Party of the Committees to Support Resistance – for Communism
November 2024
To the National Democratic Front of the Philippines
We read what the Communist Party of the Philippines writes in its contribution to this Conference. This is its conclusion: ‘It is the urgent task of the proletarian revolutionary cadres, especially in countries under imperialist domination, to build, expand and consolidate a communist party that applies Marxism-Leninism-Maoism to the concrete situation, deeply and broadly rooted among the masses and linked to all patriotic, democratic and progressive classes and social sectors. At the same time, the proletariat must carefully observe the evolution of the crisis of the world capitalist system in order to take advantage of the contradictions, conflicts and wars and ensure that these serve to advance the cause of national liberation.’
What the CP of the Philippines writes is right, and the Caravan has been working on fulfilling this task since its inception. It succeeded in establishing the (new) Communist Party in 2004 and has been working on its expansion and consolidation ever since. The expansion and consolidation of the Party coincides with its work to establish socialism in Italy.
On the eve of World War I, Lenin predicted that either the socialist revolution would prevent war or the communists would turn war into revolution: this is how it was. Today for communists things are such that either with the establishment of socialism in an imperialist country, even if only with the constitution of the Popular Bloc Government for which the Caravan of the (new) PCI, of which the P. CARC is part of, let’s make a decisive leap forward for the socialist revolution in imperialist countries, the fire that will liberate the world from the imperialist system and in this way stop the extension of the Third World War, or else the destructive spiral into which the domination of the imperialist bourgeoisie drags the masses of a large part of the world will continue to worsen.
The communist movement has not succeeded in either World War I or World War II in establishing socialism in any imperialist country except the Russian Empire, the weak link in the imperialist chain. Herein lies the main reason for the exhaustion of the first wave of the proletarian revolution. This was the main limit of the communists’ action during the first world wave of the proletarian revolution (1917-1976): this is the limit we must overcome today.
In this regard, two lines essentially clash in the Italian and international communist movement.
On the one hand, those who argue that the socialist revolution in imperialist countries is more difficult because, thanks to the surplus profits from the exploitation of the oppressed countries, the imperialist bourgeoisie corrupts the working class and the popular masses of the imperialist countries in various ways and thereby reduces their capacity for struggle. From this they draw the conclusion
– that in the imperialist countries the socialist revolution is impossible, or at any rate they regulate themselves as if it were impossible and place their hopes in multipolarism (i.e. in the fact that the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation by putting up a common front with each other and with other ‘rogue states’ will induce the US imperialists and accomplices to desist from their aggression) and/or in revolution in the oppressed countries
– that it is possible, but only as the result of an ‘international revolution’ (i.e. a revolution that wins simultaneously at least in the most important countries), which, in essence, means arguing that the victory of the socialist revolution is impossible since everyone realises that the class struggle advances in very different ways and at very different times from country to country, that the real socialist revolution is anything but a synchronised movement between countries. Stalin’s thesis that by its very nature the socialist revolution as a rule comes to victory country by country is still valid today.
On the other hand, there are those who argue that the socialist revolution in the imperialist countries is certainly a more difficult undertaking than the revolution in the oppressed and capitalistically backward countries, but it is the decisive issue in the future history of mankind: the one that will bring an end to the imperialist epoch and set the whole world on the march towards communism.
This thesis was enunciated as early as Lenin’s Report on the Tactics of the CPR to the 3rd Congress of the Communist International (CI) in July 1921: ‘We took power in Russia not because we were convinced that we could put ourselves at the head of the world socialist revolution, but because we found ourselves in a position to take it and we were sure that taking power in Russia would help the communists of the more advanced countries to take it and they would put themselves at the head of the world socialist revolution. So, we took it and kept it at all costs, to advance the world socialist revolution.’
