Left-Communism: What is it?

[Aslan]

Once I used to be your usual tankie, now that I've grown I don't really identify with that.

1. But recently I've been learning about Left-communism and alternate forms of communist ideology. But I'm confused on the nature of how parties will work in it. Do they want to make federations of democratic bodies once the revolution is over?

2. How do parties work?

3. How does direct democracy even work in such a society? I sure as hell don't like parliamentary/republican systems but having millions of people decide on things? Will it just be on relevant things like policy/military?

4. Who are some influential left-communists? I don't really know any since the ideology is so overshadowed by authoritarian socialist movements?

5. What is your opinions on Lenin's critique of left-communism? Is it really that good?

[Rudolf]

3. How does direct democracy even work in such a society? I sure as hell don't like parliamentary/republican systems but having millions of people decide on things? Will it just be on relevant things like policy/military?



Im not a left comm so im not really going to answer anything to do with left comms.

Anarchists utilise DD and think the communist society will utilise it. The 'solution' to the millions of people deciding things (not that i think it's a problem) is federation and delegation.

[Aslan]

Im not a left comm so im not really going to answer anything to do with left comms.

Anarchists utilise DD and think the communist society will utilise it. The 'solution' to the millions of people deciding things (not that i think it's a problem) is federation and delegation.

Ok, but are there parties in LeftCommunist ideology? Are there any books?

[motion denied]

#FF000 posted a nice compilation of leftcomm and ultra-left texts somewhere. Anyway, these should give you an overview of their positions (hardly uniform, mind you) in the early 20s and so on:

Gorter's Open Letter to Lenin (https://www.marxists.org/archive/gorter/1920/open-letter/index.htm)
Gorter's Why we need the Communist Workers' International (https://www.marxists.org/archive/gorter/1921/fourth-international.htm)
Karl Korsch's The Passing of Marxian Orthodoxy (https://www.marxists.org/archive/korsch/1937/marxian-orthodoxy.htm)
Pannekoek's World Revolution and Communist Tactics (https://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/tactics/index.htm)
Paul Mattick sir on "Anti-Bolshevik Communism" puts forward some good stuff years later. Even though he was very bad when it came to politics (organising, party etc) he was boss in the critique of political economy.
Look for KAI (Communist Workers' International) and KAPD (German Communist Workers' Party) documents on libcom.


If you wish, look up Otto Rühle on MIA. But in my opinion he was mostly garbage, as mostly of what would be known as "councilism". Someone should direct you to Italian left-communism.

Lenin's critique is flawed in numerous points and Gorter's first open letter argues against some of them. Then again, Lenin was one of the leaders of a revolutionary mass movement (but of course he can and should be criticised). Left-communists were somehow large in Germany before they died in multiple splits and cults.

[Communist Mutant From Outer Space]

The way "direct democracy" is supposed to work is on a very decentralised local level, not millions meeting nationally to discuss things. I'm not an ardent supporter of "direct democracy" in its entirety, but I think such a system has its inherent benefits on a certain scale in society.

[Rudolf]

Ok, but are there parties in LeftCommunist ideology? Are there any books?

I dont know. Im pretty ignorant of left communists.

[Durruti's friend]

Motion denied named the most influential dutch-german left communists, so I'll just add Amadeo Bordiga, Onorato Damen and Jacques Camatte as the most well known Italian leftcoms.

As for democracy, your question is a little bit confusing. Are you talking about democracy in the party, during the dictatorship of the proletariat or in actual communism? Left communists are mostly adherents of classical democratic centralism when it comes to party affairs, though some leftcoms from the "Italian tradition" (ie. bordigists) uphold the concept of organic centralism, which aims at completely eradicating democratic processes from the party. You'll have to ask actual bordigists about that though, because I didn't understand anything about that but, to be frank, you probably won't get it either.

On the other hand, the role of direct democracy (or democracy of any kind) is basically non-existent in a communist society, since politics are gone. The answer to the question on federations follows from this, as left communists believe in central planning, not in reciprocal quasi-markets on a communal level. A better question would be "what about democracy during the dotp?", and, as one could imagine, there are differing opinions on that.

