Different tenants among left-communist thought

[Illegalitarian]

Left-communism, understood as Marxist schools of thought that stood to the left of the Bolshevik party throughout most of its history, has a lot of colorful people who are considered to have all brought their own theoretical contributions to the table.

The big names here, for me at least, are Pannekoek, Bordiga and Luxemburg.

I've read a little here and there from all three (a bit from Gramsci too but.. I don't think he could be called a left-communist :laugh: ), but I've had a hard time pinning down the defining contributions of these theorists and how they differ from other leftist schools of thought.

For example, the famous saying is that Bordiga was "more leninist than lenin", but I've not only been able to find any evidence in his work for such a claim, but I've also seen no other real difference between most of Bordiga's contributions and Lenin's, aside from the latter of course having contributed far more, and the former's emphasis on the party as an undemocratic ruling minority vehicle for class struggle existing aside from the proletariat.

Pannekoek had his criticisms of anarchism, but I can't, for reasons possibly due to reading comprehension, see how criticisms are anything but superficial falsehoods and I'm not sure how his brand of council communism is really any different from anarcho communism or syndicalism.

Luxemburg is the big mystery here. She is allegedly quite against Leninism and its anti-democratic practices yet her work post-Russian revolution doesn't really seem to be very anti-lenin or even pro-democracy, so I've having a hard time with making sense of her specific positions that set her apart from the rest.


What say you? What did these individuals bring to the table in terms of theoretical contribution, how do their own conceptions of revolution and socialism differ from those of others, and what is the legacy of left-communism in a world where most relevant leftist movements are most certainly left of the politics that defined the Bolsheviks?

[Skyhilist]

Well, to help you out with council communism vs anarchism, council communists are marxists and anarchists are not - this means that even though they advocate similar things, they have different ideas about what constitutes a states. In the society they envision during revolution, anarchists say they advocate statelessness since they view the state as centralized and hierarchical government used to rule over people, while council communists view the same society as a workers' state since there is still in their minds a form of rule constituting a state (that is, the class rule of the proletariat over the ruling class, aka the dictatorship of the proletariat). With a few exceptions, council communists are also pretty averse to the idea that syndicates can bring about revolution, so this sets them apart from any syndicalists for the most part. The differences are largely semantic, but the history behind anarchism and council communism are different so there are different things informing theory and practice although they can sometimes be pretty nuanced. Another key difference is that council communists will never be relevant again (this is said in jest though, council communists are actually pretty cool).

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The big names here, for me at least, are Pannekoek, Bordiga and Luxemburg.

Of the three, only Bordiga can be called a left communist. Luxemburg was part of the left wing of the old Socialist International, like Lenin and Liebknecht, and the reason people consider her an "anti-Bolshevik" is because of one draft text that she never finished, published after her death for reasons of politicking. Her views on the national question certainly influenced a lot of Left Communists (but were essentially shared e.g. by the Bolshevik Bukharin, back when he was a Bolshevik).

Pancake was a council communist, a group whose views were similar to that of the Left Communists, particularly the Dutch-German communist left, but whose anti-partyism and rejection of the October Revolution sets them apart from Left Communism. There is a strange tendency to lump together all currents perceived as "to the left of" the Bolsheviks (although, again, the original Russian Left Communists were a group of the RKP(b)) as "Left Communists", but this is at best lazy thinking.

Bordiga was one of the first to claim the Soviet Union was capitalist (not "state capitalist"), and he also contributed the concept of invariance of the Marxist programme, the notion that the proletariat is only a class when it is organised in a party and so on. If you bug some of our Bordiga afficionados they could tell you more.


Well, to help you out with council communism vs anarchism, council communists are marxists and anarchists are not - this means that even though they advocate similar things, they have different ideas about what constitutes a states. In the society they envision during revolution, anarchists say they advocate statelessness since they view the state as centralized and hierarchical government used to rule over people, while council communists view the same society as a workers' state since there is still in their minds a form of rule constituting a state (that is, the class rule of the proletariat over the ruling class, aka the dictatorship of the proletariat).

Which relies on the myth that councilists want "decentralisation". In fact many of the councilists groups - I'm thinking about the Group of Internationalist Communists here specifically, but there are others - explicitly reject decentralisation as leading to ruin of the proletarian dictatorship (what they call "state Communism", note the capital C).

