What is left communism and how does it differ from anarchism?

Submitted by Sleeper on May 29, 2016

What is left communism and how does it differ from anarchism?

Noah Fence

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Noah Fence on May 29, 2016

The ICT website;

http://www.leftcom.org/en

Khawaga

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Khawaga on May 29, 2016

Just don't ask about decadence theory unless you want to listen to a sermon or ten....

Craftwork

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Craftwork on May 29, 2016

Best introduction is here:
https://www.marxists.org/subject/left-wing/index.htm

Craftwork

5 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Craftwork on June 23, 2018

.

.

Burgers

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Burgers on May 29, 2016

left communism(s); the [Dutch-German left =]council communists, unlike the [Italian left=]Bordigists,

Way to simplistic, not all the Dutch/German left were councilists and not all the Italian left can be described as Bordigists.

Craftwork

5 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Craftwork on June 23, 2018

.

.

Juan Conatz

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Juan Conatz on May 30, 2016

As a simple explanation, left communism comes from a different tradition than anarchism. It is rooted in Marxism and specifically around the debates in the Comintern and Bolshevik Party. Generally when people speak about left communism, they're speaking of individuals or groups that claim some sort of organizational or ideological descent from either the Russian left communists, the Italian Left, or the Dutch-German Left (or a mixture of of elements from all 3).

The main thing is that they critiqued the Bolsheviks from the left. Within each of these 'lefts', there is a wide variety of different views and practices and one could spend a lot of time getting into that. I'm not sure what the best primer to this stuff is. My recommendation is that if you're serious about digging into this, then read the Wikipedia page, and then look up groups, individuals etc in our library on libcom. That's what I did years ago.

jojo

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by jojo on May 30, 2016

I think I know what left communism is (do I kid myself again?) but have to confess to not knowing what anarchism is, and so can't compare the two.

There are conrades who could tell you what left communism is. But could anyone do that for anarchism? Doesn't anarchism pride itself on not really being knowable. After all, if it could be clearly defined wouldn't it cease to be anarchism?

radicalgraffiti

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by radicalgraffiti on May 30, 2016

jojo

I think I know what left communism is (do I kid myself again?) but have to confess to not knowing what anarchism is, and so can't compare the two.

There are conrades who could tell you what left communism is. But could anyone do that for anarchism? Doesn't anarchism pride itself on not really being knowable. After all, if it could be clearly defined wouldn't it cease to be anarchism?

no

timthelion

7 years 6 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by timthelion on September 10, 2016

-

-

Auld-bod

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Auld-bod on May 30, 2016

Tim #11
‘- Total armament, in which everyone has a gun, therefore breaking the monopoly on the use of force by whoever happens to be a ruler’

If that was true, surely the American National Rifle Association is an anarchist front. And that pacifist rat Tolstoy was deluded or just a fake.

EDIT
Sorry for the de-rail

Gulai Polye

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Gulai Polye on May 30, 2016

timthelion

I would define anarchism as being the goal of having no rulers, no hierarchy and no coersion. It is an end without any known means for getting there or staying there.
.

No that is the means. Getting rid of the rulers etc. What will replace that are the ends. There are many ends in anarchism. Let me just mention 3: mutualism (market anarchism), collective anarchism communist anarchism etc.

timthelion

7 years 6 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by timthelion on September 10, 2016

-

-

Sharkfinn

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Sharkfinn on May 30, 2016

I think there is the historical left communism, the anti-Bolshevist opposition in the third international, very distinct from anarchism. Then there is the modern internet left communism that claims historical roots in relation to the former, but from what I get from their politics, they are actually quite distinct from the old school.

The introduction & critique from the Communist League of Tampa is good: https://communistleaguetampa.org/2015/06/14/my-political-journey-on-left-communism-and-isolation-in-21st-century/

Spikymike

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Spikymike on May 30, 2016

A longer discussion of the same question here with some useful and some irrelevant points made along the way:
http://libcom.org/forums/theory/difference-between-anarchism-left-communism-14112009

the button

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by the button on May 31, 2016

If a post on libcom takes more than three seconds to scroll past, it was written by a left communist. That's how I tell the difference, anyway.

Agent of the I…

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Agent of the I… on May 31, 2016

the button

If a post on libcom takes more than three seconds to scroll past, it was written by a left communist. That's how I tell the difference, anyway.

How about a member of the ICC?

the button

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by the button on May 31, 2016

Agent of the Fifth International

How about a member of the ICC?

That's when there's only room for three posts on a page.

Noah Fence

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Noah Fence on May 31, 2016

the button

If a post on libcom takes more than three seconds to scroll past, it was written by a left communist. That's how I tell the difference, anyway.

