The collapse of the Russian imperialist bloc is an event of truly historic proportions, bringing to an end the world order established by the great powers in 1945.<

The text from Internationalisme no.36 (July 1948) published here is a critique of the political and organizational weaknesses of the Internationalist Communist Party in its begin

The 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, is obviously of vital importance, since it is one of the preconditions for the formation of the future world wide revolutionary party.

The November 2002 issue of Internationalist Notes (publication of the newly constituted Internationalist Workers Group regrouping the remaining sympathizers of the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party (IBRP) in the US and Canada) rejects the ICC's expression of solidarity in the face of the Los Angeles Workers Voice's (LAWV) parasitic attacks against the IBRP(see Internationalism 122). Readers will recall that in that article we not only defend the IBRP against the ludicrous LAWV accusation that it was no longer a working class organization, but also supported the IBRP's criticism of LAWV's reprehensible behavior on the organizational level and its headlong retreat from the political legacy of the communist left. Calling our article an "unfortunate intervention," IN criticizes specifically our criticism of the LAWV for violating revolutionary principles of fraternalism and organizational functioning because "they held secret and private political and organizational discussions in Los Angeles." Dismissing our expression of solidarity, IN writes:

The IBRP has published Theses on Communist Tactics for the Periphery of Capitalism which put forward its position on the existence within capitalism of a division between the central and peripheral countries, and its consequences for the class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat. The Theses give a response to the different questions about the national question and the proletariat, such as:

The end of the year 2003 saw world capitalism take a new step towards the abyss - a step represented by the second Gulf war and the creation of a military quagmire in a strategically vital area of the globe. This war has been crucial in determining the new imperialist equilibrium, with the Anglo-American occupation of Iraq and the opposition to this move from various imperialist powers who are more and more adopting positions antagonistic to those of the USA. In the face of this new butchery, the main revolutionary groups who make up the international communist left have once again shown that they are capable of responding to the propaganda of the bourgeoisie by taking up resolutely internationalist positions. Against the ideological campaigns of the bourgeoisie, which are aimed at disorienting the proletariat, these groups defended the ABC of marxism. This does not of course mean that these organisations all defend the same positions. Indeed, from our point of view, the intervention of most of them has shown important weaknesses, in particular concerning the understanding of the phase of imperialist conflicts opened up by the collapse of the eastern bloc and the resulting dissolution of its western rival, and also when it comes to discerning what is at stake in these conflicts. These differences must be understood as the expression of the heterogeneous and difficult process through which consciousness ripens within the working class - a process which also affects the groups of the political vanguard. In this sense, as long as class principles are not abandoned, these differences should not constitute an element of frontal opposition between the components of the same revolutionary camp; rather they prove the need for a permanent debate between them. A public debate is not only the precondition for clarification within the revolutionary camp, but is also a factor of clarification which makes it possible to draw the line between revolutionaries and the groups of the extreme left wing of capital (Trotskyism, official anarchism, etc). It can thus help the new elements searching for class positions to orient themselves vis-a-vis the different elements of the proletarian camp. 

In Revolutionary Perspectives no. 32 the Communist Workers' Organisation (CWO) introduce a "contribution to the debate on capitalist decadence", 'For a definition of the concept of decadence' written by one of the comrades of Battaglia Comunista. We welcome this debate first of all because of the importance of subject; as the CWO state in their introduction, "The notion of decadence is a part of Marx's analysis of modes of production." It is not just any part of Marx's analysis, but the basis of scientific socialism, as they showed in RP 21 (original series, November 83): "Marxism, unlike anarchism, has always recognised that before communism can be established capitalism must itself destroy feudal systems of production and create both an international proletariat and advanced means of production. In doing this capitalism is creating both the basis for communism and the class able to bring it into being. We therefore maintain, as did Marx, that capitalism has been a historically progressive mode of production. We regard history as a complex of processes in which opposites are struggling against each other. The dynamic of history is located in these struggles and their progress is the progress of history. The development of the struggles engendered by these contradictions leads to a historical period in which capitalism can be considered to be progressive and on in which its further development turns it into a barrier. We quote again from the Preface to the Critique of Political Economy. 'At a certain stage of their development the material productive forces of society come into contradiction with the existing productive relationships, or, what is but a legal expression for these, with the property relationships within which they have moved before. From being forms of development of the productive forces these relationships are transferred into their fetters. Then an epoch of social revolution opens.' This is a dialectical understanding of the process of development, not a mechanical one. The very idea of decadence, which we describe as a period in which the material pre-requisites for communism exist but the revolution has not been made (since the subjective consciousness is absent), is a notion which would be nonsense to a mechanical materialist since he sees causality as working directly from material conditions".

Recent publications of the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party, and discussions between the ICC and the CWO at the latter’s public meetings, have confirmed that the way debate between proletarian organisations is carried out has btions is carried out has become a political issue in itself.

If we were to limit ourselves to a superficial examination of the state of the international political milieu, we could easily get depressed. Existing groups have split (A Contre Courant from the GCI, the Groppo Leninista Internazionalista from the OCI), are degenerating (Daad an Gedachte has capitulated to democratic frontism through support for the anti-apartheid front in South Africa, the EFICC has more and more put into discussion the programmatic bases of the ICC from which it emerged), or are losing their way (Communisme ou Civilisation has discredited itself by proposing in a completely unserious way to put out ‘communist journals’ with anyone who cares to listen to it; Comunismo, the former Alptraum Collective, has overnight decided that it no longer agrees with the concept of decadence, upon which all its positions were based). Or, more simply, they have just disappeared (self-dissolution of Wildcat, gradual disappearance through self-dissolution into the void of the numerous fragments which survived the explosion of Programme Communiste).