Essential Left Communist Texts?

  1. Paulappaul
    Paulappaul
    I've been printing alot of random Left Communist texts in my area, and now I am thinking of making a compilation. Any recommendations/advice ?
  2. Savage
    Done any of the Bilan publications?
  3. Alf
    Alf
    I agree with that - quite a few from Bilan are in the International Review, including Spain and anti-fascism and the period of transition. The Review also contains some of the KAPD's founding documents, and texts by the Mexican left and the French left. I can send you links if you give me an idea of the sort of subjects you are interested in.
  4. Savage
    I don't know about Paulappaul but I'd be interested in the Bilan texts on the period of transition, I don't think I've come across them
  5. Alf
    Alf
  6. Savage
    thanks
  7. Ilyich
    Ilyich
    Daniel DeLeon was a pioneer for left communism. Most of his works( and those of other Marxist-DeLeonists) can be found here, here, here, and here.
  8. Alf
    Alf
    Hello and welcome to this group
    I would say that the De Leonists were part of the left wing of the Second International but there is not very much continuity between them and the currents which later formed the left wing of the Communist International. What points do you think De Leonism shares with left communism?
  9. Android
    Android
    Hello and welcome to this group
    I would say that the De Leonists were part of the left wing of the Second International but there is not very much continuity between them and the currents which later formed the left wing of the Communist International. What points do you think De Leonism shares with left communism?
    The US SLP seemed to degenerate pretty soon after the death of De Leon, so in that sense you are right that there was not much continuity. But the SLP in Britain opposed the Comintern's orientation toward the Labour Party and so I think it would be fair to describe them as part of the left-wing of the workers movement at the time. William Paul's made a contribution to revolutionary theory as well splitting to form the Comintern affiliate.

    Obviously they were not opposed to support for national liberation, see there position on Ireland at the time. But then neither was Bordiga and opposition to nationalist struggles was only developed by the Italian Left IIRC in the 30s.
  10. Alf
    Alf
    you are right about the SLP in the UK - in fact some of this is covered in our book on the communist left in Britain. But I am thinking a=more about the theoretical specificities of De Leonism, which as I understand it could encompass the idea of a 'parliamentary road' alongside the formation of 'socialist industrial unions', which would have put them at odds with all the left communist currents of the 20s.
  11. Android
    Android
    you are right about the SLP in the UK - in fact some of this is covered in our book on the communist left in Britain. But I am thinking a=more about the theoretical specificities of De Leonism, which as I understand it could encompass the idea of a 'parliamentary road' alongside the formation of 'socialist industrial unions', which would have put them at odds with all the left communist currents of the 20s.
    I will have to defer to someone with more knowledge then me on this. As my understanding of De Leonism is as superficial as the SPGB plus Industrial Unions.
  12. Kadir Ateş
    Done any of the Bilan publications?
    Which of the Bilan texts?
  13. Kadir Ateş
    I would also recommend Jean Barrot and Francois Martin's excellent 1972 text, The Eclipse and Re-emergence of the Communist Movement. Gives a good distillation of the limits to the German-Dutch councilist tendency as well as the Bordigism of the (Franco-)Italian communist left.
  14. Alf
    Alf
    The texts on the period of transition are linked above. Some of the material on Spain 36-37 is in International Review 4-7, which you can find here:
    http://en.internationalism.org/booktree/2148
  15. Brosa Luxemburg
    Brosa Luxemburg
    I would say that Herman Gorter's Open Letter To Comrade Lenin is good.
  16. jookyle
    jookyle
    I would say that De Leon contributed a whole lot to what would become Left Communism. Because, if anything, of how he described the role of the party and his emphasis on internationalism.
  17. Brosa Luxemburg
    Brosa Luxemburg
    Party and Class by Bordiga
  18. Blake's Baby
    Blake's Baby
    I'm not sure, jookyle, that many of the members of the Left Communist organisations would agree with you. I've certainly never heard anyone from the ICC, ICT, IP, CBG or any other organisation that claimed the heritage of the Communist Left (who were, unlike the SLP, expelled from the 3rd International) saying that those organisations saw De Leon as a significant political influence (it may be that I just haven't picked up on this of course). Can you say why you think he is, and which organisations you think he and the SLP particularly influenced?
  19. Android
    Android
    I'm not sure, jookyle, that many of the members of the Left Communist organisations would agree with you. I've certainly never heard anyone from the ICC, ICT, IP, CBG or any other organisation that claimed the heritage of the Communist Left (who were, unlike the SLP, expelled from the 3rd International) saying that those organisations saw De Leon as a significant political influence (it may be that I just haven't picked up on this of course). Can you say why you think he is, and which organisations you think he and the SLP particularly influenced?
    DeLeon died before the emergence of the communist left as a political phenomena, so I'm not sure sure how useful such an exercise is. I imagine the label left communist is being used here is the vaguest sense, an any unorthodox Marxist who didn't succumb to reformism, nationalism etc.