I'll just link you some modern groups which are more or less influenced by the historical left communist movement (there are interesting introductions there, so take a look):

ICT (International Communist Tendency) - http://www.leftcom.org/en
ICP (International Communist Party) - http://www.international-communist-party.org/
ICC (International Communist Current) - http://world.internationalism.org/

Pale Blue Jadal (a group based in Turkey) - http://palebluejadal.tumblr.com/
Communist League of Tampa (and its sister groups in Miami and Tallahassee) - http://communistleaguetampa.org/
World Revolution (Svjetska revolucija, from Croatia) - http://www.svjetskarevolucija.org/
Together Against Capital (Kolektivně proti kapitálu, from the Czech Republic) - http://protikapitalu.org/
Wildcat (from Germany) - http://www.wildcat-www.de/

(The ICT and the ICP are technically splits from the old Internationalist Communist Party which came to existence in ww2 Italy; the split was centered around Onorato Damen and Amadeo Bordiga.)

[Blake's Baby]

At its basis, Left Communism is the political tradition descended from the groups that were expelled from the ComIntern during the 1920s for refusing to follow the Moscow line (on contesting elections and popular fronts in particular). There were two main currents, the Dutch-German Left and the Italian Left. There were also other groups of Left Communists, in Russia, Britain, Bulgaria and other places, but they didn't leave organisational descendants.

There are at the moment three strands of Left Communist organisation, all more-or-less descended from the Italian Communist Left. These are the ICP (various splits of the International Communist Party, the 'Bordigists'), the ICC (International Communist Current, descended from the review Bilan) and the ICT (Internationalist Communist Tendency; includes the PCInt (Internationalist Communist Party) based in Italy).

They have different views about things so any attempt to say what the 'Left Comm' view is is going to be a bit problematic. It's safe to say that the ICPs have similar positions to each other, and the ICC and ICT have similar positions to each other, but the ICT/ICC don't necessarily have similar positions to the ICP(s).

The Dutch-German current is pretty much dead in organisational terms. It somewhat mutated into 'Council Communism' and rejected the experience of the Russian Revolution, as well as the organisational forms of the 'old workers' movement' (eg the idea of 'the Party'), and the last (I think) 'Council Communist' organisation was the Dutch magazine Daad en gedacht which ceased publication about 10 years ago.


...

1. But recently I've been learning about Left-communism and alternate forms of communist ideology. But I'm confused on the nature of how parties will work in it. Do they want to make federations of democratic bodies once the revolution is over?...

Left Communists (not Council Communists) think that the party is necessary for the working class to tale power. So we'll have them - or hopefully, one World Communist Party - that emerges before or at worst during the revolution. The Bordigists think that they are already the Party.


...
2. How do parties work?
...

They are the working class's political organisations, composed of the most class-conscious members of the working class. The Bordigists go further than the ICT and ICC. They see the party as, in a real sense, the political 'brain' of the proletariat.


...
3. How does direct democracy even work in such a society? I sure as hell don't like parliamentary/republican systems but having millions of people decide on things? Will it just be on relevant things like policy/military?
...

There's no consensus on this I don't think. It's not something that is really seen as a vital issue. The post-revolutionary framework is for the working class to elaborate not some political nerds in the present. Even if we have some ideas, how can we restrain the working class to our schemas?

My personal point of view is that decisions will be taken 'at the lowest level that they make sense'. Decisions about vaccination campaigns, for example, need to be taken at higher levels than decisions about changing the decoration at the local library.

The principle of delegate councils is pretty ubiquitous. Factory assemblies (and maybe neighbourhood assemblies) send delegates to councils (ie, soviets).


...
4. Who are some influential left-communists? I don't really know any since the ideology is so overshadowed by authoritarian socialist movements?
...

The most famous are Bordiga and Pannekoek I guess. There are also Karl Korsch, Otto Ruhle (there should be an umlaut on that u but I can't do umlauts on this keyboard), Herman Gorter, Jan Appel, Sylvia Pankhurst (between 1918-1926) and Onorato Damen.

But also, Left Communists have some sort of relationship with the works of Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin and Luxemburg, to some extent.


...
5. What is your opinions on Lenin's critique of left-communism? Is it really that good?...

Obviously it's not that good, it didn't convince me.


EDIT: Durruti's Friend posted while I was typing.


...
(The ICT and the ICP are technically splits from the old Internationalist Communist Party which came to existence in ww2 Italy; the split was centered around Onorato Damen and Amadeo Bordiga.)

