Contribution by the Communist Front of Italy

THE WORK OF THE COMMUNIST FRONT OF ITALY AMONG THE YOUTH
Contribution to the ECA meeting of 09/28/2024

Dear comrades,
We convey to you greetings from the Communist Front of Italy and thank the comrades of the Communist Party of the Workers of Spain (PCTE) for hosting this meeting. The issue of the political work of communists among the new generations is of crucial importance. As it has been proven many times in the history of the workers’ movement, those who have the youth with them have the future with them.

As you know, in the recent experience of the Italian communist movement, the issue of the new generations is closely linked to the struggle to reconstruct a great and strong communist party in Italy, where the concrete development of political and ideological contradictions and the struggle against opportunism within the workers' and communist movement have produced in Italy a situation that may appear "anomalous": contrary to the great division between the forces that refer to the communist tradition, in the youth the process of formation of the Communist Youth Front (FGC) has allowed the confluence of young communists into one single youth organization and their adhesion to its revolutionary positions.

Twelve years after its foundation in 2012, the Communist Youth Front (FGC) is indeed acknowledged as the main communist youth organization in Italy, as well as one of the main youth political organizations existing at the national level. This fact currently has no correspondence at the level of existing parties, where instead a harsh political-ideological confrontation persists between the many parties, including ours, which in Italy nominally refer to communism.

As it is known, our party was born following a tough ideological struggle against opportunism in defense of the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism, in which the communist youth was a fundamental force. This experience brought about the organic bond existing between the FGC and the Communist Front, many of whose militants and leaders come from the ranks of the FGC. The peculiarity of the Italian situation has put the FGC in the difficult position of having to take on responsibilities in the frame of efforts for communist reconstruction and the political-ideological struggle that are unusual for a youth organization. Today, the Communist Front and the FGC
are engaged in a process of aggregating forces that will lead to the construction of a communist, Marxist-Leninist party of larger and more advanced consistency than we have in today's conditions. In this process, the strengthening of the Communist Front's ability to exercise its political leadership function will also strengthen the effective affirmation, on the field of struggle, of the party's leading role toward the communist youth and, together with it, of the communists' ability to lead the new generations.

A positive development of the struggle we are waging for the construction of the revolutionary party will allow us to truly release the best energies of the communist youth, both in the systematic and planned transition of new cadres to the construction of the party, and in leading the specific work aimed at proletarian youth. In fact, we have experienced first-hand that it is only when a strong party exists that a youth organization can be fully enabled to concentrate its efforts on specifically youth-oriented work, for example in the field of cultural, recreational, sporting and artistic activities, in the fight against all drugs and addictions and against the culture of drugs among the new generations, for the promotion of forms of sociality that are different from those that capitalism imposes on young proletarians today. The conditions existing up to now, in fact, have made the work of the FGC unstable in these areas of its specific competence, since great energies of the youth have been committed – and it could not have been otherwise – to the more general struggle for the construction of the revolutionary party.

Despite these drawbacks, in the last 10 years a precious experience has been accumulated which, thanks to the organic bond that exists today between the Communist Front and the FGC, is destined to become, more and more, heritage of our Party and integral part of our work among the new proletarian and popular generations.

In the student movement, the Communist Youth has played a leading role in the last decade, establishing itself as one of the main political forces in schools, a matter of fact acknowledged with concern in 2022 by the Minister of Domestic Affairs of the Draghi government, who openly attacked the FGC in a parliamentary session and in circulars addressed to the government's territorial offices (prefectures). In the past year, the FGC has elected more than 200 students' representatives in schools; in the last 10 years, more than 20 chairmen of provincial students' councils in important Italian cities, including Milan, Turin, Florence, etc., were members of the FGC. In recent months there have been large mobilizations of university students in solidarity with the Palestinian people, with the occupation and "camping" in dozens of universities. Notwithstanding the heterogeneity of these protests, the constant element was the presence of communist youth, from the North to the South of Italy.

The experience of the FGC inside the student movement has demonstrated the possibility of constructing, in the 21st century, a communist organization basing on fresh forces through the patient work of communist cadres within a specific sector of society. It is significant to highlight that only a small part of the FGC militants comes from families of communist tradition, while the vast majority of them were physically recruited during students' struggles.

