WARNING: LONG POST ALERT !!!!!!>>2892222>I didn't know what a leftcom was until I browsed this siteLeft Communism simply refers to any communist position that can be considered to the left of Marxism-Leninism, excluding Anarchism.
That said there are some differences and similarities between the most common types of left communist. I'll try to explain the essential elements:
>Things basically all Left Communists share in common:They're revolutionary communists, which means they want a stateless, classless, moneyless society, without private property, achieved via a proletarian revolution.
They are against parliamentarianism, electoralism and engagement in bourgeois democratic institutions broadly - which they derogatively refer to as Kautskyism.
They are against reformism, social democracy, and gradual improvements in worker's rights via making deals and compromise with the liberal bourgeois state - which they derogatively refer to as Lassalleanism.
They're proletarian internationalists - they consider socialism in one country ("SIOC") to be a modernisation and deviation from Marxism invented by Stalin, and that no proletarian revolution can succeed if it is not international.
To this end they support "no war but class war" - and supporting revolutionary defeatism in all other wars besides class war, and are opposed to all nationalism.
Most are broadly opposed to national liberation movements. Some do support national liberation so long as it's explicitly proletarian and socialist in character.
They recognise the economic transition to the abolition of commodity production and the abolition of production for exchange value as of paramount importance within establishing socialism, and the transition to production for use value as a step that should be completed relatively quickly, beginning more or less immediately after revolution and being completed in a matter of years.
The count the failure to achieve this (along with SIOC) as the key reasons for the failure of previous "socialist" states.
As a result, ask a left communist if socialism has ever been tried and most will reply with "Only briefly during the Paris Commune, and the very first few years of the USSR", or perhaps a simple "No".
As a result they consider that China, Vietnam, Cuba, the USSR, etc are all essentially forms of state capitalism or social democracy for having failed to achieve this economic transition.
They refer to current Marxist-Leninist regimes and defenders of the economic systems of said regimes derogatively as Lassalleans, Dengists/Dengoids, or will just use "ML / ML-oid" itself as a slur.
They are critical of trade unionism in general, considering most established trade unions to be fully integrated for the most part into the capitalist machine. It's more of an opposition to the state of the trade union movement, that being opposed to the concept in theory. They would support unions in theory if they believed them not to be captured institutions.
They are also opposed to popular fronts - that is forming alliances with liberals, centrists, social democrats, to co-ordinate the fight fascists - believing it will lead to the movement moderating its aims and positions to appease bourgeois and liberal elements, shifting the movement to the right. They still of course fight back against fascism - but only along side other communists and socialists.
They believe in worker self-emancipation - that is an opposition to vanguardism, and that the proletariat must liberate itself and start the revolution. It isn't for the party (if there is one) to declare the moment of revolutionary action - they would consider this adventurism, but to listen to the people and educate them and prepare for the time they choose. Revolution should emerge from the workers organising themselves, not from a class of professional revolutionaries.
They are also largely considered pretty fucking autistic, shut-ins, people who read too much and don't get enough fresh air.
These last two points - waiting for the revolution, reading too much theory - is the source of a lot of memes about left communists and armchairs.
Now we can discuss the different tendencies:
>Italian Left Communism This is also often called Bordigism, after Amadeo Bordiga - perhaps the most infamous left communist of all time.
Many Italian Left Communists really hate being called Bordigists though, since they don't like cults of personality.
These people are the most memeable and autistic Left Communists, and they make and create a lot of memes in their own communities, which they usually ban all non-Bordigists from partaking in.
Italian Left Communists are Leninists, but reject Stalin, the USSR post-Lenin, or any "socialist" states that came later.
Unlike Trotskyists who think Stalin was a big meanie and too "authoritarian", Bordigists are opposed to Stalin's USSR for being too capitalistic, for the reasons above regarding commodity production and production of goods for exchange value, and the lack of transition to what they perceive as socialist economics - ie the abolition of commodities and production of goods for use value.
They also support a transition from nationalisation to worker self-management - that is after the transition to what they consider a socialist economy has been implemented and is securely in place.
They see Marxism as a fixed scientific theory. An invariable doctrine. Therefore revising theoretical positions makes no logical sense, since you can't change what the science of Marxism says to match current fluctuations in popular opinion.
As a result they oppose democratic centralism, as a "stupid head-count" that favours sheer numbers and popularity over the unwavering theoretical correctness of a point, and also for being too bureaucratic.
Rather they support a system of organic centralism, where by if theory is correctly understood and applied as a science it should organically lead all members of the party to the same outcome. Like a hive mind consensus or something.
They support the party form, but reject electoralism, believing the party should primarily educate people on the correct theory.
