[C-Kokos]

What's the difference? I know that Council Communism is a hugely broad church, with people like Bordiga supporting the single party state, but the majority of CC's share an outlook more in line with that expressed in Anton Pannekoek's "Workers' Councils", that is, anti-state and anti-party.

So can any of you libcoms actually explain what the difference between CCs and ASs is?

[HoniSoit]

I think there is a superficial difference where Council Communism differs from Anarcho-Syndicalism in its rejection of trade unions as the appropriate form of revolutionary organisations due to their reformist tendency (e.g. as they were in Germany); and instead, Council Communism favored workers' council so greater power and control could be placed in the hands of the actual working people, and less on trade union bureaucrats.

But in fact, both WC and TU involve some form of delegation of power; one could argue in workers' councils power is situated more close to the workers, but as I see it, this is more an issue of how either workers' council or trade union is structured (to facilitate self-management and control) than any principled difference between WC and TU - which is why I think the difference is rather superficial.

[C-Kokos]

But the thing is that Anarcho-Syndicalists advocate a structure of trade unions that would essentially make them workers councils. It's not like they believe they'll get the revolution going through the TU bureaucracy.

[HoniSoit]

Yes, I agree. I mean, I don't see the CC and AS as mutually exclusive, and they could very easily look like each other in practice which goes back to my point that it depends more on how you structure TU/WC (and the situation, first world vs. third world revolutions), not what name you give to it. Luxemburg was apparently reacting to the reformist tendency within the trade unions in Germany, for example. But that's not the kind of trade unions AS had in mind, it would seem, as evident during the Spanish Revolution where it showed that TU could be potentially very revolutionary.

[Sleeve Rollin' Steve]

There is a [split] thread from my introduction going on this topic here.

Anton Pannekoek

The works you're looking for when it comes to real council communism are the writings of Rosa Luxemburg (publisher of Die Rote Fahne) and Karl Liebknecht (founder of the Spartacist League). Thier philosophies are the basis of all council communism and their work establishing organizations like Socjaldemokracja Krolestwa Polskiego i Litwy (SDKPiL) stands as their greatest contribution to the cause.

The party, the leader, and all associated authoritarian behavior are essentially greater enemies of council communism than capitalism is, was or ever could be.

[C-Kokos]

^Funny that, considering that they were both in parties.

[Sleeve Rollin' Steve]

^Funny that, considering that they were both in parties.

It might seem that way, but these organizations weren't parties. They didn't try to overthrow established orders and replace those orders with themselves; rather, they used the power of organization to unite those who would see the ideology of council communism take root.

[C-Kokos]

It might seem that way, but these organizations weren't parties. They didn't try to overthrow established orders and replace those orders with themselves;

False.

[Sleeve Rollin' Steve]

False.

Doubleplusunfalse.

The abolition of the rule of capital, the realization of a socialist social order - this, and nothing less, is the historical theme of the present revolution. It is a formidable undertaking, and one that will not be accomplished in the blink of an eye just by the issuing of a few decrees from above. The working classes in every country only learn to fight in the course of their struggles. The leadership has failed. Even so, the leadership can and must be replaced with the masses and by the masses.

Not parties. Direct worker rule.

[C-Kokos]

The above could have very well come out of Lenin's State and Revolution. It's not in anyway a refutation of the party.

The contradiction between mass and party (with party being concentrated mass) is to be destroyed during the transition to communism. No shite. Lenin's writings are full of that concept.

[Abood]

The Spartacist Movement didn't try to take over? Then what was the German Revolution about?

[Sleeve Rollin' Steve]

It's not in anyway a refutation of the party.

It is. A firm one. When a structured "party" is used as communism's political delivery mechanism, power has already been unevenly divided between those in the party and those outside the party. And even if everyone is in the same "party", everyone is beholden to the same "party structure". But all of this is Post-Party Communism and Communist Movements in Eastern Europe Since 1900 101.

The Spartacist Movement didn't try to take over? Then what was the German Revolution about?

Overthrow of government. This is where Luxemburg and Liebknecht parted ways in terms of thier faith in violent revolutionary tactics, and I'm entirely with Rosa. To back the actions (not the early writings) of Liebknecht is to adopt quasi-Stalinism and Trotsyism. All I said was that these people's philosophies and writings spawned council communism, which is very distnctly different than syndicalism.

[Abood]

Overthrow of government.

And then what? A power vacuum?

