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Telling the Truth About Class
TELLING THE TRUTH ABOUT CLASS G. M. TAMÁS ne of the central questions of social theory has been the relationship Obetween class and knowledge, and this has also been a crucial question in the history of socialism. Differences between people – acting and knowing subjects – may influence our view of the chances of valid cognition. If there are irreconcilable discrepancies between people’s positions, going perhaps as far as incommensurability, then unified and rational knowledge resulting from a reasoned dialogue among persons is patently impossible. The Humean notion of ‘passions’, the Nietzschean notions of ‘resentment’ and ‘genealogy’, allude to the possible influence of such an incommensurability upon our ability to discover truth. Class may be regarded as a problem either in epistemology or in the philosophy of history, but I think that this separation is unwarranted, since if we separate epistemology and the philosophy of history (which is parallel to other such separations characteristic of bourgeois society itself) we cannot possibly avoid the rigidly-posed conundrum known as relativism. In speak- ing about class (and truth, and class and truth) we are the heirs of two socialist intellectual traditions, profoundly at variance with one another, although often intertwined politically and emotionally. I hope to show that, up to a point, such fusion and confusion is inevitable. All versions of socialist endeavour can and should be classified into two principal kinds, one inaugurated by Rousseau, the other by Marx. The two have opposite visions of the social subject in need of liberation, and these visions have determined everything from rarefied epistemological posi- tions concerning language and consciousness to social and political attitudes concerning wealth, culture, equality, sexuality and much else. -
Council Communism Or Councilism? - the Period of Transition a Book Review by Fredo Corvo
Council communism or councilism? - The period of transition A book review by Fredo Corvo Book review of Philippe Bourrinet “The Dutch and German Communist Left (1900-68); ‘Neither Lenin nor Trotsky nor Stalin!”, ‘All workers must think for themselves!’”, Leiden/Boston (Brill) ISBN 978-90-04-26977-4. This book in fact is based on a master thesis in French language, defended at the Sorbonne University Paris, 1988. Since then editions in several languages appeared, with or without permission of the author, or of the International Communist Current, who claims to be its ‘collective author’. Therefor it is unfortunately that this new edition by Brill doesn’t explain the differences with the master thesis. For readers that know the Porcupine Press English language edition, I found two additions. A fragment preceding chapter 1, on Religion, Capitalism and colonial Empire: From the ‘Golden Age’ to the Decline, gives a short overview of the history of the Netherlands before industrialization. A text added to chapter 11, International Council-Communists up to the 1970s adds interesting information of studies published since 1987, which can be found in the bibliography. On the other hand, some of the more recent works are missing here as well as in the 58 pages long section ‘Further reading’: for example, Gerber’s and Boekelman's biographies of Anton Pannekoek. No doubt this study is impressive for many reasons, of which its international scope and its internationalist approach are the most important. No coincidence the author identifies with the Communist left, consisting mainly of the German-Dutch left and the Italian left, having published several studies on the latter as well. -
Anton Pannekoek: Ways of Viewing Science and Society
STUDIES IN THE HISTORY OF KNOWLEDGE Tai, Van der Steen & Van Dongen (eds) Dongen & Van Steen der Van Tai, Edited by Chaokang Tai, Bart van der Steen, and Jeroen van Dongen Anton Pannekoek: Ways of Viewing Science and Society Ways of Viewing ScienceWays and Society Anton Pannekoek: Anton Pannekoek: Ways of Viewing Science and Society Studies in the History of Knowledge This book series publishes leading volumes that study the history of knowledge in its cultural context. It aspires to offer accounts that cut across disciplinary and geographical boundaries, while being sensitive to how institutional circumstances and different scales of time shape the making of knowledge. Series Editors Klaas van Berkel, University of Groningen Jeroen van Dongen, University of Amsterdam Anton Pannekoek: Ways of Viewing Science and Society Edited by Chaokang Tai, Bart van der Steen, and Jeroen van Dongen Amsterdam University Press Cover illustration: (Background) Fisheye lens photo of the Zeiss Planetarium Projector of Artis Amsterdam Royal Zoo in action. (Foreground) Fisheye lens photo of a portrait of Anton Pannekoek displayed in the common room of the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy. Source: Jeronimo Voss Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 434 9 e-isbn 978 90 4853 500 2 (pdf) doi 10.5117/9789462984349 nur 686 Creative Commons License CC BY NC ND (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0) The authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2019 Some rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, any part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise). -
