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Council communism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s. Inspired by the November Revolution, council communism was opposed to
state socialism State socialism is a political and economic ideology within the socialist movement that advocates state ownership of the means of production. This is intended either as a temporary measure, or as a characteristic of socialism in the transition ...
and advocated
workers' council A workers' council or labor council is a form of political and economic organization in which a workplace or municipality is governed by a council made up of workers or their elected delegates. The workers within each council decide on what thei ...
s and
council democracy Soviet democracy, or council democracy, is a political system in which the rule of the population is exercised by directly elected ''soviets'' (Russian for "council"). The councils are directly responsible to their electors and bound by their i ...
. Strong in Germany and the Netherlands during the 1920s, council communism continues to exist as a small minority in the left.


History


Emergence

Council communism emerged in the years after 1918, as some communists in Germany and the Netherlands concluded that the
Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...
had led to power being concentrated in the hands of a new political elite. Its most prominent early proponents were the German educator
Otto Rühle Karl Heinrich Otto Rühle (23 October 1874 – 24 June 1943) was a German Marxist active in opposition to both the First and Second World Wars as well as a council communist theorist. Early years Otto was born in Großschirma, Saxony on 23 O ...
, the Dutch astronomer
Anton Pannekoek Antonie “Anton” Pannekoek (; 2 January 1873 – 28 April 1960) was a Dutch astronomer, philosopher, Marxist theorist, and socialist revolutionary. He was one of the main theorists of council communism (Dutch: ''radencommunisme''). Biograp ...
, and the Dutch poet
Herman Gorter Herman Gorter (26 November 1864, Wormerveer – 15 September 1927, Saint-Josse-ten-Noode, Brussels) was a Dutch poet and socialist. He was a leading member of the Tachtigers, a highly influential group of Dutch writers who worked together in ...
. They were initially enthusiastic supporters of the
Bolsheviks The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
and the Russian Revolution. In 1918, Gorter said that the Bolshevik leader
Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. ( 1870 – 21 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin,. was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as the first and founding head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1 ...
"stands out above all other leaders of the Proletariat" and that
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
was Lenin's sole peer. In 1919, Pannekoek wrote that "in Russia communism has been put into practice for two years now". When the
Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, , KPD ) was a major political party in the Weimar Republic between 1918 and 1933, an underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and a minor party in West German ...
(KDP) was formed in December 1918, a majority in the party was opposed to electoral politics and trade unionism. These positions placed it to the left of Bolshevik orthodoxy. In 1919, the
Communist International The Communist International (Comintern), also known as the Third International, was a Soviet-controlled international organization founded in 1919 that advocated world communism. The Comintern resolved at its Second Congress to "struggle by ...
(Comintern) was formed to promote Bolshevik policies internationally. In October 1919,
Paul Levi Paul Levi (11 March 1883 – 9 February 1930) was a German communist and social democratic political leader. He was the head of the Communist Party of Germany following the assassination of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in 1919. After being ...
, the head of the KPD leadership, pushed through a new party line that followed the Comintern's policies. This line called for participation in parliamentary elections and fighting for control of established labor unions. In effect, this forced the left majority out of the party and about half of its 100,000 members left. In April 1920, the left formed the
Communist Workers' Party of Germany The Communist Workers' Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Arbeiter-Partei Deutschlands; KAPD) was an anti-parliamentarian and left communist party that was active in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic. It was founded in April ...
(KAPD) with an initial membership of about 38,000. The move was partly motivated by the fact that the left perceived the KPD's reaction to the
Kapp Putsch The Kapp Putsch (), also known as the Kapp–Lüttwitz Putsch (), was an attempted coup against the German national government in Berlin on 13 March 1920. Named after its leaders Wolfgang Kapp and Walther von Lüttwitz, its goal was to undo th ...
