For many years an
inhospitable climate has existed within the revolutionary milieu concerning the
need to talk to one another, to have discussions between groups, to debate the
burning questions facing our class. Each group or individual stuck to its own
positions, withdrew into itself, without feeling any need to break its
isolation, nor to question the reasons for it. The appeals of Internationalist
Perspective for the participation of other groups or individuals in its
debates, notably our appeal to discuss both the need for, and the content of, a
new revolutionary platform, seemed to fall on deaf ears. It was only
intermittently, through discussion meetings that we held approximately twice a
year in Paris, that one could really feel that a need to discuss, to confront
rival points of view, existed in a latent manner. However, in recent months, it
seems that a change has really occurred in the revolutionary milieu. The
clearest sign of that change has been the organization of a discussion network,
first in the French language, and now in English too. In December 2000, we
participated in a meeting in Paris to organize a “discussion network.” Since
then, a network in English has also been set up. With this article, we want to
inform readers about the initial discussions that led to the organization of
the network. It is still too soon to draw any conclusions concerning the
results of the different discussions that have been generated in the network, a
point to which we will doubtless return in future issues of Internationalist
Perspective.
The call for meetings to set
up a discussion network was made by the Paris Discussion Circle (CDP). This
group of militants, expelled, or having resigned, from the International
Communist Current (ICC), has met regularly over the past two years to draw up a
balance-sheet of the degeneration of the ICC, and to lay out the limits of the
political positions of that organization. That work was concretized in the
pamphlet Que ne pas faire? (See the critical review of that pamphlet in
this issue.) Once that work of drawing up a balance-sheet was concluded, the
militants of the CDP decided not to constitute themselves as another political
organization, because they found that there were no satisfactory answers to the
most important questions facing revolutionaries today. They decided, therefore,
to make an appeal for the organization of a “discussion circle”, so as to
facilitate as broad as possible an exchange between revolutionaries on the
issues that confronted us, and to which no one – neither group nor individual –
had as yet provided a satisfactory response. The technical possibilities
provided by the internet, together with regular meetings, permitted the process
of discussion to develop internationally, and guaranteed the possibility of the
participation of all its members.
The call for a meeting to
organize such a network was addressed, at the international level, to every
group or individual who wanted to engage in revolutionary struggle and to
contribute to the development of revolutionary theory. That call generated a
considerable interest, inasmuch as there were many who had participated in the
first two meetings in Paris. Thus, we had been happy to see at the December
meeting a number of old comrades with whom we had remained in more or less
regularly in contact (to cite only the groups: Robin Goodfellow, Echanges,
the CDP), and to meet for the first time many other comrades (Cercle Social, Aufheben
(a group from Britain)). Still more comrades participated in the January
meeting. These meetings demonstrated a real will and need to look beyond the
divisions between groups, and the separations and clashes that had occurred in
the past.
Certainly, most of the members of the network are experienced militants, whose very presence is indicative of the bankruptcy of the organizations from which they have emerged. The very organization of the network, however, indicates a will to go forward on the basis of the recognition that “no one is the holder of truth.” We hope that comrades who do not have a long militant past will also become part of the network, thereby contributing new blood to the revolutionary dialogue. The kinds of issues raised for discussion in the network, and the comradely spirit and open mindedness that characterize its members, constitute conditions extremely favourable to the birth of a new generation of revolutionaries.
The originality of the
network consists in the fact that militants who do not necessarily share the
same political positions are ready to debate together. That constitutes an
important change with respect to the situation that has existed until now, in
which political discussions took place essentially within political
groups, while polemics prevailed between them. Several efforts were made in the
past to break with that lamentable tradition. The group Communisme ou
Civilisation had launched an initiative for a common publication, the Revue
Internationale du Mouvement Communiste. A discussion circle had existed for
several months in Paris a few years ago, but it then dissolved. Internationalist
Perspective had then organized – for several years – discussion meetings in
Paris with the principal objective of creating a site where the diversity of
positions in the revolutionary milieu could be expressed without censorship.
Nonetheless, a real debate on the burning questions was not generated, and our
call for a discussion to write a new revolutionary platform (see IP #s
23 and 25, 1992) received little response.
With the organization of the network, everyone acknowledges, for the first time, or so it seems, that a constructive discussion can take place between comrades sharing a minimal number of common principles (internationalism, the necessity for communist revolution). The content of the principles that must be held in common was itself the object of considerable discussion. It was finally decided to renounce the adoption of certain criteria that had been initially proposed, such as the rejection of substitutionism (rejection of the seizure of political power by the party) and the denunciation of anti-fascism, out of concern that insisting on them would have prevented the participation of revolutionaries who had something to contribute to the network, in spite of their fixation on the question of the party or their positions on anti-fascism.
The idea that the network must only consist of individuals, and must therefore reject the participation of political groups, was also discussed. Most of the comrades present at the meetings thought that the existence of the network was in no way incompatible with the existence of political organizations, and defended the idea that the network remain open to groups constituted around a platform as well as to individuals. It is a question of different moments of the same work of theoretical clarification and elaboration.
Just as their existed an evident correspondence between the feelings of certitude, of unwillingness to question positions, and the absence of discussion between groups in the past, so too the organization of the network is explicitly based on the recognition that important theoretical work is an urgent task at the present moment. The network has set as its task the discussion of burning questions, that neither the Communist Left, nor those who claim its heritage, could really comprehend. These basically concern the understanding of the evolution of capitalism in the course of the twentieth century on the one hand, and the prospects for revolution today on the other. How has capitalism developed since World War Two? What are the major contradictions today? What role has war played in that development? Can one still envisage a world war today? Is capitalism moving ineluctably towards a breakdown or – after each recession – is it capable of restarting the machine of accumulation? How can the working class, whose composition has radically changed since the 1960s, develop a consciousness of the possibility of transforming society? What can we say today about the society to which we aspire, communism?
In the months since its beginning, the debates in the network have focused on economic questions and the issue of fascism and anti-fascism during World War Two. It might seem astonishing that the question of the attitude to be adopted by revolutionaries towards fascism has generated such a heated discussion now. However, the network is ready to to consider and to discuss the arguments of those who put in question the positions of the Communist Left on this issue. The facility of communication in the network does not change the fact that theoretical work is difficult, time consuming and laborious. Substantial theoretical contributions will be necessary to advance the debates. We can only hope that the network will be capable – on this point, as on other points of discussion – of producing a higher synthesis than that contained in the texts produced in the past.
From a technical point of view, the network was in the beginning essentially Francophone, even if comrades speaking other languages had indicated an interest, and had participated in meetings. However, there very rapidly appeared a need and a possibility of parallel networks in other languages. A proposition for an English language network was made by Internationalist Perspective and received an enthusiastic response. An English language network has now been organized. In the medium term, we can envisage networks being organized in Spanish, as well as in Asia and Eastern Europe. We need to think about how communication between these networks can be assured so as to create a really international discussion.
In conclusion, the dynamic that animates the discussion networks reflects both the needs and the possibilities of the hour. The need to go forward, which proceeds through discussion, and the confrontation with the positions of others; the possibility of discussing at a really international level, in a joint and virtually simultaneous manner. An unprecedented opportunity for the development of Marxist thinking exists thanks to these networks. Let’s seize it!
Adele
[from Internationalist Perspective #38, Summer 2001]