Left communism

[TheIrrationalist]

I've looked through the tendency list and I came across left communism. What exactly is left communism? How does it differ from "basic" Marxism?

[subcp]

People and groups which were to the left of the Communist International, and kicked out either in the 2nd or 3rd Congresses- the Communist Party of Italy was majority left communist until the Bolshevization of the Western CP's, and Gramsci-Togliatti were put in charge. The 2 main branches were the Dutch/German and the Italian communist left, though there were left communists who were organized as left communists in many countries (Bulgaria, Russia, etc.). After being kicked out of the Communist International, the organized communist left (both of the main versions) lived on and inspired new generations and created new organizations, which have descendents that still exist today.

[newdayrising]

In terms of actual politics, here's what I wrote on a similar thread:


Someone will probably write something more in depth after this, but if you want to be really basic about it, here's a list of differences/particularities in relation to what you called Trotskyism/Leninism:

Rejection of parliamentarism and unions (except for a few Bordigists who view they can in certain circumstances be used tactically)
Rejection of national liberation and "anti-imperialism"
Intransigent internationalism, meaning one does not pick sides on wars between bourgeois states
Views of so called "real existing socialism" (past and present) as capitalist
Views of the mainstream left (Trotskyism, Stalinism, social democracy, etc) as part of the bourgeois apparatus

The two most influential currents of what became known as left-communism are the Dutch/German and the Italian ones. There are left-communists of the Italian variety who would consider themselves Leninists.
Most left communists today are members or sympathizers of two main groups: the International Communist Current and the International Communist Tendency or in fewer cases, of groups that split from either group.
This would be, for lack of a better term, the mainstream of left-communism and both groups are, to different degrees, influenced by both the Italian and the Dutch/German lefts.
Also, both regard Lenin and Trotsky as genuine revolutionaries but don't consider Trotskyism as a proletarian political current and are generally critical of what's usually called "Leninism".

I've been corrected since on the part where I say most Leftcoms today are members or sympathizers of the two main organizations. Apparently, this is not true anymore.
But looking at their websites would be a good thing if you want to look deeper into it.

[garrus]

So in a nutshell, they're marxist theoreticians that adopt anarchist-type action ?

[subcp]

Not exactly. They're Marxists that stayed consistent in their analysis and activity as Communists; not 'going along to get along' when the Third International devolved into opportunism and then out and out counter-revolution (Popular Front). Activism is opposed; though there is a fine line between communists intervention in the class struggle and activism (activism being voluntarist and substitutionist).

Though certain strands of class struggle anarchism are close to the politics of left communists, and some left communist groups (GCI I think) are close to anarchism; some of the communisation groups describe themselves as dissident anarchists and left communists, taking from both tendencies.

[Sasha]

the ICC here considers internationalist anarchists the only other revolutionary current and as such is willing to work with us (even though they can be highly critical of us in their paper)

[Alf]

This article gives a general overview of how we see the communist left


http://en.internationalism.org/the-communist-left

[Alf]

We have a page in Finnish on our website:
http://fi.internationalism.org/



There were also left communists in Finland at the time of the Russian revolution

extract from Gilles Dauvé / Denis Authier

The “International Communist Left”




Finland

Part of the Russian empire until its independence in December 1917, Finland was wracked by civil war from January to March of 1918. The revolutionaries organized in the left wing of the Socialist Party, who had taken power in the south, were defeated by the reaction supported by Germany. The communist Finns working in Russia founded the Finnish Communist Party there in August. The following summarizes the lessons which its leader, O. Kuusinen, drew from the failure of the Socialist Republic of Finland, in his work The Finnish Revolution: an Auto-critique.[19]

“It was utterly typical that, during the meeting of the (socialist) party held in June 1917—where, by the way, we had joined the Zimmerwald International—not one voice was heard demanding that we separate ourselves from the government socialists ... the road of democracy, it then seemed, was open and offered vast possibilities. We expected that we could avoid the worst outcome by using parliamentary methods. And what has been the result of this historical error? Were we able to avoid an armed conflict? No! Parliamentary action was and can only be a danger to the working class movement. All that it did was to uselessly gather together all the forces which were necessary for the revolutionary struggle. Parliamentary activity has only served to deceive the masses; it was used to conceal from them the preparations of their enemies, the bourgeoisie, when it was the working class which should have been making preparations. It is now seen that the idea of the democratic state ... was historically false.”

“The idea of the democratic state was an attempt to fill a vacuum, to serve the transition from capitalism to socialism. But democracy is incapable of assuming the responsibility for such a mission. It has revealed its historical nature during the course of the revolution. Although no one had declared their opposition to it, it satisfied neither the bourgeoisie nor the workers. Its essential characteristic was, in reality, its lack of cohesion, a weakness which necessarily afflicts democracy throughout all of bourgeois society.”

“The Social Democracy claimed it supported the revolution. Yet, what was its rallying cry? Power to the workers? No, its rallying cry was democracy, and respect for democracy. We had not understood that, when the revolution broke out, the workers had violently overthrown the democracy, they had shaken it off as if it were a nuisance.”

Kuusinen showed how the socialists used the democracy to consolidate their power. Later, when the workers rejected the democracy, the bourgeoisie rejected the socialists and resorted to terror. It is not enough to evoke the necessity of the illegal and military struggle; it must also be understood how democracy is opposed to the revolution. This analysis implicitly criticized positions like those taken by the First Congress of the Communist International in regard to democracy and parliamentarism, as well as, of course, the later tactics of the united front and workers governments. The Communist International admitted that democracy was not revolutionary, but it claimed that one could make use of it. The left, on the contrary, said that in order to fight it one had to remain outside of it. At first this appeared to be a slight difference, but it soon highlighted the abyss which existed between the left and the majority. The latter thought it could take a non-neutral social reality and, with certain precautions, turn it into a useful “tool”.

