RCIT has been founded!

[RKOB]

We have founded a new international organisation: the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT).
As you might be aware, the founding organisations - the Revolutionary Communist Organisation for Liberation (Austria), the Revolutionary Workers Organization (Pakistan), United Lankan Workers Party (Sri Lanka) and the Revolutionary Workers Collective (USA) – have already collaborated closely for some time.
Since autumn 2011 we publish a joint English-language journal (Revolutionary Communism)and an e-mail Newsletter (RC-News) and will continue to do this. The RCIT also has now a new website: thecommunists.net
Naturally the website is still under construction and we will put more articles online in the next days and weeks.
On our website you find the political fundament of the RCIT – our new international program The Revolutionary Communist Manifesto. thecommunists.net/rcit/rcit-manifesto

It is in English-language. We will also put it online very soon in German language. We plan to translate it into other languages too.
We ask you to take into account that for most of our members English is not the mother language so this explains that there are certainly a number of mistakes and weaknesses in our translations.

* * *

For us as Trotskyists the programme plays a central role since it summarises the Marxist analysis and the lessons of the past, applies them to the present situation in order to intervene and change it in order to build a better future. As we wrote in our introduction to the programme, it is of course not “the last word”. There are no “last words” in a world which is constantly changing. Future experiences, a broader integration of revolutionary organisation in more countries, deeper roots in the working class, further research, debates – all this will help us to improve our theory and programme.
But this will not come by itself or spontaneously. To make advances on this road we must start with what we have now: our present forces and our ideas. We must bundle them in one united organisation and a programme which serves as the basis of our interventions into the class struggles. A programme is a compass and without a compass one has no orientation in the upheavals of the political, economic and ideological class struggles.
We are fully aware of the fact that the RCIT is currently a small international organisation and there are many challenges and obstacles to overcome on the road to build the revolutionary Fifth Workers’ International. But we are confident that on the basis of a correct programme and a correct understanding, a revolutionary organisation has enormous possibilities to grow in the present historic period which is full of sharp turns and profound instability in world politics, revolutionary events and counter-revolutionary dangers.
We want to join forces with all those with whom we have programmatic agreement and a common understanding of the methods of building the revolutionary party.

Michael Pröbsting, Shujat Liaqat (for the RCIT)

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Content of the RCIT Programme The Revolutionary Communist Manifesto

Preface
Introduction
I. The world we live in
II. A new historical period of revolutionary character
III. The world we are fighting for
IV. The leadership we have and the leadership we need
The struggle for the unions
Changes in the working class
Action Committee - factory committees – Councils
The democratic protest movements

V. The Program of the Revolution
An action program to save the humanity from the misery of capitalism
Cancel the debts! Expropriate the banks and speculators!
Against wage cuts, job insecurity and unemployment!
Fight inflation! For the adjustment of wages to inflation! For price control committees!
Defence of public services! Fight the privatization!
An end to the “business secret”! For workers’ control! For a public employment programme!
No division – Joint fight, regardless of nation, and location!
No more tax breaks for the rich! Expropriate the super rich!
Against the attacks on education! Education for all under control of the working class and youth!
Revolutionary Struggle for Democracy
Free the oppressed peoples from the clutches of the banks and corporations!
Support the national liberation struggles of oppressed peoples!
Fight against the super-exploitation and national oppression of migrants!
Fighting fascism
Save our planet from the capitalist climate catastrophe!
Jobs and housing for the poor in urban slums!
The land to the peasants! Organise the agricultural workers!
Joint struggle for women’s liberation!
Combat the sexual oppression of church and state!
An end to the oppression of young people!
Down with militarism and imperialist war!
The arming of the working class and the oppressed
For a workers’ government, based on the poor peasants and the urban poor
From the armed insurrection to the dictatorship of the proletariat and towards socialism!


The Programme has 68 pages and is published in A5 format.
Price: 2,5 Euro / 3,5 US-Dollar / 2 UK Pound

If you want to receive the RCIT Programme by post you can contact us via our website thecommunists.net or send us an e-mail to rcit(a)thecommunists.net

[Frank Zapatista]

Do you expect there to be any representation in Canada in the future?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

A link to your website would help.

[Anarcho-Brocialist]

A link to your website would help.
thecommunists.net

[Ostrinski]

Another leftist political party, fuck yes!

[Kyu Six]

Another leftist political party, fuck yes!

Another Trotskyite sect, nonetheless. You apparently can never have too many! :D

[honest john's firing squad]

I could probably count all your members on one hand.

[Geiseric]

Why don't they just join the 4th (ICR)? We have the best politics, notably we (S.O.) admit that we're not a party and that a workers vanguard party hasn't been formed.

[Prometeo liberado]

At the current rate of "internationals" popping up I would gather that there wont be many people left to join this one. Also check out these yahoo's.
International Organization for a Participatory Society (http://www.iopsociety.org/) (http://www.iopsociety.org/)

[Q]

Why don't they just join the 4th (ICR)? We have the best politics, notably we (S.O.) admit that we're not a party and that a workers vanguard party hasn't been formed.