Why is the socialist revolution in imperialist countries decisive? In the backward countries, the creation of modern productive forces is a non-avoidable task of the socialist revolution, but to fulfil it, once the revolution of new democracy has taken place, the bourgeoisie could and can present itself in individual countries as an alternative to the working class. In the imperialist countries there are already modern productive forces, and we have a wealth of knowledge (professionalism, technique and science) employed in the production process: it is possible to produce whatever is needed. Here the main task of the socialist revolution is to seize power and promote the increasing participation of the popular masses in the management of their associated life (political, cultural, sporting, recreational activities, etc.: those activities from which the ruling classes have consistently excluded the oppressed classes) to the point where they no longer need the state, to the point where the state is no longer needed and the division into social classes is ended. A task for which the bourgeoisie by its very nature cannot propose itself as an alternative to the working class: therefore, it is in the imperialist countries that the decisive clash between the working class and the bourgeoisie takes place.
Why is the socialist revolution in imperialist countries more difficult? Because to accomplish this task it is necessary for communists to break with the long tradition of electoralism (attributing to participation in electoral struggles the role of path to the conquest of power), economism (attributing the role of path to the conquest of power to economic-practical demands) and militarism (attributing to military activity the main and decisive role in every phase of the socialist revolution) and, against dogmatism, to draw and implement a line appropriate to the particular and concrete circumstances.
The line of the Popular Bloc government meets this demand. With the Popular Bloc Government line, the Caravan of the (new) PCI aims at two goals: 1. the renaissance of the communist movement and 2. the unification of the working class and, following it, the other classes of the popular masses, around the communist party. We do not aim to create either an alternative to socialism or an intermediate social system between capitalism and socialism. The establishment of the People’s Bloc Government is a stage in the socialist revolution, in the revolutionary people’s war against the imperialist bourgeoisie that will end with the establishment of socialism.
We pursue the two goals of this stage starting from the conditions in which we find ourselves: 1. the communist party still has very little following and influence among the working class, and 2. the bourgeois left (the set of sincere but non-communist opponents of the Broad Intentions) has more following and influence among the popular masses than we do. With the GBP line we aim to create a situation in which sincere but non-communist opponents of the Broad Economic Agreement govern the country on behalf of the organised popular masses, against the Broad Economic Agreement and in general against the EU, the European Central Bank, the International Monetary Fund and NATO, the institutions of the International Community of the US, Zionist and European imperialists.
The GBP line 1. implies the central role, for the purposes of socialist revolution, of the proletariat concentrated in the capitalist and state-owned enterprises; 2. breaks with the line followed for years by the sincere but non-communist opponents of the Broad Intentions of protesting, denouncing, demanding from the governments of the Broad Intentions that they stop applying the ‘common programme of the imperialist bourgeoisie’; 3. it draws on the lessons of the Popular Front line and the limits with which it was applied by the communist parties in the imperialist countries, in the sense that it responds to three problems they left unsolved
how to move from struggles and protests to a socialist government,
how to use for revolutionary purposes the situations in which the ruling class, due to the worsening of the crisis and the mobilisation of the popular masses, is unable to maintain the continuity of its political system (of government, management of public administration, etc.) and is forced to give in, adopting the governmental solution that is possible for it,
what objective should we set ourselves with respect to the bourgeois state and the functions it performs in the imperialist countries (or, put another way, how do we concretely apply the watchword ‘the bourgeois state is to be overthrown, not changed’).
The interests of the masses of the people are increasingly at odds with what the bourgeoisie tries to make them do, with the ideas it tries to promote in them, with the feelings it tries to arouse in them. We communists must lead the masses to behave in accordance with their own interests and gradually promote in them ideas and feelings corresponding to their interests. The socialist revolution is not spontaneous. It is up to us communists to learn how to advance it. The revival of the communist movement, particularly the communist movement in imperialist countries, is the decisive factor: it is the factor that determines the timing of the transformation that will put an end to the disaster into which the imperialist bourgeoisie is plunging humanity. Either by promoting the proletarian revolution we put an end to the Third World War or by taking advantage of the development of the war we accelerate the proletarian revolution.
The first imperialist country that breaks the shackles of the International Community of the US, Zionist and European imperialist groups will show the way and open the way for the popular masses of the other imperialist countries and the oppressed peoples of the whole world to a future of solidarity, collaboration and exchange between peoples and nations!
CARC Party – International Working Group