“Our forces must focus on abolishing the bourgeois state rather than setting up in its place, either before or after the revolution, a democracy.” This was the revolutionary position expressed at that time by the Finnish Communist Party, which had also expressed its reservations, at the First Congress of the Communist International, on the topic of the revolutionary use of the trade unions.[20] At its founding Congress in May 1920, the party of the socialist left also interpreted parliamentarism as “a buttress of the bourgeois state”: “The bourgeois government, in order to stay in power, must avail itself of the assistance of the representatives of the workers, in every country, in the legislative assemblies, in municipal governments, and, in certain circumstances, in the national administration itself. However [...] the party must not make a declaration in advance on its future participation in the assembly, since such a decision would be premature without considering each particular situation.”[21]

Kuusinen’s positions are even more relevant insofar as he soon abandoned the left to become a “Leninist” and, later, a “Stalinist”: he was to be one of the signers of the dissolution of the Communist International in 1943. Rather than an organization or organizations, the left was a tendency which was generally stifled by the negative development of the class struggle.

[nativeabuse]

Rejection of national liberation and "anti-imperialism"

This part always confuses me, why exactly are they against this? Could someone please explain?

[Rational Radical]

This part always confuses me, why exactly are they against this? Could someone please explain? What Left Communists mean by this is not giving support to bourgeois states that are at war with western nations.

[Blake's Baby]

Because 'anti-imperialism' is usually pro-imperialist. Imperialism isn't a 'policy' that's only adopted by the USA, it's a dynamic inherent in world capitalism that all states are subject to. It's not that there are 'imperialist' and 'anti-imperialist' states, there are successful imperialist states and less-successful imperialist states. Supporting less-successful states against more successful states is nothing to do with the working class fighting for its liberation from capitalism. Left Communists are 'anti-imperialist' through opposing capitalism, not just the USA.

'National liberation' is the politics of bourgeois liberalism. Fair enough in the epoch when the bourgeoisie was a progressive class in relation to feudalism - why Marx and Engels supported Polish independence from Tsarist Russia in 1864 - but not in the epoch of global capitalism. National liberation means replacing one set of bourgeois rulers for another set with different hats or accents. Where's the gain for the working class?

[l'Enfermé]

Not exactly. They're Marxists that stayed consistent in their analysis and activity as Communists; not 'going along to get along' when the Third International devolved into opportunism and then out and out counter-revolution (Popular Front). Activism is opposed; though there is a fine line between communists intervention in the class struggle and activism (activism being voluntarist and substitutionist).

Though certain strands of class struggle anarchism are close to the politics of left communists, and some left communist groups (GCI I think) are close to anarchism; some of the communisation groups describe themselves as dissident anarchists and left communists, taking from both tendencies.
Left-Communism appeared before the Comintern.

Anyway, OP, "left-communism", when it was actually a relevant movement, in the late 1910s and the 1920s, wasn't some sort of single tendency. There were 2 different tendencies calling themselves "left-communism", one in Germany and the Netherlands, which was councilist, and the Italian one, lead by Bordiga. These two were very hostile to each other, almost like Trots and Stalinists today. The Dutch-German left-communists broke with the Comintern, while Bordiga complained about how the Dutch-Germans were syndicalists or semi-anarchists or whatever.

[l'Enfermé]

'National liberation' is the politics of bourgeois liberalism. Fair enough in the epoch when the bourgeoisie was a progressive class in relation to feudalism - why Marx and Engels supported Polish independence from Tsarist Russia in 1864 - but not in the epoch of global capitalism. National liberation means replacing one set of bourgeois rulers for another set with different hats or accents. Where's the gain for the working class?
No it's not. Bourgeois liberalism never supported national-liberation. In fact, liberals, historically, have been some of the most brutal butchers of national-liberation movements.

The proletariat can only wage a political class-struggle under a democratic regime. It can't wage a political class-struggle under a savage colonial or semi-colonial administration. When workers try that shit under colonial administration they get, you know, murdered, no questions asked.

[Yuppie Grinder]

No it's not. Bourgeois liberalism never supported national-liberation. In fact, liberals, historically, have been some of the most brutal butchers of national-liberation movements.

The proletariat can only wage a political class-struggle under a democratic regime. It can't wage a political class-struggle under a savage colonial or semi-colonial administration. When workers try that shit under colonial administration they get, you know, murdered, no questions asked.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_doctrine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sim%C3%B3n_Bol%C3%ADvar
If Stalin is an anti-imperialist so are James Monroe and Simon Bolivar.
Also, what about the majority of states in Africa being formally Liberal Republics, if very poorly functioning ones?

[l'Enfermé]

What the fuck does Stalin have to do with my post? When did I say anything about liberal republics? Bolivar? Monroe? What do they have to do with post-WWII national-liberation movements? What are you talking about?

[Thirsty Crow]

The proletariat can only wage a political class-struggle under a democratic regime. It can't wage a political class-struggle under a savage colonial or semi-colonial administration.
Which would imply that democracy leaves the door for proletarian dictatorship wide open, that workers would not face firing squads soon enough, and that it is in no way connected to despotic and authoritarian reshaping of the state, such as with historical Fascism which is itself a bulwark against proletarian struggle that democracy has no interest to oppose?

How about that parliamentary cretinism.

[l'Enfermé]

Which would imply that democracy leaves the door for proletarian dictatorship wide open, that workers would not face firing squads soon enough, and that it is in no way connected to despotic and authoritarian reshaping of the state, such as with historical Fascism which is itself a bulwark against proletarian struggle that democracy has no interest to oppose?

How about that parliamentary cretinism.
I didn't understand a word of that, can you rephrase it?

