100 Years Since Livorno

Politics: 
Italian Communist Left
People: 
Onorato Damen
History: 
1912: Intransigent Revolutionary Fraction of the PSI
1918: Abstentionist Communist Fraction of the PSI
1921: Communist Party of Italy
Publications: 
Documents

(In January 1921, more than three years after the October Revolution in Russia, some two years since the murder of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in Berlin at the behest of the German Social Democratic Party, and in the aftermath of two wasted years of workers’ factory occupations in Italy itself, the intransigent revolutionaries in the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), led by Amadeo Bordiga,...

Wealth Tax: Expropriation of the Rich or Capitalist Smokescreen?

Politics: 
Base Unionism
Parliamentary Left and Reformism
Regions: 
Italy
History: 
2020: COVID-19 Pandemic
Facts: 
Economic policies
Publications: 
Documents

Part One · A spectre is haunting Europe: the ‘Wealth Tax’ (known in Italy as the Patrimonial). This joke sums up what has now become a stock demand of so many of the "left", both inside and, above all, outside parliament and not just in Italy. By definition, a wealth tax is a form of taxation aimed at the rich, particularly the very rich, via a progressive rate that increases with the level of...

Storming of the Capitol: The Working Class Has its Own Battles to Fight

Regions: 
United States of America
Basics: 
Democracy and dictatorship
Facts: 
Elections and polls
Publications: 
Documents

(Statement of the Internationalist Communist Tendency) · The picture we’re getting from the US is shocking and serious. The formal institutional events are the least important. Only two things matter. The first is that, even knowing that there’s no possibility of invalidating the election, Trump has fully mobilised the worst of the American reactionary world which has always seen him as the strong...

Party and Class in 1918: Vladimir Sorin on Soviet Power

Politics: 
Russian Communist Left
History: 
1917: Russian Revolution
Basics: 
Party and class
Publications: 
Documents

The translation which follows is our latest offering from the pages of the Left Communist journal Kommunist 4 which appeared in June 1918.(1) The writer is the 25 year old Vladimir Sorin.(2) Less is known about him than many of the other contributors. Robert Daniels does not mention him at all in The Conscience of the Revolution whilst Ronald Kowalski in his The Bolshevik Party in Conflict: The...

New Year, Same Crisis

Regions: 
Oceania
History: 
2020: COVID-19 Pandemic
Facts: 
Health and social assistance
Workers' conditions and struggles
Publications: 
Documents

The COVID-19 pandemic has left the entire working class living with a new level of uncertainty. There have now been cases reported on every continent after researchers and military personnel on Antarctica recently reported their first cases. As of 29 December 2020, there have been over 81.2 million COVID-19 cases and 1.77 million deaths.

An Introduction to the Work of the CWO and ICT

Politics: 
Italian Communist Left
History: 
1983: Foundation of IBRP
Basics: 
Party and class
Facts: 
Activities
Publications: 
Documents

(The article which follows is a transcript of an introduction to an online meeting of CWO members and sympathisers on 21 November 2020.) · What Distinguishes the ICT? · The world is full of organisations claiming to be revolutionary, communist or even internationalist. The majority of these have a theory and practice that we would not recognise in any of those categories.

Vladimir Smirnov's Contribution to the Debate on the Soviet Economy

Politics: 
Russian Communist Left
History: 
1917: Russian Revolution
Basics: 
State capitalism
Publications: 
Documents

This is the first signed article by Vladimir Smirnov in the Kommunist project. It appeared in issue 4 in June 1918. Smirnov was of the same revolutionary generation as fellow Kommunist contributors Bukharin and Ossinsky whom he met at Moscow University. Joining the Bolsheviks in 1907, he distinguished himself in 1917 by leading the artillery assault on the Kremlin and forcing the officer cadets...

