Introductory Literature to Left Communism

[Comrade Jandar]

I've recently taken an interest to left communism and libertarian marxism in general. Could anyone give me some suggestions of titles or theorists? I'd prefer books that were more conceptual and discussed strategy rather than economics. Thank you in advance.

[Blake's Baby]

'The Mass Strike' by Rosa Luxemburg?

Not a Left Communist (she was killed before Left Communism emerged and I have a suspicion she wouldn't have been a Left-Comm anyway) but extremely influential on the German Left in particular.

'1905' by Leon Trotsky?

More a weird autobiographical work about his role in the 1905 Revolution but indispensible I think for an insight into the workings of the soviets. Obviously Trotsky wasn't a Left-Comm either but never mind. Left Communism as a political current regards itself as holding on to the gains of the Second and Third Internationals as well as developing Marxism during the 20th century.

The ICC published a series of books on Communism Lefts in Italy, Germany/Netherlands, Britain and Russia. They all contain extensive sections quoting and sometimes reprinting in whole works by Left Communists in the early 20th century.

[Leo]

I've recently taken an interest to left communism and libertarian marxism in general. Could anyone give me some suggestions of titles or theorists? I'd prefer books that were more conceptual and discussed strategy rather than economics. Thank you in advance.

Open Letter to Comrade Lenin by Herman Gorter (The Communist Workers Party of the Netherlands):

http://www.marxists.org/archive/gorter/1920/open-letter/index.htm

World Revolution and Communist Tactics by Anton Pannekoek (The Communist Workers Party of the Netherlands):

http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/tactics/

The Democratic Principle by Amadeo Bordiga (The Communist Party of Italy):

http://www.sinistra.net/lib/upt/compro/liqe/liqemcicee.html

Bourgeois Violence and Proletarian Defence by Onorato Damen (The Internationalist Communist Party of Italy)

http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/1999-11-01/bourgeois-violence-and-proletarian-defence

The State in the Period of Transition by Marc Chirik (The International Communist Current):

http://en.internationalism.org/node/2648

Terror, Terrorism and Class Vİolence by Marc Chirik (The International Communist Current):

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/014_terror.html

[Tim Finnegan]

Pannekoek's Lenin as Philosopher (http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1938/lenin/index.htm) and Workers' Councils (http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1947/workers-councils.htm) are pretty important in understanding the Dutch/German Left perspective.

Loren Goldner (http://home.earthlink.net/%7Elrgoldner/)is a good contemporary leftcom theorist.

[Alf]

Some of the books Blake's Baby mentioned can be found here. http://en.internationalism.org/tag/1/227/purchase. If you go through the publications section on our website, our International Review also has many articles on the history of the communist left

The article 'The communist left and the continuity of marxism' is is a shorter general overview, but the link doesn't seem to be working at the moment.