Statement CC 4/2023 - February 2023

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To every individual convinced that socialism is necessary and determined to establish it

Build more advanced communist parties in the imperialist countries than those that operated during the first wave of the proletarian revolution!

Which communist party do the Italian popular masses need in order to become a force capable of establishing socialism?

The great mobilisations of the popular masses on January 19 and 31 and February 7, 2023 confirmed the instability of the political regime of the imperialist bourgeoisie in France. The same thing is shown in these weeks by the mobilisations of the popular masses in Great Britain, in other imperialist countries and in the USA itself, the leading country of the world imperialist system. The same thing is shown in Italy by the electoral abstention of September 25, 2022 and the protests and claiming mobilisations. In the imperialist countries, the bourgeoisie is unable to rule without a certain level of consensus and collaboration of the mass of the population. Therefore, the mobilisation of the popular masses confirms that we are in a developing revolutionary situation.

However, the revolutionary movement is weak. Many rightly point out that the socialist revolution is advancing extremely slowly, some say it is not advancing at all. In fact, there are still few members of the (n)ICP, yet we are issuing this statement on the 24th anniversary of the publication (March 1999) of the first issue of La Voce, an issue dedicated (1) to illustrate the nature of the party (Which Party do we need) that the Preparatory Commission of the (n)ICP's Founding Congress proposed and (2) to appeal to the subjective forces of the socialist revolution to participate in its construction.

What is the main brake on the advance of the socialist revolution? What is it that mainly diverts, brakes the popular masses from moving from discontent and intolerance to a socialist revolution advancing with power?

The main reason of the slow progress we have advanced with in recent years is that many of those who are convinced that establishing socialism is necessary, do not carry out the intellectual and moral reform (IMR) that would make each of them an effective promoter of the advance of the socialist revolution. They are convinced that socialism is necessary, but because of the defeat we suffered in the second half of the last century they are demoralised and have no confidence in themselves or others.

Marx and Engels taught us that mankind needs the proletariat to establish socialism, that to become a force capable of establishing socialism the proletariat needs a communist party, that what distinguishes communists from other proletarians is that they have and apply in the proletariat's war against the bourgeoisie a more advanced understanding of the conditions, forms and results of the proletariat's struggle. Addressing the left wing of the German Social Democrats, Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and their comrades and followers in July 1916, in the midst of the First World War (The Junius Pamphlet) Lenin wrote: "A very great defect in revolutionary Marxism in Germany as a whole is its lack of a compact illegal organisation that would systematically pursue its line and educate the masses in the spirit of the new tasks." The great achievements in the Soviet Union and the world in the first part of the last century confirm the teachings of Marx and Engels, Lenin and Stalin. The defeat we suffered in the second part of the last century was due to the limits of our understanding of the course of things, limits that Maoism helped us to understand: the publication of the Works of Mao Tse-tung (published by Edizioni Rapporti Sociali) by the CARC fuelled the establishment of the (n)ICP.

Because of those limitations (1) we did not establish socialism in any of the imperialist countries despite the victory of the USSR's Great Patriotic War and the European Resistance achieved in 1945 against the third of the aggressions with which the imperialist groups led by the Nazi-fascists had tried to eliminate the USSR; (2) we did not prevent the modern revisionists led by Khrushchev from taking over the leadership of the CPSU and leading the USSR to dissolution in 1991. More advanced understanding of the conditions, forms and results of the proletariat's struggle against the bourgeoisie does not mean "complete, exhaustive understanding". There is no such thing as "comprehensive understanding". Understanding the course of things is by its very nature limited. So we can make mistakes and some mistakes lead to serious defeats. In the face of a defeat, one must identify the limits of one's understanding at the source of it, overcome them and apply the achieved superior understanding in the ongoing struggle. This is what communists must do today in order to raise the resistance of the popular masses to the course of events that the bourgeoisie is obliged to impose. The bourgeoisie can only impose a catastrophic course of things because every capitalist must enhance his own capital and the capitalist who does not do so is replaced by a competitor.

Rewriting history and spreading a false version of the course of things, dulling and brutalising the minds and hearts of the popular masses and combining this with repression is the weapon with which the bourgeoisie diverts the popular masses from the socialist revolution. It is the main weapon at its disposal to prolong the life of its social system. Certainly, the bourgeoisie is capable of "rewriting history" and it does so on a large scale and without restraint: Benigni made a blockbuster film in which US soldiers free the prisoners of Auschwitz! But the bourgeoisie is unable to do more. In the war that the proletariat wages against it, the bourgeoisie is able to win battles by taking advantage of the mistakes of the communists leading the proletariat, but it is unable to win the war: it cannot do without the proletariat and exploit it. The bourgeoisie's increasing recourse to the weapon that combines brutalisation and repression is proof of the danger it faces, it is confirmation that advancing the socialist revolution is possible.

Level and number of Party members are the strength with which we advance the socialist revolution. In short, the speech that we must spread in Italy among the most advanced elements of the Conscious and Organized Communist Movement (COCM) and among the most advanced workers, the speech that each of us must apply to ourselves, the speech that we must give to each comrade who asks or who wonders why the socialist revolution does not advance or advances slowly, is: "The socialist revolution is not advancing faster because individuals like you who want to make it do not behave intellectually and in practice (in the intellectual and moral reform they carry out and in the activity they do outwardly) as the experience of the first wave has shown that the promoters of the socialist revolution must behave: they are more like Zinoviev and Bukharin than Lenin and Stalin, more like the Gramsci of the period 1917-1921 than the Gramsci of the period 1923-1926 or the period in which (by then a prisoner of the fascists) he wrote the Prison Notebooks. The deciding factor in the speed with which the socialist revolution advances is the level and number of communist party members. Today any additional member is precious."

With this statement, the (new)Italian Communist Party appeals to each of the recipients to make that speech to themselves and to each of their contacts who are in a similar position to their own, and to draw the consequences!