Workers' Communist Party (Italy)

Workers' Communist Party Partito Comunista dei Lavoratori
Secretary-General	Marco Ferrando
Founded	June 18, 2006 (2006-06-18)
Headquarters	Via Marco Aurelio 7 Milano
Newspaper	Giornale comunista dei lavoratori
Ideology	Communism, Trotskyism
International affiliation	Coordinating Committee for the Refoundation of the Fourth International
Website
http://www.pclavoratori.it/
Politics of Italy Political parties Elections

The Italian Communist Workers' Party (PCL) is a party of the far left. It was created in 2006 by the Trotskyist breakaway wing of the Communist Refoundation Party (PCR) led by Marco Ferrando .

The PCL is the Italian section of Coordinating Committee for the Refoundation of the Fourth International.

History

The foundation of the Italian Communist Workers' Party as a new political entity was the result of a split within the Communist Refoundation Party when the PCR joined the second government headed by Romano Prodi. The movement known as "Common Project" since its inception had taken a stance further to the left within the party: it opposed the political alliance with The Olive Tree (political coalition) an association of centre-left parties as it was extremely critical of past centre-left governments, in particular the first Prodi government with D'Alema and Amato. The "Common Project" movement was also opposed to the politics of the then Secretary of the Communist Refoundation Party, Fausto Bertinotti . The group refused to be part of the new government, maintaining that such participation would be disastrous. Moreover, following the exclusion of their leader, Marco Ferrando, from the electoral list of Communist Refoundation Party for the elections to the Senate in the 2006, his followers pushed for a split in the party to maintain a "Communist opposition" to the new government.

The birth of the movement was seen as a response to the emergence of two new left-wing political parties: the Democratic Party, the fusion of the DS and Democracy is Freedom – The Daisy, and the Rainbow Left, an organization that grouped together the Party of Italian Communists, the Communist Refoundation Party, the Democrats of the Left and the Greens. The backers of the PCL believed that the future Democratic Party would be centrist and liberal, and close to the interests of banks and corporations. Regarding the Rainbow Left, they considered this coalition fundamentally social-democratic and too close to the administration with only a pretension of revolutionary idealism and radicalism.

The constitution of the PCL takes place on 18 June 2006, at the Barberini movie theatre in Rome. Agreement is reached regarding a new symbol and a coordination at the national level. From this date, member can join the new party and political activism starts.

Adherence to the new party comes from activists and Trotskyst leaders, members of Communist Refoundation Party, from the leftist trade unions, the CGIL (from the group of "28 April Network") and other trade organizations (RdB, CUB, COBAS, Sin COBAS, SLAI COBAS). Further support come from the anti-globalization movements, groups opposing imperialist and those in favour of the liberation of Palestine (in particular the Palestine Forum) or protesting against the war. Representatives of the civil rights and sexual liberation (especially in Rome) movements also manifest their interest.

In autumn 2006, the PCL together with other peace organizations and anti-imperialist participate in the protest against the military missions in Afghanistan and Lebanon (30 September) and in the national demonstration of solidarity with the Palestinian people, sponsored by the Palestine Forum. The 17 November 2006, the PCL participates in the general strike called by trade unions against the government.

In the autumn, members are elected to the National Coordination and the new National Executive bodies to organize the PCL constitutive congress in January 2008 .

On April 14th 2007 the first meeting of the movement was held, which according to its managers had about 1,300 members (530 participants in meetings) in the congress. Assizes were confirmed in that the 4 point program fundamental movement and there was a clash of management with a part of the movement (including some of the members of Rome, Veneto , of ' Umbria and some of Cosenza ), origin Trotskyist politics is not (except Cosenza), which offered a different vision of the organization. The clash ended with the expulsion of the minority, it was later with the other parties to the Coordination Unit of the Communists .

The elections of 2008 the Workers' Communist Party got 208,000 votes, or 0.6%. The reference points of the party are: Marx , Lenin , Trotsky and Rosa Luxemburg

In 2009, there has been entering the ranks of the CLP dell'OCAP (Alternative Proletarian Communist Organization), born from a split Pdac that December 22 had joined the Communist Workers' Party-CRQI.

Values

The Movement of the Workers' Communist Party Constitution means "to retrieve and update the programmatic heritage of revolutionary Marxism redeeming a long theoretical and practical removal of which was covered by the Social Democracy and Stalinism," as stated in its founding manifest.

This recovery and update focuses on four trails:

1. The opposition to the ruling classes and their governments, whether the center or center;

2. The prospect of a government of workers and working to abolish the capitalist mode of production and reorganizing society on socialist foundations;

3. The constant connection between the goals of struggle and the immediate prospect of the alternative fund anticapitalist;

4. The prospect of a socialist alternative international organization, and then international revolutionary workers.

External links

• Official web site