I'm being lazy and not bothering to search on this. What groups are around at the moment that could be described as council communist? I'm genuinely interested to check out the the different groups and their praxis.
Cheers
Echanges et Mouvement
is about the only group i know still existing. they are decedents of ICO i believe?
Also this history is quite helpful:
http://libcom.org/files/dutchleft.pdf
There really aren't any others? That's hard to believe.
There is Alan Woodward's Workers Socialism (previously Council Socialists, and before that Council Communists) group - consisting of verious people including ex-Solidarity and ex-SWP members, don't think they have a web presence but some of them are or were involved in or close to HSG.
To be fair 'council communism' was a specific thing at a specific time (late 19-teens early 19-twenties Germamy and Holland, basically, plus the intellectuals which came out of that). So there kinda can't be a council communist organisation today which is't a historical re-enactment society. Every decent communist grouping currently existing is to some extent informed by council communism, but it'd be wierd to have a specifically 'council communist group' today.
I don't see it as any weirder than groups that identify as left communist or autonomist...
Juan Conatz
I don't see it as any weirder than groups that identify as left communist or autonomist...
Yeah, I see those (in differing ways) as a little bit wierd too. I even have an issue with the label anarchist. I guess I'm just too fixated on only using political terms about political movements, rather than political theories. (e.g. there are lots of anarchisits, but there's not much in the way of an anarchist movement in the world)
Or, to be more pretentious, the term ought to emerge from the praxis rather than the other way round.
well communists are also of the past some would say? do you have alternatives we should name ourselves?
As i understand it most historical councillist groups were formed on what seemed - reasonably enough, following 1917 - like the eve of revolution. The rationale for forming 'a different kind of party' (KAPD) and revolutionary unions (AAUD, AAUE) was more or less explicitly to eschew all partial struggles and push for workers councils and revolutionary expropriations. It's strongly implied/sometimes explicit that the rationale for such organisations only exists in times of intense, near-revolutionary struggle. So it kinda makes sense there aren't any councillist groups today, or those that exist are propaganda/analysis collectives (like Echanges).
That said, there is/was a councillist tendency in the AF, of which the late Knightrose was a prominent member. Arguably KPK in Czech Republic are councillists, though I think they'd probably identify more with the Mouvement Communiste current Marxism influenced by numerous traditions (including councillism). A couple of KPK members post on libcom so maybe they can chip in.
Joseph Kay
The rationale for forming 'a different kind of party' (KAPD) and revolutionary unions (AAUD, AAUE) was more or less explicitly to eschew all partial struggles and push for workers councils and revolutionary expropriations.
I don't think that this is true for the KAPD from the start. That tendency was there, and can be seen in the 1922 split,
Joseph Kay
So it kinda makes sense there aren't any councillist groups today, or those that exist are propaganda/analysis collectives (like Echanges).
I think that the reason for this is not because we are not in a revolutionary situation, but because councilist groups tend to theorise themselves out of existance.
Joseph Kay
Arguably KPK in Czech Republic are councillists, though I think they'd probably identify more with the Mouvement Communiste current Marxism influenced by numerous traditions (including councillism). A couple of KPK members post on libcom so maybe they can chip in.
I think that this is really wrong.
Devrim
Joseph K
Arguably KPK in Czech Republic are councillists,
Not at all! Not even in the original "council communism" sense of the term, and much less in the later "councilist" sense (i.e. revolutionaries should abstain from intervening in struggles and stick to circulating information etc.). Although of course Pannekoek, Korsch, Mattick etc. have influenced our views. But this influence has more to do with interpretation of Marx and the general outlook than with specifically councilist ideology with specific organizational preferences etc.
We were also influenced by the other strand of the ultra-left which was critical of self-management from the very beginning (e.g., Bordiga vs. Gramsci). And operaismo, with its theorizing of the skilled worker as the material basis (now largely a thing of past) of the whole council/self-management project, has perhaps been an even greater influence (at least on me, but I don't like Bordiga).
Joseph K
though I think they'd probably identify more with the Mouvement Communiste current Marxism influenced by numerous traditions (including councillism).
This is correct (we have written common stuff with MC and regularly work together), but I don't think council communism has had more influence on MC or KPK than on the other ultra-left groups around.
Cheers Jura. I've heard a few people refer to KPK as 'councillist'; I'll set them straight in future.
Devrim
Joseph Kay
So it kinda makes sense there aren't any councillist groups today, or those that exist are propaganda/analysis collectives (like Echanges).
I think that the reason for this is not because we are not in a revolutionary situation, but because councilist groups tend to theorise themselves out of existance.
Agreed. The logic of councillist positions (rejection of mass organisation and specific political organisation) leads to self-liquidation of any groups in fairly short order. This is why virtually all "left communist" groups are some flavour or other of Bordigists (who do believe in the party).
RASH in Germany (or at least the people who published their zine "Revolution Times") some years ago had strong tendencies towards council communism ... but most of their stuff is offline and I do not know if they still exists
Here's the old page of RASH for those who can read German: http://www.reocities.com/revolutiontimes/
some interesting stuff was produced by the group/journal Der revolutionäre Funke in Berlin which disappeared around the year 2000, don't know what became of them
self-edited out.