Actually, the Internationalist Communist Party is still going, and is part of the ICT.

SECOND EDiT: there is a Left Communist group here, and there's a thread in the group that lists, I think, every Left Comm group posting in English - except some of the more recent ones that Durruti's Friend mentions, as I've not updated the list in a while.

[Aslan]

The Dutch-German current is pretty much dead in organisational terms. It somewhat mutated into 'Council Communism' and rejected the experience of the Russian Revolution, as well as the organisational forms of the 'old workers' movement' (eg the idea of 'the Party'), and the last (I think) 'Council Communist' organisation was the Dutch magazine Daad en gedacht which ceased publication about 10 years ago.

Left Communists (not Council Communists) think that the party is necessary for the working class to tale power. So we'll have them - or hopefully, one World Communist Party - that emerges before or at worst during the revolution. The Bordigists think that they are already the Party.

They are the working class's political organisations, composed of the most class-conscious members of the working class. The Bordigists go further than the ICT and ICC. They see the party as, in a real sense, the political 'brain' of the proletariat.

There's no consensus on this I don't think. It's not something that is really seen as a vital issue. The post-revolutionary framework is for the working class to elaborate not some political nerds in the present. Even if we have some ideas, how can we restrain the working class to our schemas?

The principle of delegate councils is pretty ubiquitous. Factory assemblies (and maybe neighbourhood assemblies) send delegates to councils (ie, soviets).


What is the difference between left-communist parties and the vanguardism proposed by Lenin? How is it distinct from other communist ideologies?

What about the corruption of power? How can the party prevent itself from going authoritarian?

[Tim Cornelis]

I didn't understand organic centralism at first, but it's actually really simple. It should be called 'bureaucratic centralism', and I don't mean that as a critique. It is basically a proposal, a reinvention, re-purposing of Weber's ideal-type bureaucracy.

Weber's ideal-type bureaucracy has the following characteristics:


Hierarchy of authority, centralisation
Division of labour
Tasks and functions unelected, rather appointed based on merit, achievement
Written rules of conduct
Impersonal


This is basically what organic centralism proposes. Voting doesn't guarantee that the correct positions emerge, or the right person ends up in the right position. Therefore, we need to have some other standard, which they see in the invariant programme. The correctness of conduct, positions, views, of the party are measured by their correspondence to the invariant programme, rather than subject to majority vote. The functions of party-cadre members are appointed based on 'merit' (the degree to which they have a correct understanding of Marxism and the invariant programme, and the degree to which they are suitable and capable of executing a function). Similarly, members are appointed to the central committee based on these standards. The conduct of the party is regulated through formal rules that the CC establishes in accordance with a correct Marxist analysis. Of course, there is an issue of who first appoints a central committee when you found a new party, but if you sidestep this minor conundrum, it may be a feasible option for party organisation, but certainly not one I prefer.


The post-revolutionary framework is for the working class to elaborate not some political nerds in the present. Even if we have some ideas, how can we restrain the working class to our schemas?

This is such a cop out in my view. It also implies a voluntaristic understanding of social transformation. People do not make history as they please, and if us nerds have an understanding of historical processes, we can also see that a post-capitalist society will be a certain way and not a certain other way. Do you think that the working class can decide to have markets in their post-capitalist, post-revolutionary framework? If not, why do you think you can restrain the working class to your scheme of a stateless, classless, moneyless society? Because this is contained in, inherent to, the social revolution itself. The social character of production will be free to work itself out. Similarly, we can probably infer how collective administration (in substitution of politics today) will work in communism.

[Rudolf]

I didn't understand organic centralism at first, but it's actually really simple. It should be called 'bureaucratic centralism', and I don't mean that as a critique. It is basically a proposal, a reinvention, re-purposing of Weber's ideal-type bureaucracy.

