Some questions about the ICC.

Most left communist groups tend to be small and lacking in anything that could be consider as locals. You are most likely to find a single supporter or member here and there but odds are you won't run into one unless you make a point of looking for them. If you want to get involve in the leftcom/ultra-left milieu, then your best bet is to get into contact with them over the internet and seen what happens from there. I know this doesn't really answer your question, but I was once interested in the ICC and this is the conclusion I came to. EDIT: Thanks devrim. I guess that's what I get for posting while really tired and not proof reading my posts.

I think the best way to answer these questions would be to ask them directly to the ICC. The ICC is absolutely miniscule in North America though.

Just on the point of the user name of the second poster, I think it is a bit off. Jean Barrot is somebody who still is involved in communist politics, and it could confuse people. Obviously you are not him as (a) he doesn't sign things with that name anymore, (b) he doesn't use the internet, and (c) he is an Anglophobe, and would make mistakes like that in English grammar.
I don't think it is good to use someones name though.

Devrim

I think the best way to answer these questions would be to ask them directly to the ICC. The ICC is absolutely miniscule in North America though.

Just on the point of the user name of the second poster, I think it is a bit off. Jean Barrot is somebody who still is involved in communist politics, and it could confuse people. Obviously you are not him as (a) he doesn't sign things with that name anymore, (b) he doesn't use the internet, and (c) he is an Anglophobe, and would make mistakes like that in English grammar.
I don't think it is good to use someones name though.

Devrim

I'm a native english speaker as well. I just noticed the typo and now I'm a bit embarassed. Though I didn't think Dauve still used the pen name Jean Barrot. However you make a good point I will request a name change.

By the way, how do the organizations of the communist left see Dauvé? Is he well regarded by the ICC and the ICT? Just curious, really.

By the way, how do the organizations of the communist left see Dauvé? Is he well regarded by the ICC and the ICT? Just curious, really.

The ICC regard him as a 'modernist'. There is an ICC review of one of his pamphlets here.

I have never talked to anyone in the ICT about him. In general though, the ICT don't feel the need to have an organisational position on everything. 'Android' on here is from the CWO, so you could always ask him.

Personally, I think he is pretty sound on most things. I would disagree with him on organisational issues though.

Devrim

By the way, how do the organizations of the communist left see Dauvé? Is he well regarded by the ICC and the ICT? Just curious, really.

Devrim's reply was about right. Although my impression is that most left-communists hold a negative opinion of Dauve to varying degrees. I think this is really to do with specificities of the post-68 generation, as he is/was quite influential on younger communists, such as myself, and many others, just look at his influence on the people around libcom.

Personally, on most things he is good enough I think. I generally like most of the material from his Barrot phase, and definitely prefer his stuff from Dauve phrase over his rivals such as Theorie Communiste.

Personally, I think he is pretty sound on most things. I would disagree with him on organisational issues though.

Would you be interested in elabourating on this? Or do you mean just the tendency toward anti-organisationalism, for better or for worse. It is interesting, if I understand right, the context around which he wrote Eclipse and Re-emergence of the Communist Movement, was as a polemic against liquidationist trends in the French ultra-left, councilists I think. And I say the above in the most passive voice possible!

Thanks Devrim and Android.
Interesting. That's what I thought you would answer.

I asked that because he's one of the authors who got me interested in left-communism before I started reading the stuff by the ICC and the IBRP years ago. I haven't re-read most of his stuff in like 10 years, but I remember loving it at the time, but I knew much less about the subject and still had more residual anarchism.
I'll have a go on his texts on Bordiga and Pannekoek because it's a particular subject I understand much better now than when I first read it.

Devrim, to expand on Android's question, do you remember anything you agree with Dauvé on that the ICC doesn't?

Interesting. That's what I thought you would answer.

It can't be that interesting then.

Would you be interested in elabourating on this? Or do you mean just the tendency toward anti-organisationalism, for better or for worse. It is interesting, if I understand right, the context around which he wrote Eclipse and Re-emergence of the Communist Movement, was as a polemic against liquidationist trends in the French ultra-left, councilists I think. And I say the above in the most passive voice possible!

I just mean the tendency to anti-organisationalism, the way they are for political organisation in an abstract level, but not to the point of actually doing anything about it.

Devrim, to expand on Android's question, do you remember anything you agree with Dauvé on that the ICC doesn't?

I am not quite as angry with him as they seem to be.

Actually, they imply that he is somebody who rejects class politics, which is essentially what they mean by modernist. I don't think that that is true.

Devrim

I would say that our position is a bit more nuanced than that. The pamphlet Devrim linked to, written a few years ago, accepts that Dauve does defend class positions up to a point: it's the 'modernist' element which tends to undermine this. An example of a 'modernist' who clearly rejected class politics is Jacques Camatte, who basically came to the conclusion that capital dominates everything and that there was no future in the class struggle within capital. I don't think Dauve ever went as far as that.

Gourmet: I think that I have failed to respond to your initial question, which was about the activities of the ICC. This is quite a large one, and the night of Christmas is not the night for delving too deep . But I am more than happy to answer questions about what militants of the ICC do. Can you be a little more specific, such as: what do they do in the field of theoretical elaboration, or what how do communists act towards their fellow proletarians in the places they find themselves living and working? Enjoy the holidays and hope you will come back to this discussion.