Council communism and party communism
 We have seen that left-wing communism as it emerged in 1918 follows in the footsteps of the left-wing radicalism of the preceding period. The Bolsheviks belonged to this radical opposition in the Second International. They even (like the Dutch in 1909) went as far as breaking organizationally with Russian social democracy in 1903. Throughout the war, and more especially after the October Revolution, the Bolshevik leaders remained very close to the German extreme left, especially the Bremen Group. Both Bolsheviks and German 'Internationals' found themselves in the Zimmerwaldian Left (though not the Spartakists, who were opposed to the construction of a new international) entrusting Pannekoek and Roland-Holst with editing its official organ, Vorbote. [60] The Russian Revolution was enthusiastically welcomed by all radical socialists, and especially by the Internationals, who saw in it the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat through the councils. [61] Their enthusiasm was all the greater in that Lenin's recent pamphlet, State and Revolution (published in Russia in l918), explicitly adopted the ideas Pannekoek had expressed in his dispute with Kautsky over the destruction of the bourgeois State and of political power as such. The future left-wing communists saw in it a charter for their own revolutionary aspirations; Lenin had formulated the classic themes of the Linksradikalen: destruction of the State, rejection of elections (and hence of parliamentarianism), the advent of a free and equal association of producers. [62] True, closer reading of the pamphlet reveals some rather different propositions. For Lenin stated also that there would still be a (transitory) State in the post-revolutionary period, exercising an extremely rigorous control and, like all States, repressive. [63] Divergences only became public in the course of 1919, when the left-wing communists (now in the KPD) realized that Moscow, and shortly afterwards the Third Intemational, were backing the right wing of the party, in other words those elements which favoured the worst deviations of social democracy: the cult of organization for organization's sake, parliamentarianism, unionism, leader-worship. Following the assassination of its historic leaders (Luxemburg, Liebknecht, Jogiches), the 'rightist' Levi took over the party leadership (at the end of April 1919) and imposed a policy of 'entryism' into the unions, of electoral participation, by way of a stream of decisions without appeal and congresses meeting under irregular conditions. [64] Opponents were qualified pell-mell as anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists and, at the Heidelberg congress in October 1919, Levi announced that all those who disagreed with his views should leave the party, and he actually gained a majority in favour of expelling . . . the majority! And that at a time when the unions had been utterly discredited, when workers' leagues were springing up all over the country, when more and more workers were boycotting elections in favour of direct action. In autumn 1919 the left-wing communists came round to the view that Levi was becoming increasingly tempted by social-democratic opportunism and that they, the expelled group, were the true representatives of revolutionary communism. They consequently formed their own, new communist party, whose place they thought was in the Third Intemational. Their desire to join the new organization which Moscow had just created resulted from something of a misunderstanding. They were convinced Lenin would recognize them as communists as soon as he had a moment to talk it out with them and let himself be persuaded of the KPD's opportunism. Unfortunately for them, the KPD's opportunism only existed because it corresponded to the policy of the new intemational, hence to Moscow's policy. Right from the KPD's inaugural congress Radek had come out wholeheartedly in favour of the right wing, and it was through his auspices that Levi took over the party leadership. Lenin himself, in a letter to the left-wing communists dated September 1919, had warned against non-participation in elections, and against the boycotting of unions and legal factory committees, and had described their attitude as 'an infantile disorder'. [65] He was even more incisive in his famous pamphlet on 'left-wing communism' written in spring 1920 and handed to delegates at the Second Congress of the Communist International, abandoning his earlier equivocal stance and explicitly condemning the 'Dutch leftists'. He advocated a disciplined, centralized party, taking very little notice of the federalist line favoured by the majority of German communists. Within the unions, he distinguished between leaders and masses, only the former being corrupt; from this he concluded that entry into the unions was necessary in order to win over the masses and dislodge the leadership. Similarly, he insisted upon the absolute necessity of participation in bourgeois parliaments insofar as the masses were still attached to them, and in all other bourgeois institutions capable of being entered. The parliamentary game must be exploited in all its forms: electoral alliances, compromises, collaboration. This policy being justified, in Lenin's view, by the overriding need to raise the consciousness of the masses at all costs, and to prepare the way for the soviets. The revolution needs a mass party and, in Westem countries, quantity must take precedence over quality. [66] Despite the ideological gap existing between Moscow and the left-wing communists from the outset, the latter waited two whole years before giving up hope and leaving the Third International. The KAPD sent three successive delegations to Moscow, two in the course of the summer of 1920, and one in the autumn. Otto Rühle, who travelled there in May, came back disenchanted, talking about the centralized system and the dictatorship of the party. [67] He broke with the KAPD on his return, taking with him the East Saxony region. The Party leadership was unconvinced by his report and three of the leaders, among them Gorter and Schröder, went to Moscow to see for themselves in November 1920. Meanwhile, the Second Congress of the Communist International had just condemned 'left-wing communism' by refusing to accept the KAPD. The party's line on parliament and the unions was judged 'inadequate'. Its programme was described as "capitulating to [revolutionary] syndicalist opinion". [68] Furthermore, points 9 and 11 (relating to work inside the unions and in parliament) of the twenty-one conditions of admission