A breaktrough for Marxists in Italy

[vyborg]

Marxists are now a quarter of the young communist (the youth organization of the PRC)!! This is the best situation ever since the 2WW. Here the link (in italian http://www.marxismo.net/content/view/3678/219/)

[Invincible Summer]

What does the People's Republic of China have to do with Italy? And how was the Second World War a good situation?

I may be totally misunderstanding you...

[vyborg]

PRC means Partito della Rifondazione Comunista, the biggest left party in Italy.

Since the IIWW the stalinists were in total control of the labour movement in Italy, so this is really something new: marxists are advancing inside the party at stalinists and reformists expenses.

[Crux]

Congrats and all. How is the PRC holding up by the way? I was under the impression they were more or less disintegrating. The CWI recently made a significant gain with Sinistra de PRC Controcorrente becoming our italian section. It will probably be announced later this month I think.

[vyborg]

The Prc is doing very bad of course, because after the left turn of last conference they returned to business as usual i.e. they court the PD.
Controcorrente, as far as I know, decided to split from the PRC. Maybe I had a wrong impression...

[Q]

My Italian sucks, is there an English translation?

[vyborg]

lol...not yet...it will be very soon I think.

[Crux]

The comrades also had an article up on the Youth Communist conference: http://resistinternazionali.blogspot.com/2010/02/i-risultati-della-quarta-conferenza.html

[vyborg]

I've seen they simply decided to vote our document...

it was a simple decision after all...
The first document is a confuse mix of stalinism and reformism, the second one is pure revolutionary marxism...

[heiss93]

What exactly do you mean by "marxists"? I would assume the Stalinists and reformists in a Communist Party would also consider themselves Marxist.

[vyborg]

Not all. Reformists (that is the Bertinotti area) are very far from marxism and proud to be.

As for stalinists, they use somewhere a marxist rethoric but in practice they are the same reformists. For example they are in favour of an electoral alliance not only with the PD but even with the UDC that is a right wing bourgeois party...

We must also add, anyway, that stalinists are nomally more prone to underline the importance of the party, while people from Bertinotti-Vendola area are simply liquidationist. This is the stalinist main asset today, given that USSR is no more there

[The Vegan Marxist]

Marxists are now a quarter of the young communist (the youth organization of the PRC)!! This is the best situation ever since the 2WW. Here the link (in italian http://www.marxismo.net/content/view/3678/219/)

I wish there was an english site for it as well. Either way, that's awesome!

[MarkP]

The implied claim being made in this thread is false - the implication is that a quarter of the Italian young communists are members or supporters of the Woods group, FalceMartello. The FM group remains small and marginal, however in this youth congress it's document was the only left oppositional one, so it attracted the votes of all those to left of the leadership or even just disgruntled with the leadership. This sort of thing happens sometimes.

The vote is a success for the FM group but it does not represent a breakthrough of the kind implied.

[FSL]

PRC means Partito della Rifondazione Comunista, the biggest left party in Italy.

Since the IIWW the stalinists were in total control of the labour movement in Italy, so this is really something new: marxists are advancing inside the party at stalinists and reformists expenses.


You really can't comment on that, it speaks for itself

[Dimentio]

Sadly, a pyrrhic victory.

To take over a deteriorating party which is alienated from the major coalitions in Italian politics...

[FSL]

Sadly, a pyrrhic victory.

To take over a deteriorating party which is alienated from the major coalitions in Italian politics...


The cause of its deterioration is its alliance with the bourgeoisie. The "left" coalition in Italy is the same Berlusconi politics with a less provocative presentation.

[Q]

The implied claim being made in this thread is false - the implication is that a quarter of the Italian young communists are members or supporters of the Woods group, FalceMartello. The FM group remains small and marginal, however in this youth congress it's document was the only left oppositional one, so it attracted the votes of all those to left of the leadership or even just disgruntled with the leadership. This sort of thing happens sometimes.

