Re: AUT: KPD (S), KAPD, councilists, russian revolution etc.

["Kurasje Archive" <kurasje@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello Niel, the other Niel, all the Chris's etc. :)

This list has a certain charm of it own. Sometimes nothing of interest, some times too much of interest. And that depends of course of your own
preferences.  -  I have just been away a couple of days and meanwhile you have the discussion going. So I might be somewhat late, but:

> Yes, true the info i got was partially from Dutch and German
> Left by an exICCer , Baroniet , I think. But the key info of my quiery is
> from > P. Rachleff, "Marxism & Council communism' , himself a staunch defender of councilism.

Well, I think his name is Philippe Bourrinet, ICC-theorist/historian, and author of several rather good accounts of both the Bordigist Tradition and the German/Dutsch Council Communism. Go visit his web-site at
http://www.left-dis.nl

As for Peter Rachleff's "Marxism & Council communism" I do not know it unfortunately. May be some day the Collective Action Notes - WEB-site will bring it into the open  -  otherwise I will have to buy it and do it. Please visit:
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2379

But as to our discussion this:

Of course there is a diffence and change from the first generation Council Communists following the I.WW and the council communist of the 30'ies and later.

As Canne-Meier noted Council Communism has its 'infantile disorders' too. Both the KAPD-tendency and the Rühle/AAU-E-tendency of the 20'ies were much too 'biased'/influenced by their own short 'summers' of some 'mass-movement'-success (from 1920 to 1923) to really adapt for the changed world.

But from around 1927 a new period of more critical reflection of thier own history and role begann. The Dutch Group of International Communists (GIC Holland) was the first to emerge as second generation Council Communists. In Germany the restgroups of the the AAU and the AAU-E began more critical selfreflections and finally united in 1931 into the KAU  -  the Communist Workers Union. The original leadeing figures of the KAPD  -  having left the KAPD back in 1922-23  -  founded a new network-organisation called the Rote Kämpfer Groups from around 1930.

In this second period of Council Communism from the end of the 20'ies and up through the 30'ies there was serious attempts not only to adapt practically to new political conditions, but also to critisize the past and refine theoretical and political positions.

You have mentioned one of these positons  -  that on the Russian Revolutiuon of 1917:

> But Pannekoek, Ruhle  and co. by the 30s had decided  USSR was not
> only a Rev usurped  from 1918 on , but that the  Nov. 17 rising was
> 'bourgeois'too.
> Sure the Rev. never got beyong state cap and a bourg. Rev from above but
> the OVERTHROW of Nov '17 was the  working class leading all other classes.

Well here you demonstrate a typical 'left-communist' shortcut, that only proves that you are not totally finished with some leninist ideology. Like the Trotskyists, the KPD-Oppositionists, the Bordigists and even some of the KAPD'ists you seem to be warried about the full consequence of the arguments.

But face realities, read about it, and try to understand history.

There are plenty of studies showing very clearly that the October Revolution was not much more than a well prepared para-military action cleverly lead by the Bolshevic Party in a Capital City that was already given up by most of the other political forces, including the Government.

There are plenty of studies too showing that the Bolshevic's did not exactly support the truly proletarian efforts of self-organisation and collective initiatives to take over the means of production. They sabotaged and counteracted the movement of the factory committees, installed from the very beginning a trade union hegemony with restricted powers etc.

> the OVERTHROW of Nov '17 was the  working class leading all other classes.

In my opinion such a statement is nothing but religion. It is true  -  but only in a very bourgeois sense of politics  -  that the Bolshevics and Lenin by very clever and succesfull manouvring became the last resort for the majority of the Russian people. Everyone else had fled and Trotzky's para-military troops could take the city very easily. And the political sloogans of 'peace, bread and land' was of course in the interest of the workers, but much more of the great majority of the peasants. 'Peace' was the momentary uniting sloogan of all classes and the radical left social-socialdemocratic party of the Bolsheviks was the only ones to put that into practice at the time.  -  This kind of 'leading all other classes' is really just bourgeois politics and nothing more.

This is not to deny the fact that the workers in the industrial centres of Russia were active and involed in serious social and political struggels during 1917. Actually the were and very radically. And actually the Bolshevik Party would not have been able to manage the situation succesfully without this participation of the working class.  -  But it was not 'The Working Class'  -  with capital letters  -  that did the revolution.

Well  -  the second generation and later Council Communists differ themselves from the first generation with a much more clear and radical evaluation of this peace of history. In the 20'is is was only few  -  Otto Rühle and others  '  who dared take the full consequences of the facts to denounce the Russian Revolution. But in the 30'ies and later most of the Council Communists had freed themselves from the illusions and spoke out.

Now  -  none of the Council Communists then or later have ever denied the presence of the workers struggle and of the importance of the workers in the Russian Revolution.

When they ended concluding that the Russian Revolution was a 'bourgois revolutuion' they just followed obviously traditionally marxist arguments: Russia was in no way economically and socially prepared for anthing other than a bourgois revolution, russia's own bourgeoisie was incapable of making such, the Bolshevics with the socialdemocratic potential of mobilisation of the workers to their politics were historically just stand-in's to do what was to be done there.

When calling the "Great October Revolution" bourgeois you do not deny the participation and importance of the workers struggle. This is simply an old bolshevic myth used already at Lenins time and repeated by all his followers. On the contrary the Council Communists have always acknowledged the importance of the workers participation in the 'October'-revolution. They just draw the conclussions to the end after the defeat of this struggle and said things straight out.

The only left escape for leninist here are the hypothecal speculation about 'what if'. What if the Russiona revolution was not trapped and defeated nationally ? What if the German Revolution had succeeded in a similar new 'proletarian state' of 'spartacist workers government' ? What if the revolution had spred internationally and provid another scene for its development ?

Well it did not ! And the Bolsehevics did not support it as anything else than a matter of foreign policy for their state-holder interests ! The whole story about the III. International and the Bolshevik initiatives towards the other communists parties and groups are evidence of nothing else than sabotage to the truly communist perspective !

To stop this:
Yes  -  the Council Communists of the 30'ies were different from the the first Council Communists for the beginning og the 20'ies.
No  -  the later Council Communists were more critical and reflected about their historical experiences than the first, who were actually very confused and more or less left-'bolshevic' orthodocs.

I have only taken the question of the Russian Revolutuion up here. Similar arguments coould be made on other questions of organisation etc.

Greetings
Jens
http://kurasje.tripod.com



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