Ultra-left?

[RedFlagComrade]

Who/what are the Ultra-left?

What do they stand for?

[Os Cangaceiros]

"The term Ultra Left is rarely used in English, where people tend to speak broadly of left communism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_communism) as a minor variant of traditional Marxism, but the equivalent term in French - ultra-gauche - has a stronger currency, as it is a more positive term in that language and is used to define a movement that is still in existence today: a branch of left communism descending from people such as Amadeo Bordiga (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amadeo_Bordiga), Otto Rühle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_R%C3%BChle), Anton Pannekoek (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Pannekoek), Herman Gorter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Gorter), and Paul Mattick (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Mattick), and continuing to present day writers such as Jacques Camatte (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Camatte) and Gilles Dauvé (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilles_Dauv%C3%A9) (also known as Jean Barrot).

The term originated in the 1920s in the German and Dutch workers movements, originally referring to a Marxist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist) current opposed to both Bolshevism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolshevism) and social democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy), and with some affinities with anarchism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism). The ultra-left is defined particularly by its breed of anti-authoritarian Marxism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism), which generally involves an opposition to the state (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State) and to state socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_socialism), as well as to parliamentary democracy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_democracy), and to wage labour (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wage_labour). In opposition to Bolshevism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolshevism), the ultra left generally places heavy emphasis upon the autonomy and spontaneous organisation of the proletariat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletariat)."

Courtesy of Wikipedia.