This is why virtually all "left communist" groups are some flavour or other of Bordigists (who do believe in the party).
Depends on what you mean by Bordigism (though this was a charge leveled from the Kremlin at any tendencies within the communist movement to the left of the prospect of their national party being Bolshevised). Modern left communist groups seem more informed by council communism, Luxemburg, etc than Bordiga.
Depending on whether you consider Luxemburg to be a 'council communist' based on her work (in writing and practice), there are at least 2 groups that exist (though I'd argue that the one that publishes an English language website is far, far from 'Luxemburgist' and has more in common with your average Trot groupuscule) that claim to be 'Luxemburgist' as well as Luxemburg leaning tendencies in different groups (SPUSA or Solidarity, forget which one, claims to have Luxemburgist type members).
I must admit I'd never really considered Luxemburg to be in the 'council communist' spectrum. I always considered her somewhere in the middle between Kautsky and Pannekoek in the Massenstriek debate. In the UK and Ireland, the only group that claimed, at one stage (back in the 70s, mostly, I think, although the claim occasionally resurfaced in the 80s) to be "Luxemburgist" was the SWP. But that always seemed to be more of a pose by way of trying to be more acceptable to the post-68 generation of new left.
By Bordigist I meant those groups that self-identify as "the communist left" and are descended from Bordigism, like ICC, ICT, ICP, etc. In some cases they may have borrowed to a greater or lesser extent, from the councillist critique of unions, but not of the Bordigist conception of the party. Like someone said above, the only surviving "project" I can think of that descends from councillism proper, is Echanges et Mouvement. But if anybody knows of any others, then please let us know.
are there any successors of Daad en Gedachte? ... in Germany, survivors from Rote Kaempfer, KAPD, etc. who did not went to the right never managed to create a stable group or journal after 1945
I agree with those who have said that there are very few actual 'council communist' groups left today, other than the ones already mentioned. There is a very wide interest in the whole tradition and its theoretical contribution, however.
I don't really agree with what ocelot is saying here:
By Bordigist I meant those groups that self-identify as "the communist left" and are descended from Bordigism, like ICC, ICT, ICP, etc. In some cases they may have borrowed to a greater or lesser extent, from the councillist critique of unions, but not of the Bordigist conception of the party.
It's true that most left communists' share some of Bordiga's conceptions of the party, certainly when we consider those he elaborated in the 1920s: in particular the communist party as an organ of the class, not something that came 'from outside'. But as early as the 1930s the Italian left communists usually rejected the term 'Bordigist' thrown at them, and from the 40s, as 'Bordigism' really emerged as a distinct set of ideas based on notions like the invariance of capitalism and support for 'dual revolutions' in the ex-colonial regions, there was also a growing criticism from within the Italian left of the Bordigist notion of the party as the embodiment of the proletarian dictatorship. This was true both of the 'Damenist' current in Italy (from which the ICT descends) and the current around the GCF in France (from which the ICC descends). In the case of the latter, there was a genuine dialogue with the Dutch council communists, who still had a real existence after the war; and the Dutch/German comrades' criticisms of the idea of party dictatorship certainly played a role in the synthesis the GCF tried to develop.
Sure, I have read the Bourrinnet book (actually my copy is the ICC version, acquired back in the early 90s). But for all the variations amongst the various descendents, they still have a common phylogenetic origin, and I can't imagine any councillist group putting itself forward as "the pole for the regroupment of the communist movement" as all the ICT/ICP/ICC groups either do, or have done, at some stage in the past. That is a partyist conception of recomposition which would not fit with a councillist conception at all. Similarly the loyalty to the rejection of workplace or industrial sectoral organisation, based on the original Bordigist rejection of "Bolshevisation" of the Comintern parties following the II Congress of the Comintern (i.e. that CPs should dissolve local area or neighbourhood groups or branches, in favour of factory cells) is also common to all the descendants, unless I'm mistaken? AFAICS there's still a common reference back to the Rome Theses.
ocelot
Similarly the loyalty to the rejection of workplace or industrial sectoral organisation, based on the original Bordigist rejection of "Bolshevisation" of the Comintern parties following the II Congress of the Comintern (i.e. that CPs should dissolve local area or neighbourhood groups or branches, in favour of factory cells) is also common to all the descendants, unless I'm mistaken?
I am not sure what you mean here? Are you saying that contemporary left communist groups reject workplace organisation?
Maybe I have not read that paragraph closely enough.
I'm not saying that any of the groups descended from the Italian communist left have the same conceptions as the councilists, eg on regroupment. What I do reject is the idea that they all have the same basic conceptions of the party. There is far greater diversity than you allow for. This includes the Dutch left itself, since at the end of world war two the Spartacusbond went back to a conception of the party that was very close to that of the KAPD.
I'll wait for an answer to Android's question before commenting on workplace organisation.