One of the greatest challenges today is to put this heritage at the service of a defined strategy of our Party, insuring that the work of the communist youth is effectively integral part of our revolutionary strategy of rooting the communists in the working class. As an example, we are well aware that planning the construction of communist cells in technical schools or professional institutes means preparing, after a few years, the entry of tens or even hundreds of communist cadres into strategic industrial sectors.

In addition, despite the limitations mentioned, we would like to highlight that the efforts of the FGC in the field of specifically youth activities have led to appreciable results, such as the summer camp “Guerrilla” which has been held annually since 2014, the “Marcia della Gioventù Partigiana” ("March of Partisan Youth") which this year had its fourth edition, or, more recently, the “Avanguardia” festival. In relation to these activities, our current goal is to strengthen the political-organizational capacity of the Communist Front, also in order to contribute, by directing it, to the definition of the political content of these youth activities.

In recent years, the FGC has also had to deal with bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideological pressures coming from inter-class movements that have a certain influence among young people, highlighting the need for the Party to develop its full capacity for ideological analysis and elaboration in this area too, in order to oppose such tendencies.

For example, the Fridays for Future movement had a strong influence in Italy and brought millions of people into the streets. We analyzed the nature of this movement and its connection with the monopolies' plans of the so-called “green transition”. The communist youth participated in those demonstrations denouncing the illusion of “green capitalism” and fostering class-oriented anti-capitalist positions.

However, it is worth highlighting that this movement is a perfect example of the type of “activism” that today, in countries of “Western” culture, capitalism promotes among young people. It is a form of desultory political participation, completely untied from the concept of organization and rather conceived as mere individual protest, on the basis of a vague adhesion to a generic cause (who would be "in favor" of climate change or environmental devastation?), without clear demands capable of defining the terrain and the goals of the struggle. The same construction of mass participation in these demonstrations is purely media-based, without real organized "transmission belts". The concept of militancy in a political or social organization is replaced by a bland “activism,” linked to single isolated issues, often focused on social networks much more than on the real world. Similar characteristics, albeit with peculiar differences, can also be found in other social movements. The features common to such different movements are the removal of the concept of organization, the promotion of an individualistic outlook according to which very complex social and political problems, such as violence against women, the environmental issue, racism, etc., can be resolved on the level of individual behavior and cultural aspects alone.

Capitalism today promotes among young people an individualistic outlook not only with respect to the issues of our time, but with respect to the entire political sphere; many people are increasingly asking themselves “which party is closest to my opinions?” and less and less how to be active part of and contribute to a collective process.

Constructing a communist organization among young people today means openly challenging such individualist outlooks; it means countering the fragmentation of the struggle into single “progressive” causes and unifying all the causes of progress in the class struggle, according to the principle of promoting a class-oriented political-ideological struggle in every scope. This also means fostering a renewed class consciousness among proletarian youth, acting with the awareness that young people are not a social class but that, on the contrary, existing class differences affect this sector of society too. In Italy, for years we have been openly opposing the storytelling of
governments that speak of “generational conflicts” and depict the rights of young people and those of older workers or pensioners as if they were in antithesis to each other, with the purpose to call into question the rights of the entire working class old and young, present and future.

We also want to mention that, on the political level, our effort to denounce and unmask the nature and plans of bourgeois political forces necessarily takes on different undertones among young people. As an example, polls on the recent European elections of June 2024 report that, among the young constituency aged between 18 and 30 years, abstention from voting is significantly higher than average, nationalist right-wing forces obtain results lower than national average, the most voted party is the Democratic Party, while such bourgeois formations of social democratic origin as the "Green&Left Alliance" and the liberal parties obtain higher results than average. More generally, for years we have been witnessing attempts by political forces of a liberal or “green” nature to develop a specific influence on the new generations, for example, through the various social networks that are used mostly by young people. This requires from us a more specific response.

Comrades,
In conclusion, we want to reiterate that today the possibility of strengthening our influence on the youth in Italy is strictly linked to the actual existence of a revolutionary communist party and its ability to truly express, with strength and authority, a strategic course such that the communist youth can assume it, develop it and implement it creatively and effectively in the organization of its own specific work among the youth. This issue will be one of the central topics of our next congress. Therefore, we are interested in knowing and studying your experience, your work among the new generations and the forms of relationship with the communist youth organizations that the fraternal parties have developed.

We are confident that today also, as Lenin used to say a hundred years ago, youth is the brightest flame of the revolution.

Long live proletarian internationalism!

Long live Marxism-Leninism!

Long live the European Communist Action!