Left Communism & Its Ideology Now Online

can i post that to the library, with appropriate credits? then i can read as i edit. my favourite way...

Steven.

can i post that to the library, with appropriate credits? then i can read as i edit. my favourite way...

The way of the editor geek... :kropotkin: ;)

Nice one george...

Just quickly scanned this and only spotted a typo in the "strapline" - "forgoteen" not "forgotten". (You'll be making me think of my exes... :P )

Good the way you countered the sloppy research claim... :rb:

Love

LW XX

Oisin Mac Giollamoir

While the Italian Left insisted on the communist program that was to be realised by the party for the working class, the Dutch-German Left insisted that the class did not need a party or program; indeed they would be obstacles to the working class realising communism.

In the Italian Left we find the communist program separated from the working class. In the Dutch-German Left we find the exact same. The difference is that the Italian Left insists on defending the communist program from impurity while the German Left insists on defending the working class.

I think that I will come back to this later, but I would just like to comment on this point which seems to be the mainstay of the conclusion. The comments on the Dutch-German left suggest that they believed that the working class needed neither a party nor a programme. However, if you google 'Programme of the KAPD', you get Programme of the Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD) May 1920. This sort of suggests that the Dutch-German left did actually believe that the working class needed both a party, and a programme.

What the writer does is draws on sources written in the 1930s after the revolutionary wave had passed, and some of the more 'anarchistic' members of the German left to put across the idea that there was no programme.

I am not sure if this is intellectual dishonest, or simply poor research. It does seem a bit of a weak thing to base the conclusion of the article on though.

Yes, there was immense confusion in the thirties throughout the workers' movement. When looking at the rest of the class political forces even with its mistakes the German left seems clear on the basic questions.

Devrim

thanks GS, it's here:
http://libcom.org/library/left-communism-its-ideology

georgestapleton

Cool cheers.

Did you read it?

Did you like it?

Do you love me?

Never known you to be this excited! Who said commies were staid? :p

On a purely factual level, the following is problematic.

Oisin Mac Giollamoir wrote:

At the turn of the year the KPD (German Communist Party) was founded. On the basis of their recent experiences, the majority of workers in the KPD developed a revolutionary critique of parliamentary activism and raised the slogan ‘All Power to the Workers’ Councils’. However, the leaders of the party, including Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, opposed this on the basis that it was anarchist(12).

Luxemburg raised the slogan ‘All Power to the Workers’ Councils’ and supported parliamentary activity. The above makes it seem like Luxemburg opposed this slogan, which is not the case. Both Luxemburg and the German Left understood this slogan as opposed to any idea of party dictatorship, differentiating them from Lenin, Trotsky, and Bordiga. This is why the Dutch/German Left sees its heritage in Luxemburg, despite the fact that the German Left was disagreeing with Luxemburg at the founding congress of the KPD, where her stance on the elections was criticized by Ruhle.

Also, I do not think Dauve was ever a Bordigist. What did you base this on?

dave c

Also, I do not think Dauve was ever a Bordigist. What did you base this on?

You don't think so? This was always my impression for some reason, but I don't think it is based on anything he explicitly said but rather the emphasis on criticizing democracy in his early writings. A lot of his formulations sounded very Bordigist to me.

Do you think it'd be fair to say that he was closer to Bordigism back in his early writings than he is now?

this brillantist and sexist anarchist bit on the head. It sounds awful!

I havent managed to read any of red and black yet, i got a copy for free but the title journal put me off right away.

On Dauve's Bordigism, I would say that the difference in perspective between his earlier and later stuff is minimal. His critique of the ultra-left (http://www.geocities.com/~johngray/eclips4.htm), for example, is an early example of his use of Bordiga. But he uses Bordiga in an argument that rejects Leninism. I think this places him outside of Bordigism. This is how he introduced the text:

The following text is a modified version of a mimeographed text written by a small group of French revolutionaries who had been under the influence of the ultra-left movement and now think it necessary to discuss the fundamental theses of the ultra-left. The original text was submitted to a national convention organised by the French group l.C.O. ( Informations Correspondance Ouvrieres ), held in Paris in June, 1969.

So it seems like he was "under the influence of the ultra-left movement [council communism]" originally, and later incorporated ideas of the Italian Left without identifying as a Bordigist. The Bordigist formulations are there, but his use of the "party" concept, for example, is largely polemical. So I am not sure that he was essentially closer to Bordigism or if it simply sounds that way at times because of his polemical aims. He makes essentially the same critique of the ICO as the SI did, but couches it in different terms. So we see the influence of the traditional Dutch/German Left, the Italian Left, and the SI together. In his 1983 text "The Story of Our Origins" (http://us.geocities.com/jongra1/rome.htm#toc), explaining his theoretical heritage, there are sections on The German Left, the Italian Left, and the SI. One of his most recent writings (2007) (http://troploin0.free.fr/biblio/about/about.pdf), emphasizes the same influences: "In a nutshell, the German Left helped to see the form of the revolution, the Italian Left its content, and the SI the process that is the only way of obtaining that content."

dave c

So it seems like he was "under the influence of the ultra-left movement [council communism]" originally, and later incorporated ideas of the Italian Left without identifying as a Bordigist.

Okay, cool. For some reason I was under the opposite impression. (I.e. that he was first a Bordigist and later influenced by council communism.)

