Are Council Communists Libertarian?

Yes, now we are getting somewhere. Iain's reply brings out precisely the point I was trying to make: that some anarchists are not opposed to all "authority". Here's some extracts:

So, by "authority", you mean "hierarchy". I'm against that. I'm sure Engels was too (it seems he was misled by reading too many eulogies of individual liberty v authority by ortho-anarchist philosophers). So, we are back where we started since the opposite of "hierarchy" is .... democracy, where people "abide by the collective decisions you make with others when you freely associate with them", a principle some die-hard, dogmatic anarchists here have been trying to refute in the name of "libertarianism".

NIce try.

The notion that the authoritarian/libertarian distinction is just a case of "dogmatic anarchists" (I guess that's those of us who find the Cheka less than revolutionary) being "anti-democratic" is of course a monumental straw man and just plain dishonest.

But you are right, we have come full circle, so it's time for you to stop hand-waving and answer this:

In the meantime, for casual readers of this thread who might not go through the FAQ link, here's a relevant excerpt for the heck of it.

If we define authoritarianism simply as the use of violent coercion, then the absurdity of this definition can quickly be seen by using the example of the slave plantation.

Where the plantation owner uses flogging and other corporal punishment to cow his slaves and keep them in line, this, according to the definition given, is authoritarian.

Where the slaves revolt and lynch the slave-owner, this is also the use of violent coercion and is therefore equally authoritarian. According to this "class-blind" definition of authoritarianism there is no discernable difference between these two cases, and between the KZ and the Kibbutz for e.g. Yet another case of proof by reductio ad absurdum.

The state is authoritarian is not because it is "the instrument for the subjugation of one class by another" - a formulation that despite it's use of the word "class", abstracts away from the specific content of the class relation: the exploitation of a majority by a minority - but because it is the instrument by which the wills and interests of the majority can be subjugated to the wills and interests of a minority, even one individual in the extreme case. The subjugated majority cannot seize the instrument of subjugating the majority to the will of the minority and use it to liberate themselves from the very alienation of power that it is constituted from.

But anyway, this is really 101 stuff. At this rate some clown is going to pop up and say we can't abolish the state because the definition of the state is "a body of armed men" (like a stone age hunting party perhaps?). There is the chekist left and there is the libertarian left, and that is that. Everything else is lies and dissimulation.

we could just replace it with a body of armed women

Stop exaggerating.

If Engels made a mistake, as Iain says, by thinking that anarchists like Bakunin meant by "anti-authoritarian" being against any authority rather than just being against hierarchy, since he too was against hierarchy that would mean he satisfies your criteria for being an "anti-authoritarian" and a "liberetarian". Or have you some evidence that Engels stood for decision-making by a few imposed on the majority?

didn't he support standing in elections?

*ahem* - Engles: On Authority

Still haven't answered the question I see.

I've heard of fantasy football teams, but the construction of fantasy Engles' is a new one on me.

Oh I see. On here, it's Marx ok, Engels fuck off.

Yes. You're not saying that's enough in itself to make him a supporter of hierarchy and a chekist, are you?

Yes, I agree democracy won't work unless those participating in it have a democratic consciousness and see/feel themselves as part of a community with a common interest. Without this, no formal rules can make democracy work. On the other hand, some basic structure is required, as Jo Freeman pointed out in The Tyranny of Structurelessness (on this site here).

yes, supporting elections and attempting to take control of through them shows, in a revolutionary, a fundamental failure to understand how hierarchical organisation works.

although not necessary a chekist, that is the inevitable result of attempting to implement a revolution by seizing control of the state.

Ocelot said this : 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).

Are you saying that I see the transitional state as the organ of communist social transformation (perhaps the Cheka above all)?

This doesn't at all correspond to the view I hold - which is that all state organs, even 'semi-state' organs, are a conservative drag during the period of transition to communism and are specifically not the organs of social transformation.

I agree with those who warn of the danger of getting into abstract label-discussions. Behind the abstract question of 'authority' are the class-focussed questions of (a) class violence and political power in the revolution (b) the state as a material product of all class-divided societies.

