Many of the resolutions of the Third ICOR World Conference¹ do not meet their objective which is to unite and orient the communists all over the world. They are low in quality and rather unclear. There are some obscure formulations² in them which even the Main Coordinator of the ICOR and the ICOR Office could not explain. Some statements are even politically wrong and harmful.

1. The resolution “Resistance Against  Erdogan Dictatorship” contains Erdogan’s distorted quote³ and a lot of unclear phrases⁴.

2. The resolution “For an independent left assertion” completely erroneously proclaims the right-wing reactionary hawk and the champion of military interventions Hillary Clinton as, suddenly, a “centrist”! Thereafter it remains unclear why it is claiming that “the situation is not one in which we have to support the centrists forces to avert war.” The ICOR resolution just states this without any rationales. We have an answer to this question, which differs sharply from the conception of the ICOR: Clinton is not a centrist or a peace-loving politician so supporting her has nothing to do with an averting war!

3. The resolution of “Solidarity with the Working People of Catalonia” recognizes the right of nations to self-determination only formally, but does not meet the responsibilities for immediately and vigorously supporting republican self-determination in Catalonia⁵. Instead, it unclearly talks about “the most reactionary and chauvinist emotions” and “a confrontation with the state’s security forces” (as if the last is something bad!). The resolution makes directly mutually exclusive statements: “The process towards independence … is a reflection of the national aspirations of the Catalan people …” and “…By this process the Catalan bourgeois class intends to hide the immediate aspirations of the Catalan working people …”.

4. The resolution “Solidarity with Palestine!” is correct as a whole, but it is started with a fake quote from Lenin⁶ and is ended with a politically harmful and horribly inconsiderate statement: “The 3rd World Conference of ICOR … considers that the struggle against Zionism is central for the international revolutionary movement.”. We certainly have no doubt that the struggle against Zionism is one of the most important tasks of the peoples in the Middle East. However the asserting that this is a “central” task for the entire revolutionary movement all over the world is the completely distorting the reality, the proper assessment of Zionism in the world and the tasks of the international Communist movement. This formulation encourages anti-Semitism, especially within the communist parties, in European countries, specifically in Russia. We have a long history of confrontation with anti-Semitic elements within the Russian Communist movement who use similar wording⁷.

For a pity, these are not the problems of just this World Conference of the ICOR. Low quality, obscure, inaccurate or wrong wordings of resolutions is almost a permanent problem of our international organization. We have repeatedly pointed out such shortcomings, but the leaders of the ICOR does not show the understanding and the intention to improve this process.

On the distribution of this resolution: to postpone the publication until a special decision is made; to translate into English and to inform the ICC and the member parties of the ICOR.

1. This conference was held on October 27–29, 2017.↩
2. Such formulations, in addition to those mentioned in this statement, include, for example: apparently erroneous data on the number of refugees in the  resolution “Solidarity for Rohingya people” and the following phrase from the resolution “In Solidarity with the Workers of Iran”: “More particularly, those who are active in these struggles are targeted and put in prison for other periods.”↩
3. “A wish of god” instead of “a gift from God” (Allah’ın lütfu in Turkish).↩
4. The leadership of the ICOR was unable to explain in any way five phrases: “the system of party presidency” (replaced by our translator for the “presidential republic”), “‘civil’ coup”, “barricading against male violence”, “to create ‘Guantanamo’s’”, “by December 19th” (a year 2001 is missed in the English text)!↩
5. Cf. the RMP statement “On Self-Determination of Catalonia”.↩
6. The IСOR leaders have not could answer where this assessment came from: “100 years ago, Lenin regarded the Balfour Declaration as a plan by international imperialism to settle the Zionist colonial entity in Palestine with the aim of dominating the region.”↩
7. See, e.g., our criticism against the Russian Communist Workers Party for giving in their Program the same importance to the struggle against Zionism as to the struggle against fascism.↩