[Thirsty Crow]

There were 2 different tendencies calling themselves "left-communism", one in Germany and the Netherlands, which was councilist, and the Italian one, lead by Bordiga. These two were very hostile to each other, almost like Trots and Stalinists today.
It is apparent that you either

a) have an axe to grind, and thus deliberately present ambiguous and outright faulty arguments or

b) that you have no idea what you're talking about

The Dutch-German left was not councilist. AAUD-E and Ruhle do not exhaust even the dominant portion of the actual positions and arguments of the communist left in those regions.

And of course, it is a stupid exaggeration to conclude that the Italian Lefts relationship to German adn Dutch left communists is anything like the relationship between Trots and Stalinists today. The former saw, erroneously, the latter as expressing a syndicalist viewpoint.


The Dutch-German left-communists broke with the Comintern, while Bordiga complained about how the Dutch-Germans were syndicalists or semi-anarchists or whatever.

This is true only insofar as you keep quiet about the conditions of the de facto expulsion. The communist have been issued a clear ultimatum at the 3rd Congress of the International to merge with the VKPD. This is the background you either deliberately withhold or don't know about. And even then, the delegates present at the congress did not either leave or express that the KAPD is no longer part of the International.

Maybe you ought to keep away from threads such as this one. Ignorance or prejudice and slander, it matters little, and this is learning after all.

[Thirsty Crow]

I didn't understand a word of that, can you rephrase it?
A democratic regime - be it a national state or kind of devolution of power as it is the case with Scotland today - is no guarantee for class struggle, political or economic. Your unwitting implication is that democracy practically hands political power over to workers. Historically, as you probably know, liberals and democrats have favoured fascism instead. So to conclude that a democratic regime is the only system of governance under which the working class can wage political class war (by this you actually mean elections and parliamentary participation; I don't think there's any need to comment on this, history has done so already) is ridiculous.

The problem is this generalization, which pits democracy and colonial rule against each other in an abstract way (meaning, class struggle is possible in despotic and authoritarian regimes as well).

And finally, there is the glorious history of national liberation in South Africa. Does Marikana ring a bell? Good for them miners that they've got democracy now, and not apartheid, so they can't possible get mowed down like animals, right?

[l'Enfermé]

It is apparent that you either

a) have an axe to grind, and thus deliberately present ambiguous and outright faulty arguments or

b) that you have no idea what you're talking about

It's neither.



The Dutch-German left was not councilist. AAUD-E and Ruhle do not exhaust even the dominant portion of the actual positions and arguments of the communist left in those regions.
Dutch-German left-commu
Not just Ruhle. Pannekoek, Gorter, Mattick, Korsch, Wolffheim, Laufenberg, Appel, Schroder, etc.. I can't even think of a single Dutch-German Left-Communist who wasn't a Councilist.


And of course, it is a stupid exaggeration to conclude that the Italian Lefts relationship to German adn Dutch left communists is anything like the relationship between Trots and Stalinists today. The former saw, erroneously, the latter as expressing a syndicalist viewpoint.
No, you are right. Trotskyists and Stalinists actually had more in common than Bordigists and Dutch-German ultralefts.



This is true only insofar as you keep quiet about the conditions of the de facto expulsion. The communist have been issued a clear ultimatum at the 3rd Congress of the International to merge with the VKPD. This is the background you either deliberately withhold or don't know about. And even then, the delegates present at the congress did not either leave or express that the KAPD is no longer part of the International.
I know about it. I read the entire stenographic record of the 3rd congress (http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/K/Kommunisticheskiy_Internacional/_Komintern.html#1030). The zip file is 55 megabytes.

The KAPD was never a full member of the Comintern for it to be expelled.


Maybe you ought to keep away from threads such as this one. Ignorance or prejudice and slander, it matters little, and this is learning after all.
Forgive me for saying things you don't want to hear about your tendency. :)

[subcp]

Left-Communism appeared before the Comintern.

Anyway, OP, "left-communism", when it was actually a relevant movement, in the late 1910s and the 1920s, wasn't some sort of single tendency. There were 2 different tendencies calling themselves "left-communism", one in Germany and the Netherlands, which was councilist, and the Italian one, lead by Bordiga. These two were very hostile to each other, almost like Trots and Stalinists today. The Dutch-German left-communists broke with the Comintern, while Bordiga complained about how the Dutch-Germans were syndicalists or semi-anarchists or whatever.This was a sticking point on another thread from a different forum- the first people to be and take the name were the Russian left communists in 1918 around Bukharin. Before that you had the left-wing of social democracy (which includes things like The Attic/abstentionist communist faction of the Italian socialist party, Luxemburg's Spartakusbund, the Bolsheviks, mostly people associated with Kienthal or Zimmerwald, the Tribunists in Holland/Pannekoek, etc.). There were no 'Left Communists' until the Third International; even though many of the personalities and groups that grew to be left communists later on had similar politics back then in the 1900-1919 period.

The Dutch and German left around people like Gorter (KAPD) were indicative of pro-party Dutch/German left communists, and this includes Pannekoek. As far as I know, what developed from people like Ruehle and the AAUD-E was council communism; I'd always thought 'councilism' something else entirely that came after WWII. The KAPD and its sister parties in Holland and Bulgaria (and the brief 'Communist Workers International'/KIA) couldn't be called councilist.

[fgilbert2]

So how are left communists active? It seems to me that most of the stuff other communists do would be off the table for them.

[Luís Henrique]

A democratic regime - be it a national state or kind of devolution of power as it is the case with Scotland today - is no guarantee for class struggle, political or economic.

It certainly isn't. A democratic regime can be very brutal toward the working class.


Your unwitting implication is that democracy practically hands political power over to workers.

I can't speak for l'Enfermé, of course, and it may well be that he implies this.

But it is not a logically valid implication.

Bourgeois democracy, of course, is the strongest and purest form of bourgeois power. And it is precisely by that - because it is the strongest and purest form of bourgeois power - it is the political form we must surpass and defeat, if there is any hope for overthrowing capitalism.