[Blake's Baby]

Pannekoek is not simply 'a council communist' as an unproblematic category though.

The Dutch/German Left changed its positions from 1918-1940. They called themselves 'council communists' all that time - often, in fact they called themselves 'left or council communists'.

Pannekoek, like Luxemburg (and Lenin and Trotsky), started off on the left of social democracy. Between 1918 and the late 1920s, he was a left communist (of the Dutch/German tradition, usually called 'council communist', rather than the Italian) but the tendencies weren't hard-and-fast; Pankhurst for example (the left communists in Britain were regarded as being an offshoot of the Dutch/German left) was also publishing stuff by Bordiga and the Bilan fraction of the Italian Left in France were trying to take up some of the arguments of the Dutch/German current through their contacts in Belgium.

After Otto Ruhle's position on the Party ('the revolution is not a party affair') and a re-evalution of the October revolution (that it was essentially bourgeois, or 'bourgeois from above, proletarian from below') came to dominate in the Dutch/German current, then I think we can begin to talk about 'council communism' proper as opposed to ('orthodox') left communism.

As we understand things now, pro-Party, pro-October 'left communists' (ie the Italian Left, the majority of the Dutch/German left before 1930) are labelled 'Left Communist' and anti-Party anti-October/ambivalent 'left communists' are labelled 'Council Communist'. But that doesn't mean that's how the labels were applied in the 1920s, so no, I don't think it's accurate to call Pannekoek a 'council communist' if by that you're suggesting, or if other people are inferring, that he had an anti-party, anti-October view in the 1920s, because he didn't. Ruhle did for sure and it was Ruhle's views that came to predominate but originally Pannekoek, Gorter, Korsch etc were pro-party and pro-October. The German Left (especially in the KAPD) was as much 'Left Communist' as the Italian Left (which can't just be reduced to Bordiga anyway).

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Pannekoek is not simply 'a council communist' as an unproblematic category though.

The Dutch/German Left changed its positions from 1918-1940. They called themselves 'council communists' all that time - often, in fact they called themselves 'left or council communists'.

Pannekoek, like Luxemburg (and Lenin and Trotsky), started off on the left of social democracy. Between 1918 and the late 1920s, he was a left communist (of the Dutch/German tradition, usually called 'council communist', rather than the Italian) but the tendencies weren't hard-and-fast; Pankhurst for example (the left communists in Britain were regarded as being an offshoot of the Dutch/German left) was also publishing stuff by Bordiga and the Bilan fraction of the Italian Left in France were trying to take up some of the arguments of the Dutch/German current through their contacts in Belgium.

After Otto Ruhle's position on the Party ('the revolution is not a party affair') and a re-evalution of the October revolution (that it was essentially bourgeois, or 'bourgeois from above, proletarian from below') came to dominate in the Dutch/German current, then I think we can begin to talk about 'council communism' proper as opposed to ('orthodox') left communism.

As we understand things now, pro-Party, pro-October 'left communists' (ie the Italian Left, the majority of the Dutch/German left before 1930) are labelled 'Left Communist' and anti-Party anti-October/ambivalent 'left communists' are labelled 'Council Communist'. But that doesn't mean that's how the labels were applied in the 1920s, so no, I don't think it's accurate to call Pannekoek a 'council communist' if by that you're suggesting, or if other people are inferring, that he had an anti-party, anti-October view in the 1920s, because he didn't. Ruhle did for sure and it was Ruhle's views that came to predominate but originally Pannekoek, Gorter, Korsch etc were pro-party and pro-October. The German Left (especially in the KAPD) was as much 'Left Communist' as the Italian Left (which can't just be reduced to Bordiga anyway).

Fair enough - but as far as I can tell Pannekoek's politics did change in the anti-Party, anti-October direction, by the thirties at least, and he continued writing until the late fifties. So I think the "council communist" as distinct from "left communist" phase of his political career is the longest one and in any case people tend to be remembered for the political positions they last held - no one is going to describe Bukharin as a Left Communist without specifying the very limited time frame in which he was a proto-leftcom for example. (There are exceptions, of course, like Pankhurst. But it was Pannekoek's councilist period that was the most important when assessing his political life.)