Dauve was influenced by Bordiga's critique of democracy whilst rejecting his fetish of the party form - he's also influenced by councilism's theory of self-organisation but rejects their fetish of the council form as guarantor of communist realisation (another aspect of the critique of democracy). I think he sees organisation as a manifestation of the 'historic party' - as the form that struggle necessarily takes - rather than any official formal party or org. At least that's what I remember from a drunken conversation with him 20 yrs ago at a (social) party.

dave c

Also, I do not think Dauve was ever a Bordigist. What did you base this on?

I think he was actually. I think he was in the PCInt though I am not sure.

Devrim

georgestapleton

Hmmm. You might have a point here. I know what you're saying, agree with it and wasn't trying to be intellectually dishonest.

I tried to explain the german-dutch left and how they developed. I'd have liked to go into its development in more detail but the article runs at near 6000 words so I had to be brief.

Yes, I can see what you are saying. I think in general what you have written was well researched, and accurate. I think that the conclusion was very weak though in that it looks at the communist left in the 1930s, and says these are its faults. The point is that you look at these currents at the worst point of the counter revolution, and then pronounce their weaknesses. Weaknesses that were a lot less pronounced when they were stronger organisations with stronger connections to the working class.

georgestapleton

So in the conclusion I am talking about the dutch-german left as I, kind of, define it. Well not define it but of people who identify with the dutch-german left qua dutch-german left such as Mattick, and the people at the kurasje archive and pretty much all the people I've met who call themselves counicl communists would idenitify with the AAUD-E split from the AAUD, if they know about it.

I also don't think this is an unfair thing to do. I also quote Dauve who wrote:
Quote:

“Although both were attacked in Lenin's ‘Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder’, Pannekoek regarded Bordiga as a weird brand of Leninist, and Bordiga viewed Pannekoek as a distasteful mixture of marxism and anarcho-syndicalism. In fact, neither took any real interest in the other, and the "German" and "Italian" communist lefts largely ignored each other.”

Although since the late 60s early 70s there has been a tendency for people to find inspiration from both the italian left and the dutch-german left, as far as I know, before that there was a mutual antagonism. With people on the german-dutch left identifying with the AAUD-E tendency and rejecting the belief that the working class needed both a party, and a programme.

I suppose to some degree this tendency can be extended up to today with the people around prol-position, kolinko, echanges, collective action notes etc.

Left communism is quite a vague term in some ways. Originally it didn't describe a coherent set of ideas, but a rejection of another set of ideas. I think that you can classify what it became as three distinct currents, the 'council communists', the 'Bordigists', and the 'left communists*'. To a certain extent that is how these people describe themselves, so I think they are terms that we can stick with. In my opinion your criticisms have a much more valid base when discussing 'council communism', or 'Bordigism'. It does omit to mention though that similar criticisms have been raised by the 'left communists', who I think are the largest, and most organised of the three tendencies.

Devrim

* What you describe as 'since the late 60s early 70s there has been a tendency for people to find inspiration from both the italian left and the dutch-german left' although I think that the current actually emerged in the 1930s.

Interesting discussion. Agree with Devrim about the need for those who claim that the KAPD was against the party to read their program
The article seems to be predisposed towards stressing the role of the Duch/German Left, and down playing that of the Italian Left. Why does the analysis not address the question of the role of the Italian Left Fraction in the work of the international communist left in the 1930's or the theoretical depth of the work of the Fraction? In the depth of the worst counter-revolution the Italian Left was able to act as a crucible of theoretical development, for example its denunciation of the Spanish Civil War as an imperialist war. On a superficial level it may not appear as 'radical' as the Dutch/German left but at the theoretical and organisational level it has provide the working class with much of real depth. This does not mean that the German and Dutch Left did not contribute to the development of the working class's theoretical and organisational arsenal. The ICC thinks that it is essential to make a synthesis of the contributions and experience of both current.
The article also does not deal with the Internationalist Stand that both currents took against the Second imperialist bloodbath. Nor does it deal with the way in which they sort to develop their activity and contacts during this terrible slaughter. For example the Marx, Lenin Luxemburg league in Holland that became the Spatacusbund reground several hundred militants and emerged from the war initially with a position on the organisation question that went beyond the rejection of the need for a political organisation of the working class.
There is also no analysis of the emergence of Left Commuinist current in other areas for example: Russia, Mexico, Britain and in the US.
There is no real reason why this article should be so limited in its analysis of the Communist Left, there is much material on the history of the Communist Left by the present groups of the Communist Left.
If comrades want a more in-depth analysis of the Communist Left they could consult our books on the Italian, German.Dutch, Russian and British Left communists, which are avialable from our website: en.internationalism.org or Amazon. I know this is a shameless plug, but they are the only books available that give an in-depth political and historical analysis of the International Communist Left.
One last point, the Communist Left is not some historical curiosity but a living, growing and dynamic expression of the proletariat's political struggle to liberate itself from capitalism.

One last point, the Communist Left is not some historical curiosity but a living, growing and dynamic expression of the proletariat's political struggle to liberate itself from capitalism.

I think the reason behind this is Dauve. You can see his infliuence on the discourse in each sentence. If you check the bibliography that can also be seen how the writer read the history of communist left.

But I am not questioning the intention of the writer here. It is obvious that Dauve has a big infliuence in english speaking worlds left-commie, anarchism tendencies. Actually the first stuff we had translated before EKS was Dauve...

