Primitivism and Left Communism

Primitivism seems to represent a loss in confidence in the working class to destroy capitalism and an abandonment of the idea that human society can progress.

There's no particular reason why Left Communists should be immune to this - comrades can become demoralised, impatient, disgusted with the failure of humanity to live up to its potential.

As for the point about academic Marxism, this is different to "Marxists that talk rubbish". Marx himself talked rubbish from time to time, such as giving credence to the idea of democratic transformation of capitalism in Britain. I don't find myself in total agreement with Trotsky, Lenin or Bordiga for that matter.

But academic marxists are a different animal. It's no accident that everyones favourites, Gramsci and Althusser were both rabid Stalinists. Gramsci in particular represented the most conservative wing of the PCI and participated greatly in providing the ideological justification for "Bolshevisation". His theory of hegemony is basically the theoretical cover for the united front. Marcuse was said to have advised the CIA's "Soviet Studies" group. Adorno theorised the defeat of the working class and the victory of liberal capitalism over Stalinism and quickly became a target for student protests after 1968.

These academic marxists are thus far from "harmless". On the one hand, their incorporation into the academic establishment represents a bourgeois attempt to understand the working class. To some extent, in the West, support for academic Trotskyism and pseudo-Trotskyism was an effort to undermine Stalinist ideology. Secondly, like leftism in general, they provide an ideological firebreak for capitalism. When elements begin looking for alternatives to bourgeois ideology, many turn instinctively to marxism and find waiting for them a whole plethora of fascinating theoreticians waiting for them. But academicism reduces marxism to an inoffensive "cultural studies", with no revolutionary content whatsoever.

Marxism, although it employs a scientific method is first and foremost an instrument of class war, the development of proletarian class consciousness. It seeks to understand capitalism not for its own sake but to overturn it, destroy it, transform it. In this sense, Marxism moves beyond science. Marx's Capital, for example, is not simply a study of capitalism, it's an attack, a denunciation, a call to arms. Marxism's effort to understand reality must always be understood in this light.

Agree with this distinction. Academic marxism is a contradiction in terms. That doesn't mean that everything that academics who apply the marxist method in their field of studies is without any worth, but neither does it place them inside the proletarian movement. The key problem is seeing Marx or other marxists as one 'thinker' among others rather than seeing his work as a product of the proletariat.
I agree that we have to be highly critical of Gramsci and above all of the intellectuals' cult that has grown up around him, but wouldn't define him as a rabid Stalinist. The Italian left in the 30s still saw him as a kind of lost comrade and if my memory serves me well paid their respects to him in an article in Bilan when he died in 37.
The Frankfurt school had already largely lost any connection with the proletariat when it started up, although as comrades have said some of their work, espceially in the 'cultural' sphere, is of interest - I would include Marcuse in that (eg earlier writings on Hegel and Freud, rather than the stuff he became famous for in the 60s). Althusser on the other hand...I must confess I have never tried to read him but everything I know about him seems entirely repugnant, from his 'philosophical' interpretation of marxism to his actual Stalinist politics. Proof that even the intellectuals are subject to the 'advance' of decadence?

Forgot about these primmy threads.
These are some comments I wrote over the summer,may be relevant, I'm afraid I've not time at the mo to read the whole thread: http://legalsmeagol.blogspot.com/2006/10/why-class-struggle-ecologism-first-off.html

http://legalsmeagol.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_legalsmeagol_archive.html

Comments on Primitivism (and Anarchism) 1.

Obviously Primitivism is a controversial subject. Is it Anarchism? I would first say that I do not consider myself to be a Primitivist, although, like Marxism, it is a view of the world and society that should be considered, whether as Anarchism or not.

I happen to believe that there is no single "Anarchism". Anarchism is the natural will of the masses at any time towards solidarity and against heirarchy. Intellectual Anarchists can of course analyse this natural urge and use arguments to justify it, but for one individual to define Anarchism is itself authoritarian, as would be a "Union of Anarchists" who's express purpose is to define and perpetuate it's own brand of Anarchism (but that's an argument for another day)

In a sense, Primitivism is a logical offshoot of Communitarian Individualism. Primitivists obviously believe advanced technology, while advancing mankind materially, has left him, both individually and collectively, emotionally and spiritually dead. Historically, it could be stated that history is on their side. Civilisations always end, and the modern liberal democracies are not even 150 years old, compared to, say, the Roman Republic, but human society always moves on, and in the case of the Mayan civilisation survive, arguably to this day, by reverting to a less advanced state.