The extreme strength and resilience of bourgeois democracy is nowhere best seen than in places where there is no democracy at all, or where it is severely limited. And it manifests itself by pushing any attempt to resist against the dictatorship, or the apartheid regime, or foreign domination, or colonial enterprise, firmly into the camp of democratism. This isn't the result of flaws of the resistance organisations, or of a conspiracy of the bourgeoisie, but the logical result of the nature of these regimes and of bourgeois democracy. Since these regimes put an immediate and unsurmountable obstacle to the legal expression of the demands of the working class, it is inevitable that a demand for the legalisation of such demands quickly rises among all other grievances as the key issue that galvanises everything else. Your fight for a wage rise becomes immediately a fight for the right to fight for wage rises. To sum it up in a phrase, dictatorship has all the flaws of bourgeois democracy, plus one: it makes bourgeois democracy look good.


Historically, as you probably know, liberals and democrats have favoured fascism instead.

And this sentence shows that such trap catches even left communists: here you are sliding from a critique of bourgeois democracy into a critique of bourgeois democrats, exactly for their lack of integrity in the defence of democracy. What you are saying is that bourgeois democrats do not live up to their promises of democracy; which is evidently true, but directly contradicts your premise that bourgeois democracies can be as brutal as any dictatorship. For if so, what makes liberals and democrats prefer fascism instead?

What is missing in your analysis, of course, is exactly class struggle. For a bourgeois democracy can be as brutal as any dictatorship - but to exercise such brutality, it needs different political conditions, that dictatorships can dispense with. In other words, a bourgeois democracy can be extremely murderous against a politically isolated and marginalised working class, but not against a working class that has support and sympathy among the other non-ruling classes. It is this that prompts bourgeois democrats and liberals to forfeit their commitment to democracy and flirt with and even embrace fascism and other forms of dictatorial regime: that there are moments in class struggle when bourgeois democracy is actually unable to quell the dissent of the working class, and a turn to a dictatorship appears as the only resource to defend capitalism - to which liberals and bourgeois democrats are usually much more committed than to democracy.


So to conclude that a democratic regime is the only system of governance under which the working class can wage political class war (by this you actually mean elections and parliamentary participation; I don't think there's any need to comment on this, history has done so already) is ridiculous.

Well, evidently it is mistaken to believe that bourgeois democracy is the only regime form under which the working class can wage political class war. The problem is that history "has done so already" to demonstrate that the political class war our class wages under dictatorships becomes inevitably a political class war for democracy.

Not being inside his head, I don't know what l'Enfermé means by political class war (or by any other phrase or word indeed), but I certainly think of extra-parliamentary struggle when I talk of this; it is not the absence of a parliament that imposes extra difficulties for class struggle under a dictatorship; it is the impossibility of legal discussion and action, the pervasive presence of ostensive and secret police, the criminalisation of dissent, the general atmosphere of terror, and the fact that everywhere we end up being able to surpass these limitations, our actions unavoidably take the content of actions against the criminalisation of dissent, against political terror, against the policiac nature of the regime, against the impossibility of legal and open action and discussion.


The problem is this generalization, which pits democracy and colonial rule against each other in an abstract way (meaning, class struggle is possible in despotic and authoritarian regimes as well).

It evidently is. Its content is however necessarily distorted into a struggle for democracy though, its scope is much more limited, and its result tends to be, at best, the triumph of democracy.


And finally, there is the glorious history of national liberation in South Africa. Does Marikana ring a bell? Good for them miners that they've got democracy now, and not apartheid, so they can't possible get mowed down like animals, right?

Yes, as stated above, democratic regimes can and do mow workers down as animals. When they do so, the class nature of their actions become evident (unless some leftist or ultra-leftist leader convinces people that this means bourgeois democrats are favouring fascism over democracy). Not so under an apartheid regime or a dictatorship, when such repressive actions are mistakenly attributed to the formal nature of the regime (mowing people down like animals, that's what dictatorships do), instead of its political content as a political weapon of capital against workers.

Luís Henrique

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

To be entirely fair Luís, that may be the best defense-but-not-a-defense of liberal democracy I've ever read. I don't know if I'd necessarily draw the same political conclusions from it that you do, and, arguably, it may attack some straw men as regards LinksRadikal, but, on the whole very articulate.

[Thirsty Crow]

And this sentence shows that such trap catches even left communists: here you are sliding from a critique of bourgeois democracy into a critique of bourgeois democrats, exactly for their lack of integrity in the defence of democracy.

Nope, I'm doing no such thing. The wording is confusing, and I chose it for the sake of clarification and keeping things relatively short, bt it failed in the former obviously. Will keep that in mind in the future.

What I meant was that, historically, democracy as a class rule necessarily makes way for a different political stucture which still represents the rule of capital, if the conditions demand it. This is not a moral issue of integrity, but a structural one, one of class rule. If I were to refer to democrats and liberals as persons and ideologues, I'd criticize the hipocrisy in advocating formal principles of equality for all in times of relative class peace and reverting back to more or less open class prejudice and positions during times of escalating class war. In this sense I think that von Mises was being quite honest in congratulating fascism for saving "western civilization".

How is this relevant for the issue at hand? Well, it certainly shows that the dubious generalization concerning democratic regimes by l'Enferme doesn't hold.




What you are saying is that bourgeois democrats do not live up to their promises of democracy; which is evidently true, but directly contradicts your premise that bourgeois democracies can be as brutal as any dictatorship.
No, I'm not saying this - you are attributing this to me.

And even if I did say what you claim here to be saying, you'd still be wrong as there is no contradiction in holding someone responsible for their proclamations of intent in face of actual results. But I don't think this is important at all since the very promise of democracy is the promise of class rule via general elections for local, state, and "federal /national" levels. Nothing more than that.


For if so, what makes liberals and democrats prefer fascism instead?
Class position. I thought this was clear.

[Luís Henrique]

Class position. I thought this was clear.

No, it is evidently not.