Android
ocelot
Similarly the loyalty to the rejection of workplace or industrial sectoral organisation, based on the original Bordigist rejection of "Bolshevisation" of the Comintern parties following the II Congress of the Comintern (i.e. that CPs should dissolve local area or neighbourhood groups or branches, in favour of factory cells) is also common to all the descendants, unless I'm mistaken?
I am not sure what you mean here? Are you saying that contemporary left communist groups reject workplace organisation?
Maybe I have not read that paragraph closely enough.
No, it was that my use of language was not at all clear. I meant "organising" in the specific (but not obvious) sense of creating organs based on a particular workplace (or sector).
So, for example, from the late 80s in London, from MD's retrospective of their experience in the Communication Workers Group ("Death to rank and filism!")
While the splits in CWG were widening another influence made itself felt in the group. We had contact with the Action Group for Worker’s Unity (AGWU). This was essentially a front for the dogmatic Marxist International Communist Current (ICC)[...]Anyway, we did have a dialogue with them and the main bone of contention between us was over the question of ‘sectoralism’ (or sectionalism): trade, skill, industry and union divisions within the working class. They argued that it was counter-revolutionary to be involved in a plain postal worker’s group, as it was ‘sectoral’ and excluded the rest of the militant working class.
We argued that it was not necessary that a specific postal worker’s group was sectoral.[...]
So, no it's not that said groups have any more against militants agitating in the workplace setting, than say a group like AF who organise (in the sense of creating groups) on a locality basis. Indeed, the question is somewhat moot at the tiny membership levels that most anarchist and ultra-left groups currently operate at (although orgs like SolFed who have a strong orientation to workplace based organisation, show that its not purely a size consideration, more of orientation). But the point is that this is not a matter of practicality alone for Bordigist-family groups, but also a question of principle that was decided in 1920.
I don't think that MD's account is very accurate. I doubt very much whether we argued that it was 'counter-revolutionary' for postal workers to be involved in a 'plain postal workers group', for example. During that time, the 80s, we were involved in quite a few different 'struggle groups' across Europe. One of them was based in the Paris post. Our idea was that such groups should indeed try to go beyond the individual sector if possible, by opening up to workers from other workplaces and industries.
I think MD's confusion might have arisen from the fact that we later published an article arguing that the Communication Workers Group was or had become rank and fileist (ie leftist). This hadn't been our original position about the group and I think the revised position was a mistake based on what we perceived as the negative evolution of the group.
In any case, I think two different questions are being mixed up here. One is the composition of militant workers groups and the other is the structure of the communist organisation. In our view these are two distinct types of organisation. It's true that we have differences with the ICT over this, since the latter talks about 'communist factory groups'. In our view, a militant workers group can't limit itself to workers who explicitly see themselves as communist (or anarchist, for that matter). In this we do see ourselves as closer to the original position of Bordiga in his opposition to the 'factory cell' becoming the basic party unit, although that again is not exactly the same discussion.
hey alf,
can you lead me to material from the ICC about militant workers groups? i never realized ICC and ICT had much of differences on such. it'd be interesting to learn more about.
Hi
A lot of the more specific stuff we published in the 80s is not online at the moment, but if you're really keen we can dig up some printed samples. The following text is useful because it gives a general overview, although it's a bit old now:
It's probably for the best there aren't really any council communist groups anymore.Bombastic polemicals outside a revolutionary situation would get tiresome.
Entdinglichung
RASH in Germany (or at least the people who published their zine "Revolution Times") some years ago had strong tendencies towards council communism ... but most of their stuff is offline and I do not know if they still exists
after the end of geocities you find the pages of this council-communist network here: https://sites.google.com/site/bibliothekdeswiderstandes/ http://swiderstand.blogsport.de/ http://sbefreiung.blogsport.de
concerning "Der revolutionäre Funke": in the last issue of kosmoprolet there`s a republication of one article: http://www.kosmoprolet.org/proletarische-bewegung-und-produktivkraftkritik
http://www.eis-zeit.net/
http://strike.blogsport.de/
http://www.kosmoprolet.org/
http://muckracker.wordpress.com/
oh and i was thinking of Daad en Gedachte but i think they are no more...
http://en.internationalism.org/wr/221_daad.htm
http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2007/cajo-brendel-1915-2007
also read recently that ICC and ICT could be sorta considered to be continuance from council communism as they originated from council communist/councilist groups but eventually sorta took a left communist pro-party turn?
klas batalo
http://muckracker.wordpress.com/
I wouldn't classify the peopole from "Barrikade" as council communist. they are pretty othodox anarcho syndicalists.
i think they mostly had some interesting things about cc, i'd agree about them being a-s tho
meinberg
klas batalo
http://muckracker.wordpress.com/
I wouldn't classify the peopole from "Barrikade" as council communist. they are pretty othodox anarcho syndicalists.
anarcho-syndicalists, for sure
klas batalo
also read recently that ICC and ICT could be sorta considered to be continuance from council communism as they originated from council communist/councilist groups but eventually sorta took a left communist pro-party turn?
