Towards the Party Congress: The Program of the Maximalist Abstentionist Fraction

Just a month separates us from the convocation of the National Congress of our Party. The Sections must prepare by discussing calmly and objectively - above all personal prejudice and without opportunistic concerns - the programs and political manifestations of the various currents, which have always had the right to citizenship in our Party or have today been formed under the powerful impulse of the times and events.

We are publishing today - for the purpose of discussion - the program of the maximalist abstentionist fringe, formed a short while ago among a group of comrades gathered in Rome. At the same time, we inform you that recently in Bologna - on the occasion of the meeting of the secretaries and delegates of the provincial federations summoned by the Party leadership on the eve of the general strike - a meeting of the maximalists was held, which - after an exchange of views on the need for a profound and radical revision of the Party's program - a commission composed of comrades Bordiga, Gennari and Sorrati was appointed for the compilation of a program which, like the statement of the fraction at the next Congress, if approved, becomes the new base of our Party.

In this meeting - in agreement on the programmatic premises - two currents emerged regarding the participation or otherwise of the Party in the administrative political electoral struggle: participationists and abstentionists. And since it was not possible to discuss in depth and make definitive decisions on the matter, it was agreed to leave the issue without prejudice, delegating to the appointed commission the task of presenting a complete decision scheme, around which ideas can be clarified and, possibly, all the maximalists can find agreement.

The program we publish today - and which was already published by the Soviet of Naples - is merely the expression of the thoughts of the abstentionist group. However, as such it is worthy of being known by all the Sections, who can already begin their own discussions around it, waiting for the other agendas. and programs for final decisions.

The history of the Society that has existed up to now is a history of class struggle. [...] the productive forces in their development come into conflict with the relations of production and property and with the consequent social and political institutions, there is a period of social revolution, with the passage of political power from one class to another.

Modern bourgeois society, born on the ruins of feudal society, did not remove class frictions, it only created new classes, new conditions of oppression and new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Throughout our era, society is increasingly split into two classes that face each other: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

At the same time that the bourgeois revolution brought these two classes face to face, it established the political regime of representative democracy in which economic inequality is superimposed on the formal political freedom and equality of citizens of all classes, in the formation of the elective bodies of the State. Despite the numerical prevalence of proletarian voters over bourgeois ones, the democratic State does not cease to be the Committee of Interests that administers the affairs of the bourgeois class.

Every class struggle is a political struggle tending to transform the basis of production.

The aim of the communists is the international organization of the proletariat into a class political party, the destruction of bourgeois domination, the conquest of political power by the proletariat. The specific instrument of this action is therefore the communist party.

This, as long as the struggle must necessarily take place within the limits of the bourgeois regime, is a work of propaganda and proselytism, of criticism of the capitalist system and of opposition to the politics of the ruling class: this could justify participation in electoral and parliamentary struggles in the past.

When the historical period of the revolutionary struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is open, the task of the proletarian political party is the violent overthrow of the domination of the bourgeoisie and the organization of the proletariat into a dominant class. From this moment on, it becomes incompatible to send representatives of the Party to the representative bodies of the bourgeois system in which the proletariat is oppressed, and in any case the classes in possession of wealth participate in the elective training bodies.

During the great war which precipitated the definitive crisis of the bourgeoisie, making it impossible for it to dominate the intimate conflicts of the world of production, the revolutionary period began, with the outbreak of the social revolution in Russia, in which the proletariat successively rose up in various countries for violent conquest. Communist powers and parties everywhere must orient their tactics towards this realization.

The class party maintains constant relations with the workers' unions, coordinating and directing their action in the political struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat.

It provides for the formation of provisional bodies of the working class destined to prepare and organize action for the overthrow of bourgeois domination, and to assume power in the first revolutionary phase.

Once the triumph of the proletariat in the struggle against the bourgeoisie occurred, and provided Immediately, with the provisional committees already prepared for the assumption of local and central powers, the elections of the workers' councils will be called regardless of the professional categories to which they belong, divided by city and country districts. The active and passive electoral right will be reserved only for [...] workers and of any nationality, excluding those who exploit the work of others.
Thus the foundations of the proletarian dictatorship will be created.

The congress of local councils will be convened which will elect the central council; or this will entrust executive power to appropriate bodies.

Any delegation of power will be recallable at any time by will of the voters.

This political system constitutes the proletarian state, an organ for the domination of the working class over the bourgeoisie or for its expropriation.

To prevent counter-revolutionary attempts by the capitalist class or to overcome the resistance that it will oppose to the expropriations, the proletariat will be armed with the constitution of a class militia.

As soon as the formation of the Council State has taken place, it will establish relations of unlimited political and economic solidarity with the other communist republics of the world, or will help the communist movement in countries still dominated by the bourgeoisie with all the means at its disposal.

Task of the proletarian class government is to gradually remove all capital from the bourgeoisie in order to centralize all the instruments of production in the possession of the State, i.e. of the proletariat itself organized as the dominant class, and to increase the mass of productive forces as rapidly as possible.

The subsequent expropriation and socialization measures will be coordinated with the economic and social conditions and with the need to paralyze production as little as possible in the transition from the private to the communist form.

The first measures will be: the socialization of financial capital and the suppression of state debt, and nationalization; the socialization of banking, means of transport, insurance, means of distribution, and commercial and industrial companies. Special measures will affect the owners of small industrial and agricultural companies who voluntarily oppose communist forms.

Constituting this process the only way to truly achieve equality and human freedom, and not being able to stop at any prejudice based on one or another abstract conception, the proletarian State will make use of all means of repression of individual or collective actions that come to hinder the realization of the communist program, not being able to sacrifice the rapid development and fate of the social revolution to an abstract and formal conception of freedom.

With the socialization of the different branches of the economy, this ceases to be a private affair of individuals or groups to become a collective function of all associated humanity.

The manner and extent of production, transportation and distribution of products will be regulated by competent internationally connected bodies.

When the expropriation of all capital is completed, the bourgeoisie will cease to exist in the proletariat, and will exist as a class.

Political power will then disappear as the center of power, since there will no longer be two classes, one dominant and the other dominated.

But as the sad vestiges of the present degenerative regime are gradually eliminated, in place of the bourgeois and proletarian classes, conscious human classes will arise, the free development of which is the free development and development for all.