From Maoism to Councilism

[barista.marxista]

I just went from being almost a Maoist (and an adament Leninist for years), to siding completely with Council/Autonomist Marxism. Quite extraordinary? Read this (free) book (http://web.archive.org/web/20010803232303/www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1587/nonlenin.htm) by Lenny Frank Jr. It starts as a simple explanation of the foundations of Marxism, evolves to thoroughly critique Leninism, and concludes with explaining Council Communism and its techniques. If you don't have time for the entire thing, chapters 6-8 are the meat of it. It's not a long or dense read, so I'd be really interested in seeing what people think.

[redstar2000]

To be honest, it strikes me as a someone "dated" document...as if it were written sometime during the early or middle 1970s.

That doesn't mean that it's "wrong", of course.

The strategy that it proposes may, in time, seem very relevant indeed...though it sounds "disconnected" from things as they are now.

One thing that bothers me about the "councilist" outlook is that historically it has been very "defensive".

We will seize "this workplace" or "this neighborhood" and literally defend it "to the death" against any attempt by the old ruling class to take it back.

This does give the old ruling class a chance to gather its forces and they do end up taking it back.

Councilists seem to "draw back" from the necessary task of actually smashing the old bourgeois state apparatus. You actually have to go there in person and drag those ruling class bastards out of those big government buildings and put them up against a wall and shoot them. You have to actually take over those buildings or destroy them. Those police buildings and jails and prisons actually have to be physically destroyed. Those military bases must be completely looted of useful weaponry and then destroyed...unless there are military units that have defected to the side of the revolution. And even then it would probably be better if those military people came into the urban areas instead of being isolated on a base...after shooting their own officers, of course.

In other words, working people have to see beyond just the "place where I work" or the "place where I live".

That doesn't mean they "need" a "vanguard party" to do that, of course. But it does mean they need to see the necessity of doing that...otherwise they'll just be "picked off one by one" until "order is restored".


As a kind of footnote, I think it's necessary to approach Lenny Flank Jr.'s work with some caution. Not having repudiated the mystical doctrine of the "dialectic", he left "the gates open" for all sorts of superstitious crap.

TAO OF MARXISM: Marxian Dialectics and the Asian Tradition (http://web.archive.org/web/20011210205116/www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1587/tao.htm)

This is very bad shit!

But of course it's always possible that he may not think like this anymore.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Enragé]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2005, 09:17 AM
I just went from being almost a Maoist (and an adament Leninist for years), to siding completely with Council/Autonomist Marxism. Quite extraordinary? Read this (free) book (http://web.archive.org/web/20010803232303/www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1587/nonlenin.htm) by Lenny Frank Jr. It starts as a simple explanation of the foundations of Marxism, evolves to thoroughly critique Leninism, and concludes with explaining Council Communism and its techniques. If you don't have time for the entire thing, chapters 6-8 are the meat of it. It's not a long or dense read, so I'd be really interested in seeing what people think.
hey well at least you're making progress

a shitload of it