The new Italian Communist Party convened its 1st Congress!

In recent weeks we convened the 1st Congress of the (new) Italian Communist Party.
Thus we have passed another important stage of the work we began in 1999 with the establishment of the Preparatory Commission (PC) of the founding Congress of the (new)PCI, announced in HYPERLINK "http://www.nuovopci.it/voce/ind01.html" n. 1 of La Voce (March 1999). For the reasons then explained in HYPERLINK

"http://www.nuovopci.it/voce/voce18/indvo18.html" n. 18 of La Voce (November 2004) and in the Declaration of 1st November 2004, we did not found the (n)PCI in a Congress. We founded the (n)PCI on 3rd October 2004 at an enlarged meeting of the PC that, waiting to convene the Congress, entrusted the leadership of the Party to a Provisional Commission (PC) of Central Committee, elected in the same meeting. Finally, few weeks ago we also managed to convene the 1st Congress of the Party.

The Congress has finally approved the Manifesto Program already discussed in the provisional organizations of the Party. It discussed and approved the Statute of the Party (see below) that confirms the clandestine nature of the Party, issued and approved eleven Resolutions, elected the Central Committee (CC) which will direct the party with full powers until the 2nd Congress, as by Statute enacted. The Congress has instructed the CC to draw up the Resolutions for the final publication. They will soon be published as Supplement of No. 34 of La Voce. As by Statute enacted, the CC has elected the General Secretary of the Party.

The Congress dissolved the Provisional Commission. The convention of the Congress is the culmination of the good work the PC did. The PC handed over to the CC that succeeds to it in all respects.

Thanks to the convention of the Congress, now the new Italian Communist Party has a well defined, stable and authoritative direction. In the coming months, the CC will carry out the restructuring from the top to the bottom of all the Party organizations and in particular of the Party Committees, according to what was already stated in the “Plan in two points to start simultaneously from several points the building of the Party” on the basis of which the Party Committees have been constituted so far.

Also the New Power, which we are building in accordance with the strategy of the revolutionary people’s war, has now a well defined and stable center. The Party is the hub of the New Power and to give the Party a well defined, stable and authoritative direction, is an important factor in the current stage of revolutionary people’s war to establish socialism. The terminal phase of the general crisis of capitalism has in fact placed on the agenda, as a realistic immediate goal, the establishment of an emergency government by the Workers’ Organizations and People’s Organizations, the People’s Bloc Government. The stable structure the 1st Congress gave to the Party Center and the impulse it gave to the reorganization and the strengthening of the Party Committees at various levels, contribute to enhance the possibilities to reach this goal.
The 1st Congress is therefore an important step forward in the struggle to end the Papal Republic, to make Italy a new socialist country and thus contribute to the new wave of socialist revolution that advances all around the world. Its effects will become evident in coming months.

Which are the main meanings of the 1st Congress of the (n)PCI?

They can be summarized in four points.

1. The 1st Congress is an important step in Party building
With the convention of the Congress we sanctioned the completion of the first of the three stages of Party building our Manifesto Program indicated, and we sanctioned the start of the second stage.
What the first stage was?
The Communists had to constitute themselves in a party on the basis of their ideological unity and of getting minimum necessary organisational conditions.
The Manifesto Program (MP) published in the spring of 2008 after extensive discussion in the provisional organizations of the Party, proves and expresses our ideological unity. Our working proves that we got the minimum organisational conditions and the convention of the Congress further confirms it.
Certainly in our country there are still other Communists. They are men and women moulded by the story we have behind to a conception of the world and a moral commitment similar to ours. Because of secondary motives, they did not participate in the process of building the Party and up till now they do not belong to any party organization, many neither belong to the caravan of (n)PCI. They are in the left wing of the Subjective Forces of Socialist Revolution, in bourgeois leftist organizations, in the left wing of unions and in the left wing of workers and people’s organizations, in the committees of resistance.
They could be recruited in the party. We must avoid sectarianism towards them and be ready to recruit them in the best conditions for the development of socialist revolution.
But we must win the bulk of the future members of the Party among the popular masses, mainly in the working class. How can we do it? Transforming their conception of the world and their conduct with the propaganda and with the practical demonstration that for the humanity to resume its path of progress interrupted by the long survival of capitalism and by the extension of its decline (by its imperialist phase), we need a just and strong Communist Party. It will be a practical demonstration that, as regards our country, we will give during 1. the struggle to create the three conditions of forming the People’s Bloc Government, 2. the promotion of the revolutionary mobilization of the popular masses, 3. the struggle against the reactionary mobilization of the popular masses, 4. the struggle against the manifestations of the three crises (economic, political and environmental), in all the struggle on the four fronts of our General Plan of Work (see Manifesto Program, in HYPERLINK

