The group PostCap Collective from Russia took contact with us at dawn 2014. It claims the theories of the review Invariance. We exchanged several mails and letters and attempted, for our part, to open up a cycle of discussion with these comrades. We publish here the main correspondences. After our last letter, PostCap Collective responded us with a long ten pages text where it refutes our general vision on the “working class as revolutionary class” and on “the unity of the economic and political dimensions of the class struggle” as well as our notion of “decadence of capitalism” that it understands only as an economic question. Mainly this response is based on quotations of Marx’s classic texts and Bordiga’s from the 1960s that it accompanies with comments. Not only the length of the response but also its content do not allow our group, according to us, to open a public debate which can enlighten the reader and the sympathisers of the Communist Left. Obviously any reader can ask us their text and we’ll send it. This is where we are with these comrades a year later. Let’s clarify that, for our part, we don’t close the door to any revival of our political confrontation in relation to our possibilities and priorities.

Nevertheless, it remains that our text – the letter we sent – against a modern and academic kind of “Bordigism” – the main groups coming from the PCInt-Program Communist do not claim this caricature of “Bordigism” – gives us the occasion to present our critical position. It comes to complete our criticism of “its opposed”, councilism, and to precise our understanding and position on the question of the consciousness of the class and the Party.

The IGCL, January 2016.

From PostCap Collective: Hello,

So, now we’ll try to explain some main aspects of our positions. We prefer to call ourselves communists. We could call ourselves Marxists, but we try not to do this cause we’re staying (accordingly to the materialistic understanding of history) against any cult of individual and against attempts to giving some person central role in the historical process.

In some extend we are successors of Italian left communism, we appreciate many Bordiga’s works.
In a question about Party, it’s role, etc, our positions in general is the same as the positions of Bordiga (but in some other aspects our views may be different). We’re a small group now, and of course we don’t call ourselves “Party”, because (formal) Party will be born from objective process of self-organization of the working class in struggle, so now we appraise our role rather lowly.

Party will be not-democratic structure and decision-making process will be perform not through elections, but through the scientific method, so we oppose to democracy organic unity, or organic centralism. As for democratic elements outside the Party they will wither away and leave in the past as well as capital, private property, the state etc.

We follow Marx’s understanding of the historical formal and real subsumption of labor to capital, so we don’t share theory about decadence of capitalism.

As for trade unions this question is complex. Of course we are not trade unionists and fully understand all narrowness and faults of trade unions, but in analyze of this question we must consider it in the context of particular situation. Under certain conditions trade union action can be step forward, nonetheless it may be just one step, moreover, we must remember that bourgeoisie may use trade unions as a brake for the worker’s movement. Here in Russia most workers is really rather passive now, and we would not regard so negatively to all the trade unions at this moment.

Our positions presented much more detail in our blog’s part “Questions and answers”, but it’s only in Russian for now. About political activity we can say that it’s rather hampered now in Russia and there aren’t much opportunities for this, however we tried to do something when situation makes it’s possible and when it’s expedient. Our group exists no so long, and some of our members already had a certain experience of the struggle in the past.
One way or another we interact with the part of anarchists (but of course we’re not share their positions), with some communists there in Russia. As for international contacts we keep in touch with the Robin Goodfellow group, some people from Ukraine, couple of people in other European countries.

From the IGCL : Dear comrades,

Thank you for your quick response which helps us to know you a little bit. We’ll discuss your document and send you a response. Of course, as you may already know, while claiming the ’Italian Left’ also and most of Bordiga’s works and struggle up to the 30’s (at least), such as the Thesis of Rome (1922) and the Thesis of Lyon (1926), we also claim the Italian fraction in exile in France with the journal Bilan and partly the experience of the different groups coming from it in the 1940’s such as the PCint (today the ICT) of course and as the French Communist Group (GCF), today the current linked to the ICC (even though we fully disagree with its present opportunist positions). More particularly, we disagree with the specific ’Bordigist’ positions such as the one on the Party holding State power, red terror, national liberation struggles, and unionist activities.

Thus, we already have many questions we disagree on and we hope that we’ll be able to confront them with you.

From PostCap Collective: Thanks. Our position on party is close to ’Origin and function of Party form’ of Invariance\ICP. We can’t say that real party has restored in 1943, because conditions could not afford it and level of action class was not enough for the forming of the class party, so O.Damen, A.Bordiga and other communists were close to what we call historical party, communists minority in counter revolution phase without political class action.