Just to add: I don't think that Engels in the passage ocelot quotes is guilty of glossing over class antagonisms. When he talks about 'a part of the population' he is certainly talking about the exploited and oppressed majority. On the other hand I don't understand what Malatesta means when he says we cannot for a single moment deny the principle of freedom, and in the next line says that we aim to use violence against the ruling class. Will the latter not involve depriving them of their freedom at certain crucial moments?

Yes, possibly but there is a difference between making a mistake about how hierarchical organisations work and supporting organisation on a hierarchical basis.

As it happens, Engels was well aware of the hierarchical structure of the state when controlled by the capitalist class. That is why he insisted that when the working class had captured it (whether through elections or otherwise) they should immediately remove ("lop off" is the word he used) its hierarchical aspects before using it to dispossess the capitalist class. As he put it in his 1891 Introduction to a re-edition of Marx's eulogy of the Paris Commune The Civil War in France:

I'm getting the message that Engels is persona non grata here, but this was also the view of Marx who enjoys a considerable credibility here.

In case "some die-hard, dogmatic anarchists" refers to me, I feel as though I should make it clear that at worst I have made statements ambivalent to democracy. And what I actually have stated opposition to are schemes where a world-commune dictates orders to local communes, who dictate orders to their members, which is pretty clearly a dictionary definition of hierarchy, no matter what you preface it with.

What I have supported is the right of individuals to freely associate, to use the terms of your quote, on decisions that are mutually beneficial, which would also support their decision to disassociate on decisions that are not mutually beneficial.

When someone here opposes the authority of the shoemaker in regards to making shoes, you will have a very convincing argument against them.

See the problem with "democracy requires democratic consciousness" line is... circularity.

Either "democractic consciousness" means merely the acceptance of the principle of majority rule to the exclusion of all other considerations, in which case a specific type of consciousness is not required at all, simply blind conformity to that procedural form. Or it means something more, additional to that (as you have, in fact, previously accepted).

From an anarchist (leaving aside the insurrectionists) point of view we don't see our principles of libertarianism and federalism (and indeed the transparency of formal strutures that Jo Freeman talks about - a pamphlet my organisation reprinted only last year, as it happens*) as being in conflict with democracy but mapping out, precisely, the kind of ethos and practices (techné) consistent with decision-making that builds collective action based on solidarity and cooperation rather than conformity and obediance.

To give you a practical example of the abuse of the democratic form. In Ireland at the moment, the principle organising activity that is happening is the construction of a mass non-payment movement around the new Household tax (and the water and other domecile-based taxes to follow down the line). The initial stages of which have involved the holding of large public meetings in the various urban neighbourhoods and rural districts. In those areas where the SWP have sufficient local activists to have a hand in the running of the meeting, they have been doing one of their more puerile tricks. At the end of the public meeting (panel of 3 speakers, plus facing audience) "motions" are taken from the floor - i.e. the planted SWP activists in the audience propose some daft action (e.g. the picketing of the local FG councillor/TD's surgery - never the Labour one, nb). Without any opportunity to discuss it, the chair then "puts it to the floor" and the audience members stick their hand in the air because it sounds like a proposal to do something, and everybody else has put their hand in the air, so it seems like the done thing. The SWP then say this gives them a "democratic mandate" from a meeting of 70 - 100+ people for whatever their pet project this week is. Naturally they are also against setting up local groups with regular meetings where campaign members could actually come along and discuss and have ideas and make decisions of their own on what is to be done, because that isn't "grass-roots democracy" like their little sub-maoist public meeting stunts.

A puerile example perhaps, but it's useful to descend from the abstract when we're talking about why counting hands in the air is not the beginning and the end of democracy.

----
* Partly because our pamphlets committee were looking for material. But partly because at one organising talk/training I did, two of the women present had both done Women's Studies at post-grad level (MA & Phd) and were involved in broadly left/liberal activism and neither of them had even heard of it, which I found pretty scandalous. (God knows what they actually teach in those courses, but it doesn't seem to have much connection to the actual practical experiences of the women's movement).

Just out of interest, what organization are you talking about, ocelot?