And unfortunately Dauve always write as if communist left is already dead. He rarely mentions Bilan -that I suppose he know very well-. Invariance and modernism is sometimes aesthetical but always ahistorical :)

Mikail

My post suggest bad intentions of the writers part, which is incorrect. As you say it reflects very well some anarchist try to marry Anarchism and Left Communism, especially the Dutch/German Left: which is seen as the acceptable face of Left Communism. In many ways such an analysis has to avoid dealing with the Italian fraction because that raises the question of Spain and also WW2 and also the activity of the Communist Left now.
The sub title underlines the idea that Left Communism is something dead and gone:

An introduction and critique of an often forgoteen tendency in the revolutionary movement.

In many ways this articles reminds me of the articles written in the 1970's when a new generation was just discovering the Communist Left;.The KAPD appeared to many as a fantastic antidote to Stalinism and all the questions and doubts there were about organization etc. As with the article, what the KAPD really said mattered less than than image one had, or wanted to have. On first appears they looked a lot more post-68 friendly than the Italian Left, which was mainly know through the Internationalist Communist Party (Programma) and its position on the party. One of the most important things that the newly formed ICC did was to systematically try to present the true depth of the contribution made by the Italian Fraction. It and its territorial section (along with groups like the CWO) did all it could to discover and present the expressions of the Communist Left. For example Workers Voice -one of the groups that went on the form the CWO- put a lot of effort into discovering what they could about the Workers' Dreadnought. This was a very exciting and stimulating time, when new currents, groups etc were being discovered and their work made known, there was a real sense of rootiing oneself in a historical tradition.
Mikali I have to say I do not know a lot about Dauve.
I am not sure about the picture used with the article being 'Left Communists', I though it was a picture of members of the Communist Party defending the printing press that the party had taken over to produce Rota Fahn. If it is a picture of KAPD militants it would be interesting to know the source

eernie,
/
I did not mean that writer was "correct" in the way he/she evaluated the issue. However there is a strong influence of Debord/perlman/situ/dauve/negation/(old) mouvement communiste/antagonism/aufheben etc "tendency" which is mostly translated/influenced in english (from french ?) and conceived as a fancy literature. So I did not want to undermine the efforts of ICC, CWO-IBRP or any other group. However it is obvious that the above groups and individuals have an influence on anarchist currents and most people (like me) meet with left communism through these...

I agree with you that the similarity between all is the idea that crisis is/was over, that left communism is an authentic but dead thing, that it can be seperated from its history and adapted to that semi-anarchistic theory. In that sense writer may not be aware of the contributions of ICC, CWO, or Bİlan and Prometeo ...

:lol: I just deadset read ytour name asd mikail flirtini lol
allk the best.
gregg.

sorry I did not understand grrregg

Mikail:

I agree with you that the similarity between all is the idea that crisis is/was over

Seriously? This rings true for the SI, but I don't think this is the similarity between the groups/individuals you mentioned. This is Aufheben for example:

However understandable in the context of the post war boom, Cardan and S or B's rejection of the theory of crisis and later of Marx was an overreaction that itself became dogmatic. Cardan and many other S or B theorists like Lyotard and Lefort became academic recuperators. While adopting Cardan's ideas gave revolutionaries an edge on the Leninists in the fifties and sixties, when crisis returned in the seventies those who continued to follow him ironically showed the same dogmatism in denying crisis in the face of its obvious reappearance as the old lefties had in insisting on it during its absence. . . . But the situationists had essentially adopted Socialism or Barbarism's position that capitalism had resolved its tendency towards economic crisis.[18] Debord's critique of the bourgeois outlook lying behind the scientific pretensions of the upholders of crisis theory had its truth, but he was wrong to dismiss the notion of crisis completely. http://www.geocities.com/aufheben2/auf_3_dec2.html

So Aufheben, for example, does not agree with the SI. Neither does Dauve, etc.

You are certainly correct about the influence of some of these groups/individuals, but there is no need to attribute a false homogeneity to them in order to criticize them.

So Aufheben, for example, does not agree with the SI. Neither does Dauve, etc.

You are certainly correct about the influence of some of these groups/individuals, but there is no need to attribute a false homogeneity to them in order to criticize them.

yes that is my mistake and you are right.

but I have to add that there is a continouity between situationists and dauve for instance. Lots of articles of dauve give refference to situ texts and give lots of emphasis to situ analysis. In that sense there is a metodolohical similarity between them. As far as I remember dauve s crititc of SI and S ou B rarely mentions crisis...

I enjoyed this article and think that its conclusions are mostly correct.

Forget the 30s devrim, read the later Mattick. As far as I can tell there was a trajectory from the early period (i.e. support for parties, support for independent revolutionary unions) to the present where you read authors arguing for determinism and hence spontaneism, or for the necessity of informal propaganda groups only, etc. The interesting thing to me is that anti-organizationalist anarchists (insurrectionists, primitivists, post-leftists) and councilists have converged on the organizational question in a few variants. True during the height of activity they supported a program, and Mattick supported organizations like the IWW later on, but the concepts in the critique (determinism, fetishization of structure, spontaneism) led to the natural dissolution of organization.

Personally I'm really interested in councilists who are into organization and who aren't determinists/believe in dialectics. Any references would be greatly appreciated. This is where I think the best synergy could happen, anarchist organization combined with the critique of political economy from the councilist traditions.

booeyschewy,

I suggest you to check for Loren Goldner 's site. There you can find discussions about why post-marxist, pomo critics are burgeoisie. I think the concepts of authority and power are limited to understand social relations. So why marx and engels broke with young hegelians -bakunin, stirner are some of them-... Maybe because they found their paradigm problematic?...