approved at the same congress clearly contradicted the KAPD programme. Gorter, who was determined to organize a revolutionary opposition inside the Communist International, nevertheless managed to obtain temporary admission as a 'sympathizing party', with consultative status. [69] But Gorter's plans came to nothing, and after the Third Communist International Congress (summer 1921) the KAPD was ordered to merge with the KPD. It was the end of an illusion, and henceforth Gorter and the Essen tendency devoted themselves to setting up a Fourth International. This, the KAI (the Communist Workers' International), was founded in 1922 and only existed on paper, attracting a few hundred militants, mostly German and Dutch. [70] Despite these organizational avatars, from the middle of 1920 onwards, council theory was no longer merely the most extreme expression of left-wing radicalism, but had emerged as being diametrically opposed to Bolshevik ideology as shared by those communist parties which had subscribed to the conditions imposed by the Comintern. From this moment on we can begin to speak of a council communism, carrying on the radical tradition of Marxism and opposed to party communism, heir to the opportunism of the Second Intemational. Consequently, council theory originally posed as a virulent critique of the very party which was to be known later on as the 'orthodox' or 'official' communist party, and which eventually became the 'Marxist-Leninist' party. In place of unions and parties, council communism proposes natural, i.e. historical, groupings of the masses: the councils. Finally, it replaced the Russian Revolution in the context of the historical evolution of capitalism by looking upon it as a bourgeois revolution. Parliamentananism, party and unions, the councillists claimed, are forms of struggle adapted to another, pre-revolutionary, age. During this historical phase, which ended more or less with the First World War, the proletariat was not very numerous and was utterly atomized. It needed an organization to defend its immediate interests, leaders to represent it in the institutions of the bourgeois State. In that period the unions undeniably played a positive role, extracting from the capitalists concessions indispensable to the improvement of workers' well-being. Similarly the socialist parties unified the class, which thus found itself individualized and represented en bloc. [71] But, rapidly, as the workers grew in numbers, these organizations external to the working class began generating their own bureaucracy, which made itself increasingly independent of the masses and tended to defend its own interests. As a result, the organizations started to identify with the capitalist system and hence to obstruct the revolutionary struggle. [72] While the proletariat was naturally reformist in the pre-First World War period, in the following phase it aspired to revolution. It was no longer concerned with obtaining concessions from employers or the State, but with the suppression of both. Given this objective, which is inherent in the proletariat, the old organizations and the old tactics (those of the old social-democratic movement) had become a brake upon the development of new forms of action which are essentially mass actions. [73] No doubt, the left-wing radicals had demonstrated the short-comings of parliamentarianism at any price before the war, pointing to the way it was practised by the socialist chiefs. But they did admit that it had a certain utility in the education of the masses and as a propaganda instrument. The International Socialists (ISD) themselves continued to express this view right up to the eve of the Russian Revolution. [74] As for the Dutch Marxists, they had very early on refused to assimilate the notion of parliamentary struggle to that of revolutionary struggle. [75] But no-one could possibly harbour the illusion after social democracy had behaved as capitalism's saviour in November 1918 and after. Otto Rühle even went so far as to consider that a party was incapable, by definition, of being anything other than a bourgeois institution; the term 'revolutionary party' seemed to him to be a nonsense. [76] The unions fulfilled the same function of compromise in the economic domain as the parties on the political scene. They are merely an institution functioning within the framework of bourgeois society and, as the war had so strikingly shown, they act as a powerful shield for it. So it would be utterly absurd to think of turning the unions into revolutionary instruments. As 'organs of capital', the unions aspired to nothing more than recognition by the ruling apparatus. [77] The very development of trade unionism necessarily leads it into conflict with the working class, and the revolutionary struggle begins the moment workers decide to organize themselves outside union structures. The union leaders cling to their positions and to their new social status (for their union role has turned these former workers into petit bourgeois), summoning up all their strength in order to oppose the revolution and communism. [78] The Third International leadership had imposed the conception of a mass communist party on communists in the West. As a result of this they everywhere encouraged the unification of revolutionary minorities with the left wing of social democracy . Thus, the KPD was transformed overnight from a group of a few thousand members into a powerful party with more than 300,000 members. The council communists attacked this tactic which, in their view, could only bring about a situation where the leaders dominated. For the great majority of these newcomers were far from having attained a communist consciousness, and this could only mean that they would hand over responsibility to their leaders. Under these conditions, the revolution could lead only to a party, but not to a class dictatorship. When a class is not yet ready for revolution, no-one can carry it through in its place. And when a minority seizes power and holds on to it in the name of the proletariat, it is merely following a neo-Blanquist line, not communism. It is important to deliver the workers not only from their physical and material subjection to the bourgeoisie, but also from their spiritual enslavement. But this immense and difficult task cannot be undertaken by some resolute avant-garde. [79] The proletarian revolution will be the work of the masses as a whole, and if they allow a party to take power in their place then all that will have been achieved is a bourgeois revolution. For the revolt against capital is also a revolt against all the