On the history of the Communist Left

Actualities

Please take care, some websites spy your identity.
For anonymous browsing use Tor Browser

Mail : info (arobase/at) left-dis (dot) nl

February 2023 and following

January 2023

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

  • Aníbal, Capitalismo, imperialismo, militarismo, guerra. Tendencias determinantes, contratendencias, condiciones.
    Table of contents of this pamphlet (English translation)
    1) Imperialist war, nuclear deterrence and capitalist internationalisation. Contradictions in the past and present, tendencies towards the future.
    2) Conditions for a third world war. Origins of many confusions.
    3) Decadentists and imperialist war. Deployment of mystifications that distort the critical understanding of capitalism and its real tendencies. Practical effects.
    4) "War is the death of civilisation"... Bullshit!!!!
    5) Failed premonitions. World war and alleged decadence of capitalism.
    6) Capitalist leaders talk about the imperialist war.
    7) What revolutionary internationalist defeatism in the 'Ukrainian' war really means. By Fredo Corvo and Anibal.

  • Aníbal, Periodo de transición del capitalismo al comunismo.Crítica al leninismo y el bordiguismo. English translation: The period of transition from capitalism to communism, a critique of Leninism and Bordigism.

  • The Classless Society in Motion. A New Theory of Communist Economy
    In 1930 the Group of International Communists laid out their vision for a self-directed society of free and equal producers, echoing and elaborating upon the scattered writings of Marx and Engels on the topic.
    Building on the GIC’s outstanding and long overlooked work – ‘The Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution’ – we further develop their core ideas, introducing a number of new and related principles. With these, we show how a society of free and equal producers is a concrete possibility. What has long been dismissed as an impossible dream, we reveal to be both simple and elegant.
    Using the lens of Marx’s value theory, we analyse and critique the most prominent existing attempts at describing a socialist economy. It will be shown how a lack of understanding of Marx’s analysis of the value form, coupled with a flawed idea of the nature of socialism/communism, fundamentally undermines these projects.
    The material basis of the egalitarian society we describe, emerges organically from and in opposition to the existing capitalist relations of production, abolishing private property, classes, money, markets, exploitation, and the value-form in its wake. Established within an open and transparent general system of accounting, it has no need for a caste of bureaucratic planners or a party dictatorship.
    Planning is a continuous and distributed process. Socialist theory must come to terms with this reality. Planning is not reducible to arbitrary time epochs, decided by administrative convenience. It must be a living, organic, democratic and continuous process, answering only to its own internal rhythms and the rational control of its participants.
    We offer a return to a vision of a society based upon the abolition of wage labour, a position fundamental to the Marxists and Anarchists of the First International.
    It is a socialism we can build today.
    It is a socialism for a political project that does not yet exist.

  • Aníbal, Socialismo,comunismo, sociedad sin clases. Materialismo histórico - crítico frente a teoría y práctica del bolchevismo La URSS : de las limitaciones y el fracaso revolucionario, a la explotación , dominio y mistificación bolchevique sobre la clase obrera.
    English translation: Socialism, communism, classless society. Historical-critical materialism vs. theory and practice of Bolshevism. The USSR : from limitations and revolutionary failure, to Bolshevik exploitation, domination and mystification of the working class.

    Introduction.
    The enormous confusion about socialism and communism has various social and historical roots. This article highlights the differences between the conceptions of critical historical materialism developed notably by Marx and Engels and those of later Bolshevism, which presented itself as a faithful continuation of the original Marxism, but which on the contrary introduced different and contrary theoretical conceptions, as well as a praxis which from a certain moment, shortly after October 1917, in the following year, in very difficult conditions and international isolation, led it to be a vector of capitalist development, after having managed to lead the proletarian revolution in Russia. Explanations of the weaknesses, errors and inadequacies of such pristine Marxism and its left-wing continuators can be found in other texts.(1) Compiled by Aníbal (December 2022)

    Table of contents.
    1. Socialism and communism in the historical materialist conception of Marx and Engels.
    2. Production and distribution, money, planning, communism, what happened after october 1917?
    3. Socialism and communism in bolshevism. The theory of its leaders (Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Preobrajensky, Stalin) as mystification and alibi of capitalist practices. Antecedents in social democracy. Contradictions and oscillations.
    4. USSR. What was actually happening in workers' existence: dominant capitalist relations.
    5. Fragments of the fundamental principles of communist production and distribution, by the GIC (Group of Internationalist Communists).
    - From Money to the Calculation of Labour Time
    - The economic power of the proletariat and the control system of general accountancy
    - The essence of communist production
    6. Period of transition from capitalism to communism.
    - Balance points and explanations.
    - Notes on the balance points
    7. Historical texts
        Notes

  • Aníbal, Unos fragmentos muy significativos del anarquista Rudolf Rocker / Some very significant excerpts from the anarchist Rudolf Rocker.