The tendecy in councilicm that allow a merge with pomo ideology becomes appearent when you read Ruhle. But it becomes obscure in 20' Pannekoek and Gorter. Critic of leadership and mass action becomes fetishes as the revolution fails and comintern fails to become a basis for interaction between parties. I mean KAPD itself was a party and there were lots of tendencies in it. If you would try not to homogenise it you can see the degenerating tendencies. ICC's book on german-holland left is a good one in this respect. I did not read fully but dauve has something on it too...

Mikail

I was not meaning that you thought Dauve was correct, but rather that you were correct to say that the article had to be taken in its context. Nor was the post trying to say that you underestimated the work of the Communist Left such as the ICC, CWo, rahter I was trying to underline that there was a very exciting process of discovery in the 1970's and 80's and into the 90's: and beyond.

booeyschewy

I enjoyed this article and think that its conclusions are mostly correct.

I think, booeyschewy, that you could say that it is correct if it were talking about 'councilism', but its not. It is talking about 'left communism', a current which is quite clear about the fact that the working class needs a party.

You seem to be talking about what in our opinion would be the worst parts of councilism, an interesting enough criticism in itself, but not the subject here.

booeyschewy

Personally I'm really interested in councilists who are into organization and who aren't determinists/believe in dialectics. Any references would be greatly appreciated.

They are called left communists:

http://www.internationalism.org/

Devrim

booeyschewy

Forget the 1930's at one's peril! This period of bitter and terrible defeat put all those who claimed to be revolutionaries to the test and laid the basis for the emergence of the international communist left, and thus todays Left Communist movement. It was the ability of the Communist Left not to become submerged in supporting democracy against fascism, siding with the Spanish Republic against Franco, rejecting communism and the real nature of 1917 and the Bolsheviks because of the crimes of Stalinism and eventually there ability to put forwards internationalism in the midst of the nightmare of WW2, that allowed Left Communism to emerge as the clearest political expression of the working class. This does not mean that all the Left Communist groups or individuals were able to maintain an intransigent defence of communist principles, many became sucked into the terrible defeat of the 1930's, however those groups and individual that did emerge were able to lay the basis for the continuation of a Left Communist movement.
If we compare this to the practical total capitulation of the Trotskyists, apart from a few exception who remained loyal to internationalism (which in itself meant making a critique of Trotskyism), or the manner in which the great majority of the anarchists (barring a few notable exception Barnari for example) fell for defense of the Spanish Revolution, embraced anti-fascism, and in many cases became caught up in the war no matter how critically or succumbed to pacifism, then we can see the vital importance of understanding the bitter lessons of the worst counter-revolution the working class has faced.

booeyschewy, I think I have some idea of what you are asking about, but I'd appreciate a little bit of clarification. For example, when you write:

Personally I'm really interested in councilists who are into organization and who aren't determinists/believe in dialectics. Any references would be greatly appreciated.

and Devrim answers:

They are called left communists:
http://www.internationalism.org/

I am guessing that this is not what you are looking for. I would guess that by "councilists" you probably mean people who are "anti-Bolshevik", by "who are into organization" you probably mean sympathetic to syndicalism, and that by "who aren't determinists" you probably mean people who are not believers in decadence. But I could be wrong, hence the need for clarification.

Dave

I think you are probably correct, though as Devrim indicates the ICC does not reject the contribution made by the councilists. However, you will find that many councilists, if by this you mean the Dutch/German Communist Left, were defenders of the concept of decadence:

Ernie, you are completely correct that many on the Dutch/German Left defended the concept of decadence, but I never claimed otherwise. :x I am actually glad that you put it the way that you did, since some people seem to think that all left communists defend the concept of decadence. That sort of position makes me wonder if we should exclude Pannekoek and Bordiga from the communist left :roll:

Just a point of clarification:

Mikhail: The tendecy in councilicm that allow a merge with pomo ideology becomes appearent when you read Ruhle. But it becomes obscure in 20' Pannekoek and Gorter. Critic of leadership and mass action becomes fetishes as the revolution fails and comintern fails to become a basis for interaction between parties.

I won't address the idea of "pomo ideology", but I would say that the critique of the masses' dependence on "leadership" in the labor movement is not something that grows out of the defeat of the revolutionary movement. It is central to Pannekoek's theory throughout his life. The pre-war debate around mass action with Kautsky brings it to the fore. This concept is also very clear in World Revolution and Communist Tactics, as in Gorter's Open Letter to Comrade Lenin. The definitive texts of early left communism are saturated with this theme. I think it is very clear why those who synthesize the German and Italian Lefts try to deny the importance of this theme: Lenin thought it was nonsense, as did Bordiga. (Dauve, for example, thought that Lenin attacked the German Left on its weakest point). So there is a tendency for left communists to falsify their own theoretical heritage in order to differentiate themselves from anarchism. I have addressed another instance of this phenomenon with regards to syndicalism here: http://libcom.org/forums/history/council-communism-library-29092007.

I would say that the critique of the masses' dependence on "leadership" in the labor movement is not something that grows out of the defeat of the revolutionary movement. It is central to Pannekoek's theory throughout his life. The pre-war debate around mass action with Kautsky brings it to the fore. This concept is also very clear in World Revolution and Communist Tactics, as in Gorter's Open Letter to Comrade Lenin. The definitive texts of early left communism are saturated with this theme.

I did not say otherwise. I just say fetishisation which was clearly in 30ise for GIK for instance... I think that by way of neglacting the role of party -which Dauve rightly criticise- this fetishistism become complete.