old organizational forms. [80] This brings us to the heart of council theory. The councils were not simply new forms of organization arisen to replace the old. They were also the expression of the class locked in struggle. [81] In this new phase of the struggle the proletariat was seeking to destroy the State and wage labour. It had come to realize that a revolution does not consist of a change of majority in parliament or in the fact of a political party coming to power. New forms of production, large economic units, the internationalization of markets and the development of monopolies had brought about a transformation of the worker's mentality. He now wanted to be master of his own fate and, first and foremost, of the basis of all societies: the means of production. But, although the working class already possessed the necessary material strength (numbers, but also its productive function) to overthrow its masters, it was still too impregnated with bourgeois ideology to have a clear conscience about it. [82] In consequence, the proletarian revolution was to take an entire epoch, resulting from a slow process of ripening among the masses, from an ever-growing consciousness of the tasks awaiting it. Obviously, in this new phase of the struggle the proletariat cannot hope to rely on its old organizations now allied with capitalism. They were suited to a form of struggle in which leaders held sway over passive masses; in which revolution was conceived as an operation that had been foreseen and planned for in advance -- by the leadership. The proletarian revolution, conversely, was to be the fruit of a spontaneous struggle waged by the class as a whole. New, more appropriate forms of organization would spring forth. But there was no need to invent them, for they already possessed a concrete historical existence: the workers' councils. [83] Admittedly, the emergence of these councils was not followed by the advent of a communist society. The backward economic conditions of Russia in 1917 had prevented the working class from coming to power. It could have happened in Germany in November 1918, if the workers had not been halted in their tracks by the conceptions which social democracy had been inculcating in them for years. These historical examples at least proved that the time for mass action had arrived, that communism would be established by the councils. [84] The fact that the councils only had a very limited historical existence (in Russia they rapidly became State organs, the docile instruments of party domination) leads one to wonder whether the council communists restricted their role to the pre-revolutionary period or not. The answers to this question are not really very uniform. Most theoreticians, however, attribute a double function to them, seeing in them both a revolutionary organrzation and the basis of future communist society. That is, they are supposed to act both as a unit for struggle and destruction in the revolutionary period. and as wielders of economic (above all, the management of production) and political (dictatorship of the proletariat) powers in the subsequent phase. [85] But while all are agreed on this, some go on to assign the proletariat the task of forming councils right away, while others see councils merely as the organs of a future council State. [86] As long as we stick to the critique of party communism and to the role of councils in the revolutionary process and in communism's transitional phase, most members of the council movement are more or less in agreement. Differences arise when one tries to answer the age-old question of the present organization of revolutionaries. The advent of a network of councils would signal a very advanced stage of class consciousness: by assuming responsibility for the abolition of profit-based society themselves, the workers would thereby demonstrate that they had acquired a genuinely communist mentality. Until then, those with a clear awareness of the tasks, the communists, constituted a minority. Should they organize themselves, should they intervene in the workers' struggles to show them the way ahead? Then, if they were to come together in a joint organization, what sort of structure should this have? All these questions gave rise to heated debate in councillist circles and continue to divide them to this day. Schematically, we can say that the great majority of council communists are opposed to the idea of any external group directing the struggle inside factories. Similarly, in principle, the council movement is hostile to the party communists' views on centralism, discipline and hierarchy. That said, in fact one finds nuances covering all colours of the spectrum bounded by two poles, the one tending towards organization, the other towards spontaneity. At the time when council communism was incarnated in a genuine movement, roughly during the 1920s, there was a great temptation to construct a councillist party. This tendency was represented by the KAPD leaders, and especially their theoretician, Herman Gorter. Gorter (1864--1927) was one of the great Dutch poets of the impressionist school. He began to play an active role in the SDAP (Dutch Social Democratic Party) from 1896, opposing the revisionist tendency. After 1907 he joined the oppositional group which was to found the tiny Socialist Party (SDP) in 1909 (with Pannekoek, Van Ravesteyn and Wynkoop). In 1918 he took part in the foundation of the Dutch communist party, before travelling to Germany, where he joined the left wing of the KPD. From 1920 on he became the theoretiaan of both the German KAP (Essen tendency) and its Dutch counterpart, which he managed to bring together to form a Communist Workers' International (KAI) in 1922. [87] In Gorter's view the proletariat needed two kinds of organization: those based on the place of work, the factory, and those bringing 'enlightened' militants together. The former would constitute workers' leagues while the others would form the party. The workers' league is a mass organization concerned with every-day struggle in the factory. But the drawback of the league is its tendency to reformism, confining itself to wage claims. Or, conversely, as a result of an erroneous evaluation of the situation, it is liable to utopianism. The party, on the other hand, is there to steady the helm: it is capable of pointing the way ahead since it is composed of that fraction (however minimal) of the working class which possesses the knowledge and a clear consciousness of the revolutionary objectives. The Western proletariat needed these 'pure' parties, reminders of the one formed by the Bolsheviks