Czechia: Pre-election delirium of the Communist Avant-Garde regarding SOCDEM and Stačilo! Young proletarians have no need for “leftist factions”, but for a break with the politics of class collaboration and with bourgeois politics!

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Czechia: Pre-election delirium of the Communist Avant-Garde regarding SOCDEM and Stačilo!

Young proletarians have no need for “leftist factions”, but for a break with the politics of class collaboration and with bourgeois politics!

The young Trotskyists of the Komunistická avantgarda (Communist Avant-Garde) once again confirm their role as lackeys of opportunism with their text “Young SOCDEM [Social Democracy, also known as the Czech Social Democratic Party] must oppose STAČILO! [lit. ’Enough!’, is an electoral political party-alliance consisting of Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM), United Democrats – Association of Independents, Czech National Social Party and independent individuals], or they will perish”. Instead of welcoming the collapse of the bourgeois left, they call for its restoration.

The text of this Czech section of the Revolutionary Communist International (formerly the International Marxist Tendency) is not a Marxist analysis. Instead of exposing the bourgeois nature of the SOCDEM and KSČM and calling for an uncompromising rupture, there is an attempt to breathe life into a corpse, to throw a lifeline to the supposed "Marxist wing" within the party, which is fundamentally destined to betray the workers.

We in the International Communist Party are not interested in polemics within the “left”. The class contradiction between the bourgeois left and revolutionary Marxism is not a secondary dispute within one big political family, but the decisive dividing line and line of struggle between revolution and counter-revolution.

Grantite Trotskyism – named after Ted Grant, founder of the International Marxist Tendency (now the Revolutionary Communist International), of which Communist Avant-Garge is a direct offshoot (as its national section) – has made its entryism into bourgeois left parties its proud tactic-strategy.

The British Labour Party, the French New Popular Front, Syriza, Rifondazione Comunista – everywhere the same pattern: support, then “push to the left”, and finally justify their betrayal as a historical lesson. This is the structure of Grantist Trotskyism, and it will continue indefinitely.

Instead of calling for and contributing to the creation of an independent organisation of the class, these “Marxists” lead young proletarians into the old structures, believing that they will use their failure to push them further to the left. Yet every collaboration with the bourgeoisie weakens the forces of the class.

Their text exudes a typical petty-bourgeois protest mentality: “Let's shout louder so they can't ignore us”. This mentality is not of the class; it is the mentality of the middle classes, who try to appeal to the ruling class instead of overthrowing it.

A large organisation of the class and of the movement on the economic terrain, employing methods and means of classist struggle – unlimited strikes without prior notice, negotiations without interrupting the strike, fighting scabs through picket patrols, propaganda in other factories and working-class neighbourhoods, the networking and organisation of combative proletarians, protests independent of the leadership of class-collaborationist unions and bourgeois parties, etc., that is, actions which involve an ever greater part of the proletariat – and a strong revolutionary party, in which a minority of workers is active, but which, thanks to the development of the struggle, is able to assert its influence effectively and broadly within the trade union movement, against the class influence and power of the bourgeoisie, are necessary preconditions for any prospect of a general revolutionary movement. In the case of Communist Avant-Garde, however, we find only rhetoric of pressure and appeals, demonstrations with banners, petitions, and agitation for parliamentary representation. This is not class struggle – it is lobbying at the gates of the capitalist state.

Social democracy is a historical enemy of the proletariat. It became one by distancing itself from the revolutionary workers’ movement during its development in the relatively idyllic conditions of capitalism, functioning as a reformist tendency and consciously renouncing the task of preparing the proletariat for revolution. Already in 1914, it betrayed international proletarian solidarity by supporting its respective national bourgeoisies in the first imperialist war, and in 1918–1919 it bloodily suppressed (Noske, Scheidemann) the armed German workers… and more generally confronted the proletariat with armed repression and deceit. For this reason, the Third International, in its Theses on the Role of the Communist Party in the Proletarian Revolution, adopted at its Second Congress in 1920, described it as counter-revolutionary and a direct instrument of the bourgeoisie.

