and permeate the entire activity of the formal party. And
this continuous transfusion of historical experience into the current activity
of the party is first of all something done collectively by the organisation,
not on an individual basis by particularly enlightened or brainy people.
«What
must become an absolutely essential part of our heritage is the notion of the
existence of this strict connexion between the militant organisation’s action,
between what they say and do today, and its theories, principles, and past
historical experience; and that it is the latter (theory, principles, etc.), and
not individual or even collective opinions which will always be the final
arbiter as regards all party questions. Who gives the orders in the party? We
have always maintained that the historical party, to which we owe unswerving
obedience and loyalty, effectively gives the orders. And through what microphone
does the historical party transmit its orders? It could be one man, or a million
men; it could be the leadership of the organisation, or even the rank-and-file
recalling the leadership to observance of that data without which the very
organisation ceases to exist.
«In the party (...) no-one commands and everyone is commanded; no-one commands,
because it is not in one individual’s head that the solution of the problem is
sought; and everyone is commanded, because even the best of Centres mustn’t give
orders that depart from the continuous line of the historical party.
«Dictatorship of the principles, traditions and aims of communism over
everybody, from rank-and-file to Centre; legitimate expectation of the Centre to
be obeyed without opposition as long as its orders respond to this line – a line
which must be evident in everything the party does; expectation of the
rank-and-file not to be consulted about every order it is given, but to carry
them out only if they follow the impersonal line of the historical party which
everyone accepts. In the party there are therefore leaders and hierarchies; it
is a case of technical instruments that the party cannot do without, because
every action it takes must be unitary and centralised, and must aspire to
maximum efficiency and discipline. But the course of action is not decided by
party organs on the basis of flashes of genius issuing from particular brains;
they in their turn have to submit to decisions taken, above all, by history;
decisions which have become the collective and impersonal inheritance of the
organ ‘party’».
Bourgeois Revolutions and Proletarian Revolutions
The communist movement was born in a world where bourgeois revolutions had not
taken place for the overwhelming part. Hence, the question of what the
proletariat must do during bourgeois revolutions was a major issue to resolve
from the start. The perspective of Marxism has been further elaborated and
applied since then, but it hasn’t changed. Marx says:
«To be able forcefully and threateningly to oppose this party (the rival bourgeois democratic party), whose betrayal of the workers will begin with the very first hour of victory, the workers must be armed and organized. The whole proletariat must be armed at once with muskets, rifles, cannon and ammunition, and the revival of the old‑style citizens’ militia directed against the workers, must be opposed. Where the formation of this militia cannot be prevented, the workers must try to organize themselves independently as a proletarian guard, with elected leaders and with their own general staff; they must try to place themselves not under the orders of the State authority but of the revolutionary local councils set up by the workers (territorial political organizations, out and out soviets). Where the workers are employed by the State, they must arm and organize themselves into special corps with elected leaders, or as a part of the proletarian guard. Under no pretext should arms and ammunition be surrendered; any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary (...)
«Although the German workers cannot come to power and achieve the realization of their class interests without passing through a protracted revolutionary development, this time they can at least be certain that the first act of the approaching revolutionary drama will coincide with the direct victory of their own class in France and will thereby be accelerated. But they themselves must contribute most to their final victory, by informing themselves of their own class interests, by taking up their independent political position as soon as possible, by not allowing themselves to be misled by the hypocritical phrases of the democratic petty bourgeoisie into doubting for one minute the necessity of an independently organized party of the proletariat. Their battle-cry must be: The Permanent Revolution» (Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League, 1850).
The tactic of permanent revolution, which we alternatively call the tactic of the double revolution in the most simple terms, was never meant to be eternal. After the fall of the Paris Commune, Marx announced that this tactic was no more applicable for Western Europe where the struggle had to be, from then on, for a purely proletarian revolution:
For Europe, this situation was only intensified with the emergence of imperialism and the first imperialist world war. However after the war and the revolution in Russia, the Communist International found itself confronting the vast backwards lands of Asia and Africa, and formulated the application of the tactic of double revolution in this context expressed in the Theses of the Second Congress.
The International Communist Party has observed the last wave of anti-colonial revolutions in Asia and Africa with the same framework.