  • Philippe Bourrinet, Recension d’Axel Weipert, Die Zweite Revolution. Rätebewegung in Berlin 1919/1920 [La Deuxième Révolution. Le mouvement des conseils à Berlin, 1919-1920. Idem, English translation. Idem, German translation.

  • Philippe Bourrinet, Les Carnets de la Révolution russe de Nikolaï Soukhanov.

November/December 2022

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

October 2022

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

  • Buchausgabe Anton Pannekoek, Klassenkampf und Nation (1912).
    Ein Klassiker des Rätekommunismus der vor kurzem nur in Frakturschrift zu lesen war. Sehr aktuell wegen der Rolle des ukrainischen und russischen Nationalismus im heutigen Krieg in der Ukraine. Beide Nationalismen werden von manche leninistischen Linken gebraucht um sich an der einen oder der anderen Seite der Frontlinie zu beteiligen.
  • Anton Pannekoek, Klassenkampf und Nation (1912), a classic of council communism. Very topical because of the role of Ukrainian and Russian nationalism in today's war in Ukraine. Both nationalisms are used by some Leninist leftists to participate on one or the other side of the front line. Also availlable in French translation, in English translation, in Spanish translation.
  • Herunterladen / Download version Grundprinzipien kommunistischer Produktion und Verteilung (1935).

August-September 2022

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

July 2022

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

June 2022

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

May 2022

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

April 2022

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

March 2022

      External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

February 2022

      External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

January 2022

      External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

December 2021

    External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

November 2021

  • GIC, Trotsky and the Council Communism (1938). Warning: this version contains some flaws of translation, and misses a fragment. A new version is in the making (1-11-2021).

    External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

October 2021

    External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

  • Hermann Lueer (Ed.), GIC, Put the whole state machinery into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax!
    • GIC, Trotsky and the Council Communism (1938)
    • GIC, In the Land of the great Lie (1940, abstracts from its review of the book by Anton Ciliga)
    • Ciliga, Soviet Bourgeoisie (1938, abstract of the book by Anton Ciliga)
    • GIC, State Capitalism and Communism (1936, abstracts)
    • GIC [Anton Pannekoek], Party and Working-Class (1936)
    • GIC, The Communist Society (1938, abstracts)
    • GIC, Anarcho-Syndicalism and the Council Communism (1937, abstracts)
    • GIC, Abolition of Wage Labor! (1935, abstracts from Fundamental Principles ...)
    • GIC, Communism and Intellectual Freedom (1939)

September 2021

    External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

August 2021

    External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

  • New book, Movimiento del capital
  • João Aguiar, Uma ou duas classes dos gestores? (in 4 parts)
  • F.D., Hors jeu. "Pourquoi les groupes politiques surgis de mai 68, et qui ont constitué la Gauche Internationaliste, en ont-ils été réduits au sectarisme de chapelle, sans exercer une quelconque influence sur le questionnement provoqué par la postmodernité".

July 2021

Historical documents

    Presentation of four new books

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

Fringe Left

Posted on 2021/06/18 by majdoorsamachar

German-Dutch Left and Italian Left did not break from the social-democratic framework 
[A bold thesis put forward by Trotskyists, communizers, and their followers (including Internationalist Perspective). Curious to see the argument.] 

and its underlying social strata 
[Probably referring to the theory of workers' aristocracy, remade by Stalin into workerism, framed by Autonomists to glorify the unlearned mass worker, condemning educated workers]

despite their critiques of many facets of social-democratic theory and practice in Germany and especially of the Bolshevik Party in Russia after October 1917. 
Their remnants in the fringe left, even during these thirty-five years that we have had some interactions with a few of them,

[as far as I had the pleasure to correspond with Majdoorsamachar, it showed insensitive for any critique. Instead, it limited itself to personal attacks and scorn, an old left-bourgeois tradition] 

are stuck in the 1920s. Whereas, with incomparable leaps in productive forces since early-1970s,
[Here we find Stalin's deformation of historic materialist from history man-made by class struggle in favor of history determined by the evolution of productive forces, understood in a technical sense only]

