Are Council Communists Libertarian?

The post quoted below is a fatuous retort by leftist-communist devoration1. However, this isn't a thread to deal with his lazy version of 'historical revisionism', or the self-serving Trotskyist myth of a 'Thermidor' in the Russian Revolution. Those interested in relatively objective definition of historical revisionism, could visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism

devoration1 should establish first that the facts cited by the historians mentioned on my post (83) are incorrect or fraudulent. Then he should explain the social basis of these distortions and/or lies. He does nothing of the kind, except cite Nazi quotes to implicitly support a 'lesser evil' (Bolshevism/Stalinism) against the greater evil, the unique and non-equivalent Nazism. Therefore my assertion stands, that the Lenin-Trotsky régime engaged in mass murder against civil society, 'intentional' or not. I was not dealing with criteria for lesser or greater evils in history.

devoration1's 'facts on the ground' are perplexing. The genocidal famine in the Ukraine is mentioned to say what? Or the example of a preacher's conversion to Bolshevik millenarianism, what does this anecdote prove? That the Lenin-Trotsky régime didn't slaughter or contribute to the deaths of millions of people? Of course they did; is devoration1 negating that they did? The Stalinist despotism that followed expanded on the same necrophilous dynamic, with much greater efficiency and means at its disposal. Didn't the Nazi régime learn immensely from the Red Terror and other repressive techniques of Bolshevism? The historian Ernst Nolte makes the persuasive case that the Nazis learned very well from their Russian role models, who by 1933 had more than 15 years advantage in transforming humans into dust.

devoration1's crafty attempt to establish 'similarities' (amalgams) with my comments and those of neo-Nazis, right-wing extremists and the far-far right (why only two: far-far-far-far-far is far more musical) confirms that his apprenticeship in left communism was successful. Stalinist amalgams (like 'parasites') are their unique selling proposition, and he shows aptitude if not skill. Yet he opens new ground: the on-the-ground paradises of 'quasi-Leninist' régimes like the PRC and DPRK are nowhere equal in unpleasantness to the unique Nazism, the black tulip of the Sonderweg. But then this isn't a thread on summits of evil, German doormats or the merits of internationalist antifascism. devoration1 and Engel could show their party-spirit and open a new one.

I would agree that devoration1 is no longer a Leninist novice, or a left communist for that matter. He doesn't need to be, as there are many other paths to justify domination, and being a toady.

Mciver, Ernst Nolte is not original. Try reading some Kautsky:

Not at all. And we mostly agree. However, if you're spending your time contemplating what to do if a commune of murderers, rapists, and child molesters comes into being (and apparently a very large one at that) what the international response should be, then I wonder who is dealing with things inefficiently. Agreements to mutual protection are one thing, and I certainly think they should exist. Why or how this makes a worldwide commune more appealing than the same excuses we hear for worldwide government is beyond me.

Mciver I will only repost 2 statements from my original response to you:

*the words 'no where' should not have been added, as in my rush to respond emphasized twice that I did not agree in the same sentence, making it not make sense.

As for crimes like serial murder, rape, pedophilia, etc. mentioned in the above discussion, it would be really interesting to see a variety of social reorganization and how it effects human civilization. Such as Freud being interested in the group homes for orphans of the October Revolution and civil war and how this upbringing would differ from the patriarchal nuclear family, Reich's opening of psychoanalysis centers in working-class neighborhoods around the revolutionary/pre-Hitler era in Germany, etc.

Barbarism, and its many manifestations, probably will be with humanity forever. But the social dynamics leading to specific kinds of violence (physical, emotional, sexual) could lead to a much better world of Kropotkin style 'mutual aid'/altruism on a massive scale. Even in bourgeois society, the elaborate, expensive and highly researched facilities for violent criminals in Scandinavia are an interesting example of the kind of dynamics and ways and means to understand and possibly 'solve' at least some human on human barbarism.

The idea of a commune of violence doesn't really mend with working-class experiences (however short lived these brief encounters with revolutionary consciousness were).

The response would have been predetermined through democracy. We oppose a commune of murderers, therefore, in early post-revolutionary society, the Commune (world) votes to suppress said commune of murderers, and confine them if need be. This would be orchestrated through the concerted efforts of militias, which are units of the communes within that specific region. If this commune of murderers overwhelms the regional militias, militias from other regions will assist them in their endeavors. I believe in international democracy, and to some extent, you don't. We're not going to reach a consensus on this matter. Edit - Or maybe we have?