Party emerges from the contradictions of capitalism, from the action of the proletarians. When the economic struggle goes on the political level and the proletarians unite the party, the class state surely cannot ’establish’ communist relations and it’s obstacle on the way of communist movement, so it must be destroyed with all of its institutions. For the understanding of the proletarian state (the state of proletarian dictatorship of transitional period)we must say about the proletariat as a historical class, not only in narrow economical meaning. So proletarian dictatorship is not just state of workers, but it’s the state in which proletariat acts centralized, ’as one’ and organically. Party form provides this. All organs of proletariat which appeared in revolution must be connected with Party, i.e. with the collective brain that will be defending communist program.

We don’t ’refuse’ of the creativity of proletarians that not included in party. On the contrary, their activities can be expression of the real communist movement. State and administrative posts must be deprived of professionality, protection against bureaucracy will be reached by permanent removeability, ’circulation’ between center and periphery.

It’s important proletarian state can’t be organized accordingly to permanent laws, constitutions, rights, etc. Communist revolution won’t proclaim any ’eternal laws’ as bourgeois revolutions did. Therefore we must act against worker’s councils if they are acting against communism, it must be done for protecting of the communist movement.

This is similar to the traditional discussions about authoritarianism, and we’re exactly staying on authoritarian side. But we prefer to say that border lies between communists-materialists which are staying on the side of organized in Party proletariat and idealists, utopian enlighteners and democrats on other side.becomes a class in the historical sense. Therefore party defines a class.

Bourgeois state surely cannot ’establish’ communist relations and it’s obstacle on the way of communist movement, so it must be destroyed with all of its institutions. For the understanding of the proletarian state (the state of proletarian dictatorship of transitional period)we must say about the proletariat as a historical class, not only in narrow economical meaning. So proletarian dictatorship is not just state of workers, but it’s the state in which proletariat acts centralized, ’as one’ and organically. Party form provides this. All organs of proletariat which appeared in revolution must be connected with Party, i.e. with the collective brain that will be defending communist program.

We don’t ’refuse’ of the creativity of proletarians that not included in party. On the contrary, their activities can be expression of the real communist movement. State and administrative posts must be deprived of professionality, protection against bureaucracy will be reached by permanent removability, ’circulation’ between center and periphery.

It’s important proletarian state can’t be organized accordingly to permanent laws, constitutions, rights, etc. Communist revolution won’t proclaim any ’eternal laws’ as bourgeous revolutions did. Therefore we must act against worker’s counsils if they are acting against communism, it must be done for protecting of the communist movement.

This is similar to the traditional discussions about authoritarianism, and we’re exactly staying on authoritarian side. But we prefer to say that border lies between communists-materialists which are staying on the side of organized in Party proletariat and idealists, utopian enlighteners and democrats on other side.

Our Letter and Statement on the Theories of the Journal Invariance

The IGCL to Postcap Collective,

Dear comrades,

In the first place, we are sorry for not having sent you sooner a letter after our e-mail exchanges. E-mail exchanges don’t allow the establishment and development of the basis of a genuine discussion and confrontation of political positions. We’re going to try to define with you the terms of a possible (and necessary according to us) political discussion between our two groups. We hope you’ll agree with these terms and that we’ll be able to specify what are our reciprocal positions, the agreements and the differences, so that we can clarify and confront them.

Secondly, we had difficulties with the English translation (www.marxists.org) of the Invariance text we quote here because it doesn’t exactly correspond to the original French version. As well, we couldn’t find a correct and faithful English translation of the Theses of Rome (1922). The websites of the ’bordigist’ groups don’t have a translated version and the only one (www.signalfire.org) we found is politically very bad. Thus we translated it ourselves.

1) The Party Question

Reading your mails, we note that, on the party, your position ’in general is the same as the positions of Bordiga (but in some other aspects our view may be different)’. In another mail, you clarify that your ’position on party is close to Origin and Function of Party form of Invariance/ICP’’. But, besides this, many of your formulations – we take them with reserve and care due to the e-mail form and, maybe, the translation in English can make difficult, indeed mistaken, the exact meaning of your real positions – appear to contradict the text Origin and Function of Party form. For our part, we reject its political approach and conclusions. And we think that it is in contradiction with the communist programmatic positions, and particularly the ones of the Left Fraction of the CP of Italy: the Theses of Rome (1922) and of Lyon (1926) that it nevertheless claims.

