Last June, the Internationalist communist tendency (ICT) came to Canada to meet militants and sympathizers from three major canadian cities : Montreal, Hamilton and Toronto. The topic in Montreal and Toronto was ’global economic crisis’ while in Hamilton, the ICT wished to address a somewhat delicate subject for the proletarian camp : ’the true division’ between Marxism and anarchism.

The IGCL had therefore mandated itself to intervene in these three meetings to both support the intervention of the ICT and allow maximum clarification of the program of the proletariat ... But also to address the issue of the regroupment of the revolutionary in the proletarian milieu. We were hoping to take the opportunity to shed light on the difficult relationship between the Internationalist Workers Group (IWG) - Canadian affiliate of the ICT - and our group.

Montréal

We can say that this meeting was a success because at the peak of the meeting, about thirty people were present (which is high for this type of meeting in Canada). It was a classic analysis of the crisis of capital in the ICT point of view, that is to say its cause is the falling rate of profit and its effects are an absolute trend towards imperialism. An interesting point raised by the presentation, which is ignored by many: the accumulation of fictitious capital, as monstrous as it is now, had already been anticipated by Marx. So with it the notion of speculative bubbles that burst with more depth ... and with a frequency of more and faster (most recently in 2008).

The level of class consciousness among the participants was generally not very high but some good questions were nevertheless raised, including a critique on the fact that the problem is not that Capital can no longer accumulate but it just meet more and more difficulties in the process of valorisation and extraction of plus-value.

Since the IGCL has given itself a mandate to call for regrouping revolutionary elements around the ICT, one of our members has asked the following question: what is the way into the creation of a political party of the proletariat for the ICT? The response was consistent with what has always said the ICT in the days when it was still called the IBRP: the ICT is neither the core nor the anticipation of future class party. For more precision, it has been reformulated to directly address the issue of regroupment: according to the editorial of issue 59 of Revolutionary Perspectives (review of the CWO, British section of the ICT), if the ICT does not consider itself as the core of the future party, so what is the way of regrouping the revolutionaries? Because it makes no sense in the current historical context that our two groups can not consider dialogue and the possibility of joint action towards the class. The answer was unfortunately what follows: the ICT does not have to discuss with the IGCL as some of its members (former sympathizers of the ICT in Canada) have not withdrawn their divergencies (allegedly ’calomniatrics’) with the one who formed the IWG in Montreal. The meeting has almost ended on this issue.

Toronto

There were fewer people present, but the level of political consciousness was higher than in Montreal. Several interesting contacts were made there by a candidate of our group. Among other things, the anarchist group Common Cause has come participate and a representative of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty. The same comrade from the ICT addressed the issue of Labor Value, the organic composition of capital and the inherent need of Capital, in the era of imperialism / decadence, to destroy the constant capital to restart more vigorously its accumulation process. For the ICT, the technological revolution of the microprocessor has also slowed the falling rate of profit by reducing the cost of constant capital. Financialisation has also been discussed as a response to the crisis of profitability that started in the 70s.

During the discussion period, our member intervened reaffirming that the IGCL and the ICT defend the positions of the Communist Left (CL), both consider the crisis of capital is inevitable and that the IGCL believes that the ICT is the only pole of regroupment of the CL. As a result, the question was asked whether the ICT saw in the struggle of the class - against the austerity measures - the beginning of a consolidation of the revolutionary forces. The answer was that there is not enough revolutionary forces to consolidate anything ... because there is a lack of politicization.Sol and Stavros

Hamilton

On the ICT website, the meeting was presented in this way: ’The real division today is not between anarchism and Marxism. It is between, on the one hand, these ’Marxists’ who want to reform capitalism and those anarchists who think they can find a way of life within the system, and on the other hand, those of the two tendencies that aims to abolish capitalism and its state.’

For us, from the outset, this is problematic. Indeed, anarchism, by its historical rejection of the class Party of the proletariat and the dictatorship of the proletariat, is located on the grounds of the left Capital and is not a revolutionary perspective. Its main self-management program is by no means the destruction of capital but his idealistic management. It is the Marxists know snatch anarchists from this ground, by force of argument, to get them to Marxism and Revolution; but then, they are not anymore anarchists. So it is with caution that we expected this meeting.

The ICT member began the meeting by noting the important difference between communist revolutionaries and ’revolutionary’ anarchists on the notion of the state as it is for Marx and Engels, especially after the Paris Commune as the Bolsheviks in the early years of the Russian Revolution. However, and rightly, the ICT said that they should have allowed that the executive was elected by the Soviets themselves rather than imposing their People’s Commissars, and it’s more questionable in our view, that they replaced the workers’ militia by the Red Army. These errors, the Bolsheviks shared with most communists around the world are, for the ICT, to put at the same level as the ’betrayals’ petty-bourgeois anarchists pretending to be anti-capitalists. For the ICT therefore, betrayal of anarchism are the same as ’those’ from communists ... and are summarized in a misunderstanding of the class struggle and the class nature of the state.

As conclusion

Through the ICT, Communist Left was able to speak and talk to some of his supporters in a region where it has little presence and is unknown. Thus the ICT defended class positions we share also, even if some clarifications need to be made between us, particularly as regards anarchism, some visions of the period of decadence and economic analysis of crisis.

It is important to note that some of these issues, such as the economic analysis, are not even definitive positions in the ICGL and doesn’t prevent us to intervene in defending ’its’ position and militate in the same group.

Our group has therefore fulfilled its mandate by participating in these meetings, inviting sympathizers around us to participate as well, and especially in supporting the intervention of the ICT by our mere presence and by our active participation.

Moreover, the ICT seems to have problem to set itself as an organization, the meetings being presented as that of a speaker rather than of the largest political group in the current CL. It did not know, either, how to put forward the unity of the Communist Left, rejecting a joint intervention with our group, and not recognizing the existence of the IGCL after almost a year of existence. This sectarism is most unfortunate in the current context, while our two groups express - on the most important points - a clear agreement.

Despite our differences and some critics, despite some weaknesses as expressed by the ICT, we believe that the result of these meetings is very positive. We hope, at least, the time to participate in other meetings from the ICT, if not to work together for our class.