Today, it has been a considerable while since the era of bourgeois revolutions
has been over in all parts of the world. In other words, what Marx wrote in 1872
for Western Europe now applies to the whole world. No longer can there be a truce between the working class and the bourgeoisie. As for the national
questions that remain unresolved in various parts of the world, their solution
only lies at this point in the proletarian overthrow of the present order of
society. In the meanwhile, the duty of communists is to oppose all forms of
national and racial oppression and to call for the workers of the oppressed
nations and races to sabotage the ruling class of their own nationality or race.
PARTY ACTION
As we face escalating global conflicts — from the brutal war in Ukraine to the ongoing suffering in Gaza, and the devastation in Syria — we must understand these wars not as isolated incidents or failures of policy but are a direct product of the capitalist system itself. They are not accidents, but the inevitable consequences of capitalism’s fundamental contradictions.
The Economic Roots of Imperialist War
At the heart of imperialist war lies the inherent logic of capitalism. Once capitalism has expanded to a world scale, war is not a mere possibility but an absolute necessity. The global market, saturated and increasingly competitive, drives national capitalisms into conflict over resources, markets, and spheres of influence. This is the core of what the Party describes as "wars of encroachment" — wars that are an inescapable outcome of the competitive, monopolistic nature of capitalism. Even if capitalist governments do not actively desire war, they are compelled by the laws of capital. In its imperialist stage, capitalism cannot function without war, as it is the only way to resolve its internal contradictions, particularly the declining rate of profit. Capitalism requires war to restructure markets, maintain dominance, and ensure its continued existence. The Party rejects the idea that war can be prevented by diplomatic negotiations, idealistic peace movements, or vague reforms. As we have always asserted: only the revolutionary power of the proletariat can halt the cycle of war by dismantling the capitalist system itself.
The Revolution and the Transformation of War
Our position is unequivocal: war under capitalism can only end through revolution. As long as capitalism exists, war will persist. The only way to break the cycle is through a supranational class struggle — a revolution that transforms imperialist war into civil war, a war led by the proletariat against its own bourgeois government.
This is not merely a theoretical statement; it is a practical necessity. If the working class does not seize the moment of war to begin revolution, it risks allowing the capitalist system to “revitalize” itself. War, in the capitalist world, serves to rebuild and reassert the power of the ruling class, offering them the opportunity to restructure after economic destruction. If revolution does not begin at the outset of war, it will merely strengthen the imperialist system, delaying the ultimate overthrow of capitalism.
The Role of the Proletariat
In times of imperialist war, the proletariat must not rally behind bourgeois governments or support the capitalist status quo. We reject "defensism", the idea that the working class should defend "national interests" or the so-called "democratic" or "national independence" values that capitalist governments claim to protect. These ideals are merely ideological tools used by the capitalist class to maintain its power and control. The proletariat has nothing to gain from defending these illusions.
Moreover, the Party rejects any form of "intermediatism", which seeks to reform or improve capitalism. There will be no gradual transition to socialism through “better conditions” or “reforms” within the capitalist framework. Our task is not to "improve" capitalism but to dismantle it entirely. The proletariat must refuse to support any military faction that does not represent the working class. We must reject alliances with bourgeois forces and instead turn all wars into a struggle against the bourgeois state itself.
Turning Imperialist War into Civil War
The history of revolutionary struggles — from the Paris Commune to the Russian Revolution of 1917 and even the Spanish Civil War — teaches us an essential lesson: revolutionary victories are won by marching away from the frontlines of imperialist war and turning the weapons from the enemy at the front line back against the ruling class. In times of war, whether during World War I, World War II, or any future conflict, our task is clear: proletarian sabotage and resistance against all capitalist states
The only legitimate form of resistance is to transform imperialist war into class struggle, into civil war against the internal enemy: the bourgeois state. The working class must use the conditions of war to advance its revolutionary struggle, not to defend one capitalist power against another.
The Necessity of Revolutionary Discipline
Revolution requires discipline and organization. The Party must act as the vanguard of the working class, leading and guiding the masses toward the ultimate goal of overthrowing the capitalist State and establishing the proletarian dictatorship. Revolutionary war, even in its most radical form, must be coordinated and controlled by the vanguard party.
Revolutionary struggle is not merely about economic strikes or political protests; it must be a fusion of economic and political struggles. As demonstrated by the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the mass strikes of workers must be linked to a broader political insurrection. The Party must ensure that all forms of struggle — whether strikes, uprisings, or military actions — converge toward one goal: the destruction of the capitalist system.