[Tim Cornelis]

Which relies on the myth that councilists want "decentralisation". In fact many of the councilists groups - I'm thinking about the Group of Internationalist Communists here specifically, but there are others - explicitly reject decentralisation as leading to ruin of the proletarian dictatorship (what they call "state Communism", note the capital C).

At this point I'm too cynical toward 870 to give him the benefit of the doubt, and will have to assume that this misrepresentation of the position of the GIC is part of the pattern of 870s consistent misreadings and consistent misrepresentations. The GIC claims virtually the exact opposite, that excessive centralisation caused the ruin of the proletarian dictatorship, and claims that such a system can't even exist or function.

I also have no idea what is supposed to be said with "state Communism, note the capital C". They consistently wrote 'state communism' according to two sources (marxists.org and PDF from Cockshott's website).

GIC Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution: "With the single exception of Marx, we find in the case of virtually all writers who have concerned themselves with the organisation of economic life in a communist society the same principles being advocated as those which the Russians have applied in practice ... They then set about the task of centralisation and begin to construct organisations of a similar type to those which the Russians have called into being," continues "Anyone can see that they [Neurath and Hilferding] both arrive at the same kind of social structure as that erected by the Russians. Even if we assume such structures are actually viable ( a fact which we deny) and that the central administration and the organs of social control would be willing or able to distribute the mass of products in an equitable way in accordance with the accepted differing standards of living - even then, and even if we assume that the myriad economic exchanges involved occur smoothly, the fact would still pertain that the producers have in reality no right of control over the productive apparatus. It becomes not an apparatus of the producers, but one placed over them."

"The central economic power is simultaneously
the political power. Every oppositional element which, in respect of
either political or economic affairs, wishes to arrange matters differently to that
willed by the central administration will be suppressed with all the means at
the disposal of the all-powerful state apparatus. It is certainly not necessary to
give concrete examples of this - they are already familiar enough. In this way
the Association of Free and Equal Producers proclaimed by Marx becomes a
prison-state such as humanity has never before experienced!"

In fact, they criticise some anarchisms for being too centralised:

"A French anarchist, Sebastian Faure, attempted to find a solution. His book
Universal Happiness, published in 1921, depicts his conception of free communism.
The importance of this book lies in the fact that it shows that anarchist
conceptions of communist society do not necessarily exclude a system of centralised
disposal and control over social production. For a close examination of
the Faurian system of ’free communism’ shows that it is in reality nothing other
than vulgar state-communism. Indeed, the book does not bear the character of
a scientific examination, but is couched more in the form of a utopian novel in
which a ”free communist society” is made to grow out of pure fantasy. Nevertheless,
the fact that, in opposition to such phrases as ”equality for all”, ”freely
concluded agreements” and ”the elevating spiritual principle of opposition to the
state and state power”, a system of production is depicted in which the right
of control over production does not lie with the producers themselves clearly
demonstrates that, in this particular camp at least, there is absolutely no fear
of this particular author giving any evidence whatever of any understanding of
the laws of motion applicable to a communist system!

...

The producers must themselves determine in their workplaces the relationship
of the producer to the social product. They must calculate how much labourtime
is absorbed in each product, for their labour-time is the measure of their
share in the social product. Only then can the entire organisation depend, not
on some ”spiritual” ideal wafting upon the breeze of some abstract principle,
but be founded in economic reality.

...

Then it is quite unnecessary for the right of decision as to how the social product
is to be distributed to be handed over to any ”central administration”; on the
contrary, the producers themselves in each factory or other establishment can
then determine this through their computation of labour-time expended."

[Sewer Socialist]

I also have some questions about left communism. I asked this on the Left Communists tendency group but received no answer.

This was a list of some differences between Leninism and Bordigism:

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

I agree with these positions, but they are mostly negative criticisms. What are left communists in favor of, practically speaking? What is the role of the left communist party, specifically?

I also like Bordiga's insistence that money has no place in socialism. These positions don't seem very controversial to me. Why is left communism relatively unpopular?

I'm currently already reading a couple of books right now, but will reading Bordiga's Party and Class provide a useful answer to that question?