They are bourgeois democrats, and this is a class position. Some of them turn to fascism, and it is still a class position. So it does not explain the turn at all: why is bourgeois democracy in the best interest of the bourgeoisie at times, but at other times this best interest is served by fascism? And even so, why are some bourgeois politicians fascists (or partidaries of other kinds of dictatorship), even in times of successful bourgeois democracy, and why do others remain faithful to their democratic (though flawed) principles in times of triumphant fascism?

Your analysis is still too superficial.

Luís Henrique

[Thirsty Crow]

It's neither.

And then our bright little head proceeds to proclaim that:


Dutch-German left-commu
Not just Ruhle. Pannekoek, Gorter, Mattick, Korsch, Wolffheim, Laufenberg, Appel, Schroder, etc.. I can't even think of a single Dutch-German Left-Communist who wasn't a Councilist.
Pannekoek, Gorter, all of those people excluding Mattick who was a councilist actually, are councilists :lol:

I remeber that I specifically explained to you the difference between the communist left and councilism. The difference is very important, but you seemingly aren't capable of grasping it since you prefer to have your head stuck in the sand and pose the dichotomy of the rule of the soviets as against the rule of the phantom of the "party-movement". This is not relevant for the distinction between councilism and left communism at all. But of course, you probably don't intend to provide information OP asks for, but rather to confuse.


No, you are right. Trotskyists and Stalinists actually had more in common than Bordigists and Dutch-German ultralefts.
That's some potent insight. In its more rational aspects it might actually reflect something on Trotskyism.


I know about it. I read the entire stenographic record of the 3rd congress (http://publ.lib.ru/ARCHIVES/K/Kommunisticheskiy_Internacional/_Komintern.html#1030). The zip file is 55 megabytes.

The KAPD was never a full member of the Comintern for it to be expelled.If you did know about it, then you're deliberately providing a misguiding account. I'm glad we settled this. And good for you, it must be nice to be so well read.

And of course the KAPD could have its consultative position revoked. Or do you think that this signifies something else than a kind of an expulsion, even though their delegates couldn't vote on resolutions and official positions



Forgive me for saying things you don't want to hear about your tendency. :)No need for forgiveness. I'll be content with exposing your bullshit :)

[Thirsty Crow]

Some of them turn to fascism, and it is still a class position. So it does not explain the turn at all: why is bourgeois democracy in the best interest of the bourgeoisie at times, but at other times this best interest is served by fascism?
I specifically referred to the conditions on the ground:


What I meant was that, historically, democracy as a class rule necessarily makes way for a different political stucture which still represents the rule of capital, if the conditions demand it

These conditions can include the rising tide of workers' militancy, defeat in imperialist conflicts and the subsequent economic consequences coupled with that of the crisis of accumulation, and in other instances, the project of nation building during times of war and after it in conjunction with capital restructuring (the case of the county where I live, though here we're obviously not talking about fascism but of a form of authoritarianism centered on the presidential apparatus - as opposed to parliament - in general, and on the persona of the president in particular).

[subcp]

So how are left communists active? It seems to me that most of the stuff other communists do would be off the table for them.

Obvious things that leftist groups do (large protest rallies, participating in front organizations- whether electoral like RESPECT, anti-war like ANSWER, etc., get elected to posts in trade unions (like members of the old 'International Socialists' Trotskyist groups), support trade unionism and left-wing governments, etc. are off the table.

But there's still a lot of practical activity that can and is done. Work that only communists can do (developing theory, analysis of events) as well as stuff other groups do (like writing, publishing and distributing a print paper and website), but also meaningful intervention in class struggle, such as participating in point-of-production committee's like the ones that sprung up in Italy's education sector or the French/Belgian rail industry, defending communist positions during things like strikes, lock-outs, etc. Things that don't involve supporting or trying to get elected to run organizations, fronts and parties that divert working-class struggle onto the safe legal terrain of mediation.

[Yuppie Grinder]

What the fuck does Stalin have to do with my post? When did I say anything about liberal republics? Bolivar? Monroe? What do they have to do with post-WWII national-liberation movements? What are you talking about?

Your ludicrous claim that liberalism is inherently anti-national liberation, which hasn't got anything to do with the actual history of liberalism.

[Ostrinski]

Obviously... large protest rallies... are off the tableHaha what? So just going to, say, an anti-war protest is seen as a bad thing within the communist left?

[subcp]

I meant 'leading them'; specifically through front groups (something that seemed to be common in the early years of the Iraq war on the left).

[Luís Henrique]

I specifically referred to the conditions on the ground:

Sure, but then you didn't specify what conditions, which you now did:


These conditions can include the rising tide of workers' militancy, defeat in imperialist conflicts and the subsequent economic consequences coupled with that of the crisis of accumulation, and in other instances, the project of nation building during times of war and after it in conjunction with capital restructuring (the case of the county where I live, though here we're obviously not talking about fascism but of a form of authoritarianism centered on the presidential apparatus - as opposed to parliament - in general, and on the persona of the president in particular).

Well, those are, of course, important conditions that may - or may not - lead to the collapse of bourgeois democracy and its replacement by fascism or other kinds of dictatorship. What is missing now is "only" how these conditions prompt the destruction of bourgeois democracy, how the internal fight among the bourgeois leads to a new consensus of support for authoritarianism, and how these conditions relate to each others. And, of course, from a class struggle point of view, how do we stop the move from democracy to dictatorship.