“revolutionary intellectuals” have increasingly become irrelevant throughout the world.
[It have been 'Leninism' in all its forms and the deformations of the tendency Kautsky/Rühle/Brendel/Simon that believed that historical materialism was the product of 'intellectuals.' Majdoorsamachar may share that  false thesis in a positive or negative way, it does not apply to the KAPD/GIC current]

Despite our above mentioned reading, on the basis of interactions with most of the strands of the left in India over these forty-five years, it seems that an acquaintance with the German-Dutch Left + Italian Left and their inheritors could be of help in questioning the leninist- stalinist-trotskyist-maoist framings that still have some influence.
[You are most welcome!]

So, this link to the current issue of “A Free Retriever’s Digest” (April-June 2021). Incidentally, this issue also has, “A Note on Peasants in the Indian Subcontinent” which we sent as a response to a write-up in the earlier issue of the magazine.

https://afreeretriever.wordpress.com/2021/05/05/a-free-retrievers-digest-vol-5-2-april-june-2021/“

June 2021

May 2021

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles:

April 2021

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles:

March 2021

    External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles:

February 2021

    External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles:

Turn of the year 2020/2021

    External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles:

November 2020

    Interesting external links of the month:

October 2020

    Interesting external links of the month:

September 2020

    Interesting external links of the month:

July 2020

A recent discussion article, Council communists of the world, organize (the workers, or yourselves?), was based on following historical document of the communist left:
June 2020
  • Willy Huhn, Lenin als utopist (1948) in Dutch language, see below for German original and English translation

LEFT WING COMMUNISM, NOT an infantile disorder, our new site in construction, invites to a discussion on council communism and the revolution in Russia, starting from Wagners 'Theses'. We have added documents on the historical context and a biography:

    Annoucement by aaap.be:


May 2020

February 2020

Some recent books on the period of transition


We draw your attention to some recently published books by an author and publisher, who is new to the milieu interested in the Communist Left: Hermann Lueer and publisher Red & Black Books in Hamburg. When giving introductions to Marxism throughout Germany, Lueer was regularly asked about the alternative to capitalism. In search of an answer, Lueer discovered Grundprinzipien kommunistischer Produktion und Verteilung by Gruppe Internationaler Kommunisten (G.I.K.) of 1930.


In his homage to the work of the G.I.K. under the same title, Lueer gives a current introduction to the actual core of the work of the G.I.K.: how can the 'association of free and equal people' (Marx in Capital), or in his 1871 writings about the 'Commune'-organization, or how in 1917 the 'council organization' can gain and, above all, retain power over the means of production? After all, in Russia the workers soon lost power over the enterprises.

The answer lies in the fact that reformism in social democracy ignored Marx' and Engels' view, particularly in Marx' Critique of the Gotha Programme, of an economy with working hours as a measure of production and, initially, also consumption. Instead, reformism accepted Hilferding's view, which suggested that in socialism economy should be organized as a General Cartel, the organizational form of highly developed capitalism, i.e., controlled by economic specialists. Lenin took over this view and realized it in Russia, with which the dictatorship over the proletariat was a fact.


Lueer's tribute to the work of the G.I.K. is now available in three languages: German, English and Dutch.


Lueer's tribute does not address various criticisms since the republishing in 1970 of the first edition in German in 1930. Especially that of Paul Mattick in his introduction to this reprint, followed by Gilles Dauvé and finally Raoul Victor. Victor's text of 2016 'in response to Kees' under the title The Economy in the Transition to a 'Communist' Society (*), served the German-speaking group Freundinnen und Freunde der klassenlosen Gesellschaft as a starting point for their discussions of 21-3-2018: Umrisse der Weltcommune. On the group's website, Kosmoprolet, a discussion was published, including Lueer's contribution Kritik von Hermann Lueer an den Thesen zur Weltcommune (20-1-2019). It is typical of the quality of this discussion contribution that Kosmoprolet was forced to ask Victor for a position, which appeared as Arbeitszeitrechnung und ökonomische Rationalität in einer postkapitalistischen Gesellschaft (4-11-2019). It is curious to see that the reply by Lueer, Antwort an Raoul Victor, was not posted on the Kosmoprolet website until now, nor has been it included in the book KLASSE, KRISE, WELTCOMMUNE. Beiträge zur Selbstabschaffung des Proletariats with all other contributions. It seems therefor that Victor does not have an answer, and certainly not the Freunde as an organization, while it is clear from other contributions to the discussion that some do share the views of the G.I.K.


