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Home ›In Times of Lockdown: How to Contact and Work Towards Joining the CWO
The Covid lockdowns and restrictions have produced a very unusual situation for the ICT. We’ve almost stopped face-to-face meetings, though we have managed to attend and address some demonstrations and had a small number of suitably socially-distanced meetings in various places. We’ve cut back on our physical publications, because we don’t have as many opportunities at the moment to distribute them — though, again, we have managed to intervene with leaflets and papers in some places, most notably Aurora#52 at demonstrations over NHS pay, and the leaflet produced jointly by the comrades of the Internationalist Workers’ Group and Klasbatalo in North America in response to the murder of George Floyd and the wave of protests sparked by it.
The curtailing of opportunities for physical meetings had led to a rise in our online activity. The internet is of course a very useful communication tool. It allows revolutionary organisations to make contact with people who are in locations where there are no militants. We have been holding more meetings on the internet, which has allowed comrades from different countries and regions to interact in a way not possible with physical meetings. We’ve also been concentrating on publishing more than usual on the website and trying harder to share our content, including some written by sympathisers, on social media.
Of course, many of our sympathisers and contacts, and the people we don’t know who read what we publish, have been spending more time on the internet due to Covid restrictions, reading, thinking about, and discussing, the ICT’s analysis.
Perhaps it is aspects of the world situation that people are seeking perspectives on, whether that’s capitalism’s responsibility for the rise of viruses like Covid and the ecological catastrophe that is ravaging the planet; or the social and economic consequences for a global capitalist economy in deep economic crisis and weighed down by debt; the imperialist proxy wars that continue at the same time as the ominous sharpening of rivalry between the waning US super-power and the rising challenge from China; or simply the declining prospect for the world's wage-workers and the majority of humanity which in itself indicates the need for the capitalist profit system to be replaced by a world community which decides for itself what and how to produce on the basis of social need and impact on the wider environment. This, of course, cannot be done without a political and social revolution and without a revolutionary organisation able to exert a clear political and practical guide. This is what the ICT is working to bring into existence.
And this is why, beyond the increasing tally of internet readers, we have been encouraged in recent months by a growing number of people contacting us to discuss, to help, and to join the organisations that make up the ICT. The latter is an important decision: to coin a phrase it is "one small step for the individual", but eventually it will lead to "a giant leap for humankind."
How to Find and Contact the CWO:
We publish in a variety of formats. Apart from the paper publications of the ICT’s constituent organisations, our main publishing tool is the website – leftcom.org. If you like our output, if you read our articles and think we are saying sensible things, then please, consider opening up a dialogue with us. You can contact us in many different ways.
- Email: uk@leftcom.org
- Facebook: @cwouk
- Twitter: @cwouk
- Instagram: @cwo.official
- Telegram: t.me
- Post: BM CWO, London, WC1N 3XX
We currently are holding discussions with contacts on Zoom and Discord; if you would like to talk to us on either of these platforms, please contact us and we can try to arrange a meeting.
If you’re not in the UK, you can get in touch with the various affiliates or sympathiser groups of the ICT directly:
- for Italy, contact Battaglia Comunista (PCInt) via email (it@leftcom.org), Facebook or Twitter, or by post to PCInt, Ass. Int. Prometeo - Via Calvairate, 1 - 20136 Milano.
- for Germany, contact the Gruppe Internationalistischer KommunistInnen (GIK) via email (de@leftcom.org), Facebook or Twitter.
- for Canada, contact Klasbatalo via email (ca@leftcom.org), Facebook or Twitter.
- for the US, contact the Internationalist Workers’ Group (IWG) via email (us@leftcom.org), Facebook or Twitter, or by post to IWG, P.O. Box 14485, Madison, WI 53708.
- for France, contact Bilan et Perspectives via email (fr@leftcom.org) or by post to Bilan et Perspectives, Michel Olivier" 7, rue paul Escudier, 75009 PARIS
- for Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere in Oceania, contact our sympathiser-group the Internationalist Communists Oceania (ICO) via email (internationalistcommunists@gmail.com), their website, on Facebook or Twitter.
For anywhere not on that list, you can contact the nearest affiliate and we might be able to put you in touch with comrades speaking languages beyond English, Italian, German and French, including: Swedish, Spanish, Farsi, Polish, Russian, Dutch, and Portuguese.
How to Help the CWO:
If there is a CWO section nearby, you can simply join our comrades in their activities. But even if you are the only left communist in your city or village you can still contribute:
- You can take out a subscription to the ICT’s various publications, and you can buy our books. You can donate to the organisation via the ‘Donate’ buttons (currently, one for the CWO and one for the IWG) on the website. All this will help us with printing costs – we don’t make profit and we have no paid organisers.