Also, what do left communists think of Gramsci?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I also have some questions about left communism. I asked this on the Left Communists tendency group but received no answer.

This was a list of some differences between Leninism and Bordigism:

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

I agree with these positions, but they are mostly negative criticisms. What are left communists in favor of, practically speaking? What is the role of the left communist party, specifically?

I also like Bordiga's insistence that money has no place in socialism. These positions don't seem very controversial to me. Why is left communism relatively unpopular?

I'm currently already reading a couple of books right now, but will reading Bordiga's Party and Class provide a useful answer to that question?

Also, what do left communists think of Gramsci?

As far as I know, "Party and Class" is a good text, but someone who is more knowledgeable about Left Communism and Bordigism specifically might want to correct me. I don't know if every Left Communist would agree with that work though - it seems to me (an admitted outsider) that Bordiga and specifically Bordigist groups (which are named the International Communist Party 80% of the time) are on the extreme "partyist" end of the movement.

But I wouldn't say that left communism is unpopular, not any more than other kinds of revolutionary socialism. All of the Left Communists in the world would barely fill a medium-sized stadium, but the same goes for Trotskyists. Generally, communists are a minority. A pretty small minority.

Socialism as a moneyless system is hardly Bordiga's idea. Unless you think socialism in one country is possible, it pretty much follows that there is no money in socialism.

[Creative Destruction]

Why is left communism relatively unpopular?

I couldn't answer this definitively, but I think it at least has something to do with the fact that many socialists come to Marxism through Leninist (mainly Trot) organizations, since they are generally the ones that have the biggest membership, more money to mobilize and recruit and what not, more likely to establish cults of personalities, etc. When you're inundated with Fourth International-esque crap, you get the shittier parts of Lenin and Trotsky coming through and they have an intrinsically negative view of left communists. A lot of it seems to come from willful misreadings of left communists, coupled with an inculcation that lends an "ick" factor when regarding left commies.

Those of us that came to Marxism by way of orthodox means or even through anarchism have a rosier view of many left communists and what they have to say.

[Sewer Socialist]

Oh, there are a pretty big number of Trots in my town. But maybe they're just easier to identify by their newspapers.

[Tim Cornelis]

I think it has to do with the ultra-leftism and perceived puritanism. If you reject any struggle where trade unions are dominant, for instance, it already disqualifies many, if not most, actions. Consequently, you will not attract people that want to do something.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Oh, there are a pretty big number of Trots in my town. But maybe they're just easier to identify by their newspapers.

I'm sure there are a lot of people who call themselves Trotskyists there (although some groups really inflate their numbers, and obviously not everyone who reads the newspaper of a group is a member of that group - I used to read International Viewpoint for a laugh for god's sake), but I think you will soon find that many of them have a line that has nothing to do with what Trotsky advocated (this is a minor issue) or revolutionary socialism (this on the other hand is a major issue).

Trotskyist groups were big - could only be big - during pre-revolutionary periods such as the lead-up to WWII. Likewise Left Communists.

[Sewer Socialist]

If you reject any struggle where trade unions are dominant, for instance, it already disqualifies many, if not most, actions. Consequently, you will not attract people that want to do something.

Yeah; that's the one thing I don't understand, actually.


I'm sure there are a lot of people who call themselves Trotskyists there (although some groups really inflate their numbers, and obviously not everyone who reads the newspaper of a group is a member of that group - I used to read International Viewpoint for a laugh for god's sake), but I think you will soon find that many of them have a line that has nothing to do with what Trotsky advocated (this is a minor issue) or revolutionary socialism (this on the other hand is a major issue).

Fair enough.

[Blake's Baby]

870 - I often refer to Bukharin's 'Left Communist' phase - he was at his most interesting between 1915-1920. I also refer to what Pannekoek was saying in the '20s, indeed in 1911, the KAPD and the Fourth International (the Communist Workers' one of 1922-24). Of course what Pannekoek was saying from 1918-1930 was important. You don't say Trotsky's 10 years in the Bolsheviks were unimportant so why claim Pannekoek's 12 years as a Left Communist were unimportant?

upthehunx - you 'recieved no answer' to a question you posted yesterday? You do realise you posted in a thread started 2 years ago, don't you? Your question was 22 months after the last post. I don't think an answer in 24 hours is really the right time-frame to be looking at this. The group pages don't function that quickly. Not sure exactly what it is you're asking about 'Party and Class'. But 870 is right that the Bordigists are the most 'partyist' of the Left Communist groups.