No, that's more or less opposite from the true order of influences. Both the ICC and the ICT have their origins in Bordigism, acquring some CC aspects or themes later in their evolution. But the commitment to the Bordigist conception of party and class are descended from their origins in that tradition, rather than adopted or grafted on at a later stage.
Both the ICC and the ICT, trace their origins to the political evolution of the Italian Bordigist exiles in France through the tendency grouped around the magazine Bilan. It was during this period (while Bordiga himself withdrew from politics) that overtures were made to other tendencies of the "Communist Left", including the trots (abortive) and surving elements of the KAPD. The story is told in detail in Phillipe Bourrinet's "The Bordigist Current" (an earlier version of which was published as the ICC's "History of the Italian Communist Left")
As far as I aware, World Revolution came out of Solidarity's councilism and was initially council communist, before it moved toward left communism and helped form the ICC.
But yes Ocelot is correct I think in saying the ICC and ICT were from their outset explicitly left communist.
For additional confusion Klas, you might be interested to know there is also a group of Spanish bordigists maintaining a red / base union formed from a split from Solidaridad Obrera, the small anarcho-syndicalist union lying somewhere in between the CNT and CGT, and strong in the Madrid underground train system. I've had trouble digging up information on this however, and only picked it up from a libcom thread I can't find at the moment.
The union is called SUT, solidaridad y unidad de los trabajadores. As far as i know it only exists in Madrid and Barcelona. http://www.nodo50.org/sindicatosut/index.php
also though the CWO was made up by former Solidarity people who had went on to form Workers' Voice and Revolutionary Perspectives both of which were strongly influenced or connected to the Dutch German left...
i agree they very much went on to be more influenced by the italian left...but at least in the UK seems they were more influenced or had a line to council communism and/or councilism of Solidarity.
yeah that quote from C is quite interesting because essentially WV who denounced in a classic sense the october revolution and had to be convinced by RP of BC's positions, then went off and became councilist again or whatever...leaving I guess RP people mostly the folks doing CWO? so i assume they were the people that were pro-party?
klas batalo
yeah that quote from C is quite interesting because essentially WV who denounced in a classic sense the october revolution and had to be convinced by RP of BC's positions, then went off and became councilist again or whatever...leaving I guess RP people mostly the folks doing CWO? so i assume they were the people that were pro-party?
Workers Voice left in 76, but the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party wasn't founded till 1983 between BC and CWO, which I'm guessing came out of the Conferences that BC had initiated to try and bring the communist left more together in the later half of the 70's.
Revolutionary Perspectives was/is the journal and I just remembered Workers Voice was the paper of CWO up to changing the name to Aurora.
Klas the pamphlet I reproduced 'The Origins of the Movement for Workers’ Councils in Germany - Group of International Communists 1938', Dave Graham wrote the original intro to that and was a member of the Liverpool WV group that split on councilist lines, I did meet him once while at a meeting on the Dockers strike in the 90's and I know he was influenced by Italian autonomism then.
klas batalo
yeah that quote from C is quite interesting because essentially WV who denounced in a classic sense the october revolution and had to be convinced by RP of BC's positions, then went off and became councilist again or whatever...leaving I guess RP people mostly the folks doing CWO? so i assume they were the people that were pro-party?
My understanding is that it was not this straightforward. RP was essentially a project of one person who was later joined by two others, one who had been in Solidarity in Glasgow, London and an aborted attempt at a group in Newcastle (Cleishbotham on here, sure he won't mind me outting him!), and another had not been in Solidarity. Whilst WV was grouping of worker-militants as far as I know who came from shop steward and Trotskyist backgrounds toward left communist politics. The two then merged for a short period.
The people who were in RP were initally heavily influenced by the German-Dutch communist left, e.g. it was the founder of RP who translated and published the Ruhle pamphlet 'From the Bourgeois to the Proletarian Revolution' after all. As far their evolution from German-Dutch to Italian Left it was a gradual shift. Started out as the perspective of one individual who then convinced others. I actually have the issue of their publication that contains the internal debate on this. Can't exactly remember the details now.
What about Förbundet Allt åt Alla?
They seem in the tradition per se of the other 70s and 90s Swedish council communist groups?
They are federated with no central leadership? Anyone got a clue to their politics? Or are they just eclectic communist?
OliverTwister
The union is called SUT, solidaridad y unidad de los trabajadores. As far as i know it only exists in Madrid and Barcelona. http://www.nodo50.org/sindicatosut/index.php
It seems to vary a bit between cities and local groups, but overall i'd rather say they're mainly inspired by autonomism - thought as everything Negri's ever written. Then again, swedish autonomism has a tendency to organize a lot of varied opinions - say autonomists, but also anarchists, leninists and one or two lonely council communists - in the same groups. So i might be a bit off.
EDIT: okay, so i tried answering # 45 by klas batalo but seems to have failed with that.
ahhh k so they are more eclectic autonome??
There's some German IWWs that are into council communism: http://strike.blogsport.de/
Not particularly informative thread about them here: https://libcom.org/forums/general/contemporary-german-wobbly-council-communists-10092013
They seem in the tradition per se of the other 70s and 90s Swedish council communist groups?
