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Sinistra Critica says "goodbye" to Communist Refoundation

Wednesday 2 January 2008, by Sinistra Critica (Critical Left)

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Introduction

Sinistra Critica declares that the experience in the Party of Communist Refoundation (PRC) is over, and is beginning the construction of a new political project. SC is changing into a movement and is proposing the initial phase of constructing an anti-capitalist coalition to the left of Arcobaleno (the Rainbow Coalition). It will make the commitment within the movement, from next Saturday at Vicenza, of continuing its work in the Pact against Insecurity, in the feminist movement, the LGBT movement, for the ecological and anti-racist struggles. A recruitment campaign and fund drive will start in January, with the aim of holding our
first national mobilisation in the spring.

Final Resolution of first National Conference

The first national conference of Sinistra Critica approves the
introductory speech and in particular:

1) declares that the experience is over, and announces the initiation
of a new political project. This is a separation resulting from the
observation that two different projects are taking different roads: on
the one hand, Rifondazione

is in effect ending its own history, hijacking the conference of its
own militants, in order to give life to a new political subject, with
a new identity, timidly reformist and with a vocation of being in
government; on the other, Sinistra Critica proposes to continue
building a class left, anti-capitalist, oppositional, centred on the
movements and ready to re-appropriate the theoretical and practical
space for a modern revolutionary left now made vacant by Rifondazione.
A left in opposition to the PD (Democratic Party), and indeed, today,
in opposition to the Prodi government.

Salvatore Cannavò made opening report

2) In the next few days the militants and leaders of SC will leave the
PRC and its representatives will constitute autonomous groups in the
Chamber of Deputies; the group in the Senate has already been formed.
This decision will be conveyed to the PRC nationally by way of an open
letter, and the same letter will be presented to local organisations;
at a provincial level we will organise meetings in order to explain
this decision to the members of the PRC.

3) Sinistra Critica is not a party but a movement, a political subject
orientated towards the mass movement. It will form local groups and
groups working on particular issues, and provincial co-ordination
bodies. From January it will have a membership drive and a fund-drive.

4) As far as the project of constructing a political force adequate
for the needs of our time, we are proposing the establishment of an
anti-capitalist Constituent Assembly to the left of Arcobaleno, which
will bring together the best experiences of Rifondazione and of
various sectors of the movement, anti-social- partnership trade
unionists, radical feminism, the ecological movement, and above all of
the youth. This Constituent Assembly represents a real and promising
project, capable of bringing to life in the here and now, even if in
exemplary or partial form, a class and anti-capitalist Coalition of
the Left, based on at least three reference points:

a. the link with the social movements and their dynamics and
objectives;

b. providing an alternative to that of the right while maintaining
independence from centre-left governments and consequently also
opposition to the Democratic Party;

c. independence in political work from the institutions, not however
excluding the electoral arena and the tools needed there, including
the use of the symbols of the hammer and sickle, which has today been
abandoned yet again.

5) To have a real life the anti-capitalist Constituent Assembly must
be linked to the paths taken by the movement, so in the short-term
Sinistra Critica commits itself to:

a) the widest possible participation in the Vicenza demonstration and
to the struggle against the US base but also to the reconstruction of
a general movement starting from the Pact signed on 25 November and
calling another day of mobilisation on 26 January;

b) developing and articulating the Pact against Insecurity made after
the strike of 9 November which will have to be capable of intervening
in such a way as to organise a real existence beyond the level of
mere, though necessary, demonstrations;

c) giving continuity to the renewal of the feminist movement that was
expressed last 24 November around the question of the fight against
male violence and which will see another national meeting on 12
January;

d) sustaining and building the movement against the influence of the
Vatican and against sexual discrimination and for civil rights and a
secular state, based around the LGBT movement and the NoVat day on 9 February;

e) continuing the fight for common goods and defence of the
environment, seeking to generalise disputes and proposing wider
structures for co-ordinating and maintaining such struggles over time;

f) strengthening the anti-racist struggle and the struggle for the
organisation of migrants, starting with the justified opposition to
Prodi and Veltroni’s "security package".

6) Lastly SC decides to give a mandate to the national co-ordination
to prepare a national campaign around the centrality of work, social
rights and defence of the environment against the logic of profit. In
particular the centrality of work is underlined by the murders in
Torino, which show how hard the daily battle is of capital against
working people. A national campaign, then, which will be a way of
building Sinistra Critica, and which will focus on a bid day of
mobilisations next spring.

Unanimously approved.

Visit Sinistra Critica’s site

Read the introductory report by Salvatore Cannavò - (Italian)