One of my favorite political texts is Gorter's famous "Open Letter to Comrade Lenin." It was his response to Lenin's "Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disease," which attacked the communists of Western Europe who refused to go into parliament, to work in the conservative trade unions, and to try and forge alliances with the bourgeois parties.

I love the letter for its political content. Some people seem to think Lenin's text was infallible, impossible to answer, and in fact went unanswered, but truth is, Gorter basically destroyed Lenin's arguments. Today it is Gorter's text that is relevant, not Lenin's.

I also love the letter for its style. It is eminently readable. Very direct, as you'll see below.

But most of all I love its tone. Gorter never lost sight that the communist left and the Bolsheviks were both on the side of the working class. They just advocated different tactics. You can see this in the humble, comradely way Gorter greets Lenin, while firmly asserting his right to disagree.

"Dear Comrade Lenin,

I have read your brochure on the Radicalism in the Communist movement. It has taught me a great deal, as all your writings have done. For this I feel grateful to you, and doubtless many other comrades feel as I do. Many a trace, and many a germ of this infantile disease, to which without a doubt, I also am a victim, has been chased away by your brochure, or will yet be eradicated by it. Your observations about the confusion that revolution has caused in many brains, is quite right too. I know that. The revolution came so suddenly, and in a way so utterly different from what we expected. Your words will be an incentive to me, once again, and to an even greater extent than before, to base my judgement in all matters of tactics, also in the revolution, exclusively on reality, on the actual class-relations, as they manifest themselves politically and economically.

After having read your brochure I thought all this is right.

But after having considered for a long time whether I would cease to uphold this "Left Wing," and to write articles for the KAPD and the Opposition party in England, I had to decline."

#LeftCommunism #CommunistLeft #Marxism

Political journal whose title goes hard: Communist Battle

https://www.leftcom.org/it

#marxism #communism #socialism #CommunistLeft #LeftCommunism

https://warontherocks.com/2016/06/sowing-the-wind-the-first-soviet-german-military-pact-and-the-origins-of-world-war-ii/

Interesting article about Soviet-German military cooperation in the 1920s. The contention is that the Soviet Union helped re-arm Germany for World War 2. Just one more glaring example of the compromises the Soviet state had to make in the face of material circumstances, starting with the peace treaty with Germany.

No comment from me except to quote "Why Russia Isn't Socialist" by the International Communist Party, in particular a paragraph which excellently summarizes the tragic course of the Russian Revolution:

"If the revolution had succeeded in Germany, the soviet power would have been able to abide by the concessions already made to private capitalism and the Russian peasantry, and overcome all the social consequences, but to renounce the European Revolution, like Stalin, was to give free rein to capitalist relations in Russia, and to give the classes who would be the immediate beneficiaries supremacy over the proletariat. This section of the proletariat, in an extreme minority, decimated by the war against the whites, and bound by a crushing task of production had one weapon only against the speculators and the greed of the peasants: the hammer of the Soviet State. This state, however, could only remain proletarian in so far as it united with the International Proletariat against reactionary strata inside Russia. To decide that Russia was going to create 'its' Socialism all by itself, was to abandon the Russian proletariat to the immense pressure of non-proletarian classes and to free Russian capitalism from all controls and restraints. What's more, it was to transform the Russian State into an ordinary state. An ordinary state endeavouring to make Russia into a great bourgeois nation as quickly as possible."

- https://redtexts.org/html/icp_1970_why_russia_isnt_socialist.html

#Socialism #Communism #RussianRevolution #CommunistLeft #LeftCommunism

Brutal.

"Trotsky's own past and theories preclude on his part the initiation of a movement to the left of Stalinism and condemned 'Trotskyism' to remain a mere collecting agency for unsuccessful Bolsheviks. As such it could maintain itself outside of Russia because of the ceaseless competitive struggles for power and positions within the so-called 'communist' world-movement. But it could not achieve significance for it had nothing to offer but the replacement of one set of politicians by another. The Trotskyist defence of Russia in the Second World War was consistent with all the previous policies of this, Stalin's most bitter, but also most loyal, opposition."

- Paul Mattick, "Bolshevism and Stalinism," 1947.

#trotsky #trotskyism #marxism #communism #CommunistLeft #LeftCommunism

Take this, (most) atheist reply guys!

