Anarchism and Left Communism

[Mark V.]

Yet another newbie questions thread.

I would appreciate it if someone could help me understand the differences between Anarchism and "Left Communism".

Also, I see the term "Ultra Leftist" thrown around on this website. I can easily gather that it is a negative term, but what negative trait is it referring to?

Thanks in advance.

[Cynic]

Left Communism still sees the need for a transitional period between capitalism and communism after the revolution while Anarchism goes into a stateless society following the revolution without the need of a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat."

The term "Ultra-Left" is used to describe the more libertarian trends of socialism such as Anarcho-Syndicalism and Left Communism. The term is generally used by the more authoritarian tendencies such as Marxism-Leninism.

[AnonymousOne]

Also, I see the term "Ultra Leftist" thrown around on this website. I can easily gather that it is a negative term, but what negative trait is it referring to?

Thanks in advance.

It's used to insult people who are critical of contemporary revolutions. An ultra-leftist is someone who won't support any movement or revolution until it's perfect, the problem being of course that will never happen.

Often times people will be called ultra-leftist in relation to Chavez's Venezuela, and the current situation in Nepal.

[Zanthorus]

I would appreciate it if someone could help me understand the differences between Anarchism and "Left Communism".

This is impossible to answer in the space of a single forum post given the wide number of trends going under the banner of 'Anarchism' and the difficulty of delineating what is and is not 'Left Communism'. Your best bet is to read around works by Left Communists and Anarchists and understand their nuances and the places where they overlap as well as diverge significantly.


Also, I see the term "Ultra Leftist" thrown around on this website. I can easily gather that it is a negative term, but what negative trait is it referring to?

The term is not necessarily negative. Especially in France the term 'ultra-gauche' can be used to denote a positive current, for example in Gilles Dauve's 'Leninism and the Ultra-Left' where the term ultra-left is used to refer to the Dutch-German Communist Left. The term is I think usually considered to originate from the division made by the Communist International between trends in the workers' movement. They considered that the workers' movement was dvided between the 'right', 'centre' and 'left' currents, and the theory was that the 'left' had been regrouped in the Comintern. Following this classification, the groups that were on the left of the Comintern itself were to the left of the left or the 'ultra-left'. The term is used generally to classify groups which are to the left of Leninism in some respect.

On the libcom forums the current trend is to divide the ultra-left into two broad groupings, the 'paleo ultra-left' consisting of the original Left Communist groups who were supposedly theoretically 'orthodox' in their Marxism except in minor details and the 'neo ultra-left' who arose in the 50's and 60's and broke with the 'disease' [sic] of orthodoxy. This could include groups like the Johnson-Forest Tendency, Socialisme ou Barbarie, the Italian Operaisti and the French situationists and 'neo-Bordigists'. I think this division is a bit artifical myself since Gorter and Pannekoek's polemics against Lenin contain a primitive version of the argument that would later be taken up in various forms by 60's theorists like Camatte in the terms of the 'real domination of capital' or by Debord in the society of the spectacle. Also Bordiga's writings contain criticisms of organisational fetishism, voluntarism and formalism that have a marked resemblance to contemporary 'ultra-left' theorists in the 'communisation' current. Nonetheless in terms of historical periodisation it has a certain truth.

The term ultra-left can be a term of abuse, especially when used by Trotskyist currents who consider certain Maoist groups, the third-period Comintern and various insurrectionary currents to be of the 'ultra-left', and it did originate that way, but if we're clear that the ultra-left refers to a definite current with positions against voluntarism, formalism, organisational fetishism and so on then I wouldn't have anything personally against self-identifying as an adherent of the broad ultra-left.


The term "Ultra-Left" is used to describe the more libertarian trends of socialism such as Anarcho-Syndicalism and Left Communism

Actually one of the main currents of the 'ultra-left' following the lead taken up by Amadeo Bordiga has criticised the idea of a conflict between 'libertarian' and 'authoritarian' trends or adherents of the 'council-form' and the 'party-form' and asserted the idea of the revolution as a question in the first place of content. Anarcho-Syndicalism and it's fetish of the union-form doesn't really have much in common with a current that was against even 'revolutionary' unions and the idea that the problem posed was to advocate and create the perfect form of organisation.


It's used to insult people who are critical of contemporary revolutions. An ultra-leftist is someone who won't support any movement or revolution until it's perfect, the problem being of course that will never happen.

What 'contemporary revolutions' are you referring to? In the Marxist lexicon a revolution refers to an event which at the very least transforms the structure of the state. There is no 'revolution' in Venezuela in the first place since the structure of the old state remains intact, so it's difficult to see how anyone could be critical of 'contemporary revolutions' when in this context no such thing exists. In point of fact it's probably the other way around, the 'ultra-left' is generally identified with the idea that the revolution is spontaneously generated by the situation of the proletariat and the organisation of capitalism as a whole rather than consciously 'imposed' by one or another ostensibly revolutionary group, whereas those who are outside of the 'ultra-left' are usually those imposing some external standard on revolutions by saying that they failed from the absence of some ideal form of organisation such as the revolutionary union or Leninist party.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Also Bordiga's writings contain criticisms of organisational fetishism, voluntarism and formalism that have a marked resemblance to contemporary 'ultra-left' theorists in the 'communisation' current. Nonetheless in terms of historical periodisation it has a certain truth.

The term ultra-left can be a term of abuse, especially when used by Trotskyist currents who consider certain Maoist groups, the third-period Comintern and various insurrectionary currents to be of the 'ultra-left', and it did originate that way, but if we're clear that the ultra-left refers to a definite current with positions against voluntarism, formalism, organisational fetishism and so on then I wouldn't have anything personally against self-identifying as an adherent of the broad ultra-left.

Actually one of the main currents of the 'ultra-left' following the lead taken up by Amadeo Bordiga has criticised the idea of a conflict between 'libertarian' and 'authoritarian' trends or adherents of the 'council-form' and the 'party-form' and asserted the idea of the revolution as a question in the first place of content. Anarcho-Syndicalism and it's fetish of the union-form doesn't really have much in common with a current that was against even 'revolutionary' unions and the idea that the problem posed was to advocate and create the perfect form of organisation.

The big positive about Bordiga among the left-coms was that he didn't entertain council and/or assembly fetishes. There are those fetishes, the union fetishes, the "Leninist vanguard party" fetishes, the electoral machine fetishes, etc. The "perfect" form of organization, however, is the one that institutionally combines elements of each major form of workers organization.

You've criticized me for my alleged "organizational fetishism," but I still think that a certain model was by far the closest to this "perfect" form.

[Jose Gracchus]

Don't you ever have enough sincerity and self-respect to not enter into every discussion solely with the obvious aim of self-promotion and evangelism? This is why no one ever wants to actually engage anything you ever say.

And I suppose you have nothing but "bad luck" or "bad ideas" to explain why your fetishized form (funny your rhetorical devices say more about your own approach to politics than anyone else's) produced nothing but counterrevolutionary scabs and traitors that led workers into the meatgrinder.