Primitivism is also consistent, mainly because it is the only "economic" system that could exist, with Individualist Anarchism

Remember folks Anarchoneilist can be seen live in the flesh at your local library, he's the one carrying a blue carrier bag and muttering into his coat.

AUTHOWITAWIAN!!11!!1!

"natural"?

I think he meant to write that it the feces font.

Beltov: No, I don't think that the working class is a "revolutionary subject", since I do not believe in any revolutionary subject. And it's certainly true that working class identity has become rather impossible, unity of the proletariat is only possible in communisation, ie. in its self-destruction, thus making this entire postulation quite problematic. Théorie Communiste has put forth a good theory of this restructuration of the relation between proletariat and capital. Class unity has become impossible on everyday demands, because class identity has become a phenomenon on the margins (ie. in the leftist sects).

catch: No, I'm not a Leninist!? Where did you get that? I read Lenin without anarchoid dogmatic glasses, but I read Bonanno too (and the people who propone my POV in Sweden are almost exclusively people influenced by Bonanno in some way or another, even if Bonanno IMO does not escape the ultra-left/leninist problematic either).

Lazy Riser: Oh, so you think that the revolution will be all fun and no pain? That sounds nice and fine for a utopist, but not for a serious communist.

Joseph K: Immediate does not mean "over night", it means that the revolution does not precede communisation (ie. "production of communism" [even if the concept of "communism" is quite impossible in the current epoque, we can only talk about communisation]). It means that the means for destroying capitalism is production of communism and that these processes are impossible to separate, ie. we can not gradually "take over" society in order to later constitute "the new", but we must understand revolution as the immediate destruction of society qua constitution of communism (which could take a while, from years to generations, who knows?).

-------

General: Marxism is a problematic term, and the "treachery" and "plots" that revol68 put forward seem even more problematic, since they do not seek the material basis for this "treachery" and these "plots" of "distortion". As TC wrote in their piece on Normative history as a polemic with Dauvé:

I know you have difficulty responding to my points in anything other than sketched abstract notes from a Theorie Communiste lecture but I didn't realise you actually couldn't follow my posts.

I was arguing against seeing Marxism as some faith that had to be protected against "treachery" and "plots".

So how about dealing with the questions I raised?

but surely if 'immediate' actually means 'over the course of generations' then it's just being used for rhetorical effect to reject reformism?

And this has what to do with primitivism?

Actually it does have a lot to do: i.e the end times are inevitable. Doesn't mean the positions are the same. May as well have a debate about fundamentalist christians.

would you ever just fuck off?!

You never actually engage in any half way intelligent discussion, your just the random drunk homeless guy who appears out of nowhere, mumbles something and fucks off, leaving everyone else a bit baffled and disconcerted.

Are you a rejected David Lynch creation whose left to stalk the information highway?

flaming revol ...

Sorry I didn't mean you're a "Leninist" in the normally understood sense of the term, but I remember you (or someone else from Riff Raff), saying something about Lenin being right at the time and that you considered yourself to be a "Leninist" in that he was only wrong post-facto. Maybe my memory is playing me up.

Revol68

Marcuse; maybe better than both but probably not, Adorno; only better than Kautsky I would say.

Why? If you think that everyone who called themselves "marxists" were actually marxists, the same thing would apply to anarchism, and it would give us the equation which goes like this:

anarchism = elitism (bakunin) + nationalism (bakunin) + anti-semitism (bakunin) + sexism (proudhon) + trade unionism (anarcho-sydicalists) + support for national liberation (wayne price)

It doesn't seem that good, really.

Nothing should be zealously protected.

Catch,

so far...

Obviously! Was Newton the source of physics when his method was the most developed form of physics?

No, I take the method as the highest point so far.

Ernie

=) Yes, I would agree!

Marut

So I have noticed.

Wait a second please, I am trying to think how many times I heard this term from Stalinists.

EdmontonWobbly,

No

No!

Alf,

Yes!

catch: It's hard to say if Lenin was "wrong" or not. This is part of the problem with this kind of rhetoric, the division in "right"/"wrong", "deceipt"/"belief" and so on and so forth. Lenin embodied the revolution as it was produced at that time (and carrying the counter-revolution in its womb). That is one of the great points of TC IMO, that the counter-revolution is intertwined with the revolution in a mutually binding manner, the revolution comes bearing the counter-revolution.

