GAUCHE: RIFONDAZIONE COMUNISTA AND THE BRITISH LEFT

13 August 2003

RIFONDAZIONE COMUNISTA AND THE BRITISH LEFT - 1

The appearance in the Guardian on Monday of a piece by the leader of Rindazione Comunista in Italy, Fausto Bertinotti (click here) has provoked some lively debate. Harry from Harry's Place has posted a comprehensive and convincing riposte to Bertinotti's central thesis that globalisation renders obsolete any sort of left reformism (click here); and Andrew Stevens from Blairista! (click here) makes the point that Rifondazione's fans on the British far left have rather a long way to go before they can claim to be in the same league.

I've not much to add here, except to point out the electoral context of Bertinotti's appeal for a new united European anti-capitalist left organisation - next year's elections to the European Parliament. Rifondazione is the moving force behind an umbrella group known as the European Anti-Capitalist Left, which draws together a disparate bunch of far-left parties including the Scottish Socialist Party and the French LCR and is hoping to draw up a joint programme for the Euro-elections (click here). The SSP, fresh from its success in the elections to the Scottish Parliament, is convinced that this initiative will help it win a seat at least in the European Parliament. In England, the Socialist Workers' Party and the Communist Party of Britian have seriously discussed the possibility of a joint electoral effort under the same banner, but so far at least it appears that they haven't been able to agree on it.

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'Moscow Gold? The Soviet Union and the British left by Paul Anderson and Kevin Davey is a fine little book you can read in a day. Anderson and Davey have taken advantage of the vast amount of research into communism since the end of the cold war. They wear it lightly, and refreshingly, are open about their political position. As members of the democratic left, they believe that communism was a disaster for left wing politics. It tied the left to tyranny and the lies and disillusion that went with it.'
NICK COHEN

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