Council communism 302252 224444664 2008-07-08T21:35:00Z Tiger Khan 150798 refixed link {{Left_communism}} '''Council communism''' is a [[far-left]] movement originating in [[Germany]] and the [[Netherlands]] in the 1920s. Its primary organization was the [[Communist Workers Party of Germany]] (KAPD). Council communism continues today as a theoretical and activist position within both left-wing [[Marxism]] and [[libertarian socialism]]. The central argument of council communism, in contrast to those of [[Social democracy]] and [[Leninism|Leninist]] [[Communism]], is that democratic [[workers' councils]] arising in the factories and municipalities are the natural form of working class organisation and governmental power. This view is opposed to both the [[reformist]] and the [[Leninist]] [[Ideology| ideologies]], with their stress on, respectively, [[parliament]]s and [[New institutionalism|institutional]] government (i.e., by applying social reforms, on the one hand, and [[vanguard party|vanguard parties]] and participative [[democratic centralism]] on the other). The core principle of council communism is that the [[government]] and the [[Economic system|economy]] should be managed by [[workers' councils]] composed of [[delegate]]s elected at workplaces and [[recall election|recallable]] at any moment. As such, council communists oppose [[planned economy|state-run]] [[authoritarian]] "[[State socialism]]"/"[[State capitalism]]". They also oppose the idea of a "revolutionary party", since council communists believe that a revolution led by a party will necessarily produce a party dictatorship. Council communists support a worker's democracy, which they want to produce through a federation of workers' councils. Council Communism (and other types of "[[antiauthoritarianism|anti-authoritarian]] and [[Anti-Leninism |Anti-leninist]] Marxism" such as [[Autonomism]]) are often viewed as being similar to [[Anarchism]] because they criticize Leninist ideologies for being authoritarian and reject the idea of a [[vanguard party]]. == History of Council Communism == As the [[Second International]] decayed at the beginning of [[World War I]], [[socialists]] who opposed [[nationalism]] and supported [[proletarian internationalism]] regrouped. In [[Germany]], two major [[communist]] trends emerged. First, the [[Spartacist League]] was created by the radical socialist [[Rosa Luxemburg]]. The second trend emerged amongst the German rank-and-file unionists who opposed their unions and organized increasingly radical strikes towards the end of 1917 and the beginning of 1918. This second trend created the German [[Left Communist]] movement that would become the [[Communist Workers Party of Germany|KAPD]] after the abortive [[German revolution]] of 1918-1919. As the [[Communist International]] inspired by the [[Bolshevik revolution]] in [[Russia]] formed, a Left Communist tendency developed in the Comintern's German, Dutch and Bulgarian sections. Key figures in this milieu were [[Anton Pannekoek]], [[Otto Rühle]] and [[Herman Gorter]]. In the [[United Kingdom]], [[Sylvia Pankhurst]]'s group, the [[Communist Party (British Section of the Third International)]], also identified with the Left Communist tendency. Alongside these formal Left Communist tendencies, the Italian group led by [[Amadeo Bordiga]] is often commonly recognised as a Left Communist party, although both Bordiga and the [[Italian Communist Left]] disputed this and qualified their politics as separate, distinct and more in line with the [[Third International]]'s positions than the politics of Left Communism. Bordiga himself did not advocate abstention from the unions, although later Italian Left currents developed a critique of the "regime unions", positing that most or all unions had become tools of capitalism by submitting themselves to bourgeois interests and were no longer viable as organs of class struggle. Nevertheless, those "Bordigists" who put forward this critique still held out the necessity of "red unions" or "class unions" re-emerging, outside and against the regime unions, which would openly advocate class struggle and allow the participation of communist militants. These various assorted groups were all criticized by [[Lenin]] in his booklet ''[[Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder]]''.[http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm] Despite a common general direction, and despite sharing the criticism of Lenin, there were few politics held in common between these movements. An example of this divergence is that the Italians supported the ''Right of Nations to Self Determination'', while the Dutch and Germans rejected this policy (seeing it as a form of [[bourgeois nationalism]]). However, all of the Left Communist tendencies opposed what they called "[[Frontism]]". Frontism was a tactic endorsed by Lenin, where Communists sought tactical agreements with reformist ([[social democracy|social democratic]]) parties in pursuit of a definite, usually defensive, goal. In addition to opposing "Frontism", the Dutch-German tendency, the Bulgarians and British also refused to participate in bourgeois elections, which they denounced as parliamentarism. In Germany, the Left Communists were