They are federated with no central leadership? Anyone got a clue to their politics? Or are they just eclectic communist?
Six years later we can say that their politics are still pretty unclear. Their "chief theoretician" Mathias Wåg was very influenced by the social centers in Italy while he was in exile there, along with a lot of reading of Negri and Hardt, especially in regards to the "commons". Also the focus on the "right to the city" which I think ties into "the commons". This has from my understanding at least remained the core aspect of AåA's vague politics, some other things have come and gone, like they did a campaign for a social strike one year and are still a part of the Transnational social strike platform. They are also a very core part of the solidarity movement for the struggle in Rojava. The only ties to "council communism" I have come across is that the neighborhood organizing efforts and theorizing by some people in Folkmakt, an older council communist group, influenced and laid the foundation for AåA. In a lot of other aspects I think they are very different from Folkmakt, especially in their view on class in relation to organizing.
Though it is worth mentioning that the AåA-federation has gotten a lot smaller since 2014 with only Malmö, Stockholm(which now has one general chapter and one for women and trans people after internal disputes), Göteborg and Umeå(?) remaining. Much like the Syndicalist Youth Federation before it, they managed to have groups of activists in most larger cities and even some smaller cities, something unheard of today when it comes to the "autonomist" groupings.
To my knowledge the only existing organisation in Sweden that has a tie to council communism, both politically and organizationally, is Förbundet Arbetarsolidaritet, which is sort of an independent "strike fund" that helps both workers' struggle but also like getting material published. People from council communist groups like Folkmakt and Arbetarmakt helped found it, which shows in their small program I think. This fact is sort of hidden today but used to be written on their website(probably because the organisations now are gone), though during their recent anniversary celebration they had a lecture held by one of the original Arbetarmakt members, who they said they had learned a lot about.
Echanges et Mouvement
is about the only group i know still existing. they are decedents of ICO i believe?
Also this history is quite helpful:
http://libcom.org/files/dutchleft.pdf
There really aren't any others? That's hard to believe.
There is Alan Woodward's Workers Socialism (previously Council Socialists, and before that Council Communists) group - consisting of verious people including ex-Solidarity and ex-SWP members, don't think they have a web presence but some of them are or were involved in or close to HSG.
To be fair 'council communism' was a specific thing at a specific time (late 19-teens early 19-twenties Germamy and Holland, basically, plus the intellectuals which came out of that). So there kinda can't be a council communist organisation today which is't a historical re-enactment society. Every decent communist grouping currently existing is to some extent informed by council communism, but it'd be wierd to have a specifically 'council communist group' today.
I don't see it as any weirder than groups that identify as left communist or autonomist...
Juan Conatz
Yeah, I see those (in differing ways) as a little bit wierd too. I even have an issue with the label anarchist. I guess I'm just too fixated on only using political terms about political movements, rather than political theories. (e.g. there are lots of anarchisits, but there's not much in the way of an anarchist movement in the world)
Or, to be more pretentious, the term ought to emerge from the praxis rather than the other way round.
well communists are also of the past some would say? do you have alternatives we should name ourselves?
As i understand it most historical councillist groups were formed on what seemed - reasonably enough, following 1917 - like the eve of revolution. The rationale for forming 'a different kind of party' (KAPD) and revolutionary unions (AAUD, AAUE) was more or less explicitly to eschew all partial struggles and push for workers councils and revolutionary expropriations. It's strongly implied/sometimes explicit that the rationale for such organisations only exists in times of intense, near-revolutionary struggle. So it kinda makes sense there aren't any councillist groups today, or those that exist are propaganda/analysis collectives (like Echanges).
That said, there is/was a councillist tendency in the AF, of which the late Knightrose was a prominent member. Arguably KPK in Czech Republic are councillists, though I think they'd probably identify more with the Mouvement Communiste current Marxism influenced by numerous traditions (including councillism). A couple of KPK members post on libcom so maybe they can chip in.
Joseph Kay
I don't think that this is true for the KAPD from the start. That tendency was there, and can be seen in the 1922 split,
Joseph Kay
I think that the reason for this is not because we are not in a revolutionary situation, but because councilist groups tend to theorise themselves out of existance.
Joseph Kay
I think that this is really wrong.
Devrim
Joseph K
Not at all! Not even in the original "council communism" sense of the term, and much less in the later "councilist" sense (i.e. revolutionaries should abstain from intervening in struggles and stick to circulating information etc.). Although of course Pannekoek, Korsch, Mattick etc. have influenced our views. But this influence has more to do with interpretation of Marx and the general outlook than with specifically councilist ideology with specific organizational preferences etc.
We were also influenced by the other strand of the ultra-left which was critical of self-management from the very beginning (e.g., Bordiga vs. Gramsci). And operaismo, with its theorizing of the skilled worker as the material basis (now largely a thing of past) of the whole council/self-management project, has perhaps been an even greater influence (at least on me, but I don't like Bordiga).
Joseph K
This is correct (we have written common stuff with MC and regularly work together), but I don't think council communism has had more influence on MC or KPK than on the other ultra-left groups around.
