Left communists - why the hammer and sickle?

[Little-Lenin]

:confused:Why does the IBRP use hammer and sickle as symbols ? Isn´t the sickle a symbol of peasantry? Wasn´t the communist left against the peasants as allies of the proletariat?

(By the way; Sylvia Pankhurst used the same symbol for her paper "Worker´s Dreadnought"...didn´t she?)

Answers are very welcome.

In solidarity,

Little-Lenin

:)

[Devrim]

I don't think that anybody from the IBRP posts here. There is a forum on their site and you could ask them there. It doesn't have much traffic in English, more in Italian, but I am sure they will answer direct questions. I think it is just a historical thing from the Russian revolution though.
Devrim

[Gustav HK]

As i know, left communist isn´t and were never against the poor peasants as allies to the proletariat. The German- and Dutch left communists said that it was fine that the bolsheviks had used the poor peasantry as an ally to the proletariat, but they saw that the same couldn´t be done in more developed countries like Germany, where most of the peasantry were more closer to the russian kulaks, than to hungry poor peasants.




"This representation, however, is not the truth. There is an enormous difference between Russia and Western Europe. In general the importance of the poor peasants as a revolutionary factor decreases from east to west. In some Parts of Asia, China, and India, in the event of a revolution, this class would be the absolutely decisive factor; in Russia it constitutes an indispensable and, indeed, one of the main factors; in Poland, and in a few states of South-Eastern and Central Europe, it is still of importance for the revolution, but further West its attitude grows ever more antagonistic towards the revolution."
- Herman Gorter, Open letter to comrade Lenin

[originofopinion]

The Hammer in my mind represents the Industrial Workers and the Sickle represents the agricultural workers.

But then again it depends on how YOU view it.

[h9socialist]

The Left was never against the peasantry -- the peasantry in most European countries was the proletariat looking for a place to happen. Moreover, most "communist" revolutions in the 20th Century had plenty of support from the peasant classes.

[Chow Foo]

Peasants and Workers