The International Communist Party (ICP) is a

left communist Left communism, or the communist left, is a position held by the left wing of communism, which criticises the political ideas and practices espoused by Marxist–Leninists and social democrats. Left communists assert positions which they rega ...

international political party which is often described as

Bordigist Amadeo Bordiga (13 June 1889 – 25 July 1970) was an Italian Marxist theorist, revolutionary socialist, founder of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI), member of the Communist International (Comintern) and later a leading figure of the Internat ...

due to the contributions by longtime member

Amadeo Bordiga Amadeo Bordiga (13 June 1889 – 25 July 1970) was an Italian Marxist theorist, revolutionary socialist, founder of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI), member of the Communist International (Comintern) and later a leading figure of the Interna ...

, although the adherents of the party don't define themselves as Bordigists.

Origins

1910

At the

Italian Socialist Party The Italian Socialist Party (, PSI) was a Socialism, socialist and later Social democracy, social-democratic List of political parties in Italy, political party in Italy, whose history stretched for longer than a century, making it one of the l ...

's (PSI) Congress of

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, the Left opposed what they perceived as " reformism" in the leadership of the party and the trade unions. The Left strongly opposed the

Italo-Turkish War The Italo-Turkish or Turco-Italian War ( tr, Trablusgarp Savaşı, "Tripolitanian War", it, Guerra di Libia, "War of Libya") was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911, to 18 October 1912. As a result o ...

, in attempting to demonstrate their belief in

Proletarian internationalism Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is the perception of all communist revolutions as being part of a single global class struggle rather than separate localized events. It is based on the theory that ...

and organized itself nationally as the Left Communist Faction at the Reggio Emilia Congress of 1912. A similar conflict broke out in the Socialist Youth Federation against alleged "

reformists Reformism is a political doctrine advocating the reform of an existing system or institution instead of its abolition and replacement. Within the socialist movement, reformism is the view that gradual changes through existing institutions can e ...

" by the Left. The Left asserted that both the communist party and Young Federation were "organs of struggle".

was a large influence on the party ideologically.

1914–1917

At the time of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

the Left espoused

revolutionary defeatism Revolutionary defeatism is a concept made most prominent by Vladimir Lenin in World War I. It is based on the Marxist idea of class struggle. Arguing that the proletariat could not win or gain in a capitalist war, Lenin declared its true enemy is ...

, a

Leninist Leninism is a political ideology developed by Russian Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin that proposes the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat led by a revolutionary vanguard party as the political prelude to the establishm ...

theory. At the outbreak of the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key mome ...

, the Left aligned itself with Lenin and his ideology of Leninism, the first sign of what they thought would be an international revolution. “

Bolshevism Bolshevism (from Bolshevik) is a revolutionary socialist current of Soviet Marxist–Leninist political thought and political regime associated with the formation of a rigidly centralized, cohesive and disciplined party of social revolution, ...

, A Plant for Every Clime”, a piece written by party ideologist Bordiga, favorably spoke of the revolution.

1919

1919 was seen as a "crucial year" by Left Communists due to the German and Hungarian revolutions, which they viewed as being part of a trend of world revolution that the great October socialist revolution began. In Italy, a polemic began between the Left and Antonio Gramsci over the role of soviets in Italy. The Left then started an

Abstentionist Abstentionism is standing for election to a deliberative assembly while refusing to take up any seats won or otherwise participate in the assembly's business. Abstentionism differs from an election boycott in that abstentionists participate in ...

faction, which was founded in the PSI, due to the Left's views in regards to participation in elections.

1920–1924

At the Second Congress of the

Third International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by a ...

, the Left opposed the Third International's structure, preferring an international party, as well as its requirement of democratic centralism. Lead by the Left, the

Communist Party of Italy The Italian Communist Party ( it, Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist political party in Italy. The PCI was founded as ''Communist Party of Italy'' on 21 January 1921 in Livorno by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). ...

was founded in Livorno. After the arrest of Bordiga and many of the party’s leaders in early 1923, the Left was voted out of the leadership. Now led by

Gramsci Antonio Francesco Gramsci ( , , ; 22 January 1891 – 27 April 1937) was an Italian Marxist philosopher, journalist, linguist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a fou ...

and Togliatti. The new majority within the party successfully opposed the Left and begun to purge their remaining members.

1926–1930

The left faction of the PCd'I was formally established in July 1927 by a number of young militants. The Left supported and briefly affiliated with the

Russian opposition Opposition to the government of President Vladimir Putin in Russia can be divided between the parliamentary opposition parties in the State Duma and the various non-systemic opposition organizations. While the former are largely viewed as bei ...

until the relations soured due to differences between the Left and

Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian M ...

. In the meanwhile, Bordiga was kicked out of the party for refusing to condemn

1930–1940

With Bordiga under continuous police surveillance and isolated in

Naples Naples (; it, Napoli ; nap, Napule ), from grc, Νεάπολις, Neápolis, lit=new city. is the regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 909,048 within the city's adminis ...

