Question about left communism

[papaspace]

Do left communists accept the following things?:

* The vanguard party. If they do, what is their conception of its role and how does it differ from that of Leninists?

* Dialectical materialism

* Democratic centralism. If they do, what is their conception of it?

[Broletariat]

Left Communists, as far as I'm aware, hold a very different definition of the vanguard than the Stalinists do.

Left Communists would say that all Communists are the vanguard, the vanguard is merely the more class-conscious section of the proletariat. The vanguard's role is not to lead the working class, but to try and help guide or influence the working class.

I don't think most Left Communists care about Dialectical materialism, I personally reject it

I don't know what "democratic centralism" is.

[Book O'Dead]

Left Communists, as far as I'm aware, hold a very different definition of the vanguard than the Stalinists do.

Left Communists would say that all Communists are the vanguard, the vanguard is merely the more class-conscious section of the proletariat. The vanguard's role is not to lead the working class, but to try and help guide or influence the working class.

I don't think most Left Communists care about Dialectical materialism, I personally reject it

I don't know what "democratic centralism" is.

I would add that the primary objective of any class conscious proletarian "vanguard" is to educate sufficient numbers of workers, raise their level of working class consciouness, help them organize politically for the seizure of and cancellation of state power, and agitate for the formation of democratic economic organizations whose purpose will to be to take, hold and operate the industries of the land.

We can leave "dialectical materialism" to the stay-at-home intellectuals satisfied with mental masturbation.

[Zanthorus]

Dialectical materialism

I don't think there's ever been any unified body of theory which we could definitely identify as 'dialectical materialism'. My impression is that a lot of writers used it without really thinking about it. That said, in the Lyons These Bordiga wrote that among the key doctrines of Marxism was "Dialectical Materialism as the method of conceiving of the world and human history", and in 'The Fundamentals for a Marxist Orientation', in the section on Method, he notes dialectical materialism as one of the ways of denoting the central method of Marxism.


Democratic centralism.

The Internationalist Communist Tendency claims that it's groups operate on the basis of democratic centralism which is described in their text on 'The Decline of the Russian Revolution and the Cult of the Party' as "a dual process where policy was decided by the party from the bottom up and then it became incumbent on all members to carry it out. The members still had the right to criticise the policy internally but it remained the policy until a subsequent decision of the whole party rejected it." The International Communist Current talks about 'centralism' plain and simple. Historically the Communist Left was marked by a rejection of the traditional Leninist conception of the party for one reason or another. In Italy the 'Bordigist' current developed the theory that the main characteristics of the party are it's centralisation of differing sectoral workers' struggles and the link it provides between the immediate struggles and the final goal, which is embodied in the party programme. For this reason as well as the role which formal democratic procedures played in the degeneration of the Third International the term 'Organic Centralism' was adopted. The Dutch-German left talked about a centralism from below but I don't think ever discussed 'democratic centralism'.

[Rafiq]

Do left communists accept the following things?:

* The vanguard party. If they do, what is their conception of its role and how does it differ from that of Leninists?



No, left communists advocate worker's councils take the place of a vangaurd party.


[QUOTE=papaspace;2125589]
* Dialectical materialism


Some accept it and some dismiss it as rubbish.



* Democratic centralism. If they do, what is their conception of it?

I don't know for sure.

[Zanthorus]

No, left communists advocate worker's councils take the place of a vangaurd party.

I hadn't answered the OP's query on this point because a full explication of the views of the Communist Left on 'the party'/'the vanguard' would probably become far too lengthy however this view of the vanguard/class relationship was the view of the Otto Rühle faction of the KAPD only. He was opposed even within the Dutch-German left by Hermann Gorter.