What we stand for – American Fraction of the Left Communist International (1949)

Platform of the American Fraction of the Left Communist International. It was written by D.A. and appeared in the January-February 1949 issue of International Bulletin.

Submitted by Craftwork on November 12, 2016
  1. Our conception of the world and the society proper to it is that of Marx's scientific socialism.
  2. For the reconstitution of a Revolutionary International against the Internationals of Betrayal (Social Democracy, Stalinism, Trotskyism).
  3. Against collaboration with the bourgeois and pseudo-proletarian parties which uphold the false and deceitful banner of "true democracy." Therefore we oppose the "united front" which is a front opposed to the working class.
  4. We denounce as counter-revolutionary, every movement which, with an eye to easier agitation and electoral success views parliamentary decisions as useful. During electoral campaigns we continue the agitation for the general historic aims of the working class. We do not take the least responsibility for the pseudo-proletarian parties (Stalinist, Socialist, Trotskyite, or Laborite).
  5. The trade unions of the C.I.O. and A.F.L., Railroad Brotherhoods and "Independent Unions," are part of the legal apparatus of the Capitalist State. Working class unity will be achieved on the basis of the platform of the party of the revolution, and, under its leadership, within those organisms, created in the revival of the proletarian class struggle.
  6. The farm-workers are the class brothers of the Industrial workers and must be won to a position of class-solidarity.
  7. All so-called movements of colonial independence have an Imperialist base. There does not exist for the colonial and semi-colonial areas, any longer, the problem of a bourgeois revolution. The only road is proletarian revolution.
  8. The proletariat must work for the defeat of its own bourgeoisie and its satellites in the advanced industrial sectors of world capitalism, as well as for the defeat of its own bourgeoisie and satellites in the colonial and semi-colonial areas of world capitalism, in time of war.
  9. The defeat of the bourgeoisie, on a world scale, accomplished through the civil war of the proletariat, under the guidance and leadership of the Revolutionary International Party, will be the beginning of the Socialist Reorganization of Society under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
  10. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat, will serve as the transition to the classless society of Socialism, where the State will cease to exist, and Government and Tyranny, the history of the past.
  11. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat is not to be understood as a defense of the Soviet Union. On the contrary, the Dictatorship of the Proletariat will arise in Russia, which is now an Imperialist State, through Socialist Revolution.

Comments

Spikymike

5 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on July 27, 2018

And in 2018 efforts to re-energise the disparate grouplets of a modern day Left Communism in North America/Canada here maybe:
https://intransigence.org/2018/07/20/call-for-contributors-participants/

Alf

5 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Alf on July 29, 2018

This is an important text, although the group did not survive for long in the very difficult conditions of the time. By the early 50s a number of the revolutionary groups that had appeared or regrouped at the end of the war had entered into crisis or broken up.
I have always thought that the title of the text is based on a mistranslation (English would not have been the first language of some of the comrades involved in the group). Although there were disagreements in the groups coming from the Italian left about whether the time had been right to form the Internationalist Communist Party in Italy in 1943, none of them claimed that a new International (i.e world party) had been established. The proper translation would then be 'American Fraction of the International Communist Left', which would be consistent with name taken by similar groups in France and Belgian (ie French and Belgian Fractions of the International Communist Left)

R Totale

5 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by R Totale on July 29, 2018

Spikymike

And in 2018 efforts to re-energise the disparate grouplets of a modern day Left Communism in North America/Canada here maybe:
https://intransigence.org/2018/07/20/call-for-contributors-participants/

Not really my thing, but I'm mildly interested to see that they list the "Gulf Coast Communist Fraction" but not the Communist League of Tampa - does this mean that the West coast of Florida has two separate leftcom groups who are so mad at each other that they refuse to recognise each other's existence?

Spikymike

5 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on July 29, 2018

Well the Tampa group these days is a bit of a 'mixed bag' in terms of it's politics - not clear enough from a strictly Left Communist perspective (or mine).

comradeEmma

5 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by comradeEmma on July 29, 2018

Communist Leauge of Tampa is not left-communist, they are followers of Macnair and some sort of kautskyism. I know they host texts from left-communists on their website but they are not left-communist in any real sense. They also recently split and prominent people like Donald Parkison left.

I don't see how Gulf Coast Communist Fraction even counts as a group in the same sense as CLT since they have published at most three articles, all by "chad armcair"(one co-written by someone else).

klas batalo

5 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by klas batalo on July 30, 2018

Damn, DP left? Did those folks hop over into DSA Refoundation?