Draft:Bilan (Magazine)

Bilan magazine was a monthly theoretical bulletin of the Left Faction of the Italian Communist Party.

Drawing lessons from past defeats
This magazine is linked to the current of the Communist Left which tries to draw the lessons, to make the “balance sheet”, of the Russian counterrevolution from the point of view of the revolutionary proletariat. The introductory note to the first issue thus presents the aims of the journal: “We intend to make the journal an organ of political enlightenment and understanding of the present particularly complex social situation.”

The magazine began to appear in November 1933, ending with issue 46 in December 1938 and passing to the magazine October. In a dark period in which the workers' movement is regressing on all sides, it ensures the defense of the most fundamental proletarian principles, especially internationalism. But the handful of activists who ensure the publication of the magazine, in often difficult material conditions, also do not hesitate to undertake with method and rigor extensive new theoretical analysis and clarifications, whether on the conditions of the counterrevolution, the march to war, the transition period, the dictatorship of the proletariat.

A space for political confrontation
With a remarkable spirit of openness, Bilan and the Italian Fraction try to establish contact with the other proletarian groups that subsist here and there, but on the basis of rigorous political confrontations. This will be the case in particular with elements of the League of Belgian Communists. The review will always echo these discussions or polemics, as when the Fraction was divided on the attitude to adopt before the events of Spain in 1936.

Among the editors of the magazine, we must mention Ottorino Perrone (aka Verses), as well as Virgilio Verdaro (aka Gatto Mamone), Jean Mélis (aka Mitchell), Henri Heerbrant (aka Hilden), Adhémar Hennaut, Soep, etc., in the first row.

The magazine will also always have a place in its columns to express its solidarity with the internationalist militants victims of the counterrevolution, such as Calligaris or Victor Serge.

“Do not betray”
Far from any immediatism and discarding the tactical maneuvers of variable geometry in which the Trotskyist groups often indulged, Bilan showed great lucidity in analyzing the situation of 1933: “the proletariat is perhaps no longer in a position to oppose the triumph of the revolution to the beginning of a new imperialist war. However, if there are possibilities of an immediate revolutionary recovery, they consist only in understanding the past defeats. Those who oppose this essential work of historical analysis with the platitude of the immediate mobilization of the workers, only confuse, prevent the real resumption of the proletarian struggles. “ In this difficult context, Bilan will state on several occasions that the “task of the moment” is “not to betray”, so that the theoretical achievements of the proletariat are safeguarded when, following this stubborn work of the Fraction, the Revolutionary Party will be reformed.

Bilan disappeared in 1938 Excerpt from the presentation of the October review on the website of the Institut Smolny: “Following BILAN, the October review” Revue du Bureau International des Fractions de Gauche “knows only 5 issues before the dispersion of the Fraction. The monthly rhythm, announced in the last issue of “Bilan”, will last only 4 months. Contrary to the hopes expressed at the time, the course of the imperialist war will not see the emergence of proletarian thrusts of the magnitude of those of the First World War. The “Bilan disappears”, or even the formation of left fractions in all countries (see article Bilan disappears, in Bilan no 46) “.

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