Against The Left Communist Party

[nickdlc]

The fact that the working-class is not subjectively revolutionary at all points only marks out the necessity for the Communist Party comprised of all the elements of the class which comprehends it's historic mission and brings the memories and lessons of previous struggles back to the class when this historical memory is eradicated during periods of counter-revolution.

This seems to be the conception of the left communist party which cannot bring about communism. Although it is important to have class conscious revolutionaries communism isn't about voting for the people who comprehend the historic mission of the proletariat. This is self aggrandising bullshit. Who decides who these people are? You are going to say the workers but Communism is not about choosing the "best leaders" it is about the mass of workers controlling both the economic and political spheres of life. It is not a party affair.

[Zanthorus]

This appears to be from one of my posts in the Technocracy and Utopianism thread. It also appears, from your last sentence, that you are some kind of Council Communist, or at least someone who has read Rühle, so this may be mildly interesting.

This seems to be the conception of the left communist party which cannot bring about communism.

Well, this is my conception at least, which is more than a little influenced by Bordiga.

Although it is important to have class conscious revolutionaries communism isn't about voting for the people who comprehend the historic mission of the proletariat.

I'm not sure where I said anything about elections? People who join Communist Parties should be, by definition, those who comprehend at least the immediate goals of the proletarian movement. If you think I advocate participation by the party in parliamentary elections, you clearly do not know much about Left-Communism.

This is self aggrandising bullshit.

I don't think so. Unless you actually deny that communism is the historical mission of the working-class.

Who decides who these people are?

Easy, people who adhere to the basic tenets of communism will join up for themselves.

You are going to say the workers but Communism is not about choosing the "best leaders" it is about the mass of workers controlling both the economic and political spheres of life.

No, Communism means the destruction of both 'civil society' (Or the 'economic') and 'political society' and the reclamation of the human community, through the self-abolition of the working-class. It is not about 'control', much less by 'workers'.

It is not a party affair.

Revolution can only occur on the basis of a definite political program, defended by a political party. It is very much a party affair.

[nickdlc]

I'm not sure where I said anything about elections? People who join Communist Parties should be, by definition, those who comprehend at least the immediate goals of the proletarian movement. If you think I advocate participation by the party in parliamentary elections, you clearly do not know much about Left-Communism.

No I mean in soviets where different socialist parties were represented. What I know of left communism is from libcom.org and the discussions that take place usually between left communists and anarchists. My take from what I read on libcom is that the left communists have a sort of radical Lenninist outlook.

Easy, people who adhere to the basic tenets of communism will join up for themselves.

What is the left communist relation to other communist parties and anarchist organizations? Do they work with them or denounce them. What about the people that don't join up with your specific party?

[nickdlc]

Seems like the differences between left communists and council communists has already been discussed.

http://libcom.org/forums/theory/coun...0062010?page=1

[Zanthorus]

No I mean in soviets where different socialist parties were represented.

The Party is not an organ constituted by elections to Soviets, it exists prior to the creation of Workers' Councils as an organic grouping of all those who adhere to the tenants of the Historical Party (That is, Communism as a body of thought and a school of action, independent of it's manifestations in particular organisational structures). It is very likely that the party itself will end up creating the 'Soviets', at least in the way in which those institutions functioned in the 1918 RSFSR constitution and hypothetically in the programmes of the Spartacist league and the Abstentionist fraction of the PSI, as bodies for the political representation of the working-class, as opposed to the Factory Committee's.

My take from what I read on libcom is that the left communists have a sort of radical Lenninist outlook.

'Leninism' is very vague. It is sometimes referred to as adherence to 'vanguardism' and 'centralism', but all Marxists are in favour of those, at least in favour of those concepts as envisioned by Lenin.

It could also mean more broadly a historical affiliation with the traditions of the Bolshevik fraction of the RSDLP and of the Communist International, and a belief that the Red October was a proletarian revolution in which the working-class was represented by the Bolsheviks. In which case the accusation is also true.

On the other hand it could mean picking bits and pieces out of Lenin to justify the vaccilating policies of the CPSU both internationally and internally after 1923, or strictly following even Lenin's worst ideas to criticise aforesaid policies. In which case I plead not guilty!

What is the left communist relation to other communist parties and anarchist organizations? Do they work with them or denounce them.