in 1902--3. But the party must not seek to gain power for its own ends, for the revolutionary dictatorship is to be that of the entire class. In any case, Gorter prophesied, the proletariat of the industrialized countries of Western Europe and North America is far too numerous for a dictatorship of the party to be possible. The party of pure communists prefigures the political councils, while the unions anticipate the advent of economic councils. [88] Gorter's organizational conceptions were not all that different from Lenin's own; a party-union duality, with the former taking precedence over the latter had after all been set forth in What is to be Done? as early as 1902. Nor did Otto Rühle (1874--1943) entirely abandon this line, except insofar as he advocated a 'unitary' organization. Rühle had been a teacher with a deep interest in pedagogic and psychological problems as well as a social-democrat deputy in the Reichstag when the war broke out. He followed Liebknecht in voting against the war credits in March l915. Right from the foundation of the KPD he found himself in the left-wing opposition, which he subsequently followed into the KAPD, taking with him his own organization in East Saxony (he had been elected President of the Dresden workers' council in November 1918). On his return, disappointed, from a trip to Soviet Russia he separated his regional group from the KAPD and, in 1921, realized his project of creating a unitary organization with the foundation of the AAU-E. [89] This incarnated Rühle's underlying belief that the organization of the revolutionary vanguard (which he considered indispensable) should not take the form of a political party. It was in the enterprise that the primary battlefield in the struggle against the power of capital was to be found, and it was on this basis that conscious revolutionaries would seek to unite. The BO (workers' organizations) federated and gradually formed the Unitary Workers' League (AAU-E). This League took on the characteristics of revolutionary struggle -- economic and political -- and concerned itself with both. It was governed by the federalist principle: no centralism, no leadership 'from outside', no interference by intellectuals not belonging to the plant. Delegates could be revoked at any time, while the leaders were no more than spokesmen for the rank and file, its executive organs. The task of unitary organization consisted of developing class consciousness and a feeling of solidarity among workers. Neither a party nor a union, the AAU-E was the revolutionary organization of the proletariat. It dissolved itself with the appearance of the councils which, in some ways, it had prefigured. [90] The intermediate conception, halfway between the 'organizationalists' and the 'spontaneists', was developed by Pannekoek, arising logically from his views on the nature of the revolutionary struggle, which he tied directly to class consciousness. Anton Pannekoek (1873--1960) was an astronomer of world-renown and an historian of science; throughout his life he pursued a dual career as militant and scientist. He was active in the socialist movement for over half a century. He joined the Dutch SDAP in 1912 and, in the following year, began developing his theory of mass spontaneity . He was invited to Berlin in 1905 in order to teach at the party school, and henceforth he became active in both organizations. He became involved in the Bremen left-wing radical circles from 1906 onwards, contributing a large number of articles to the party journals. He was expelled from Germany in 1914 on account of his Dutch nationality, but he carried on his activities in Switzerland and Holland within the Zimmerwaldian left while keeping up his contacts with the German international socialists. He withdrew from active militant work after 1921 to devote himself to astronomy, which he taught at the University of Amsterdam from 1925 onwards. He nevertheless contributed to the theoretical work of the Dutch council communists, the GIC (International Communists Group), and published numerous articles in various council-communist reviews in the 1930s and 40s. Pannekoek insisted with greater force than his companions upon the spiritual aspect of the class struggle. Certainly, he remained a convinced Marxist and materialist. But in his view material factors (relations of production) had no immediate influence upon the revolutionary process. The timelag between the emergence of new material structures or new modes of production and the moment the worker's consciousness becomes aware of them and adapts to them may be very long. Meanwhile, the worker's consciousness remains the prisoner of the beliefs, prejudices and false values of the surrounding culture. The power of the bourgeoisie is spiritual before all else: the bourgeoisie controls religion, education, propaganda activities and, more generally, the entire range of cultural production, to which the worker is more or less subjected. There is thus a gap between the material situation as it is today, and collective consciousness Hence the need to raise the proletariat's consciousness of its emancipatory tasks, while it is growing in numbers and while its role in the productive process makes it the true master of this process. [91] If it is to be carried through to its conclusion, the revolution must first exist in the consciousness of the proletariat. The latter will find its own road to freedom through its struggles. But at the same time it is vital to develop and broaden its consciousness. And this is where the communists, those who have reflected and who have mastered the science of historical evolution, find their role. These enlightened elements are to meet in small groups which Pannekoek saw as being external to the scene of the practical struggle, namely the enterprise. Theirs is a function of clarification, explanation and discussion. It is their duty constantly to render the task to be accomplished ever more clearcut and evident; their task is tirelessly to propagate, in their writings and in their speeches. ideas and knowledge, formulating objectives, enlightening the masses. Just as the workers' councils constitute the units of practical action in the class struggle, these discussion groups represent its spiritual force. [92] The precise outlines of these groups, which Pannekoek sometimes called parties, remain vague. They are without status, nor do they have membership cards or regular subscriptions. Most important, it is not their job to direct conflicts. It does not really matter to him what they are called so long as they are different from what we normally