Bordigaism (Bordiga thought? whatever)

[RASH chris]

Can anybody give me an overview of what exactly he adovcated, how his ideas form a valid extension of Leninist thought, and what he has to do with left communism?

Sorry this is in the wrong section, but its the only place I can post.

[apathy maybe]

A good place to start would be the Wikipedia article, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Bogdanov

I hadn't actually heard of this fellow until I happened across this article today (and then I just noticed your thread...).

Anyway, some quotes from the Wikipedia

For the next 6 years [from 1903] Bogdanov was a major figure among the Bolsheviks, second only to Vladimir Lenin in his influence. In 1904-1906, he published three volumes of the philosophic treatise Empiriomonism, in which he tried to merge Marxism with the philosophy of Ernst Mach, Wilhelm Ostwald, and Richard Avenarius. His work later affected a number of Marxist theoreticians, including Nikolai Bukharin [1].

In 1918-1920, Bogdanov was one of the founders and the leading theoretician of the proletarian art movement Proletkult. In his lectures and articles, he called for the total destruction of the "old bourgeois culture" in favour of a "pure proletarian culture" of the future. At first Proletkult, like other radical cultural movements of the era, received financial support from the Bolshevik government, but by 1919-1920 the Bolshevik leadership grew hostile and on December 1, 1920 Pravda published a decree denouncing Proletkult as a "petit bourgeois" organization operating outside of Soviet institutions and a haven for "socially alien elements". Later in the month the president of Proletkult was removed and Bogdanov lost his seat on its Central Committee. He withdrew from the organization completely in 1921-1922 [4]

[More Fire for the People]

RASH chris is referring to Amadeo Bordiga, not Alexander Bogdanov. Personally, I can't read Bordiga's writings without feeling the most intense hatred of the man. If by Leninist we mean elitism of the party and absolute, even Platonic, perfection of the party than Bordiga was more Leninist than Lenin himself.

[apathy maybe]

Ah well, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeo_Bordiga then... :P

Amadeo Bordiga ... was an Italian Marxist, a contributor to Communist theory, the founder of the Communist Party of Italy, a leader of the Communist International and, after the World War II, leading figure of the International Communist Party.