I personally have become increasing appreciative of Engels after starting to read the bits of his writing Leninists don't talk about. Some of his stuff is a bit rubbish though. In the text you quoted it wasn't explicit that Engels was rejecting the hierachical aspects of the state when used by the proletarian dictatorship. Is there a particular reason you include hierachy in his conception of the aspects of the state the proletariat need to instantly lop off?

In that same 1891 introduction (to Marx's eulogy to the Paris Commune of 1871) that I quoted Engels also wrote:

This is now Marx writing in that third section:

Engels finished his 1891 Introduction:

It is true that Engels did place too much confidence in the German Social Democratic Party and can even be seen as one himself. But at least (as the above shows) he was not a Leninist.

The only time I've ever read Engels was in his introductions to Marx. Is there anything in Engels which would be considered absolutely complementary to Marx, or no?

It's true that Engels was a populariser of Marx's ideas (and a good one since he wrote simply and clearly), but he did write on some subjects which Marx didn't. For instance:

There is his The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, a bit dated nowadays of course.

Then there's his The Part played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man.

His Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is in my view the best introduction to what is called "Marxism" and which in fact could even be called the founding text of this (even though both he and Marx rejected this term, which was invented by Bakunin).

Engels didn't write much on the economics of capitalism (Marx's ideas on which seem to attract the most interest here), except that he probably shaped more of Volume III of Capital (which he edited) than some people might realise.

The Origin of the Family... is in fact based on Marx's notes so Marx wins. Just kidding .

but according to some authors like Dunayewskaya, Engels messed the thing up by simply copying Morgan's evolutionist and teleological stuff

I think one of the most important texts by Engels (historically) is his Outline of a Critique of Political Economy – shows that he was way ahead of Marx in 1843 as regards political economy.

it's admitedly a long time since I read any of Engels works but I think he did make a valuable contribution to the popularising of many aspects of Marx's work in his time, though it is also true that he played some part in a metaphysical interpretation of marxism eagerly taken up subsequently by Kautsky and others in the mainstream of social democracy.

Engels extension of Marx's insights into an acclaimed science on a par with the natural sciences in his 'dialectics of nature' for instance seem far fetched to say the least.

In other respects both Marx and Engels showed themselves willing to compromise some of their own analysis by limiting public criticism in the interests of supporting the practical development of German Social Democracy and certainly some of their viewes on aspects of a transition to communism, however understandable in their day, must be considered dated now.

Capricorn, just to say, thanks for the detailed reply. Makes the nuances much clearer.

A call for 'accuracy' from devoration1: (post 137):

It's irrelevant that no 'council communist organisations' exist today. People who brand themselves as council communists do exist, and won't disappear, even after the passing away of the last pre-1968 specimen. As long as wage labour survives, council communism, like all ouvriérismes, will linger on. It's another fossilised delusion in the 'revolutionary marketplace'. True, they are more amiable than left communists. For starters, they don't identify with Leninists and their party-patriotism though they support a 'labour republic' run by workers' councils, a sort of 'commune state', but a nation-state all the same. All nations require one, including the 'labour republic', so it's doubtful that this could be called 'libertarian', a vague term itself as many of the above posts confirm.

It's true that from 1917 onwards many of the later council communists supported the Russian warlords and their Comintern after 1919. This was a sleazy past that council communists like Paul Mattick tried to erase and conceal forever after, with their brand name 'council' as opposed to the 'party' communists. That they colluded in the ideological cover-up of a murderous régime, like the lyrical Gorter and KAPD did, can't be denied. This was a mass voluntary blindness, which afflicted all 'ultra-lefts' in 1917-27. Present day left communists apologise for this blindness with their theoria errores iustificat terrore, or 'theory of mistakes'. Yet the council communist opposition to Bolshevism was ambivalent: according to leading council communists Pannekoek and Brendel, the Lenin régime, and Maoism later, were carrying out 'bourgeois' or 'state capitalist revolutions'.

However, the council communists' original shared perspectives with Bolshevism weren't disputed on my post and this wasn't the point I was making. Thus the assertion that today's council communists may or may not be or call themselves libertarian, stands. To say that this was a silly statement is evidently pointless, and motivated by pique.