Lol. I got into an email and FB discussion with a leftcom(who seemed like a very good guy, though rather serious) and his comments where incredibly long and verbose. Now you've said this I realise it's par for the course.

the button

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by the button on May 31, 2016

There's also a certain house-style which is hard to put your finger on but is definitely a thing. Key features include:

1. Writing as if the fate of the global proletariat hangs off your opinion of something Bordiga once wrote in a letter to his mum

2. Use of the word "proletarians"

3. An attitude of sorrow to the errors of your opponents

I'm sure there's more.

Entdinglichung

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Entdinglichung on May 31, 2016

sometimes, some shared historical narratives and paraphernalia (doesn't only apply to leftcoms and/or councilists) obscure the practical fact, that many groups in these currents have more in common with other groups outside this currents than with its cousins from the same family

Pennoid

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Pennoid on May 31, 2016

It's important to remember that 'communists' go back to the 1914 split from the 2nd international rightists and those who voted support for their country in WWI. Figures like Kautsky had a profound influence on the thought of Lenin and many others who would take part in the post war wave, and most involved were members if the dead 2nd International.

Simon Watson

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Simon Watson on June 1, 2016

If you mean state communism and anarchist communism the differences are big - but not always. In practice they give rise to similar behaviour. Both are rooted in enlightenment thinking so we shouldn't be surprised when the common root reveals itself from time to time. It's when we start to resemble the fascists, Maoists, Trotskyites, Stalinists we claim to oppose we should think about where our energy and motivation is coming from. Enlightenment thinking is persuasive because it has its own self-fulfilling logic, but absolutist belief systems, can easily morph into the coercive nightmares that Orwell called "smelly little orthodoxies".

Today we have the softer sciences (sociology, anthropology and especially psychology) at our disposal and they have an important role in keeping us on the right track.

Craftwork

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Craftwork on June 1, 2016

Isn't that what 'post-anarchism' is about - challenging the supposed 'Enlightenment' basis of anarchist thought.

Zeronowhere

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Zeronowhere on June 2, 2016

If a post on libcom takes more than three seconds to scroll past, it was written by a left communist. That's how I tell the difference, anyway.

Who needs James Bond when there's Devrim? He's so left communist he doesn't need a surname for snazzy introductions (except in the context of yoga.)

Today we have the softer sciences (sociology, anthropology and especially psychology) at our disposal and they have an important role in keeping us on the right track.

These have generally been at capital's disposal, but definitely if our intent is in disposing of the demand for communism we should dispense with 'Enlightenment' thinking.

Capital is ‘self-valorising value’ according to Marx.

What you specify following this needn't have much to do with left communism, and would generally get more traction in anarchist or SPGB circles. Left communists tend to be more orthodox to the Marxist tradition, and do not repudiate these things.

In general, anarchists hold individual liberty as a general principle, and hence diverge from certain forms of socialism, while left communists distrust struggles within capitalism on some level - though this is generally unspecified and less certain than in 'impossibilist' terms, etc. - and especially have problems with international struggles, and hence for instance came up when the Bolsheviks tried to navigate the hostile forces surrounding them early on. They were generally pro-Bolshevik on a more fundamental level, but in a sense defined as more a historical tendency than a specific platform. In general, they were actually milder on most such questions - when it comes to domestic affairs - than earlier communists, and hence were in a sense an assimilation of this towards the 'Leninist' or Bernsteinian modes.

Simon Watson

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Simon Watson on June 2, 2016

er...probably....having had a quick read of "post-anarchism" on Wikipedia (for what it's worth) I would say it's pretty similar to what I had in mind. Saying that, I had the broader scope of anarchist socialism in mind. Chomsky argues (convincingly) that anarchism without socialism is nonsensical. However, the argument that classical anarchism yoked to industry (Zerzan), and violence (Ellul) is also a non-starter and will lead it into grim outcomes - or just get stuck in analysis.

Out best critics are probably the regular folk who dislike capitalism, but suffer it as the lesser evil. The public has a collective memory that recalls the horrors of the reformation and medieval Catholicism (the "roots of the enlightenment" if you like) that separated ideology from human kindness and turned primitive Christianity into something coercive. My hunch is they smell the same anti-libertarian spirit at work in classical anarchism that existed in medieval Europe, fascism and statist-communism.

Chilli Sauce

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Chilli Sauce on June 2, 2016

Simon Watson

If you mean state communism and anarchist communism the differences are big - but not always. In practice they give rise to similar behaviour. Both are rooted in enlightenment thinking so we shouldn't be surprised when the common root reveals itself from time to time. It's when we start to resemble the fascists, Maoists, Trotskyites, Stalinists we claim to oppose we should think about where our energy and motivation is coming from. Enlightenment thinking is persuasive because it has its own self-fulfilling logic, but absolutist belief systems, can easily morph into the coercive nightmares that Orwell called "smelly little orthodoxies".

