TANIT

Spain

The agreement does not preserve the public pension system,  it cuts.

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The Role Of The Communist International In The Triumph Of Mussolini

The tragic developments that led to a split in the Italian revolutionary movement and the consequent victory of Mussolini’s fascists are not generally discussed on the revolutionary left beyond a few phrases about the Italian movement having been too immature to prevent the fascist takeover. However, Mussolini’s success had been entirely preventable. But it is too embarrassing for the left to admit this. For the leninists such an examination would reveal the misjudgement of the Italian situation by the entire Bolshevik leadership. For the trotskyists it would show how mythical was their assertion that the Communist International was following correct strategies until Stalin took over. This became a canon of faith in the trotskyist movement, a canon that Ted Grant summarised well: “The resolutions of the first four Congresses of the Communist International forged in the years 1919-22 are a worked out set of strategy and tactics with which to guide the communist movement. The success of the world revolution seemed to be assured by the development of events. Everything was in place for the impending revolutionary wave. However, the correct positions of Lenin were undone by Zinoviev and Stalin.”41

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In Tanit we have been having some interesting exchanges about the history of the socialist movement. The following is a contribution from Pat Byrne that links this history to a discussion about how socialists should approach work in the broad labour movement.

This first paper – Part 1 – sets out to examine the main historical approaches towards working class organization practiced by scientific socialists in the last 150 years. This is a huge subject and inevitably this can only be a relatively brief summary of the issues involved. However, large amounts of research lie behind the points made in the paper, enough for several volumes in an intended historical series. Any comrade who is interested is welcome to contact the author for more details and explanations.

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