Mass action was never abandoned by communist left. What communist left do not do is counterposing mass action to the party.

So there is a tendency for left communists to falsify their own theoretical heritage in order to differentiate themselves from anarchism.

I don't think that is the case. I think you should clarify it more.

"pomo ideology"

post-structuralism sometimes smell terrible if you do not read it outside :D

Mikhail, perhaps I misunderstood your meaning. I interpreted this

But it becomes obscure in 20' Pannekoek and Gorter.

to mean that you thought that in 1920 or in the early 20's the critique of "leadership" was not very important for Pannekoek or Gorter. That was mostly what I was responding to, but maybe this is not what you meant.

Yes being a lazy turk in english lesson perhaps I could not tell clearly what I meant. I mean the connection that post-leftist ideology assumes with left communism is not so obvious when you read the articles of gorter and pannekoek of 20's.

Oisin Mac Giollamoir

The majority of those who claim a legacy from the Dutch-German Left, those who call themselves council communists, tend to take the position of Rühle and the AAUD-E. For that reason they refuse to form political organisations. Dauvé explains the theory thus: “any revolutionary organisation coexisting with the organs created by the workers themselves, and trying to elaborate a coherent theory and political line, must in the end attempt to lead the workers. Therefore revolutionaries do not organise themselves outside the organs "spontaneously" created by the workers: they merely exchange and circulate information and establish contacts with other revolutionaries; they never try to define a general theory or strategy.”(21)

Pannekoek wrote in 1936 “The old labor movement is organised in parties. The belief in parties is the main reason for the impotence of the working class; therefore we avoid forming a new party—not because we are too few, but because a party is an organisation that aims to lead and control the working class. In opposition to this, we maintain that the working class can rise to victory only when it independently attacks its problems and decides its own fate. The workers should not blindly accept the slogans of others, nor of our own groups but must think, act, and decide for themselves. This conception is in sharp contradiction to the tradition of the party as the most important means of educating the proletariat. Therefore many, though repudiating the Socialist and Communist parties, resist and oppose us. This is partly due to their traditional concepts; after viewing the class struggle as a struggle of parties, it becomes difficult to consider it as purely the struggle of the working class, as a class struggle.”(22)

While the idea of working class struggle being ‘purely the struggle of the working class’ is essential, it hides major theoretical and practical problems. Firstly what does it mean to take the side of the class and as opposed to a party? What does the working class without a party look like? What does is mean to reject parties? If we take Dauvé’s understanding, that this rejection of partyism is a rejection of any attempt ‘to elaborate a coherent theory and political line’ then we face a problem(23). If any attempt to elaborate a coherent theory and political line is forbidden then how can the class develop a coherent theory and political line to guide itself through a revolution and to victory? How can the class think strategically if strategic thinking is banned lest it be oppressive or vanguardist?

In a revolution there will be a number of conflicting theories and political lines being put forward. To claim otherwise is highly naïve. If those of us who believe that ‘the emancipation of the working classes must be achieved by the working classes themselves’(24) don’t enter the revolution prepared with a program explaining how this can be achieved the revolution will, like all prior workers’ revolutions, fail.

I think this is oversimplifying matters, and also a bit unfair. Most councilists today might see their role as to "merely exchange and circulate information and establish contacts with other revolutionaries", but I don't think they actually want to ban strategic thinking. In any case, this is also quite different from Ruhle and AAUD-E's concept of a "political and economic integrated organization of the revolutionary proletariat".

I also don't think you will find many council communists who will disagree that "in a revolution, there will be a number of conflicting theories and political lines being put forward". As for Pannekoek, he did criticize the traditional concepts of the party and programme, but he still advocated forming groups based on common politics and for these groups to advocate their views within the working class as a whole. In the same article as is quoted above, he also states:

If, in this situation, persons with the same fundamental conceptions unite for the discussion of practical steps and seek clarification through discussions and propagandize their conclusions, such groups might be called parties, but they would be parties in an entirely different sense from those of today. Action, the actual class struggle, is the task of the working masses themselves, in their entirety, in their real groupings as factory and millhands, or other productive groups, because history and economy have placed them in the position where they must and can fight the working class struggle. It would be insane if the supporters of one party were to go on strike while those of another continue to work. But both tendencies will defend their positions on strike or no strike in the factory meetings, thus affording an opportunity to arrive at a well founded decision. The struggle is so great, the enemy so powerful that only the masses as a whole can achieve a victory—the result of the material and moral power of action, unity and enthusiasm, but also the result of the mental force of thought, of clarity. In this lies the great importance of such parties or groups based on opinions: that they bring clarity in their conflicts, discussions and propaganda. They are the organs of the self-enlightenment of the working class by means of which the workers find their way to freedom.

Of course such parties are not static and unchangeable. Every new situation, every new problem will find minds diverging and uniting in new groups with new programs. They have a fluctuating character and constantly readjust themselves to new situations.

Compared to such groups, the present workers' parties have an entirely different character, for they have a different objective: they want to seize power for themselves. They aim not at being an aid to the working class in its struggle for emancipation but to rule it themselves and proclaim that this constitutes the emancipation of the proletariat. The Social-Democracy which arose in the era of parliamentarism conceived of this rule as a parliamentary government. The Communist Party carried the idea of part rule through to its fullest extreme in the party dictatorship.

from http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1936/party-class.htm

I think Felix's post is excellent in encouraging a more sober assessment of the Dutch/German Left, and especially the "party" idea. As Mikhail has pointed out, the reliance on Dauve in the original article is understandable, but probably a weakness. Dauve's critical comments regarding the "ultra-left" are certainly accepted at face value by many, but one should assess his interpretation before adopting it.

