Nucleo Comunista Internacional: an episode in the proletariat's striving for consciousness

As we have already pointed out several times in our press,[1] we are at a turning-point in the evolution of the balance of class forces in the proletariat’s favour, after a long ebb in the class’ consciousness and militancy as a result of the huge ideological campaigns that accompanied the collapse of the so-called “socialist” regimes at the end of the 1980s. One sign of this new situation is “a development within the class of a deepened reflection, even if this mainly below the surface today, which can be seen in the appearance of a series of elements and groups, often young, who are turning towards the positions of the Communist Left”.[2] This phenomenon is obviously of vital importance, since it is one of the preconditions for the formation of the future world wide revolutionary party. It is thus the duty of the organisations of the Communist Left to pay the greatest attention to this emergence of new forces, in order to bring them to fruition, to allow them to profit from their experience, and to integrate them into organised militant activity. This is a very difficult and delicate task, which has already been the subject of much reflection and debate in the workers’ movement. Marx and Engels were among the first to devote their efforts to the question, notably within the working class’ first international organisation: the International Workingmen’s Association (IWA). Nearer to our own time, one of the great merits of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, on the basis of the RSDLP’s 1903 congress,[3] that they took this issue to heart and developed the response which was to allow the Bolsheviks to live up to their responsibilities in the revolution of October 1917. It is a responsibility that the ICC has always taken very seriously, drawing our inspiration from our illustrious predecessors and the organisations where they were militants. This is one reason why, given the tendency towards the emergence of new revolutionary forces, we are returning to this question with a series of articles in the International Review. More particularly, we consider it necessary to illustrate once again, and in the light of recent experience, the difference between “Marxism and opportunism in the construction of the revolutionary organisation” (as we put it in the title of an article published in International Review n°103/105). The first article in the series will therefore be devoted to our latest experience, where the marxist and opportunist visions met face to face once again: the appearance in Argentina of a small group of revolutionaries who formed the “Nucleo Comunista Internacional” (NCI).

 

The NCI[4] has been one of the main targets of a furious offensive unleashed by the “Triple Alliance” of opportunism (the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party – IBRP), the parasites (the so-called “Internal Fraction” of the ICC – IFICC), and a strange megalomaniac adventurer who is at one and the same time the founder, supreme leader, and sole member of a “Circle of Communist Internationalists” in Argentina, and who has arrogated to himself the “continuity” of the NCI, which he claims to have destroyed for good.[5]

In this article, we will investigate how the NCI appeared, how it made contact with the ICC, the evolution of its relations with our organisation, and what lessons we can learn from this experience; we will also consider what are the perspectives for our future work, now that we have unmasked the grotesque impostor whose manoeuvres won the support of the IBRP, which tried to use the latter to attack the ICC even if this meant destroying the NCI in the process.

This analysis has a dual aim: on the one hand, to stand up for the struggle of a handful of militants who are an expression of the Argentine proletariat’s contribution to the general struggle of the world proletariat; on the other, to draw out some lessons from this search for an internationalist communist coherence, and to highlight both the obstacles and difficulties along the road, and the strengths on which we can rely.

Birth of the NCI: first contacts with the ICC

In a letter (12th November 2003) explaining the group’s political trajectory and that of its members, the NCI presents itself as “a small group of comrades from various political backgrounds, different activities in the mass movement, and different political responsibilities. But we all share the same political roots: the Argentine Communist Party (…) During the 1990s, some of us then joined the Partido Obrero and the Partido de Trabajadores por el Socialismo [two Trotskyist organisations, ed. note], while others took refuge in trade union activity. The first nucleus really appeared in a split with a small fraction of the PTS, the LOI; after several discussions during 2000 and early 2001 (January-February), we decided not to merge with this Trotskyist current as a result of differences of principle”. There then began a difficult process which led the comrades to evolve “thanks to the Internet, towards a knowledge of your positions and those of other currents belonging to the milieu known as the Communist Left. We distributed and each of us read the documents, mostly of the ICC and the IBRP, towards the end of 2002”.

During 2003, this study of the positions of the different Left Communist currents led the comrades towards the positions of the ICC: “What brought us closest to the ICC was not just your programmatic foundations but also, among all the documents which we consulted on your web site, the debates with the Russian comrades, the question of the historic course, the theory of the decadence of capitalism, the positions concerning the party and its relations with the class, the analysis of the situation in Argentina, and the debate with the IBRP on the question of the party”.