as weak. The same year, the
General Workers' Union of Germany The General Workers' Union of Germany (german: Allgemeine Arbeiter-Union Deutschlands; AAUD) was a factory organisation formed following the German Revolution of 1918–1919 in opposition to the traditional trade unions. The AAUD was formed by the ...
(AAUD) was formed as a revolutionary labor union partly modeled on the American
Industrial Workers of the World The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), members of which are commonly termed "Wobblies", is an international labor union that was founded in Chicago in 1905. The origin of the nickname "Wobblies" is uncertain. IWW ideology combines general ...
(IWW). It was seen by some as the union federation affiliate of the
KAPD The Communist Workers' Party of Germany (german: Kommunistische Arbeiter-Partei Deutschlands; KAPD) was an anti-parliamentarian and left communist party that was active in Germany during the time of the Weimar Republic. It was founded in April ...
. In 1918, Gorter wrote the pamphlet ''The World Revolution'' pointing to differences between the situations in Russia and Western Europe. Pannekoek asserted in ''World Revolution and Communist Tactics'', a pamphlet he published in 1920, that communist tactics in Western Europe were necessarily different from those in Russia. He argued that in Western Europe the bourgeoisie was more established and experienced and that as a result class struggle must oppose bourgeois institutions such as parliaments and trade unions. He emphasized the importance of
class consciousness In Marxism, class consciousness is the set of beliefs that a person holds regarding their social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests. According to Karl Marx, it is an awareness that is key to ...
among the masses and deemed the avant-garde party model advocated by the Bolsheviks a potential obstacle to revolution. Immediately after the KAPD's formation, it sought admission to the Comintern. At the Second World Congress of the Comintern in 1920, the Comintern leaders Lenin,
Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian ...
, and
Grigory Zinoviev Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev, . Transliterated ''Grigorii Evseevich Zinov'ev'' according to the Library of Congress system. (born Hirsch Apfelbaum, – 25 August 1936), known also under the name Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky (russian: Ов ...
unanimously rejected the KAPD's positions. An open letter by the Comintern's executive committee informed the KAPD that the Comintern fully supported the KPD in its dispute with the left. Some KAPD delegates left the congress early in protest. Lenin criticized the KAPD, Pannekoek, and other left groups in the 1920 pamphlet '' "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder'', accusing them of spreading confusion. He claimed that a refusal to work in parliaments and labor unions would leave workers under the influence of reactionary leaders. He conceded that there were considerable differences between Russia and the more advanced countries in Western Europe, but held that "it is the Russian model that reveals to all countries something – and something highly significant – of their near and inevitable future" and that certain features of the Russian Revolution were universally valid. Gorter took on the task of answering Lenin. His ''Open Letter to Comrade Lenin'' reiterated the argument that the differences in the class structure between East and West necessitated differences in communist tactics. Despite this dispute, the KAPD, and other similar groups, initially sought to change the international communist movement from within. At the Third World Congress of the Comintern in 1921, the KAPD failed to rally a left opposition and therefore withdrew from the International. The council communist critique of Bolshevism became more fundamental. Council communists concluded that the Bolsheviks were not in fact building socialism. In 1921, Pannekoek argued that the Russian Revolution was but a
bourgeois revolution Bourgeois revolution is a term used in Marxist theory to refer to a social revolution that aims to destroy a feudal system or its vestiges, establish the rule of the bourgeoisie, and create a bourgeois state. In colonised or subjugated countries ...
like the
French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
. Gorter characterized it as initially a dual revolution, a working-class revolution against capitalism and a capitalist revolution against feudalism, but argued that this dualism was resolved with the
New Economic Policy The New Economic Policy (NEP) () was an economic policy of the Soviet Union proposed by Vladimir Lenin in 1921 as a temporary expedient. Lenin characterized the NEP in 1922 as an economic system that would include "a free market and capitalism, ...
of 1921 and that Soviet Russia had become unambiguously a capitalist state. By 1921, council communism had broken with the official communist movement and formed a distinct current, according to the historian
