For the purpose and time being of this exercise let us just set aside for the time being, the fact that our human race is under the influence of a fundamentally flawed global economy, throughout which capitalism will continue to dominate our socio-economic world until such time as we replace it with a more sophisticated form of property relations, governance and productivity. 

Consider instead the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) program of World Socialist Revolution and the Communist Party of China (CPC) having at least five important ism’s in common, namely – Communism, Democratic Centralism, Socialism, Marxism and Capitalism. While their revolutionary origins and hence their interpretation cum application of the above ism’s differ, their main aims are very similar, this is some of what their respective leaders have to say about their aims – 

Leon Trotsky, during the founding of the ICFI – 1938  

‘We are not a party like other parties..  Our aim is the full material and spiritual liberation of the toilers and exploited through the socialist revolution. Nobody will prepare it and nobody will guide it but ourselves.’

The CPC ‘Its Mission and Contributions’ – 2021

‘The Communist Party of China is the vanguard of China’s working class, the Chinese people, and the Chinese nation. Serving the people wholeheartedly is its abiding mission.. there is an urgent need for human society to seek out a new philosophy and make the international system and order fairer and more reasonable. The CPC has proposed building a global community of shared future, with the goal of creating an open, inclusive, clean and beautiful world that enjoys lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity.’

What the respective aims of the ICFI and the CPC have in common is – ‘the full material and spiritual liberation’ of the people, particularly working class people, by lifting them out of poverty and enabling them to enjoy a ‘lasting peace, universal security, and common prosperity.’ The common ism’s and similar aims of these two Communist parties are far more important than the fact that they have different origins and objective history. While the ICFI can claim to have stayed true to a superior Trotskyist theory of permenant world revolution and economy since its origin, the CPC can claim to have ruled over a century of revolution, reconstruction and reform during which it has learned from its mistakes, including the mistake of believing that socialism can be confined to one state, to the point where in 2021, – ‘The CPC has proposed building a global community of shared future’.

While the ICFI has applied a superior world revolutionary theory, it is not a ruling state power and is thereby unable to put its theory into practice in the way nor on anything like the scale that the CPC can and does. In 2021 the CPC Constitution stipulates that – “All power in the People’s Republic of China belongs to the people. The National People’s Congress and the local people’s congresses at various levels are the organs through which the people exercise state power.” Even if the ICFI program and party of World Socialist Revolution had 10 million active members and or supporters – which I suspect is a significant overestimate, this would represent a mere 0.128% of the world population, whereas the CPC has 95 million> Party members and at least 1.4> billion constituent supporters representing about 18% of the world population. The CPC is clearly the most successful and influential ruling Communist Party throughout history and should be carefully considered as such. 

No doubt there are other political programs that talk about liberating ‘the people’ but not many with the long term political integrity, discipline and rigour as the ICFI and the CPC. My hope is that the above numbers and suggested common ground could inspire some serious democratic discussion among the cadre of the ICFI about the possibility of the PRC working class being a good example for the international working class as a whole.

For example – malpataffy.com/2021/11/07/

malpaTaffy,

Spring 2021.