Tim - Left Communists don't 'reject any struggles where the unions are dominant' - we rather involve ourselves in them and argue that workers need to take control of them directly to extend and deepen them. We point out that the role of the unions is to negotiate within capitalism and they can't be revolutionary organs. We push for decisions by mass assemblies and the like. We try to bring down divisions between workers that union frameworks perpetuate.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

870 - I often refer to Bukharin's 'Left Communist' phase - he was at his most interesting between 1915-1920. I also refer to what Pannekoek was saying in the '20s, indeed in 1911, the KAPD and the Fourth International (the Communist Workers' one of 1922-24). Of course what Pannekoek was saying from 1918-1930 was important. You don't say Trotsky's 10 years in the Bolsheviks were unimportant so why claim Pannekoek's 12 years as a Left Communist were unimportant?

Ha, that's a bit of a trick question, since we Trotskyists don't recognise any break in principle between Trotsky as he was in 1918 and as he was in 1939. He was - to us - still a Bolshevik then. But I never said that Pannekoek's time in the KAPD was not important. It's just that when most people mention him, they classify him as a council communist based on his later work and then make the equation council communism = left communism, which as we both agree is not true.

[Blake's Baby]

Hmmm. It's just more complicated than that. The meaning of terms changed. In the 1920s 'ratenkommunist' (don't know how to get umlauts here sorry) and 'linkskommunist' were used interchangeably. It would have been handy if the German comrades of the period recognised that we were going to have a lot of difficulty later on and made things clearer, but they didn't.

And the Council Communists don't recognise any break in principle that Pannekoek made either, any more than Trotskyists do.

We do of course, for both of them. Which is why we think that Pannekoek's right up to the point where he rejects the party and the October revolution, but wrong after that; and Trotsky's right about world revolution and the role of the soviets, but wrong about... (a long list of thing's Trotsky's wrong about, including the 'French Turn', support for the Soviet Union and the suppression of Kronstadt).

And then the Bordigists believe whatever they want to believe anyway.

[Sewer Socialist]

I wasn't complaining; I just thought I might as well ask the same question here.

[L.A.P.]

I also have some questions about left communism. I asked this on the Left Communists tendency group but received no answer.

This was a list of some differences between Leninism and Bordigism:

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

I agree with these positions, but they are mostly negative criticisms. What are left communists in favor of, practically speaking? What is the role of the left communist party, specifically?

I also like Bordiga's insistence that money has no place in socialism. These positions don't seem very controversial to me. Why is left communism relatively unpopular?

I'm currently already reading a couple of books right now, but will reading Bordiga's Party and Class provide a useful answer to that question?

Also, what do left communists think of Gramsci?

Bordigism was never explicitly anti-union and anti-national liberation, that's a trait of the Dutch-German Left.

In regards to Gramsci, I'm sure many (but not limited to) left communists would agree that he was a Stalinist worshipped by ivory-tower academics.

[Sewer Socialist]

Right; so I wonder if left communists find anything useful about Gramsci's work. His thoughts on ideology seem interesting.

But anyway, I was wondering how left communists hope to achieve revolution. I see their criticisms, which make sense to me. But what's left, after those criticisms?

[Creative Destruction]

Right; so I wonder if left communists find anything useful about Gramsci's work. His thoughts on ideology seem interesting.

But anyway, I was wondering how left communists hope to achieve revolution. I see their criticisms, which make sense to me. But what's left, after those criticisms?

Building a theoretical alternative that people can get behind, discuss, ponder, change, etc.

[Skyhilist]

Which relies on the myth that councilists want "decentralisation". In fact many of the councilists groups - I'm thinking about the Group of Internationalist Communists here specifically, but there are others - explicitly reject decentralisation as leading to ruin of the proletarian dictatorship (what they call "state Communism", note the capital C).

So they want a specific centralized group of people to be running everything? If not, then maybe they're against political movement/action to be coordinated, but this is in no way fundamentally different from what anarchists advocate besides the semantics.

