Reading recommendations: left / council communism
- Thread starter frogwoman
- Start date
Jeff Robinson
Marxist-Lentilist: Jackboots and Jackfruit
Ian Duncan Smith is a Trotskyist.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Yes - bear in mind they come from a left-communist as opposed to council communist tradition - that means they are quite hot for Lenin and much that comes with that - up until around 1921 anyway. Their historical stuff is always worth reading.
october_lost
It's not hip any more...
Did no one mention Pankhurst? I have a the reader published by Dodd, which has some good pieces in.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
CWO don't seem too keen on trotsky though!
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Yes, part 2 is worth a read for this sort of stuff.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
This is now available in pdf form.
http://en.internationalism.org/inte...11/february/left-wing-turkish-communist-party
It's a bit sketchy in places but worth reading.
http://en.internationalism.org/inte...11/february/left-wing-turkish-communist-party
It's a bit sketchy in places but worth reading.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
The group who were produced that and were within the ICC at the time have also produced a pamphlet The internationalist communist left in turkey 2005-2008.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
How contemporary you mean? Since Collective Action Notes and Subversion stopped (and echanges stopped publishing in english_ there's not been anything regular, Red and black notes from canada was always worth a read. Absolute explosion from the mid-late 60s onwards (but as i know that you know about that i suspect you mean more recently).
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Yeah. Exactly. Subversion was perfect for me. Pitched at just the right level. Not too heavy, not too dumbed down. CAN and Echanges I liked too.
Nothing like that around now? Don't often have time these days for long texts and am really not interested in agitprop (except if it looks pretty). Dug out my old copy of Midnight Oil and will re-read that in bits.
But I 'd like to read some stuff about these fairly momentous times we're in now.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
frogwoman you should check out the back issues of Subversion. I'm sure they're online somewhere.
Some stuff here http://libcom.org/tags/subversion
...oh, and the aforementioned Midnight Oil was probably the single book that had the biggest impact on me.
Some stuff here http://libcom.org/tags/subversion
...oh, and the aforementioned Midnight Oil was probably the single book that had the biggest impact on me.
sihhi
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered
The other thing they did was the Left Wing of the Turkish Communist Party: 1920-1927
also on this topic is Loren Goldner's “Socialism in One Country” Before Stalin, and the Origins of Reactionary “Anti-Imperialism”: The Case of Turkey, 1917-1925
http://home.earthlink.net/~lrgoldner/turkey.html
It's good but it mentions the Armenian genocide as one simply one event in 1915, when in fact it is an ongoing process that begins in 1915 but carries on until 1923. It mentions the Kurdish revolt of 1925 but not those of 1919 or 1921 etc so beware.
Obviously, libcom under the tag left communism is also good
http://libcom.org/tags/left-communism
which features theoaklandcommune.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/dutchleft.pdf
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
picked up these guys' paper last night: http://www.freecommunism.org
they seem to be reprinting some old stuff from subervsion. Not sure if i agree with the "menace of anti-fascism" stuff though.
they seem to be reprinting some old stuff from subervsion. Not sure if i agree with the "menace of anti-fascism" stuff though.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
This seems to touch on what chilango was hinting at earlier. I and a few others spent years getting this sort of stuff that was very hard to find back into circulation about 15 years ago - it's now in a million places on the web, so what is the use in printing it off as hard-copy pamphlet and charging two quid for it? People have access to it already! Why not use the lessons that you've taken from the two traditions mentioned in this thread (and we've barelyy touched the surface of them so far on this thread which is why things like anti-anti-fascism may appear confusing right now) and have a look at contemporary conditions yourself?
The only people i can see consistently doing this right now are aufheben - the ICC and the CWO print useful and interesting historical texts, but both largely just force a template from 1910-21 (growing contradictions of capitalism expressing themselves in classical imperialism, the theory of decadence etc). The people who would normally be doing this have floated off an a cloud of communisation theory of their own making. The swp stuff is far in advance of that frankly.
(I mentioned a few weeks back - to chilango again i think - that some people are going to be putting together an echanges type publication soon - i should have info on that shortly for people who may want to get involved)
edit: that said, there is lots of contemporary stuff in italian and french etc.
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
If that's your only fear, then do it anyway and circulate it to people you trust for review before it gets published? If you have the time and the desire to write, then always do it!
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
Explaining things in a basic way without distorting is a very hard thing to do ime.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
yeah that's what i'm worried about. I'll post it on here if it's published tho.
october_lost
It's not hip any more...
I always find it easier to write book reviews than critique ongoing stuff. If your semi well read it will show on a topical book. To write on really topical events I find it difficult, because things move to fast.
Either that or respond to an existing article.
Either that or respond to an existing article.
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
Yeah, obvs Aufheben have written plenty of good stuff, but equally a lot of hard going, dull, stuff. Which has its place I know, but...their stuff on the road protests was top notch, and that's where I encountered them. Goes to show writing from an engaged position tends to be a better read ime.
It was me you mentioned the Echanges type thing to. I look forward to hearing more about it and help out if I can (perhaps more visual than written though!)
chilango
Hypothetical Wanker
I don't think that the "menace of anti-fascism" was one of their better pieces. There are better critiques of anti-fascism out there...
xslavearcx
time for a nu-metal revival?
That maurice brinton pamphlet on libcom is really good.
Lenin went even further. He wrote: "We must raise the question of piece - work and apply and test it in practice . . . we must raise the question of applying much of what is scientific and progressive in the Taylor system (50) . . . the Soviet Republic must at all costs adopt all that is valuable in the achievements of science and technology in this field . . . we must organise in Russia the study and teaching of the Taylor system". Only "the conscious representatives of petty bourgeois laxity" could see in the recent decree on the management of the railways "which granted individual leaders dictatorial powers" some kind of "departure from the collegium principle, from democracy and from other principles of soviet government".
"The irrefutable experience of history has shown that the dictatorship of individual persons was very often the vehicle, the channel of the dictatorship of the revolutionary classes"
"Large - scale machine industry which is the material productive source and foundation of socialism - calls for absolute and strict unity of will . . . How can strict unity of will be ensured? By thousands subordinating their will to the will of one".
"unquestioning submission (emphasis in original) to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of labour processes that are based on large - scale machine industry .... today the Revolution demands, in the interests of socialism, that the masses unquestioningly obey the single will (emphasis in original) of the leaders of the labour process". (51)
Oh dear Lenin oh dear
It seems to me to be a complete no-brainer why one would want to be a part of a left tradition that pays homage to the likes of lenin and trostky and what not. There is a lot of chat about the SWP at the moment, maybe the breaking up of such a large influence of the left that has engaged in exegesis and apologetics for shit that went on in Russia, might bode well for the future...
Seems with the likes of Capital reading groups, many people reading capital, David Harveys awesome fucking lectures online that theres an opportunity for the left to go towards a sola scriptura type event akin to the biblicism of Luther whereby the rubbish that has been built up around a text can be thrown into the dustbin where it belongs. It would be such a sigh of relief to talk about a marxian analysis of the present situation without having to make excuses for all sorts of dodgy dictatorship regimes that have popped up in the name of marx over the years!!
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
yes i read it and i thought it was bollocks. I mean yes there are problems with the whole "united fronts" and allying with capitalist parties to "smash the bnp" but we all knpw that.
can you recommend me a better critique?
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