Further Reading
Further Reading A bibliography on the communist left in the Netherlands cannot be limited to the sources and studies existing either in the Dutch language or in the Netherlands. The merging of the kapd current, descended from the Spartakusbund – with the Gorter and Pannekoek current – gave birth to an international revolutionary current, from 1920 onwards. This current developed simultaneously in a number of countries: Bulgaria, Russia, Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Great Britain; then – during the 1930s – in France, Belgium, Denmark and in the United States. The Dutch communist left must be placed in this international context, which shows something of the state of the subject. The existence of archives and documents, dealing with German-Dutch left- communism, in almost ten languages, gave us an idea of the scope of the research-work. In this updated bibliography, we shall deliberately confine ourselves to a few coun- tries, more particularly the Netherlands and Germany. Archival Sources Russian State-Archive of Socio-Political History (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sot- sial’no-politicheskoi istorii, rgaspi, Russian Centre for Preservation and Study of Re- cords of Modern History): Dossiers 488–93: Comintern congresses; 495: Exekutiv Komi- tee der Kommunistischen Internationale (ekki); 497: Amsterdam Bureau; 499: West- Europäisches Büro (web); 581: Wijnkoop archives; 626: Rutgers archives. Het Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie (riod, Amsterdam): The State-Institute for War Documentation, in Amsterdam, includes an important dossier on the Marx- Lenin-Luxemburg Front led by Henk Sneevliet as well as illegal publications of this group (web: http://www.riod.nl/collecties.html). iisg (Internationaal Instituut voor Sociale Geschiedenis, Amsterdam). The website of the International Institute of Social History gives up-to-date descriptions of its archives: https://socialhistory.org/en/archives. -
The “Bordigist Current”
THE “BORDIGIST CURRENT” (1919-1999) Italy, France, Belgium Philippe Bourrinet Index Introduction ...........................................................................................................5 1. The origins (1912-1926) ........................................................................................11 2. German Left or Italian Left? ...................................................................................30 3. The Birth of the Left Fraction of the PCI ..............................................................45 1933-39 Bilan. Milestones on the road to defeat 4. The Weight of the Counter-Revolution..................................................................65 5. The War in Spain: No Betrayal! .............................................................................88 6. Towards war or revolution? (1937-39) ..................................................................103 7. Balance sheet of the Russian Revolution...............................................................115 1939-45 Trial by fire 8. The ordeal of war: from fraction to party? ............................................................137 9. The “Partito Comunista Internazionalista” ...........................................................153 Conclusion..........................................................................................................167 Appendix 1 DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES OF THE BELGIAN FRACTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST LEFT...................170 Appendix 2 Manifesto of the Communist Left -
What Is to Be Done? Leninism, Anti-Leninist Marxism and the Question of Revolution Today
Chapter 1 What is to be Done? Leninism, anti-Leninist Marxism and the Question of Revolution today Werner Bonefeld and Sergio Tischler I Of one thing we can be certain. The ideologies of the twentieth century will disappear completely. This has been a lousy century. It has been filled with dogmas, dogmas that one after another have cost us time, suffering, and much injustice (Garcia Marquez, 1990). Amid the resurgence of anti-capitalist movements across the globe, the centenary of Lenin’s What is to be Done? in 2002 has largely gone unnoticed. Leninism has fallen on hard times – and rightly so. It leaves a bitter taste of a revolution whose heroic struggle turned into a nightmare. The indifference to Leninism is understandable. What, however, is disturbing is the contemporary disinterest in the revolutionary project. What does anti-capitalism in its contemporary form of anti- globalization mean if it is not a practical critique of capitalism and what does it wish to achieve if its anti-capitalism fails to espouse the revolutionary project of human emancipation? Anti-capitalist indifference to revolution is a contradiction in terms. Rather then freeing the theory and practice of revolution from Leninism, its conception of revolutionary organization in the form of the party, and its idea of the state whose power is to be seized, as an instrument of revolution, remain uncontested. Revolution seems to mean Leninism, now appearing in moderated form as Trotskyism. Orthodox Marxism invests great energy in its attempt to incorporate the 2 What is to be Done? class struggle into preconceived conceptions of organization, seeking to render them manageable under the direction of the party. -