Weber's ideal-type bureaucracy has the following characteristics:


Hierarchy of authority, centralisation
Division of labour
Tasks and functions unelected, rather appointed based on merit, achievement
Written rules of conduct


This is basically what organic centralism proposes. Voting doesn't guarantee that the correct positions emerge, or the right person ends up in the right position. Therefore, we need to have some other standard, which they see in the invariant programme. The correctness of conduct, positions, views, of the party are measured by their correspondence to the invariant programme, rather than subject to majority vote. The functions of party-cadre members are appointed based on 'merit' (the degree to which they have a correct understanding of Marxism and the invariant programme, and the degree to which they are suitable and capable of executing a function). Similarly, members are appointed to the central committee based on these standards. The conduct of the party is regulated through formal rules that the CC establishes in accordance with a correct Marxist analysis. Of course, there is an issue of who first appoints a central committee when you found a new party, but if you sidestep this minor conundrum, it may be a feasible option for party organisation, but certainly not one I prefer.


Im not sure if it is a minor conundrum. It actually seems to me to be an indicator that the problem this tries to correct is let back in through the side door.

Those that decide the specific criteria for 'achievement' and 'merit' are those that control the organisation and it is no guarantee at all, no more than voting is, that those appointed hold the correct positions or are the right people. It does not and cannot solve the problem it supposedly exists to solve. The question i wonder is if this is actually the reason for it or if there's another reason. I suspect either there's another reason or those who propose it are shortsighted.

[Tim Cornelis]

No it can't. But that doesn't take away that it is feasible in the sense that it can maintain itself operationally.

EDIT: actually, reading bck this thread, it is less feasible, viable than I remembered:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/tw-bordigism-organic-t189320/index.html?t=189320

There's a reason why Weber's ideal-type bureaucracy hasn't worked, I suppose.

[Aslan]

Hmm.. Not to be make hastey conclusions but Left Comms seem to be just another shade of bullshit..

This is basically what organic centralism proposes. Voting doesn't guarantee that the correct positions emerge, or the right person ends up in the right position. Therefore, we need to have some other standard, which they see in the invariant programme. The correctness of conduct, positions, views, of the party are measured by their correspondence to the invariant programme, rather than subject to majority vote. The functions of party-cadre members are appointed based on 'merit' (the degree to which they have a correct understanding of Marxism and the invariant programme, and the degree to which they are suitable and capable of executing a function). Similarly, members are appointed to the central committee based on these standards. The conduct of the party is regulated through formal rules that the CC establishes in accordance with a correct Marxist analysis. Of course, there is an issue of who first appoints a central committee when you found a new party, but if you sidestep this minor conundrum, it may be a feasible option for party organisation, but certainly not one I prefer.

This intellectual stuff is making my head spin :unsure:
edit: Also according to Marxipedia
They [Russian Left-Communists] began to publish a newspaper, Kommunist, which offered a critique of the direction in which the Bolsheviks were heading. They argued against the over-bureaucratisation of the state and further argued that full state ownership of the means of production should proceed at a quicker pace than Lenin desired. isn't there a level of hypocrisy in ''organic'' centralism then?

[Blake's Baby]

What is the difference between left-communist parties and the vanguardism proposed by Lenin? How is it distinct from other communist ideologies?

What about the corruption of power? How can the party prevent itself from going authoritarian?

The party - at least in the conception of the ICC and ICT - doesn't take power, so I don't see the basis for the question to be honest.

I won't answer for the Bordigists, there are enough of his followers on here to answer your question from their point of view.



Hmm.. Not to be make hastey conclusions but Left Comms seem to be just another shade of bullshit..... isn't there a level of hypocrisy in ''organic'' centralism then?

Yeah, I think that's a very 'hasty' conclusion, given that you're basing your views of 'Left Communism' on the views of someone who isn't a Left Communist offering an opinion about something that most Left Communists don't accept.

If you want to find out about Left Communism, why not actually ask Left Communists?

[Durruti's friend]

Organic centralism is taken up only by a small fraction of the communist left, the so called Bordigists (ie. the ICP - Il Partito and the ICP - Il Comunista, at least, I think). The rest of the modern communist left rejects that idea in favor of some form of democratic centralism.

Historically, organic centralism only came about after WW2 in the Italian communist left; or more precisely in the fraction around Amadeo Bordiga. Russian leftcoms of the 1920s knew fuck all about organic centralism because it didn't even exist as a term at that point, so your argument there is kinda anachronistic.

Here's a pdf of Philippe Bourrinet's book The Dutch and German Communist Left (1900-1948), it's probably the best read on the subject right now: https://libcom.org/files/dutchleft.pdf

The ICC also published a book on the Italian communist left, but I can't seem to find it online.