Modern Left-Communist organisations uphold the theory that many Stalinist, Trotskyist and Maoist groups as well as some forms of anarchism (The ICC website says 'Official Anarchism', although this isn't exactly clear. I would suspect they are talking about groups like the Platformists which uphold crypto-Trotskyist positions) today constitute the left-wing of capital's political apparatus. I think they do work with various Internationalist anarchist groups. I am not a member of any organisation at present, so I cannot comment. You may want to ask one of the ICC members on the board about their connection with other 'Communist' organisations.

What about the people that don't join up with your specific party?

One of the two big Left-Communist groups today, the Internationalist Communist Tendency, does not consider itself a party. It currently operates in a more decentralised 'federalist' manner, allowing factions, tendencies and giving high levels of autonomy to it's national sections, and is basically a collection of groups which aims to recreate the party when the class struggle gets to a higher stage. If I recall correctly, the ICC follows a similar line on not actually being the party.

[S.Artesian]

'Leninism' is very vague. It is sometimes referred to as adherence to 'vanguardism' and 'centralism', but all Marxists are in favour of those, at least in favour of those concepts as envisioned by Lenin.

Not all Marxists were, have been, are, or will be in favor of those concepts even as envisioned by Lenin. 'Vanguardism" is really a meaningless description. If you look at the actual progress of the Russian Revolution, prior to their assumption of power the Bolsheviks were at their most advanced, their most "vanguardist" when they weren't separating themselves from the class and the class-organs with the self-description of vanguard. Rather as the workers took more actions directly, acted as a class for itself, in and out of the factories, on and off the shop floors, their connections with the Bolsheviks grew stronger.

What quality do we attach to "vanguard"? When Lenin and Trotsky and the Bolsheviks were arguing for the militarization of labor, was that the Bolsheviks acting as the "vanguard" of the proletariat? When soviets were suppressed, was that the Bolsheviks acting as the vanguard? When the leadership of the Bolsheviks essentially sold out the communists in Turkey, cutting a deal with Ataturk was that vanguardism?

I say we ditch the label, give back all the little lapel pins that say "I'm with the Vanguard" etc. etc. and stick to program, organization, and analysis.

[Zanthorus]

Not all Marxists were, have been, are, or will be in favor of those concepts even as envisioned by Lenin.

Good point, I think I got a little hazy there. Perhaps what I may have meant to say to cover myself is that Marx himself was in favour of those concepts as envisioned by Lenin

'Vanguardism" is really a meaningless description.

In this day and age it probably has too many connotations to actually be meaningful. I've actually seen the term used in works by Marx, for example when he refers to the workers' that took part in the June days uprising as the vanguard of the proletariat, which suggests that before all the confusion arising out of October 1917 the word was relatively harmless. From what I've seen, when Lenin used the term he was opposing it to the 'rearguard' tactics of the 'economist' organisations (This is my reading of WITBD anyway. I haven't gone through Lenin's collected works with a toothcomb to see the infinite number of ways which the term is probably employed).

I agree with the rest of what you said.

[Lyev]

Not all Marxists were, have been, are, or will be in favor of those concepts even as envisioned by Lenin. 'Vanguardism" is really a meaningless description. If you look at the actual progress of the Russian Revolution, prior to their assumption of power the Bolsheviks were at their most advanced, their most "vanguardist" when they weren't separating themselves from the class and the class-organs with the self-description of vanguard. Rather as the workers took more actions directly, acted as a class for itself, in and out of the factories, on and off the shop floors, their connections with the Bolsheviks grew stronger.

What quality do we attach to "vanguard"? When Lenin and Trotsky and the Bolsheviks were arguing for the militarization of labor, was that the Bolsheviks acting as the "vanguard" of the proletariat? When soviets were suppressed, was that the Bolsheviks acting as the vanguard? When the leadership of the Bolsheviks essentially sold out the communists in Turkey, cutting a deal with Ataturk was that vanguardism?

I say we ditch the label, give back all the little lapel pins that say "I'm with the Vanguard" etc. etc. and stick to program, organization, and analysis.