Here is Dauve's description of a meeting with Paul Mattick to discuss his critique of the ultra-left. It is both informative and amusing:

Paul Mattick... Well, back in 1969, I translated the critique of the ultra-left text for him as he was staying in Paris, and had it sent to where he lived, rue DANTE..., maybe, and we met a few days later. Some of the words I remember as if it all happened yesterday.

– Is this the work of your group?

– Yes.

– It’s very weak, and sometimes it’s embarrasingly weak.

A bad start. So I tried to shift the conversation to our wish to inherit not just from the German left, but also from the Italian left. The idea was to try and explain him why we were critical of workers’ management. But I was wrong again.

– Bordiga is a Leninist.

From then on, we sort of moved to the Spanish civil war. I said we were critical to anarchy as a principle, as a theory, not just of the CNT. He replied as if I was dismissing anarchism as a grass root genuine product of proletarian activity.

– I don’t care if they raped the nuns.

I guess I’ve forgotten the rest. All the time, he was unsymphathetic, like he was talking to a half-wit leftist intellectual with subversive pretensions he can’t and won’t live up to. (Maybe we’d feel the same towards a pro-situ.) (http://www.riff-raff.se/en/7/gd_corr.php)

Felix,

I think the basic issue is whether mass organisations are possible in non-revolutionary periods or not. However before answering this, it should be remembered that all left tendencies of 20's and pannekeok, ruhle etc. merged and developed their theories "inside" the mass organisations. In that sense rather than walking on a fictitious rope of "is organisation good or bad" maybe it is better to pose the question "in what kind of a historical period did mass parties, mass organisations appeared and revolutionary tendencies could struggle inside them".

Otherwise I do not see any reasonable explanation against specific organisations of revlotionaries -whether they would be workers in the same shop or just "intellectuals".

In any case any kind of communist organisation is based on an "intellectual agreement " and not on a "sociological" (in the sense that pannekoek uses the term) similarity.

....

My criticism towards Dauve is that while he reasonably discuss the necessity of program he do not seem to be clearly analysing the historical break that caused the degeneration of the parties and its roots. It is like as if when pannekoek started to criticise social democracy, social democracy became defunct...

I've read the article and it deserves a more developed reply than I can give now. But it seems to me that there is a fundamental contradiction in it: On the one hand, it quotes the original Russian platformist group about the weaknesses of the anarchists in the Russian revolution:

“Anarchism had no firm, hard and fast opinion regarding the main problems facing the social revolution, an opinion needed to satisfy the masses who were carrying out the revolution. Anarchists were calling for a seizure of the factories, but had no well-defined homogeneous notion of the new production and its structures. Anarchists championed the communist device "from each according to abilities, to each according to needs," but they never bothered to apply this precept to the real world…Anarchists talked a lot about the revolutionary activity of the workers themselves, but they were unable to direct the masses, even roughly, towards the forms that such activity might assume...They incited the masses to shrug off the yoke of authority, but they did not indicate how the gains of revolution might be consolidated and defended. They had no clear cut opinion and specific action policies with regard to lots of other problems. Which is what alienated them from the activities of the masses and condemned them to social and historical impotence.

“Upwards of twenty years of experience, revolutionary activity, twenty years of efforts in anarchist ranks, and of effort that met with nothing but failures by anarchism as an organizing movement: all of this has convinced us of the necessity of a new comprehensive anarchist party organisation rooted in one homogenous theory, policy and tactic

The passage is very clear in many ways and is not fundamentally different from the basic notion that most left communists have of the 'programme' or 'platform' on which they base their activity.

However, in order to make a radical distinction with left communism, the author then seems to portray us as defenders of an 'invariant' programme, a set of dogmas, which bears no relation to the historical experience of the working class. It is true that the Bordigists arrived at this view to a large extent, though the Bordigism of the 1950s is by no means identical with the writings of Bordiga in the 1920s.

Here the article's omissioin of the Italian left's most fruitful period, around Bilan in the thirties, is most glaring, because the whole project of Bilan was to re-examine positions that had been proved wrong in the light of proletarian experience. It is also worth noting that in doing so they opened up a dialoge with the Dutch left,. This dialogue was continued during the 40s and 50s, particularly by the Gauche Communiste de France, resulting in a number of clarifications, especially on the trade unions and the party.

Also relevant here is the historical error, in a footnote, about the origins of the ICC. We are described as originating in the 1952 split in the Italian Internationalist Communist Party., ie from the 'Damenist' current that is today embodied by the IBRP. In fact the French group was in profound disagreement with the ICP almost from its beginnings in 43 - not least on its tendency to abandon many of the advances made by Bilan in the 30s and to go back to the 'dogmas' of the Third International.

The article makes liberal use of Marx's phrases about 'the real movement'. But there is no contradiction between the real movement of the class struggle and the efforts of communists to elaborate a revolutionary programme in the light of this struggle - on the contrary, their very efforts are part of the class struggle and thus of the real movement.

This discussion has been interesting and has corrected some errors in the original article, but I would still like to understand what WSM supporters and critics think the connection is, or is not, between the WSM's politics and the ideas presented in this paticular article in 'Red and Black'.