The Role of Trade Unions and Class Struggle
As Marx and Engels emphasized, trade unions are schools of struggle for the working class. The immediate struggle for better wages, conditions, and benefits is important, but it must always converge to the larger revolutionary goal of overthrowing the capitalist system.
As we affirmed at the Florence meeting in December 1951
«The Party does not hide the fact that when things start moving again this will
not only be felt by its own autonomous development, but by the starting up again
of mass organisations. Although it could never be free of all enemy influence
and has often acted as the vehicle of deep deviations; although it is not
specifically a revolutionary instrument, the union cannot remain indifferent to
the party who never gives up a willingness to work there, which distinguishes it
clearly from all other political groups who claim to be of the ”opposition“. The
Party acknowledges that today, its work in the unions can be done but
sporadically; it does not renounce however to enter into the economic
organisations, and even to gain leadership as soon as the numerical relationship
between its members and sympathisers on the one hand, the union members or a
given branch on the other is suitable, so long as the union in question does not
exclude all possibility of autonomous class action».
We must establish communist cells and groups within these organizations and use
them to build solidarity among workers across industries, crafts and national
borders.
«Revolutionary communists do not place party prejudices on those bodies that
operate in the field of class struggle for the defense of class economic
conditions because they see in them the embryo of a proletarian economic network
and urge them to unite on an ever larger scale, to gain in organization and
efficiency (...)
«It is in no one’s power alone to create favorable conditions for the return to
proletarian class organization, but this return can be accelerated, delayed or
even prevented depending on whether or not the movement of struggle extends to
the entire working-class, mobilizing and framing it on the basis of the workers’
immediate material interests. The severe state of the class’ prostration to the
domination of the capitalists is not overcome “with the head”, nor even by the
Party; just as the dictatorship of opportunism over the labor movement is not
overcome “with the head”. The overcoming of these tremendous obstacles is
contingent on the resumption of the workers’ struggle and by the experience
which, in the course of that struggle, the workers will come to understand the
reactionary and treasonous character of the official leadership of their
economic bodies and of the workers’ movement itself. Therefore, it is futile to
expect that the “consciousness” of a few wage earners, organizing themselves
into groups elected by History, will overcome the present power relations
between the classes. The tide will change in favor of the working class, under
the growing pressure of the struggling proletarian masses, organized for their
contingent needs, and under the direction of which the class political party
will have been able to conquer power» (“To reconstruct the class
organization”, 1975.
«Concerning trade unions, the Party expresses positions that are principled in nature and concern the need for the presence of broad organizations of an economic nature open to all wage earners. Through its internally organized fraction, the Party attempts to gain decisive influence in them and, in the revolutionary stage, their very leadership. In this way, the link between the Party and the class (transmission belt) is created, through which its own function of leading the revolutionary movement is carried out. The conquest of such influence over the intermediate proletarian organizations is achieved through the demonstration that its line is the most coherent and consequent in the defense of the conditions of the working class, in the face of the line and direction expressed by the other political movements organized within them (reformists, anarchists, syndicalists, etc.), against which a political struggle is waged. This will have to appear clearly to all proletarians when the facts are tested» (“Deadlines of the party’s union activity”, 1992).
We see today that many of the official trade unions have become absorbed into the capitalist system. They act more as mediators between the workers and the capitalists than as instruments for the defense of the workers. Many unions are more concerned with preserving the power of their own bureaucracy than with advancing the interests of the working class, and are guided by counterrevolutionary leadership. To the extent that such unions have been integrated into the state, we call them regime unions. The most effective struggles in recent years have come from grassroots rank and file movements, either within the official unions from workers who have acted outside of the control of the established union leadership or in combative and base unions formed by workers fed up with official union policies, taking direct action and organizing along class lines. In our view, the escalation of the class struggle will lead to an intensification of this trend and the establishment of class unions.
