Echoes of an International Conference: Critique or Detraction?

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We have recently published a comprehensive evaluation of the internationalist conference that took place at the end of May 2023 by one of its initiators, together with the invitation letter and the (earlier) first accounts by Internationalist Perspective (IP) and Critique Grand Large. (1)

Albeit with a considerable delay, we hope to have sufficiently informed our readers to acquire a preliminary understanding of the character and scope, and of the discussions, at the meetings of this first international conference since long. We intend to publish further documents and contributions as far as possible.

In this article we comment on certain repercussions that this initiative has been confronted with as soon as a public notice of its tenure had been given by IP as one of its organizers, (2) namely its denunciation by Aníbal and Fredo Corvo in their joint publication as “a travesty of an international conference” (July 25, 2023) (3) and its sequel: After a brief public exchange with S.Y. on behalf of IP (July 29, 2023), they launched a stunning reprise: “Perspectives for cooperation of left communists in class struggle against the present war” (September 2, 2023). (4)

In the first article we read on the aforementioned conference:

“For several reasons, this was only a travesty of an international conference. The most important reasons were the fact that the conference circumvented the subject of the war in Ukraine, and that it avoided [any] confrontation of positions in a sectarian way by excluding those that gave critiques of promoters’ views.”

“In the summary that appeared [on IP’s website, as here indicated], there is no mention of the central problem of capital and wage labor today, which represents the fundamental danger in the historical evolution of the capitalist mode of production and its class relations: the inter-imperialist war in Ukraine and the formation of two blocs of imperialist capitalism, with the dynamic that is developing whose outcome, if the proletariat does not put an end to capitalism, is a Third World War.”

“Any self-respecting meetings of left communists would prioritize the question of inter-imperialist war and the need for the revolutionaries to cooperate in the internationalist struggle of each proletariat against its own bourgeoisie. However, the organizers decided to put on the agenda as a first point the disagreements over the theoretical explanations of the inter-imperialist wars since 1914.”

…Follows an intensive lamentation about the ambient sectarianism in the present milieu of the communist Left, at the hand of a critique of both distinct initiatives taken apropos of the war in Eastern Europe by the ICT and the ICC respectively, (5) flanked by utterances of deception concerning the Bordigists and certain anarchist milieus. It then proceeds:

“Therefore, it is evident that when the initiative to the May 2023 Conference put forward as the first political criterion for participation: “capitalism, from a working-class point of view, is an obsolete system”, IP and Controverses knew this criterion would exclude us as co-signers of a critique of the appeals of ICC and ICT. Consequently, we were not invited as such.”

“Our message would have been that for the formation of action groups against the war, as in conferences of several proletarian internationalist elements and groups a minimum of points is [sufficient], and that a.o. the idea of the decadence of capitalism since 1914 should not be a criterion for participation and if still on on the agenda, only after discussing the present inter-imperialist war.”

Having been replied to fraternally and rather extensively by one of the organizers, who explained that the question of war, specifically apropos of that over Ukraine, had indeed been on the agenda and was indeed discussed at the conference with a sense of urgency, and that the question of the periodization of capitalism had been the first topic to start a discussion without adherence to a specific position on this question constituting an invitation criterion (as had been erroneously supposed by Aníbal and Fredo Corvo), they published a second article, in which they pronounced, among others, the following pearl:

“We stated in our previous article that we were excluded for political reasons, because of our critical positions, primarily on the initiative of the ICC and that of the ICT against the war in Ukraine, and only secondarily because of our views on the decline of capitalism. We believe the reason that [the] discussion on decadence was put on the agenda as item nr. 1 and on the list of admission criteria as item nr.1, was to sabotage the discussion on the struggle against the war.”

It is hard to see how one can reach those who, like A. & F.C., persist in their “belief” of being collectively “excluded” from a conference for reasons that have just been contradicted, if not refuted, on behalf of the organizers. And this quite apart from the fact that the “previous article” seems indeed to state that they would have been excluded for their (respective) views on the decline of capitalism… in the first place. However, we are not into playing shell games. We simply do not see that the “critical positions” of A. & F.C. on whatever internationalist initiative against the war have played any role at all concerning invitations, not even that on their own, apparently futile, efforts in this respect.

It is still harder to see why one should take the effort to reach them, when A. & F.C., in reply to an attempt to clarification, let it be known that, on second thought, they can see nothing in an open discussion on the question of capitalism’s decadence but a conscious and deliberate attempt “to sabotage the discussion on the struggle against the war”.

Of course, we cannot impede A. & F.C. to “believe” what they want to, even it is a Machiavellian fantasy, but their manifest rejection of the need for any open discussion, by confrontation of arguments, of theoretical questions of importance and with political implications, in favor of solely wanting to discuss “the formation of action groups against the war” – which apparently for them just requires an agreement on “a minimum of points” – combined with their outright disdain for such presumably “academic” debates, has in fact confirmed a posteriori that this rather activist couple does not qualify as invitees for such a conference.

From our side, we do not esteem pretending to be “open for discussion and cooperation”, reducing the effort to: obtaining a “minimum agreement” that would allow “cooperation for action against the war, for class struggle against the inter-imperialist war in Ukraine”, while grotesquely denouncing the laborious task of theoretical deepening and political reorientation as a kind of intellectual masturbation, is contributing to establish any cooperation at the height of the tasks and responsibilities of internationalist minorities laying claim to Marx. Likewise, we do not esteem A. & F.C.’s propensity to lambasting interlocutors who disagree with them as expressing any effort to (help) overcoming sectarianism. In fact, they seem rather good at showing the symptoms of what they reproach others. No flattery.

Henry Cinnamon, February 17, 2024.

Notes:

2 Internationalist Perspective: A Conference of Left Communists (July 10, 2023)

3 Aníbal and Fredo Corvo: On a travesty of an international conference (Left-wing Communism – NOT an infantile disorder, July 25, 2023).

5 Read also about our attempt, at the time, at a clarification: The ICT’s Call for Action – Two Kinds of Criticism (AFRD, April 23, 2022) and the ensuing exchange: Capitalism, Crisis and War – What is to be done? Discussion Contributions (AFRD, April 24 – May 1, 2022).

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