council communism

What is to be done: the wrong question - Roi Ferreiro

A reexamination of the relation between theory and practice after the destruction of the workers movement and a proposal for a new way of looking at the questions of consciousness, reformism, organization, substitutionism, sectarianism, spontaneity, autonomy and theory from the perspective of a new council communist revolutionary movement defined as “the total self-transformation of the revolutionary class by way of struggle”.

What Is To Be Done: The Wrong Question - Roi Ferreiro

When we ask ourselves the question, “What is to be done”, as in the title of the famous book by Lenin, we are posing the wrong question if our goal is to make a real contribution to the development of a revolutionary movement for our time.

1. The Basis of “What Is To Be Done”

Reorientation and perspectives - beyond "class consciousness..." - Group of Council Communists of Galicia

In this 2006 programmatic statement, the Group of Council Communists of Galicia offer their assessment of the continuing validity of the principles of council communism and the world-transformative process that leads to communism by way of the simultaneous transformation of humanity, which they describe as “the first revolution in history in which the new economic conditions also presuppose the full development of the human being as the productive force of his material life”.

Reorientation and Perspectives: Beyond “Class Consciousness. . .”1 - Grupo de Comunistas de Consejos de Galiza

1. Our Overall Historical Perspective

  • 1. Ígneo No. 5, December 2005, “Towards a New Beginning … For Communism, For Anarchy”.

The Self-Liberation of the Proletariat Is the Collapse of Capitalism! – Revolutionary Communists (Grupo de Comunistas de Consejos de Galiza)

A 2004 programmatic statement by a Galician council communist group, which observes that “social change and self-transformation proceed in tandem in real revolutionary practice”—for which purpose certain “useful elements” of “western psychology and the currents of eastern spirituality” can help us confront the challenges of life in capitalism—and “the spiritual transformation of life and the material transformation of life [are] indissolubly linked, as parallel and interacting processes and realities”, but that only “class struggle” enables the proletariat to “become capable of advancing its own self-transformation”, which is presently of an “experimental nature”.

The Self-Liberation of the Proletariat Is the Collapse of Capitalism!1 - Grupo de Comunistas de Consejos de Galiza

  • 1. Ígneo No. 1, Fall 2004, “La autoliberación del proletariado es el derrumbe del capitalismo!!!” [Ígneo, el boletín trimestral de los Comunistas Revolucionários (Grupo de Comunistas de Consejos de Galiza - Estado español)—Translator’s Note.]

International Council Correspondence Vol 1

The first volume of International Council Correspondence (English Edition)

Anarcho-Syndicalist Council Communism

A piece from a socialist humanist comparing both the anarcho-syndicalist politics of Rocker and the council communist politics of Pannekoek.

I began by comparing Pannekoek’s council communism with Rocker’s anarcho-syndicalism in the previous post and in this line shall I further illustrate the convergence between the two tendencies upon the question of parliamentary parties and state power.

Marx’s critique of socialist labor-money schemes and the myth of council communism’s Proudhonism - David Adam

Anton Pannekoek

In this article, David Adam takes aim at Gilles Dauvé's critique of the council communists, which has been influential in the communisation milieu.

Some left theorists have claimed that the council communist tradition actually advocated a self-managed capitalist economy, rather than a truly communist one.

Apocalypse and survival - Francesco Santini

A harrowing intellectual biography and review essay devoted to the life and works of Giorgio Cesarano, interwoven with an account of the Italian “radical current” of 1968-1978, when revolutionary expectations ran high but, for the few consistent revolutionaries caught between the terrorism of the state and the armed groups, the hostility of the Stalinist and crypto-Stalinist political formations, and a ruthless and sweeping repression, the results were often madness, prison, suicide and a wave of disillusionment that devastated the revolutionary milieu.

Apocalypse and survival: Reflections on Giorgio Cesarano's book, Critica dell’utopia capitale, and the experience of the radical communist current in Italy

By Francesco Santini (1994), Spanish translation by Carlos Lagos P. Original text in Italian at: http://www.autprol.org/public/news/apoeriv.htm
English translation from Spanish completed January 2013

Vision and praxis: A manifesto of non-state and non-market socialism - Jim Davis

Two texts which outline the basis of a non-state and non-market socialism. Extremely councilist in its orientation, though it covers issues that the historical councilist theorist would have had little or no interest.

You can purchase a hard copy from author Jim Davis from Lulu.

The road to socialism (a neo-councilist view) - Jim Davis

A 1984 piece about the road to socialism from a neo-councilist point of view by Jim Davis. It includes only a few recent corrections and edits by the author.

Throughout history, we can see the rise and fall of numerous class-based societies. As society advances out of the depths of hunter-gather communalism to the present system of neo-liberal & crony capitalism, social forces within society continually change.

All power to the councils!: A documentary history of the German revolution of 1918–1919

Submitted by working class s... on Dec 24 2012 22:07

This definitive documentary history collects manifestos, speeches, articles, and letters from the German Revolution—Rosa Luxemburg, the Revolutionary Stewards, and Gustav Landauer amongst others—introduced and annotated by the editor. Many documents, such as the anarchist Erich Mühsam's comprehensive account of the Bavarian Council Republic, are presented here in English for the first time. The volume also includes materials from the Red Ruhr Army that repelled the reactionary Kapp Putsch in 1920 and the communist bandits that roamed Eastern Germany until 1921.

The German Revolution erupted out of the ashes of World War I, triggered by mutinying sailors refusing to be sacrificed in the final carnage of the war.