[Sleeve Rollin' Steve]

And then what? A power vacuum?

Did you even read my whole post?

This is where Luxemburg and Liebknecht parted ways in terms of thier faith in violent revolutionary tactics, and I'm entirely with Rosa. To back the actions (not the early writings) of Liebknecht is to adopt quasi-Stalinism and Trotsyism. All I said was that these people's philosophies and writings spawned council communism, which is very distnctly different than syndicalism.

A power vaccuum is impossible when you gradually alter the political process through non-political means (economics).

[Abood]

How can you overthrow a government and then have a gradual alteration of the political process?

[Sleeve Rollin' Steve]

How can you overthrow a government and then have a gradual alteration of the political process?

Wow. Ok. Let's start over.

You don't overthrow the government. I agree with Luxemburg that the process of replacing authoritarian regimes with council communism is a process that is gradual to begin with. There is no overthrow of the government. The government is simply rendered obsolete over time and replaced with a superior system of total representation. Liebknecht's writings may have been part of the basis of council communism, but his Spartacist League was anything but council communist in nature, which is why I do not support his revolutionary tactics.

[C-Kokos]

There is no overthrow of the government.

R O F L

I am afraid you are a bit confused.

[Sleeve Rollin' Steve]

I am afraid you are a bit confused.

Read your own links. Not everything Luxemburg says I agree with, but the general approach is radically different than other more pro-active anti-capitalist processes that require full-scale violent revolutions, the merciless overthrow of governments and the rapid replacement of those governments with anything other than the workers.

In the earlier bourgeois revolution where, on the one hand, the political training and the leadership of the revolutionary masses were undertaken by the bourgeois parties, and where, on the other hand, it was merely a question of overthrowing the old government, the brief battle at the barricades was the appropriate form of the revolutionary struggle. Today the working class must educate itself, marshal its forces, and direct itself in the course of the revolutionary struggle and thus the revolution is directed as much against capitalist exploitation as against the ancien regime; so much so that the mass strike appears as the natural means to recruit, organize and prepare the widest proletarian layers for revolutionary struggle.

Mass strike =/= violent revolution. Precursor to social and economic revolution.

In the Great French Revolution the still wholly underdeveloped internal contradictions of bourgeois society gave scope for a long period of violent struggles, in which all the antagonisms which first germinated and ripened in the heat of the revolution raged unhindered and unrestrained in a spirit of reckless radicalism.

Another strong criticism of failed violent revolutionary tactics.

We want neither to monopolize the memory of the heroes of the Proletariat nor to fight for it in the narrow interest of the Party, as for the body of Patroclus.

More of Luxemburg's justified anti-party rhetoric.

As a result of the development of the world economy and the aggravation and generalisation of competition on the world market, militarism and the policy of big navies have become, as instruments of world politics, a decisive factor in the interior as well as in the exterior life of the great States. If it is true that world politics and militarism represent a rising tendency in the present phase of capitalism, then bourgeois democracy must logically move in a descending line.

Owned.

No Luxemburg wasn't a fan of trade unions, but council communism is highly adaptable to trade union tactics. The "trade unions" of Luxemburg's time were nothing like the trade unions of today, nor was thier ability to effect sweeping change within the framework of capitalism present. Her disappointment with the ineffectiveness of trade unions at her time was fully understandable.

[Beaker Bob]

Not being a Communist myself, this all looks quite silly, but I've been watching this debate and it seems as though Steve here is just interpreting things differently. I'm not convinced that council communism was supposed to bring about change through gradual, non-violent means, but I suppose it could be easily adapted to non-violent gradual change. I am convinced, however, that it isn't the same thing as syndicalism at all.

You seem more like a syndicalist to me SRS, and that's not an insult, just my opinion based on observation. Your grand vision for the future might be based on council communism and total worker representation, but your methods are more syndicalist than they are council communist. You're a council communist syndicalist trade unionist.

Hybrids that elaborate freak me right out.

[Sleeve Rollin' Steve]

You're a council communist syndicalist trade unionist.

I'm willing to accept that as a definition of my personal approach. I do maintain that Luxemburg's approach did not advocate violent revolution, but rather a social and economic one that required a great deal more planning and laying of groundwork than her contemporaries were willing to put into the process. I also maintain that Luxemburg's lack of faith in "parties" is a strong indicator of her desire to see true communism take root, not some hideous authoritarian mutant.