Marcel van der Linden Marcel Marius van der Linden (born 9 October 1952)Prof. dr. M.M. van der Linden, 1952 -
at the UvA ...
. Many authors agree with van der Linden in dating the emergence of council communism to the early 1920s, but others, like Philippe Bourrinet and John Gerber, refer to the tendency as the Dutch–German form of
left communism Left communism, or the communist left, is a position held by the left wing of communism, which criticises the political ideas and practices espoused by Marxist–Leninists and social democrats. Left communists assert positions which they reg ...
during this period and date the advent of council communism to the 1930s. According to Frits Kool, the term ''council communism'' was first used by
Franz Pfemfert Franz Pfemfert (20 November 1879, Lötzen, East Prussia (now Giżycko, Poland) – 26 May 1954, Mexico City) was a German journalist, editor of ''Die Aktion'', literary critic, politician and portrait photographer. Pfemfert occasionally wrote u ...
in 1921. According to van der Linden, council communism was defined by five basic principles: *Capitalism was in decline and had to be abolished immediately. *It had to be replaced by workers' control over the economy through council democracy. *The bourgeoisie manipulated the working class with its social democratic allies in order to maintain capitalism. *This manipulation must be resisted by boycotting electoral politics and fighting traditional labor unions. *The Soviet Union was not an alternative to capitalism, but a new type of capitalism. The German and Dutch left was part of a broader left communist movement that pushed back against the imposition of the Bolshevik model on Western Europe. In Vienna,
Georg Lukács Georg may refer to: * ''Georg'' (film), 1997 * Georg (musical), Estonian musical * Georg (given name) * Georg (surname) * , a Kriegsmarine coastal tanker See also * George (disambiguation) {{disambiguation ...
emphasized the importance of the spontaneity of the working class. In Italy,
Amadeo Bordiga Amadeo Bordiga (13 June 1889 – 25 July 1970) was an Italian Marxist theorist, revolutionary socialist, founder of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI), member of the Communist International (Comintern) and later a leading figure of the Interna ...
was opposed to electoral politics, but had little regard for councils as the basis for a reorganization of society and advocated vanguard parties as Lenin did. In Russia, the Workers' Opposition criticized the bureaucratization of working-class organizations and sympathized with the KAPD. According to Hans Manfred Bock, the leadership of the German council communist movement consisted mostly of intellectuals who had already been part of the left wing of the SPD before World War I as well as younger intellectuals, people with a
Bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Beer * National Bohemian, a brand brewed by Pabst * Bohemian, a brand of beer brewed by Molson Coors Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, origin ...
background and academics, who were radicalized by the war. Its membership consisted mostly of younger workers who had not been politically active before the war and former soldiers embittered by the brutality of the war. In September 1921, the Communist Workers' Party of the Netherlands (KAPN) was formed as a Dutch analog to the KAPD. Gorter was supportive of this decision and became its chief spokesman, but Pannekoek was skeptical because he felt conditions for a new organization were not ripe in the Netherlands. The KAPN was modeled on the KAPD and its program was nearly identical to the German party's. It did not, however, manage to replicate the KAPD's mass base and never had more than 200 members. In Bulgaria, too, there was a left communist wing in the
Communist Party A communist party is a political party that seeks to realize the socio-economic goals of communism. The term ''communist party'' was popularized by the title of '' The Manifesto of the Communist Party'' (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel ...
. Led by Ivan Ganchev and influenced by the KAPD, the left formed the
Bulgarian Communist Workers' Party Communist Workers' Party of Bulgaria was a council communist party in the Kingdom of Bulgaria. It was founded in September 1921, and was modelled after the Communist Workers' Party of Germany. It was founded at a conference in the city of Slivnu, ...
(BRKP) in January 1922. It had just over a thousand members, mostly workers and few intellectuals. In the United Kingdom, the former suffragist
Sylvia Pankhurst Estelle Sylvia Pankhurst (5 May 1882 – 27 September 1960) was a campaigning English feminist and socialist. Committed to organising working-class women in London's East End, and unwilling in 1914 to enter into a wartime political truce with t ...
, also opposed to parliamentary politics, was excluded from the
Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...
(CPGB) in September 1921. She formed the Communist Workers' Party (CWP) in February 1922. It claimed to have 500 members, but likely had far fewer.


