ICC Preface This article first appeared in Internationalisme no. 12 in August 1946. Although it is a product of the immediate post-Second World War period, it is still remarkably relevant today, 36 years later. It deals with the question of when the formation of the party is both necessary and possible. For those who refuse […]
The Party Form
Works discussing the organisational form, methods and goals of the communist party
Legality and Illegality, Georg Lukács, 1920
Another of Lukács’ essays from his famous 1923 collection History and Class Consciousness, Legality and Illegality is an important warning against the diametrically opposed romanticisation or mortal fear of illegality seen in altogether too many so-called “communist” organisations of the modern day, as well as a thorough exploration of bourgeois […]
Considerations on the party’s organic activity when the general situation is historically unfavourable, Bordiga
1. The so-called question of the party’s internal organisation has always been a subject in the positions of traditional Marxists and of the present Communist Left, born as an opposition to the errors of the Moscow International. Naturally, such a topic is not to be isolated in a watertight compartment, […]
Lenin: A Study On the Unity of his Thought, Georg Lukacs
A 1924 work by Hungarian Marxist Georg Lukacs examining the historical significance of Lenin’s thought and its importance to revolutionary theory and praxis. This includes a postscript written in 1967 that criticises some of the earlier parts of the original work once Lukacs had developed a more mature philosophy.
The Hidden Legacy of the Left of Capital, ICC
A series of articles published by the ICC dealing with the influence of left-capitalist (Stalinist, Trotskyist, social-democratic etc) organisations on the Communist movement.
Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat
One of the essays from ‘History and Class Consciousness’, Lukács’ best known and most influential work, Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat introduces his concept of reification, how reified consciousnesses have influenced philosophy and political thought, and the standpoint of the proletariat in history from a Marxian point of view.
Towards A Dialectical Centralism, Mouthy Infidel
Marxism, in simple terms, is the science of the liberation of the proletariat. It then follows naturally that one of the key questions which this field of analysis grapples with is how to do that. At the heart of this question is the need for a revolutionary party. As Italian […]
We Defend the Italian Left, Damen
Every so often we need to check our own political assumptions in order to critically evaluate our conduct in relation to what is currently going on. We also need to examine the behaviour of those who believe they are the repositories of who-knows-what coherence, with principles and methods that should […]
Against the concept of the “brilliant leader”, ICC
In politics, there’s nothing new in a group radically changing its way of seeing and acting once it has become a big organisation, a mass party. One could cite several examples of such metamorphoses. One could to some extent apply it to the Bolshevik party after the revolution. But what’s […]
The System of Communist Representation, Bordiga
In launching our communist programme, which contained the outlines of a response to many vital problems concerning the revolutionary movement of the proletariat, we expected to ace a broad discussion develop on all its aspects. Instead there has been and still is only furious discussion over the incompatibility of electoral […]