The internationalist Communists of Montreal are changing their name to “The Internationalist Communists – Klasbatalo!” In Esperanto, 'Klasbatalo!' is a word meaning class struggle. There are two reasons for this. First, the activity of revolutionary internationalists is not restricted to a city, of course, and secondly the militant composition of Internationalist Communists is no longer limited to the city of Montreal.

The Internationalist Communists – Klasbatalo! have made additions to their basic positions.

It has been emphasized that Stalinism was the result of the isolation and degeneration of the Russian Revolution following the collapse of the revolutionary wave particularly in Germany between 1919-1923. Stalinism is also a bourgeois ideology (Maoism one of its variants).

We have added a position rejecting bourgeois democracy. This is nothing new for the ICM (see the article: A circus of darkness and lies: the National Assembly : http://www.cmaq.net/en/node/26984) but we felt we should mention it in our basic positions.

We have also clarified that self-management and nationalization are just other forms of capitalism, which do not address its relations of production.

Finally, the distribution of the communist program aims to raise proletarian consciousness within its own class. Communism requires the working class to consciously abolish capitalist social relations. Following from this we reject all sectarian attitudes and isolationism. Left Communist ideas must have a hearing within our class.

Basic positions of the Internationalist Communists – Klasbatalo!

1 - The October 1917 Russian revolution took the first step toward real communist world revolution in the international revolutionary wave, which put an end to the imperialist war and lasted a few years. The failure of that revolutionary wave, particularly in Germany in 1919-23, condemned the revolution in Russia to isolation and rapid degeneration. The Stalinism that developed during the 20’s and thereafter was only an ideological representation of this degeneration and isolation. It established itself as the gravedigger of the Russian revolution, instituting a state capitalist regime, centrally planned according to the doctrine of “socialism in one country” which we reject.

2 - Since the First World War, capitalism has been a social system in decline. It no longer has anything of progressive value to offer. It has twice plunged humanity into a barbaric cycle of crisis, world war, reconstruction, and new crisis. The theory of decadence is a point of view in dynamic movement that makes it possible to foresee the direction that world capitalism seeks to take.

3 - Contrary to bourgeois as well as Stalinist propaganda, countries of the former Eastern Block, as well as China, North Korea, Cuba, etc., have never been communist. What in fact existed and still exists are countries under a particular form of state capitalism.

4 – Working class participation in the electoral circus and in the various parliaments is the best means the bourgeoisie has found to divert the proletariat from its historic task, the emancipation of all humanity. Just as with fascism, “bourgeois democracy” is a terrain in which the proletariat has no real place.

5 - We view the trade unions as organizations bound by a thousand and one ties to the state by laws, subsidies and dialogue. To change the trade union leadership or to attempt to transform the unions is impossible, inasmuch as their links to the state are organic. This includes the rejection of red or anarchist trade unions.

6 - We reject the tactics of the “united front”, “popular front” and “anti-fascist fronts”. All these tactics enmesh the interests of the proletariat with those of bourgeois factions whatever they may be, and ultimately divert the working class from its revolutionary objectives.

7 - All nationalist ideologies, “national independence”, “right of self determination”, whatever their pretext, ethnic, historical, religious, etc., are a nothing but a drug for workers. Their objective is to make them party to one faction or other of the bourgeoisie, pitting one group of workers against the other, leading them to war.

8 - The working class, and only the working class, is capable of making the communist revolution. Out of necessity, the revolutionary struggle leads the working class into a confrontation with the capitalist state. To destroy capitalism, the working class must overthrow every state and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat worldwide – the international power of the workers councils unifying the entire proletariat.

9 - “Self-management” and the “nationalization” of the economy are not the means to overthrow capitalism, since these do nothing to address capitalist relations of production. They are in fact just forms of capitalism. Communism requires the working class to consciously abolish capitalist social relations and to create a stateless society, without class, without money, without national borders or professional standing armies.

10 - A first step towards this goal is the revolutionary political organization of the class-conscious proletariat, uniting us into an international political party. This party’s role will not be to seize power in the name of the working class, but to participate, to take part in the unification and the extension of its struggles controlled by the workers themselves, in spreading and disseminating the communist program in order to raise proletarian consciousness in its own class. Only the working class in its totality, through its own autonomous bodies, e.g. workers councils, can institute socialism. This task cannot be delegated, not even to the most conscious and capable of class parties.

11 - Revolutionary practice leaves no room for sectarian attitudes and isolationism. Our ideas must be heard within our class. * We see as our mandate to intervene wherever possible, in keeping with our real forces within the various struggles of our class, to participate in the exchange of ideas, in the clarification of the proletarian program, and in building the revolutionary party.

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