I haven't "avoided" discussion of practice. For a long time I basically agreed with the positions of the "anti-state communists", which to me means basically the SI-inspired modern incarnation of ultra-leftism. If you agree with those politics in full, as I always did, there is not a lot to say besides repeat ones line over and over again. (See the ICC, although their line is somewhat different.) I figured I'd let others do that, since that was never terribly fun to me.
Now I'm not so sure. I definitely don't think revolutions will occur in the way that most ultra-leftists today (I don't include the ICC in this) imagine it, basically as some kind of spontaneous uprising that gradually becomes uncontrollable. To me, aside from rhetoric, this is almost identical to the position of the "insurrectionary anarchists", which is not a position I'm comfortable with. I think all of the spontaneous uprisings pointed to by the "anti-state communists" basically exhausted all of their potential and it's a mistake to think that somehow what we need is more spontaneous uprisings.
If I had any approach at all I'd say I was something in between council communist and syndicalist. Naturally I don't think that the early 20th century can or will be repeated but I like a lot of what I understand of syndicalism (admittedly much less than I should) and I am in favor of revolutionary unionism. But I generally like the council communist vision of a communist society better than the anarchist-syndicalist one, and I'm much more inclined to Marx than any syndicalist I've ever met (although here on libcom there seem to be a fair number of anarchists who are rather friendly to Marx).
But this is something I'm still thinking through. I guess this can be my "coming out" post, so to speak.
Let me phrase that more clearly. I don't think that revolution will happen in one fell swoop. However, I think that movements towards revolution will not involve the building of the working class within capitalism. As Theorie Communiste says, working class' self-organization as the working class has become a fetter in the working class' movement towards communism. Certainly, any movement towards communism will be a complex and contradictory process, not proceeding linearly at all. You can look at the uprising in Argentina in 2001-2002: those aspects which aimed to self-manage individual enterprises were the lagging end of the movement - when the initial mass uprising subsided, they became reactionary, a way of capital to maintain the economy. So the point isn't that things will happen in one fell swoop but thing will happen in a series of complex upheavals and in these struggles, we will not have a reason to push the self-organization of the working class as a class within capitalist society. Oppositely, the organization of communism can and should begin at the same time as such upheavals (in direct distribution and the best aspects of enterprise "self-management", we can see communism appearing immediately in movements against communism).
This is some of what I mean by immediate change is on the agenda. These are the implications of not or no longer seeing capitalism as a progressive force. Capitalism being in serious upheaval itself certainly will play into the process of potentially revolutionary upheavals appearing.
I'm looking at this in terms of what upheavals have appeared recently as well as the direction that unions and the general development of the working class within capitalism has taken. Capitalism's mechanisms of recuperation have reached such a level that they have taken any gradual, progressive change off the agenda, so total change is all that's left (would imagine something like the historic IWW reappearing in today's America?).
While the details differ, I think that a variety of communist groups approach or approached things this way - from Theorie Communiste to the Situationists to the ICC, ICG and other ultra-left groups as well as some "insurrectionary anarchists". You may disagree but I'm not pulling this approach out of my ass. Just as much, this is more than saying conditions have changed - it is saying that conditions have changed in a rather particular way.
Anyway, how do you see the possibilities of change? I've noticed you avoiding discussion on the subject in the past.
Red