International Review no.1 - Preface

 

This is the first issue of the International Review of the International Communist Current. The necessity for such a publication has been seen clearly by all the groups which make up our current during the course of long discussions which preceded and prepared the ground for the International Conference at the beginning of this year. By taking the decision to publish the Review in English, French and Spanish, the conference not only took a decisive step in the process of unifying our current, but has also blazed a trail for the regroupment of revolutionaries in general.

In this period of general crisis, pregnant with convulsions and social upheavals, one of the most urgent and arduous tasks facing revolutionaries is that of welding together the meagre revolutionary forces that are currently dispersed throughout the world. This task can only be undertaken by beginning straight away on an international level. This has always been a central pre-occupation of our current. Our Review is designed to help fulfill this need; by embarking upon its publication we intend to make it an instrument, a pole of attraction, for the international regroupment of revolutionaries.

The Review will be above all the expression of the theoretical endeavours of our current, since only this theoretical endeavour, based on a coherence of political positions and orientation, can serve as the basis for the regroupment and real intervention of revolutionaries.

While the Review will function as an organ of research and discussion indispensable for the clarification of the problems which face the workers' movement, we do not intend to make it into a review of marxology so dear to academics and professors. Rather the Review will be first and foremost a fighting weapon anchored solidly on the fundamental class frontiers, the revolutionary marxist positions, acquired through the historic struggle of the proletariat against all the species of leftism, confusionism, and 'modernism' (from Marcuse to Invariance and its heirs); tendencies which are so widespread today and which serve to seriously encumber the development of the class struggle and to obstruct the movement towards the reconstitution of the proletarian revolutionary party.

We do not claim to be the bearers of a Programme complete in all its details. We are perfectly well aware of our inadequacies which can only be overcome by the unceasing effort of revolutionaries to obtain greater coherence and a higher understanding within the development of the class struggle.

We also extend an invitation to all revolutionary groups who are not organizationally part of our current, but who display the same pre-occupations as us, to associate themselves with these efforts, by multiplying and strengthening contacts and correspondence, and by sending us critiques, texts, and discussion articles which the Review will publish to the best of its abilities.

Some people will consider that the publication of the Review is a precipitous action. It is nothing of the kind. We have nothing in common with those noisy activists whose activity is based on a voluntarism as frenzied as it is ephemeral. But it is no less important to vigorously reject any tendency towards the formation of petty study groups which content themselves with publishing from time to time little essays which have the purpose of satisfying their authors' egos rather than expressing a will to participate and intervene in the political struggle of the working class. An implacable struggle must be waged against this narrow localist spirit of family sects. Only those groups who understand and effectively assume the role of militant activity within the class can be considered revolutionary.

As for those who can do nothing but denigrate the notion of a militant, from the Situationists of yesterday to all today's varieties of Invariance, we can only oppose them with disdain and indifference. Everyone to their posts; some of us will enter the class struggle, the rest can remain on the outside. It is much better that way.

We will leave the disillusioned contestants of the decomposing petty-bourgeoisie to contemplate their navels. For we proletarian militants, the Review is an arm of criticism which will serve to prepare the passage to criticism by arms.

This first issue is entirely dedicated to the main discussion documents submitted to the International Conference. We have not been able to include all the texts in this issue, which even so is too voluminous. The discussions raised are far from being closed; they will be taken up again in future issues, which will appear every three months. For the moment it is impossible to ensure a more frequent publication. This will be partly compensated for by the pamphlets in various languages which we intend to publish.

A great step forward has been made.

We ask all revolutionaries to give us their active support.

The Editors,

International Communist Current

April, 1975