For instance, Germany went from democracy to fascism in circumstances in which it was not seeing any rise in working class militancy, so I suppose this is not a necessary factor (though, of course, the acute rise in working class militancy that happened a decade before first allowed the organisation of the politico-military groups that were later instrumental for the rise of fascism). On the other hand, it certainly was defeated in a recent inter-imperialist war (are there other kinds of war, or is it redundant to call them "inter-imperialist"?), and it was facing "the subsequent economic consequences" of defeat, "coupled with that of the crisis of accumulation". But this is still quite vague; what is necessary to say is that Germany was transitioning from concurrential to monopoly capitalism, and that the Weimar regime wasn't able do deal with it. But then other countries also faced defeat in inter-imperialist conflicts (case of France and Britain, who were formally victorious in both World Wars but in fact emerged from them removed from the leading position they had in the imperialist system) without moving to dictatorship - and some even did the exact opposite, case in point being France after the defeat in the Franco-Prussian war (which prompted the fall of Bonapartism and the rise of the Third Republic), or, if you would like a more modern example, Argentina following the Malvinas War. And the United States certainly transitioned from liberal capitalism to monopolism without resorting to a dictatorial regime. So, again, these are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for a process of destruction of bourgeois democracy. Maybe they are important conditions, but I would suggest that only a case-by-case analysis can show what happened (or what is going to happen), and that such concrete analysis will reveal many other factors, including historical factors (democracy tends to fall more easily in countries that have little previous democratic tradition to begin with, as was the case of Eastern and Southern Europe in the 30's and Latin America in the 60's), and the relevance not only of proletarian militancy, but also of the real or perceived risk that the bourgeoisie may lose control of the State apparatus to working class movements or organisations (case in point, Chile in 1973, though I am sure there are examples of similar events in Eastern Europe between the Wars).

Luís Henrique

[Blake's Baby]

Haha what? So just going to, say, an anti-war protest is seen as a bad thing within the communist left?

Of course not. But joining in on the same terrian as the 'Left' is. I was at the 1.5million strong 'anti-war' rally in London in 2003 for example, that was not an 'anti-war' rally at all. It was pro-war, with a couple of variations of what sort of war was proposed. Many of the participants wanted Iraq to beat America (ie supported the war, but wanted the other side to win); others opposed 'unilateral' US action, but supported the idea of a war with UN mandate - the position that 6 countries bombing Iraq is bad, but 60 countries bombing Iraq would be good, or what I called at the time the 'no war unless France does it too' position.

I, and a very few others (some Left Communists, some anarchists), took the position that 'No War but the Class War' was the correct approach. Neither Saddam Hussein nor George Bush represented anything other than the brutal dictatorship of capital and neither of them deserved any support from the working class anywhere.

[Blake's Baby]

Left-Communism appeared before the Comintern...

the Left Communist group in Russia appeared before the ComIntern, but you don't mention this as one of your groups. Neither the Left Communists in Germany/Netherlands, nor the Left Communists in Italy, appeared before the ComIntern.


...Anyway, OP, "left-communism", when it was actually a relevant movement, in the late 1910s and the 1920s, wasn't some sort of single tendency. There were 2 different tendencies calling themselves "left-communism", one in Germany and the Netherlands, which was councilist, and the Italian one, lead by Bordiga...

The Dutch-German Left was not 'councilist' (a term of abuse invented by Left Communists in France I believe). 'Councilism' refers what the French Left Communists after WWII saw as the 'degeneration' of the Council Communist current.

There were several different strands of Left Communism in the Dutch-German Left: what became 'councilism' was the current that was inspired by Otto Ruhle, who after 1920 became very 'anti-Party' and theorised that the October revolution (and the Bolsheviks) were bourgeois. This was not the position of the majority of the Communist Left in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s, which was generally pro-Party and pro-October - eg, there were Communist Workers' Parties in both Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s (and indeed in Russia, Britain and Bulgaria), which would be impossible if they were anti-Party 'councilists'. So in the 1920s, the Dutch-German Left was not 'councilist'.


... These two were very hostile to each other, almost like Trots and Stalinists today. The Dutch-German left-communists broke with the Comintern, while Bordiga complained about how the Dutch-Germans were syndicalists or semi-anarchists or whatever.

Bordiga was certainly hostile to the Dutch-German Lefts, seeing them as syndicalist. However, other groups of the Communist Left (the Workers' Dreadnought group in the UK around Sylvia Pankhurst for instance, who were particularly influenced by the Dutch-German Left) published both Dutch-German and Italian Left Communist works and attempted to create a space for dialogue between the different groups of the Communist Left; in the 1930s, the Belgian and French Left Communists (who were organisationally descended from the Italian left) began a process of engagement with the Dutch-German Left.

The KAPD didn't break with the ComIntern, the ComIntern expelled the KAPD, after the KPD (through bureaucratic manoeuvring) expelled around 60% of the party.

[l'Enfermé]

And then our bright little head proceeds to proclaim that:
You would look less desperate if you weren't flamebating. Are you capable of participating in a discussion like an adult?


Pannekoek, Gorter, all of those people excluding Mattick who was a councilist actually, are councilists :lol:
You mean, "are left-communists", right? Or "are not councilists". Well yes, they were left-communists, because Councilism is a sub-tendency of
Left-Communism, which dominated in the Dutch-German movement.

Your ultra-left sects, for some reason, like the ICC or the ICT or whatever the hell they're called, decided, for some reason, to go ahead and re-define what councilism and left-communis are. Please don't be angry at me for prefering the standard definition of those terms, instead of your sectarian made-up ones.


I remeber that I specifically explained to you the difference between the communist left and councilism. The difference is very important, but you seemingly aren't capable of grasping it since you prefer to have your head stuck in the sand and pose the dichotomy of the rule of the soviets as against the rule of the phantom of the "party-movement". This is not relevant for the distinction between councilism and left communism at all. But of course, you probably don't intend to provide information OP asks for, but rather to confuse.
No, of course not, I obviously don't intend to provide the information the OP asks for, only ultralefts are as generous as that, everyone else seeks to distort the truth and mislead inexperienced comrades. My bad.


That's some potent insight. In its more rational aspects it might actually reflect something on Trotskyism.
Thank you for the compliment.


If you did know about it, then you're deliberately providing a misguiding account. I'm glad we settled this. And good for you, it must be nice to be so well read.