expelled from the [[Communist Party of Germany]], and they formed the Communist Workers Party ([[KAPD]]). Similar parties were formed in the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Britain. The KAPD rapidly lost most of its members and it eventually dissolved. However, some of its militants had been instrumental in organising factory-based unions like the AAUD and AAUD-E, the latter being opposed to separate party organisation (see: [[Syndicalism]]). The leading theoreticians of the KAPD had developed a new series of ideas based on their opposition to party organisation, and their conception of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia as having been a bourgeois revolution. Their leading figures were [[Anton Pannekoek]] and [[Herman Gorter]], as well as [[Otto Rühle]]. Rühle later left the KAPD, and was one of the founders of the AAUD-E. Another leading theoretician of Council Communism was [[Paul Mattick]], who later emigrated to the USA. A minor figure in the Council Communist movement in the Netherlands was [[Marinus van der Lubbe]], whose name is attached to the burning of the Reichstag in 1933. The early councilists are followed later by the [[Group of Internationalist Communists]], [[Henk Meijer]], [[Cajo Brendel]] and [[Paul Mattick]], Sr. There was a resurgence of councilist groups and ideas in the [[New Left]] of the 1960s, through the [[Situationist International]], [[Root and Branch]] in the United States, [[Socialisme ou Barbarie]] in France, and [[Solidarity (UK)|Solidarity]] in the UK.<ref>[http://libcom.org/library/libertarian-marxist-tendency-map A libertarian Marxist tendency map (Libcom.org)]</ref> Alongside and sometimes connected to the councilists were the early Hegelian Marxists, [[Gyorgy Lukacs]] (a council communist himself from 1918-21 or 22), [[Karl Korsch]] (who turned to council communism in the 1930s), [[Evgeny Pashukanis]] and [[I.I. Rubin]].<ref>[http://libcom.org/library/libertarian-marxist-tendency-map A libertarian Marxist tendency map (Libcom.org)]</ref> ==Council Communism within the Soviet Union== The Russian word for council is "soviet," and during the early years of [[Bolshevist Russia]] workers' councils were politically significant. Indeed, the name "[[Supreme Soviet]]," by which the national parliament of the [[Soviet Union]] was later called, as well as the name of the Soviet Union itself, imply that the country was meant to be ruled by workers' councils. This was largely the case in the beginning, but the workers' councils soon lost their power and significance. As the new regime was turning into a [[single-party system]], the Supreme Soviet was soon relegated to the role of a [[rubber-stamp]] parliament, and real power was concentrated in the hands of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist Party]]. For these reasons, Council Communists described the Soviet Union as a [[capitalism|capitalist]] state, believing that the [[Bolshevik]] revolution in Russia became a "[[bourgeois]] revolution" when a party bureaucracy replaced the old feudal aristocracy. Although most Council Communists felt the Russian Revolution was [[working class]] in character, they believed that the Soviet Union was a [[state capitalist]] country, with the state replacing the individual capitalist (an additional argument in favour of that was the continued existence of capitalist relations, as manifested e.g. in the [[New Economic Policy]]). ==References== <references /> == Literature == * [[Anton Pannekoek]], ''Workers’ Councils'', AK Press, 2003 * [[Anton Pannekoek]], ''[http://marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/index.htm Anton Pannekoek Archive]'' *Anton Pannekoek, Herman Gorter, Sylvia Pankhurts, Otto Ruhl, 'Non-Leninist Marxism: Writings on the Workers Councils'. St Petersburg, Florida: Red and Black Publishers, 2007. ISBN 978-1-979-1813-6-8. * [http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2379/''Collective Action Notes''] A collection of Council Communist and other anti-authoritarian marxist literature *[http://www.geocities.com/knightrose.geo/irelan4.htm Communism or Reforms] two articles by Sylvia Pankhurst and Anton Pannekoek, first published in the Workers Dreadnought in 1922. First published as a pamphlet in 1974 by Workers Voice, a Communist group based in Liverpool. *[http://www.kurasje.org Kurasje] ”The Council Communist Archive” *Lenny Flank, 'Philosophy of Revolution: Towards a Non-Leninist Marxism'. St Petersburg, Florida: Red and Black Publishers, 2007. ISBN 978-1-979-1813-8-2. *[http://www.geocities.com/pract_history/tendency.html The communist tendency in history] *[http://www.libcom.org/library Libertarian Communist Library] Largest online archive of Council Communist texts. * [[Paul Mattick]], ''[http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/index.htm Paul Mattick Archive]'' ==See also== * [[Left communism]] * [[Luxemburgism]] * [[List of left communist internationals]] * [[DeLeonism]] * [[Social criticism]] [[Category:Communism]] [[Category:Left communism]] [[de:Rätekommunismus]] [[es:Comunismo consejista]] [[eo:Konsiliismo]] [[fr:Communisme de conseils]] [[hu:Tanácskommunizmus]] [[nl:Radencommunisme]] [[no:Rådskommunisme]] [[pt:Comunismo de conselhos]]