All groups claim to have "the best politics", including this new RCIT. On that basis it is also excluded that they will join the Lambertists at any point as that would mean that they'll have to submit their "unique selling points" in politics - that formed the basis of their split from the L5I and founding their own new "international" - to the overruling politics of the FI-ICR.

There will never be unity (besides the lonely small group or two) on the sectarian basis of having "the best politics", as is the disintegrating L5I (having had three splits in the last few years) now showing. Unity can only occur on programmatic unity (as opposed to theoretical unity), that is: A short (as opposed to tens or hundreds of pages, as seems to be the rule with "programs" within sects) document that explains how we should get from where we are now, to working class power and communism after that. As long as there is that commitment to the program, I don't see why I couldn't be in one party with a Maoist, an anarchist and the various strands of Trotskyists.

But for that we need a radically different type of unity, a unity based on democracy, or "unity in disagreement". A unity where every member is trained into thinking for him/herself. A unity indeed where the working class can gather around as all debates are carried in the open (as opposed to "internal discussion").

[Aurora]

http://www.thecommunists.net/

Your website is pretty good, very readable, more so than a lot of better established groups.

Your program is detailed too which is great, i haven't had the chance to read through it all yet but i noticed a few things about the CWI that i have criticism of,

Unlike the IMT, the CWI and the Fourth International, we reject the stages model for a new International, which in their opinion should be formed first on a left-reformist, then a centrist and then at some point on a revolutionary basis.
I've never heard anything about this before perhaps you could provide a source? the idea itself is nonsensical which is why i find it unlikely that they hold such a position. Here's a quote from the SP(CWI) "We believe it is necessary to build an international of socialist parties committed to the overthrow of capitalism".
Quote from CWI: "In the age of capitalist globalisation, we see the emergence of an embryonic ‘socialist globalisation’, which can only be fully realised through a new revolutionary mass International."
Your program later goes on to say that a new international will include reformists who may have the leadership and that marxists should form the revolutionary faction, this is of course the correct position but it's also the position of the CWI.

These movements once more demonstrate the utter nonsense of the thesis of centrists like Grant/Woods and the organizations they built (CWI, IMT), that when the masses enter the field of class struggle, they supposedly "always" and "inevitably" first turn to the traditional mass parties and become active within these.
This position in precisely the reason the IMT split from the CWI, the CWI doesn't think this is the case which is why it no longer works in what they once considered to be workers parties like Labour in the UK, the CWI's position is that "Unions should disaffiliate from the Labour party and aid the building of a new workers party".

Only politically blind (a la centrists like the CWI), conscious cheaters from the ranks of liberal intellectuals or reformist bureaucrats can tell the working class, that the path to liberation by peaceful means is possible.
I completely agree, except the CWI doesn't hold this position,
"While Marxists do not promote the idea of violence we are not pacifists. We understand the role of the capitalist state, and the desperation by which the capitalist class will cling to power. However, we see the question of violence as a political one, whereby the best way to ensure the most peaceful road to revolution is to mobilise the masses to undermine the material basis of counterrevolution, to undermine support for the capitalist class."

[Geiseric]

Well don't some groups view themselves as the vanguard party? I haven't done too much research but what i gathered from somebody who wasn't sure about the split but went with it was that the programme in usage is the transitional program, by Trotsky. Nothing i've seen so far really contradicts that asofar, and the members take a maximalist stance on pretty much everything.

[Agathor]

This time, definitely.

[Art Vandelay]

All groups claim to have "the best politics", including this new RCIT. On that basis it is also excluded that they will join the Lambertists at any point as that would mean that they'll have to submit their "unique selling points" in politics - that formed the basis of their split from the L5I and founding their own new "international" - to the overruling politics of the FI-ICR.

There will never be unity (besides the lonely small group or two) on the sectarian basis of having "the best politics", as is the disintegrating L5I (having had three splits in the last few years) now showing. Unity can only occur on programmatic unity (as opposed to theoretical unity), that is: A short (as opposed to tens or hundreds of pages, as seems to be the rule with "programs" within sects) document that explains how we should get from where we are now, to working class power and communism after that. As long as there is that commitment to the program, I don't see why I couldn't be in one party with a Maoist, an anarchist and the various strands of Trotskyists.

But for that we need a radically different type of unity, a unity based on democracy, or "unity in disagreement". A unity where every member is trained into thinking for him/herself. A unity indeed where the working class can gather around as all debates are carried in the open (as opposed to "internal discussion").

Its posts from you, Rafiq and DNZ which are really attracting me to orthodox marxism. When I get my post count up, I plan on joining the revolutionary marxists group. What we need is more people to adopt the exact attitude stated above, not countless splits and more splits and then splits from the splits.

[Q]

When I get my post count up, I plan on joining the revolutionary marxists group.

You have my blessing to join right away :thumbup1:

[Teerth Aloke]

I accept this, I call for revolutionary unity with other internationals like the IMT, IBTetc.

[criticalrealist]

IMO, the solution to all of the fragmenting in tendencies and internationals is radical democracy. Leaders are fine, but they need to be immediately accountable to members.