The scholastic titbit that the council communist heritage 'fits' into what today's 'pro-revolutionaries' can draw from, is irrelevant as well. Though it should be said that 'pro-revolutionaries' is another brand re-positioning by competing mini-rackets, like the pantoish 'thin red line'. All predicted by Camatte and Collu in 1969-72.

But it's unlikely that left communists, or 'internationalist anarchists' (today's pro-revolutionary massed batallions), would accept devoration1 as a 'comrade' without reservations, as he supports self-management under the Lenin régime:

http://libcom.org/forums/announcements/re-joining-iww-27072011

and 'lesser evils', as this apologetic about Leninism/Stalinism strongly suggests:

http://libcom.org/forums/history/are-council-communists-libertarian-27012012?page=2 (post 85)

Onto another issue, which has surfaced on this thread. Marx's panegyric about the 1871 Paris Commune (on Capricorn's post 169) is the idyllic 'labour republic'. It's impossible to see how hierarchy, arbitrary violence, bureaucratic corruption, ruthless labour discipline and 'red terrors' would have been avoided by this simple-minded and demagogic utopia. The national enclosure legitimises and condones exploitation and inter-national competition under the law of value. The defence of la patrie en danger -- a fatherland enlarged, from Montmartre to the smallest French hamlet -- would have required a permanent and huge centralised army, forget the waffle about a 'workers' militia' and Engels's 'democratic state' sham. It would have been an updated levée en masse, anticipating warlord Trotsky's Red Army. It would have been a war economy similar to the one that emerged in France in 1793 and even more in the Northern economy in the US Civil War of 1861-65.

It was disingenuous of Marx and his minions to present the Paris Commune of 1871 as an alternative to capitalism, as a 'lesson on the need to smash the bourgeois state' or lop-off its most unsavoury parts and thus a 'transition to communism'. It wasn't anything of the sort. The transition 'commune-state' would have been another national chimera to kettle-in French civil society under neo-Jacobin racketeers. Terroristic scapegoating against 'enemies of the people' would have been rife -- the ideal national-social glue. It would have been a gigantic step towards real domination, as war economies increase economic rationalisation and technological innovation and, above all, rally and mobilise the domesticated masses. The surrounding rival economies would have replicated the dynamic, as happened in 1914. But that's the inherent logic of the Marxian 'labour republic', and most Marxists are too cowardly to admit this reality. Like regrets, the late admission of 'mistakes' costs nothing. Like the crimes of yesterday, the admission -- if it happens at all -- is based on fear, and cowardice is the greatest sin.

That's a really eloquent post, but I'm sensing some hostility towards Marx/ists. You should go on about all the historical failures of anarchists as well, both ideological and practical. So I take it that you feel that there can be no collaboration between anarchists and Ultra-Left Marxists?

You gotta love the Committees of Public Safety.

Edit - By the way, I'm not acting as an apologist for Leninism and its progeny.

Actually, McIver, Marx's considered opinion on the Paris Commune was expressed in a letter to Domela Nieuwenhuis in 1881:

What he had in mind was a democratic constitution for France which would allow the French working class to organise in trade unions and for communism, a view which he had expressed before the Commune. In fact he advised against the uprising.

His The Civil War in France was a eulogy and tribute to the tens of thousands of workers who were slaughtered when it was ruthlessly suppressed. In such a booklet any criticism would have been out of place. Apart from being a tribute in these circumstances, the booklet is important as setting out Marx's views on what sort of political arrangements (ultra-democratic) should obtain during the period of transition from capitalism to communism.

Having said this, I think you could be right about what might have happened had the Commune succeeded. The same sort of arguments between the advocates of a revolutionary dictatorship and those in favour of a political democracy would have gone on as did in Russia after the overthrow of the Tsar. Had the first triumphed then Blanqui would have been called in to lead the government and, as an advocate of the dictatorship of a revolutionary minority, could well have behaved as Lenin did in Russia. In fact, Lenin could be called (and was called) a Blanquist rather than a Marxist.

I read the thread up to page 4 and, in the vein of the subject, this one makes the most sense.

My supposed apologetics about Leninism/Stalinism in a post that also contains

You mean that post?

I must be the worlds most anti-Leninism Leninist then.