Eh more flame-baiting, very nice.


And of course the KAPD could have its consultative position revoked. Or do you think that this signifies something else than a kind of an expulsion, even though their delegates couldn't vote on resolutions and official positions
Enough of this bullshit. You wrote something about the expulsion of the KAPD from the Comintern. That never happened. That's another ultraleft myth your types propagate. I said that the KAPD broke with the Comintern. You said that's false. Nope. At the Third Congress of the Comintern, the KAPD were told to fuck off with their sectarianism or unite with the other communists. They were given like 2 or 3 months to make a decision. This happened in July, I believe. By August, the next month, their leadership passed a resolution that broke with the Comintern. In September, they pretty much unanimously decided reinforced the decision to break with the Comintern at their party congress.

The Comintern didn't break with the KAPD, the KAPD broke with the Comintern. The Comintern actually did everything possible in order to keep the KAPD in the Comintern.


No need for forgiveness. I'll be content with exposing your bullshit :)
If anything it has been Luis Henrique who has exposed your bullshit.

[l'Enfermé]

A democratic regime - be it a national state or kind of devolution of power as it is the case with Scotland today - is no guarantee for class struggle, political or economic.
1. I have not implied otherwise, you are the first to raise this notion in here.
2. Scotland has nothing to do with the question of national-liberation


Your unwitting implication is that democracy practically hands political power over to workers.
No, it's not.


Historically, as you probably know, liberals and democrats have favoured fascism instead.
No. Only in Italy. In Spain, the liberals and democrats stood against the Nationalists. In Germany, the NSDAP's allies were other right-wing praties, the conservatives, Christian Democrats, and so on.


So to conclude that a democratic regime is the only system of governance under which the working class can wage political class war is ridiculous.
The conclusion is perfectly reasonable. It's physically impossible to wage an open class struggle in an environment where democratic institutions don't exist. Democratic institutions are prerequisite for the proletariat's class struggle. Without them, strikes, demonstrations, the press, political association, unions, and every other integral element of proletarian class struggle. Without all of this, the only options for "class struggle" are secret societies, conspiracies, coups, military uprisings and so on. I.e Blanquism, Maoism, and the like.


(by this you actually mean elections and parliamentary participation; I don't think there's any need to comment on this, history has done so already)
Fuck off. I don't mean that. Don't put words into my mouth.



The problem is this generalization, which pits democracy and colonial rule against each other in an abstract way (meaning, class struggle is possible in despotic and authoritarian regimes as well).

:rolleyes:


And finally, there is the glorious history of national liberation in South Africa. Does Marikana ring a bell? Good for them miners that they've got democracy now, and not apartheid, so they can't possible get mowed down like animals, right?
Because obviously Marikana is as bad as apartheid.

[l'Enfermé]

Your ludicrous claim that liberalism is inherently anti-national liberation, which hasn't got anything to do with the actual history of liberalism.
When have liberals ever supported national-liberation? Historically, liberalism has been the most shameless champion of national oppression.

[Blake's Baby]

When have liberals ever supported national-liberation? Historically, liberalism has been the most shameless champion of national oppression.

USA, late 18th century. Ireland, the whole of the 19th century. Poland, the whole of the 19th century. Greece, the early 19th century. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, the whole 19th century. Across the Ottoman Empire, the majority of the 19th century.

http://elearning.uni-bielefeld.de/wikifarm/fields/ges_cias/field.php/Main/Unterkapitel143

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/National+Liberation+Revolution


When have liberals ever not supported national liberation?




However, L'Enferme's utter failure to understand what liberalism is has little to do with what Left Communism is.

[Luís Henrique]

USA, late 18th century. Ireland, the whole of the 19th century. Poland, the whole of the 19th century. Greece, the early 19th century. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, the whole 19th century. Across the Ottoman Empire, the majority of the 19th century.

When have liberals ever not supported national liberation?

From the examples you give above, apparently during the 20th Century.

Luís Henrique

[Thirsty Crow]

Because obviously Marikana is as bad as apartheid.
This is the problem, right here. Unbelievable bad-worse-the worst logic, which disregards the significance of the event, and indeed has no intention of dealing with it in a historical manner. And that history is the history of national liberation and its results for the working class. Those being barbaric executions of striking workers. You can pretend, if it sparey you the time necessary for redressing your faulty assumptions, that this doesn't reflect on your little utopia of the democratic regime being the only one that enables escalating political class struggle. What is tragic is that such fairy tales of democracy actually act as a part in the overall political and cultural preparation of the working class for their slaughter, which of course happens without regard for constitutional rights and political liberties.

To be clear, as I think you'll end up distorting what I say, I do not claim that democracy is worse than apartheid. I do not claim that the one is worse than the other. I'm not interested in comparative assessments of the two kinds of historical regimes in South Africa. What I'm interested in is the relationship between democracy as result of national liberation and working class struggle. The result is tragic. The question is, what theoretical and consequences should be drawn from this.


No, of course not, I obviously don't intend to provide the information the OP asks for, only ultralefts are as generous as that, everyone else seeks to distort the truth and mislead inexperienced comrades. My bad.Of course, there's evidence to support this.


Enough of this bullshit. You wrote something about the expulsion of the KAPD from the Comintern. That never happened. That's another ultraleft myth your types propagate. I said that the KAPD broke with the Comintern. You said that's false. Nope. At the Third Congress of the Comintern, the KAPD were told to fuck off with their sectarianism or unite with the other communists. They were given like 2 or 3 months to make a decision. This happened in July, I believe. By August, the next month, their leadership passed a resolution that broke with the Comintern. In September, they pretty much unanimously decided reinforced the decision to break with the Comintern at their party congress.You're right in that the expulsion did not happen. But, on the other hand, you deliberately provide a misleading account by omitting the facts, and than placing them in the straight jacket of a defense of communist opportunism which somehow, magically, actually combated sectarianism. It did not. Why is this misleading? Because the KAPD didn't break from the International of its own volition, just like its members did not break from the newly formed KPD by their own volition (but through a shameless bureaucratic manouvering), and was given an ultimatum. What would have happened if the congress didn't abandon their positions and remained firm in their orientation towards staying within the International? Expulsion, that's what, but the simple fact is that the recognition of this ultimatum for what it was could never produce such an outcome.