Hermann Lueer has meanwhile published the first German translation of the Dutch second edition of Fundamental Principles in book form: Grundprinzipien kommunistischer Produktion und Verteilung, and its first English translation: Fundamental principles of communist production and distribution.

These translations are of great significance. As explained in The G.I.C. and the Economy of the Transition Period - Introductory Article, the 1935 second edition in Dutch was supplemented with fragments in reply to certain critics and misunderstandings. Amongst others, the supposed 'utopian character' of the propositions of the G.I.K., the question of 'equality', on the dictatorship of the proletariat, and on libertarian communism. Important information on the agrarian question in the Russian and in the German Revolution was added. This edition was the last edited by the G.I.K. and therefor is its final answer to the objections at the time raised against its positions.


(*) Originally in French, 12-10-2011. For an answer, not from Kees, see Over het scherm rolden ... (June 2016) third contribution (in Dutch), English translation.

November 2019

  • Anton Pannekoek, Marxisme et darwinisme, traduction de l’allemand, édition et notes (octobre 2019): Philippe Bourrinet. Avec une introduction critique de 14 pages du traducteur et éditeur.
  • Spartacus, Weekblad van de Communistenbond ‘Spartacus’, 1947, Trotski en de vakvereniging.

October 2019

September 2019

July 2019

May 2019

March 2019

December 2018

October 2018

April 2018

March 2018

  • Der Kommunist - Flugzeitung der Kommunistischen Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands (Sachsen)", ab Nr. 19, April 1920, Flugzeitung der Kommunistischen Arbeiterschaft Ostsachsens”, ab Nr. 49, Dezember 1920, Organ der Kommunistischen Arbeiterschaft Ostsachsens und der Allgemeinen Arbeiter-Union Gross-Dresden (Revolutionäre Betriebsorganisation” Nr. 53, Dezember 1920 Nr. 54, Januar 1921 Nr. 56, Januar 1921.
  • Willy Huhn Lenin und die russische Revolution.

January 2018

  • Willy Huhn Lenin als Utopist, sehe auch Buchbesprechung Gester “Auf der Suche nach Rosas Erbe. Der deutsche Marxist Willy Huhn (1909-1970)”, Berlin, Die Buchmacherei, 2017.

December 2017

November 2017

October 2017

September 2017

August 2017

June 2017

May 2017

April 2017

February 2017

January 2017

Nederlands:

English:

Deutsch:

Other languages: see Goldners site breaktheirhaughtypower.org.

December 2016

November 2016

October 2016

September 2016

  • Marxism and state communism. The withering away of the state - G.I.C. 1932.
    Pamphlet never translated into English before, the Group(s) of International Communists critising Lenin 'The State and the revolution.'
    Part of this text was integrated into 'Basic principles of communist production and distribution'.

August 2016

  • In dutch language only: Anton Pannekoek "Friedrich Adler" 1916 (met een inleiding "individueel terrorisme of proletarische massastrijd tegen de imperialistische oorlog?"). Ajoute en francais:
    "A mettre en parallèle avec un texte de Bordiga, qui lui soutient l’action terroriste de Friedrich Adler... «Fritz Adler, notre camarade, de ceux que nous connaissons et aimons, qui a adhéré à Zimmerwald, qui a reproduit à la main le Manifeste de la minorité socialiste autrichienne lu par beaucoup d’entre nous non sans larmes d’émotion et d’enthousiasme… Ce n’est pas un fou, pardieu ! … Son acte fut le corollaire de sa – de notre – campagne internationaliste. Le fait est une propagande plus efficace que les mots… Friedrich Adler est des nôtres. Il appartient au prolétariat international, dont il est devenu le symbole». Bordiga, «Adler», L’Avanguardia, 5 novembre 1916, in Scritti..., op. cit., p. 290-291."

Traductions de l’allemand, édition, illustrations, notes et texte d’introduction.

July 2016

June 2016

April 2016

March 2016

December 2015

October 2015

Mai 2015

April 2015

March 2015

Our E-mail address: info@left-dis.nl.

Also see the following blog: Pantopolis


18-Oct-2019