First congress of the PCR in Italy – revolutionary communists are on the advance!

From 11 to 13 April, the First Congress of the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR) in Italy was held in Cervia. Exactly one year earlier, the political organisation Sinistra Classe Rivoluzione decided to establish itself as a party and raise the flag of revolutionary communism, calling together all young people and workers ready to do battle against the capitalist system. A year later, the exciting growth of the party's forces and the tumultuous development of events on a global scale offer the best confirmation of the courageous choice we made and the political perspectives on which we base our action.

[Originally published in Italian at rivoluzione.red]

The Congress in Cervia was the most successful event in our history, with a record 215 comrades present, including 120 delegates elected by the branches. This was the culmination of the pre-Congress discussion period that involved 650 comrades, organised in 23 different areas! This is an extraordinary result, the fruit of a year's work that brought in 100 new comrades and demonstrates the solid advance of the Revolutionary Communist Party in schools, universities and workplaces across the country.

The upheavals and shocks that dictate the convulsive pace of the current situation set the stage for our Congress. Great changes in the situation are occurring by the day, if not by the hour. The election of Donald Trump, the tariff war, the fluctuations in the financial markets, the resumption of the offensive in Gaza, the protracted war in Ukraine, the rearmament of Europe, the crisis of bourgeois democracy, the explosion of mass movements in Serbia, Greece and Turkey: we are truly living in stormy times.

It is precisely such periods of abrupt change and general instability that offer the best conditions for the activity of revolutionaries, as Franco Bavila noted, opening the Congress’ proceedings. “Every day the old liberal-democratic capitalist order is falling apart before our eyes” and this has a huge impact on the consciousness of millions of people. In such a context, our discussions had to be anything but routine.

In addition to the plenary discussions on world perspectives, Italian perspectives and party building, on the evening of the first day delegates and guests split into two caucuses, to discuss youth and trade union work. We went into the development of our work in schools and universities and among young people in general, as well as in the labour movement, drawing for example an initial assessment of the campaign we are organising among Amazon workers.

The enthusiasm was palpable and could also be seen in the sale of literature at the Congress, with over €2,000 raised from the sale of our material, with particular interest in the latest publications of the Revolutionary Communist International as well as the classics of Marxism that will bolster the training of our cadres. The Saturday evening social was also an expression of enthusiasm, and an excellent opportunity for socialising between comrades from different areas, as well as fundraising.

Trump the wrecking ball

On Friday 11 April, the Congress opened with a discussion of world perspectives, introduced by comrade Fred Weston of the International Secretariat of the Revolutionary Communist International, of which the PCR is the Italian section. Fred spoke of a sudden acceleration in events, a transformation of quantity into quality. For years, contradictions have been accumulating at every level that have now produced a qualitative leap in the situation and an acceleration of events.

And at the centre of these events is Donald Trump.

We are witnessing a rebalancing of the world powers and this is producing earthquakes that are having repercussions in all countries. As Claudio Bellotti explained, speaking in the discussion, Trump is a wrecking ball that is destroying the old order.

The relative decline of the economic – and, specifically, industrial – power of the United States is forcing it to finance its consumption through a mountain of debt and fictitious capital, fuelled by the inflow of capital from all over the world. Trump's acceleration of the trade war represents a desperate attempt to solve this imbalance.

But the rise of protectionism, as Franco Bavila stated, risks plunging the world into an even more dramatic crisis, as happened in the 1930s. Trump promised a ‘golden age’, but his policies are only preparing further destabilisation and suffering for the American and global working class.

The rise of Trump and the various ‘Trumpians of Europe’ (Le Pen, AfD, Vox, Meloni, etc.) thus reflects the need on the part of the ruling class to revive economic (and political) nationalism, and carry out repressive measures against the working class, at a time when the clash between various national bourgeoisies for control of markets and spheres of influence is becoming increasingly heated. But these phenomena are at the same time a reflection of the anger of large layers of the masses, eager to be rid of the political leaders and parties that have imposed austerity and cuts on the working class in recent decades.

