ICC public forum, London 20 February: internationalists against capitalist wars

International Communist Current public forum
2pm 20 February,
Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1, nearest tube Holborn

How can internationalists respond to capitalist wars?

The illusions about Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama are fading fast. Under his presidency, American imperialism is stepping up its military presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and surrounding Iran with a barrage of missiles. War is spreading throughout the Middle East, central Asia and the Horn of Africa. Meanwhile the ruling class in Britain is treating us to the spectacle of the Chilcot inquiry into the Iraq war, which is based on the ridiculous premise that imperialist massacres should conform to the niceties of international law.

This forum will discuss the real causes and aims of the wars currently ravaging the planet, with a particular focus on the title question: how can internationalists, the small but growing number of those who consistently oppose all capitalist wars, respond to this accelerating slide towards war?

Short presentation followed by open discussion. All welcome.

this saturday

A very good meeting. Two AF comrades came and another ex-AF now closer to Solidarity Federation, two comrades from the Communist Workers Organisation, a number of ICC sympathisers and a Trot (International Bolshevik Tendency). There was a high degree of agreement on basic internationalist positions and what they imply, incuding the need to create a framework for further discussion between the different currents and eventual common work. Not with the Trot obviously but having him there enabled people to see more clearly what they have in common. We will publish a fuller report soon

:laugh:

Sectarian obviousness that is.

im sorry but sparts are godawful

The IBT are not Sparts, they're Sparts with a human face!

I'm really not too interested in being sectarian, but I have to say this: this sort of statement really shows how unaware of the world trots (or whatever the ICC considers itself) actually are. Most of the world consistently opposes the vast majority of capitalist wars. The Catholic Church, which isn't a small or insignificant institution, pretty fucking consistently opposes capitalist wars (arguably more consistently than most socialist groups). And even if you only qualify serious, effective protest as "opposition" there are all kinds of other groups, from religious to social democratic, that consistently and effectively oppose war.


ed: I just want to add that if you want to disregard the sectarian comment, you can: my point is that it's a really arrogant supposition that this particular meeting involves the only small group of people that "consistently oppose all capitalist wars", and it's really offensive to the many, many people around the world who have committed their lives to precisely that.

the sparts should to be fossilized and preserved in a museum somewhere

I think there is a very "small" group of people who consistently oppose all capitalist wars. Which does not include IBT, which are tankie trots who call for the defense of north korea etc. There where some internationalists coming out of the crisis of trotskyism, but the IBT is not necessarily them.

So you disagree, for example, that the Catholic Church pretty consistently opposes war in general? (I might ask further which wars are not classified as "capitalist wars", especially since WWII). Moreover, am I to understand that the usage of "internationalist" here is one I'm not party to? Some unusual and particular understanding whereby an "internationalist" is someone part of some obscure group, apparently unaware of the massive international anti-war movements, which declares itself to "consistently oppose capitalist wars"?

I think that there is nothing particularly anti-war about the majority of the so-called 'massive international anti-war movements'. The feeling I get with many of these things is that they are not anti-war at all, merely backing one particular side, witness the support for Hizbullah in the last war in Lebanon.

Devrim

If your feelings are correct, and they may be, we're still talking about a pretty large group of people who are not even Marxists and are consistently anti-war. Even if they're not expansive mass movements, there are certainly a significant number of people who I think basically fit that description.

If you want to narrow the field only to a certain number of people who have a particular Marxist view of conflict, you're free to do so, but I think it should be made clear that that's what you're doing, I don't think it should be done implicitly.

Yes, I think there are people who oppose wars who aren't Marxists or anarchists. I think the term internationalist is used to refer to those who oppose war from a class perspective.

Devrim

That doesn't really describe a public meeting. It describes a meeting of left trainspotters in reality. I wouldn't consider it a good meeting.

The ICC is left-communist, probably the largest organisation standing in this tradition (which, with about 300 members internationally, isn't saying a terrible lot). They consider Trotskyists to be part of the "leftwing of the bourgeoisie".

Didn't make it to this, but it was probably interesting enough a meeting.

Someone will probably correct me on this, but I thought something like ICP/Battaglia Comunista had quite a lot of members, remembering that they are based in Italy alone.

As opposed to meetings called by your beloved member of european parliament, regarding what jobs are next to be axed by him right?

What are you talking about?

And to make it clear, my point is that for groups like the IBT or the Sparts, this would be a good meeting because they see themselves as being propaganda groups (maybe the IBT is a bit more outward looking) and they're particularly focused on orientating towards left groups and other organisations in order to build themselves up and then to turn outwards. I would not have been of the opinion that this was the attiude of the AF or the ICC so in that context, I can't really see this as being a successful public meeting.

What do you think that the ICC sees itself as a revolutionary party? If so, it would have called itself something like "intl'ist workers' cp of gb". Furthermore, they have are indeed "outward looking", they have participated in everything that was multi-tendency from the beginning, such as the postal strikes to the open discussions on Kosovo (which involved groups ranging from marxist-leninists through to trots through to anarchists and leftcoms). Also, even Anarchist Federation don't necessarily see themselves as the vanguard organ of a potential workers' revolution in the future.

It's pretty obvious that just a part of the ICC's reason for existing is to be a propaganda group, other than that, their stated aim is to have an organisation of extremely class-conscious well-developed proletarian militants, I don't think there is anything wrong with that myself and giving out to opportunism and calling themselves a party would be pretty stupid. The CWI-SP has a tendency of just letting anyone in, supporting anyone and doing anything they feel will further themselves, while they have started some worthwhile movements they have let opportunism grow and grow until it threatened to destroy the movement, only workers at the grassroots have stopped this from being the case pretty much every single time.