Yeah, I should hope so. As I said before, all these propositions are theoretical and speculative. I'd imagine that communism would produce much more affable humans than what capitalism does.

What I'm saying is that it's really hard to imagine an entire collective's worth of murderers to the point that it threatens the existence of 100% of the world population. Outside of capitalism, and I do support worldwide revolution, I can't really imagine a scenario that wouldn't be locally nipped in the bud to the point where we need planning for this doomsday scenario.

And I'd agree that probably most of the world has reached consensus on murder.

Right; but a more reasonable idea of a 'commune of violence' that could come into being post-revolution, post-global statelessness, etc is the resurrection or fetishizing of regional, local, tribal & cultural customs and traditions. A resurgence of a kind of religious fundamentalism like that of the middle ages, receding back into (or expanding outward) the influence of tribal connections (something seen in Libya recently; the government is overthrown by force of arms by both local militias and foreign imperialists, and the last pillar of heirchical power is the tribal system; or Egypt, the democratic election of Islamists after the ousting of the government). Yes, these aren't perfect examples, but in my mind the best is that of the Iranian revolution. The widespread strikes, the various forms of struggles including worker's councils, and then the introduction of theocracy. Hell the difference between Afghanistan under the PDPA and Taliban.

While overcoming these divisions and influences is part of class struggle, it seems highly likely that such scenarios would play out during and after another revolutionary wave, and acutely after the end of capitalism. Cultural and religious histories of institutional violence would be a voluntary 'commune of violence'; not full of murderers, rapists and pedophiles, but of customs of pederasty (something about that was in the US news cycle years ago after we toppled the Taliban government, how the practice of old men picking out young boys as students/concubines, had resurfaced), torture and barbarism (caning, stoning, the whole list regarding culturally/socially prohibited behavior) and so on is realistic, as this shit happens now- dealing with centuries or millennium old customs, traditions, culture, whatever in regions around the world is a forseeable problem. How the Russian and Spanish revolutions dealt with the religious and cultural problems are interesting in that regard, but who knows.

Birthday Pony, it makes very little difference if this commune is a threat to 100% of humanity, that they are an immediate and concrete threat to any percentage of humanity is what matters. Opinions are going to differ on what type of actions are prohibited, the commune which suppresses the commune of pedophiles may be razed by communes that were their 'allies.' This is why I feel that it is imperative that we have predetermined policies, so we know where the world positions itself on specific issues, and what methods we will use to resolve them; clarity. Come revolution, if I didn't know that all Marxists weren't Stalinists, I'd probably shoot first without the slightest amount of concern for answers. "What's a Council Communist?" "Isn't communism dictatorial?" "Proletarian dictatorship? No way!"

And actually, Devoration1 raises a really valid point. Right after I had posted this, I started contemplating on the possibility of religious customs such as Islam managing to prevail through global revolution, which is more or less what I was insinuating when I mentioned human sacrifice, i.e. 'honor killings.' I'm not implying that honor killings are representative of Islam as a whole, or that practitioners of other religions don't partake in 'honor killings.' One could suppose that participation in these 'Islamic communes' would be 'voluntary,' but what type of action would other communes take against them, if these communes were to be oppressive towards their citizens? Now, certainly there are going to be 'Islamic communes' scattered all throughout the world. Wouldn't it be beneficial to have an established global policy on human rights, rather than just have the odd commune that's in their locality go in and start breaking shit? If the Islamic community had participated in the Commune, and were bound to whatever policies it had determined, the prospect for tension between them and other communes should be somewhat more diminished. It'd be great if religion could be rendered obsolete, but what are the odds?

I'm confused as to what the difference to you is between predetermined policies, a world commune, and mutual defense. So I'm just going to clarify my position.

I am completely A-OK with providing support for people in communities in which they are oppressed. And I think people can coordinate resistance to oppressive models internationally, locally, and everywhere in between. I'm totally fine with groups setting goals, missions, predetermined policies, or anything like that. None of this convinces me that we absolutely need a world commune.

devoration has raised, what I view, as a revolutionary struggle. Resisting oppressive social norms, even those that seem voluntary, is necessary to creating communism. But communism cannot be brought to a communities doorstep. They need to come to it themselves. A society with honor killings is unlikely to sign up for a mutual agreement to end honor killings anyway. That's not to say the struggle is hopeless there, but they should most certainly not be invaded or reprehended by a world commune. Supporting the struggle of the people in that community that try to end hierarchical tribal practices is necessary. Bringing it to the community's door step without them asking starts to look like imperialism.

