Left communism

"Left-wing" communism, or simply "left" communism, refers to a number of opportunist, dogmatic, and revisionist political tendencies which advocate extremist, uncompromising stances on topics such as vanguardism, the proletarian dictatorship, and parliamentary participation.^[1] "Left" communists opposed Leninism and the October Revolution.^[a] Because of their positions and actions, "left" communists are only leftist in words yet effectively rightist in their deeds, serving a counter-revolutionary function.^[2]

"Left" communism does not refer to a specific current. While many currents are considered to be "ultra-left", or "left communist", the two biggest "left" communist tendencies are the Italian communist left, and the Dutch-German communist left, also known as council communism.

Amadeo Bordiga, an Italian "left" communist.
Onorato Damen, an Italian "left" communist.
Anton Pannekoek, a Dutch-German "left" communist.

Types

Italian "left" communism

Italian "left" communists consider themselves to be Marxists and Leninists, but not Marxist-Leninists. They are further subdivided into followers of Amadeo Bordiga and followers of Onorato Damen.

Followers of Damen believe the party should play an active role in the struggle. Damen would found the Internationalist Communist Party (Italian: Partito Comunista Internazionalista, PCInt), which persists to this day. Damen published a magazine titled Battaglia Comunista.^[3]

Followers of Bordiga view Marxism as an invariant programme. They view the party as a preserver of the invariant programme, who will only serve the masses when the time comes (i.e., when capitalism collapses). They also reject democratic centralism, in favour of organic centralism, because they believe that internal debate is not needed as the programme is fixed.

Bordiga eventually joined Damen's PCInt and published the magazine Programma Comunista. Bordiga and his faction would later form the International Communist Party.

Dutch-German "left" communism

Dutch-German "left" communism, or council communism, rejects Leninism entirely. Council communism rejects the vanguard party in favour of a system of worker's councils. Council communism would be critiqued by Lenin in "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder.

References

↑ Paul Mattick (1938). The Masses & The Vanguard. Available on the Marxists Internet Archive.
"The principles of independent struggle, solidarity and communism are being forced upon them in the actual class struggle. With this powerful trend toward mass consolidation and mass action the theory of regrouping and realigning the militant organizations seems to be outdated. True regroupment is essential, but it cannot be a mere merger of the existing organizations. In the new conditions a revision of fighting forms is necessary. “First clarity – then unity.” Even small groups recognizing and urging the principles of independent mass movement are far more significant than large groups that deprecate the power of the masses."
↑ Joseph Stalin (1928). Industrialization of the country and the Right Deviation in the C.P.S.U.(B.)
"Lenin referred to the "Left Communists" as Lefts sometimes with and sometimes without quotation marks. But everyone realizes that Lenin called them Lefts ironically, thereby emphasizing that they were Lefts only in words, in appearance, but that in reality they represented petty-bourgeois Right trends. [...] There you have a picture of the specific platform and the specific methods of the "Lefts." This, in fact, explains why the "Lefts" sometimes succeed in luring a part of the workers over to their side with the help of high-sounding "Left" phrases and by posing as the most determined opponents of the Rights, although all the world knows that they, the "Lefts," have the same social roots as the Rights, and that they not infrequently join in an agreement, a bloc, with the Rights in order to fight the Leninist line. [...] But if the Trotskyist trend represents a "Left" deviation, does not this mean that the "Lefts" are more to the Left than Leninism? No, it does not. Leninism is the most Left (without quotation marks) trend in the world labor movement. We Leninists belonged to the Second International down to the outbreak of the imperialist war as the extreme Left group of the Social-Democrats. We did not remain in the Second International and we advocated a split in the Second International precisely because, being the extreme Left group, we did not want to be in the same party as the petty-bourgeois traitors to Marxism, the social-pacifists and social-chauvinists."
↑ https://www.leftcom.org/files/2018-10-02-damen-bordiga.pdf

Notes

↑ Certain "left" communist figures have claimed to adhere to Leninism such as Amadeo Bordiga and his supporters, although they largely omit Leninist theory and opposed its implementation in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.

[1] Paul Mattick (1938). The Masses & The Vanguard. Available on the Marxists Internet Archive.
"The principles of independent struggle, solidarity and communism are being forced upon them in the actual class struggle. With this powerful trend toward mass consolidation and mass action the theory of regrouping and realigning the militant organizations seems to be outdated. True regroupment is essential, but it cannot be a mere merger of the existing organizations. In the new conditions a revision of fighting forms is necessary. “First clarity – then unity.” Even small groups recognizing and urging the principles of independent mass movement are far more significant than large groups that deprecate the power of the masses."

[3] Joseph Stalin (1928). Industrialization of the country and the Right Deviation in the C.P.S.U.(B.)
"Lenin referred to the "Left Communists" as Lefts sometimes with and sometimes without quotation marks. But everyone realizes that Lenin called them Lefts ironically, thereby emphasizing that they were Lefts only in words, in appearance, but that in reality they represented petty-bourgeois Right trends. [...] There you have a picture of the specific platform and the specific methods of the "Lefts." This, in fact, explains why the "Lefts" sometimes succeed in luring a part of the workers over to their side with the help of high-sounding "Left" phrases and by posing as the most determined opponents of the Rights, although all the world knows that they, the "Lefts," have the same social roots as the Rights, and that they not infrequently join in an agreement, a bloc, with the Rights in order to fight the Leninist line. [...] But if the Trotskyist trend represents a "Left" deviation, does not this mean that the "Lefts" are more to the Left than Leninism? No, it does not. Leninism is the most Left (without quotation marks) trend in the world labor movement. We Leninists belonged to the Second International down to the outbreak of the imperialist war as the extreme Left group of the Social-Democrats. We did not remain in the Second International and we advocated a split in the Second International precisely because, being the extreme Left group, we did not want to be in the same party as the petty-bourgeois traitors to Marxism, the social-pacifists and social-chauvinists."

[4] ttps://www.leftcom.org/files/2018-10-02-damen-bordiga.pdf

[2] Certain "left" communist figures have claimed to adhere to Leninism such as Amadeo Bordiga and his supporters, although they largely omit Leninist theory and opposed its implementation in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin.

[1]

[a]

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[3]

Left communism

Contents

Types

Italian "left" communism

Dutch-German "left" communism

Further reading

See also

References

Notes

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Left communism

Types

Italian "left" communism

Dutch-German "left" communism

Further reading

See also

References

Notes

Navigation menu

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