Left Communism and Bolshevism

I'd call Bolshevism the tendency toward, or in this day and age just the fantasy of, the seizure of the state by a "revolutionary" political party in the name of the working class.

There is a fundamental opposition between that and the council communist idea that the state is the enemy of the working class, and that the form of power appropriate for the workers is the directly democratic form that was the workers' councils.

"Left-communism" seems to describe those who were disillusioned with Bolshevism, but not disillusioned enough, and who basically couldn't quite make their mind up which side of the above disjunction they were on.

( In practice they would have been useless against the undiluted Bolsheviks, who had no qualms on this question, and who of course were quite happy to seize power in the name of the workers councils if that made everyone feel better.)

I think your post shows this lack of a clear break with Bolshevism. You say you reject "parliamentarianism, and Social democracy" - but you don't say you reject the state. So bourgeois democracy is to be ruled out but a one party state is not.

You say that your position is basically the same as the KAPD. I don't know very much about the KAPD but I understand they were council communists, whereas you are not. I think that is why you "don't like the term", not because of reservations about mere "echoes of anti-organisationalism".

The KAPD was in favour of a centralised political party. They also stood for the power of the workers councils. Council communism was a later development, which rejected the party form.

Alf is right on the KAPD. Also I never said at any point that I believed that the state could be seized by a 'revolutionary' party in the name of the working class.

I think that either you have misread me, or that I failed to explain myself clearly enough.

Devrim

Are you saying they believed in some kind of dual power arrangement?

Were they still that gullible?

Obviously they believed in political parties, because they were one.

But did they think the political party should seize state power?

My point was precisely that you hadn't ruled it out.

I think I was quite clear about that.

I see you still haven't got round to ruling it out.

I don't think that the state can be seized by a political party, however revolutionary it claims to be, on behalf of the working class.

I don't understand what this is a reference to.

Devrim

Well why didn't you say so! "Bolshevik" indeed!

Alf's disingenuous "The KAPD was in favour of a centralised political party. They also stood for the power of the workers councils. "

Er...nobody asked me . I never claimed to be.

I don't think that this is disingenuous. I think that it is possible to have a centralised party which stands for the power of the councils.

Actually, I can't really see what the argument about federal, and centralised political organisation is all about. I think that often it is a load of wind over semantics.

Dev

Agree with Dev there. When we strive for theoretical unity, common understanding and activity, but place a strong emphasis on local autonomy - we call that federalism. Wildcat used to call it centralism. But it was pretty much the same thing.

Absolutely - it's just not what I was implying.

It's a matter of simple observation to proove that there's differing levels of 'consciousness' in the working-class, that our ideas, the most subversive and challenging to the totality of our system, are the most side-lined (and unknown). I've tried to think about these things, I'm not so sure that most people ever do, but because I have an idea of the importance of class struggle in changing society for the better does, in no way, means I'm priviledged to any 'higher wisdom' as regards the application of class struggle in everyday life -other than encouraging other people to challenge things for themselves. Obviously, these ideas make sense only in relation to the working lives we lead and I think there, alone, is where they'll spread. [All pretty basic stuff.] What I think you misunderstand is that what I'm saying is in somehow expecting the class as a whole to be radicalised all at once, whereas, I'm coming from a position of dualist organisation from within the working class, which IMO is more suited to a progressive libertarian approach.

The concept of the 'political party', and I'm quite sure you differ in what you mean by that (maybe you should explain?), is from my experience a complete abstraction, and alienated form of the radical current inside the working class (always more influenced by bourgeois ideology than the working-class' more spontaneous structures) and in attempting to influence struggles other than where they themselves exist they proove only to be a constraint and retarded block against what the working class' 'free chaos' can create. It cannot be streamlined into a nice, advanced, front that challenges the status quo, in place of everyone else. Some of these cricitism are perhaps not relevant to what you mean by a party, but I think so...

I'd also never say, well no I know perfectly well, Lenin's preconceptions of the soviet system, his confronting of this force that he had nothing to do with, was almost as retarded as what he thought the 'party' was, the 'state' and how they related to the working class. I don't believe 'his' (and we're talking about the Bolsheviks as a whole) first limited tolerance for the soviet system was ever a genuinely radical break from what they did once they had a position of power.

Could you explain in what way an unelected party managing production, distrubutrion, and militrary strategy, is not siezure of the state? I am unsure how this can be less important to libertarians than calling oneself a vanguard!

Thanks

I don't see where I advocated any of this .