know as parties. These groups bring together all those who share the same underlying conceptions in order to discuss and to discover the tasks to be accomplished. Their activities are purely intellectual, and their importance stems from the fact that victory will ultimately depend upon the spiritual force of the proletariat as well. [93] Alongside Pannekoek's rather moderate positions (his ideas concerning the party consisted of nuances), some council communists' views were rather more blunt, rejecting all forms of 'external' organization, no matter what its profile might be. During the period 1917--23 one encounters conceptions which more closely resemble certain anarchist tendencies than the prevailing Marxism. As early as 1917, Julian Borchardt, for example, stated that all parties were alike and proclaimed the right to autonomy in the face of all authority, even that derived from the revolutionary party. Borchardt even rejected the form of the party itself, retaining only its 'executive organs' (Ausführende Organe). [94] A little later a fraction developed inside the 'unitarist' branch of the council communists (AAU-E) demanding the dissolution of all general organizational structures (i.e. ones bringing together rank-and-file groups). [95] But these two tendencies stood at the outer edges of council theory. On the other hand, a certain number of councillists put forward ideas in the 1930s derived by strict interpretation from the very heart of this theory. For these people, it was impossible to distinguish between the class struggle and the acts of the workers; the workers' movement coincided with the movement of the workers. It is governed by its own laws tending toward the appropriation of the means of production. Not only does it create its own organs of material struggle (factory or action committees) but also its own organs of intellectual knowledge: working groups. These groups are no longer gatherings of individuals external to the class but constitute an instrument forged by the class itself and within its own ranks. This will lead to the autonomous organization of the masses into councils, and the autonomous organizaton of revolutionary workers into working groups. [96] In other words, all intervention from outside is eliminated; all efforts in the direction of the final objective must come from within the class and any exception to this can only be inspired by the 'ex-workers' movement. We have seen how council theory broke away from left-wing radicalism, establishing its own individuality against the conceptions Moscow was propagating through the Third International. With the passing years, the question of the Russian Revolution, its nature and characteristics, was to take an increasingly important place in the discussions of these 'working groups' . The councillists developed not one but two successive conceptions of the Russian Revolution, the content of these conceptions being inseparable from their theory as a whole. To begin with, from 1919 on, radical theoreticians accepted that Russia had undergone a true revolution, abolishing the old regime and carrying the proletariat to power. But the specific conditions predominating in this backward country meant that the revolution could not be expected to assume the same forms as those it would surely take on in the industrialized countries of western Europe and North America. For these countries possessed large, educated proleletariats, with long histories behind them; they could not rely upon other social categories for the completion of their historical task. In Germany, for example, the mass of peasants was composed of tenant farmers and smallholders whose sole ambition was to enlarge and protect their property: they were the natural allies of the industrial bourgeoisie. The proletariat could only count on its own forces, material and spiritual. The day it arose, it would take upon itself the destruction of the old structures and, above all, it would exercise its own dictatorship -- class dictatorship. In Russia, on the other hand, six million workers had been backed by a vast mass of peasants also aspiring to the expropriation of the capitalists. Once it had achieved power, however, this numerically weak working class (in a country of 180 million inhabitants), devoid of any tradition of freedom or class consciousness, was obliged to yield power to a party made up of conscious and devoted communists whose policy could not ignore the social base of its regime: the peasantry. Which explains why the dictatorship which was in fact exercised was not one of a class but that of a party, a bureaucracy, or more likely that of a few leaders only. [97] In spite of this analysis, or perhaps because of it, the council communists identified themselves with the Russian Revolution and did not question the rightness of Bolshevik theory and practice. Bolshevik tactics were considered perfectly appropriate to the situation of an economically backward country; all they asked of the CPSU was that it desist from calling for the mechanical application of similar tactics to Western Europe, where the situation was utterly different. [98] Opinions began to evolve from about 1921--2, when the Russian Revolution started to emerge as a bourgeois revolution. This change coincided with Lenin's introduction of the NEP and his encouragement of private property, especially in the countyside. Rühle was one of the first to demythologize the 'communist' character of the Russian Revolution. On his return from Russia he stated that the councils merely masked the dictatorship of the party, and that he found no trace of genuine communism; conversely, he went on, there was a flourishing new soviet bourgeoisie! [99] Shortly afterwards all the councillists came round to the view that what had occurred in Russia had been a democratic-bourgeois or peasant-bourgeois revolution: so far were internal policy (the restoration of private property) and external policy (commercial and diplomatic relations with the capitalist powers) both supposed to bear witness to a process in which power was gradually passing into the hands of a minority and which was leading straight towards 'State capitalism'. The tasks facing the Russian revolutionaries were those of a defaulting bourgeoisie: the Revolution had been made by a handful of representatives of the petit bourgeoisie -- the Bolsheviks -- who had then gone on to set themselves up as an obstacle to the world proletarian revolution As usual, it was Rühle who stated this idea most incisively: for him, the more or less proletarian character of the Russian Revolution did nothing to alter