Questions on Left Communism

1. The difference between Left Communist (I’ve heard there is supposedly differences also in upper and lower case usage) and Bordigaist/Council Communist. My understanding was always that Left Communism was the common ground of these two currents.


2. What is “The revolutionary Factory Organization (betriebsorganisationen)”? Otto Ruhle mentions them in his pamphlets about the AAU-E. It sounds like he makes a distinction between these and Revolutionary strike committees which developed into Works Councils.



3. What makes a theory or organization “Left Communist”? I’ve read debates wherein it has been argued that only those organizations and theories criticized by Lenin and expelled from the Third International were Left Communist. Some take this and extend it to the descendants of these organizations. Some people just say if you are anti – party, anti – union, you are Left Communist.


If anyone else has questions too, please post.

IIRC, Bordigist groups are those that descend from the Bordiga-Maffi faction that split from the International Communist Party in 1952. Council Communism, meanwhile, descends from the Group of Internationalist Communists, again IIRC.

I guess my question was, what separates these two currents from "Left Communism"

Being against the big social-democratic and Communist parties due to their historical record does not make a group anti-party. Indeed, AFAIK, most existing left communist groups are for the construction of a world communist party.

Yeah sorry, when I said "anti-party" I meant against electoralism, Social Democracy, etc.

I guess my question was, what separates these two currents from "Left Communism"

Councilism states that the working class, during the struggles of the class, will spontaneously adopt a socialist outlook, and when the class struggles beyond the union form to the formation of workers councils, socialist consciousness will imbed into the workers during their struggles. They oppose the party form, that in high levels of economic struggles, the working class will adapt a socialist political outlook.

"Bordigism" is basically the complete opposite. Bordigism emphasizes above all the party. What distinguishes it though is the belief that the party must be international, and that the party is itself the class. In a revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat, the Party will rule and reorganize society. I don't know if they believe the Party will rule even in socialism but I think they do.

My understanding (as an ICCer) is that the earlier council communists didn't reject the need for a class party, just that it shouldn't be the government, as eventually happened in Russia. After WWII there was a wider rejection of the need for a party, which we call 'councilism'. The Bordigists are in favour of the party. You might find these articles useful:

A caricature of the Party: The Bordigist Party

The Party disfigured: the Bordigist conception

The bankruptcy of modern councilism

3. "What makes a theory or organization “Left Communist”? I’ve read debates wherein it has been argued that only those organizations and theories criticized by Lenin and expelled from the Third International were Left Communist. Some take this and extend it to the descendants of these organizations. Some people just say if you are anti – party, anti – union, you are Left Communist. "

Left communists trace their origins to the fractions expelled from the CI. I don't know any who don't. Why the question, has someone been calling you names?

At Stagger Lee: I apperciate that, but it wasn't really my question. I understand that Bordigaism and Councilism are polar opposites. But what is the difference between these two and "Left Communism".

Beltov: Thanks Comrade for the Links! Early Council Communists were from my understanding, as Otto Ruhle would say, for a party, but not "in the traditional sense of the word".

with regards to this,

Left communists trace their origins to the fractions expelled from the CI. I don't know any who don't. Why the question, has someone been calling you names?

No I defiantly consider my self a Libertarian Marxist, but I am frequently confused with the qualifications for being "left communist" i.e. does it mean you have to be expelled from the Third International? Or is it ideological?

My understanding (as an ICCer) is that the earlier council communists didn't reject the need for a class party, just that it shouldn't be the government, as eventually happened in Russia.

So all the left-com sects would just propagate and disseminate their material in the happily-ever-after workers councils, then?

The Bolsheviks could have simply crossed the names of Lenin and other state administrators off of the voting membership list (while retaining them as dues-paying members) and most of the party independence problem would have been solved.

So all the left-com sects would just propagate and disseminate their material in the happily-ever-after workers councils, then?

The KAPD:

The role of the party after the political victory of the revolution is dependent on the international situation and on the development of the class consciousness of the proletariat. As long as the dictatorship of the proletariat (the political violence of the victorious working class) is necessary, the communist party must do all it can to push events in a communist direction. To this end, in all the industrialised countries it is absolutely necessary that the widest possible amount of revolutionary workers, under the influence of the spirit of the party, are actively involved in the taking over and transformation of the economy. Being organised in factories and Unions, schooled in individual conflicts, forming committees of action, are the necessary preparations which will be undertaken by the advanced guard of the working class itself and prepare them for the development of the revolutionary struggle.

The Bordigists are not homogenous on the union question from what I gathered. Reading through Il Partito Comunista's British press, for example, they are for 'rank-and-filist' unionism on the understanding that the existing unions are tied to the Labour party and by extension to the state.

Don't have the original text, but that whole sentence doesn't make much sense and I would imagine it is very historically based. In Germany (and this ties into my second question) there were "Factory Organizations", "Committees" "Workers' Unions" "Unions" and then "Workers' Councils" without any clear definition.

What distinguishes it [Bordigism] though is the belief... that the party is itself the class.

I've never seen a Bordigist group which claims that the party is the class, this seems like a lazy caricature of their position. What they claim is that without the existence of the party, the working-class does not struggle in it's own interests as a class, and therefore does not constitute a class, insofar as classes are defined by collective struggle against other classes. This seems like pretty basic Marxism to me. As long as the struggle of workers takes place only in a particular trade or industrial sector, it constitutes a struggle of that particular sectoral group of workers against the individual capital which opresses them. In order to form a class they must struggle not sectorally against this or that capitalist, but against capital as a whole, hence undertake a political struggle in which the class organises itself as a political party.

The only problem I would have with the Bordigist formulation is their belief that their own groups constitute 'the party', but apart from that I can't see the issue.

The only problem I would have with the Bordigist formulation is their belief that their own groups constitute 'the party', but apart from that I can't see the issue.

"Bordigism-right on the party question just backing the wrong horse".

Devrim

Zanthorus is right - the Bordigists don't say the party is the class. Apart from the idea that the party already exists in the shape of their own small group (but they get round that by calling it the 'formal' party), the main problem is that they defend the whole notion of the 'dictatorship of the party', a formulation which was put into question as early as the 1930s within the Italian left.

"One cannot speak of a class unless it is organised into a poltical party" (Bordiga). Basic Marxism suggests that the class has two aspects - in itself - its existence as the opposite of capital (sociological if you like) and "for itself" when it takes on an awareness of its historical role and the programmatic basis for ending that condition - a class party. Bordigism deserves to be summarised as saying the party is the class and remember too that Bordiga argued that the party will create the soviets not the mass of the class.

The quote from Bordiga seems to me to imply that the class can only be a class for itself through the party; but the Bordigists also argue that the party is an 'organ' of the class (which is why they never, as I understand it, adhered to the Kautskyits thesis of the party and marxism being the emanation of the bourgeois intelligentsia). If you like the old social democratic view tended to identify the party with the class, because they had the idea of the mass party which would 'democratically' exercise power. The Bordigists understand that the party is a minority expression. But they see no problem with the party acting on behalf of the class, organising its soviets, or exercising dictatorial power over the majority of the class.

The point is that for them the class in itself is not a class. Agreed they did not buy into the Kautskyist thesis but then as 98% of the Communist Party of Italy were of manual worker origins it was not something that taxed them.