"http://www.nuovopci.it/eile/en/in080619.html" ...in080619.html , PDF version, p. 88).
Our Manifesto Program correctly points out that the essence of the second stage of Party building, that is the stage of consolidation and strengthening of the Party, is to win the advanced workers to the Party so that, thanks to its composition, it will also become the vanguard of the organized working class and then play its role of General Staff of it in the class struggle.
The workers are men and women the capitalists engage in their companies to produce commodities (goods or services) which, if sold, increase their capital. In Italy they are about 7 million. About 3 millions of them work in companies with more than 100 employees, and nearly 1 million of them work in companies with more than 500 employees. In order to the Party could actually play the role of General Staff of the working class, that is it could guide and direct its movements, we already said (in HYPERLINK

"http://www.nuovopci.it/voce/voce20/indvo20.html" La Voce n. 20 ) that the Party must recruit at least one hundred thousand of them.

One of the constitutive theories of Marxism is that the workers are the ruling class of socialist revolution and of socialism. For the condition in which bourgeois society places them, the workers are the class that more easily assimilates the communist conception of the world, if we Communists are able to bring it to them. They are the class that more easily elaborates the organizational tools to put it into practice: that is to establish socialism and lead the popular masses to make the transition from capitalism to communism.

The bourgeoisie, the clergy and all the conscious or unconscious representatives and spokespeople of their culture have made and continue to make a big effort to refute (or, rather, to confuse and hide, because to refute is difficult and try to do it is dangerous) the thesis of Marxism on the historical role of the working class. They also try to refute (or, rather, to confuse and hide) the fact that in our country, despite the dismantling of the productive apparatus, the outsourcing, the growing number of contracts, the imposition of subcontracts and precarious work, the workers working in companies of more than 100 employees are still around 3 millions, therefore, according both to the historical experience and to the analysis on current social relations, a mass more than enough to trail the rest of the popular masses to the struggle and to lead them.

The history of the communist movement in our country and in other capitalist countries, has largely confirmed the thesis of Marxism. But it is true that today, in our country, very few workers are members of the Communist Party. Not only that, but today few workers consider themselves Communists and the mass of workers is far from being in some way favourable to Communism. It is a situation completely opposite to that of even forty years ago. Because of their convenience or of their depression, bourgeois sociologists and apologists of capitalism, anti-communist intellectuals love feed their mind with this fact as the proof that the theory of Marxism is no more valid. The anti-communist leftists (the Frankfurt School and the like) began forty years ago to talk a lot of “integration of the working class in the system” and their thinking in all the imperialist countries has got the strength of the platitude among the intellectuals of the regime. Actually, the detachment of the working class of the imperialist countries from the communist movement is the result of the crisis of the communist movement, not the cause of the crisis of the communist movement. The working class is not spontaneously communist: this is a fact that Lenin has shown widely over a hundred years ago (What Has to Be Done? 1902), before the development of the first wave of proletarian revolution, that is before, in the major capitalist countries, the working class joined Communism en masse in different ways and degrees. Lenin also indicated how Communists could win the working class en masse to Communism. The development of the first wave of proletarian revolution tested and confirmed his theories.