Yeah I often find it interesting reading how various historians describe the beginnings of the revolution because, in fact, the initial uprisings, demonstrations and strikes were completely spontaneous and independent of influence from any external force, including the Bolsheviks, SRs, Mensheviks etc. It was simply the conditions in Russia at the time (lack of food, WWI etc.) which really did force the working class into galvanization. A description by J.P Nettl (from a book which is now long out of print) describes both the provisional government and revolutionaries alike being equally taken aback by the enthusiasm and fervour of the masses.

Sorry if I am veering wildly off-topic, and this isn't at the same level of the 1917 Russia, of course, but in party activism and whatnot we've been gearing everything towards agitating against cuts to public services for what seems like ages now and it's seemed rather insignificant if I'm honest. But today I read about - from several different sources - a possible nationally coordinated strike/demostration by teachers and firefighters in protest against these austerity measures. And the TUC have given a formal backing to such an action, as far as I know. Obviously this isn't the start of a social revolution, obviously, and this might not even lead anywhere, but it illustrates quite clearly that working people won't just idly sit by in moments of crisis and upheaval. People will take action.

In this sense, "the party" can often seem totally superfluous, at least in my view. I mean even Mao who was an ardent believer in the Leninist vanguard as this formal kind of monolith said something like "I have witnessed the power and fervour of the masses; on this basis it is possible to accomplish absolutely anything, blah blah blah". Do you know what I mean?

[S.Artesian]

I've actually seen the term used in works by Marx, for example when he refers to the workers' that took part in the June days uprising as the vanguard of the proletariat, which suggests that before all the confusion arising out of October 1917 the word was relatively harmless. From what I've seen, when Lenin used the term he was opposing it to the 'rearguard' tactics of the 'economist' organisations (This is my reading of WITBD anyway. I haven't gone through Lenin's collected works with a toothcomb to see the infinite number of ways which the term is probably employed).

I think it's fine to recognize that in the class struggle, there is an uneven an combined development to class action and class consciousness. I just don't think a party should confuse itself with that consciousness.

I have a view of the, or "a," party that says that its role is to create the vehicles, the paths, the mediations for the advanced, conscious, sections of the working class to feed its actions and ideas back into the class as a whole. Our goal as a party, in short, is to make ourselves superfluous, redundant, obsolete, and unnecessary as a party.

[Jayshin_JTTH]

I'm pretty sure 'Communism' chooses it's leaders by having something called a General Congress nickdlc. The Congress is elected by the membership, and the Congress elects an executive. It's perfectly democratic, and ensures that the revolutionary worker's elect from their number those they believe the best capable to lead them.

What were you expecting, a ray of light from the heavens to proclaim the Communist leadership by providence?

[nickdlc]

It could also mean more broadly a historical affiliation with the traditions of the Bolshevik fraction of the RSDLP and of the Communist International, and a belief that the Red October was a proletarian revolution in which the working-class was represented by the Bolsheviks. In which case the accusation is also true.

I agree that it was a proletarian revolution but you don't have to be a Bolshevik to think that. At some point the left communists have to be critical of the Bolshevik party that centralised power.

When do you break with the Bolsheviks at Kronstadt? To me Kronstadt is the culminating moment of a gradual process in which the Bolsheviks decisively stopped the revolution and the path to state capitalism was guaranteed.

What quality do we attach to "vanguard"? When Lenin and Trotsky and the Bolsheviks were arguing for the militarization of labor, was that the Bolsheviks acting as the "vanguard" of the proletariat? When soviets were suppressed, was that the Bolsheviks acting as the vanguard? When the leadership of the Bolsheviks essentially sold out the communists in Turkey, cutting a deal with Ataturk was that vanguardism?

Agreed. And although I think S.Artesian still has 'vangaurdist sympathies' the seed has been planted. Once you start to question the usefulness of a revolutionary party it is a matter of time before you reject it.

What I think is that any party no matter how revolutionary it thinks it is will stiffle the revolutionary working class the main example of this being the kronstadt sailors the most revolutionary workers in russia who turned to anarchism because they said esentially said 'keep going'.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Our goal as a party, in short, is to make ourselves superfluous, redundant, obsolete, and unnecessary as a party.

Is that realistic? Can a party exist with the ultimate goal of dissolving itself or will it inevitably strive for self preservation?

[ZeroNowhere]

No, Communism means the destruction of both 'civil society' (Or the 'economic') and 'political society' and the reclamation of the human community, through the self-abolition of the working-class. It is not about 'control', much less by 'workers'.

