{{short description|Left-wing variant of communism}} {{distinguish|text=the Left Opposition, a Russian communist faction led by Leon Trotsky in the 1920s}} {{redirect|Left Communists|the historical groups|Left Communists (Soviet Russia)|and|Left Communists (Weimar Republic)}} {{More citations needed|date=August 2021}} {{use dmy dates|date=June 2019}} {{left communism sidebar|expanded=all}} {{Marxism|variants}} '''Left communism''', or the '''communist left''', describes a range of positions held by the left wing of communism, which criticises the political ideas and practices held by Marxist–Leninists and social democrats.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Communist Left in the Third International |first=Amadeo |last=Bordiga |author-link=Amadeo Bordiga |date=1926 |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1926/comintern.htm |access-date=23 September 2021 |via=Marxists Internet Archive}}</ref> Left communists assert positions which they regard as more authentically Marxist than the views of Marxism–Leninism espoused by the Communist International after its Bolshevization by Joseph Stalin and during its second congress.<ref name="Non-Leninist Marxism">{{cite book |title=Non-Leninist Marxism: Writings on the Workers Councils |date=2007 |publisher=Red and Black Publishers |isbn=978-0-9791813-6-8 |location=St. Petersburg, Florida |first1=Hermann |last1=Gorter |author1-link=Herman Gorter |first2=Antonie |last2=Pannekoek |author2-link=Antonie Pannekoek |first3=Sylvia |last3=Pankhurst |author3-link=Sylvia Pankhurst |first4=Otto |last4=Rühle |author4-link=Otto Rühle}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Bordiga |first1=Amadeo |author1-link=Amadeo Bordiga |title=Dialogue with Stalin |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1952/stalin.htm |via=Marxists Internet Archive |access-date=15 May 2019}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |first=Ronald I. |last=Kowalski |title=The Bolshevik Party in Conflict: The Left Communist Opposition of 1918 |publisher=Palgrave MacMillan |location=Basingstoke, England |date=1991 |isbn=978-1-349-10369-0 |doi=10.1007/978-1-349-10367-6 |page=2}}</ref> There have been two primary currents of left communism since World War I, namely the Italian left and the Dutch–German left.
The Italian communist left tends to follow Bordigism (though a smaller Damenite current exists) and considers itself to be Leninist, but denounces Marxism–Leninism as a form of bourgeois opportunism materialized in the Soviet Union under Stalin. The Italian current of left communism was historically represented by the Italian Socialist Party and the Communist Party of Italy but today is embodied in the Internationalist Communist Party of Italy, International Communist Party, and the International Communist Current.
The Dutch–German left split from Vladimir Lenin prior to Stalin's rule and supports a firmly council communist viewpoint as opposed to the Italian left which emphasised the need for an international revolutionary party.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://libcom.org/history/bordigist-current-1919-1999-philippe-bourrinet |title=The Bordigist Current (1919-1999) |first=Philippe |last=Bourrinet |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220120144207/https://libcom.org/history/bordigist-current-1919-1999-philippe-bourrinet |archive-date=20 January 2022}}</ref> The Dutch–German current of left communism was historically represented by the Communist Workers' Party of Germany, General Workers' Union of Germany, and the Communist Workers' International.
Left communism differs from most other forms of Marxism in believing that communists should not participate in bourgeois democratic elections, and some argue against participating in trade unions. However, many left communists split over their criticism of the Bolsheviks. Council communists criticised the Bolsheviks for use of the party form and emphasised a more autonomous organisation of the working class, without political parties.