It took dozens of years of political collaboration with the bourgeoisie by the communist parties and of transformation of communist politics in economic claims (so as Togliatti, Berlinguer and Bertinotti did), of reduction of communist theory to empty declamation of so called Marxist dogmas (so as Ingrao, Cossutta and the like did), for making the workers of the imperialist countries, urged and pressed by the bourgeoisie and the clergy by all means of the regime of preventive counter revolution (see Manifesto Program of the (new) Italian Communist Party, in HYPERLINK "http://www.nuovopci.it/eile/en/in080619.html" ...in080619.html , PDF version, p. 18), abandon the communist parties and the communist movement. The new birth of the communist movement occurs after this detachment en masse has been consumed. We must therefore go back to the top. We Communists have to find way and means to win again en masse the workers to the communist movement. The completion of the first stage of Party building now puts the conquest of the advanced workers to the Party as our central and inescapable goal. Each project to establish socialism without having achieved this goal is a harmful fantasy. Claiming to act on behalf of the workers, to speak on behalf of the workers, to say what workers think without having organized those vanguard workers whose consonance with the masses is verified in the practical vanguard relationship that they have every day with other workers, and therefore without the advanced workers have possibility to express themselves, is pure anarchism and opens the way to the arbitrariness, falsehood and fantasy.

The recruitment of the advanced workers occurs in Party Committees. Thus the reorganization of the system of Party Committees of various levels, their strengthening and the multiplication of their number become the central and crucial part of our work.

The general crisis of capitalism and in particular its terminal phase creates favorable conditions for our work in the sense that the imperialist bourgeoisie and the clergy have plunged even the most advanced imperialist countries in a painful and destructive chaos and savagery and the new birth of the communist movement has become the only way out for all the popular masses. The weapons of capitalism are blunt, but the new birth of the communist movement is neither automatic nor obvious. It will occur only if and as more the Communists of the imperialist countries will overcome dogmatism and economism that still makes sterile the efforts of most communist groups of the imperialist countries, even of the most advanced ones, and will use Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as a practical guide to lead the socialist revolution. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the most advanced conception of the world that humanity has yet produced. It must guide the activities of any communist party. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is the method that every communist party must follow to know the world and to transform it.
So we completely understand the reason of the current detachment en masse of the workers from the communist movement. The very reason of this detachment says that the detachment can be fully overcome. It is up to us Communists to overcome it

The task that we must fulfill in the second stage of Party building is therefore necessary and possible. It implies a special effort to build the basic Party Committees, namely Party Committees established in firms, departments, dwelling places. To place this task at the core of the work of Party building is the first and most important meaning of the Congress.

2. The New Power shall have and now has a well defined center around which to build itself
The development of the revolutionary people's war in our country is the foundation and strengthening of the New Power (NP) as opposed to the Papal Republic and bound to suppress it. The Communist Party is the hub of the New Power (see HYPERLINK "http://www.nuovopci.it/eile/en/in080619.html" ...in080619.html , PDF version, p. 81). The full structuring of the Communist Party in all its organizations and means necessary for its operation is an indispensable aspect of building the New Power. After the 1st Congress, the (n)PCI is a unitary organism based on a conception of the world expressed by its Manifesto Program, ruled by a Statute with an elected Central Committee (CC), grouped around the General Secretary of the Party and with full powers in the direction of the Party Committees which in turn periodically will elect delegates to the Congress who will control the work of CC and elect the new executive body of the party.

In order to make the socialist revolution advance, we need a revolutionary theory and a direction that embodies it. The new Italian Communist Party Congress fulfilled this task. It is the final break not only with the theories but also with the anti-party atmosphere to which the crisis of the communist movement gave way, of which the bourgeoisie took advantage, and of which the anti-communist or anyway not communist Left was the expression. The practical failure of plans and projects of this Left is worth more than any reasoning. It happened to the non-communist or anti-communist Left the same thing that happened to the modern revisionists and to their "democratic way to socialism", their "ways to socialism through structural reforms", their "socialism built under the umbrella of NATO”. The facts contradict them better than any reasoning could do. But certainly the conceptions of anarchists, spurious democrats, Trotskyites, etc. will not disappear suddenly with the practical failure of the political projects they produced. Therefore it is worthwhile to set out clearly the communist thesis according to which the workers can set themselves up as ruling class only in the Communist Party. The bourgeoisie form and selects its leaders during the trafficking of "civil society". The proletariat, because of his social position, can form, select and verify its leaders only in the class struggle that those leaders conduct framed within the ranks of the Communist Party. The Congress has completed the frame so that this work could be systematically carried out.
This is the second most important of the main meanings of the Congress.