This assimilation led the group to adopt programmatic positions very close to the ICC’s Platform, to create a publication (Revolucion Comunista, four issues of which appeared between October 2003 and March 2004), and to make contact with the ICC in October 2003.

The NCI’s appeal to the proletarian political milieu

A dual process then began: on the one hand, more or less systematic discussions of the ICC’s positions, and on the other an intervention in the proletariat in Argentina, focused on the burning questions of the day: in particular, understanding whether the events of December 2001 in Argentina were a step forward for the proletarian struggle, or a revolt without any perspective to offer. An article written on the second anniversary of these events, in Revolucion Comunista n°2, states clearly that “the main aim of this note is to lay bare the errors that the various currents have spread in their press, their leaflets, pamphlets, etc, describing the events in Argentina two years ago being something that they were not, namely a proletarian struggle”.

We undertook a discussion over the Internet on the union question, which made it possible for the NCI to clarify and go beyond the remnants of a leftist vision of “working in the unions to oppose the rank and file to the leadership”. The discussion was fraternal and sincere, and at no time were our criticisms seen as “persecution” or “anathemas”.[6]

In December 2003, the NCI launched an appeal to the political milieu for the holding of international conferences, “with the precise aim of creating a pole of liaison and information where the various organisations could debate their political divergences on a programmatic level, and which could make it possible to undertake common action against the enemies of the working class, against the bourgeoisie, whether by the publication of joint documents, or by organising public meetings for the most advanced elements of the proletariat, highlighting both what unites and what divides us, and any other initiatives that might be proposed”.

It was obvious for the ICC that this Appeal would have to confront the prevailing sectarianism and irresponsibility of the majority of groups of the Communist Left. We nonetheless supported this initiative inasmuch as it was based on an openness to discussion and the confrontation of positions, and asserted a readiness to undertake common action against the capitalist enemy: “We welcome your proposal to hold a new Conference of groups of the Communist Left (a ‘new Zimmerwald’, as you put it). The ICC has always defended this perspective and participated enthusiastically in the three conferences held at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s. unfortunately, as you are certainly aware, the other groups of the Communist Left consider that such conferences are not on the agenda given the depth of disagreement among the various groups of the Communist Left. We are not of this opinion, but as the proverb says ‘You only need one to divorce, but it takes two to marry’. It is clear that in the present period, there is no question of ‘marriage’ (i.e. regrouping within a single organisation) between the different currents of the Communist Left”.

In this general framework, we put forward an orientation to guide the work of the small groups appearing in several countries on the basis of class positions, or in the process of moving towards them: “This does not mean that ‘marriages’ are impossible in the present period. In reality, if two organisations come to a programmatic agreement on the basis of the same platform, then not only is it possible for them to regroup, it is a necessity: the sectarianism affecting many groups of the Communist Left (and which, for example, has led to the dispersal of the Bordigist groups into a multitude of schools whose programmatic differences are difficult to understand) is the price that the Communist Left is still paying for the terrible counter-revolution which hit the working class during the 1920s” (our letter of 25th November 2003).

First meeting with the NCI

Apart from the ICC, the only other replies to the Appeal[7] came from the International Communist Party (Il Partito, known as the “Florence PCI”), and the IBRP. Both were clearly negative.

The IBRP’s reply declared peremptorily: “Above all, we are surprised that 23 years after the end of the cycle of International Conferences of the Communist Left (originally called by the PCInt of Italy), which were to demonstrate what we will explain more fully below, you should put forward such a proposal with an identical disingenuousness, when the situation is completely different”.

How could these newcomers dare to propose what has already been settled by the IBRP 23 years ago?[8] The IBRP’s overbearing contempt (the same that Marx detected in Proudhon[9]) for these first efforts by elements of the class is really discouraging![10] Just as well that this came from the “only valid pole of regroupment”, to use the endlessly repeated expression of their adorers the IFICC!

As for Il Partito, it simply put forward every disagreement imaginable (to a group which had only just come into existence!), beginning with the question of the party, with an argumentation so feeble as to border on the ridiculous: “What is perhaps the most obvious point is the conception of the party; our party considers that we are the continuation of the historic party created by Marx and Engels, and which has never ceased to exist since then despite the difficult epochs it has gone through, and that the torch of marxist doctrine has always been kept alight thanks to organisations like the Italian Communist Left or the Russian Bolshevik party”. Keeping marxist doctrine alive is precisely at the heart of the NCI’s existence. But any reason is enough to avoid any political confrontation!