Decline

From its inception, the KAPD was beset by disputes and internal turmoil. The party was composed of a wide variety of political tendencies and it did not create stable organizations, as its proponents feared they could become bureaucratic and hold back the working class's revolutionary dynamic. As Weimar Germany stabilized in the early 1920s and the council movement of the German Revolution ebbed, the disputes became more pronounced. As early as the KAPD's founding congress, Rühle and
Franz Pfemfert Franz Pfemfert (20 November 1879, Lötzen, East Prussia (now Giżycko, Poland) – 26 May 1954, Mexico City) was a German journalist, editor of ''Die Aktion'', literary critic, politician and portrait photographer. Pfemfert occasionally wrote u ...
, the editor of the journal ''
Die Aktion ''Die Aktion'' ("The Action") was a German literary and political magazine, edited by Franz Pfemfert and published between 1911 and 1932 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf; it promoted literary Expressionism and stood for left-wing politics. To begin with, '' ...
'', were opposed to any centralized party structures and the traditional division of the labor movement into political parties and economic labor unions. In his 1920 brochure ''Revolution is not a Party Matter'', Rühle argued that the goal of the revolutionary movement was to take over production and therefore had no need for a party, which would necessarily become opportunist. Accordingly, Rühle and his supporters left the KAPD in November 1920 and, when it became clear that the pro-KAPD faction was in control of the AAUD in June 1921, they set up the AAUD–Unitary Organization (AAUD–E). The AAUD–E criticized the KAPD for differing from the KPD only in its rejection of parliamentarianism. At the KAPD's second congress in August 1920, the
National Bolshevik National Bolshevism (russian: национал-большевизм, natsional-bol'shevizm, german: Nationalbolschewismus), whose supporters are known as National Bolsheviks (russian: национал-большевики, natsional-bol'sheviki ...
wing of the party was expelled. This wing was led by
Heinrich Laufenberg Heinrich Laufenberg (19 January 1872 – 3 February 1932) was a leading German communist and one of the first to develop the idea of National Bolshevism. Laufenberg was a history academic by profession and was also known by the pseudonym Karl Erle ...
and
Fritz Wolffheim Fritz Wolffheim (30 October 1888 – 17 March 1942) was a German communist politician and writer. He was a leading figure in the National Bolshevism tendency that was briefly influential in Germany after World War I. Early life Wolffheim, who ...
. They supported a strong German nation that, after a successful proletarian revolution, would ally itself with the Soviet Union in a struggle against Western capital and militarism. They also invoked anti-Semitic stereotypes in their critique of Paul Levi, claiming that "because Levi is a Jew, he will play the card of Jewish finance-capital". The next major dispute in the KAPD concerned the formation of a new International opposed to the Comintern, the participation of the AAUD in wage struggles, and the role of the party's leadership around Karl Schröder. Schröder's leadership in the KAPD became increasingly controversial and he was perceived by some as attempting to exert dictatorial control. Politically, Schröder's faction argued that capitalism was in a final crisis that would lead to its demise, but that workers were not yet ready for capitalism's end as they were still under the control of reformist leaders. From this they concluded that the KAPD's role was to firmly adhere to strict revolutionary principles so it could lead workers at a later time. Schröder's opponents agreed that capitalism was in decline, but for them this implied the necessity of a struggle to win workers over and they were more open to flexibility in tactics such as participation in wage struggles, which Schröder dismissed as reformism. In March 1922, this dispute led to a split into an Essen tendency, led by Schröder, and a Berlin tendency, each with its own AAUD affiliate. The Berlin tendency was stronger, but most intellectuals in the KAPD including Gorter joined the Essen tendency. Pannekoek was exasperated by the factionalism in the movement and stayed out of the dispute, though he mostly sympathized with the Berlin tendency. After the KAPD withdrew from the Comintern in 1921, its leadership decided to make plans for the formation of a new International. Schröder and Gorter supported this, but many in the organization were skeptical that the time was right for this move. In April 1922, after the party split, the Essen KAPD and the KAPN formed the
Communist Workers' International The Communist Workers' International (german: Kommunistische Arbeiter-Internationale, KAI) or Fourth Communist International was a council communist international. It was founded around the ''Manifesto of the Fourth Communist International'', ...
(KAI). The BRKP and the CWP joined later. The KAI also claimed to have a Russian affiliate, but in reality it only consisted of two Russians living in Berlin. Gorter wrote the KAI's program. Its organizational structure was similar to the Comintern's, but it never attained any significant influence or activity. The split in the KAPD was replicated in the Bulgarian and Dutch organizations, as groups in each party supported the Essen KAPD and others the Berlin KAPD. After 1922, the council communist organizations declined and disintegrated. The German organizations were down to 20,000 supporters in 1923 and just a few hundred by 1933. The Essen KAPD declined most quickly. In 1923, a faction left to form the League of Council Communists, most of whose members then joined the AAUD–E. In 1925, the Essen KAPD's main leaders including Schröder left to rejoin the SPD as they thought the revival of the council movement of the revolutionary period unlikely. In 1927, Gorter died and by 1929 the group could not afford to publish its newspaper. The Berlin KAPD, having lost its leadership and theorists to the Essen KAPD, spent the next years issuing repeated and widely ignored calls for insurrection. In 1927, it lost its AAUD affiliate which declared itself a party in its own right. The AAUD–E quickly became an assortment of individual groups and tendencies rather than a coherent organization. It lost its leading theorist Rühle in 1925, when he concluded that the political situation was too reactionary for revolutionary politics. In 1927, it merged with a group excluded from the KPD and a union organization to form the Spartacist League of Left Communist Organizations, which in turn merged with the Berlin AAUD in 1931 to create the Communist Workers' Union of Germany, but this organization had a membership of just 343. By the early 1930s, council communism as a large-scale movement had come to an end. According to John Gerber, council communism was a product of the post-war turmoil and, as a result of the end of the council movement, the council communists' politics became abstract. He also attributes council communism's decline as a mass movement to failures by its proponents. They did not develop a politics that could survive under a stabilized capitalism. Council communists did not gain an understanding of the composition of the council movement, the reasons for its decline, and the influence of Leninism and democracy on workers. All this was exacerbated, according to Gerber, by council communists' dogmatism and a lack of leadership at the lower levels.