[Zukunftsmusik]

(Note that I'm by no means a left communist by the proper use of the term)


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

I agree with these positions, but they are mostly negative criticisms. What are left communists in favor of, practically speaking? What is the role of the left communist party, specifically?

Well, there is a "positive" emerging from this negative criticism: independent or autonomous working class activity. What this means more specifically, though, is workers' strikes and actions independent of and in opposition to existing left parties and trades unions, that is by means of striking comittees and collective or mass action.

As for the role of the communist party, there is a certain chasm between the German-Dutch Left and the Italian. For an overview of this chasm (or dialectic, as they call it) check out Pannekoek versus Bordiga (http://libcom.org/library/bordiga-versus-pannekoek)by Antagonism. As far as I can understand the German-Dutch Left followed Pannekoek on this question (whose position was close if not similar to that of Luxemburg):


[...]
- in mass action, the role of the party is decisive; it is an active factor, catalysing the revolutionary action that it both leads and organises, "because it bears an important part of the masses' capacity for action". But this leading role is spiritual rather than material; the party's role is not to command the proletariat like an army general staff: "[the party] is not the bearer of the entire will of the proletariat as a whole, and it cannot therfore give it an order to march as if commanding soldiers".
[...]
- finally, returning to the question of the party, Pannekoek declared that the political party cannot be a mass organisation, but must be a trained nucleus which cannot substitute itself for the will of the masses; "But 'we' are nit the masses; we are only a little group, a nucleus. The course of events is determined by what the masses do, not by what we want". This conception was to be developed at length by the German-Dutch Left during the 20s. It was already as different from 'Leninism' as it was form 'councilism'.

Bordiga on the other hand was indeed "more Leninist than Lenin" on this question (although Antagonism disagrees here).


[...]The class presupposes the party, because to exist and to act in history it must possess a critical doctrine of history and an aim to attain in it.

In the only true revolutionary conception, the direction of class action is delegated to the party. Doctrinal analysis, together with a number of historical experiences, allow us to easily reduce to petty bourgeois and anti-revolutionary ideologies, any tendency to deny the necessity and the predominance of the party's function. If this denial is based on a democratic point of view, it must be subjected to the same criticism that Marxism uses to disprove the favourite theorems of bourgeois liberalism. It is sufficient to recall that, if the consciousness of human beings is the result, not the cause of the characteristics of the surroundings in which they are compelled to live and act, then never as a rule will the exploited, the starved and the underfed be able to convince themselves of the necessity of overthrowing the well- fed satiated exploiter laden with every resource and capacity.

(There are of course some abiguities to flesh out here, something I'm not capable of atm, but Antagonism touches upon it)


Why is left communism relatively unpopular? I'm currently already reading a couple of books right now, but will reading Bordiga's Party and Class provide a useful answer to that question? To some extent I believe this is due to the (or at least some) left communist groups' attitude towards anarchist and leftist groups as well as other left communist groups. Bordiga's text is interesting and useful but doesn't answer this question, no.

In addition the mentioned Antagonsim pamphlet, Open letter to comrade Lenin (http://libcom.org/library/open-letter-to-comrade-lenin-gorter) by Gorter (read it along Gorter's open letter: the details (https://libcom.org/library/gorter%E2%80%99s-open-letter-details-serge-bricianer) by Serge Bricianer and Lenin's pamphlet (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm)) and Philippe Bourrinet's and/or ICC's* The Dutch and German Communist Left are good texts/books for an introdiction to the current (though the latter is hardly an introduction: it's a detailed political history).



*The book is written by Bourrinet but was published as a collective work while Bourrinet was a member in the ICC. He's not anymore, and you can download his book in a slightly edited version from his website (or from libcom (http://libcom.org/history/german-dutch-communist-left-philippe-bourrinet)) or buy the original version from the ICC (it's not that expensive IIRC).

[Zukunftsmusik]

Bordigism was never explicitly anti-union and anti-national liberation, that's a trait of the Dutch-German Left.


