Left communism?

[Black Sheep]

Left communism is the range of communist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism) viewpoints held by the Communist Left, which opposes the political ideas of the Bolsheviks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolsheviks) from a position that is asserted to be more authentically Marxist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxist) and proletarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletarian) than the views of Leninism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leninism) held by the Communist International (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_International) after its first two Congresses.

from, wikipedia
So,all non-leninist communists are considered "left communists"?
Abolishing the idea of a D.C.-run communist party etc

And what's the difference between left communism and libertarian communism?

[GPDP]

I assume by "libertarian communism", you mean anarcho-communism, right?

If so, I suppose there's not that much that separates them, only that left-communists still adhere to a distinctively Marxist POV, while anarchists follow a different tradition and school of thought, though again, the difference is not that great.

[Black Sheep]

No, i mean strictly, the meaning of each term i refer to in my 1st post.

[Tower of Bebel]

Libertarian communism can be anarchist communism, but it can also be anarchist communism and left-communism. I see the split of Left-communism from the Third International as the result of the difficulties that arose from the downfall of the Second International. "Leninism" and left-communism had a different opinion on the lessons that should be learned from this defeat. Also, the Third International was shaped after the Bolsheviks, while the USSR was at that time a backward region. Left-communism questioned the implementation of "Bolshevik" tactics in a European context of advanced capitalism.

[OI OI OI]

Read Left-Communism an infantile disorder by Lenin.

My friend read it and he said its amazing.

[black magick hustla]

from, wikipedia
So,all non-leninist communists are considered "left communists"?
Abolishing the idea of a D.C.-run communist party etc

And what's the difference between left communism and libertarian communism?

Very few left communists are "anti-bolshevik". The divergence of the communist left from the third international arose from the question of popular fronts, parliamentarism, trade unions, and anti-fascism, not because the bolsheviks were "authoritarians". The bordigist wing of the Italian Communist Party, which is considered one of the origins of the international communist left, was "ultra-leninist" in as much as they adhered themselves to the first and second congresses of the third international. The biggest left communist organizations, the ICC and the IBRP, arent "anti-bolshevik". There were some anti-bolshevik tendencies in the communist left, like the council communist elements emerging from the KAPD and AUUD, but they were the minority, and today there isnt such a thing as a council communist organization.

Also, left communists do call for an international communist partty, centralized in an international scale. But its role differ from the "vanguard party" of the stalinists and the trotskyists.

[Djehuti]

There are a few kinds of leftwing communism, the dutch/german left (also called council communism, represented by Mattick, Gorter and Pannekoek among others) and the italian left (Bordiga etc). There's also the Spartacist Tendency (Luxemburg, Liebknecht) and the Russian left communists (The Workers Oppossition and the Myasnikov-tendency) etc.


The council communist laid focus on the spontanity and autonomous struggle of the working class and distanced themselves from the bourgeoisie state and from organizational work within labour unions.

They were enemies to the idea that parties (such as the bolshevik party) should posess the power of the state, instead they advocated that a system of workers councils (soviets) should constitute the powerful proletarian state. Well, actually council communists very often pointed out that the working class itself had decide its way of organization, (no one should tell them how to organize; in a party, council, union, etc) but by studying revolutionary events around the world and how the working class had chosen to organize itself, the council communists believed that the workers councils were the working class' most prefered way of organization.

The council communists saw that the task of the parties and/or socialist/communist minorities were to agitate and spread propaganda, learnings, experiences and information within the class, not to seize the political power. They also meant that it was totally wrong for socialists/communists to work within the bourgeoise parliaments, and they did also reject the unions as a way of offensive class struggle. They tend to view the unions as a capitalist phenomenon, an organization for the selling of the commodity labour power; an organization for the workers in their function as variable capital, but against the workers in their function as the revolutionary subject.

Council communists also are against all forms of nationalism (including all nationalist liberation movements). They advocace the direct struggle of the working class (and are thus against all struggle through representatives, like parties and unions, etc), and they put all focus on communist class struggle.