Devrim

Where did he say that? You interpret things in a very... unique way, lem

edit - devrim got there first i see

Erm, OK, sorry. Anyone else who DOES, could they reply? I do apologise, I thought you were a Bordigist of some description..

If that's the definition, then I don't think any Trotskyist group (socialist party, SWP, workers power, AWL etc) are Bolsheviks.

Only because they claim they don't want their party to do so, what they want is a new "mass party of the working class" to do so, though of course they want their tiny party to have control of it. This is why the left "alliance" parties fall apart.

It is possible, at least in theory.

But the characteristic that I had said distinguished Bolshevism was that the party wanted to take control of the state. It was this that Alf's reply was muddying the waters around.

I agree - the "centralised" is irrelevant to my point, and simply confuses it. That's why Alf introduced it. I never used the term.

(If your interested, Alf wanted to confuse the opposition between hierarchical power and democratic power with an opposition between centralised power and local power.)

I don't know what this is running into.

Knightrose wrote that:

I am prepared to defend my views, and the ICC are certainly able to defend theirs. I object to being dumped in with them at every point. I would just like to repeat again that I am not or never have been either a member or sympathiser of the ICC. However, I do share some positions with them. Is this a crime?

I would like to draw attention to what happened about our Mayday leaflet. We asked pubically if people would be interested in helping us, and the ICC responded first. Some other people from Libcom alsoı responded. The ICC whilst not agreeing with it 100%, distributed it to Turkish workers in London on our behalf, as did some people from Libcom. They (the ICC) produced a version with the original Turkish, and a translation into English on it. Yes, it said that it was being distributed by the ICC on it, but they also produced a version without any mention of the ICC for people who supported our positions to act in solidarity with us, and distribute our leaflet to Turkish workers in London without being associated with the ICC.

Is this sectarian nonsense, or is this an attempt, however small, to start to build international solidarity?

Devrim Valerian

Cardinal tourettes, reading your arguments has been like watching the pot call the oven mitt black.

At no point have you at all even been remotely in the realm of dealing with other peoples arguments. Instead, you have only written obscure, obstructive, and obtuse statements which have only muddied the waters of the discussion - and then you accuse other people of "muddying the waters around" while you were the only one to have done it.

Devrim asked for somebody to tell him what they meant by Bolshevism.

I did.

Far from being "obscure, obstructive and obtuse", I think I was pretty clear about it. And about what I think distinguishes it from council communism, and how I think left-communism occupies an ambiguous position in between.

I can't remember if anyone else offered their own definition. At any rate no-one (except possibly Mattkid12) has said they disagree with mine.

Do you disagree with it?

Or if you are seriously going to maintain that you found it too obscure, obstructive and obtuse to agree or disagree with, feel free, this time, to actually say what you find unclear about it.

I think he was referring to you calling Alf "disingenuous". All Alf did was point out what the KAPD's position was (i.e. support for a centralized party and for workers councils).

You can dispute that the KAPD held those positions, and you can argue that the positions are contradictory (and if you did I'd agree with you), but accusing Alf of being disingenuous when he didn't express any viewpoint on the KAPD's position seems, to me, to be unwarranted.

to further muddy the waters, i believe Bolsheviks don't actually want the party to seize the state. When i mention this to Cliffite Trotskyist friends, they get really upset. They claim what they want is not to seize the power of the old state, but to establish a new state, a "radically democratic" workers' state. trifling semantics maybe, but it maybe an important difference. And further, they claim the workers' state is to be composed of supposedly "radically democratic" workers' councils. (sorry if someone has pointed this out already, i haven't been following this thread).

if true, does that mean that the difference between left communism and this brand of Trotskyism is only semantics, i ask, tongue in cheek. I mean, some left commies are into a "centralised party which stands for the power of the councils", but then the Trots i know are too (and their belief in workers' councils is fairly genuine too).

btw, just in case anybody assumes i am, i am not, and never have been, a Leninist/Bolshevik sympathesiser, supporter or member.

I completely agree with the above. I think 'left-communists' have this image of Trotskyists advocating what many leading Bolsheviks (LEnin) wanted in 1917 - one party power. Most Trotskyists I have come across do not want this, they simply want to help establish a council democracy.

But don't they also want the party elected to all the powerful positions within that council democracy?

What I'm more interested Matt is that you've only referred to bolsheviks and trotskyists as 'they' on this thread, suggesting you might have decided you're something else by now. If that's the case I'd be interested to see where you're at.