Cheers Jura. I've heard a few people refer to KPK as 'councillist'; I'll set them straight in future.
Devrim
Agreed. The logic of councillist positions (rejection of mass organisation and specific political organisation) leads to self-liquidation of any groups in fairly short order. This is why virtually all "left communist" groups are some flavour or other of Bordigists (who do believe in the party).
RASH in Germany (or at least the people who published their zine "Revolution Times") some years ago had strong tendencies towards council communism ... but most of their stuff is offline and I do not know if they still exists
Here's the old page of RASH for those who can read German: http://www.reocities.com/revolutiontimes/
some interesting stuff was produced by the group/journal Der revolutionäre Funke in Berlin which disappeared around the year 2000, don't know what became of them
self-edited out.
Depends on what you mean by Bordigism (though this was a charge leveled from the Kremlin at any tendencies within the communist movement to the left of the prospect of their national party being Bolshevised). Modern left communist groups seem more informed by council communism, Luxemburg, etc than Bordiga.
Depending on whether you consider Luxemburg to be a 'council communist' based on her work (in writing and practice), there are at least 2 groups that exist (though I'd argue that the one that publishes an English language website is far, far from 'Luxemburgist' and has more in common with your average Trot groupuscule) that claim to be 'Luxemburgist' as well as Luxemburg leaning tendencies in different groups (SPUSA or Solidarity, forget which one, claims to have Luxemburgist type members).
I must admit I'd never really considered Luxemburg to be in the 'council communist' spectrum. I always considered her somewhere in the middle between Kautsky and Pannekoek in the Massenstriek debate. In the UK and Ireland, the only group that claimed, at one stage (back in the 70s, mostly, I think, although the claim occasionally resurfaced in the 80s) to be "Luxemburgist" was the SWP. But that always seemed to be more of a pose by way of trying to be more acceptable to the post-68 generation of new left.
By Bordigist I meant those groups that self-identify as "the communist left" and are descended from Bordigism, like ICC, ICT, ICP, etc. In some cases they may have borrowed to a greater or lesser extent, from the councillist critique of unions, but not of the Bordigist conception of the party. Like someone said above, the only surviving "project" I can think of that descends from councillism proper, is Echanges et Mouvement. But if anybody knows of any others, then please let us know.
are there any successors of Daad en Gedachte? ... in Germany, survivors from Rote Kaempfer, KAPD, etc. who did not went to the right never managed to create a stable group or journal after 1945
I agree with those who have said that there are very few actual 'council communist' groups left today, other than the ones already mentioned. There is a very wide interest in the whole tradition and its theoretical contribution, however.
I don't really agree with what ocelot is saying here:
By Bordigist I meant those groups that self-identify as "the communist left" and are descended from Bordigism, like ICC, ICT, ICP, etc. In some cases they may have borrowed to a greater or lesser extent, from the councillist critique of unions, but not of the Bordigist conception of the party.
It's true that most left communists' share some of Bordiga's conceptions of the party, certainly when we consider those he elaborated in the 1920s: in particular the communist party as an organ of the class, not something that came 'from outside'. But as early as the 1930s the Italian left communists usually rejected the term 'Bordigist' thrown at them, and from the 40s, as 'Bordigism' really emerged as a distinct set of ideas based on notions like the invariance of capitalism and support for 'dual revolutions' in the ex-colonial regions, there was also a growing criticism from within the Italian left of the Bordigist notion of the party as the embodiment of the proletarian dictatorship. This was true both of the 'Damenist' current in Italy (from which the ICT descends) and the current around the GCF in France (from which the ICC descends). In the case of the latter, there was a genuine dialogue with the Dutch council communists, who still had a real existence after the war; and the Dutch/German comrades' criticisms of the idea of party dictatorship certainly played a role in the synthesis the GCF tried to develop.
Sure, I have read the Bourrinnet book (actually my copy is the ICC version, acquired back in the early 90s). But for all the variations amongst the various descendents, they still have a common phylogenetic origin, and I can't imagine any councillist group putting itself forward as "the pole for the regroupment of the communist movement" as all the ICT/ICP/ICC groups either do, or have done, at some stage in the past. That is a partyist conception of recomposition which would not fit with a councillist conception at all. Similarly the loyalty to the rejection of workplace or industrial sectoral organisation, based on the original Bordigist rejection of "Bolshevisation" of the Comintern parties following the II Congress of the Comintern (i.e. that CPs should dissolve local area or neighbourhood groups or branches, in favour of factory cells) is also common to all the descendants, unless I'm mistaken? AFAICS there's still a common reference back to the Rome Theses.
ocelot
I am not sure what you mean here? Are you saying that contemporary left communist groups reject workplace organisation?
Maybe I have not read that paragraph closely enough.
I'm not saying that any of the groups descended from the Italian communist left have the same conceptions as the councilists, eg on regroupment. What I do reject is the idea that they all have the same basic conceptions of the party. There is far greater diversity than you allow for. This includes the Dutch left itself, since at the end of world war two the Spartacusbond went back to a conception of the party that was very close to that of the KAPD.