Malignant Ulcers of Capitalism: The Proletarian Struggle for Reproductive Freedom (Part 2)

Politics: 
Feminism
Facts: 
Discriminations
Health and social assistance
Publications: 
Documents

In our first part ( on reproductive struggles in class society, we highlighted some of the facts and dangers surrounding abortion and contraception. We also commented on the family unit and prostitution – two phenomena Marxists deem to be flipsides of one another and inseparable from the struggle for reproductive freedom.

The Illusion of State Intervention in the Economy: The Eternal Anti-Working Class Weapon of Reformism

Politics: 
Parliamentary Left and Reformism
History: 
2020: COVID-19 Pandemic
Basics: 
State capitalism
Facts: 
Economic policies
Publications: 
Documents

With each new jolt to the capitalist structure its crisis deepens. The disruption of production and distribution caused by the coronavirus pandemic has only added to the existing woes of the system. And, as ever, the working class is being fed illusions about the beneficial effect that state intervention would bring to their conditions and to the "community" in general, irrespective of class.

The US Election is Over: The Capitalist Nightmare Continues!

Regions: 
United States of America
Facts: 
Elections and polls
Unemployment and precarity
Publications: 
Aurora (en)

With the election of Biden to the post of “leader” of the so-called “free world”, many are celebrating. The US ruling class are, of course, delighted to see the back of Trump whom they accuse of having made a complete mess of protecting US interests. The embarrassment of the previous four years can now be swept under the carpet and business as usual can recommence.

Turning the Planet into an Uninhabitable Hell

Politics: 
Environmentalism
Facts: 
Disasters
Energy, oil and fuels
Environment and resources
Publications: 
Aurora (en)

While capitalism’s latest child, Covid-19, rains death down on us, capitalism’s destruction of the planet is actually taking us down a path towards human extinction. According to a United Nations report published in September, the world has failed to meet any of the targets set in 2010 to protect biodiversity and one fifth of all countries are at risk of their ecosystems collapsing.

Coronavirus - Axe Falls on the Working Class

Regions: 
British Isles
History: 
2020: COVID-19 Pandemic
Basics: 
Crisis
Facts: 
Workers' conditions and struggles
Publications: 
Aurora (en)

Capitalism’s continuous plunder and destruction of the natural environment is forcing animals such as bats, rodents and other small creatures into our cities. They bring their diseases with them and pass them on to humans. We have no immunity to these new viruses and the result is epidemics like SARS, MERS and the present pandemic Covid-19.

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Revolutionary Perspectives #17

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Winter/Spring 2021 (Series 4)

  • Communist Work in a Covid Crisis
  • Mythology about the Middle Class and the Class Struggle
  • Class Consciousness and Working Class Emancipation
  • 1871-2021: Vive la Commune!

Journal of the Communist Workers’ Organisation -- Why not subscribe to get the articles whilst they are still current and help the struggle for a society free from exploitation, war and misery? Joint subscriptions to Revolutionary Perspectives (3 issues) and Aurora (our agitational bulletin - 4 issues) are £15 in the UK, €24 in Europe and $30 in the rest of the World.

Aurora #2020-11-19

November 2020

Aurora is the broadsheet of the ICT for the interventions amongst the working class. It is published and distributed in several countries and languages. So far it has been distributed in UK, France, Italy, Canada, USA, Colombia.

Gramsci between Marxism and Idealism

Written by Onorato Damen

The present volume is the product of Damen’s considerations on Gramsci’s shortcomings as an analytical and practical Marxist which he evidently wrote over a period of years. The structure is loose because he died before he completed it and the draft chapters were only discovered posthumously and eventually published in 1982.

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Bordiga Beyond the Myth

Written by Onorato Damen

The originality and importance of this volume – in a expanded edition including new documents and editorial notes, from the two previous editions: 1971 and 1977 – mainly lies in the documents that throw permanent light on the distinctive development and perspectives of the “Italian Left” over decades (among the most tragic in modern history) in the history of international communism.

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Class Consciousness and Revolutionary Organisation

The issue of “consciousness” is one of the most important for the working class and for revolutionaries. Our approach is unashamedly historical and attempts to draw out the real experience of the working class in its struggles of the last two centuries.

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