Although she was murdered in 1919 before left communism became a distinct tendency, Rosa Luxemburg has been heavily influential for most left communists, both politically and theoretically. Proponents of left communism have included Herman Gorter, Antonie Pannekoek, Otto Rühle, Karl Korsch, Amadeo Bordiga, Paul Mattick, Onorato Damen, Jacques Camatte, and Sylvia Pankhurst.<ref name="Non-Leninist Marxism" /> Later prominent theorists are shared with other tendencies such as Antonio Negri, a founding theorist of the autonomist tendency.<ref name="Negri 1991">{{cite book |translator-first=Michael |translator-last=Ryan |first=Antonio |last=Negri |author-link=Antonio Negri |title=Marx beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse |location=New York |publisher=Autonomedia |date=1991}}</ref>
== Early history and overview == Two major traditions can be observed within left communism, namely the Dutch–German current and the Italian current.<ref>{{cite magazine |first=A. |last=Smeaton |url=http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2003-08-01/background-on-the-italian-communist-left-bordiga-and-bordigism |title=Background on the Italian Communist Left, Bordiga and Bordigism |magazine=Internationalist Communist |issue=22 |via=Leftcom |date=1 August 2003 |access-date=17 October 2013 }}</ref> The political positions those traditions share are opposition to popular fronts, to many kinds of nationalism and national liberation movements and to parliamentarianism.{{cn|date=June 2025}}
The historical origins of left communism come from World War I.<ref>{{cite book |first=Rosa |last=Luxemburg |author-link=Rosa Luxemburg |title=The Junius Pamphlet |date=1915 |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1915/junius/index.htm |access-date=23 September 2021 |via=Marxists Internet Archive }}</ref> Most left communists are supportive of the October Revolution in Russia, but retain a critical view of its development. However, some in the Dutch–German current would in later years come to reject the idea that the revolution had a proletarian or socialist nature, arguing that it had simply carried out the tasks of the bourgeois revolution by creating a state capitalist system.<ref name="Fox - Ante Ciliga">{{cite journal |last=Fox |first=Michael S. |date=Spring 1991 |url=http://geocities.com/cordobakaf/ciliga_trotsky.pdf |title=Ante Ciliga, Trotskii, and State Capitalism: Theory, Tactics, and Reevaluation during the Purge Era, 1935–1939 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |journal=Slavic Review |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=127–143 |doi=10.2307/2500604 |jstor=2500604 |s2cid=155654843 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091027132653/http://geocities.com/cordobakaf/ciliga_trotsky.pdf |archive-date=27 October 2009 |access-date=26 June 2020 |via=GeoCities}}</ref>
Left communism first came into focus as a distinct movement around 1918. Its essential features were a stress on the need to build a communist party or workers' council entirely separate from the reformist and centrist elements who "betrayed the proletariat", opposition to all but the most restricted participation in elections and an emphasis on militancy. Apart from this, there was little in common between the two wings. Only the Italians accepted the need for electoral work at all for a very short period of time which they later vehemently opposed, attracting criticism from Vladimir Lenin in ''"Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder''.<ref name="marxists1920">{{cite book |last=Lenin |first=V.I. |author-link=Vladimir Lenin |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm |title=Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder |via=Marxists Internet Archive |access-date=17 October 2013 }}</ref>
== Russian left communism == Left Bolshevism emerged in 1907 as the Vpered group challenged Vladimir Lenin's perceived authoritarianism and parliamentarianism. The group included Alexander Bogdanov, Maxim Gorky, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Mikhail Pokrovsky, Grigory Aleksinsky, Stanislav Volski and Martyn Liadov. The ''Otzovists'', or Recallists, advocated the recall of RSDLP representatives from the Third Duma. Bogdanov and his allies accused Lenin and his partisans of promoting liberal democracy through "parliamentarism at any price".<ref name="Sochor (1988)">{{cite book |last=Sochor |first=Z. A. |url=https://archive.org/details/revolutioncultur00soch_0 |title=Revolution and Culture: The Bogdanov-Lenin Controversy |publisher=Cornell University Press |date=28 March 1988 |pages=4–8 |isbn=9780801420887}}</ref>{{rp|page=8}}
The faction largely died out by the end of 1918, as its leaders accepted that much of their program was unrealistic under the circumstances of the Russian Civil War and as the policies of War Communism satisfied their demands for a radical transformation of the economy. The Military Opposition and the Workers' Opposition inherited some characteristics and members of the Left Bolsheviks, as did Gavril Myasnikov's Workers Group of the Russian Communist Party during the debates on the New Economic Policy and the succession to Lenin. Most Left Bolsheviks were affiliated with the Left Opposition in the 1920s, and were expelled from the party in 1927 and later killed during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge.<ref name=":022">{{Cite book |last=Smele |first=Jonathan D. |title=Historical Dictionary of the Russian Civil Wars, 1916{{endash}}1926 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-4422-5280-6 |location=Lanham |pages=667{{endash}}668}}</ref>
== 1952–1968 == {{See also|Left communism in China|Shengwulian}}
Examples of left communism ideological currents existed in China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR). For example, the Hunan rebel group the Shengwulian argued for "smashing" the existing state apparatus and establishing a "People's Commune of China" based on the democratic ideals of the Paris Commune.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Meisner |first=Maurice J. |author-link=Maurice Meisner |title=Mao's China and after: a history of the People's Republic |date=1986 |isbn=0-02-920870-X |edition=A revised and expanded edition of Mao's China |location=New York |pages=343–344 |oclc=13270932}}</ref>