its bourgeois essence in a country where the first task was to progress from feudalism to the industrial capitalism of the modern era. Right from the outset, he claimed, the regime had shown itself to be bourgeois: one had only to look to the Brest-Litovsk Treaty, the acceptance of the principle of the right to self-determination of peoples, the persistence of private property among the peasantry or the policy of nationalization, which had nothing whatever to do with socialization. [100] The essence of this analysis was to remain the same, even after the forced collectivization of 1928--30, although refinements were added later. Pannekoek later explained that the occupation of power by the party was due to a 'shortage of cadres' and that the State had substituted itself for the class. For him, State capitalism was equally a form of State socialism since the State, in Russia, was the sole master. With the bureaucracy carying out tasks which, in Western Europe, would have been those of the bourgeoisie, it was clearly the job of the bureaucrats to impose industrialization and the collectivization of land. This is why, despite its bourgeois character, or rather because of it, the Russian Revolution represented an enormous step forward, the masses having advanced from a stage of unevolving barbarianism to a situation in which they might aspire to dignity. But the price of this progress was a heavy one: an oppressive dictatorship, and an even more crushing slavery than that weighing upon the working class in Western capitalist societies. [101] The Second World War led to no notable changes in the council theory; a certain number of theses were accentuated, while others were played down. The main target of struggles was now the State-unions coalition, as a result of which new forms of conflict were to be envisaged, such as wildcat strikes and factory occupations. These new methods (not entirely new, since the councillists had already observed their appearance before the war) seemed to them characteristic of the independence of thought and the autonomy of which the proletariat was now capable. The central problem in the post-war revolutionary process emerges as the extension of strikes. Since each wildcat strike brought the legality of the system itself and property rights into question, the repressive function of the union now acted as a spark liable to set the whole of society alight. The councillists therefore placed all their hopes in the powers of workers' solidarity and in the contagiousness of action which, by degrees, would lead the workers to seize the instruments of production. For nationalization alone will not do away with exploitation: a new bureaucracy will inevitably arise, as in the USSR, to take the place of the old exploiting class. The radical solution is the one which leads the workers to control the means of production for themselves. [102] A few tiny groups propagating council theory or else theories close to it survived in the following years in Holland, Australia, Britain and France. Since the end of the 1960s, however, the ideas and traditions of council communism have suddenly enjoyed a fresh vogue. It has become one of the stars in the theoretical firmament of the New Left. [103] This is why it is necessary to situate, or at least to try to do so, the theses of the council movement in relation to the aspirations of the new radicality. There can be no doubt whatsoever that the council theorists remain within the path traced by Marxism: their aim is to supply the one true, undeformed interpretation of Marxian thought. Furthermore, their Marxism is very narrowly determinist, and in spite of the importance Pannekoek accords to the spiritual factor and to consciousness, council communism's interpretation of historical materialism remains rather restrictive. The relations of production are seen as modifying, with or without timelag, social life and its evolution. As Gorter stated, men may make their own history, but only within rather narrow limits. Historical evolution is contained within the transformation of the modes of production . This determinism, rather distant from the spirit of the new radicality, all too often gives rise to a certain dogmatism. Councillists believe firmly in the crisis of capitalism inevitably resulting in the emergence of revolutionay consciousness. Even if they are a good deal less dogmatic than a Kautsky or a Lenin, the council communists are nevertheless marked by a strict economism. [104] The other element equally foreign to contemporary revolutionary thought concerns the central place assigned to the enterprise in the process of liberation. Pannekoek tells us that production is the very essence of society and that enterprises are its constitutive cells. [105] This statement flows from his very imperative historical materialism and his excessive valorization of economic factors. This valorization accounts for the councillists' conception of work: for them, work was considered desirable, indispensable, the source of all spiritual and social life. In other words, their conception of work differed barely from the quasi-religious image presented by Marx and Engels. The worker-controlled society advocated by the councillists turns out to be an immense factory; neither the unpleasantness nor the tedium of work will have disappeared. Far from liberating man from productive work, this vision binds him to it permanently and irremediably. Otto Rühle even went as far as to hold that the worker is only really a proletarian when inside his factory. Outside, he is a petit bourgeois, philistine in his life-style, dominated by the ideology of the dominant class. Only in his place of work does he become a revolutionary. [106] One ends up wondering just how the worker manages to sustain this split personality; can a single individual really have twin mentalities, or two faces, like Janus? This question leads us to a more fundamental critique expressing the hard core of radical theory, namely the very partial character of council communism. For the concepts of council communism only really grasp one facet of human alienation, ignoring the other aspects, including the everyday life of the individual which lies at the heart of the radical critique. It is not certain that the proletarian is better armed in the professional struggle than he is in the fight against cultural, family and sexual repression. Even where the role (ambiguous, to say the least) of 'conscious minorities' -- working groups or new-style parties -- is concerned, council communism borrows rather too many elements from classical Marxism for it not to