As we can see from these two replies, the perspectives for newly emerging groups would be dark indeed if all that existed in the camp of the Communist Left were the organisations that wrote these replies. They consider new groups from the lofty heights of their sectarian ramparts, and offer no perspective other than an integration as a group into the “international regroupment” of the IBRP or individual integration into the PCInt. These positions are light-years removed from those adopted by Marx, Engels, Lenin, the Third International, or the Italian Fraction of the Communist Left.[11]

After the failure of their Appeal, it is thus hardly surprising that the comrades of the ICC decided to move closer to the ICC. This led us to send a delegation to Buenos Aires in April 2004, which undertook many discussions with the members of the NCI on subjects such as the union question, the decadence of capitalism, the functioning of revolutionary organisations, the role of their statutes, and the unity of the three components of the proletariat’s political programme: political positions, functioning, and behaviour. We proposed that a general meeting should be held, and the latter decided to undertake regular discussions on the decadence and decomposition of capitalism, the statutes, and our texts on organisation and functioning, etc., with a view to joining the ICC: “Following the internationalist visit of the ICC, the members of the nucleus consider unanimously that this visit far surpassed our expectations, not only in terms of the level of agreement that we have reached but also by the important steps forward that this visit allowed us to make (…) Thus, while our aim was already our integration into the ICC, this visit better allowed us to understand concretely not only this international current and its programme, but also its internationalist conduct” (Resolution by the NCI, 23rd April, 2004).

The danger of gurus

Following our delegation’s visit, the group agreed to participate in the ICC’s press by writing articles on the situation in Argentina. These contributions were very positive, in particular an article denouncing the piquetero movement which has proven very useful in laying bare the pseudo-revolutionary myths put about by the leftists and the “anti-globalisation” groups.[12]

Amongst the subjects debated with the NCI, we should emphasise the debate on the behaviour which ought to exist within a proletarian organisation, and which must be inspired by the nature of the future society for which it struggles. Does the end justify the means? Can we achieve communism, a society of the free community of all human beings, while practising slander, informing, manipulation, theft – practices which destroy all trace of sociality at the roots? Should the communist militant generously contribute the best of himself to the cause of human emancipation, or can he on the contrary contribute to the cause while also seeking personal benefit, or personal power, using others as pawns to serve his own particular objectives?

These discussions provoked a debate in depth in the NCI on the question of the behaviour of the IFICC, which led the group to adopt a resolution on the 22nd May 2004 which condemned this gang of scoundrels and, “after reading the publications of both the ICC and the Internal Fraction of the ICC, considered that the latter has adopted a behaviour which is foreign to the working class and to the Communist Left”.[13]

Despite these steps forward, a problem nonetheless began to emerge. In a letter written after our visit, to evaluate its results, we pointed out that “a communist organisation cannot exist without a collective and unitary functioning. Regular meetings, brought to a conclusion with rigour and modesty, without extravagant objectives but held with tenacity and intellectual rigour, are the foundations of this collective life based on unity and solidarity. Obviously, the collective is not opposed to the development of individual initiative and contributions. The bourgeois vision of the ‘collective’ is precisely that of a sum of clones where any spirit of individual initiative is systematically crushed. The symmetrical and complementary opposites of this false view has been developed by Stalinism on the one hand, and by liberal democrats and libertarians on the other. The marxist vision is that of a collective framework, which encourages and develops individual initiative, responsibility and contribution. Each should bring the best of himself, in accordance with the famous phrase of Marx in the Critique of the Gotha Programme, ‘from each according to his abilities’”.

The practice of one member of the Nucleo, who we shall call B., had a practice which was in complete opposition to this orientation. To begin with, he completely monopolised access to computers and the Internet, and correspondence outside the group; he also profited from the confidence which the other members of the group accorded him to draw up most of their texts. Moreover, and contrary to the orientations which had been decided during the April visit, he developed an organisational practice which consisted of avoiding, as far as possible, holding general meetings of the group where all the militants could express themselves, and collectively take decisions and decide on their activity. Instead of such meetings, he would meet separately, at most with one or two comrades, which allowed him to control all their activity. This practice is typical of bourgeois groups where the “leader”, the “political commissar” meets with all the members separately in order to keep them divided and unaware of what is going on. This led to a situation, as the comrades of the NCI confirmed to us afterwards, where they themselves did not really know who was a member of the group and which tasks had been given by Senor B to people that they did not even know themselves.[14]

Another element of this individual’s tactics, was to avoid the development of any serious discussion during the rare more or less general meetings. The comrades have explained the unease they felt at Senor B’s interventions, interrupting discussions under the pretext that it was time to move on to “something else”. In order to empty the meetings as far as possible of any content, B encouraged the greatest informality: meetings were reduced to meals where family members and friends, who did not belong to the group, also took part.