Franz Peter Utzelmann Papers (1918-) 1944-19721944-1972
Franz Peter Utzelmann Papers (1918-) 1944-19721944-1972 International Institute of Social History Cruquiusweg 31 1019 AT Amsterdam The Netherlands hdl:10622/ARCH01508 © IISH Amsterdam 2020 Franz Peter Utzelmann Papers (1918-) 1944-19721944-1972 Table of contents Franz Peter Utzelmann Papers........................................................................................................3 Context............................................................................................................................................... 3 Content and Structure........................................................................................................................3 Access and Use.................................................................................................................................4 ............................................................................................................................................................5 I. Korrespondenz.......................................................................................................................... 5 II. Manuskripte von Peter Utzelmann......................................................................................... 6 III. Dossiers zur Tätigkeit nach 1945..........................................................................................7 IV. Persönliches...........................................................................................................................8 International Institute of -
Marxism and State Communism. the Withering Away of the State”)
Re-edition: Left-dis, December 2017 Marxism and State Communism The Withering Away of the State Group(s) of International Communists (G.I.C.) Holland, 1932 Based on: ‘Marx-Engels und Lenin’ Über die Rolle des Staates in der proletarischen Revolution (Max Hempel in: ‘Proletarier’ nrs. 4 – 6, 1927) 2 Version 1.1, May 28, 2021 From the editors This text originally appeared as a three part article in Proletarier, nrs. 4–6, 1927, a monthly organ of the Berlin tendency of the K.A.P.D. Its author (Jan Appel) signed with his pseudonym ‘Max Hempel’. In 1932 a translation in Dutch language appeared as a pamphlet of the Group(s) of International Commu- nists (G.I.C.) with the title ‘Marxisme en staatscommunisme. Het afsterven van de staat’ (“Marxism and State Communism. The Withering Away of the State”). Appel was himself a founding member of the G.I.C. The publication in Dutch was partly an adaptation. For this English translation both the Dutch and the German versions have been transcribed and compared to one another. Relevant textual differences are indicated in footnotes. Wherever possible, web refer- ences to quoted texts and/or text passages have been added. The subheadings and text accentuation follow the Dutch edition of 1932. The sparse text insertions in square brackets are from the editors. A photocopy of the 1927 article in Proletarier (in German) is available as a pdf-file at the Archives An- tonie Pannekoek web site: http://aaap.be/Pdf/Proletarier/Proletarier-1927.pdf. A scanned image of the G.I.C. -
1 Council Democracy
Council Democracy: Towards a Democratic Socialist Politics James Muldoon ORCID: 0000-0003-3307-1318 Abstract: This introductory chapter provides an outline of the main contours of a theory of council democracy and offers a preliminary sketch of council democracy’s relationship with the major strands of democratic theory. Council democracy is a project of deepening democracy which includes the decentralisation of the state, democratisation of the economy and solidarity with similar international struggles for self-government. Council democrats view capitalist market relations as something that not only have to be tamed, but transformed in a manner which alters the underlying relationship between capital and labour and eliminates capitalists’ controlling power over workers and the state. Introduction Capitalism and democracy have long been uncomfortable bedfellows. But with the ascendancy of a neoliberal rationality of governance, the expansion of corporate power and the increase of income and wealth disparities, the uneasy interaction between the two has gradually led to a hollowing out of democracy by powerful economic interests. Today, not only is policy and law-making in most advanced industrial democracies dominated by a wealthy elite, but a marketplace rationality has seeped into governing institutions and the practices of daily life, undermining the very fabric of democracy as collective self-rule.1 These developments reflect the influence of Friedrich Hayek’s theory that markets should be freed from excessive political regulation and government intervention in order to deliver maximum productivity and efficiency. The post-World War II belief in a mixed economy and the necessity of a strong role for government in economic planning has been replaced by a neoliberal consensus concerning the dangers of government intervention in the economy. -
