Talk:Left communism
I hope people don't mind my outline for a contribution to 1952-2004? I firmly feel that the Bordigist style left-communism is limited (see my contributions on the topic to council communism) and doesn't particularly represent the initial broad spread of left-communism in the 1916-23 revolutionary upsurge /let alone/ the theoretical and material underpinnings of the left-communist groups. Today, when the Bordigist positions are largely irrelevent to workers, and radicals, and are barely relevent to workerist communists and anarchists we should recognise the actual use of "left communist" in modern parlance as a way of denoting more worker-oriented, more democratic and anti-cooption communist movements. Where else would you fit Autonomism if seriously approaching the issue?Fifelfoo 23:27, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm sorry but I do objedct to your outline for the period 1952-2004. When I wrote the orignal article I intended to continue the story to date. And the story relates to the Left Communist traditon of the groups coming from or relating to the KAPD and/or the Italian left associated with Bordiga. if we follow your outline where now am I tpo place this material?
I also object to many of your suggestions for inclusion because they deal with groups and individuals who are not part of the Left communist tradition although they may draw on that tradition. I can only suggest that you create new entries for many of those you mention in your outline. I hope to do some more owrk on the ntry over the course of this week and I'm afraid i shall delete much of your material. I hope you can move it elsewhere.
Perhaps I should also add that a great deal of your material is couched in such a fashion as not to be NPOV which is the polict here. For example you refer to the Bordigists as sectarian. Sure they are but without explanation and used as condemnation such a terminology has no place here.
Jock Haston
- Dear Jock,
- I actually disagree with you about where to include those other guys, and I'll lay that out below. Just to begin though, I'm quite happy for you to heavily edit the article. You seem to have a more immediate connection with Left Commos than I do. The Bordigists (ICC and ?ICT?) are pretty much sectarian in every instance I've run into them. Given, however, that that means one old fart and a single rack of outdated journals in a single bookstore in Australia, this ain't good. The ICC etc. pubs are, however, objectively sectarian at the moment--that needs to be argued out in more than just one line though. (I never meant it as derrogation, the ICC etc just don't play nice / democratically with other revs at the moment).
- Who should be included in Left Communism?
- My central argument is that the current LC trends are almost entirely disconnected from the intial "Zimmerwald" style internationalist LCs. As much as current Trots are disconnected from 1904 Bolshevism. Additionally, putting Pannenkoek & the other councilists in an LC article is a bit iffy if we're taking a historicist definition of what LC is. Whereas, if we compare movement in their activities and platform to the activities and platform of the LCs, and note any movement accepting that they draw on the LCs, or arising in their own historical moment as "left" communists, we should have a broader article.
- I can accept your argument that the article should deal fundamentally with historically linked LC (the year dot to 1945 section for example). But we should have sub-sections stubbing off to other commo/anarcho movements that claim, or organically took up, LC positions.
- Fifelfoo 23:04, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)
To return to the fundamental point the various tendencies which draw on Left Communism are not in fact Left Communist and rarely make such a claim. And the authentic Left Communist groups such as the ICC and IBRP strongly dispute such claims. A claim which historians of the revolutionary movement would largely agree with in my experience. You refer to the article I've written thus far as having an historicist view of LC and if you wish to use such a terminology then I'll plead guilty. But LC is a tendency, or set of tendencies, that claims to be Marxist and therefore historical materialist. For my part I dispute their clams to properly understand Marx but I concur with with them that Marxism is based on historical materialism and, in your terms, is therefore historicist. Theres no getting around that. That the ICC and IBRP, who are not Bordigist by the way, and the various ICP's are terribly sectarian is of no concern to this entry. The policy of this wiki is that entries are NPOV and it follows that stating that these tendencies are sectarian is not NPOV. What can be said and will be said is tht many consider them to be sectarian. One minor point you raise is the mention of Pannekoek in the article. Your absolutely correct that his work is best discussed in the entry dealing with Council Communism and in a biographical entry. That wil be done I hope in the course of time. One of the themes of this article is that Councilism as a tendency came out of Dutch-German Left Communism which is why specific discussion of that current ends, properly speaking in the aftermath of WW2. The problem is at the moment that I have not completed the section on the German-Dutch LC or the later post WW2 sections. Bear with I'll get to it! Where I agree with you is that the article needs to point oput that LCism has been an influence on a number of other tendencies and currents. This is best done in a concluding section which I'll incorporate into the structure either today or tomorrow depending on the pressure of time. Your also correct that I have some connection with Left Communism in that I'm friendly with one of them and have read their lit in the past. But my main connection with them is as a subject of historical study. I have no time for the groups that stand in the LC tradition today. My assumed name will give you an idea of my politics but only a rough idea I must warn you. Check the entry on the real JH which I mostly wrote btw.
Jock Haston (who was a registered user but fogets passwords and never writes them down)
I've inserted a comment at the end of the article, which I also wish to reproduce here:
- Don't get me wrong, I have the deepest respect for whoever wrote all the above sections - his or her knowledge on the history of Left Communism is truly encyclopedic. However, this is too much. The article is an information overload even for one with an interest in politics - not to mention the casual reader! It goes into FAR too much detail over the most obscure little groupings. Most readers will get terminally bored before they finish reading the fist half of the article. A shorter article which presents the history of Left Communism in more general terms and which pays more attention to Left Communist views and ideas would be preferable to what we have now.