Social networks, Facebook and others, have given a new dimension to the petty-bourgeois politics of gossip and slander that have always prevailed in circles peripheral to the revolutionary camp, even the Communist Left. The phenomenon is not new. Lenin combated it in his time as we can see in One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. Normally, we do not pay attention to the sclerotic circle spirit of the Internet networks, the circle spirit 2.0., where individualism and informality reign supreme.

However, the avalanche of slanders and insults of recent times, particularly since our position on anti-racist demonstrations in the United States, mainly on North American networks, compels us to make a point of reassuring those, sincere, who could be influenced and discouraged by the extravagance of the remarks and the hostility that emerges from them. Moreover, these practices always have a more or less deleterious effect on the proletarian camp as a whole, especially when they affect one of its recurring weak points: its sectarian reflexes. For example, and leaving aside our supposed racism or other nonsense, many people attribute to us hidden and manipulative intentions behind our willingness to debate, confront and clarify the positions of other communist groups – even though this practice is standard for anyone who seriously refers to the history and experience of the workers’ movement. Let’s take two posts in particular which, compared to most, have at least the merit of being understandable. According to the first one, adorned with many ’likes’ (that is to say!), by publishing and translating articles of the ICT and Nuevo Curso, the IGGL would seek "to flatter the ICT just as it does with Nuevo Curso-WO-GCCF [when in fact] it wants to weaken and divide it". We would even "blackmail" the ICT by criticizing the weaknesses of its international regroupment policy. Another individual urged us to "... stop your silly game of trying to flag up differences between the CWO and Battaglia comunista". He accused us of attacking the ICT because, in translating its May Day statement into French and Spanish, we had noted in a footnote that the English and Italian versions differed on the characterization of the generalized imperialist war. What an ignominious attack, isn’t it! Even as we reproduced this leaflet on our website, we saluted it and took it up on our own account. At the very moment we were claiming that we wanted to distribute it massively. If a reader who has understood this quite sophisticated dialectic is kind enough to explain it to us, thank you in advance. This is where the ravages of the circle spirit 2.0 lead. They make individuals politically stupid, petty, narrow-minded and... so far removed from the historic fight, let’s remember, for the world party of the proletariat.

These practices and the use of psychological and personalized criteria in the political relations between communist groups offer a privileged terrain for opportunist and liquidationist forces such as the ICC of Decomposition and Parasitism. The fact that the ICC is rushing into the breach opened by considerations of a psychological, non-political nature, the very terrain of its theory of parasitism, should come as no surprise to anyone: it had announced this at its last international congress and we had warned the whole camp (see RG #12 [1]). It is necessary to recognize in this ’quality’ the liquidator ICC is consequent. It steadfastly pursues its objective of destroying the proletarian camp. This is why it is necessary to call on the pro-party forces of the camp, organizations, groups and individual sympathizers or militants, to reject this terrain of networks and approaches of a personal and psychological nature in order to judge the positions and real political intentions of other communist groups.

Let us be read and judged on what we write. No, we do not reproduce the texts of Nuevo Curso or the ICT, or others, as an opportunistic tactic, to coax them, flatter them or gain their sympathy. No, we do not continue to defend the fact that the ICT is still the only material force in a situation where it can exercise its historical and international role as pole of regroupment in order to blackmail it (incredible, isn’t it?).

Yes, we will continue to debate and try to confront publicly the different positions as we are trying to do in our own ranks. With or without the other communist forces. This is a necessity for us. But so is it for the other communist forces, whatever they may think, and even if it must disturb the daily routine and the comfort of absolute certainties. Debates and political confrontations are the blood that must irrigate the communist political bodies. Otherwise there is a risk of thrombosis. Ultimately, it is a matter of life and death. As for the radicalized petty bourgeois of the networks, who confuse window-breaking and looting with class violence, Seattle’s free zone with revolution, gossip with methodical debates... let’s not waste any more of the little space we have.