This organisational practice has nothing to do with the proletariat and is typical of bourgeois groups. It has two objectives: on the one hand, it keeps most of the comrades in a state of political under-development by systematically depriving them of the means which would have allowed them to develop their own judgment; on the other, and along with what we have just described, it transforms them into a mass of troops for the policy of the “great leader”. In reality, Senor B intended to use his “comrades”[15] as a springboard, in order to become a “personality” within the proletarian political milieu.

The fight to defend the organisation

This individual’s plans were thwarted by two factors that he had not, in his arrogance and presumption, foreseen: on the one hand the ICC’s organisational coherence and firmness, and on the other the fact that the other comrades, despite the limited means at their disposal, and despite Senor B’s obscure manoeuvres, were undertaking a real effort of reflection which led them to political independence.

At the end of July 2004, Senor B tried an audacious manoeuvre: he demanded immediate membership of the ICC, and forced through this demand despite the resistance of the other comrades who, although they also aimed to join the ICC, felt that they first needed to go through a profound process of assimilation and clarification of new ideas: communist militant activity can only be built on solid foundations.

This put Senor B in a delicate situation: his “comrades” were on the way to becoming class-conscious elements, rather than pawns in his ambitious plan to become an international “leader”. When an ICC delegation visited Argentina at the end of August, he insisted that it should immediately announce the NCI’s integration into the ICC. The ICC rejected this demand. We will have nothing to do with hasty and immature integrations, which can only run the risk of destroying militant energies. In drawing up the balance-sheet of our visit, we wrote: “During our visit, you posed the question of your integration. Of course, our reaction was the natural enthusiasm of fighters for the proletarian cause when other comrades want to join their struggle (…) However, we have to be clear that we do not pose the question of integrating new militants, or of forming new sections, in the same terms as a commercial enterprise aiming at all costs to gain a footing in a new market, or as a leftist group seeking new adepts for its politics within state capitalism, [but as] a general problem of the international proletariat which must be dealt with on the basis of historical and global criteria (…) Our delegation’s central orientation was to discuss with you in depth the implications of communist militant activity, and what it means to build a unified and centralised communist organisation. [This] is not a technical question; it demands a tenacious collective perseverance. It can never bear fruit if it is based only on the impulse of the moment (…) for ourselves, our aim is to train militants of independent judgment, whatever their personal or intellectual capacities, who are capable of taking part collectively in the construction and defence of the international organisation”.

This did not fit in with the plans of Senor B. “Moreover, it is highly likely that he had already made contact, in secret, with the IFICC, while at the same time continuing to deceive us as to his desire to hasten the NCI's integration into the ICC” (see the Presentation of the NCI’s declaration[16]). This individual reversed his attitude overnight, without so much as having the honesty to express his “disagreements”. The reason is simple: his aim was not clarification, but simply his own personal success as an “international leader”. Having discovered that he was not going to be able to satisfy his ambition in the ICC, he decided to look for more congenial company.

Nor did he hesitate to resort to intrigue and duplicity to create a “sensation”. Overnight, he brought into being a “Circle of International Communists”, of which he himself was the sole and unique member, even having the cheek to “integrate” into it the members of the NCI – who were unaware of its very existence – and his “very close contacts”. This “Circle” proposed to use the same method adopted by Stalin to ensure the disappearance of the NCI: it presented itself as the only true continuity with the NCI.[17]

These manoeuvres, encouraged as we have said by the disgusting alliance between the opportunism of the IBRP and the parasites of the IFICC,[18] were uncovered and defused by our own efforts, joined by the NCI. The comrades of the NCI had been isolated by Senor B’s manoeuvres; we re-established contact with them despite the difficulties that this represented. “By telephoning the other comrades of the NCI (an approach which, in the words of Senor B, supposedly reveals the ‘sickening methods of the ICC’), we learned that they were completely unaware of the existence of this ‘Circulo’ of which they were supposedly members! They were completely unaware of the existence of the ‘Circulo's’ disgusting ‘Declarations’ against the ICC which were supposedly adopted – to use the words of these ‘Declarations’ – ‘collectively’, ‘unanimously’, and ‘after consulting all the members’ of the NCI! All of which is perfectly untrue” (“Presentation of the NCI’s Declaration”).