, the Left voted out of the party, it could only exist as an exile group. In 1938, the left fraction which was organized in several countries at this point formed the ''International Communist Left''.

History

In 1943, the Internationalist Communist Party was founded as Partito Comunista Internazionalista in Italy around

Onorato Damen Onorato Damen (4 December 1893 – 14 October 1979), was an Italian left communist revolutionary who was first active in the Italian Socialist Party and then the Communist Party of Italy. After being expelled, he worked with the organized Italian ...

and

Bruno Maffi Bruno may refer to: People and fictional characters *Bruno (name), including lists of people and fictional characters with either the given name or surname * Bruno, Duke of Saxony (died 880) * Bruno the Great (925–965), Archbishop of Cologne, ...

and was soon joined by the international fraction. They opposed the anti fascist partisans that fought the fascist Mussolini regime, leading to accusations of being German agents due to their opposition to anti-fascism. Nevertheless, the party managed to attract a portion of the partisans to their positions. Partito Comunista Internazionalista formed several federations, the leading ones being in

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...

and

Parma Parma (; egl, Pärma, ) is a city in the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna known for its architecture, music, art, prosciutto (ham), cheese and surrounding countryside. With a population of 198,292 inhabitants, Parma is the second mos ...

. It agitated in factories by forming "Internationalist Communist Factory Groups", advocating for the formation of

workers' councils A workers' council or labor council is a form of political and economic organization in which a workplace or municipality is governed by a council made up of workers or their elected delegates. The workers within each council decide on what thei ...

. In December 1945, Partito Comunista Internazionalista held its first national conference in Turin, now as a larger party. Bordiga was absent from this conference, since he did not become a member of the party until 1949, although he made individual contributions to it. In the congress, the hints about the future split in the Party appeared. Disagreements crystallized with Damen and Stefanini on one hand who were in favor of participation in elections and democratic centralism and the supporters of Bordiga who was for abstentionism and organic centralism. Partito Comunista Internazionalista kept growing, claiming to possess 13 federations and 72 sections. Splits broke out in the party regarding achieving socialism through reform, approach to trade unions, and support for

national liberation Wars of national liberation or national liberation revolutions are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) to establish separat ...

. In 1952, a majority supported Damen, who rejected any hope of conquering the unions and any support for

, against a Bordiga who still defended the positions of the Communist International on these issues. In 1952, there were two Partito Comunista Internazionalistas in Italy, both laying claim to Lenin and the Italian communist left. The party led by Bordiga soon started publishing ''Il Programma Comunista'' where the majority group held on to Prometeo and Battaglia Comunista. The party (publishing ''Il Programma Comunista'') took the name International Communist Party soon after the split. In 1964, a new split gave its birth named as Rivoluzione Comunista (RC) which made its critique of organic centralism and the party's programmatism, proposing to intervene more actively in the class. Until his death in 1970, Bordiga devoted himself to contributing to the task of reconstructing the theoretical and political basis of the Party. The "Fundamental Theses of the Party" (1951), "Considerations on the Organic Activity of the Party in a Situation which is Generally and Historically Unfavorable" (1965), "Theses on the Historic Duty, the Action and Structure of the World Communist Party" (1965), and "Supplementary Theses" (1966) gave the party its theoretical, political, and organizational structure. In late 1973 the ICP underwent a serious split, where a group of militants lead by the Florence section were expelled and had to reorganize and move forward, publishing ''Il Partito Comunista''. The International Communist Party continues publishing in several languages, including the English paper "The Communist Party" and magazine "Communist Left". Meanwhile, in 1982, the Il Programma ICP was decimated by further splits within their ranks, particularly in France and Italy. From one of these splits came a number of new organizations under the ICP name, one of which publishes ''Le Prolétaire'' in France and ''Il Comunista'' in Italy, and another publishes "El Comunista" in Spain. There have been several tendencies and organizations over the years which have more or less claimed their heritage to International (Italian) Communist Left or directly to the original International Communist Party. Another tendency that claims to carry the legacy of the ICP is a group (expressly not a party) started in 1981 called
n + 1
which publishes the review under same name and collects their volumes and booklet including articles and more detailed treatments of various subjects in the series "Quaderni Internazionalisti".

Theses

On Marxist theory

The International Communist Party holds that the doctrine of the party is founded on the principles of the

historical materialism Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...

of the critical communism set out by

Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

and

Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
''

The Communist Manifesto ''The Communist Manifesto'', originally the ''Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (german: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Commu ...

'', '' Das Capital'', and their other fundamental works and which formed the basis of the

Communist International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...

constituted in 1919 and of the Italian Communist Party founded at Leghorn in 1921 as a section of the Communist International and was a unitary and invariant body. The class party is accepted as the indispensable organ for the proletarian revolutionary struggle. It has always held that the party must historically get rid, once and for all, of the practice of alliances, even for transitory issues, with the petty bourgeoisie as well as with the pseudo-proletarian and

reformist Reformism is a political doctrine advocating the reform of an existing system or institution instead of its abolition and replacement. Within the socialist movement, reformism is the view that gradual changes through existing institutions can ...

parties.