Roberto Sarti recalled how polarisation to the right is dialectically accompanied by polarisation to the left. In the United States, we have the victory of Trump, but also the sympathy among the broader masses for Luigi Mangione; in Germany, the success of the AfD sees at the same time the growth of the left-wing party Die Linke, which in the last elections won the most votes in Berlin, among young women and among young people in the big cities. In England, the right-wing Reform UK has become the first party in the polls, but another poll tells us that half of young Britons want a revolution. Every action leads to a reaction and through this long apprenticeship the consciousness of the masses advances towards revolutionary conclusions.

The Congress, in the spirit of internationalism, also welcomed Emanuel Tomaselli – leading member of the Revolutionäre Kommunistische Partei, the Austrian section of the Revolutionary Communist International. In his speech, Emanuel spoke about the extraordinary mass movement in Serbia, which has revolutionary implications. In Serbia, 20 percent of the population took to the streets on 15 March and students occupied the universities for four months, exercising total control over them, while calling for the formation of ‘zborovi’ – that is to say, assemblies for organising the movement. The example of the movement in Serbia shows how the current situation is full of revolutionary potential and that it is up to the communists to lead these processes and bring them to victory.

Italy in the maelstrom

The second day's discussion was devoted to Italian perspectives. Italy’s fate is intimately connected to the upheavals taking place on the world stage. Indeed, one of the processes that characterises the current period is the weakening of Europe, as it is crushed in the clash between the great powers. And little Italy cannot but be trapped in this vice.

In his introductory speech, Alessio Marconi recalled how in 2023 the US was Italy's third largest export market, worth €67.4 billion. The US market is ‘indispensable’ for Italy, as Confindustria (the bosses’ federation) made clear, and Meloni has no tools to oppose American demands.

Italy's weak position in this clash is a reflection of the weakness of Italian capital, the stagnation of productivity and investment, its parasitic nature and its inveterate dependence on state subsidies. It is a crisis of industrial strategy that reaches its pinnacle precisely in its leading sector, the automotive industry, where the bosses care solely about their own paychecks, as Vincenzo Chianese explained.

This situation is expressed in a collapse of support for the Meloni government. The arms race, which Meloni has enthusiastically supported, weighs like a boulder on the shoulders of the working class. While workers face crises, redundancies, inflation and cuts in social spending, Meloni has pulled €25 billion out of the hat for weapons and soldiers. It is an unacceptable scandal unfolding before the incredulous eyes of millions of workers. Numerous comrades told us how the issue of rearmament and war now allows us to explain our ideas very directly and how workers are quick to draw more advanced conclusions.

In this context, the role of trade union bureaucracies is equally scandalous. Mario Iavazzi explained how Landini – General Secretary of the General Confederation of Labour –  after encouraging the masses with the slogan of ‘social revolt’, has disarmed the workers, channeling mobilisations into the blind alley of referendums. In the current period, the trade union apparatuses represent the main barrier to the development of mass mobilisations by the workers.

On the other hand, the workers have already shown that they are prepared to do battle. The transport strike on 8 November, the strikes of the Stellantis workers, the general strike of 29 November, militant struggles such as those at Trasnova or among logistic workers, give us a sense of the growing willingness to fight on the part of the workers. At some point this will have to express itself in forms of organisation from below, bypassing the trade union apparatuses, as we have already seen in the case of the struggle of the women workers at the Redaelli Geriatric Institute in Milan. The explosions of anger among the youth in response to the murder of Ramy Elgaml by the police, or the militant protests against the scourge of femicides confirm that young people too are far from pacified, and the government's constant provocations only add fuel to the fire.

The crisis of capitalism at every level urges our organisation to move forward on a thousand fronts. Alessandro Giardiello explained how Marxists must, however, always keep the real movement as their point of reference. We do not know where this will start. For decades the working class has been increasingly atomised in this country. But we will see a real movement that will overwhelm these barriers, putting the workers and youth at the centre of the struggle and unleashing all the energy and forces that have seemed dormant until now. It is on this basis that the Revolutionary Communist Party will have to prove itself equal to the historic task we have set ourselves.