Once contact was re-established, we immediately organised a visit to discuss with the comrades of the NCI and to work out perspectives for the future. We received a warm and fraternal welcome from the comrades. During our stay, the comrades decided to send, by post, their 27th October Declaration to all the sections of the IBRP and to the other groups of the Communist Left in order to establish the truth: contrary to the false information peddled by the IBRP (notably in its Italian press), the NCI has not broken with the ICC!

On several occasions, the members of the NCI phoned Senor B to ask him to come to explain his attitude to the NCI and to the ICC’s delegation. The gentleman refused any such encounter. Caught red-handed in the act, this cowardly individual preferred to go to ground like a rabbit.

Despite the shock of discovering the lies and manoeuvres perpetrated in their name by this sinister individual, the comrades of the NCI expressed the desire to continue with their political activity as far as they are able. Thanks to the NCI’s fraternal welcome and political commitment, the ICC was able to hold a second public forum in Buenos Aires (5th November), on a theme chosen by the comrades of the NCI.

Despite the terrible material difficulties that they confront in their daily lives, the comrades firmly declared to our delegation their intention to continue their militant activity, and in particular to continue the discussion with the ICC. Those comrades who are unemployed intend to find work, not just to feed themselves and their children, but also to escape from the political under-development in which they were kept by Senor B (and in particular have expressed their desire to contribute to the purchase of a PC). In breaking with Senor B and his bourgeois methods, the comrades of the NCI have behaved as true militants of the working class.

Perspectives

The experience of the NCI is rich in lessons. First and foremost, in adopting programmatic positions very close to those of the ICC, it has demonstrated the unity of the world proletariat and of its vanguard. The working class defends the same positions in every country, no matter what their level of political development, their imperialist position, or their political regime. Within this unified framework, the comrades have been able to make contributions of general interest to the whole proletariat (nature of the piquetero movement, nature of the social revolts in Argentina and Bolivia, etc.), and have taken part in an international struggle for the defence of proletarian principles: their clear denunciation of the bunch of scoundrels that call themselves the IFICC, the Declaration in defence of the NCI and proletarian principles of behaviour, etc.

Secondly, this experience has highlighted the danger that “gurus” can represent for the evolution of groups and comrades in search of class positions. This phenomenon is far from being specific to Argentina [19], it is an international phenomenon that we have met with often in the past: individuals, often brilliant themselves, who consider a group as their “personal property” and who, whether because they mistrust the real abilities of the working class or simply because of their own thirst for personal recognition, try to subject the other comrades to their personal control, blocking their evolution and condemning them to political under-development. Such elements often start by playing a dynamic role in moving towards revolutionary positions, if only by putting themselves at the head of an approach and a reflection on the part of other comrades. But generally, unless they thoroughly call into question their own past approach, such elements fail to follow through their approach to its conclusion, because this would means losing their own status as “guru”. Another consequence is the rapid loss of members from the group, as a result of the climate created in the group by the demands of the guru for submission to his own subjectivity; this leads to demoralisation amongst the others, who often give up all political activity under the bitter impression that political positions may be all very well but that the organisational practice, human relations, and personal behaviour, have not in the least broken with the oppressive universe of the left and leftist groups.

Thirdly, this experience has shown something much more important: it is possible to fight this danger, and it can be beaten. Today, and not without difficulty, the comrades have begun a process of clarification, of developing their own self-confidence, and their collective capacities, with the aim of integrating into the ICC in the future. Whatever the final outcome of this struggle, the NCI has demonstrated that despite all the guru’s efforts to reduce their political development, the comrades can organise and struggle for the proletarian cause.

Finally – and this is not the least important – thanks to the comrades’ active efforts, a milieu for proletarian debate around the political positions of the ICC is developing in Argentina. It will be of the greatest value for the clarification and militant involvement of proletarian elements who appear in this country, and in other countries of Latin America.

 

C.Mir (3rd December, 2004)

 

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[1] See in particular International Review n°119

[2] ibid.

[3] Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. See our series on "1903-1904 and the birth of Bolshevism" in n°116-118 of the International Review.