Especially if you qualify it with 'with tanks'.

There's a big difference between government/quasi-state type organisations going in and forcing people not do something or to do something through organised violence and individuals or groups of individuals actively opposing oppresive practises through other means, which becomes blatantly obvious when you qualify something with "with tanks" or "with carpet bombing."

To me, they're all interrelated. I'm being persistent, but am more or less aware that I'm going to be unable to convince you otherwise.

Responding to both you and Jordan, I didn't have 'NATO style operations' in mind relative to this example; the murder of civilians by the state and imperialism is what compelled me to anarchism quite some time ago. I would still assume that if these communes begin to infringe on other communes, they would be required to act out of defense against their aggressors. We can't bring the egalitarian aspect of communism to them forcibly, I'm inclined to agree with you both.

The emancipation of tribes from superstition and oppression must be an act of the tribes themselves, ha.

Here's what Martov had to say on the same issue.

This turn of the thread started with the question, is there any validity to the addition of the qualifier "libertarian" to communism. The "anti-libertarian communists" argued that there wasn't, that as soon as the social question had been solved with the abolition of private property, direct democracy amongst the social producers made the authoritarian/libertarian distinction moot.

I put it to capricorn and n25, that the position you are now both arguing has effectively conceded the point that more than simple majority rule is necessary for a free and just communist society.

n25, your hypothetical commune of pedophiles is an argument for maintaining the libertarian rights of children not to be abused, against simple majority rule by the adults of said commune. Well done. Welcome to the libertarian communist fold.

capricorn, i quote:

Again, you are qualifying simple majority rule with libertarian principles, contrary to your initial position. The problem with your institutional-bureacratic solution, however, is that it simply defers the question of what philosophy should guide the creation of the institutional checks and balances if the authoritarian/libertarian dichotomy is invalid. Worse, without any understanding of the logic behind the institution, what is to prevent it being degraded or degenerating over time? People who propose bureacratic solutions to political problems are simply inviting new Stalins to come and eat the revolution. If there is no libertarian ethos, how can it be institutionalised in the first place or reproduced over time?

(post 124)

'Originality' in historical research is a vapid concern. Nolte (b. 1923) is saying many other things (as is evident on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Nolte) than Kautsky, who died in 1938. Capricorn's link to Martov's fiery and courageous denunciation of Bolshevism's early 'cannibalism' is welcome. Kautsky's and Martov's stances are exemplary, on the issue of Bolshevism's early criminality, against not only the working class but the whole of civil society. On the other hand, Rosa Luxemburg was a shameless apologist of Bolshevism, despite her (private) fretting about Dzerzhinsky's Chekist 'cruelty'.

'Council communists', who may or not call themselves 'libertarians', are certainly not 'left communists'. These latter are totalitarians sharing the Leninist-Stalinist genealogy, as confirmed recently by one of the ICC popes, the all-purpose Alf:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&gmid=45769

It doesn't cross Alf's mind that left communism itself, because of its origins and 'principles' (but of course, purely hypothetically, given its ineptitude and irrelevancy), would present a danger.

But these issues about the Russian Revolution belong on other threads, and it isn't my intention to derail the main discussions above. So bye.

This is a silly statement. I understand your position, but it isn't accurate to make the claim above. The many tendencies originating in either voluntary or involuntary breaks with the Third International (Pankhurst, Ruehle, Bordiga, etc) due to being to the 'left' of the official CP line in one or many instances formed the distinct grouping known as the communist left. Tendencies which further developed out of these include council communism and later councilism. Sure, there were also ultra-Leninist tendencies which came out of these breaks as well (Bordigism post-'52 split in the PCInt). As far as I know there aren't any council communist organizations left; so no, with what seems to be your definition of left communism (the ICC and ICT) would not include council communists. But the origins of council communism (those around when it was a distinct and living tendency) were part of the communist left.

If you refer to the original post starting this thread:

I'd say that the work and heritage of the mentioned writers and political militants fits into the internationalist, class struggle, revolutionary labor movement from which present day 'pro-revolutionaries' can draw from- regardless of what 'we' call ourselves today.