be a little suspect in the eyes of the new radicals. The councillists were of bourgeois origin for the most part, intellectuals who were well-established in careers in the surrounding society. There is something paradoxical about their enthusiasm for the messianic role of the workers -- the others, to employ the existentialist's vocabulary -- when one considers that the autonomy or the self-movement of the proletariat lies at the centre of their preoccupations. For all this, the councillists did contribute an historical contradiction of Leninist ideology. In those dark years when the Third International stood out as the incarnation of revolutionary hopes, the councillists demystified this claim while starting from the same theoretical premises as the official communists. Finally, by referring first and foremost to the historical experience of the councils they gave content and illustration to one of the fundamental demands of radicality, namely that the struggle for liberation from all constraints should be autonomous. And if they were not alone in placing all their hopes and faith in the experience of the councils, they nonetheless situated it within the historical evolution of radicality. Footnotes [60] Rosa Luxemburg had expressed reservations concerning three points: the principle of nationalities, the non-collectivization of land, the dictatorship of the party. These reservations came on top of her reluctance to break with social democracy, at least up to December 1918. Cf. her The Russian Revolution (London, 1959; written in 1918). [johngray note: Online at the www.marxists.org site] [61] A.Pannekoek,'Bolschewismus und Demokratie', op. cit. See also his article, 'Der Anfang', Arbeiterpolitik, no. 48 (30 November 1918). [62] V. Lenin, State and Revolution (Moscow, 1970). [johngray note : Online at the www.marxists.org site] [63] V. Lenin, State and Revolution (Moscow, 1970). (italics in the original text). [johngray note : Online at the www.marxists.org site] [64] O. C. Flechtheim, Le parti communiste allemand sous la République de Weimar (Paris, 1972), pp. 85ff. According to Broué, Paul Levi's effective authority over the party dates back to March 1919: op. cit., p. 295. [65] Letter in Kommunistische Arbeiter-Zeitung (Hamburg), no. 191 (1919). [66] V. Lenin, 'Left-Wing' Communism, an Infantile Disorder (Peking). [johngray note: Online at the www.marxists.org site] [67] 'Bericht über Moskau', Die Aktion, no. 39/40 (1920). [johngray note : Online translation at Subversion website Report from Moscow - Otto Rühle (1920) ] [68] In Manifestes, thèses et résolutions des quatre premiers congrès mondiaux de 1'Internationale communiste (Paris, 1934; facsimile repr. Paris, 1970), pp. 47, 49. [Johngray Note: English Translations in Theses Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of the Third International (London, 1980), The Second Congress of the Communist International (New York, 1977), Workers of the World and Oppressed Peoples, Unite! : Proceedings and Documents of the Second Congress, 1920 (Communist International in Lenin's Time) (New York, 1992)] [69] Bock, op. cit., p. 257. [70] Trotsky had no hesitation in criticizing in advance (at the Third Congress of the Communist International) this Fourth Intemational 'in no danger of ever becoming very numerous'. He evidently thought otherwise when he set up his own Fourth International a few years later. [71] H. Gorter, Offener Brief an den Genossen Lenin, eine Antwort auf Lenins Broschure: Der Radikakalismus, eine Kinderkrankheit des Kommunismus (Berlin, n.d. [1921]). [Johngray note: English translations in Workers Dreadnought Vol. VII no. 51 to Vol. VIII no. 13, March-June 1921. Corrected translation in Wildcat pamphlet Open Letter To Comrade Lenin (London, 1989) Online at the Communist Left site (also available in German and French)] [72] F. Wolffheim, Betriebsorganisationen oder Gewerkschaften (Hamburg, 1919), and A. Pannekoek, Weltrevolution und kommunistische Taktik (Vienna, 1920). [Johngray Note: English translation in D.A.Smart (ed.) Pannekoek and Gorter's Marxism (London, 1978), pp. 93-141 online World Revolution and Communist Tactics] [73] 'Der Parlamentarismus in der proletarischen Revolution', Proletarier (Berlin), no. 2 (November 1920). [74] 'Zur Frage der Einheitschule', Arbeiterpolitik (Bremen), no. 7 (17 February 1917). Cf. also Bock, 'Zur Geschichte und Theorie der holländschen marxistischen Schule', op. cit., p. 17. [75] They were undoubtedly influenced by the founder of Dutch social democracy, who subsequently became a libertarian socialist, Ferdinand Domela Niewenhuis. From the 1890s on, Niewenhuis opposed parliamentarianism in favour of class struggle, and issued warnings to the Marxist parties, whom he suspected of veering towards State socialism and dictatorship. See his Socialisme en danger, 3rd edn (Paris, 1897), pp. 48, 72, 216. [76] O. Rühle, Von der bürgalichen zur proletarischen Revolution (Berlin, 1970), p. 32 (the text dates from 1924). [johngray note : Online translation From the Bourgeois to the Proletarian Revolution - Otto Rühle (1924) ] [77] ibid., pp. 38-43, and A. Pannekoek, Workers' Councils (Melbourne, 1950: English version of De arbeidersraaden, published in Amsterdam, 1946, under the pseudonym of P. Aartsz), p. 65. See also his 'Five Theses on the Class Struggle', Southern Advocate for Workers' Councils (Melbourne, May 1947). [johngray note : Workers Councils online link] [78] J. H. [A. Pannekoek], 'Trade Unionism', International Council Correspondence (Chicago), no. 2 January 1936). [Johngray Note : Online Translation Trade Unions - Anton Pannekoek (1936)] [79] H. Gorter, 'Partei, Klasse und Masse', Proletarier, no 4 (February-March 1921), and A. Pannekoek, 'Der neue Blanquismus', Der Kommunist (Bremen), no. 27 (1920). [80] [A. Pannekoek], 'Partei und Arbeiterklasse', Rätekorrespondenz (published by the GIC, the Dutch International Communist Group), no. 15 (March 1936), and J. Harper [A. Pannekoek], 'General Remarks on the Question of Organization', Living Marxism (Chicago), no. 5 (November 1938). [Johngray Note: Online translations at Party and Working Class - Anton Pannekoek (1936) General Remarks on the Question of Organization - Anton Pannekoek (1938)] [81] 'Arbeiterräte und kommunistische Wirtschaftsgestaltung', Rätekorrespondenz, no 5 (October 1934). [82] A. Pannekoek, Workers' Councils, op. cit., section 1: 'The Task'. [johngray note : online link] [83] J. H. [A. Pannekoek], 'The Workers' Councils', International Council Correspondence, no. 5 (1936). [johngray note : online link] [84] K. Horner [A. Pannekoek], Sozialdemokratie und Kommunismus (Hamburg, 1919). [Johngray Note: English translation of excerpts in Serge Bricianer Pannekoek and the Workers' Councils (St Louis, 1978) ch. 6] [85] K. Schroder, Vom Werden der neuen Gesellschaft (Berlin, n.d. [1920]); O. Ruhle, Von der bürgerlichen zur proletarischen Revolution, (op. cit. in footnote 76 with online link); J. Harper [A. Pannekoek], 'General Remarks on the Question of Organization', (op. cit. in footnote 80 with online link ) See also the first programme of the KAPD (1920), (op. cit. in footnote 56 with online link ) [86] In general, it was the fervent KAPists who saw, in the existing factory organizations, the core of the councils. For a 'Council State', cf. the second programme of the KAPD (repr. in Bock, op. cit) and Pannekoek, who compares them to parliament (Workers' Councils, p. 47). [johngray note : Workers Councils online link] [87] A detailed bio-bibliography of Gorter will be found in S. Bricianer, op. cit., and in Kool (ed.), Die Linke gegen die Parteiherrschaft, op. cit. [88] H. Gorter, 'Partei, Klasse und Masse', op. cit., and Die Klassenkampf-Organisation des Proletariats (Berlin, 1921). See also his Offener Briefan den Genossen Lenin. . ., (op. cit. in footnote 71 with online link) [89] Which he was to leave in order to return to the SPD in 1926. Concerning his life and work, cf. Kool's introduction to Kool, op. cit., and Otto Rühle Schriften (Hamburg, 1971). [90] O. Ruhle, Die Revolution ist keine Parteisache ! (Berlin, 1920), [Johngray Note: English Translation in London Workers Group Bulletin Issue 14, October 1983. Online link] and Von der bürgerlichen zur proletarischen Revolution, (op. cit. in footnote 76 with link ) [91] A. Pannekoek: 'Historical Materialism', article published in Dutch in Nieuwe Tijd, 1919 (French translation in Cahiers du communisme de conseils, no. 1, 1968), and 'Marxismus und Idealismus', Proletarier, no. 4 (February-March 1921). A good biography of Pannekoek is to be found in Die linke gegen die Parteiherrschaft. Bock gives a list of his books, articles and pamphlets in Organisation und Taktik der proletarischen Revolution, op. cit. [Johngray Note : See also John Gerber Anton Pannekoek and the Socialism of Workers' Self-Emancipation 1873-1960 (Amsterdam, 1989). An article by the same author is online at the Collective Action Notes website Anton Pannekoek and the Quest For an Emancipatory Socialism - John Gerber] [92] 'Prinzip und Taktik', Proletarier, no. 8 (August 1927); [Johngray Note : English translation of excerpts in Serge Bricianer Pannekoek and the Workers' Councils (St Louis, 1978) pp. 231-244] 'Partei und Arbeiterklasse', Rätekorrespondenz, no. 15 (March 1936). [Johngray Note: Online translations at Party and Working Class - Anton Pannekoek(1936)] [93]Workers' Councils, op. cit., p. 101, [johngray note : Online link] and 'The Party and the Working Class', International Council Correspondence, nos. 9 and 10 (September 1936). [Johngray Note: Online at Collective Action Notes website Party and Class (1936) ] Cf. also Pannekoek's letter to Pierre Chaulieu, in which he further detailed his conception of the party-group, reprinted in Cahiers du communisme de conseils, no. 8 (May 1971). [94] See his Revolutionshoffnungen (Berlin, 1917), and Bock, op. cit., pp. 73ff. The Bremen ISD broke with him, accusing him of having 'liquidated' the party-form. [95] ibid., p. 220. [96] H. Canne Meijer, 'Das Werden einer neuen Arbeiterbewegung', Rätekorrespondenz, nos 8-9 (April 1935), partial English translation in International Council Correspondence no. 10 (August 1935). See also Die Linke gegen die Parteiherrschaft, op. cit., p. 613, n. 261. [johngray note : 'The Rise of a New Labour Movement' on line at this site.] [97] 'Östlicher und westlicher Kommunismus', Proletarier, no. (October 1920); Gorter, Offener Brief an den Genossen Lenin. . ., passim (online link); and Gorter, 'Partei, Klasse und Masse' (1921), op. cit. [98] 'Lehren der Marz-Aktion', Proletarier, no. 5 (April-May 1921); [A. Pannekoek], 'Sowjetrussland und der westeuropäische Kommunismus', op. cit. (June 1921). Cf. also Pannekoek's letter to Erich Muhsam (at the end of 1920), in which he declared his wholehearted solidarity with the Bolsheviks (cited by Bricianer, op. cit., pp. 215-17). [Johngray Note : English translation in Serge Bricianer Pannekoek and the Workers' Councils (St Louis, 1978), pp. 222-225] [99] 'Bericht uber Moskau', Die Aktion, nos 39-40 (September 1920). (op.cit. in footnote 67 with online link ) [100] 'Die russische Staatspolitik und ihre Konsequenzen fur die Kommunistische Internationale', Proletarier no. 6 (June 1922); 'Thesen über Moskau', Rätekorrespondenz, no. 3 (August 1934):Von bürgerlichen zur proletarischen Revolution, (op. cit. in footnote 76 with online link), ch. 2, 'Das russische Problem'. [101] Workers' Councils, section ii, ch. 5, 'The Russian Revolution'. [johngray note : Online link] [102] Cf. The New World, pamphlet published by the 'Groups of Council Communists Holland' (Amsterdam 1947), and A. Pannekoek, Workers' Councils, final section, 'The Peace', [johngray note : Online link] as well as his article 'The Failure of the Working Class', Politics, vol. 3 no. 8 (September 1946), cited by Bricianer, op. cit., pp. 283ff. [Johngray Note : Online at The Failure of the Working Class (1946)] [103] Symptomatic is the chapter on the workers' councils (written by an ex-KAPist, Paul Mattick) published in an anthology claiming to be representative of the New Left: P. Long (ed.), The New Left (Boston, 1969). On the councillist tradition in France since the Second World War, cf. my Les origines du gauchisme (Paris, 1971), ch. 4 (English translation: The Origins of Modern Leftism, Penguin Books, 1975). [johngray note : Online link at Collective Action Notes Site] [104] The thesis of the 'fatal crisis of capitalism' was current in councillist circles in the 1930s. This theme was taken up again in the 1940s, and Pannekoek still speaks of a gradual worsening of capitalism's positions in his Workers' Councils, pp. 225-7. [johngray note : the page reference is actually 229-30. Online link - see paragraph 12 onwards] See also Mattick's essay on workers' councils (op. cit. in note. 103). [Johngray Note: Gombin is correct about the prevalance of crisis theory in councillist circles - however Pannekoek consistently rejected breakdown theories. See The Theory of the Collapse of Capitalism (1934)] [105] 'The Workers' Councils', International Council Correspondence, op. cit. [footnote 83 with online link] [106] Ruhle, Von bürgerlichen zur proletarischen Revolution, op. cit. [see footnote 76 with online link], p. 51. |