Gramsci's Political and Cultural Theory
HECEMONY AND REVOLUTION ANTONIO GRAMSCI'S POLITICAL AND CULTURAL THEORY WALTER L. ADAMSON Hegemony and Revolution w ALTER L. ADAMSON HEGEMONY AND REVOLUTION A Study of Antonio Gramsci's Political and Cultural Theory UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley. Los Angl'lrs. London University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England Cl 1980 by The Regents of the University of California Printed in the United States of America I 234 5 6 7 8 9 Library of Conlrrss Cata[otin, in Publication Data Adamson, Walter L. Hc,emony and ,""vo[ution. Antonio Gram",j's political and cultural theory Bibliography: p. Includes indu I. Gramsci. Antonio. 189[-1937. 2. Gram""i. Antonio, 1�91-19J7-Polil;cal science. I. Title. tlX288.G7A�8 320.3')2"0924 79-64478 [SBN O-S2O-{lJ92U To my mother and ja(her and fO (he memory oj my grand/others Contents Acknowledgments Introduction PART ONE 1. The Formative Years 15 Cuhure and Politics in Post-Risorgimento italy 19 Between Croce and La Voce 26 Organizing a Collective Will 34 2. The "New Order" and II.f Col/apse 43 Gramsci's Russia and the Road to Marx 44 The �New Order" in Turin 50 Revolt in the PSI 64 3. FO!;ch.. ", Qlld Revolution in the WeSl 71 United Front and Fusion 73 The Meaning of Fascism 77 A Revolutionary Reassessment 82 Chairman Gramsci and the Southern Question 90 PARTTWQ 4. Philosophy as Political £dUc"ulion 105 Plato, Hegel, and Marx 106 The Second International and Its Critics 112 Bukharin. -
Herman Gorter Open Letter to Comrade Lenin (1921)
Herman Gorter Open letter to comrade Lenin (1921) INTRODUCTION by WILDCAT The current period is one in which Communism is supposed to be bankrupt. The recent events in China and the open acceptance of market economics and political democracy by most of Eastern Europe are used by the Western media to convince us that the epoch of communism, which they say began with the Russian revolution of October 1917, is coming to an end. Yet, shortly after that event critics had already begun to doubt the communist credentials of the new rulers of Russia. From 1921 especially, tendencies emerged which saw the social systems of Russia, and later the rest of Eastern Europe, China, etc., as another form of capitalism. Herman Gorter belonged to one such tendency, the German Communist Left. For all its errors, his Open Letter is a communist pamphlet. And its target is unequivocally capitalist. This is the full text of one the the landmark texts of the Communist Left: Herman Gorter's Open Letter To Comrade Lenin. Dirt-cheap copies of Lenin's notorious diatribe against the Communist Left, "Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder, have been churned out by the ton by the state presses of Moscow and Peking, whereas Gorter's methodical destruction of Lenin's arguments has languished in near-total obscurity, at least to the English-speaking world, for nearly seventy years. Its reappearance is long overdue. The Open Letter was published in French by Spartacus, Paris, in 1979. The original Russian text of Lenin's pamphlet was dated April- May 1920, and during the next few months it was published in various other languages. -
2 German Left Or Italian Left? (From Réveil Communiste to L’Ouvrier Communiste)
2 German Left or Italian Left? (From Réveil Communiste to L’Ouvrier Communiste) The Italian Communist Left did not remain indifferent to the existence of other lefts in the International during the 1920’s. Considering itself an integral part of the International, it acquainted itself with the theses defended by the KAPD and its theoreticians Gorter and Pannekoek. In Il Soviet, it published the fundamental texts of the current of the ‘German Left’. It was natural that there should be a certain convergence between the two currents in the face of the Comintern’s attacks on ‘extremism’, defined by Lenin as an ‘infantile disorder’. On the question of abstentionism, on the rejection of the United Front with social democracy (a tactic adopted at the Comintern’s 3rd Congress), in their common rejection of a fusion with the German ‘Independents’ and the Italian ‘maximalists’, there was a clear identity of views. However, this ‘identity’ remained highly relative, and was of short duration. After the Comintern’s 2nd Congress (in 1920), Bordiga - assured of the International’s support for the formation of a communist party through a split with the reformists and the maximalists, and firmly committed to the new world party of the revolution - pur to one side his opposition on the parliamentary question. He put forward the idea that the divergence with the theses defended by Lenin and Bukharin on participation in elections was a matter of tactics, not of principles. For Bordiga, who despite everything remained an abstentionist, the most urgent question was the constitution of a real communist party attached to the International.