I kind of disagree that the term libertarian doesn't have class content, at least when used on 'the left' in the broadest possible sense of the term. In France when it was coined it was a synonym for anarchism, which in that place and time was overwhelmingly class struggle oriented. These days in the English speaking world it is usually either explicitly or implicitly linked to anarchist communism, which obviously has class struggle connotations almost all the time. Obviously right wingers use it also these days, but that's not what we are concerned with here, I think.

Libertarian has a class content in the sense that any authoritarian project, "socialist" or otherwise, presupposes structures of domination that necessarily perpetuate class society. Not only has there never been a classless state, there never can be.

Which, in passing, is why the characterisation of the USSR as "state capitalist", with it's implied possibility of an alternative society that is both statified and classless (socialist), is in contradiction with basic libertarian communist politics.

Whilst I take your (and Bordiga's) point that the USSR was capitalist without needing qualifications, State Capitalist is a term that refers to systems where government planners have a particularly high level of control over the economy, which certainly happened in, for example, late 19th C. Germany, 70s Singapore or, indeed, the USSR. I think people who use the term state capitalist (in the leftcom/libcom/ultraleftist tradition, rather than the Cliff-ite tradition) tend to know that you can't have state socialism, but still have a use for the term to describe a certain form of capitalism.

That's a pretty good way of explaining it.

Agreed, but not with this:

This is not really saying anything beyond "libertarian good, authoritarian bad". To make sense of it we need to know precisely what "structures" you would label "authoritarian". I would put it the other way round: that it is the division of society into classes with regard to the production of wealth that gives rise to structures of political domination.

To be quite honest (and believe it our not) I agree with Alf here. The word "libertarian" does not have either a class or a socialist or communist content. In fact, its association with the idea of "absolute freedom of the individual" and even with the protection of the "rights of the individual" suggest that, if it has any class content, historically it would be a bourgeois one -- the "theory of possessive individualism" and of the "natural rights" of individuals developed by 16th and 17th century thinkers being the ideology of the rising bourgeoisie and of the English (1688), American and French Revolutions. And of course the words "liberal" and "libertarian" come from the same stable.

In any event it has no necessarily communist content as can be seen by the fact that many anarchists who call themselves "libertarians" explicitly reject communism.

I don't understand. Are you sure you didn't mean to write "state socialist" rather than "state capitalist"?

I thought we shouldn't give a damn about what people call themselves? I feel like we're going in circles.

Just heard back from them. Here's what they say:

They are saying that they may not have known of this reference when they compiled the entries for the letter L in the 1970s and that they are passing my message (in which I drew their attention to Déjacque's use of the word in a pamphlet dated May 1857) to their "diachrony service" to check.

So, maybe Décjaque will be credited instead of Proudhon as the first to use "libertaire".

No, my point is the opposite of Bordiga (who very much believed in state socialism, btw, even if only for the "transition period"*). That is, that there is a false "law of the excluded middle" implied in the term "state capitalist" - i.e. that there is no reason to conclude that the USSR was capitalist simply because it was not "socialist" (where socialism is taken to imply classless, inter alia). It's not simply that "state socialism" is a contradiction in terms (although it is) but that "state capitalist", as commonly (mis)used, is no less so. Either capitalism is simply an ahistorical synonym for any explotative class society, or it refers, as Marx put it, to a historically specific set of relations of production, to whit:

(Vol III, Ch 51)

Clearly none of these characteristics applied to the USSR and other 20th C Leninist-style societies based on (more or less) state monopolisation of the means of production. Otherwise we enter the absurb realms of descibing humans as warm-blooded, breast-feeding, live-birthing fish, or "fish with deformed characteristics"

* See for e.g. from Doctrine of the Body Possessed by the Devil

This debate on the validity of the analysis of the USSR as 'state capitalist' intitiated by Ocelot should be moved into a separate thread as there are plenty of others who would contest their point of view on this and some who might even argue that all modern capitalism can best be described as state capitalism.

I would argue that development described by Spikey for all countries since the 1930s. To see the banking system in the USA virtually nationalised a couple of years ago is another example of it.

Spikeymike is right, the USSR/State-cap thing is a total derail, my bad.