So the real development contradicts your pathetic attempts at painting the communist left as sectarian. This doesn't hold for the Dutch-German left, and it is an understatement to say that it doesn't for the Italian left as well.

Then, you say:


You mean, "are left-communists", right? Or "are not councilists". Well yes, they were left-communists, because Councilism is a sub-tendency of
Left-Communism, which dominated in the Dutch-German movement.Which absolutely confirms my point, that either you don't know what councilism is or that you deliberately confuse this issue.

I think that it was in the aftermath of the second congress of the International that the KAPD received good advice to expel the circle around Ruhle and the national bolshevik elements (Wollfenheim, Laufenberg). Guess what happened with this proto-councilist tendency? They found themselves in isolation and expelled in a short time.

So, in other words, the conclusion that counclism dominated in the Dutch-German left is outright false.


Your ultra-left sects, for some reason, like the ICC or the ICT or whatever the hell they're called, decided, for some reason, to go ahead and re-define what councilism and left-communis are. Please don't be angry at me for prefering the standard definition of those terms, instead of your sectarian made-up ones.
The German and Dutch left have already done this work of clearly demarcating itself from what later communists call councilism, as I've explained above, and if this does not please you, I can go ahead and explain the differences between historical formations such as the KAPD and the GIK - which represents councilism. So what is the purpose of this childish rant? Providing information perhaps? Or expressing a willingness to learn?

EDIT: I didn't want to bring this up, but hey let's geteverything out in the open.

I'm referring here to the casual wave-of-hand by l'Enfereme in relation to the Marikana massacre. What does this represent? A casual relativization of the horrid attacks of the undoubtedly democratic bourgeoisie. And how should a communist assess such a thing? As deluded due to the stupid and dogmatic stranglehold of preconceived notions and assumptions? Possibly. As a shameless defense of democracy hiding behind the pretensions to upholding workers' interests? I'll leave this for others to answer on their own.

[Yuppie Grinder]

When have liberals ever supported national-liberation? Historically, liberalism has been the most shameless champion of national oppression.

I gave you examples and you're ignoring them. There are quite literally shit-tons of examples to prove you wrong. Most countries that were at one time colonies of the French and English are Liberal Republics, although often poorly functioning ones.
Besides, how are obvious figures like Bolivar not national liberationsts and liberals? You're plainly, objectively wrong.

[l'Enfermé]

I gave you examples and you're ignoring them. There are quite literally shit-tons of examples to prove you wrong. Most countries that were at one time colonies of the French and English are Liberal Republics, although often poorly functioning ones.
Besides, how are obvious figures like Bolivar not national liberationsts and liberals? You're plainly, objectively wrong.
...
Dude, what the hell are you talking about? You quoted my second post in this thread, bolded this part,:

Bourgeois liberalism never supported national-liberationand wrote something about the Monroe Doctrine, Bolivar and then added that Stalin, Simon Bolivar and James Monroe were anti-imperialists. What? I was talking about national-liberation, not anti-imperialist. Are you confused? Bolivar was neither a national-liberationist nor a liberal. In leftist discourse, if you mention national-liberation, everyone knows that you're talking about the national-liberation movements of the 20th that were first inspired by the Russian Revolution and then took off after the second World War. Bolivar was a conservative and Bonopartist. Not a liberal. Goddammit, when did fabricating history become a Left-Communist hobby?

And what the fuck does it matter that many countries that won independence from the British Empire and France are today "liberal republics"? Did I say they are not?

Russia is a liberal republic. This means that Bolshevism was a form of bourgeois liberalism. Right?

And please, stop lying. When did I say that "liberalism is inherently anti-national liberation"?

[Thirsty Crow]

It's physically impossible to wage an open class struggle in an environment where democratic institutions don't exist. Democratic institutions are prerequisite for the proletariat's class struggle. Without them, strikes, demonstrations, the press, political association, unions, and every other integral element of proletarian class struggle. Without all of this, the only options for "class struggle" are secret societies, conspiracies, coups, military uprisings and so on. I.e Blanquism, Maoism, and the like.
As for this, the first thing is that youengage in this generalization without concern for the particularites of the difference between dictatorship and despotic regimes which are not at the same time colonial, and those that are.

This is important to keep in mind.

So, how do we stand with this generalization about democratic institutions? Since this is a general statement, it is perfectly viable to consider one example from the history of the workers movement vis-a-vis capital and its state.

I'm referring here to the rule of Bismarck and the anti-socialist laws. The socialdemocratic party garnered 437 000 votes prior to it, and the unions were 50 000 workers strong.

What happened with those towards the end of the period in question? Something magical indeed. The party had the electoral support amounting to 1 427 000 votes and the union organizations grew in membership by a staggering 300%, up to 200 000 unionized workers.

If one would object that this is mere numbers and not analysis, we can consult Franz Mehring on that. The article I'm referring to here is the Italian version referenced in Lucio Colletti's From Rousseau to Lenin (I can dig up the page number later since I have a physical copy in Croatian), translation mine:

"In twenty years of struggle, the party has not only grown in numbers and strenght, but it has also developed its internal organization in a more rich way. The party didn't only struggle and attack, but also work and learn; it hasn't only provided proof of its strenght, but of its spirit as well."

Funny thing that lack of democratic institutions, it must be that these men and women were superhuman so as to make old Franz assess the historcial development in such a way. Or was he wrong? Maybe the numbers don't stand and are mere fabrication?