Alongside social democracy, there have been – and still are – the so-called Stalinist parties, that is, parties following in the footsteps of those once controlled by Moscow. Although they sometimes still formally proclaim Marxism and revolution, they represent one of the most harmful products of the counter-revolution of the 20th century. This product – Stalinism – was an internal degeneration of the Communist International itself, caused by the defeat of the revolutionary movement in Europe, the rise of nationalist policies in defence of the Soviet state, and the ideological betrayal embodied in the theory of “socialism in one country”.

These parties turned into state apparatuses serving national capitalism – red on the outside, but bourgeois at heart. They abandoned the dictatorship of the proletariat in favour of the dictatorship of the national capital-state, internationalism in favour of diplomatic alliances, and class struggle in favour of social peace. Wherever they operated, they repressed independent workers’ actions, broke strikes, imprisoned real communists, and obstructed genuine class organisation.

After the defeat of the world revolutionary cycle, these parties took over the historical role of social democracy: to paralyse the proletariat both ideologically and practically, to channel its discontent into the framework of the national economy and reformism. And just like social democracy, they threw the banner of Marxism into the mud of democracy, national fronts, and parliamentary politicking.

The present-day remnants of these parties – including the KSČM(1) – offer nothing but stale and fraudulent reformism dressed in pseudo-red garb. Their words may at times vaguely resemble Marxism and class struggle, but their practice is loyal to the state, collaborationist, and deeply counter-revolutionary. Every appeal to “national interests,” every proposal for a “democratic road to socialism,” is just another nail in the coffin of class revolution.

To claim today that a viable Marxist core can be found within social democratic organisations such as SOCDEM is like expecting a corpse to move when spoken to. It is an illusion that drains the proletariat of the energy needed for the resumption of class struggle and revolutionary preparation.

The Trotskyists want a “left alternative.” Then they watch as the masses, disillusioned by these governments, turn to pernicious political currents. And then they begin once again to agitate for a left front and renewed support for the bourgeois left. This is not a mistake. It is the bizarre reality of their flawed political positions and entirely opportunist starting points.

The proletariat must not save the dying bourgeois left-wing parties, nor strengthen their so-called “radical” cores. Instead, it must break with the belief in elections, in interclassist left alliances, and in the reform of bourgeois politics.

The revolutionary party has no interest in engaging in “fraternal criticism from the left”. It organises and works with the aim of leading the class struggle – the class war for the conquest of political power, for the destruction of the bourgeois state, for the dictatorship of the proletariat – the only viable path to the emancipation of the proletariat from the chains of wage labour, oppression, crises, and wars of capitalist society. Those who believe in and remain within SOCDEM, KSČM, and these Trotskyist groups, remain within counter-revolutionary structures and – whether they intend to or not – strengthen them. From there, it will never be possible to confront capital as a class.

Young proletarians must not wait for someone to speak on their behalf at the “right moment” (when!?), in the “right place” (the bourgeois parliament!?). They must use their energy and enthusiasm to rediscover the terrain of class struggle – the terrain on which the proletariat can manifest itself as a class. Only on this terrain can they encounter the class party, the communist party, which does not say: “Let us fix these flaws of capitalism,” but: “Let us destroy capitalism through revolutionary class struggle, through the dictatorship of the proletariat directed by the revolutionary communist party!”

(1) In 2021, the Communist Avant-Garde, then known as the Marxist Alternative, published a text titled “#VBojSoudruzi! Let’s Vote for the KSČM! But Don’t Trust Its Leadership...” (still available on their website!), in which they wrote: “Today, however, the Communist Party [i.e. the KSČM] is once again under threat. (...) The reaction [is] sharpening its teeth to outlaw it during a time of historical weakness of the Communist Party and thus, in the period of the deepest crisis of global capitalism, to restrict the working class’s ability to defend itself against the rule of the oligarchy. In this period, more than ever before, it is necessary to go to the polls, vote for the Communist Party, and thereby make it more difficult for the ruling class to launch attacks against it and the entire communist movement” (emphasis ours). Any proletarian resistance is clearly identified here with the actions of the KSČM, and its formal existence is presented as a defence of the entire communist movement! The Communist Avant-Garde thus revised Trotsky’s 1933 declaration that the Stalinist parties are dead for the purposes of the proletarian revolution!

Il comunista - le prolétaire - el proletario - proletarian - programme communiste - el programa comunista - Communist Program