3. The new PCI is a party of new type that takes up the heritage of the first PCI
In rebuilding the party, we had to take into account and have taken into account both of the great and heroic historical work the first PCI made, and of the disastrous defeat it has suffered up to corruption, to disintegration and finally to dissolution. We had to divide its life in opposing phases that correspond to conflicting roles it had in the class struggle in our country and in the International Communist Movement. We had to bear in mind and we bore in mind the experience of the first PCI, of which we are and we want to be heirs. At the same time we have established clearly what distinguishes us from the first PCI, and in which sense we are a Party of new type.

The main expressions of the Party of new type are the Manifesto Program and the ideological unity of the Party on the Manifesto Program, the Statute of the Party and the role it gave to the two lines struggle, the clandestine nature of the Party

.
The (n)PCI is a Party of new kind for the conception of the world that leads it, for the strategy it practices to build the socialist revolution and for the Statute ruling its existence. In this sense, the (n)PCI innovates in the history of class struggle of our country and in the context of the communist parties of the imperialist countries. It is an innovation that has been dictated by the evaluation of the experience of the communist movement of our country and of the experience of the international communist movement, of which the (n)PCI considers itself a department, for now ideally, awaiting that there will be created the conditions for an organizational unity as well.
It is important to note that in the Statute of the Party the two lines struggle is set as an organizing principle of the Party, on the same level of democratic centralism.
The clandestinity of the party is not only an indispensable tool to face repression, but is primarily an indispensable tool to promote and direct the protracted revolutionary people's war, then to actually adopt the strategy that the evaluation of the experience of the first wave of the socialist revolution in our country and all over the world has proven to be the universal strategy of socialist revolution.

This is the third most important of the main meanings of the Congress.

4. The 1st Congress strengthens the action and the role of (n)PCI in the International Communist Movement

With the 1st Congress we have confirmed our commitment to make Italy a new socialist country, to eliminate the Papal Republic and therefore to make by this an important service to the oppressed classes and oppressed peoples of the world, given the role that Vatican and its Church have had and have for the European and American imperialism and for the oppression that they still burden on the rest of the world. We therefore confirmed our commitment to contribute to the second wave of proletarian revolution which is advancing all around the world. Based on the results of the 1st Congress we shall strengthen our relations in the International Communist Movement and shall give our stronger contribution for liberating it from dogmatism and economism still hampering its new birth.

This is the fourth most important of the main meanings of the 1st Congress.

The 1st Congress did not only put a solid foundation for those who struggle or aspire to struggle to establish socialism and to transform themselves for this struggle. It is ultimately a call to continue with increased impulse the work we have undertaken, the work that aims to crown the dream of our fathers, the work that aims to help to create a bright future for humanity, thinking to new generations that will constitute this future and in memory of our martyrs who gave their lives for the cause and of all those comrades who have dedicated their lives to it. This is the call I do also personally to the comrades and the bodies of the Party, and I pledge to deal with honor to the role of the CC of the (n)PCI has entrusted to me.

The General Secretary of the Party


Statute of the (new) Italian Communist Party

1.
The (new) Italian Communist Party is the organization that promotes and directs the struggle of the working class and of the other classes of the popular masses against the Papal Republic to establish socialism in Italy and lead the country toward Communism, thus contributing to second wave of proletarian revolution which is advancing all around the world.