Today we have the softer sciences (sociology, anthropology and especially psychology) at our disposal and they have an important role in keeping us on the right track.

So I can't say I agree with much in your last few posts - when have "we" started to resemble fascists? - but is it possible to separate any of the sciences from the enlightenment?

Also, the long memory going back to the medieval Catholocism? The collective memory barely seems to stretch back to the period of class defeat prior to the 1980s - I'm not sure the reformation or the enlightenment is even a blip on the radar!

Zeronowhere

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Zeronowhere on June 2, 2016

Simon Watson

Out best critics are probably the regular folk who dislike capitalism, but suffer it as the lesser evil. The public has a collective memory that recalls the horrors of the reformation and medieval Catholicism (the "roots of the enlightenment" if you like) that separated ideology from human kindness and turned primitive Christianity into something coercive. My hunch is they smell the same anti-libertarian spirit at work in classical anarchism that existed in medieval Europe, fascism and statist-communism.

In general, that's just another blow for 'human kindness' as an arbiter of anything. It's not just the class system any more - where, agreed, people were usually class-collaborationist in orientation (which orientation might be what you mean by 'out'). You mean that they're apologists for capitalism over communism or anarchism, apparently? That doesn't give them credence over things associated with communism in some form. The impulses leading them away from socialism - within or rather, usually, concerning the socialist movement - do not get much credence from their leading towards capital or being capitalistic. This rather makes just paraphrasing such things suspect.

Wouldn't it be great if we could usually determine socialism by letting people who support capitalism (as a 'lesser of two evils' - as if they consider feudalism an option) do this instead, it's like creating moles where there are none. Acne, although it usually wouldn't lead people to anarchism in the first place. Usually, you'd find that people who support capitalism - and haven't somehow gone from being left communists by default to supporting capitalism due to some 'benign impulse,' which it is clearly not - work within the categories of capital, and consider things from within these categories as well, or they could not support it given what it is compared to socialism and etc., and hence cannot actually comprehend socialism fully let alone 'nit-pick' it. They are not, then, good critics, as a general category, let alone exceptional ones.

Hence, suspiciously, whether or not they believe as well as capitalism being better that - slightly less incredulously - women in ponds distributing swords is a basis for a system of government, they will tend to only be able to deal with or criticise communism in essentially class-collaborationist terms. Of course, an extension of this is that class-collaborationism must imply including these communists within such a harmonious society, or in brief trying to subsume or assimilate this communism to such categories of this society. This meant that they always had a tacit interest in keeping communism monitored by such things, sometimes directly or within the movement, so that it couldn't evolve its own directions. We would generally have done better to have not listened to these or filtered ourselves by every interest in the given society.

Sleeper

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Sleeper on June 2, 2016

Ok so far I realise left communism and left communists are basically authoritarians who realised that the russians - lenin, trotsky and stalin were not going to deliver what they wanted. Do they have a valid criticism of what was done to the anarchists at this time?

Craftwork

5 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Craftwork on June 23, 2018

.

.

Pennoid

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Pennoid on June 3, 2016

Yeah authoritarian is a stretch. Even the bordigists came in for abuse with Lenin. Also does great violence to history, socialism etc. To collapse the problems faced in Russia and the rise of Stalin into 'authoritarianism' pure and simple.

It helps a great deal to see the leftcoms (and lenin) as part of a united movement (2nd international marxism) that ends up splitting. I'm a minority here, but it also helps to understand the debates and arguments within the wings of the second international. The forty or so years of Socialist organization and struggle often get ignored, and the picture we see of spontaneous revolutionary upheaval is a sorely truncated one.

Craftwork

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Craftwork on June 3, 2016

This excellent article by Aufheben examines (Russian, German/Dutch and Italian) left communist thought on the USSR:

http://libcom.org/library/what-was-ussr-aufheben-left-communism-part-3

Miasnikov stood out even more by not supporting the repression of Kronstadt, which he described as an abyss the party had crossed. This willingness to break with the party was crucial because oppositions until then, though reflecting discontent outside the party, had remained wedded to it seeking refuge in organisational fixes that failed conspicuously to deliver.

Alf

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Alf on June 3, 2016

I agree with Pennoid and one or two others who have stressed the marxist roots of left communism, The ICC tries to summarise this continuity in this short article: http://en.internationalism.org/the-communist-left.

Regarding the Russian revolution, which Sleeper seems to be concerned with, I think Rosa Luxemburg's 1918 article sets the tone for the original left communists, including those like Pannekoek who later came to see October 1917 as a bourgeois revolution: solidarity with the revolution and the Bolsheviks, but no hesitation to criticise their errors. (https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/index.htm).

Although Luxemburg doesn't raise the specific question of the bureaucratic measures against the anarchists, she was strongly opposed to the idea of the 'Red Terror' as a means of defending the revolution.