[4] For more information, see the "Presentation of the 27th October 2004 Declaration by the Nucleo Comunista Internacional (NCI)”, in English on our website: en.internationalism.org/ir/119_nci_pres.html

[5] See, amongst others, the article "‘Circulo de Comunistas Internacionalistas’: Imposture or reality?”, on our web site: en.internationalism.org/ir/119_imposture.html

[6] As an example of these leftist remnants, we can mention the use of the term "union bureaucracy" which tends to hide the fact that the union as an organisation, from top to bottom, is a faithful servant of capital and an enemy of the workers. In the same sense, the idea that the unions are "mediators" between capital and labour allows them to be considered as in some way neutral organisations standing between the two fundamental classes in society, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.

[7] Copies of which were sent to us by the NCI.

[8] The way in which the IBRP "resolved" the dynamic of the conferences, was to break them up using a sectarian manoeuvre (see International Review n°22).

[9] See his famous polemic, The poverty of phiosophy.

[10] Can one imagine for a moment Marx and Engels answering in this way, when the French and English workers called the meeting that was to give birth to the First International in 1864, on the grounds that they had already settled the question in 1848 ?

[11] In a letter to the comrades, written to evaluate the result of their Appeal, we offered a detailed explanation of the methods of regroupment that revolutionaries have used throughout the history of the workers’ movement, showing how the proletariat’s various international organisations were forged.

[12] See the article on the piquetero movement, published in International Review n°119.

[13] The text of the resolution can be found in English on our web site at en.internationalism.org/ir/119_nci_reso.html, which also has links to the full text in Spanish of the accompanying document.

[14] This explains an apparent contradiction in the origins of the NCI. For the comrades of the NCI today, the Nucleo was only really formed in April 2004, in other words after the first visit by the ICC. Prior to that, the mode of functioning that Senor B had succeeded in imposing on the group, and their own slight knowledge of its different members, meant that in its first stages the NCI was much more like an informal discussion circle. I twas only after our first visit, where we insisted on the importance of regular meetings, that the NCI began to take on a conscious existence for each of its members.

[15] His contempt for them was particularly revolting : "Senor B profoundly despised the other members of the NCI, who are workers living in great poverty while he himself is a member of the liberal professions, and was given to boasting that he was ‘the only member of the NCI who could afford a journey to Europe’". See our article in Spanish, "The NCI has not broken with the ICC".

[16] en.internationalism.org/ir/119_nci_pres.html

[17] All the metamorphoses of this "Circle", whose absurd international reputation is due solely to its being puffed up by its protectors, the IBRP and the IFICC, have been unmasked in two documents published on our Spanish web site (“Circulo de comunistas internacionalistas: una extraña aparición”, and "Una nueva... y extraña aparición"), and in an article in English: “‘Circulo de Comunistas Internacionalistas’: Imposture or reality?”.

[18] Our web site has published a whole series of documents, in particular several letters to the IBRP, pointing out the lamentable direction into which this organisation is drifting. No sooner has Senor B formed his “Circle”, behind the backs of the other members of the NCI, than the IBRP hurried to offer him publicity. First of all, by publishing an Italian translation of a document by the “Circle” on the repression of a workers’ struggle in Patagonia (despite the fact that they had never published the slightest document by the NCI), and then by publishing in three languages (French, English, and Spanish, but not Italian) a “Declaration” by the “Circle” dated 12th October (“Against the nauseating methods of the ICC”), which is nothing but a collection of outrageous lies and slanders directed at our organisation. Three weeks and three letters from the ICC later, the IBRP at last published on its web site a short communiqué from the ICC refuting the accusations of the “Circle”. Since then, the utterly mendacious and slanderous nature of Senor B’s assertions has been demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt, as has the fraudulent nature of his “Circle”. And yet, to this day the IBRP – while it has discreetly withdrawn Senor B’s works from its site – has failed to make the slightest declaration to set the truth straight. It is worth pointing out that Senor B’s sudden passion for the IBRP and its positions, and for the IFICC, only began when this petty adventurer realised that his manoeuvres would meet short shrift with the ICC. This conversion, more sudden even than that of St Paul on the road to Damascus, gave the IBRP not the slightest pause for thought: the latter hastened to act as Senor B’s spokesman. The IBRP should ask itself one day how it is, and not just once, that elements who have demonstrated their inability to integrate into the Communist Left should turn towards the IBRP after failing in their “approach” to the ICC. We will return to this question in a later issue of this Review.

[19] Though it has to be admitted that Senor B’s twisted mentality and bad faith border on the pathological.