Symapthisers of Left Communism or sympathisers of an organisation?

At least they're not as basic as the Nicean Creed.

I guess that means, theologically speaking, that you don't have to agree with the Theses to be a member of the ICC (which is correct)

... the uncommitted...who emptily criticise from the sidelines ...

Well, taking 'the uncommitted' from this thread as potentially being those not in organisations or who haven't expressed a choice over which organisation they prefer, I guess that's me and Nic Rossi. And taking the 'emptily criticise' as potentially referring to me, Devrim and Rowntree, the only people to have even implicitly criticised the CWO, the only name that appears in both groups (so, the presumed identity of one the uncommitted who emptily criticises from the sidelines) is me.

If, as you're suggesting, coming to discuss with you at the CWO's meeting in August, distributing Aurora in two cities where your organisation has no presence, helping to arrange two of the meetings you've been to in the Midlands over the last couple of years and trying to set up another one which didn't come off, offering to distribute Aurora in London for you earlier in the year, then deliberately seeking you out in Hyde Park after you'd failed (through an admin error as you later explained) to respond to my offers of help, recommending enquirers into Luxemburg read your pamphlet on the problems of Luxemburgist economics (even though I am economically a Luxemburgist), indeed recommending the ICT generally to enquirers into proletarian politics - not to mention a similar amount of involvement with the ICC - as well as meeting and corresponding with revolutionaries and pro-revolutionaries in various parts of the world, while, constantly, trying to get to grips with what the Communist Left is, can, and should, be; if this constitutes being one of the 'uncommitted who emptily criticise from the sidelines', what exactly have you got in mind for what I should be doing, Jock?

As I wrote in the other thread:

"The Platform of the Committe of Intesa says that the relations between class and party depend "in large part" on the objective situation and I agree with that absolutely. It's the remaining, implied "small part" of the equation that is exercising me at the moment - what we as communist militants either inside or outside the organisations can do to make sure that the tools that the working class has for the coming struggles are up to the job. It is for that reason that I see the regroupment of revolutionaries as being the fundamental task of the moment. Not because with a hypothetically bigger organisation we can magically solve the question of how the working class can struggle at a more developed level, but so that we can can be a part of that struggle at a more developed level."

This is the point. I don't think one needs to be in an organisation to ask questions about the relationships between political minorities and the working class.

Young people are turning to us for answers and we should not let them down.

Isn't that a bit presumptuous on your part?

Zimmerwald - jokes can also tell the truth! The Nicene creed (although there is more than onei version of course) is more or less the 'Basic Principles' of the Catholic Church - the class lines as it were.....Of course the analogy is in my view limited, since by the time the Church had formulated them, it had already betrayed most of the teachings of the 'founder'.

Isn't that a bit presumptuous on your part?

Yes, it does read that way! Rather melodramatic as well .....
I am not suggesting that we have ALL the answers.
But as Left Communists we have some important things to say about Unions, Democracy, and above all the impossibility of trying to reform Capitalism.
A spirit of comradeship and a genuine commitment to regroupment would surely help in getting the message across. I have no doubt that more young people (and older workers) are questioning Capitalism than at any time since the 1960s. As the crisis deepens these numbers will surely grow.

Yes, it does read that way! Rather melodramatic as well .....
I am not suggesting that we have ALL the answers.

But as Left Communists we have some important things to say about Unions, Democracy, and above all the impossibility of trying to reform Capitalism.

Yes, I'm an internationalist-communist as well, a member of the CWO in fact (maybe I should update my wall profile), so we are in agreement on all that.

The point behind my previous post was just that there is a tendency for left-communists, particularly the ICC but others do it as well from time to time to slip into rhetoric mongering which act to gloss over real issues. The assumption in your previous post was young people will turn to the communist left because after all we have the answers, this is seems to me to be just a statement of faith. Why is this a given. It certainly does not appear to me as a given. The opposite seems more likely at present to me.

A spirit of comradeship and a genuine commitment to regroupment would surely help in getting the message across

Well of course, no one sets themselves up as the principled opponents of comradeship and a genuine commitment to regroupment! Comradeship largely exists today, in that communists in general relate to each other in a more or less fraternal way. The more-or-less qualifier should not shock anyone given the immense damage the ICC has inflicted on the communist movement in Western Europe over the course of a couple of decades. Which thankfully there has been a step away from in the recent past.

Talk of regroupment is simply an abstraction in the current context and a meaningless one at that. Any sort of regroupment worth having must be based on political foundations which is not simply a lowest common denominator in order to pack people into an organisation. Regroupment in a meaningful sense should be about more then getting the 'message across' - which I think displays a quite narrow conception which is as far I know is rooted in the ICC tradition - i.e. simply the creation of a larger left communist propaganda group but a political body that unites the communist militants with the daily lived experience of the working-class which can only be the product of class activity itself.

I don't think unity fetishes contribute really to any process that point beyond us being essentially a collection of idiosyncrats.

In ending for now, Rowntree, for what it is worth I am not at all hostile to the CBG. In fact in some ways I am influenced by material you published on the revolutionary organisation and the Russian Revolution.