As starting point for a discussion on the Party question, we’re going to try to quickly point out the main theoretical and political mistakes of the Invariance text ’Origin and Function’. Beforehand, let’s note that this text uses quite an abstract (’philosophical’) language which, in our opinion, is used above all to conceal the moving away, not to say the giving up, of the communist tradition and its theoretical and political positions, and most particularly to the ones of the so-called ’Italian Left’.

"The proletariat tends to oppose its own Gemeinwesen, the human being, to the capitalist one, the oppressive state. It has to expropriate this being to realize this real opposition. It can only do so if it organizes in a party". Let’s put aside the "philosophical" problematic around the Gemeinwesen (the human community) which opens up the door to political visions we characterize as "modernist" and that we can’t deal with here. The proletariat would be unable to oppose, by the struggle, to capital as long as it doesn’t organize itself "in party" [1]? This already contradicts your own expression: "(formal) party will be born from objective process of self-organization of the working class in struggle". Your expression (that, besides, we could criticize as such, at least it would be worth clarifying what you really want to say) makes the Party constitution a result, a product, of the reality, and even the development, of the working class struggle while Invariance actually makes it a precondition. Let’s make clear that, for us, the abstract distinction "formal party-historical party" of Invariance is a mean to run away from the question of the party-class relation and to theorize this running away. Worse still, its vision leads it to consider that the class doesn’t exist as long as there is no Party and, thus, that the class struggle disappears: "The class does not act and thus does not exist outside what is formed as the party" [the original French version exactly says: "the class does not act and thus does not exist but only when it constitutes in party"]. Besides its clearly opportunist political implications – it denies the existence of the class outside the Party constitution –, is in opposition to the theses of Rome which very clearly distinguish the whole proletariat and its vanguard communist political minorities. For the CP of Italy and of the Left of that time (so too Bordiga), the working class exists and struggles independently of the Party (which doesn’t mean it can develop its historical fight without the Party): "Under the influence of new situations, under the pressure of events provoking the working class to action, it is possible to overcome such a situation and to return to the true class Party" (Theses of Rome, translated by us and passages highlighted which openly contradict Invariance). Where Invariance excludes any class action outside the Party, the CP of Italy acknowledges that the working class can ’move to action’ independently of the Party.

"’The party seizes power, destroys the bourgeois state, sets itself up as ruling class, thus as the state which now no longer has a political, but a social function, hence arriving at the human nature which is the real Gemeinwesen of man". Here, it is said that the state of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the state of the period of transition from capitalism to communism, no longer has a political function! But, precisely, unless falling into "self-management" or "anarchist" visions, the function of this "half state" is at first political: the very one of exercising the dictatorship of the class until the disappearance of the classes. Here is the position, which we share, adopted by the CP of Italy at its foundation congress in Livorno (1921) and recalled in the theses of Rome: "10. This transformation of the economy and consequently of all activities of the social life will have as an effect, once the division of society into classes is eliminated, to eliminate too little by little the necessity of the political state whose apparatus will be progressively reduced to a rational administration of human activities" (translated by us). This statement is not a particularity of the "Italian Left". Marxism has always defended that the political dimension of the state won’t vanish until the division of classes has disappeared and not the contrary as Invariance (which here joins the anarchist vision on the priority of the "social" upon the "political" and against the exercising of power "through" the state, even though with a "Marxist" language and above all an academic one): "When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character." (Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto, underlined by us).

"The party thus represents the Gemeinwesen. (...) the party’s existence is its programme, the prefiguration of communist society of the liberated and conscious human species [French version : ’It (the Party) is the prefiguration...]. The party thus allows the organization of the class. Then it will become the subject of the dictatorship of the proletariat" (we underline). We are getting here to the political consequences of this vision: to the substitutionist position; the class doesn’t exist anymore and has no historical role; only the Party exists and is the subject of history. The parallel we made with anarchism (in regards to the state question) can seem to be quite paradoxical. The negation of the "Party" is as abstract and a-historical (both are linked) as the affirmation that the "Party is the unique subject" of history. It is contrary to one of the (invariant) principles of Marxism and the Communist Program: "the emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself". The subject of the Dictatorship of the proletariat is the proletariat itself under the political leadership and direction of the communist party. Here is, for our part, to which understanding of the Party-Class relation we attempt to refer to:

"It is in offering the maximum continuity in the defense of the program and in the life of the leadership hierarchy (beyond the individual replacement of unfaithful or worn out chiefs) that the Party ensures also the maximum of efficient and useful work for winning the proletariat to the revolutionary struggle. It is not simply to edify the masses, and even less to exhibit an intrinsically pure and perfect party, but in fact to obtain the best in the actual process. As we shall see later, it is by systematic propaganda and proselytism and especially active participation in social struggles, to shift a growing number of workers from the terrain of partial struggles for immediate interests to the terrain of the organic and united struggle for the communist revolution. But it is only when a similar continuity of program and leadership exists in the Party that it is possible not only to overcome the reluctance of the proletariat to trust it, but to channel and to more quickly and effectively use the new energies conquered in communal thought and action to achieve this unity of the movement which is an indispensable condition of the revolution" (Theses on the tactics of the Communist Party of Italy - called “Rome Theses” - 1922, II-pt 8, translated and underlined by us).

Far from eliminating one of the two terms of the relation party-class – the Anarchists and Councilists eliminate the party, the ’modernist bordigists’ eliminate the class – the Marxist vision and the communist position have always defended the dynamic link between the two dimensions, the party being at the same time a part of the class and its most advanced part; its ’leadership’ part. One of the essential questions is the one of class consciousness: "a class is called forth [’born’ in the French version] (...) from which emanates the consciousness of the necessity of a fundamental revolution, the communist consciousness (…). Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is, necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution" (The German Ideology [2]). In this passage, Marx and Engels define very clearly that the class consciousness, the communist consciousness, arises from the proletariat – it doesn’t come from outside the class as historical class. And then, they explain that the condition for revolution is "the production on a mass scale" of this consciousness, i.e. the extension of this communist consciousness in the masses of the proletariat. They define so two fundamental dimensions of communist consciousness: the consciousness of the class (its depth, the communist program) and the consciousness in (within) the class (its extension amongst the working masses). Now it is precisely the political communist organizations, groups, fractions, party, which are more capable (we could almost say they are the only ones) to defend and best express (even though not in an absolute way, nor unique) this class consciousness. And as such, their intervention in the class (including in the counter-revolutionary periods, the very ones thus where the extension of the consciousness of the class in their ranks is the most reduced) is a necessity and a duty as a moment of the historical fight between the classes. So there is a close link between the two dimensions ’consciousness of the class and consciousness within the class’, between the party (or the communist minorities) and the class which enables each one to assert itself and strengthen each other up to constituting an historical unity. That is why we reject the ’anti-party and anti-political’ vision (of Anarchist and Councilist kinds) as well as the ’substitutionist vision which denies the class’ (of Bordigist or modernist kind).

That is why we defend, as the ICT and the ICC today on the basis of the balance-sheet drawn by the Italian fraction (particularly in the 1930s) from the Russian experience and on the basis of the Marxist principle according to which ’the emancipation of the workers must be the act of the working class itself’, that the leading and fundamental role of the party is not to exert the state power; nor to substitute for the working class as a whole for exercising its class dictatorship; and even less to identify itself with the state of the period of transition. That is why, following the Lenin of 1917 (The State and the Revolution) and the Trotsky of 1924 (Lessons of October), we consider that the party has to be on the front line of the fight for the workers councils (soviets), as unitary organs of the class (i.e. destined to gather and organize the whole class), to be at the same time organs of the proletarian insurrection and of the class power of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. There is our main disagreement with the bordigist current. That is why we think that this question is of primary importance.

2) The Concept of Decadence

Secondly, besides the question of the Party, we take note that you reject the concept of historical decadence (or decline) of capitalism. This is coherent, if so we can say, at least consequent, with your claim to the ’bordigist’ vision; i.e. with the vision developed from the years 1950’s and the split within the PCint (Partito Comunista Internazionalista) between the ’Bordigist’ current and the ’Damenist’ current (for cataloging easier). At the theoretical level, this rejection of the concept of decadence goes along with the affirmation of the ’invariance of the program’ developed by ’bordigism’ and that we consider as erroneous: if we agree that there are invariant questions of principle in the program, there are others which evolve and change (for instance, Marx on the Dictatorship of the proletariat after the Paris Commune). It doesn’t suffice to defend the program against the attacks (revisionism and opportunism) that it suffers, but also to make it live in order to fight against dogmatism. Now, keeping this example of the change of historical period of capitalism, the capacity and the fight of the past Marxist Left fractions (especially within the 2nd International) to take account of this new phenomenon of dominating imperialism (Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg in particular) has been a crucial moment for the opposition to the imperialist war, for the October 17 proletarian revolution, for the destruction of the bourgeois state and the exercise of the Dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia, and for the constitution of the world party of the proletariat, i.e. the 3rd International. One of the foundations of this one has precisely been the acknowledgement that the 1st World War was expressing the opening of a new historical period for capitalism. "A new system [in French : ’a new period’...] has been born. Ours is the epoch of the breakdown of capital, its internal disintegration, the epoch of the Communist revolution of the proletariat" (Platform of the International Communist, 1st congress, 1919).