On tasks

Holding that the Communist Party consists of the most advanced and resolute part of the proletariat, uniting the efforts of the working masses transforming their struggles for group interests and contingent issues into the general struggle for the revolutionary emancipation of the proletariat; the International Communist Party states that the duties of the party are propagating the revolutionary theory among the masses, organizing the material means of action, leading the working class all along its struggle, by securing the historical continuity and the international unity of the movement. According to the International Communist Party, the party is not made up of all members of the proletariat or even of its majority. It is the organization of the minority which has, collectively, reached and mastered

revolutionary tactics A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective, to refer to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor. ...

in theory and in practice; in other words, which sees clearly the general objectives of the historic movement of the proletariat in the whole world and for the whole of the historical course which separates the period of its formation from that of its final victory. The party is not formed on the basis of individual consciousness; the International Communist Party emphasizes that it is not possible for each worker to become conscious and still less to master the class doctrine in a cultural way, neither is this possible for each militant nor even for the leaders of the Party as individuals. To them, this consciousness lay in the organic unity of the Party. The Party is the organic tissue whose function inside the working class is to carry out its revolutionary task in all its aspects and in its successive phases. Stressing the importance of the unity of the proletariat, the International Communist Party states that the party should never set up economic associations which exclude those workers who do not accept its principles and leadership. All forms of closed organizations that separate the working class are rejected. The ICP remains resolutely against the participation in the parliamentary elections.

On opportunism

The International Communist Party defines opportunism as a wave of degeneration of proletarian parties. In opposition to opportunism, it rejects the subordination of the party's action to that of political committees of fronts, coalitions or alliances even if this subordination was to restrict itself to public declarations and be compensated by internal instructions to militants or the party and by the subjective intentions of the leaders. It holds that in the West all alliances or proposals of alliances with social democratic or petit-bourgeois parties should be refused at all costs; in other words that there should be no united political front. According to the International Communist Party, what made the parties unable to foresee and face the opportunist danger was a fundamental deviation in principles: the party states that it was neither internal democracy nor free elections which give the Party its nature of being the most conscious fraction of the proletariat and its function of revolutionary guide. It is instead the matter of a deep discrepancy of conceptions about the deterministic organicity of the party as a historical body, living in the reality of the class struggle.

On action

The principal activity today is accepted to be the re-establishment of the theory of Marxist communism by the International Communist Party. The party will bring forward no new theory, but reaffirm the full validity of the fundamental theses of revolutionary Marxism, amply confirmed by facts and falsified and betrayed by opportunism to cover up retreats and defeats. The International Communist Party denounces and defends combating the Stalinists as revisionists and opportunists. Oral and written propaganda are seen as an important party action. The cult of the individual is rejected as a very dangerous aspect of opportunism which should be fought, while the Party retains complete autonomy from all other political groups, parties, formations and fronts.

Publications

''Il Partito Comunista''

Following a major split in 1973, the reorganized International Communist Party, sometimes called Florentine, began publishing their magazine, ''Il Partito Comunista'', soon thereafter. In 1979, it began publication of the theoretical review, ''Comunismo''. ''Il Partito'' has sections in Italy, the United States, Canada, France, England, Spain, Germany and Venezuela, and publishes in several languages. The ICP's English periodicals are ''The Communist Left'' and ''The Communist Party''.
Party Website

''Il Programma Comunista''

Following an important split in 1973, this group continued publishing ''Il Programma Comunista''. The organization underwent crippling splits in 1982. Beside ''Il Programma Comunista'', it now publishes a journal in English (''The Internationalist'') and a journal in German (''Kommunistisches Programm'').
Website

''Il Comunista''

Il Comunista exists in Italy, Switzerland, Spain and France. It publishes newspapers in both Italian and French with other journals in Spanish and English.
Website

''El Comunista'' and ''The Internationalist Proletarian''

It publishes ''El Comunista'' in Spanish and Catalan and ''The Internationalist Proletarian'' in English, as well as publications in Italian. It is active in Spain, Venezuela and Italy.
Party Website

''Sul Filo Rosso del Tempo''

Following a final crippling explosion in 1982, the reorganized Partito Comunista Internazionale began publishing their magazine, ''Sul Filo Rosso del Tempo''. The party is (probably only) located in Italy.
https://web.archive.org/web/20160304110534/http://www.sinistracomunistainternazionale.it/
Archived fro
original
on March 4, 2016.

''Il Bollettino''

Il Bollettino is a group which existed only in Italy and published only in Italian. The organization was founded in 1982 and their magazine was regularly published for some years; it's unknown if this group is still active.

References

External links

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Philippe Bourrinet, The "Bordigist" Current, (1912-1952)
a
"Left Wing" Communism - an infantile disorder?

Rivoluzione Comunista
{{Authority control Bordigism Left communist internationals Political parties established in 1943 Transnational political parties