2.
The protagonists of this struggle are primarily the working class and, trailed and directed by it, the other classes of popular masses. The (n)PCI is the General Staff of this struggle and therefore also the vanguard party of the working class. Its strategy is the Protracted Revolutionary People’s War. Its task is to articulate the revolutionary people's war in tactical plans and campaigns each one linked with the previous one and the next one, to structure each campaign in battles and tactical operations, to collect and direct the forces to fight and win.

3.
The (n)PCI is based on the communist conception of the world, the dialectical and historical materialism, namely, Marxism-Leninism-Maoism expressed in the Manifesto Program of the Party. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is also its method to know the world and to transform it.

4.
The (n)PCI is a member of the International Communist Movement. It is the heir of the old communist movement and, in order to accomplish its work, it values the experience of the old communist movement and in particular the experience of the first wave of proletarian revolution, of the October Revolution, of Soviet Union, of People’s Republic of China and of all the first socialist countries and of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution of the Chinese people.

5.
The (n)PCI is the heir and successor of the communist movement of our country, of the first PCI, Italian section of the first Communist International and backbone of the glorious anti-fascist Resistance and of the struggle against the regime of Christian Democracy. The (n)PCI is the heir of the Red Brigades, the most advanced even if insufficient expression of the revolutionary struggle of the '70s to rebuild the Communist Party, to defend the achievements of civilization and welfare and to wring new ones.

6.
Main organizational principles of the Party are the democratic centralism and the two lines struggle. The two principles are complementary: they are two opposite terms in a dialectical unity. Between the two, in some circumstances the main one is the first, in others the main is the second one.
Democratic centralism is synthesized in the following four points: 1. electivity of all ruling bodies from the bottom to the top; 2. obligation of each body of the party to report its activities to the organization that elected him and to upper bodies; 3. rigorous and fair party discipline and subordination of the minority to majority; 4. decisions of upper organisms are unconditionally compulsory for lower bodies.
The principle of the two lines struggle tells us that in the Communist Party in every field there are always two trends: one that pushes forward and one that hinders. They are the combined effect of the class contradiction (the influence of the bourgeoisie and the struggle against it), of the contradiction between truth and falsehood and of the contradiction between the new and the old. There are times when the two trends are complementary and both contribute to the work of the Party. There are other times when they become antagonistic and incompatible. The left trend must transform the right one. If the right trend is irreducible, the left one must expel it.

7.
In order to fulfill its task, the (n)PCI is a clandestine party: it proclaims its goals, its conception of the world, its analysis of the situation and its line, but until the establishment of socialism it keeps secret the identity of its members and of its organizations.

8.
In order to fulfill its task, the (n)PCI aspires to organize in its ranks all the advanced workers, for directing through them the working class and, through the working class, the rest of the popular masses to lead the revolutionary people's war that will establish socialism in Italy.

9.
In order to fulfill its task, the (n)PCI uses all kinds of mass organizations created and tries to guide and direct all the organizations of workers and of the rest of the popular masses to enable them to contribute to the revolutionary people's war that will establish socialism in Italy.

10.
The main method of work and leadership of the Party towards outside is the mass line.

11.
It can be a member of the Party each person aged over 14 years who 1. shares the communist conception of the world expressed in the Manifesto Program of the Party and is committed to strive to promote the Protracted Revolutionary People’s War that will establish socialism in Italy and will open its doors to the transition from capitalism to Communism; 2. works in one of the organizations of the Party; 3. observes the Statute. Responsible for the recruitment, application, conduct, use and eventual removal of any member, is his/her membership organization under the authority of the Central Committee of the Party.

12.
Organizations of the (n)PCI are the Party Committees (PC) of base and of intermediate level, the Central Committee, the Work Commissions of CC and of PC. The CC elects the General Secretary of the Party.

13.
The supreme body of (n)PCI is the Congress. It elects the Central Committee that directs the Party with full powers between the Congress that voted for it and the next one, on the basis of the Manifesto Program, the organizational principles of the Party, the Congressional Resolution and the Statute.

¡Viva el 1er Congreso del (n) PCI!