>Council CommunismThis is also sometimes referred to as Councilism or Dutch-German Left Communism. Anton Pannekoek is perhaps the most famous Council Communist.
In many ways they sound a little similar to Anarchists, but don't say that to them or they'll get upset.
They of course adhere to all the internationalist and anti-commodity production points outlined above, but their unique selling point is they believe in "all power to the soviets".
They split away precisely *because* of Lenin deciding to change his mind on this point and centralising power in the USSR. Then he also wrote a book calling them "childish".
It's pretty self explanatory, but they believe the Dictatorship of the Proletariat should be organised via workers councils representing each group of people, region, industry, etc.
Rather than representative democracy, you take direct part in the councils. Members of local councils can then be elected to regional councils, those on regional councils to national councils, etc.
They are almost always against the party form. (The KAPD being a rare example of a Councilist party).
They claim political parties inevitably cause the interests of members to diverge from that of the proletariat, with that divergence worsening over time, leading to corruption, power grabbing, internal strife and splits, etc.
They tend to strongly support worker self-management and workplace democracy.
>The SituationistsAs much an art movement as one of Marxism, focused largely on applying Marxist political theory to the social life. Guy Debord is the most well known figure.
They mostly held opinions in line with Councilist and "Libertarian Marxist" thinkers. Artistically speaking they were heavily influenced by Dadaism and Surrealism.
They were the first to recognise and write on the notion of "the Spectacle" - capitalism increasingly dominates daily life via the social situations we experience second hand in media, which keeps us alienated from the world.
Capitalism keeps you dull and just entertained enough not to do anything by making you consume too much. Too much pointless irrelevant news, too much TV, too many adverts.
Consuming media is effectively second hand living. You're living someone else's experience, a fiction, and too much of that alienates you from the world. Capitalism is pushing consumption on you and wants you to do more of it.
The establishment always has some pointless liberal or apolitical crap to distract you from so you never consider class consciousness and churn them a profit even while you're not at work.
What should you do? Engage in the revolution of daily life.
Most people just accept whatever social reality life gave them without question. Most people accept the spectacle and engage with it.
How? Do things that disrupt monotony. Rather than engage in the spectacle, just take a long walk, go get lost, go walk around a neighbourhood you don't know and have no business being in.
Disrupt the spectacle. Graffiti shit that will make people think. When you see a corporate billboard or poster vandalise it with a message that'll, for a moment, pull people from the spectacle of consuming the advert and to think on something else.
>CommunizationEmerged from failures of the primarily left communist inspired riots in Paris in May 1968, and from the subsequent critique of Bordigism, Council Communism and Situationism that followed.
There's three main currents:
>That of Gilles Dauve, which is Marxist, and claims communization theory has always been applicable throughout the capitalist age>That of Theorie Communiste and Endnotes, also Marxist, and claims that communization has only recently become a possibility>That of Tiqqun and the Invisible Committee, who are AnarchistsNot gonna lie half the theorists in the communization bubble write so densely that it's near impossible to parse. They like to jerk themselves off like that I suppose.
That said here's what I gather from it:
They essentially believe that there is no need for - nor is it really possible any longer - to have a worker's state with a transitionary period of socialism between capitalism and communism, and the proof is that all attempts so far have failed and ended in the development of state capitalism.
The solution? There needs to be a fundamental change in approach.
Which is that when revolution occurs, there must be very quickly - pretty much immediately - a jump from capitalism to communism.
The revolution must consist of immediate communizing measures implemented as it is all unfolding.
Wage labour, commodity production, production for exchange value, the law of value, and so on, needs to be ended as the revolution take place.
The capitalist social relations of private property, the class structure, money, and the state, and markets be abolished and dismantled on sight and immediate swapped for communist relations.
No transition periods for anything.
Furthermore they stress that the "worker's movement" and trade unions are broadly captured and work with capitalist, bourgeois institutions. The same as the criticism of trade unions the other left communists have.
They therefore stress heavily the notion of the self-abolition of the proletariat. Because you can't have a classless society if you have a proletariat. Both the capitalist class and proletariat - both poles of the class system - must be dissolved.
Marx also spoke on this. Stating that a class "can emancipate itself only by abolishing itself as a class and all classes.", and also "when the proletariat is victorious, it by no means becomes the absolute side of society, for it is victorious only by abolishing itself and its opposite".
This means abolishing the conditions that cause them to exist as a class - ie the capitalist social relations and economic system.
They're critical of formal organisations and largely supportive of insurrectionary activity, having supposedly been responsible for several acts of sabotage and terrorism in Europe, perhaps most notably in 2008, 9 alleged Anarchist Communizers with alleged links to the Invisible Committee allegedly sabotaged various railways across France in what the French government called an act of "ultra-left terrorism".