The United Trade Union Front from Below
This brings us to the concept of the United Trade Union Front from Below, a key
strategy for the organization of the working class. The Communist Party’s role
is to unite workers in these organizations and push them towards the ultimate
goal of revolution. This requires rejecting the opportunism of reformists who
seek to make deals with the bourgeoisie. The united trade union front from below
is completely different than the united political front from above. A united
political front is a diplomatic collaboration and alliance of the party with
reformists and other anti-proletarian political currents active in the workers’
movement, a strategy we categorically reject. The United Trade Union Front from
Below is not only a strategy to improve conditions within the existing
capitalist system but also to prepare the working class for the revolutionary
struggle to overthrow it. This front must transcend divisions of race, sex and
gender, nationality, and industry, and must be independent of bourgeois or petty
bourgeois political forces. The working class can only succeed if it is united
in its struggle, and the Communist Party must lead this unity. As we wrote in
the 1951,
«The party recognises without any reserve that not only the situation
which precedes insurrectional struggle but also all phases of substantial growth
of Party influence amongst the masses cannot arise without the expansion between
the Party and the working class of a series of organisations with short term
economic objectives and with a large number of participants».
Economic Struggles as Preparation for Revolutionary Action
In order to lead the workers to revolution, we must also ensure that the economic struggles they face do not isolate them or make them believe that permanent better conditions within capitalism are possible. The task before us is to remind workers that “no economic victory is lasting and doesn’t serve the general interests of the class if it doesn’t result in growing solidarity amongst the exploited.
This revolutionary unity is forged through the understanding that no individual victory, no matter how large, can bring true liberation unless it is part of a larger movement to destroy capitalism. That means rejecting the notion of apoliticism within unions and building the workers’ movement into a force for revolutionary change.
The Need for Revolutionary War
Once the working class has transcended its economic struggle into the political struggle for power and has seized power, the struggle does not end. The defense of the proletarian dictatorship and the expansion of the revolution into other capitalist states will require international revolutionary war. This war, however, will not be an imperialist conquest but a defense of the revolution against capitalist counter-revolution. The Red Army — once established — must be prepared to confront both external capitalist forces and any internal elements seeking to restore the old order.
War, in this context, is not an end in itself but a necessary means to defend the gains of the revolution and advance the cause of communism. The only way to end war — and the suffering it causes — is through the complete overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of communism.
The Necessity of the Communist Party and the Road to Revolution
Comrades, the capitalist system is in a deepening crisis. Economic instability, imperialist wars, and environmental degradation are all signs of a decaying system. Yet, within this crisis lies an unprecedented opportunity for revolutionary change. The wars raging across the globe, the suffering of the working class, and the deepening economic crises are not isolated phenomena; they are the inevitable consequences of capitalism’s inherent contradictions.
We are not mere dreamers or utopians. We understand that the revolutionary task before us is immense and requires far more than sporadic acts of resistance. It requires organization, discipline, and leadership. It requires a revolutionary party, the International Communist Party, capable of guiding the working class to power and overthrowing the capitalist system. Without the International Communist Party, the proletariat cannot succeed in its mission. It is the Party that provides the theory, tactics, and action needed to transform crisis into revolutionary opportunity.
The International Communist Party is not just an abstract idea or a political sect; it is the historical instrument through which the working class can realize its emancipation. It is indispensable in both preparing for and executing the revolutionary struggle. Without it, the working class will be left adrift, unable to seize the moment and dismantle the capitalist state. We must build this Party, strengthen it, and ensure it is deeply rooted in the struggles and aspirations of the working class.
We must prepare for the moment where we will be able to transform imperialist war into civil war, uniting workers across borders, industries, and nations in the struggle for communism. The task is clear: to build the United Trade Union Front from Below, reject illusions of reform, and prepare for the final confrontation with the capitalist system. This road will not be easy, but it is the only road that leads to true peace and liberation from exploitation.
The struggle for communism is the struggle to end war, to dismantle capitalism, and to build a world where human needs — not profit — guide society. The day will come when the working class rises to challenge the power of the bourgeoisie. When that day arrives, the only force capable of leading the proletariat to victory will be the International Communist Party. We must continue to build it now, so that when the time comes, it will be ready to guide us beyond capitalism, to the creation of a truly communist world.
The future belongs to the revolution.
Conclusion
The capitalist world order is racing toward catastrophe, driven by unending cycles of exploitation, war, and environmental devastation. Yet, history has shown us that the working class, united in its class unions and led by a disciplined and revolutionary Communist Party rooted in the class struggle, that has withstood the trials of counterrevolutionary offensive for nearly 200 years, holds the power to overturn this system and forge a new future. The proletariat has nothing to lose but its chains and a world to win. Workers of the world, unite!