About "My experience in the ICC - Devrim Valerian"

I think that it would be totally artificial. I think that it is the wrong way to go about it completely, and that you have to build things that are real, and not try to create them from the top down.

How would you even start to go about it?

Devrim

That's a large spectrum of ideas you have covered there?

I think this here gets at a lot of it, there is a need for a revolutionary minority (call it party/union I do not care, though I'm probably more partial to union) that defends the autonomous self-organization of the struggle (via struggle committees, strike committees, councils). Probably should tie together the territorial struggle with that around the struggle over production.

I think a way that council communists would be able to make this more organic would be to start a process of finding each other, any groups that remain, and start a period of rapprochement and regroupment of forces. I mean there is the Free Communist, Echanges et Mouvement, some other threads on here about other groups like the Strike/KAP group in German IWW.

But yeah personally I think the KAUD were too late, but they were merging the tradition of the KAPD and the AAUDs for a sorta communist workers' unionism a la "marxist version of anarcho-syndicalism."

Have you looked at http://www.leftcom.org/ ? Not council-communist, but interesting for anyone looking at left communism.

ICT is interesting because though the CWO was sorta founded around the platform of the KAPD Essen tendency/the program of the KAI they have now regrouped with PCInt internationally who are more Damenist, as compared to the more council communist thrust of their beginnings. I'm very sympathetic to them, and if my Septmember didn't totally suck was gonna submit an article for them on the fast food "strikes".

I attended part of the CWO's AGM last week and came out of it without been bitten by "Leninists". They also have a meeting at the Bookfair next weekend http://www.leftcom.org/en/adverts/2013-10-19/public-meeting-in-the-anarchist-bookfair-london that you maybe interested in.

Have you looked at Afed or Solfed? as both have been influenced by councilist ideas at different points in there history. Can't speak for Solfed, but in the 90's some Afed (ACF as it was then) members like myself where influenced by groups such as Wildcat and Subversion, the latter had close relationship with Afed including having at least one joint Day school here in Sheffield and some of its members went on to join when Subversion dissolved.

Also worth checking out 'In the Tradition' http://afed.org.uk/publications/pamphlets-booklets/95-in-the-tradition.html

OK, so you have a vague idea of the ideas that you want to group people around. What would the point of this network be though? I don't think that you can just decree that there should be a network of some kind. I think that it would be a good thing if there were some sort of network like this, but there isn't. I don't think to create one out of thin air is a solution. It has to come from contacts between real existing groups that have an actual practice linked to the class struggle, building links between themselves. You can't create it artifically.

Devrim

Devrim it's a bit a question of chicken or the egg right though? I mean we know there are not many council communist influenced groups today, but there are certainly a lot of people, and I assume the ones on the more Marxist end of the spectrum may be interested in creating their own local groups, and so maybe discussing with other like minded individuals in some sort of network on how to go about doing that may be beneficial for them? There is a Council Communism group on Facebook that such people could communicate around. Also Theft here hosts a lot of council communists texts on his website The Free Communist, and that has an independent forum as well, if you don't use Facebook.

There is a difference between being influenced by council communism and being a council communist. Apart from how ridiculous the latter sounds. I really don't think there are that many council communists around, let alone enough to set up a local groups.

I really don't place much value in internet political affiliation except where there is a clear real world crossover and comprehension of the political content. As I have seen many people claim to be many things whilst holding extremely contradictory ideas. And I have even seen some people involved in 'real world' politics do this, e.g. at least 2 US supporters of left-wing Irish nationalism claim to be or influenced by council communism.

it matters little to me or not if there are really existing materially council communist groups who have direct lineage or understanding that approximates exactly the traditions of the OG council communists...

but let's say if meerov21 and others who are influenced by council communism want to associate and network around creating local groups inspired by some of these politics...is that really a bad and or impossible thing? it's the content of many of the positions that matter more than the historical legacy or label, surely?

Agree with Android on this, that said there are things like the Midland Discussion Forum that would prob be of interest to meerov21 in terms of some of the discussions.

The Commune doesn't exist as a group really anymore and from my understanding it is now only one person here in Sheffield.

Briefly, the communist recomposition ended in decomposition.

Before I answer them I just want to stress that by "have an actual practice linked to the class struggle", I didn't mean any great thing. I didn't mean that they had to be leading strikes of hundreds of thousands of workers, just that they had to be a group who were orientated towards the class struggle, rather than artificially setting up an international organisation 'from above' as it were, and picking up various individuals in various countries.

No, I don't think that there are any council communist groups left nowadays. There are groups influenced to some extent or the other by council communism, but not actual council communist groups.

Unfortunately I don't think that there are two groups.

By the above definition, yes we did. We had a monthly paper. we distributed leaflets to workers on strike, etc. My impression is that this is not the norm for groups entering the ICC though.

Devrim

Jura's answer is funnier that mine, and just as accurate, but quickly....

In order of importance...

1. The group was small and and even smaller number of people did the work involved in keeping it going. And in the space of a year most of these members stopped being involved. This happened in the following order: one left for political/personal reasons, another lives half the time in India, another moved to Eygpt, I moved to Ireland and another moved to Rome.

2. The group started as a open discussion group and then started to develop into a national organisation, but while I was a member we couldn't agree what that organisation would be or what it would do.

3. There were some slightly odd personal problems and conflicts in the group, which I won't go into.

FWIW, I'm the only person I know here in Sydney interested in council communism. Maybe there are others, but I don't know of any. The only Marxists I know who aren't some variety of Leninist (usually Trotskyists or "neo-Trots") are Autonomists who are into Negri, Tronti, etc. and who reject the council communist tradition and demands such as for workers' self-management, but who are definitely quite active in participating in industrial action and social protests. Most of the anarchists I've associated with are anti-Marxists, and in accordance with some sort of anarchist prejudice, tend to lump all Marxists together.

actually if you look on these forums over the years there has been lots of australian council communist interest.

that's news to me!

I think there were a few people in Sydney a couple of years ago. There is/was a poster on here, Peter, who was close to council communism though in Canberra, not Sydney. They used to publish pamphlets under the name 'Treason Press'. There are, I think, some people in Sydney, and he would be a good person to ask. I don't know if he still uses this site, but you could try pming him on here. If he doesn't respond, I think I might have his email address somewhere, and I could write a tell him (obviously I don't want t give out someone's email to strangers).

Devrim