I won't touch upon national liberation here, and I won't claim to be an expert on Bordiga, but on the question of trade unions he seems pretty clear to me:


The factory council plays its part in quite a different network, that of workers' control over production. Consequently the factory council, made up of one representative for every workshop, does not nominate the factory's representative in the local political-administrative Soviet: this representative is elected directly and independently. In Russia, the factory councils arc the basic unit of another system of representation (itself subordinate of course to the political network of Soviets): the system of workers' control and the people's economy. Control within the factory has a revolutionary and expropriative significance only after central power has passed into the hands of the proletariat. While the factory is still protected by the bourgeois State, the factory council controls nothing. The few functions it fulfils are the result of the traditional practice of: 1. parliamentary reformism; 2. trade-union resistance, which does not cease to be a reformist way of advancing.

The point he's making here is in regards to something else (the workers' councils), but the last point is pretty damning: he clearly sees trade unions as reformist. Again, I'm by no means an expert, but from what I've gathered talking to people either consider themselves inspired by Bordiga or Bordigists, Onoratio Damen was the one who didn't dismiss activity within (if not by) the trade unions.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

So they want a specific centralized group of people to be running everything? If not, then maybe they're against political movement/action to be coordinated, but this is in no way fundamentally different from what anarchists advocate besides the semantics.

Here is how the GIC put it:

"It has, on the contrary, been our experience that every work purporting to represent a principled view of communist production and distribution which has hitherto come to our attention and which claims to be based upon the historically valid realities is in fact based upon the purest utopia. Projects are drawn up showing how the various industries are to be organised, how the contradiction between producers and consumers is to be eliminated through the agencies of various commissions and committees, through which organs the power of the State is to be curbed, and so on. Wherever one or the other author of such a fantastic scheme finds he has fantasised himself into a corner with his intellectual somersaults, or wherever any difficulty arises in making his concocted speculations work out, for instance in respect to the integration of various industries ... the solution is soon to hand: a new commission or a special committee is "brought into being". This is especially the case with Cole's Guild Socialism, the historical predecessor of which was so-called German trade-union socialism.

The organisational infrastructure of any system of production and distribution is functionally associated with the economic laws determining its movement. Any conception concerning such an infrastructure which does not reflect the economic categories inherent to its system is therefore no more than utopian speculation. Such utopianism merely serves to distract attention away from the real fundamental problems.
In our observations we have not concerned ourselves with this speculative field. Insofar as the organisational structure of economic life has been touched upon at all, this has been only to refer here and there to the organisation of industrial establishments and cooperatives. This has its justification in the fact that history has to a large extent already indicated what these forms are to be, thereby depriving them of any of the characteristics of an over-heated imagination. We have treated the question of the organisation of the peasants with the greatest reserve, precisely because the West European movement possesses very little experience in this field. We must await the verdict of history as to just how the peasants will organise themselves. As far as the farming establishments are concerned, we have contented ourselves by showing how capitalism itself has prepared the conditions for calculating Average Social Reproduction Time (ASRT). All we have done has been to examine some of the consequences arising from this.

Just how the industrial organisations will combine with one another, which organs they will call into being in order to ensure the smooth operation of production and distribution, just how these organs will be elected, how the cooperatives will be grouped - all these are problems the solutions for which will be determined by the special conditions prevailing in each sector of the economy and the specific ways in which they reflect the fundamental characteristics of production and distribution. It is precisely this, the functional operation of the production apparatus, which Cole elaborates in the greatest detail in his depiction of guild socialism, without anywhere touching upon the real problems as they arise from the fundamental economic laws of motion, and it is this which reduces his work to the status of worthless dross. For this reason we reject decisively any and all accusations of "utopianism". The method we have adopted in our exposition is precisely that of concentrating upon the fundamental questions, which are those concerned with the methods to be adopted for implementing the average social hour of labour and the reproduction time arising therefrom.

Should one equate trust in the strength of the proletariat to establish communism with utopia, then this can be no more than a subjective utopianism which the proletariat will need to eradicate through intensive propaganda.

