Differences between Left Communists and Anarchists?

[Broletariat]

topic title says it all really. What separates these two ideologies?

[Struggle]

topic title says it all really.

You said it.

[Zanthorus]

I would say the main issue is the necessity for an international centralised party organisation (Every Left-Communist organisation in existence being for and every Anarchist organisation I'm aware of being against). There are problems in pinning down other differences because neither tendency is homogenous. However, the anarchist movement is certainly a lot less so than Left-Communism. Some anarchists have politics which are nearly indistuinuishable from Trotskyism (Platformists being the obvious culprit here). Others (What the ICC has labelled 'Internationalist Anarchism') have politics which are very close to Left-Communism (Thinking particularly of the UK AFed here).

[Broletariat]

I would say the main issue is the necessity for an international centralised party organisation (Every Left-Communist organisation in existence being for and every Anarchist organisation I'm aware of being against).
What does this entail precisely, an international centralised party organisation?

[Zanthorus]

What does this entail precisely, an international centralised party organisation?

Think the Communist International except with the national sections being explicitly national sections of an international party rather than national parties (This may seem like a name issue. But consider the difference between the Communist Party of Italy (Section of the Third International), a name chosen specifically to reflect it's nature as the national outpost of an international organisation, and the Italian Communist Party, the Stalinist party created after WWII, and the difference becomes more significant), also without the dictatorship of the Russian party over the whole affair (Or any other section which manages to gain some weight because of the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship in their specific territory. In other words, the realisation of Bordiga's proposal for the West-European Communist parties to be involved in deciding questions of tactics, and for the whole International to debate questions of policy concerning Russia).

[Os Cangaceiros]

One is a branch of Marxism. The other is not.

[∞]

Some anarchists have politics which are nearly indistuinuishable from Trotskyism (Platformists being the obvious culprit here).

I find that to be a very misguided assertion. First off, you use the word politics. Although Anarchists may have a political view of some sorts, it exemplifies an apolitical struggle. Platformism more or less has to do with military struggle within an anarchist movement. One can describe use of vanguard for the Syndicalists, which is a term I feel isn't very appropriate at least in comparison to Marxist vanguard. As the CNT had been more of a situation of negotiation with political parties rather than behaving like one. They had refused to install a government in Catalonia (even though some veterans regret it). Trotskyism is based on Democratic Centralism not apolitical struggle, therefore any similiarities are either miniscule or in pure flavor of socialism as a theory.


Otherwise, I think you brought some very good differences that I never considered.

[Zanthorus]

I find that to be a very misguided assertion. First off, you use the word politics. Although Anarchists may have a political view of some sorts, it exemplifies an apolitical struggle.

I believe the in-vogue word to use at the moment is 'anti-political'. Anyway, I just use the word politics to refer to people's positions on various tactical issues.

The point I was making was that the tendency historically identified as 'Platformism' has tended to have positions similar to Trots on natlib struggles, gaining positions in the union bureaucracy and so on.

[∞]

Anti-political is probably a better word, since then they'd actually reflect a view.

Thats fine but there is all too many little parallels in all these tendencies, so you can't say they're "indistinguishable" from eachother.

I see where you are coming from though...

[Ovi]

I would say the main issue is the necessity for an international centralised party organisation (Every Left-Communist organisation in existence being for and every Anarchist organisation I'm aware of being against). There are problems in pinning down other differences because neither tendency is homogenous. However, the anarchist movement is certainly a lot less so than Left-Communism. Some anarchists have politics which are nearly indistuinuishable from Trotskyism (Platformists being the obvious culprit here). Others (What the ICC has labelled 'Internationalist Anarchism') have politics which are very close to Left-Communism (Thinking particularly of the UK AFed here).
That sure is a lot of bullocks for a single post. While some have different ideas on what the Platform is all about, that doesn't mean some anarchists have politics which are nearly indistuinuishable from Trotskyism. If Platformism is indistinguishable from Trotskyism, then it's not part of the anarchist thought; if Platformism is indeed part of the anarchist thought (as Errico Malatesta concluded after seeing platformists in action) then it doesn't have much to do with Trotskyism.

[bricolage]

The problem with talking about 'Platformism' is that the Platform was just an organisational document, it wasn't meant to spawn differing theoretical or ideological views. However in referring to it now it usually relates to the group of organisations that have coalesced around the Anarkismo (http://www.anarkismo.net/) current. I think it's fair to say a lot of these groups have similar politics to strands of 'left' Trotskyism.

[The Douche]

Yeah, I prefer the term "neo-platformism" to describe modern organizations who consider themselves platformist, and many of those organizations (as said, those around anarkismo) certainly do have common ground with the trots.

But the document itself has little to do with what is currently called platformism, hell, even RAAN cites the platform as being part of the inspiration for our organizational principles. (and I am not a fan of the platform, and certainly not of the current "platformist" organizations)