recommend me leftcom literature

[scarletghoul]

What are some essential texts i should read to get an understanding of any of the varieties of left communism ??

bored + eager = bordiga

[Sun at Eight]

At some point soon I'm intending to read Pannekoek's Workers' Councils (http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1947/workers-councils.htm). I'm looking forward to other suggestions in the thread.

[Commie73]

Pannekoeks Lenin as philosopher is a good read.

Im trying to find more books on the Italian Communist left, but appart from the ICC book I cant really find much else. Any recommendations?

[Savage]

For an introduction to Bordiga, you should read Loren Goldner's Communism is the Material Human Community: Amadeo Bordiga Today (http://home.earthlink.net/%7Elrgoldner/bordiga.html). For actual Bordiga, Libcom has his most prominent texts that have been translated from Italian.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Try "When Insurrections Die", by Gilles Dauve. It's available in it's entirety on Libcom.

[Ilyich]

Rosa Luxemburg, one of the first left communists, details her opposition to vanguardism and "democratic" centralism in Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy (Leninism or Marxism), a 1904 booklet which I just read today.

You can read the full text here.

[HEAD ICE]

Bordiga vs Pannekoek
http://theoryandpractice.org.uk/library/bordiga-versus-pannekeok-antagonism-2001

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1920/abstentionists.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1920/seize-power.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1926/lyons-theses.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1926/comintern.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1951/doctrine.htm

http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2011-01-21/damen-on-bordiga-cwo-introduction
http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2011-01-21/amadeo-bordiga-beyond-the-myth-and-the-rhetoric-0
http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2010-03-17/centralised-party-yes-centralism-over-the-party-no

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/006_bilan_34.html
http://en.internationalism.org/ir/006_bilan_35.html
http://en.internationalism.org/ir/006_bilan_36_dont_betray.html
http://en.internationalism.org/node/2630

http://libcom.org/library/notes-trotsky-pannekoek-bordiga-gilles-dauv%C3%A9
http://libcom.org/library/eclipse-re-emergence-communist-movement
http://libcom.org/library/fascism-anti-fascism-gilles-dauve-jean-barrot
http://libcom.org/library/when-insurrections-die

http://libcom.org/library/unions-against-revolution-g-munis

This is obviously biased towards the Italian left tradition, maybe others can suggest better things on the German-Dutch left

[scarletghoul]

Thanks everyone.

[HEAD ICE]

I'd also recommend Internationalist Papers, the english language publication of one of the many International Communist Parties. They have a section in each issue called "back to the basics" which can be of help. I already posted some links that are already covered in a few of the issues, but there are others that I didn't post in there such as the Rome Theses and the Livorno program. However, i would recommend their article on Gramsci if are you to read one thing out of Internationalist Papers (the 2002 issue).
http://www.internationalcommunistparty.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=section&id=7&Itemid=55

[Sun at Eight]

This may not be part of the traditional Left Communist readings, but I'd like to recommend Noel Ignatin/Ignatiev's No Condescending Saviors (http://www.sojournertruth.net/ncsaviors.html) which comes from a position to which I often feel very sympathetic - a sort of ML-birthed and inflected autonomous Marxism with a focus on white supremacy and white skin privilege. The Sojourner Truth Organization website from which this essay/pamphlet comes is a fantastic archive for a group that put out a lot of thoughtful and original material and sort of sputtered away in the eighties. I particularly recommend it to Americans, since it really attempts to grapple with the peculiarities of that country and probably has lessons for those living in other settler-colonial societies.

[Zanthorus]

This may not be part of the traditional Left Communist readings,

It isn't, and I don't think it has much to do with Left Communism at all. When we are talking about the Communist Left, we are talking about groups that had in common (1) an initial opposition to all sides in the First World War (2) an early affiliation to the Communist International but also crucially (3) developed a line which was independent of and critical of the dominant politics of the Comintern around the time of the first and second congresses, as well as the descendants of these groups. This all has nothing to do with 'Autonomous Marxism' which was a product of the 50's and 60's although there are certain areas of overlap particularly in the Italian Autonomist's conception of communism as the 'abolition/refusal of work' and the corresponding critique of self-management. More importantily, in the main Left Communists are white male eurocentric westerners who reductionistically reduce all opression to class opression, and therefore couldn't possibly have anything to do with discussion of issues like race, although I did hear there was some crazy academic called Loren Goldner who identifies with Left Communism and wrote a couple of articles for the journal 'Race Traitor' on the subject of race and the enlightenment:

http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/raceI.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/raceII.html


For an introduction to Bordiga, you should read Loren Goldner's Communism is the Material Human Community: Amadeo Bordiga Today (http://home.earthlink.net/%7Elrgoldner/bordiga.html).

This is the 'best' introduction to Bordiga in English online (Better than Adam Buick's crap anyway) but it still has some serious flaws. Loren tends to read Bordiga through the lenses of the 'neo-Bordigist' trend and it's focus on problematics like the periodisation of history in terms of the move from the formal to the real subsumption of labour under capital which isn't really huge in Bordiga himself. He seems to put up an artificial division between Bordiga and Trotsky which at least Bordiga himself would've definitively rejected, and draws some very suspicious conclusions from Bordiga's texts. And, most notably, he sees the 'Avanti Barbati' piece as a defence of Stalinism's historically progressive role. The user Noa Rodman on libcom read the French translation of that piece and apparently saw nothing that would justify Goldner's conclusion (It's probable that Goldner got his information about that text second hand).