Continuation in small groups

After the Nazis took power in Germany in 1933, organized council communism disappeared, although a few groups continued in the resistance to the regime. It continued in several small groups in the Netherlands. The Group of International Communists (GIC) became a coordinating center for international debates until the late 1930s. It published the movement's central texts, most prominently Henk Canne Meijer's "The Rise of a New Labour Movement" and Helmut Wagner's "Theses on Bolshevism". Council communists popped up in several other countries. The German emigrant
Paul Mattick Paul Mattick Sr. (March 13, 1904 – February 7, 1981) was a German-American Marxist political writer and social revolutionary, whose thought can be placed within the council communist and left communist traditions. Throughout his life, Mattic ...
brought it to the United States where he published the ''International Council Correspondence''. J.A. Dawson published the ''Southern Advocate of Workers' Councils'' in Australia and Laín Diez published council communist texts in Chile. The 1960s student movement led to a brief resurgence of council communism, mainly in France, Italy, and Germany. After the decline of the 1968 movement, it mostly disappeared again, but for a few small groups in Europe and North America.


Theory

While sharing a common general direction, council communists differed widely in their views on many issues. In contrast to reformist social democracy and to Leninism, the central argument of council communism is that democratic
workers councils A workers' council or labor council is a form of political and economic organization in which a workplace or municipality is governed by a council made up of workers or their elected delegates. The workers within each council decide on what thei ...
arising in factories and municipalities are the natural form of working class organisation and governmental power, maintaining that the working class should not rely on Leninist vanguard parties or reforms of the capitalist system to bring socialism. Alternatively, the party would maintain a propagandic and "minoritarian" role. Council communists see the mass strike and new yet to emerge forms of mass action as revolutionary means to achieve a communist society. Where the network of worker councils would be the main vehicle for revolution, acting as the apparatus by which the
dictatorship of the proletariat In Marxist philosophy, the dictatorship of the proletariat is a condition in which the proletariat holds state power. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the intermediate stage between a capitalist economy and a communist economy, whereby the ...
forms and operates. The government and the economy should be managed by workers' councils composed of delegates elected at workplaces and recallable at any moment. As such, council communists oppose
authoritarian socialism Authoritarian socialism, or socialism from above, is an economic and political system supporting some form of socialist economics while rejecting political liberalism. As a term, it represents a set of economic-political systems describing the ...
. They also oppose the idea of a revolutionary party since council communists believe that a party-led revolution will necessarily produce a party dictatorship. Council communism and other types of libertarian Marxism such as
autonomism Autonomism, also known as autonomist Marxism is an anti-capitalist left-wing political and social movement and theory. As a theoretical system, it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism (). Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tende ...
are often viewed as being similar to
anarchism Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...
due to similar criticisms of Leninist ideologies for being authoritarian and the rejection of the idea of a vanguard party. As such, it is referred to as
anti-authoritarian Anti-authoritarianism is opposition to authoritarianism, which is defined as "a form of social organisation characterised by submission to authority", "favoring complete obedience or subjection to authority as opposed to individual freedom" an ...
and anti-Leninist Marxism.


References


Sources

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Further reading

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External links


Left-Wing, Anti-Bolshevik and Council Communism Archive
at
Marxists.org Marxists Internet Archive (also known as MIA or Marxists.org) is a non-profit online encyclopedia that hosts a multilingual library (created in 1990) of the works of communist, anarchist, and socialist writers, such as Karl Marx, Friedrich En ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Council Communism Anti-Stalinist left Communism Far-left politics Left communism