Well, specifically in the here and now, I mean by authoritarian projects, those that aim at social transformation through the use of the organs or institutions of state power - i.e. the standing army, the police & prison service, and political secret police like the Cheka (seeing as you mentioned Alf). There's an element of redundancy (or possibly circularity?) between this statement and the proposition you accept, that states imply class society (although historically class societies preceded the formation of what we would call the state today).

...except, of course, as already discussed, "libertarian" was coined as an antonym to liberal, specifically for the freedom from bourgeois private property and exchange relations (so is, ab initio, communist)

I think you are taking bourgeois apologetics to be the defenders of universal values at face value. In fact, from the Anti-Combination Laws up to present day, the bourgeois belief in individual freedoms has never extended to their worker's individual freedoms to associate.

But beyond the hypocrisy of the claims to universality of bourgeois ideals, the case that the authoritarian/libertarian polarity (which we have already established - through your silence - that you now accept as having validity) is universalist, and thus free from class content, does need some address.

Let's start with the assumption that authoritarianism has no class content. That is, projects founded on either recourse to institutions of dominant power (cops, Alf's Cheka), or to the instrumentality of the end justifying the means, such that social decision making can be equally as well advanced by recourse to the construction of artificial "like-minded majorities" ready to silence dissenting voices through appeal to the emotions of fear, ressentiment, scapegoating, etc, as by a course that considers harnessing the diversity of experiences and perspectives as a source of strength, rather than weakness. That such projects have no class content, no innate bias towards either the defence of the existing class status quo, or the creation of new forms of class domination - that position leads demonstrably to absurdity. Given the relationship of polarity requires that if authoritarianism has a class content, then it follows that so does libertarianism by QED (informally).

As do all Trotskyists and Stalinists, who explicitly reject communism while
calling themselves communists.

The abuse and mis-use of names is not a valid argument in the discussion of the things those names refer to, unless you retreat into complete nominalism, in which case nothing meaningful can be said at all. (And as for the people who shout "semantics!" at this point, as if that was a meaningful interjection, they may as well be shouting "words! you're using words!", logically speaking)

How can something be authoritarian without stratification? While the word may not have class content in strictly economic sense, there is no way in which something can be authoritarian without relying on the privilege of one group over another. The word authoritarian implies that there is someone with authority or power. So it's opposite, 'libertarian', implies the rejection of such structures.

Still, I've always preferred anti-authoritarian over all.

This is clearer. So, what you are saying is that any state is by definition authoritarian, a state being defined as an established social institution that has means of coercion at its disposal which can be used to impose the will of those who control it.

But you need to clarify what you really object to in a state: the fact that it is an established social institution or that it can and does employ coercion? I ask this because I don't suppose that you are a Tolstoyan anarcho-pacifist (I could be wrong, in which case my argument here falls) but hold that the capitalist class should be forcibly expropriated.

This implies that you think coercion should be employed against them. In which case, your objection would only be to using the existing social institution of coercion against them. Instead you presumably propose that this coercion be exercised directly against them by newly-formed ad hoc institutions set up by workers. But this is still to employ an "authoritarian" method, ie coercion. As Engels pointed out, a revolution is quite an authoritarian affair in which one class imposes its will on another. So, what in the end is the difference between a workers' militia and an army ? In fact what is the difference between any units of a workers militia concerned with dealing with counter-revolutionaries and Alf's Cheka?

This is why I agree that a classless state is impossible: a state is always controlled by one class or another. It's also why "authoritarianism" (the employment of force) has no class content: it too can be employed by one class or another.

I suspect that you yourself can't be entirely convinced that this is a sound argument. As I've just pointed out, "authoritarian" methods, in the sense of coercion, can be employed by any class, so "authoritarianism" doesn't have a class content (quite apart from it existing in other structures, eg the family, including the families of the capitalist class).

If "libertarian" is the opposite of "authoritarian" (which you say has been established here) then a libertarian would, logically, have to be a pacifist.

Yawn...

AFAQ: H.4 Didn't Engels refute anarchism in "On Authority"?

Iain told me he wrote the FAQ because he was bored of answering the same unoriginal bollocks from brain-dead ortho-Marxists. I'm beginning to see his point.

edit: Why is it people always preface putting their own (strawman) words into other people's mouths with the phrase "So what you are saying is..."?

Use of force is not in itself authoritarian, the question is what it is used for.

the state uses force to protect there position and the position of the capitalists class as a whole, of power and privilege relative to the working class.

revolutionaries use force to prevent them from doing that, and create a situation where no one has power over another.