The vote is a success for the FM group but it does not represent a breakthrough of the kind implied.

This reminds me of a similar occasion in the French PCF where the IMT also won a vote in a congress. It was presented as a "major leap forward" or somesuch. I wonder, how is the French IMT doing today? I haven't heard major boasts lately.

[bcbm]

This is the best situation ever since the 2WW.

marxists being a minority of the official communist party youth group is a better situation than the situation from 68-78?

[vyborg]

The implied claim being made in this thread is false - the implication is that a quarter of the Italian young communists are members or supporters of the Woods group, FalceMartello. The FM group remains small and marginal, however in this youth congress it's document was the only left oppositional one, so it attracted the votes of all those to left of the leadership or even just disgruntled with the leadership. This sort of thing happens sometimes.

The vote is a success for the FM group but it does not represent a breakthrough of the kind implied.

FM is the least "small and marginal" trot group in Italy now. Thats' the simple fact. Of course, as I said, I never implied that this means Marxism is now a mass tendency in the Italian labour movement yet.

But an enormous step forward yes it is

[vyborg]

Sadly, a pyrrhic victory.

To take over a deteriorating party which is alienated from the major coalitions in Italian politics...

So it was better to allow the reformist-stalinist leadership to have no opposition? I can't understand the idea behind this post.

[vyborg]

This reminds me of a similar occasion in the French PCF where the IMT also won a vote in a congress. It was presented as a "major leap forward" or somesuch. I wonder, how is the French IMT doing today? I haven't heard major boasts lately.

Well the analogy is not very precise. PCF and Rifondazione are very different parties etc etc, but yes comrades inside the PCF are doing a marvelous job.

Stalinism is agonizing, thats' why even the PCF can now be strongly influenced by Marxism.

[vyborg]

marxists being a minority of the official communist party youth group is a better situation than the situation from 68-78?

in the 70's in Italy there were at least 5 or 10 groups with thousands and thousands of militants at the left of the enormous PCI. The problem was they were all Stalinist (ore Maoist) with not fundamental exceptions.

If in 1975 you had attempted to sell a Trot paper in an Italian university or high school you had risked your life...Stalinists were everywhere.

That's why the difference now is enormous.

[Crux]

So it was better to allow the reformist-stalinist leadership to have no opposition? I can't understand the idea behind this post.
Well if the groups that have left would have tried to form some combined revolutionary alternative it might have been a different story, sadly that's not the case. And the PRC isn't over. Yet anyway. Great tasks ahead in either case, compagno.

[vyborg]

Well if the groups that have left would have tried to form some combined revolutionary alternative it might have been a different story, sadly that's not the case. And the PRC isn't over. Yet anyway. Great tasks ahead in either case, compagno.

Absolutely...the organized splits from the Prc were a lot but not numerically (maybe some thousands). The problem is the silence split of people...
In 20 years Rifondazione recruited not less than half a million workers and youths...and now it has maybe 20-30 thousands real militants...that's the problem.

[Crux]

Absolutely...the organized splits from the Prc were a lot but not numerically (maybe some thousands). The problem is the silence split of people...
In 20 years Rifondazione recruited not less than half a million workers and youths...and now it has maybe 20-30 thousands real militants...that's the problem.
Well, if the PRC can be made into a fighting marxist organization I am certain we will win them back and more. But there is also the risk that what we are seeing now is actually the last days of PRC, we must be ready to take the fight in either way.

[vyborg]

Well Rifondazione is weak but the rest is comically weaker anyway.

It is not helpful of course that any split from the PRC proclaimed itself the new revolutionary party. But even combined they are very weak even if there are some good comrades with them.

Anyway the basic difference here is the authority of the leadership. The PCI leaders were more or less gods for italian workers. If you even now critic Togliatti in front of old workers you risk to be silenced if not heavily injured...
But the present leaders are a joke. That's a completely new situation in the Italian labour movement