So the origins of council communism are irrelevant and shouldn't be explored because some people today, who call themselves council communists (and yet not those who draw influence from council communism- the 'less amiable' left communists of today according to you), may or may not agree with the original CC's about the role of the Party? Sounds more like picking out tidbits of history and theory from the development of a tendency to make it more 'amiable' to your own personal liking.

Which is where this thread itself is important- a point I made earlier that it doesn't matter whether a person today calls themself a Libertarian Communist, Anarchist-Communist, Councilist, Left Communist, Luxemburgist, Council Communist, Anarcho-Syndicalist, etc. - if any value or insight can be found to inform actions and thought today, it shouldn't matter whether or not those historical persons or groups called themselves Marxists, Libertarians or anything else. Otherwise it is simply nitpicking- "We like some of what the KAPD did/said/wrote, so they are libertarian; but we like less of what the Worker's Opposition did/said/wrote so they are Leninists".

A notion you ridicule;

As well suggesting I support the Bolshevik statist regime for recognizing the significance of AIC Kuzbass and the international and internationalist dimensions such projects enacted? Of workers from numerous fields from numerous different countries coming together to not manage but build industry from basically scatch under the direction of a highly diverse worker's council (that was heavily influenced by and had delegates from backgrounds ranging from syndicalism, IWW, maximalists, internationalist mensheviks, anarchists, etc) which scared that very Leninist state due to its democratic and internationalist nature?

Showing your true colors that there are no 'comrades', all revolutionary minded groups are 'rackets', in the nihilistic teachings of the great Camatte- we have nothing to learn from the history of the workers movement and its numerous organizational, theoretical and confrontational experiences.

I'm not saying anyone has to 'like' Gorter or the KAPD, or need to fit them into a modern mold of being 'libertarian', to learn something or gain something from their experiences and historical activity; and that anyone interested in working-class revolution, the abolition of capitalism and private property, the abolition rather than taking over of a State, etc are indeed on the same side and can learn from and gain something (even in the negative) from traditions outside of their own self-defined tendency.

Total hostility would be more accurate. But, correct me if I'm wrong mciver, you have the same hostility towards all revolutionary organizations regardless of them being Marxist or Anarchist or Syndicalist or whatever right?

n.25 Post 178 Feb 18, 2012

You don't seem to be an apologist for 'Leninism and its progeny'.

Regarding the plea for even-handedness -- you mention historical failures of anarchism, both ideological and practical, so it seems you're well informed and sensitive about the subject (I'm not), so why not try your hand at it yourself?

But was there historical failure? Deflated delusions yes. In the 19C anarchism, like Marxism, represented the apotheosis of a labour utopia and a vision of redistribution and social integration. Both ideologies fulfilled an important role in the domestication/affirmation of labour through class conflict. Unconsciously, they furthered the consolidation and expansion of value. This wasn't a conspiracy but an irresistible stage in the emergence of an integrated and militarised world. In spite of his leftist assumptions, GM Tamás describes this dynamic accurately:

http://www.grundrisse.net/grundrisse22/tellingTheTruthAboutClass.htm

This is more persuasive than the critique of 'programmatisme' by Théorie Communiste et al. Their critique is still based on a lingering divinisation of the proletariat, and an implicit advocacy of a 'communising labour republic'. Today, this is pure mystification.

On the 'collaboration between anarchists and ultra-left marxists': this is a ridiculous ICC sham. There can be no collaboration because left communists don't tolerate political rivals, and anarchists remain deadly enemies. From 1975 the ICC denounced 'official anarchism' as bourgeois, and 'unofficial anarchists' were petty-bourgeois wading in swamps. In the 90s these decomposed further as 'parasites', allies of ex-ICC renegades. But there is nothing new in this, it follows -- as panto -- Marx's and Engels's intrigues and diatribes against anarchism and Bakunin, and the bloody extirpation of Russian anarchism by Bolshevik hit squads.