My ealier posting on the Irish site, linked at the beginning of this thread, tried to suggest either an incompatibillity or an unstated and false connection ?

Whoa Bordigists were in the Insane Clown Posse (ICP)! Awesome!

Here are some initial thoughts on the article by Oisin Mac Giollamoir (OMC).

First, I think its important to welcome the article as an initial effort to make left communism known to a wider audience. Left communism has a lot to offer and is far from a dead tradition – it is alive and kicking today! The author recognises that left communist theories have made some ‘positive contributions to anarchism’, though these are not explained in detail. It would be good if these could be developed on, especially the ones in the past 30 years.
Unfortunately the author’s aim seems more negative, to focus on the ‘significant theoretical and tactical mistakes’ in left communist theories. Indeed, that author’s central aim is to “attempt to highlight the problems of these theories and insist on the need to develop an anarchist program for today based on the situation of our class today, as opposed to based on a-historical principles.” This is a tough challenge, because it is anarchism that is based on idealism and a-historical principles, unlike marxism which is rooted in historical materialism.

It’s true that left communism is largely defined in negative terms, for what it stands against. The article refers to the experiences of the German and Italian communist lefts, but there is no mention of the other main pole of left communism in the 1920s, in Russia:
- In 1919, the Democratic Centralism group (‘Decists’), led by Ossinski, Smirnov and Sapranov, had begun to warn against the "withering away" of the soviets and the increasing departure from the principles of the Paris Commune.
- Similar criticisms were made in 1921 by the Workers' Opposition group led by Kollontai and Shliapnikov, although the latter was to prove less rigorous and durable than the "Decist" group, which was to continue to play an important role throughout the 20s, and which was to develop a similar approach to that of the Italian left.
- In 1923, the Workers’ Group led by Miasnikov issued its manifesto and made an important intervention in the workers’ strikes of that year. Its positions and analyses were close to those of the KAPD.

(The ICC has published a book on the history of the Russian Communist Left. As Ernie pointed out, we have written several books on the history of the communist lefts. They can be found on Amazon.co.uk here. The main ones are searchable now too, so you print off the first chapter of each)

The article goes into greater detail on the history of the German Revolution 1918-19 and it is true that the leaders of the KPD – including Liebknecht and Luxemburg – were in a minority against the anti-parliamentarian and anti-trade union majority. However, the impression is given that Liebknecht and Luxemburg were part of the leadership who expelled the majority of the KPD in October 1919. In fact they had been assassinated in the spring of 1919 – along with many others – and they were in favour of carrying out a thorough debate on the parliamentary and union questions. Secondly, it was the leadership who were the clearest on the question of organisation, on the need for the party, which is largely why they were taken out of the equation. The German bourgeoisie had first hand experience of what had happened in Russia with the strength of the Bolshevik Party. The decapitation of the KDP led to great confusion and disarray, making a great contribution to the failure of the revolution to spread to Germany, and ultimately the degeneration of the revolution in Russia.

In fact it was the growing isolation of the Soviet power in Russia that led to the exacerbation of the mistakes the Bolsheviks had made – in particular not maintaining its autonomy from the transitional state – and which played such a great part in the party’s degeneration into a weapon of the counter-revolution. Had the revolution been extended into Western Europe these mistakes could most probably have been corrected, with the Communist International having more influence over the policies carried out in Russia, rather than the opposite happening. It was this tragedy – of the rise of Stalinism on the bones of the revolution - which the council communists reacted against. In act, it is important to be make a distinction between the ‘council communists’ of the 1920s who were in favour of organisation, and their ‘councilist’ epigones from the period of the counter-revolution who weren’t. The author is right to pose the consequences of ‘anti-partyism’, of an anti-organisational approach and poses some very good questions:
OMC

While the idea of working class struggle being ‘purely the struggle of the working class’ is essential, it hides major theoretical and practical problems. Firstly what does it mean to take the side of the class and as opposed to a party? What does the working class without a party look like? What does is mean to reject parties? If we take Dauvé’s understanding, that this rejection of partyism is a rejection of any attempt ‘to elaborate a coherent theory and political line’ then we face a problem. If any attempt to elaborate a coherent theory and political line is forbidden then how can the class develop a coherent theory and political line to guide itself through a revolution and to victory? How can the class think strategically if strategic thinking is banned lest it be oppressive or vanguardist?

During a revolution – as during the class struggles today – there will be a number of conflicting theories about – most obviously from the representatives of the left-wing of the bourgeoisie. The author refers to the conclusions of the Dyelo Truda group on the lack of a program contributing to the failure of the anti-statist position in Russia. But again the logic here seems to be that had the anti-statists been more successful than those ‘evil Bolsheviks’ in Russia then the revolution would have been successful. Thus Lenin is to blame for the defeat of the Russian revolution. Sorry if I've read too much between the lines here, but the introduction to the article is hostile to Lenin so I'm assuming the anti-Leninism/Bolshevism is there under the surface. It's important to overcome the prejudices against Lenin and the Bolsheviks as there is much to learn from their experiences. They made a very important contribution to the workers' movement, despite their many weaknesses.

Finally, I'd say it was the anti-organisational attitude of council communism that largely led to it's demise. The organisations that took themselves seriously and defend the need for organisation are still around today, despite the passing away of the comrades who survived the counter-revolution. Where are the council communists today? Surely there's a lesson there?

That's all for now. I have got a few other points to make but want to get off to watch MOTD. I think we should reply to the article in the pages of World Revolution.

B.