== Since 1968 == The uprisings of May 1968 led to a large resurgence of interest in left communist ideas in France where various groups were formed and published journals regularly until the late 1980s when the interest started to fade.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://archivesautonomies.org/spip.php?rubrique16 |title=Archive of French left communist journals after 1952 |access-date=12 April 2020 |website=Archives Autonomies }}</ref> A tendency called communization was invented in the early 1970s by French left communists, synthesizing different currents of left communism. It remains influential in libertarian marxist and left communist circles today.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://endnotes.org.uk/other_texts/en/friends-of-the-classless-society-on-communisation-and-its-theorists |title=On Communisation and Its Theorists |access-date=12 April 2020 |website=Endnotes }}</ref> Outside of France, various small left communist groups emerged, predominantly in the leading capitalist countries.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://en.internationalism.org/wr/313/may-68 |title=May 68: the student movement in France and the world |access-date=19 December 2015 |website=Internationalism }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://en.internationalism.org/print/book/export/html/4991 |title=Contribution to a history of the workers' movement in Africa (v): May 1968 in Senegal |date=May 2012 |access-date=19 December 2015 |website=Internationalism |last=Lassou }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://en.internationalism.org/2008/09/japan-1968 |title=1968 in Japan: the student movement and workers' struggles |date=23 March 2008 |access-date=19 December 2015 |website=Internationalism |author=Ken }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/2008/june/Germany-1968 |title=1968 in Germany (Part 1): Behind the protest movement – the search for a new society |date=26 May 2008 |access-date=19 December 2015 |website=Internationalism }}</ref> In the late 1970s and early 1980s the Internationalist Communist Party initiated a series of conferences of the communist left to engage those new elements, also attended by the International Communist Current.<ref>{{cite book |title=The "Bordigist" Current (1912-1952) |first=Philippe |last=Bourrinet |year=2000 |pages=332–333}}</ref> As a result of these, in 1983 the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party (later renamed as the Internationalist Communist Tendency) was established by the Internationalist Communist Party and the British Communist Workers' Organisation.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.leftcom.org/en/about-us |title=Internationalist Communist Tendency|date=January 2000 }}</ref>
Prominent post-1968 proponents of left communism have included Paul Mattick and Maximilien Rubel. Prominent left communist groups existing today include the International Communist Party, the International Communist Current and the Internationalist Communist Tendency.<ref>{{cite book |last=Bourseiller |first=Christophe |author-link=Christophe Bourseiller |title=Histoire générale de l'Ultra-Gauche |language=fr |trans-title=General history of the Ultra-Left |year=2003 |publisher=Editions Denoël |location=Paris |isbn=2207251632}}</ref> In addition to the left communist groups in the direct lineage of the Italian and Dutch traditions, a number of groups with similar positions have flourished since 1968, such as the workerist and autonomist movements in Italy; Kolinko, Kurasje, Wildcat;<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wildcat-www.de/ |title=Wildcat |publisher=Wildcat-www.de |date=21 September 2013 |access-date=17 October 2013 }}</ref> Subversion and Aufheben in England; {{lang|fr|Théorie Communiste, Echanges et Mouvements and Démocratie Communiste}} in France; TPTG<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.tapaidiatisgalarias.org |script-title=el:Τα παιδιά της γαλαρίας |title=Ta paidiá tis galarías |language=el |trans-title=The children of the gallery |publisher=Tapaidiatisgalarias.org |access-date=17 October 2013 }}</ref> and Blaumachen<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.blaumachen.gr |title=Blaumachen – journal |publisher=Blaumachen.gr |access-date=17 October 2013 }}</ref> in Greece; Kamunist Kranti in India; and Collective Action Notes and Loren Goldner in the United States.
== See also == {{portal|Communism}} {{cols|colwidth=21em}} * Marxism * Orthodox Marxism * Autonomism * Authoritarian socialism * Council communism * Left-wing politics * Left communism in China * Libertarian socialism * List of left-wing internationals * List of left communists * Luxemburgism * Ultra-leftism {{colend}}
== References == {{reflist}}
== Further reading == * ''Non-Leninist Marxism: Writings on the Workers Councils'' (2007) (includes texts by Herman Gorter, Antonie Pannekoek, Sylvia Pankhurst and Otto Rühle). St. Petersburg, Florida: Red and Black Publishers. {{ISBN|978-0-9791813-6-8}}. * ''Alexandra Kollontai: Selected Writing''. Allison & Busby, 1984. * Pannekoek, Anton. ''Workers Councils''. AK Press, 2003. Introduction by Noam Chomsky * The International Communist Current, itself a left communist grouping, has produced a series of studies of what it views as its own antecedents. In particular, the book on the Dutch–German current, which is by Philippe Bourrinet (who later left the ICC), contains an exhaustive bibliography. **''The Italian Communist Left 1926–1945'' ({{ISBN|1897980132}}). ** ''The Dutch-German Communist Left'' ({{ISBN|1899438378}}). ** ''The Russian Communist Left, 1918–1930'' ({{ISBN|1897980108}}). ** ''The British Communist Left, 1914–1945'' ({{ISBN|1897980116}}). * Also of interest is volume 5 number 4 of Spring 1995 of the journal ''Revolutionary History''. "Through Fascism, War and Revolution: Trotskyism and Left Communism in Italy". * In addition, there is a good deal of material published on the Internet in various languages. A useful starting point is the [http://www.marxists.org/subject/left-wing/index.htm Left Communism collection] published on the Marxists Internet Archive.
{{left communism}}
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