After eliminating all internal dissidents by 2002, the ICC sensed the game was up. Not surprising --they were a dying racket devoted to born-again- left communism for more than 25 years. They couldn't recruit younger members, at least in Europe, and finally this forced them to dredge out the old swamp by 2010, hoping to catch some mythical 'internationalist anarchists'. Public invectives against 'parasites' ceased, so as to not scare the imaginary shoals. Before that, any resemblance with the ICC Platform could only be plagiarism or destructive tricks by conscious or unconscious agents of capital, ie, parasites. Now 'internationalist anarchists' replaced 'parasites' in the ICC propaganda. But this didn't mean that new recruits from the ex-swamp were to be welcomed and trusted willy-nilly. Their relapse into parasitism was and is always possible. After all, many of the [now purged] ICC founding fathers had anarchoid and councilist pasts, the perfect broth for parasites.

The ICC may not denounce 'parasites' currently, but their Theses on Parasitism remain on their site, suggesting that the Leninist category 'parasite' is still in vogue, though used only internally. Alf and Buffoon proudly swore by it in March 2010: http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=3323 Baboon, by the way, projects his own cowardice onto targeted individuals, inventing that they 'quivered' when hounded by ICC hit squads in 1981:

(post of 13 May 2010)

The intention 'that night' had nothing to do with 'getting back our stuff' but with killing opponents. Baboon avoids mentioning Mark Chirik's true intentions. At this time, Chirik proclaimed that he was prepared to sacrifice the ICC over the 'principle' of 'not ripping typewriters'. He thus cynically revealed that the ICC was his private racket, and that his relentless spite and thirst for revenge was suicidal, befitting a Bolshevik adventurer and cutthroat. Had the door collapsed, the ICC would have fallen with it (not to mention the future clique Internationalist Perspective), so Baboon and Alf should not waffle so blithely on RevLeft. To Baboon, burglaries, thefts of personal items and potentially murderous raids by his racket were and are reasonable, whereas ICC prey should submit humbly, pity their 'long-lasting', 'damaging' and quivering 'spite and revenge'. It should be said that the incumbent was not 'quivering' at all; people confronting political gangsters can and do remain cool and determined. Comically, after 29 years, Baboon the schlemiel bemoans that the ICC (Chirik that is) didn't hand-pick him as a goon. So perhaps he did sense Chirik's criminal intentions, and now bays belatedly for blood -- he regrets not being in the pack on that eventful night in London! Such are the sewer-morals of ultra-left apparatchiks.

Here and there some wide-eyed 'pro-revolutionary' may fall for the ICC's terminal sham. Only to discover that 'individualism' and scoffing at the central organs of ancient leaders is a sure sign of parasitism. Wide-eyed also doesn't mean dumb as the Devrim case shows. The following exchanges confirm the sterility of the ICC's recent recruitment campaign: http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&discussionid=5730&pp=30&page=3 Incapable of replying to Devrim's points, the ICC and ICT drone on with their usual litanies. And so the coffin is lowered.

More relevant than comments about personal taste -- like 'hostility towards Marx/ists' -- is the criticism of the origins and social consequences of Marxist ideology. However, 'hostility' to manipulative and totalitarian practices is a welcome sign of rationality. For example, being an apologist for Bolshevism should invite contempt and derision. But this is not enough, the false claims of Bolshevism should be subjected to philosophical and historical analysis (Dominique Colas's work is a good example). Such 'deconstructions' of this necrophilous cult, including its left communist progeny, will hopefully continue.

Only apparatchiks love 'Committees of Public Safety'. Though possibly you mean something like Winston Smith's belated 'love' for Big Brother in 1984? Or the left communist devotion to Bordiga, Damen, Chirik, Munis, etc. Via their support for the early Bolshevik régime, these egocrats went along, openly or covertly, with Chekist dupery and repression. An example: for Munis, the Lenin-Trotsky régime smelled of roses, so its Red Terror was hardly ever mentioned in Munis's writings on the Russian revolution. He maintained that Trotsky wasn't even present at Kronstadt during its crushing, meaning that Trotsky wasn't responsible for the massacre, or as responsible as Dzerzhinsky, Sergei Kamenev or Tukhachevsky. In fact Trotsky and Lenin were the main instigators of the butchery.

Reply to Capricorn's post 179, later, on Marx's myth-making about the Paris Commune of 1871, which became a template for a 'labour republic'.