- If you know of somewhere you think will stock our publications – a radical bookshop, a newsagent, a social centre, anywhere that people may be open to a radical critique of capitalism – then finding out if they would take our material and letting us know would be helpful.
- Want to help spread the internationalist message on the streets? We produce stickers and may be able to send you some.
- You can like and share our social media posts on whatever platforms you use. You can discuss the content you see on social media. You can also comment on our articles on our website.
- You could consider writing something for us. If there is a situation or issue that you think is important then talk to us and we may be able to publish something you write about it.
- Finally, you can take our publications and talk about our analyses and perspectives in your workplace, university, school, neighbourhood or at protests and picket lines. It is not an exaggeration to say that humanity faces a stark choice of a future communist society or an acceleration of the manifold crises of capitalism. The working class is the only force in society that has the power to change the destructive course we are embarked upon. But there is no automatic link between a worsening situation for humanity and the consciousness that the working class can provide the solution. Revolutionary organisations are an integral part of the generalisation of class consciousness. The ICT sees itself as a component of a future international organisation of the working class, and works towards that end, but we do not think that we can act without the class. It is the working class that will make the revolution and the idea of communism must exist in the class, not just in the organisation of revolutionaries.
Further Steps to Joining the CWO:
If you have already been in contact with us and think you want to join the CWO, and you haven’t already done this, or if you are new to us but already convinced that you want to join the organisation, we’d ask you to read our Political Platform and our basic document For Communism. You can then either write or email us to discuss what you think before you go any further, or just make contact with the organisation which will put you in touch with the local section; you can start taking part in their activities if you are not already doing so. If you are still comfortable with that, and the local organisation is with you, then you are given the Statutes, which are our rules for members. If you can live with them you are then proposed for candidacy as a CWO member. After this candidacy period if you still want to be a member of the organisation, the question of you becoming a full member is decided by a general meeting of the organisation.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Start here...
- Navigating the Basics
- Platform
- For Communism
- Introduction to Our History
- CWO Social Media
- IWG Social Media
- Klasbatalo Social Media
- Italian Communist Left
- Russian Communist Left
The Internationalist Communist Tendency consists of (unsurprisingly!) not-for-profit organisations. We have no so-called “professional revolutionaries”, nor paid officials. Our sole funding comes from the subscriptions and donations of members and supporters. Anyone wishing to donate can now do so safely using the Paypal buttons below.
ICT publications are not copyrighted and we only ask that those who reproduce them acknowledge the original source (author and website leftcom.org). Purchasing any of the publications listed (see catalogue) can be done in two ways:
- By emailing us at uk@leftcom.org, us@leftcom.org or ca@leftcom.org and asking for our banking details
- By donating the cost of the publications required via Paypal using the “Donate” buttons
The CWO also offers subscriptions to Revolutionary Perspectives (3 issues) and Aurora (at least 4 issues):
- UK £15 (€18)
- Europe £20 (€24)
- World £25 (€30, $30)
Take out a supporter’s sub by adding £10 (€12) to each sum. This will give you priority mailings of Aurora and other free pamphlets as they are produced.
ICT sections
Basics
- Bourgeois revolution
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History
- 01. Prehistory
- 02. Ancient History
- 03. Middle Ages
- 04. Modern History
- 1800: Industrial Revolution
- 1900s
- 1910s
- 1911-12: Turko-Italian War for Libya
- 1912: Intransigent Revolutionary Fraction of the PSI
- 1912: Republic of China
- 1913: Fordism (assembly line)
- 1914-18: World War I
- 1917: Russian Revolution
- 1918: Abstentionist Communist Fraction of the PSI
- 1918: German Revolution
- 1919-20: Biennio Rosso in Italy