The italian left held similar positions and they also strongly emphasized that capitalism was not about who owned the means of production but wether the value ruled over the economic relations. Thus they put forth the importance of abolishing the market, the wage labour and the commodity form. The italian left did not oppose the idea of a communist party or it's leading role, but they did have a somewhat different party-theory than the bolsheviks.



Left-wing communism in it self and as a whole is not very interesting today, but the ideas they developed were very important in bringing communist theory to a new level (and they were very important for groups such as the Situationists for example). Left-wing communism has tought us a lot of important lessons and it's important to study it.

[Tower of Bebel]

I wouldn't call Luxemburg and Liebknecht real left-communists, though they were for a short period of time (1918-1919).

Lenin's work on left-communism is recommendable, but read it in context and notice the fact that the English translation of the title is much more offensive than any other translation.

The whole question is: how should we overcome the devision of labour between the masses and its leadership? That's why I mentioned the role of the degeneration of the 2nd International. The emphasis on the uselessness of old tactics (parliament, trade unions and so on) in the era of imperialism according the left-wing communism is more a theoretical foundation of this practical question.

[Random Precision]

Read Left-Communism an infantile disorder by Lenin.

My friend read it and he said its amazing.

Why would you recommend Lenin's book on the subject if you've never read it?

[black magick hustla]

The situationists had a few interesting ideas, like the development on the theory of alienation as something encompassing all spheres of everyday life, something seen from the detachment of workers to the political apparatus, work, and the spectacle as a stream of images that embodies bourgeois ideology. However, they were more of an artistic group than a political group, and they took some really shitty positions, like supporting enthusiastically the "councils" of the new algerian goverment. I think this had to do with their obsession with workers' councils.

it was pretty rad when they sent a telegram to the chinese government saying that ther "the state-capitalist bureacracy was going to be overthrown by the international power of the workers' councils" or something along those lines.

All in all, the situationists didn't bring anything very useful n terms of political praxis. They made some few vague references to councils and the "creation of situations", but all in all, they didnt offer anything. As I said, it was a group of hedonistic artists subject to relentless purges because of debord's huge ego. The idea that capitalism couldnt tear appart because of economic crisis and instead revolutionaries had toresort to some vague analysis of how boredom is going to tear down capitlaism was disproved in 1968 and is being disproved even today, when international crisis is throwing the proletariat into the historical scenes with new struggles, compared to the bad days of the 90s-

[Die Neue Zeit]

There are a few kinds of Left-wing communism, the Dutch/German left (also called council communism, represented by Mattick, Gorter and Pannekoek among others) and the Italian left (Bordiga etc). There's also the Spartacist Tendency (Luxemburg, Liebknecht) and the Russian left communists (The Workers Opposition and the Myasnikov-tendency) etc.

Indeed!


The council communist laid focus on the spontaneity and autonomous struggle of the working class and distanced themselves from the bourgeoisie state and from organizational work within labour unions.

The anti-electoral position is valid, but the distancing from union work is just plain wrong.


instead they advocated that a system of workers councils (soviets) should constitute the powerful proletarian state

Their fetish with councils is very problematic, for the simple reason that they do NOT have the explicit purpose of taking power. The notion that the basic economic struggles conducted by these councils would eventually "grow" into political struggles conducted by these same councils is just plain economistic.


The Italian Left held similar positions and they also strongly emphasized that capitalism was not about who owned the means of production but whether the value ruled over the economic relations. Thus they put forth the importance of abolishing the market, the wage labour and the commodity form.

This actually goes back to what was written by "late Marx" from 1875 onwards. :)

[Niccolò Rossi]

Read Left-Communism an infantile disorder by Lenin.

My friend read it and he said its amazing.

:lol: Honestly you make me laugh sometimes. Not only do you recommend a work that you yourself have not read, you are totally ignorant to such works as the reply by Gorter (http://www.marxists.org/archive/gorter/1920/open-letter/index.htm).