Building the revolutionary party of the working class!

After two days of intense discussions, the final session on organisation took place on Sunday. And it is on the question of the growth of our party’s forces and our interventions in the class struggle that we must test the correctness of our theory and analysis. On this front, the growth of the organisation is exciting and this is reflected in the growing confidence the comrades have in the possibility of successfully promoting our ideas in society.

In his introductory speech, Paolo Grassi offered a picture of the growth of our party that has allowed us to go where we had never gone before and to further develop where we have already had a presence. The changing situation in Italy has led dozens and dozens of workers and students to take up our struggle. The ‘Are you a Communist?’ campaign has been a resounding success and this is no accident. It has managed to link up with the radicalisation in the consciousness of a whole layer of young students and workers, disgusted as much by capitalism as by the hypocrisy and waverings of the reformist left.

Indeed, it is precisely our work among the youth that constitutes the main field of our growth, as could be seen in the congress hall, which was packed with young people.

In the last few weeks, the numerical and political growth of our organisation expressed itself in our campaign among Amazon workers, which took place throughout the country, with the distribution of thousands of leaflets in 20 Amazon warehouses, in 11 different cities. There, we met a young working class that has not been disillusioned by the defeats of the past and is looking for new ideas to smash its savage exploitation.

In the meantime, the party is advancing everywhere and in many cities we are literally the only organisation that openly embraces the ideas of communism and explains the need to build a party. In several regions we are fast approaching 100 comrades, while in many other areas we are witnessing a meteoric growth or the consolidation of a new sector of young political cadres, who will lead our growth in the coming period.

As Marina Wildt explained, the radicalisation of growing layers of the youth does not only affect the big cities but also, if not more so, the surrounding suburbs and small towns. Marina explained how, by targeting these layers, we have managed to build a new branch full of young people in Naples, in Torre del Greco, bringing together comrades from the Vesuvian towns. This growth is also happening in Veneto, in Lombardy, in Emilia Romagna, in Lazio and in Tuscany. New groups of comrades are also being born or strengthened in southern Italy, in Calabria, Apulia, Sicily, Sardinia and elsewhere. It would take a separate article to illustrate the full extent of the expansion of our work.

Finally, our work among women deserves special mention. Serena Capodicasa noted that the irrepressible anger at the real condition women live in is leading to a process of deep radicalisation. We managed in part to tap into this with our ‘Revolutionaries against patriarchy!’ campaign around 8 March and the national assembly on 7 March, which was a great success. Our focus on this will be enhanced by the publication of a new pamphlet on women's oppression and Engels' book The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.

At the end of Sunday's discussion, Fred Weston concluded the proceedings on behalf of the International. Fred explained that Italy is one of the weak links in the chain of world capitalism. Throughout history, the Italian working class has had three opportunities to seize power: between 1918 and 1920, between 1943 and 1948, and between 1968 and 1977. Each time, the working class was betrayed by reformists and Stalinists, while the meagre forces of genuine Marxism were incapable of forming an alternative. 

These defeats have led, at the turn of each generation, to a feeling of disillusionment in revolutionary ideas. But the crisis of capitalism is now opening a new cycle, and the contradictions of the previous period are preparing a turning point in the situation. Only by building a strong revolutionary communist party can we stop this from happening again and prevent new defeats from opening up a period of devastating wars and unprecedented destruction on a world scale. 

The current situation prepares the development of revolutionary processes in all countries, in the course of which the ideas of communism will be able to win over the majority of the working class. The First Congress of the Revolutionary Communist Party marks an important step in this direction. As an Amazon driver said to one of our comrades, who was flyering in front of their warehouse: “You have finally arrived!”

As is tradition, the Congress could only close by pouring all the enthusiasm of the hall into the singing of the Internationale and the Red Flag.

Long live the Revolutionary Communist Party!

Long live the Revolutionary Communist International!

Long live the world socialist revolution!

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