We want to draw the attention of readers, militants and sympathizers of the Communist Left to the latest publication of the Internationalist Communist Tendency in France, Bilan et Perspectives (B&P) #21. [1] Its first issue was published in 2000 and its frequency remained random throughout these years. Its last issue shows a renewed dynamism that we want to welcome and encourage. Our attitude may surprise those, militants and groups, who remain fundamentally marked by sectarianism and consider relations between communist groups only as a competition, even a rivalry. Others will suspect an opportunistic attitude, or even a hidden maneuver or intention, towards the ICT. We would remind them that we have criticized the first issue of the 1919 journal [2] of the ICT in the United States without concession. We take this opportunity to point out that the two subsequent issues of 1919 were able to correct some of the errors and political confusions that we had pointed out.

B&P #21 centers its contents on a Dossier on imperialist war and internationalism, which corresponds to the needs for intervention by communist groups in the face of the imperialist war in Europe. In addition to articles on the meaning and analysis of the current war, including the one Russia’s Annexations in Ukraine are Another Step Towards Global Imperialist War, other articles focus on the consequences of the war on the working class and others elaborate on the initiative launched by the ICT to set up No War But the Class War committees, including providing a framework and historical references. We invite all readers to read this dossier and discuss it with the ICT and ourselves in particular.

We encourage the reading of the two articles on Iran, if only because we don’t have the strength, and especially the space, to publish one ourselves in this issue. In this sense, we can consider that B&P, like other publications of the Communist Left – Le Prolétaire, for example, in the French case – completes the intervention of the Communist Left as a whole beyond the divergences that we may have. An article on the world economic crisis ends by putting forward perspectives that we share: “The evolution of the crisis will tend, without a doubt, to precipitate larger fractions of the proletariat into the social struggle. In order to defend themselves, they will have to use other means than those of the unions, in order to extend, generalize and organize the struggles. These means include: the necessity of the mass strike; the setting up of real struggle committees to ensure that the proletarians themselves take charge of the struggle; the urgent search for the extension of the movement to neighboring workplaces, breaking with corporatist confinement.” Is it necessary to say that we sign with both hands this passage?

Finally, the editorial looks back at the June 2022 legislative elections in France after Macron’s re-election. We share B&P’s insistence on the political significance of the success of the Nupes, a grouping of the left-wing parties. In our view, this is one of the main facts of these elections, well beyond the 88 far-right deputies: “The maintenance of the bourgeois order seemed precarious at the time (...) in the absence of a ’left’ political force. Its victory [the election of more than 131 deputies] should make it possible to divert the proletarians from the open struggle (...) to make believe that the social question can be solved in Parliament. (...) But also, it is necessary to occupy the social ground in case the struggles would escape its control. The Insoumis [France insoumise, the main party of the Nupes and the one most to the left of it] are preparing street demonstrations, but all of this is going to be well framed, with dates planned in advance, and ultimately allow the discontent to be channeled into parliament and behind its initiatives rather than into strikes.”

The fact that there are formulations, or even particular questions, with which we could express “nuances”, or even disagreements, in certain articles, does not detract from our fundamental political agreements and support for the orientations and positions advanced by B&P. The Communist Left is strengthening in France.