The Union Question and the Decadence

It is not all by chance if the vision of invariance of the program and the ’parallel’ rejection to recognize the change of historical period (ascendancy-decadence) doesn’t allow adoption of a clearer position on the unions and on unionism today (’as for trade-union, the question is complex’ do you say) on which the bordigist current in general has always had a very confused position, indeed opportunist. You express it very well yourself: "Under certain conditions, trade-union action can be step forward, nonetheless it may be just one step, moreover, we must remember that bourgeoisie may use trade unions as a brake for the workers movement".

We can’t develop here on the unions and even less on the indispensable intervention (in relation to their forces and practical possibilities) of the communist groups, tomorrow the party, and the revolutionaries in the working class struggles as daily and immediate as they may be. Let’s just clarify here quickly: far from our thought is the idea of waiting for the appearance of ’pure’ working class struggles cleared of the unions and the "left" bourgeois forces, whose aim is their sabotage, before developing the revolutionary intervention precisely against these sabotages and these forces.

Let’s go back to "capitalism’s decadence" and the unions: the historical period opened up from 1914 on and the generalized imperialist war has had practical political consequences for the life of capitalism itself (the tendency to state capitalism) and for the living and struggling conditions of the proletariat (the tendency to state totalitarianism and its control over all the fields of ’social’ life, particularly for the proletariat’s ’mass’ organizations and conditions of ’permanent’ struggle). It is difficult to base a clear comprehension and ’programmatic’ position (and not tactical) on the union today without recognizing the historical change which had taken place in the life of capitalism at the beginning of the 20th Century.

The Parliamentary Question and Decadence

The union question – such as it is posed with the participation of the unions in the imperialist war and their betrayal of internationalism – could not be resolved theoretically and politically from the very end of the 1st World War. The comprehensions and the ’methodological’ approaches of the first Marxist ’anti-unionists’, as the KAPD for instance, quickly fall into a-political and anti-party visions. On the other hand, the parliamentary and electoral question (amongst others) could be more easily resolved on the condition, precisely, of integrating the historical importance of capitalism’s change of period. We recalled how the CI had taken account of the opening of the new period. It goes the same with the CP of Italy (and Bordiga) in its struggle on the parliamentary and electoral question:

’Participation in elections to the representative organs of bourgeois democracy and participation in parliamentary activity, while always presenting a continuous danger of deviation, may be utilized [the original Italian version utilizes the past ’could be...’ [3]] for propaganda and for schooling the movement during the period in which there does [’did not’ in Italian and French] not yet exist the possibility of overthrowing bourgeois rule and in which, as a consequence, the party’s task is restricted to criticism and opposition. In the present period, which began with the end of the world war, with the first communist revolutions and the creation of the Third International, communists pose, as the direct objective of the political action of the proletariat in every country, the revolutionary conquest of power’ (Theses of the Abstentionist Communist Faction of the Italian Socialist Party - May 1920, we underline in bold).

For us, the recognition of an historical change between two periods which determines new conditions of life and struggle for the proletariat enables to clearly state on the political and principle class positions of today. Then, and only then, the theoretical understanding of the change of period and the recognition of the concept of ’decadence or decline of capitalism’ (’Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism’ according to Lenin) enable to provide a theoretical and political coherence for principle (class) positions such as the unions of course, but also the elections and parliamentarism, the national liberation struggles, etc. These questions are not anymore tactical questions but questions of principle (programmatic) and they define the Proletarian Political Camp in opposition to the counter-revolutionary political forces historically and politically belonging to the bourgeois camp as the Stalinist, Trotskyist and Anarchist currents.

There, dear comrades, are the questions that we wanted to propose you to debate with us. Obviously, it matters above all in this letter to pose and propose the terms and the questions to debate. Our references to quotations must be understood as incentives to reflection and to the confrontation of our positions and not as absolute dogmas. We know that the definition of these positions (here for instance the theses of Rome) is itself historical, a moment of the fight between the classes, at the programmatic and political levels.