Hi everyone

It good to have the forums back.

On Mattkidd's point about the trotskyists he knows, saying they are for council democracy and are not for the party taking power. Well yes, many trotskyists certain believe that is what they are struggling for and this is the precisely the power of the Left of capital, especially groups like the SWP. They can appear to be defending such idea. However, the reason that the Communist left say that they are part of capital is not because they talk about the party taking power, or that they defend the councils or not -if I remember the SWP positions say they want a council based republic or something along those lines- but rather the function they carry out for capital.

First and foremost their defence of nationalism be it in the name of defending democracy against fascism, 'critical' support of national liberation, the calling for workers to take sides in war -as a poster pointed out from h/her experience of the SWP and the first gulf war-. The trots have been the radical cheer leaders for all of the stalinist national liberation struggles since WW2.

Then there is there defence of state capitalism; nationalisation, state sector better than private, the idea of degenerated workers' state.

There defence of the unions and organisation of 'radical' rank and file unionism.

Their 'critical' call on workers to vote, be it with illusions or not.

All of these positions need to be dressed up in pretty radical garb in order to be able to sell them. Some of them are much more sophisticated about this than others. The SWP will spin pages and pages of words about the councils etc in order to make their defence of capital look 'radical'. Whereas the Sparts don't hid their support for stalinism.

I have personal experience of the slippery nature of the SWP. When I became interested in organised political activity I attended an SWP meeting -I cannot remember the title-, at the time I was also beginning to read the ICC's publications. At the meeting a comrade of the ICC was present and intervened to show the real nature of the SWP. I did not fully understand the ICC's positions at the time but the response of the SWP which was very hostile, this appalled me and I said so. I also said whilst I did not fully support the ICC's analysis of the SWP I did support the ICC's rejection of the IRA. At the end of the meeting, one of the visiting speakers made a b-line for me, bought me a beer and commenced to tell me how open the SWP was, that there were those in the SWP who agreed with some Left Communist ideas and that there were some, like him, who also did not agree with the line on the IRA.

I am sure they would have let me militate within the SWP even with my confused understanding of Left communism, in fact they asked me to join. This was a very clever move, because it would reinforce their image of being open etc. Obviously, I would have found it impossible to militate in the SWP once I got to understand its way of working or I would have been sucked into the machine.

The point is that the SWP role of capital is to precisely take those who are interested in militating and communist politics and to suck them into the grinder. They can only do this if they have militants who genuinely believe they are struggling for Socialism etc. You see this all the time when you discuss with their young or new militants, or those of other leftist groups, they are convinced that they are in proletarian organisation.

Sorry everyone but I cannot work out how to get rid of the first message, the second has been corrected.

Isn't it though? Obviously it is not the solution - workers just get new bosses. But i'd say the majority of people in this country regard nationalisation (of things like the railways) a good thing, as it means that money could be reinvested in things like schools and hospitals.

They ask everyone and anyone to join!

What matters isn't the state of nationalization or privatization but the power of the workers in the industry against their bosses, and their standards of living. The privatizations in eastern europe have certainly been used to attack the workers, but the nationalizations at the end of the 40s attacked them just as much.

Hi

As did the 'nationalisations' in the West. It should not be forgotten that the Left and Right wings of the ruling class all supported nationalisation/. Even as late as the 1970's the Ted Heath government nationalised parts of the car industry.

As for the privitisations lessening the control of industry by the state, this is a myth, the state may have a more hands off approach but it still seeks to exert as much control as possible over the whole economy. Privitisations, were the means of implementing massive attacks on the working class, that the nationalised industries would have had to carry out, but without the myth of nationalisation being called into question.

Mattkidd 12, yes millions do think that state control is better, but that only shows the power of this ideology. Do you really think that exploitation by the state is better than that by a private boss: i.e., state capitalism is better than 'private'?

I think this is all a little too easy.

If you were to follow this logic to its extreme you'd be telling us it was nonsense that the fact that a state enterprise can run at a loss for as long as is politically acceptable and has no contractual obligation to make a profit at all social cost means things might be better for state employees. [which is of course generally the experience of lots of workers by the way - state employment = better than private employment]

It just seems a crude and mechanistic analysis of the way the ruling class exerts power. Just because at one point the left and the right of capital united around social democracy in a given time period doesn't mean it is exactly the same as what is now the ruling class consensus - that's daft logic.

So DU were the Sparts right to campaign in East Germany against re-unification?

Were workers and peasants in China better off under Mao than now?

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