I'll wait for an answer to Android's question before commenting on workplace organisation.
Android
No, it was that my use of language was not at all clear. I meant "organising" in the specific (but not obvious) sense of creating organs based on a particular workplace (or sector).
So, for example, from the late 80s in London, from MD's retrospective of their experience in the Communication Workers Group ("Death to rank and filism!")
So, no it's not that said groups have any more against militants agitating in the workplace setting, than say a group like AF who organise (in the sense of creating groups) on a locality basis. Indeed, the question is somewhat moot at the tiny membership levels that most anarchist and ultra-left groups currently operate at (although orgs like SolFed who have a strong orientation to workplace based organisation, show that its not purely a size consideration, more of orientation). But the point is that this is not a matter of practicality alone for Bordigist-family groups, but also a question of principle that was decided in 1920.
I don't think that MD's account is very accurate. I doubt very much whether we argued that it was 'counter-revolutionary' for postal workers to be involved in a 'plain postal workers group', for example. During that time, the 80s, we were involved in quite a few different 'struggle groups' across Europe. One of them was based in the Paris post. Our idea was that such groups should indeed try to go beyond the individual sector if possible, by opening up to workers from other workplaces and industries.
I think MD's confusion might have arisen from the fact that we later published an article arguing that the Communication Workers Group was or had become rank and fileist (ie leftist). This hadn't been our original position about the group and I think the revised position was a mistake based on what we perceived as the negative evolution of the group.
In any case, I think two different questions are being mixed up here. One is the composition of militant workers groups and the other is the structure of the communist organisation. In our view these are two distinct types of organisation. It's true that we have differences with the ICT over this, since the latter talks about 'communist factory groups'. In our view, a militant workers group can't limit itself to workers who explicitly see themselves as communist (or anarchist, for that matter). In this we do see ourselves as closer to the original position of Bordiga in his opposition to the 'factory cell' becoming the basic party unit, although that again is not exactly the same discussion.
hey alf,
can you lead me to material from the ICC about militant workers groups? i never realized ICC and ICT had much of differences on such. it'd be interesting to learn more about.
Hi
A lot of the more specific stuff we published in the 80s is not online at the moment, but if you're really keen we can dig up some printed samples. The following text is useful because it gives a general overview, although it's a bit old now:
http://en.internationalism.org/ir/021_workers_groups.html
I'll hunt around for some other pieces. There are a couple of groups we are working with in Spain at the moment:
http://en.internationalism.org/worldrevolution/201204/4789/general-strike-spain-radical-minorities-call-independent-workers-action
thanks Alf this should do for now. thanks!
It's probably for the best there aren't really any council communist groups anymore.Bombastic polemicals outside a revolutionary situation would get tiresome.
Entdinglichung
after the end of geocities you find the pages of this council-communist network here: https://sites.google.com/site/bibliothekdeswiderstandes/ http://swiderstand.blogsport.de/ http://sbefreiung.blogsport.de
concerning "Der revolutionäre Funke": in the last issue of kosmoprolet there`s a republication of one article: http://www.kosmoprolet.org/proletarische-bewegung-und-produktivkraftkritik
http://www.eis-zeit.net/
http://strike.blogsport.de/
http://www.kosmoprolet.org/
http://muckracker.wordpress.com/
oh and i was thinking of Daad en Gedachte but i think they are no more...
http://en.internationalism.org/wr/221_daad.htm
http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2007/cajo-brendel-1915-2007
also read recently that ICC and ICT could be sorta considered to be continuance from council communism as they originated from council communist/councilist groups but eventually sorta took a left communist pro-party turn?
klas batalo
I wouldn't classify the peopole from "Barrikade" as council communist. they are pretty othodox anarcho syndicalists.
i think they mostly had some interesting things about cc, i'd agree about them being a-s tho
meinberg
anarcho-syndicalists, for sure
klas batalo
No, that's more or less opposite from the true order of influences. Both the ICC and the ICT have their origins in Bordigism, acquring some CC aspects or themes later in their evolution. But the commitment to the Bordigist conception of party and class are descended from their origins in that tradition, rather than adopted or grafted on at a later stage.
Both the ICC and the ICT, trace their origins to the political evolution of the Italian Bordigist exiles in France through the tendency grouped around the magazine Bilan. It was during this period (while Bordiga himself withdrew from politics) that overtures were made to other tendencies of the "Communist Left", including the trots (abortive) and surving elements of the KAPD. The story is told in detail in Phillipe Bourrinet's "The Bordigist Current" (an earlier version of which was published as the ICC's "History of the Italian Communist Left")
As far as I aware, World Revolution came out of Solidarity's councilism and was initially council communist, before it moved toward left communism and helped form the ICC.
But yes Ocelot is correct I think in saying the ICC and ICT were from their outset explicitly left communist.
For additional confusion Klas, you might be interested to know there is also a group of Spanish bordigists maintaining a red / base union formed from a split from Solidaridad Obrera, the small anarcho-syndicalist union lying somewhere in between the CNT and CGT, and strong in the Madrid underground train system. I've had trouble digging up information on this however, and only picked it up from a libcom thread I can't find at the moment.
