International Communist Party - History

History

In 1943, the Internationalist Communist Party was found as Partito Comunista Internazionalista in Italy around Onorato Damen and Bruno Maffi. Hardened by prison, clandestinity and long years of militancy, all those men were ready to struggle to the end for the revolution, whose first strings they saw in the events of March 1943, then in the strikes in September in the North.

Struggling against the Partisans' war, and any enrolment of the workers under the banner of Italy or Togliatti, Partito Comunista Internazionalista waged a difficult, rigorously clandestine struggle, while being denounced by the PCI as "an agent of Germany and of fascism". An expectationally interesting document - the reports on the clandestine press sent to Benito Mussolini between 1943 and 1945 - makes it possible to sweep away these accusations which were fabricated by the Stalinists:

"The only independent paper. Ideologically the most interesting and prepared. Against any compromise, defends a pure communism, undoubtedly Trotskyist, and thus anti-Stalinist. Declares itself without hesitation an adversary of Stalin's Russia, while proclaiming itself faithful to Lenin's Russia. Fights against the war in all aspects: democratic, fascist or Stalinist. Even struggles against 'the partisans', the Committee of National Liberation and the Italian Communist Party."

Although it is possible to see the errors of Mussolini's spies in declaring the Partito Comunista Internazionalista as Trotskyist where actual Trotskyists poured anti-German nationalism and gave full support to the 'partisan' war.

Partito Comunista Internazionalista developed rapidly amongst the workers, and by the end of 1944 it had formed several federations, the most important ones being in Turin, Milan and Parma. It developed its activity in the factories by forming "Internationalist Communist Factory Groups", advocating for the formation of workers' councils. The propaganda made by the party gained much support in the factories, especially among the workers who refused to go to war.

In 1944, after the American occupation of southern Italy, several groups claiming descend from the communist left were quickly formed and began to distribute their press illegally. In Naples a group called 'Frazione di Sinistra dei Communist e Socialisti' was formed around Bordiga, taking up the tradition of the Abstentionist Communist Fraction of 1919. The new fraction had a huge influence in this city and despite the presence of Togliatti and the Italian Communist Party centre, there were many PCI militants in southern Italy who, completely isolated from the 'centre' in exile, still held the positions of the left, and were not fully aware of the party's evolution. The term 'Frazione' adopted by Bordiga seemed to imply that they had not given up hope of winning over the militants of the PCI and PSI by eliminating their leaderships. This is why the Bordigist fraction did not constitute itself into a party before being absorbed by the Partito Comunista Internazionalista in 1945. The fraction managed to publish different papers in Naples, Salerno and Rome.

In December 1945, Partito Comunista Internazionalista held its first national conference in Turin, now as a strong party. Bordiga was absent from this conference, since he did not become a member of the party until 1949, although he made individuals 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 and Maffi and Bordiga's absent support on the other on the question of the function of the party, on the union question, and on the question of parties participation in elections.

In the meanwhile, Togliatti as Minister of Justice decreed a general amnesty of fascist leaders and rank-and-file members amidst paeans to “the new man” and “the reborn democracy,” his party denounced the Internationalists as “fascists,” inciting a policy calling for their physical elimination. The culmination of this defamatory campaign was the assassination of two comrades, Mario Acquaviva and Fausto Atti, and others massacred by Stalinists but whose fate has remained shrouded in anonymity. Togliatti and the PCI, while advocating the freedom of real fascists, petitioned in the CLN to have the leaders of the Internationalist Communist Party condemned to death.

Partito Comunista Internazionalista kept developing despite all the violence directed towards it by the state. Especially in Calabria, the party even had a huge influence on the agricultural proletariat and even on farmers. At this point, the party had grown very strong, having become virtually a mass party with 13 federations, 72 sections, numerous public meetings, its implantation in the main industrial centres, its factory press and so forth.

It was above all the question of parliamentarianism which precipitated the formation of tendencies in the Partito Comunista Internazionalista. The party had in fact put up candidates in the local elections in 1946 and national elections in 1948. Other divergences were grafted on to this one. On the one hand there was the Damen tendency advocating a voluntarist development of the 'party' and participation in elections, but opposed to any support for 'national liberation' movements; on the other hand, the Maffi tendency hostile to 'revolutionary parliamentarianism' and supported by Bordiga.

Bordiga's entrance to the party in 1949 was to precipitate the formation of opposition 'blocks'. For Bordiga, what was necessary was a return to Lenin and the theses of the Italian Left before 1926, which meant a rejection of Bilan's contributions on the national question, the unions and the transitional state. It was on all these questions and not on the question of elections which Damen in turn rejected, that the split took place between on one hand Maffi and Bordiga and on the other Damen and Stefanini. In 1952, it seemed that a majority followed Damen, who rejected any hope of conquering the unions and any support for national liberation.

In 1952, in Italy, there were two Partito Comunista Internazionalistas, both laying claim to Lenin and the Italian left. The party as led by Bordiga and Maffi soon started publishing Il Programma Comunista where the Damen splinter group held on to Prometeo and Battaglia Comunista.

The party (publishing Il Programma Comunista) took the name International Communist Party soon after the split and growing up rapidly on the international level.

Soon the International Communist Party had expanded and grew rapidly in several countries, and for a time became the main organization of the Communist Left tradition.

Until his death in 1970, Bordiga devoted himself to contributing to the enormous task of reconstructing the theoretical and political basis of the Party, which became truly international in fact as well as name in the 1960s. 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, which led to the orthodox militants (mostly based in Florence) reorganizing and moving forward, publishing Il Partito Comunista. The International Communist Party continues publishing in several languages, including the English press "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 new organization under the ICP banner which publishes Il Comunista.

There have been several unrelated organizations over the years which have also used the name International Communist Party.