[Die Rote Fahne]

Rosa Luxemburg, one of the first left communists, details her opposition to vanguardism and "democratic" centralism in Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy (Leninism or Marxism), a 1904 booklet which I just read today.

You can read the full text here.
I would consider Rosa an Orthodox Marxist, as opposed to a left communist.

That's up for debate though.

[Zanthorus]

I don't think that is up for debate at all. There is no way that Luxemburg could be seen as a Left Communist. She never had 'Left Communist' positions on several issues and died before the foundation of the Comintern. Her political development was roughly the same as those who formed the 'center' within the KPD which opposed and expelled the Left.

Incidentally, I don't think many Left Communists today with Rosa's 'critique' of Lenin either, although neither did Rosa herself, for that matter.

[Android]

While I agree that Rosa Luxemburg was not part of the Communist Left, i.e. the movement that took form largely in reaction to the right-ward drift of the Communist International. But was also a continuum with the political experience of the left-wing of social-democracy. And in that respect although Luxemburg's adherence to the left-wing is not at all clear, she did influence it and the subsequent development of the Communist Left - re: abandoning the separation of the minimum and maximum programme of social-democracy, on the national question and the GCF/ICC's adoption of her understanding of capitalist reproduction and crisis.

Thus, I think you contradict yourself Zan.:


When we are talking about the Communist Left, we are talking about groups that had in common (1) an initial opposition to all sides in the First World War (2) an early affiliation to the Communist International but also crucially (3) developed a line which was independent of and critical of the dominant politics of the Comintern around the time of the first and second congresses, as well as the descendants of these groups.


There is no way that Luxemburg could be seen as a Left Communist. She never had 'Left Communist' positions on several issues and died before the foundation of the Comintern. Her political development was roughly the same as those who formed the 'center' within the KPD which opposed and expelled the Left.

[Zanthorus]

That is not the only criteria I listed though. If (1) is taken as the primary defining point for Left Communism that also means that Lenin and Trotsky (Who were influential in the development of Left Comunism as well esp. in the Italian Left) and even Stalin (!) could be considered Left Communists. In fact, Bernstein also opposed support for any side in the war, so he could also, by the isolation of that single criteria, be considered a part of the Communist Left!

[Android]

Zan.: my point was not that (1) should be the "primary defining point" of the Communist Left. But that I disagree with what seems to be your contention that there is straight-forwardly clear separation between Luxemburg and the emergence and development of the Communist Left.

I agree with the three defining points you outlined. It is as good a typological definition as is possible in my opinion, but it is exactly that a mental abstraction.

[Sun at Eight]

It isn't, and I don't think it has much to do with Left Communism at all. When we are talking about the Communist Left, we are talking about groups that had in common (1) an initial opposition to all sides in the First World War (2) an early affiliation to the Communist International but also crucially (3) developed a line which was independent of and critical of the dominant politics of the Comintern around the time of the first and second congresses, as well as the descendants of these groups. This all has nothing to do with 'Autonomous Marxism' which was a product of the 50's and 60's although there are certain areas of overlap particularly in the Italian Autonomist's conception of communism as the 'abolition/refusal of work' and the corresponding critique of self-management. More importantily, in the main Left Communists are white male eurocentric westerners who reductionistically reduce all opression to class opression, and therefore couldn't possibly have anything to do with discussion of issues like race, although I did hear there was some crazy academic called Loren Goldner who identifies with Left Communism and wrote a couple of articles for the journal 'Race Traitor' on the subject of race and the enlightenment:

http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/raceI.html
http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/raceII.html


I read those Loren Goldner essays some time ago and I'd recommend them as worthwhile reading for any tendency (along with lots of other Loren Goldner essays, including the Bordiga one - he's very readable). Thanks for the clarification on Autonomous Marxism and its connection to Left Communism. Would you see Ignatiev and Goldner (even with his self-identification) as more Autonomist Marxists?

[Android]

Would you see Ignatiev and Goldner (even with his self-identification) as more Autonomist Marxists?

First of all, it is important to be clear about what we mean by 'Autonomous Marxism'. The different political trends (i.e. Operaismo in Italy, Autonomen in Germany and Autonmous Marxism in North America and Britain) that are part of the Autonomous tradition in board sense but they are not reducible to a single entity called 'Autonomous Marxism' IMO. Just to be clear by 'Autonomous Marxism' I mean Harry Cleaver, Midnight Notes et al.

I would not call Noel Ignatiev or Loren Goldner an "Autonomous Marxist" either in the broad sense or the more narrow sense I outlined above.

While during Ignatiev's time in Sojourner Truth Organisation he did seem to appropriate some concepts. But he is at the end of the day a race-liberal and he should be very problematic politically for Marxists since he articulates a form of US nationalism (see Chris Wright's text Marxism and White Skin Privilege (http://libcom.org/library/marxism-white-skin-privilege-chris-wright)).

As far as Goldner is considered he is clearly not an Autonomous Marxist in the sense of Cleaver et al. I think it is fairly obvious that he is a Left-Communist.

[theblackmask]

Herman Gorter's "An Open Letter to Comrade Lenin" - http://www.marxists.org/archive/gorter/1920/open-letter/index.htm

[Obs]

scarlet if you turn leftcom now i will be so mad