The union is called SUT, solidaridad y unidad de los trabajadores. As far as i know it only exists in Madrid and Barcelona. http://www.nodo50.org/sindicatosut/index.php
also though the CWO was made up by former Solidarity people who had went on to form Workers' Voice and Revolutionary Perspectives both of which were strongly influenced or connected to the Dutch German left...
i agree they very much went on to be more influenced by the italian left...but at least in the UK seems they were more influenced or had a line to council communism and/or councilism of Solidarity.
yeah that quote from C is quite interesting because essentially WV who denounced in a classic sense the october revolution and had to be convinced by RP of BC's positions, then went off and became councilist again or whatever...leaving I guess RP people mostly the folks doing CWO? so i assume they were the people that were pro-party?
klas batalo
Workers Voice left in 76, but the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party wasn't founded till 1983 between BC and CWO, which I'm guessing came out of the Conferences that BC had initiated to try and bring the communist left more together in the later half of the 70's.
Revolutionary Perspectives was/is the journal and I just remembered Workers Voice was the paper of CWO up to changing the name to Aurora.
Klas the pamphlet I reproduced 'The Origins of the Movement for Workers’ Councils in Germany - Group of International Communists 1938', Dave Graham wrote the original intro to that and was a member of the Liverpool WV group that split on councilist lines, I did meet him once while at a meeting on the Dockers strike in the 90's and I know he was influenced by Italian autonomism then.
klas batalo
My understanding is that it was not this straightforward. RP was essentially a project of one person who was later joined by two others, one who had been in Solidarity in Glasgow, London and an aborted attempt at a group in Newcastle (Cleishbotham on here, sure he won't mind me outting him!), and another had not been in Solidarity. Whilst WV was grouping of worker-militants as far as I know who came from shop steward and Trotskyist backgrounds toward left communist politics. The two then merged for a short period.
The people who were in RP were initally heavily influenced by the German-Dutch communist left, e.g. it was the founder of RP who translated and published the Ruhle pamphlet 'From the Bourgeois to the Proletarian Revolution' after all. As far their evolution from German-Dutch to Italian Left it was a gradual shift. Started out as the perspective of one individual who then convinced others. I actually have the issue of their publication that contains the internal debate on this. Can't exactly remember the details now.
What about Förbundet Allt åt Alla?
They seem in the tradition per se of the other 70s and 90s Swedish council communist groups?
They are federated with no central leadership? Anyone got a clue to their politics? Or are they just eclectic communist?
OliverTwister
www.sindicatosut.org
It seems to vary a bit between cities and local groups, but overall i'd rather say they're mainly inspired by autonomism - thought as everything Negri's ever written. Then again, swedish autonomism has a tendency to organize a lot of varied opinions - say autonomists, but also anarchists, leninists and one or two lonely council communists - in the same groups. So i might be a bit off.
EDIT: okay, so i tried answering # 45 by klas batalo but seems to have failed with that.
ahhh k so they are more eclectic autonome??
There's some German IWWs that are into council communism: http://strike.blogsport.de/
Not particularly informative thread about them here: https://libcom.org/forums/general/contemporary-german-wobbly-council-communists-10092013
https://www.echangesetmouvement.fr/
https://www.daadengedachte.nl/
http://www.arbeidersstemmen.nl/
Six years later we can say that their politics are still pretty unclear. Their "chief theoretician" Mathias Wåg was very influenced by the social centers in Italy while he was in exile there, along with a lot of reading of Negri and Hardt, especially in regards to the "commons". Also the focus on the "right to the city" which I think ties into "the commons". This has from my understanding at least remained the core aspect of AåA's vague politics, some other things have come and gone, like they did a campaign for a social strike one year and are still a part of the Transnational social strike platform. They are also a very core part of the solidarity movement for the struggle in Rojava. The only ties to "council communism" I have come across is that the neighborhood organizing efforts and theorizing by some people in Folkmakt, an older council communist group, influenced and laid the foundation for AåA. In a lot of other aspects I think they are very different from Folkmakt, especially in their view on class in relation to organizing.
Though it is worth mentioning that the AåA-federation has gotten a lot smaller since 2014 with only Malmö, Stockholm(which now has one general chapter and one for women and trans people after internal disputes), Göteborg and Umeå(?) remaining. Much like the Syndicalist Youth Federation before it, they managed to have groups of activists in most larger cities and even some smaller cities, something unheard of today when it comes to the "autonomist" groupings.
To my knowledge the only existing organisation in Sweden that has a tie to council communism, both politically and organizationally, is Förbundet Arbetarsolidaritet, which is sort of an independent "strike fund" that helps both workers' struggle but also like getting material published. People from council communist groups like Folkmakt and Arbetarmakt helped found it, which shows in their small program I think. This fact is sort of hidden today but used to be written on their website(probably because the organisations now are gone), though during their recent anniversary celebration they had a lecture held by one of the original Arbetarmakt members, who they said they had learned a lot about.
https://raetekommunismus.wordpress.com/