The sole area in which the accusation of utopianism might seem to possess some semblance of justification is that relating to the system of control over the norms of economic life. But only a semblance. One might hold the opinion, for instance, that Leichter has allowed more scope for developmental possibilities, inasmuch as he has left open the question as to whether the system of accounting between separate industrial establishments should be carried out individually between the establishments themselves through the medium of labour certificates, or whether this should be done through simple double-entry book-keeping at the book-keeping centre, whilst we insist unconditionally upon the method of centralised double-entry recording. The essential point, however, is that we draw attention continually to the prime significance of the system of social book-keeping in general as a weapon of the economic power of the proletariat, whilst it simultaneously provides the solution to the problem of regulation and social control of economic life. The organisational structure of this system of book-keeping, its specific points of contact with society as a whole - these questions have naturally been left out of our account.

It is of course possible that, in its revolution, the proletariat will fail to generate the strength necessary to enable it to use this decisive weapon for promoting its class power. In the end, however, this is what it must come to, and indeed this is quite apart from the question of the social power of the proletariat, for the simple reason that a communist economy demands an exact computation of the quantity of unremunerated product which consumers are to receive. In other words, the data necessary for the computation of the Factor of Individual Consumption (FIC) must be ascertained; should this not be received, or only inadequately, then it becomes impossible to implement the category of Average Social Reproduction Time, whereupon the entire communist economy collapses. Then there remains no other solution than that of a price policy, and we will have turned full circle, to arrive once again at a system of rule over the masses. We will have sailed straight into the jaws of State communism. Thus it is not our imagination which considers the system of general social book-keeping to be a necessity for communism; on the contrary, it is the objective legality of the communist economic system which makes this unconditional demand."

(The physical copy I have capitalises State Communism consistently, hmpf. The above is from MIA.)


Later they qualify their proposal as "simultaneously centralist and federalist", which just demonstrates the contradictory nature of their proposal - they correctly insist on social book-keeping but endow the individual workers' councils with such prerogatives that they would erode social book-keeping, and they envision this book-keeping in terms that rival ParEcon in needless obtuseness. Nonetheless, they definitely did not see themselves as opposed to centralism, nor did they equate centralism with whatever bogeyman is popular at the moment (usually Stalinism), as many people on RevLeft do.

[Remus Bleys]

I won't touch upon national liberation here, and I won't claim to be an expert on Bordiga, but on the question of trade unions he seems pretty clear to me:



The point he's making here is in regards to something else (the workers' councils), but the last point is pretty damning: he clearly sees trade unions as reformist. Again, I'm by no means an expert, but from what I've gathered talking to people either consider themselves inspired by Bordiga or Bordigists, Onoratio Damen was the one who didn't dismiss activity within (if not by) the trade unions.

Both bordiga and damen disagreed on unions but they were very similar positions. From what I gather about it damen was anti Union. Bordiga was pro Union, in that he was for entering into unions with a struggle and saw them as a class struggle - a part of daily, capitalist class struggle, but a proletarian organization, an entity with terrible leaders and something that won't bring about class consciousness without a party, but nevertheless still a part of the class struggle and a proletarian organization controlled by opportunists (except for non proletarian unions). The fundamental theses of the party talks about struggle with the entire class and pushing them forward. Damen was the ones who thought they weren't conquerable, and bordiga was more in line with marx and engels. Bordigas analysis of unions was correct (I agree with him in principle) but this has to be kept in mind with the actual historical situation (different than 50s italy, which was very different from 20s Italy), using a doctrinal study to come to conclusions.

both opposed boycotting unions of course.

Bordigas thought on the matter is like Trotsky's letter to the italians, where he says French syndicalism was one step forward when compared to no activity, but is reactionary compared to communist activity. Also, the situation of the unions will necessarily change in dicprole.

Btw bordiga was much a leninist when it came to natlib, and lenin did not take sides during reactionary wars.

[newdayrising]

Another reason why left communism isn't more popular is that it's not very well known. Specially outside Europe. Where I live in Brazil for instance I've never met anyone who even knew it exists except for the people I met because of a common interest in it and the people I introduced it to. Some people (Trots) have a vague idea there were "left wing communists" when Lenin wrote the book about them and others believe in the "libertarian marxist" myth (anarchists), but that's about all.
I'm not saying it would otherwise be a mass movement or anything of the sort, but I for one only got to read about it years ago because I speak English and had easy access to the internet. I think it's probably true for other parts of the world as well.
I mean, there are leftist groups with all kinds of politics here. I'm sure there will be a bigger left communist presence here (and elsewhere) when it becomes more visible.