I'm not sure that this last bit is particularly accurate. The point of commodity fetishism, and Marx's presentation of the contrast between the simple labour process and the capitalist labour process, is that man's social relations and past labour come to stand over him in the form of things, means of production cease to be means of producing use-values and become means of soaking up surplus labour from workers, workers who are themselves trained to "act like machines," and human society ceases to be under human control, demonstrated most strikingly in crises and the suffering caused by such without any human ill will necessary (I believe that either Marx or Engels compared them to natural disasters once, the difference being that they are caused by our own social relations). As Marx put it, "Their own movement within society has for them the form of a movement made by things, and these things, far from being under their control, in fact control them."

The primary contrast Marx draws between communism and capitalism in Capital is that, while in communism you have an association of free men expending their many different forms of labour-power "in full self-awareness as one single social labour force," according to a common plan, in capitalism people only relate to each other through the medium of commodity exchange, meaning that their social relations take the form of relations between things, and thus "the process of production has mastery over man, instead of the opposite." He himself uses the word 'control', stating that, "The veil is not removed from the countenance of social life-process, ie. the process of material production, until it becomes production by freely associated men, and stands under their conscious and planned control." Of course, one could also add to this the fact that, under communism, we could solve poverty through looking at how much would have to be produced to do such, and so on, without being constrained by value-production, but this ultimately comes under the same thing, really.

So it would seem that it very much is an issue of human control, namely human control over the production process which had earlier dominated it. While one may formulate this in terms of the reclamation of human community, it would nonetheless be valid to refer to it in terms of human control. While I may have misinterpreted your statement, I don't think that there's any real problem with viewing communism as an issue of control per se.

[Zanthorus]

But today I read about - from several different sources - a possible nationally coordinated strike/demostration by teachers and firefighters in protest against these austerity measures. And the TUC have given a formal backing to such an action, as far as I know. Obviously this isn't the start of a social revolution, obviously, and this might not even lead anywhere, but it illustrates quite clearly that working people won't just idly sit by in moments of crisis and upheaval. People will take action.

Sure thing, people will take action. But it's not a question of 'action', it's a question of certain kinds of action, towards particular goals. Every class struggle is a political struggle, that is to say, it has a tendency for the new rising class to overthrow the political domination of the previous class and establish it's own particular interests as the general interest. For Marxists, the struggle for political power is crucial, and this political struggle cannot simply be evolved out of spontaneous action to support immediate economic interests. The struggle for political power has historically been shown to be possible only through a political party, since the seizure of power requires forms of organisation which do not simply arise 'spontaneously'.

Do you know what I mean?

Everything Mao said was gibberish? Couldn't agree more.

I have a view of the, or "a," party

I prefer to talk about 'the' party to differentiate the Communist Party proper from the various left sects, and also partly because I believe there should only be one international party.

that says that its role is to create the vehicles, the paths, the mediations for the advanced, conscious, sections of the working class to feed its actions and ideas back into the class as a whole. Our goal as a party, in short, is to make ourselves superfluous, redundant, obsolete, and unnecessary as a party.

I broadly agree with this, my only stipulation would be that the party only really becomes superfluous when it's program has been implemented, that is to say, when the historical turning point at which we enter the associated mode of production has been broached.

[WeAreReborn]

In terms of a revolution as mentioned in the people taking action, I'm sure it will come but honestly I doubt it will be Marxist communist. The propaganda about communism in general will probably make most people very skeptical, of course some minds will change if presented with information but I just think not enough people will actually care enough to listen.

Talking about Anarchists Vs. Leftist communists, I mean historically with Marx and the leading Anarchists at the time being, Proudhon, Bakunin and later Kropotkin, they definitely had their differences and struggles against each other. Historically speaking, Marx seemed to be more manipulative in terms of the International and how he tried to reduce the power of the anarchists. However, I feel in modern times things have changed. I for one consider myself an anarchist yet, I don't hate Marxist communists. Honestly, I would much rather be subjected to Leftist Communism any day then capitalism. In fact, I think if a Marxist revolution would break out tomorrow I would join in. (Sorry for the ramble it is late and in my current mind this is relevant.) So I just think that we should put petty differences aside until the revolution is won. After all, the real enemy is the capitalist pig!