Draft:Internationalist Communist Tendency

The Internationalist Communist Tendency (ICT), previously known as the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party (IBRP), is an international organisation of the Communist Left.

The IBRP was formed in 1983 as a joint initiative of the Communist Workers’ Organisation (CWO) in Britain and the Internationalist Communist Party (PCInt) in Italy after a series of international conferences organised by the latter. In 2009, the IBRP changed its name to the ICT.

The Italian Communist Left
The ICT traces its history back to the Left fractions inside the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) which began to appear in 1910. In 1919 the Left united around Amadeo Bordiga and in 1921 it played a central role in the foundation of the Communist Party of Italy (PCd’I). The Left held a majority in the PCd’I until 1923. In 1925, Onorato Damen, along with Luigi Repossi and Bruno Fortichiari, formed the "Intesa" committee with the aim of defending the work of the Left in the party. Ultimately however, under the leadership of Palmiro Togliatti, the Left was gradually expelled. Meanwhile, under the Fascist regime, many of its militants ended up in prison or in exile. In 1927, the Left regrouped abroad as a Fraction, and in 1928, in Pantin, it officially formed the Left Fraction of the PCd’I (from 1935 the Italian Fraction of the Communist Left). The outbreak of World War II disrupted the work of the Fraction. However, in 1943 militants of the Left then resident in Italy, the likes of Damen and Bruno Maffi, and those returning from abroad, regrouped once again and formed the PCInt.

The Internationalist Communist Party
The First Congress of the PCInt was held in 1948. In the following years two different tendencies within the PCInt made themselves known, one around Damen and another around Bordiga. In 1952, a split took place. The political ancestors of the ICT sided with the tendency represented by Damen, which kept the name PCInt. Between 1977 and 1981 the PCInt initiated the International Conferences of the Communist Left, which intended to delimitate what was then called the "proletarian political camp".

The International Conferences of the Communist Left
During the Third Conference, the CWO and the PCInt agreed upon the following seven points, setting the groundwork for the creation of the IBRP:
 * 1) Acceptance of the October Revolution as proletarian.
 * 2) Recognition of the break with Social Democracy brought about by the First Two Congresses of the Third International.
 * 3) Rejection without reservation of state capitalism and self-management.
 * 4) Recognition of the Socialist and Communist Parties as bourgeois.
 * 5) Rejection of all policies which subject the proletariat to the national bourgeoisie.
 * 6) An orientation towards the organisation of revolutionaries based on Marxist methodology.
 * 7) Recognition of international meetings as part of the work of debate among revolutionary groups for co-ordination of their active political interventions towards the class in the class struggle, with the aim of actively contributing to the process leading to the International Party of the Proletariat, the indispensable political organ for the political guidance of the revolutionary class movement and the proletarian power itself.

The IBRP becomes the ICT
In 2009, in response to the expansion of the IBRP beyond the PCInt and the CWO, the decision was made to adopt the name the ICT. The ICT now unites organisations in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the UK and the USA, as well as sympathisers across the world.

Political positions and intervention
The ICT opposes all nationalism, parliamentarism and trade unionism. Instead, it promotes internationalism, the rule of workers' councils, and the self-organisation of the class struggle. The ICT summarises its framework as follows:


 * 1) The proletarian revolution will be international or it will be doomed. International revolution presupposes the existence of an international party: the concrete political expression of the most class conscious workers who organise together to fight for the revolutionary programme amongst the rest of the working class. History has shown that attempts to form the party during the revolution itself were too little too late.
 * 2) The ICT thus aims for the creation of a new workers’ International as soon as the political programme and international forces exist for this. However, the ICT is for the party, and does not claim to be its sole pre-existing nucleus. The future party will not be the simple expansion of a single organisation.
 * 3) Before the International can be formed the precise details of the revolutionary programme will have to be clarified in all its related aspects via discussion and debate amongst its potential constituent parts.
 * 4) The organisations which eventually come to form the world party must already have a meaningful existence inside the working class in the area from which they spring. The proclamation of the International (or its initial nucleus) on the basis of little more than the existence of propagandist groups would not be a step forward for the revolutionary movement.
 * 5) A revolutionary organisation has to strive to become more than a propaganda network. Despite the limited opportunities, it is the task of proletarian organisations today to work to establish themselves as a revolutionary force inside the working class; this in order to be in a position to point the way ahead in the class struggle of today as a precursor to organising and leading the revolutionary struggles of tomorrow.
 * 6) The lesson of the last revolutionary wave is not that the working class can do without organised leadership, nor that the party is the class (a metaphysical abstraction of latter-day Bordigists). Rather, that leadership and its organisational form (the International) is the most important weapon that the revolutionary working class has. Its task will be to fight for a communist perspective in the mass organs of proletarian power (soviets). The political organisation, however, will remain a minority of the working class and is not a substitute for the class in general. The task of establishing socialism is one for the working class as a whole. It is a task which cannot be delegated, not even to the class conscious vanguard.

Over the years, many groups have polemicised with the ICT and its affiliates, including the likes of the International Communist Current, the International Communist Party, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, or the Alliance for Workers' Liberty.

Affiliates
As of 2024, the ICT lists the following organisations as its affiliates.