PS. We've written a very brief history of the communist left here:
The communist left and the continuity of marxism
http://en.internationalism.org/the-communist-left

The great irony of the article is that while anarchism may have lent its liberatarianism over to the communist left in the wake of 1917, thereby saving the Marxist movement from discrediting itself entirely, it took the importation and adoption of Marxian social relations theory of capital to save itself from its petty bourgeois theorizing as characterized by the works of Proudhon and Kropotkin.

Garbage. Kropotkin was no petty bourgeois. ;)

Garbage. Kropotkin was no petty bourgeois.
.

I didn't say Kropotkin was petty bourgeois, I said his thinking was.

I think we all know Kropotkin was of the nobility. After all, he was a "prince". I'm sure nastyned was referring to his politics when he said he wasn't petty bourgeois.

If we consider the utopias of "exchange without exploitation" or a "fair commodity society" to be characteristic of petty bourgeois ideology (e.g. labour notes), then I see how Proudhon fits that frame. But how does Kropotkin's communism fit in?

Just noticed the earlier post from Beltov.

It's strange that whilst defending the Bolsheviks 'errors' as substantially a result of 'objective' factors that the failures and subsequent demise of the 'council communists' is put down simply to 'anti-organisational attitudes'.

Well at least the council communist's 'errors' didn't result in them imprisoning and murdering other revolutionaries.

Of course bolsheviks (not just or mainly it's leaders) played an important part in the workers insurrection of 1917 alongside others, but their 'errors' are far more deep seated in their social democratic origins than those who wish to inherit that tradition today are prepared to acknowledge.

Those who proclaim (on primarily ideological grounds) an undivided line of history between the First International through to their own tiny reconstituted left communist groups today may contrast their 'survival' to that of other tendencies from the early 20th century but such 'survival' has come at a very severe cost.

Pro-revolutionary political groups today can learn from both the strengths and weaknesses of their predecessors (whether 'marxist' or 'anarchist' ) in that period without needing the crutch of some supposed continous line of inheritance to be fought over with other contenders.

Some cross-fertilisation between the best of the anarchist and 'marxist' tendencies of past and present as we have started to see over recent years since the 1970's is to be welcomed but we are in a very different phase of capitalism today and new lessons are still to be learnt.

georgestapleton

Bakunin translated him [Marx] into Russian

If you mean a translation of capital, then as I recall he started but didn't finish the translation. As I understand he squandered a good portion of the publishers advance on fine wine?

Does anyone know who was first to complete a Russian translation of capital?

georgestapleton

from what those two people say and from what French anarchists say I gather that the reception of Proudhon into the english speaking anarchist movement is complete bullshit based on marxist leninist simplifications of his work based, not on a reading of his work, but based on Marx's 'Poverty of Philosophy' which itself was, I gather, a hatchet job that was based on a completely unfair reading of the text.

i took in a series of lectures on left ideas about housing and tenancy. engels' The Housing Question was discussed in one of the lectures. (text) i haven't read it all, mind (i have a hard time wading through such prose), but from what i remember it pretty badly misunderstands what proudhon was about, and would be half as long if the snark was cut out.

blackrainbow

georgestapleton

Bakunin translated him [Marx] into Russian

If you mean a translation of capital, then as I recall he started but didn't finish the translation. As I understand he squandered a good portion of the publishers advance on fine wine?

Does anyone know who was first to complete a Russian translation of capital?

The wiki says Russian was the first foreign language translation of Capital:

Curiously, the first foreign publication of Capital appeared in Russia in 1872. Despite Russian censorship laws that prohibited 'the harmful doctrines of socialism and communism', Marx's opus was considered by censors a 'strictly scientific work' and non-applicable to a country where 'capitalist exploitation' had never been experienced, with one censor going as far as saying 'that very few people in Russia will read it, and even fewer will understand it.'[2] Capital's first print run sold out within the year, with Marx acknowledging that it was in Russia that the book "was read and valued more than anywhere".[2]

The source given is "2) A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924(London 1996) pg.139"

Here is a one-page preview of a 1970 edition of 'Slavic Review', made available by JSTOR, that describes the origin of Capital in Russia:

http://www.jstor.org/pss/2493377

It says the move to translate and publish it in Russia started in 1868 (a year after it was published in Germany), from a banker/economist Danielson and a publisher Poliakov.

automattick

The great irony of the article is that while anarchism may have lent its liberatarianism over to the communist left in the wake of 1917, thereby saving the Marxist movement from discrediting itself entirely, it took the importation and adoption of Marxian social relations theory of capital to save itself from its petty bourgeois theorizing as characterized by the works of Proudhon and Kropotkin.

Anarchism never was a static doctrine though was it? And arguable the works of Proudhon spurred Marx to pursue interest that resulted in Capital. Quite easy really to see the trajectory between What is Property, and Marx's solid work, but then as communists we don't believe in groups having monopolies, truth or otherwise ;-)

Since this is one of the longer discussion threads on Left Communism and ideology of interest to both anarchists and Marxists and as an addition to my post No 54 above I'd recommend a read of 'Internationalist Perspective and the tradition of the Communist Left' in three parts in IP No's 57/59 here:

http://internationalist-perspective.org/IP/ip-archive/ip-archive.html

for a critical reappraisal of a tendency which this group recognises as having made a positive contribution to the development of pro-revolutionary theory and practice but which as 'ideology' has proved inadequate to an understanding of today's modern global capitalism. I have expressed some slight reservations about some aspects of this text but it gets close to my own approach on this subject.