That is also why explanations such as "recuperation" etc. are really not explanations. Recuperation is not the explanation, but recuperation is what must be explained.

Maybe it's my memory that's playing tricks on me, but I can't remember stating that I am a Leninist. Maybe I've said that I think communist theory can not escape the theories or practice of Lenin. The post-facto judgement of Lenin is probably the biggest problem of many good commies, since it does not aim to explain Lenin, but rather to judge him.

Primitivism is just inverted Marxism. Engels argued that organisation and technology required authority, and went for the latter. Primitivists agree, but get rid of the former...

For all its "revolutionary" talk, it is just incoherent nonsense. It has no revolutionary perspective at all, no idea on how to get from here to there. For a critique, see section A.3.9 of "An Anarchist FAQ":

http://anarchism.ws/faq/secA3.html#seca39

It is a shame that some comrades take it seriously.

So if the working class isn't the revolutionary subject - and you don't believe in ANY revolutionary subject, then how the heck is a revolution going to be possible? Who is going to make the revolution? Do you even think a revolution is necessary?

Class unity is NOT impossible on 'everyday' demands - in fact quite the opposite! Take the anti-CPE protests in France in Spring 2006 for example, where the students and workers were uniting behind attacks on the working conditions of the younger generations of proletarians. Do you think they were wrong to oppose these attacks? Were they comlicit in 'reforming' their own slavery?

The search for class solidarity - indeed, for 'class identity' - is one of the key themes of many struggles that have developed over recent years: London Heathrow, NY Transit, anti-CPE, Vigo in Spain, and the Belfast postal workers. The list is added to every few months...

In fact, this lack of confidence in the working class as a revolutionary class seems rooted in the counter-revolutionary epoch of 1927-68 where the proletariat had supposedly been bought out and western capitalism was victorious. It seems increasingly at odds with the period since '68 where capitalism is obviously in dire straits and the working class has remained undefeated. It is THE class that still bears within its struggles the only positive perspective for the future.

Is class identity important?

B.

Not sure what point you're trying to make here, or if you have one. But OK, note this - let me teach you something about your own chosen heritage - the following from Wikipedia describes pretty much my understanding of some varying uses of the term 'ultra-left'. From an international perspective, it can't, as you seem to imply, be narrowly associated only with Stalinists, even if that may be the case in your region.

Adorno is a better philosopher than Lenin, imho. Then-again, I have not read much of either.

When arguinmg with obscure lefist "sects" on the meaning of 'communism', do not refer them to wiki

lem, I'm not arguing about the meaning of communism or anything else - I'm attempting to illustrate the wider usage of the term 'ultra-left'. Wikipedia happened to be convenient for that - what's the problem?

Meh. I just wanted to stick my tongue out at someone.

That's what I thought - I'm flattered to be worthy of your targetting.

Hi

Absolutely. Imagine him bringing his divine work down from the mountain like Moses. You shall respect the iron laws of value! Only they can save us from the oncoming deluge.

Maybe. It certainly explains why serious communists are always hopeless losers for whom “nice and fine” will forever remain a distant fantasy.

Marxism inverted twice more like.

And amid this destruction, the brush with barbarism that will reveal humanity’s final choice: salvation within communism or a primal war of all against all. This saddle point twixt Primitivism and “Left Communism” is jointly theoretically flawed, inevitablist and more interesting as a petit-bourgeois cultural curiosity than as a viable political theory fit for further analysis.

Love

LR

it's hardly difficult to understand revolution
the revolution is here, the ethic is what is important
current issues prevent this ethic, but one must work within the system to destroy it. the rev is here, otherwise it will never come, why wait for an impending event, we must fight for happiness even while we are still happy. whether the revolution revolves around a primitivist ideal or nay, it is important the rev is a front of the unified left. primitivism need not be the reaction to the reactionary modernization the right influences through capital. perhaps it is the fragmenting of the left which deters the ethic?

Good one.

are you being sarcastic? cos I was politely overlooking his bizarre post.

Well revol, I'm pretty sure he was making fun of academic Marxism.

I've never read any academic marxism like that, i've read some shite stuff but it's normally somewhat cogent.