Italy: founding assembly of the Revolutionary Communist Party – a memorable debut

On 23 November, more than 500 comrades from across Italy filled the rooms of the Frentani Congress Centre in Rome for the launch of the Revolutionary Communist Party (PCR). This meeting was the culmination of a months-long political campaign, stretching from Trento to Messina; but, above all, it represented a new beginning and an appeal to anyone who wants to mobilise against inequality, war and the innumerable forms of oppression engendered by the capitalist system.

[Originally published in Italian at rivoluzione.red]

It is difficult to express the palpable mood of enthusiasm and determination among those who packed the hall and balcony of the Frentani Centre. This atmosphere was present from the very start, as the first groups of comrades arrived by train, car and coach, and were welcomed at our office in Rome with some refreshments.

Our programme

The animated discussions throughout the event offered a summary of all aspects of our political work. The live recording is available below:

The party is first and foremost its programme, the distillation of the lessons of the class struggle. Each speech focused on a particular aspect: oppression, the workers’ and students’ movements, the environmental catastrophe, and the southern question. The role of communists is to bring together these struggles within an overall political project, recognising their specific features and linking them to the general task of overthrowing capitalism.

Our newspaper Rivoluzione is one of our key tools in this task. But, as was emphasised throughout the day, the paper also constitutes an irreplaceable means for mobilising comrades: it is a collective organiser, as Lenin put it, that allows our comrades to meet workers and students on a daily basis in front of workplaces, schools and universities.

A programme, however, is not enough. It requires an apparatus to put it into effect. At our founding, we launched a collection target of €40,000, an impressive goal that will allow us to strengthen our organisational structures and open new offices alongside those we have already opened in major cities throughout the country.

The event provided the ideal start to this campaign, with comrades donating almost €2,000 on the day. Added to this were €2,600 of material sold at the social, including t-shirts, flags of our new party, and around one hundred books, magazines and pamphlets, testifying to the eagerness of our comrades to theoretically arm themselves for the tasks of building the party.

We are proud of the progress we have made in recent years. But, from a Marxist point of view, even the largest party would be of little value if limited to one country. The PCR is the Italian section of a world-wide organisation, the Revolutionary Communist International (RCI). The event opened with a video message from the main theoretician of the RCI, Alan Woods. There were also speeches by Rob Sewell from the Revolutionary Communist Party in Britain, as well as Fred Weston from the RCI’s International Secretariat.

The founding of the PCR also received greetings from our comrades in the United States, Brazil and Taiwan. Revolutionary communist parties and organisations have been founded in all these countries and many others over the past year.

Everywhere, the birth of the new parties has infused the comrades with immense enthusiasm, and the event in Rome was no exception. Anyone who attended can testify to the passion and real sense of urgency felt by the audience. Once the proceedings were over, the comrades took to the streets for a march that animated the streets of the area as far as Piazzale Aldo Moro, with comrades singing workers’ songs, chanting anti-imperialist slogans, and waving the flag of the PCR.

Communism is the way forward

Both Alessandro Giardiello and Alessio Marconi – comrades from the PCR’s Executive Committee – who introduced and concluded the event respectively, recalled that our Party has come very far. Its roots lie in the theoretical heritage of Marxism and in the history of workers' struggles and revolutionary movements. In particular, our party was built by the decades of work that have seen the organisation form, grow and build the forces of Trotskyism in Italy. At the same time, however, the Party now poses new tasks for the comrades.

The campaign for the founding of the Revolutionary Communist Party was undertaken in response to the revolutionary mood among a growing layer of predominantly young and very young people. This advanced layer instinctively sees the revolutionary and emancipatory spirit of communism, which not even the betrayals of the Stalinist and reformist leaders have erased.

As Alessio noted, even if our enemies label us as extremists, our goal is ultimately nothing more than a humane and rational response to the irrationality and immense violence of a system that places the interests of a tiny minority above the interests of the majority. The most consistent layers of the communist movement have always sought to provide a voice to those who are constantly denied one, the slaves and workers of Bertolt Brecht's Thebes of the Seven Gates. In this sense, a communist party does not merely propose a list of demands to be subscribed to, it offers an immediate practical response, a possibility for collective education and a tool to transform our ideas into a material force for the transformation of society.