"In making use of the name Materialism as the doctrine of reality -- the doctrine which investigates, with a view to understanding, only reality, the real forces of the world -- we at the same time deny that atheism has any right whatever to bear this name. As a descendant of bourgeois materialism, atheism sees, to be sure, the reality of nature, but not the reality of society, hence only that of the less significant half of the universe. Its value is that of an empty hull, of a negative solution, because it merely asserts that the religious explanation of the world, the one by means of supernatural beings, is out of order. The thing that might give it a positive content, -- the real explanation of the world's development, a clear knowledge of the forces and their effects by which our life is governed, -- that is lacking. This content can be given only by Marx's historical materialism."

- Anton Pannekoek, Communism and Religion, 1936.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1936/05/communism-religion.htm

#atheism #marxism #CommunistLeft #LeftCommunism #socialism #communism

Nicest thing ever said about me:

"like I've seen you work, and you're a professional human when you are working *with people you don't know* but like, if I hadn't seen you work, then I would've thought you were the most unprofessional person 😂."

I'm doing my part to wage the "A decisive struggle against professional specialization" that #Bordiga called for in the "The immediate program of the revolution."

https://libcom.org/library/immediate-program-revolution-amadeo-bordiga

#marxism #communism #CommunistLeft #LeftCommunism

"We are not an academic department, but an army formed in battle order, and we defend the cause of those who have worked and died as well as those who have not yet worked and have not yet been born."

- Bordiga, 1958, "The Revolutionary Program of Communist Society Eliminates All Forms of Ownership of Land, the Instruments of Production and the Products of Labor"

https://libcom.org/article/revolutionary-program-communist-society-eliminates-all-forms-ownership-land-instruments

#socialism #communism #communistleft #leftcommunism

New article from Internationalist Perspective: "European nationalism? No thanks!"

"The world order is in decay. Not because American capital is in charge -- you could call that a historical contingency. It is in decay because its foundations -- competition, exploitation, profit as a condition of production -- are diametrically opposed to the problems facing humanity."

https://internationalistperspective.org/european-nationalism-no-thanks/

#communistleft #leftcommunism #marxism #socialism #communism

I couldn't find a pdf of the original pamphlet The American Worker by Paul Romano & Ria Stone (Grace Lee Boggs), classic of workers inquiry. But I did eventually find Martin Glaberman's '72 reprint.
+ original scan https://mega.nz/file/QBwB3DCA#gI9Dsl4DuxkRJFESb0lTD3f9nAGz9iB9vC6J7M_s7gk
+ for screens https://mega.nz/file/lNxRHa7J#gnmfg9HIYFeCSwwz9LZT9poMW9V01IPSJHQonmkdLwM
#WorkersInquiry #CouncilCommunism #LeftCommunism

It's come to my attention via a comrade after posting The List, it's time to remind ppl that the Communist Research Cluster's 3 readers—on European Socialism and Communism, Black Revolutionaries in the United States, and Revolutionary Feminism—exist. https://communistresearchcluster.wordpress.com/readers/
#communism #LeftCommunism #UltraLeft #abolition #BlackRadicalTradition #feminism #RevolutionaryFeminism

It's come to my attention via a comrade after posting The List, it's time to remind ppl that the Communist Research Cluster's 3 readers—on European Socialism and Communism, Black Revolutionaries in the United States, and Revolutionary Feminism—exist. https://communistresearchcluster.wordpress.com/readers/
#communism #LeftCommunism #UltraLeft #abolition #BlackRadicalTradition #feminism #RevolutionaryFeminism

I'm pleased to present y'all with a gift this holiday season—I've restored Eden Sauvage's incredibly useful "Communist Reading List (Ultra-Left)," giving it a new home. Consider this a soft launch of a blog I plan to work on next year, Tenants + Movements https://jfprk.wordpress.com/2022/12/21/communist-reading-list-ultra-left/
#communism #LeftCommunism #UltraLeft

I'm pleased to present y'all with a gift this holiday season—I've restored Eden Sauvage's incredibly useful "Communist Reading List (Ultra-Left)," giving it a new home. Consider this a soft launch of a blog I plan to work on next year, Tenants + Movements https://jfprk.wordpress.com/2022/12/21/communist-reading-list-ultra-left/
#communism #LeftCommunism #UltraLeft

I'm hoping to connect to others with an affinity for #leftcommunism

So far it's a bit of a lonely place in that regard. There are a lot of liberals and social democrats showing up on account of Twitter imploding. If people out there haven't heard of the left communist tradition, this could be an interesting time and place to grow that knowledge in this community. Hoping for some sincere communication.

#communist #communism #Marxism

http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2020-04-04/the-infantile-disorder-of-leftism-and-the-senile-weakness-of-rightism

A good critical piece about the failings of Leninism and what is truly neccesary for a communist future.

#communism #socialism #Lenin #leftcommunism #SovietUnion #USSR