- 1919-43: Third International
- 1919: Hungarian Revolution
- 1930s
- 1931: Japan occupies Manchuria
- 1933-43: New Deal
- 1933-45: Nazism
- 1934: Long March of Chinese communists
- 1934: Miners' uprising in Asturias
- 1934: Workers' uprising in "Red Vienna"
- 1935-36: Italian Army Invades Ethiopia
- 1936-38: Great Purge
- 1936-39: Spanish Civil War
- 1937: International Bureau of Fractions of the Communist Left
- 1938: Fourth International
- 1940s
- 1960s
- 1980s
- 1979-89: Soviet war in Afghanistan
- 1980-88: Iran-Iraq War
- 1982: First Lebanon War
- 1982: Sabra and Chatila
- 1986: Chernobyl disaster
- 1987-93: First Intifada
- 1989: Fall of the Berlin Wall
- 1979-90: Thatcher Government
- 1980: Strikes in Poland
- 1982: Falklands War
- 1983: Foundation of IBRP
- 1984-85: UK Miners' Strike
- 1987: Perestroika
- 1989: Tiananmen Square Protests
- 1990s
- 1991: Breakup of Yugoslavia
- 1991: Dissolution of Soviet Union
- 1991: First Gulf War
- 1992-95: UN intervention in Somalia
- 1994-96: First Chechen War
- 1994: Genocide in Rwanda
- 1999-2000: Second Chechen War
- 1999: Introduction of euro
- 1999: Kosovo War
- 1999: WTO conference in Seattle
- 1995: NATO Bombing in Bosnia
- 2000s
- 2000: Second intifada
- 2001: September 11 attacks
- 2001: Piqueteros Movement in Argentina
- 2001: War in Afghanistan
- 2001: G8 Summit in Genoa
- 2003: Second Gulf War
- 2004: Asian Tsunami
- 2004: Madrid train bombings
- 2005: Banlieue riots in France
- 2005: Hurricane Katrina
- 2005: London bombings
- 2006: Anti-CPE movement in France
- 2006: Comuna de Oaxaca
- 2006: Second Lebanon War
- 2007: Subprime Crisis
- 2008: Onda movement in Italy
- 2008: War in Georgia
- 2008: Riots in Greece
- 2008: Pomigliano Struggle
- 2008: Global Crisis
- 2008: Automotive Crisis
- 2009: Post-election crisis in Iran
- 2009: Israel-Gaza conflict
- 2020s
- 1920s
- 1921-28: New Economic Policy
- 1921: Communist Party of Italy
- 1921: Kronstadt Rebellion
- 1922-45: Fascism
- 1922-52: Stalin is General Secretary of PCUS
- 1925-27: Canton and Shanghai revolt
- 1925: Comitato d'Intesa
- 1926: General strike in Britain
- 1926: Lyons Congress of PCd’I
- 1927: Vienna revolt
- 1928: First five-year plan
- 1928: Left Fraction of the PCd'I
- 1929: Great Depression
- 1950s
- 1970s
- 1969-80: Anni di piombo in Italy
- 1971: End of the Bretton Woods System
- 1971: Microprocessor
- 1973: Pinochet's military junta in Chile
- 1975: Toyotism (just-in-time)
- 1977-81: International Conferences Convoked by PCInt
- 1977: '77 movement
- 1978: Economic Reforms in China
- 1978: Islamic Revolution in Iran
- 1978: South Lebanon conflict
- 2010s
- 2010: Greek debt crisis
- 2011: War in Libya
- 2011: Indignados and Occupy movements
- 2011: Sovereign debt crisis
- 2011: Tsunami and Nuclear Disaster in Japan
- 2011: Uprising in Maghreb
- 2014: Euromaidan
- 2016: Brexit Referendum
- 2017: Catalan Referendum
- 2019: Maquiladoras Struggle
- 2010: Student Protests in UK and Italy
- 2011: War in Syria
- 2013: Black Lives Matter Movement
- 2014: Military Intervention Against ISIS
- 2015: Refugee Crisis
- 2018: Haft Tappeh Struggle
- 2018: Climate Movement
People
- Amadeo Bordiga
- Anton Pannekoek
- Antonio Gramsci
- Arrigo Cervetto
- Bruno Fortichiari
- Bruno Maffi
- Celso Beltrami
- Davide Casartelli
- Errico Malatesta
- Fabio Damen
- Fausto Atti
- Franco Migliaccio
- Franz Mehring
- Friedrich Engels
- Giorgio Paolucci
- Guido Torricelli
- Heinz Langerhans
- Helmut Wagner
- Henryk Grossmann
- Karl Korsch
- Karl Liebknecht
- Karl Marx
- Leon Trotsky
- Lorenzo Procopio
- Mario Acquaviva
- Mauro jr. Stefanini
- Michail Bakunin
- Onorato Damen
- Ottorino Perrone (Vercesi)
- Paul Mattick
- Rosa Luxemburg
- Vladimir Lenin
Politics
- Anarchism
- Anti-Americanism
- Anti-Globalization Movement
- Antifascism and United Front
- Antiracism
- Armed Struggle
- Autonomism and Workerism
- Base Unionism
- Bordigism
- Communist Left Inspired
- Cooperativism and autogestion
- DeLeonism
- Environmentalism
- Fascism
- Feminism
- German-Dutch Communist Left
- Gramscism
- ICC and French Communist Left
- Islamism
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- Leninism
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- Maoism
- Marxism
- National Liberation Movements
- Nationalism
- No War But The Class War
- PCInt-ICT
- Pacifism
- Parliamentary Center-Right
- Parliamentary Left and Reformism
- Peasant movement
- Revolutionary Unionism
- Russian Communist Left
- Situationism
- Stalinism
- Statism and Keynesism
- Student Movement
- Titoism
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- Unionism
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