    For what it is worth Loren Goldner mentioned in a text that he sided with the left-wing of the Second International in various political struggles.
  20. Paulappaul
    Paulappaul
    Hmm.. The WIIU, the union of the "deleonist" tendency mentioned Luxemburg, Pannekoek and Ruhle in their manifesto and in their critique of the Soviet Union. While I don't think deleon is a part of the "Communist Left" in the historic sense, he is defiantly in the wider political sense as a Marxist who rejected reformism and trade unionism and upheld internationalism, class wide unionism and political struggle. The SLP which was the closet living political descendent of his current of thought was very critical of the qualifications for membership in the third international for much of the same reasons the communist left was.
  21. Blake's Baby
    Blake's Baby
    DeLeon died before the emergence of the communist left as a political phenomena, so I'm not sure sure how useful such an exercise is. I imagine the label left communist is being used here is the vaguest sense, an any unorthodox Marxist who didn't succumb to reformism, nationalism etc.

    For what it is worth Loren Goldner mentioned in a text that he sided with the left-wing of the Second International in various political struggles.
    It's something that comes up every now and again, especially from American comrades: De Leon is a pioneer of Left Communism. I believe Paulappaul himself once subscribed to this view.

    I agree that De Leon is best seen as someone on the left of the Second International, even though as far as I know the SLP never affiliated, though apparently De Leon did go to a 2nd Int conference; also, the US SLP never joined the CPA, unlike the trajectory of the SLP in the UK which was one of the main groups behind the foundation of the CPGB.

    But what I'm trying to get at is why jookyle thinks De Leon was a Left Communist or was influential on the Left Communists.
  22. Paulappaul
    Paulappaul
    Deleon was influential on Lenin, I believe he quoted Deleon in State and Revolution and recommend some of Deleon's essay's be circulated in the Bolshevik press. As far as Deleon being influential on Left Communism, I think that's wrong. Mattick and the "Councilists" were familiar with Deleon, they wrote a symposium of his life and work in "International Council Correspondence" otherwise known as "Living Marxism" or "New Essays" in 1935, the extent to which this forms a considerable piece of Left Communist history is very debatable.

    The kernel of Deleonism is that different methods of revolution would be appropriate to different countries. Something reiterated by Gorter in his Open Letter to Comrade Lenin. Deleon saw that in the stages of advanced capitalism, such as the one he saw in America class struggle would entail a dual political and economic organization of the proletariat to challenge the Capitalist State. He criticized the IWW's purely economic line of organizing as limited in its capacity of challenging the state, something which Pannekoek reiterated later in his pamphlet on Trade Unionism. Likewise however he was critical of 2nd International Social Democracy and what Marx called "Parliamentary Cretinism" of those like Debs, Kautsky, etc.

    I remember reading a story of Deleon attending the 2nd International, I really forget from whom, perhaps Lenin, but the story went that while the conference was meeting everyone formed to front to listen to the speaker and take part in the debate, but in the back the relatively old hermit Deleon sat by himself never really taking part to much in the conference.

    His thoughts on the conference can by seen here:

    http://archive.org/details/Flashligh...stCongress1904

    Deleon is a close ally of Left Communism and much like Luxemburg, had they both been alive I think they would have been participants or close to the current. However I can't say they are pioneers of the current.

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