Cooked

7 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Cooked on June 3, 2016

the button

If a post on libcom takes more than three seconds to scroll past, it was written by a left communist. That's how I tell the difference, anyway.

I'd like to point out that the button also inadvertedly shows how you identify an anarchist on libcom by the content and manner of a post.

Recurse this on my post to figure out my inclination :)

PizzaRig

5 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by PizzaRig on June 21, 2018

Invite for my Marxist and Left Communist community on discord
admin: suspect link removed

Reddebrek

5 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Reddebrek on June 21, 2018

Err, no offence but we've had issues with new posters turning up with invites to other sites that are attempts to get information on users before, could you describe your group more and what its about and more about yourself before you do this? especially since those are two different links.

comradeEmma

5 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by comradeEmma on June 21, 2018

I joined it and I'd vouch for it being non-suspect, it's just known people from the leftcom-side of discord. But it's pretty dead so I don't see much of a point really.

Ivysyn

5 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Ivysyn on June 23, 2018

Left Communism is the name for a tenancy of Marxism that emerged after the Russian Revolution which took issue with various Bolshevik policy positions such as working within trade unions, running in elections to government offices, and much earlier on the structure of the Bolshevik government itself. This trend of Marxism was made up of various tenancies and figures. Dutch/German Left Communism and it's eventual transformation into council communism and "councilism" was very similar to Anarcho-syndicalism in that it called for workers' self-management and was against political parties and bureaucratic unions. Italian Left Communism, pioneered by co-founder of the Italian Communist Party, Amadeo Bordiga, was much different. It accepted the Leninist model of the party and defended the Bolshevik state as a dictatorship of the proletariat, or workers' state.

Noah Fence

5 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Noah Fence on June 23, 2018

In my experience it’s pretty easy to spot a leftcom - they will use the term ‘workers councils’ at least once in every other sentence!

Serge Forward

5 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Serge Forward on June 23, 2018

Ivysyn

Left Communism is the name for a tenancy of Marxism that emerged after the Russian Revolution which took issue with various Bolshevik policy positions such as working within trade unions, running in elections to government offices, and much earlier on the structure of the Bolshevik government itself. This trend of Marxism was made up of various tenancies and figures. Dutch/German Left Communism and it's eventual transformation into council communism and "councilism" was very similar to Anarcho-syndicalism in that it called for workers' self-management and was against political parties and bureaucratic unions. Italian Left Communism, pioneered by co-founder of the Italian Communist Party, Amadeo Bordiga, was much different. It accepted the Leninist model of the party and defended the Bolshevik state as a dictatorship of the proletariat, or workers' state.

I'd say that's a pretty decent summary alhough it's worth mentioning that elements from the Italian wing of left communism broke with Bordiga. It'd be good to get a brief summary of the issues there.

Battlescarred

5 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by Battlescarred on June 23, 2018

the button

If a post on libcom takes more than three seconds to scroll past, it was written by a left communist. That's how I tell the difference, anyway.

How do you explain Mike Harman then, Button?

birdtiem

5 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by birdtiem on June 23, 2018

My impression is there's a bit of myth making about some kind of historic "Left Communist" lineage, and that there isn't really any continuity between the "left communists" in the Soviet Union during Lenin's time, the Dutch/German left, and the Italian left. The organizations describing themselves as left communist' today seem to have their origins in the events of 1968 and attempt to synthesize components of pretty different political groupings from the past (mostly Dutch/German and Italian) while presenting themselves as natural heirs to some much older, politically consistent tradition.

comradeEmma

5 years 9 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by comradeEmma on June 23, 2018

I would say that a lot of elements of the post-1968 french communist movement(and the elements influenced by them) have distorted Bordiga specifically a lot. Like making him into a political indiffrentist(through misunderstanding texts like "Activism"), a spontaniest who thinks revolutions are fully spontanues, someone who opposes national liberation and trade unionist work. Most of which was actually things from Damen, or confusing his takes on democracy(which aren't radically different from like marxists at the time) with that of Camatte or Duavé.

Though I think Bordiga started breaking with leninism a lot more in his last years. For example they removed all voting mechanism in the party in the late 60's to maintain the party neclues during a historically unfavorable situation.

Worst I've seen is an untranslated text by "Kämpa Tillsammans!" that wrote an article where they claim to synthesis Lenin and Luxemburg's conception of the party through Camatte and Bordiga...

the button

5 years 8 months ago

In reply to by libcom.org

Submitted by the button on June 25, 2018

Battlescarred

the button

If a post on libcom takes more than three seconds to scroll past, it was written by a left communist. That's how I tell the difference, anyway.

How do you explain Mike Harman then, Button?

Good point. Revised version....

If a post on libcom takes more than three seconds to scroll past, it was written by a left communist, unless the post in question is more than 80% quotes from other posts, in which case it's by Mike Harman.