Introduction

'Left'-communism is a revisionist and anti-Marxist trend within the socialist movement. This is not an original claim, even Lenin himself wrote a polemic on the subject (See "Left-wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder) . 'Left'-communism is frequently allowed to reign freely on bourgeois media, because, well, it is useful for the bourgeoisie, as it has no revolutionary potential. The two main trends in 'left'-communism are Council Communism and Bordigism.

Council Communism

 We can begin with a short explanatory passage from Paul Mattick, one of the first Council Communists:

The parties of the workers, like those of the capitalists became limited corporations, the elemental needs of the class were subordinated to political expediency. Revolutionary objectives were displaced by horse-trading and manipulations for political positions. The party became all-important, its immediate objectives superseded those of the class. Where revolutionary situations set into motion the class, whose tendency is to fight for the realization of the revolutionary objective, the parties of the workers “represented” the working class and were themselves “represented” by parliamentarians whose very position in parliament constituted resignation to their status as bargainers within a capitalist order whose supremacy was no longer challenged.

- Mattick, The Masses & The Vanguard, 1938

This demonstrates a misunderstanding of what a vanguard party is. A vanguard party is not a small group of people who aren't proletarians trying to represent the proletariat. A vanguard is the most advanced, most politically class-conscious section of the proletariat. The vanguard party is the political representative of the vanguard. The more people are class-conscious, the more people are in the vanguard party. The Bolshevik party had millions of members who were laborers themselves, not a part of some "political class."

This also goes against Marx and Engels, who said:

Against the collective power of the propertied classes the working class cannot act, as a class, except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes.
This constitution of the working class into a political party is indispensable in order to insure the triumph of the social revolution and its ultimate end — the abolition of classes. [emphasis mine: A.G.]

- Marx, Resolutions of the Conference of Delegates of the International Working Men's Association, 1871

Experience has shown everywhere that the best way to emancipate the workers from this domination of the old parties is to form in each country a proletarian party with a policy of its own, a policy which is manifestly different from that of the other parties, because it must express the conditions necessary for the emancipation of the working class. This policy may vary in details according to the specific circumstances of each country; but as the fundamental relations between labour and capital are the same everywhere and the political domination of the possessing classes over the exploited classes is an existing fact everywhere, the principles and aims of proletarian policy will be identical, at least in all western countries. [emphasis mine: A.G.]

- Engels, To the Spanish Federal Council of the IWMA, 1871

The primary mode of organization of the proletariat, according to Marx and Engels, is not a worker's council, but a party. After all, a party is, by definition, the political representative of a class. Mattick also believed that the Russian revolution did not have proletarian aims:

I deny the assumption of the first question that the Bolshevik Revolution had proletarian aims. The proletarian character of the Russian Revolution is only apparent. It is true that the revolutionary workers were striving for a vaguely conceived sort of socialism, but in every bourgeois revolution in which workers participated, proletarian objectives were evident.


[...]

The Bolshevik Revolution, however, aspired to the development of modern industry and of a modern proletariat, a fact which comes clearly to light in the bolshevistic concept of “socialism,” which still contains wage labor and capital production, and secures those relations through the division of society into rulers and ruled.

[...]

It is often asked how it is possible that power won by the workers by way of revolution may be lost again without a counter-revolution. The latter here is conceived as a return of the old authorities, but counter-revolutionary actions are not confined to old authorities; new officials can engage in them just as well, or even better. The counter-revolution against the state-capitalistic intent of the Russian Revolution was defeated by the Russian masses following the directives of the Bolsheviks. The counter-revolution against the proletarian objectives expressed within this revolution was triumphant with the success of Bolshevism, which transformed private property into state property, and continued the exploitation of the workers on state-capitalistic terms. [emphasis mine: A.G.]

- Mattick, Was the Bolshevik Revolution a Failure?, 1938

This demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of the NEP and of it's character, one that's conclusion results in Menshevism somehow being more proletarian than Bolshevism. The Russian Revolution was a proletarian revolution, and had to temporarily create state capitalism as to have a majority of the masses be members of the industrial proletariat. In Russia, before the Russian Revolution, capitalism was extremely undeveloped. Ergo, the population was majority peasantry instead of proletarian.

In view of the fact that in the epoch preceding commodity economy, manufacturing is combined with the raw materials industry, and the latter is headed by agriculture, the development of commodity economy takes the shape of the separation from agriculture of one branch of industry after another. The population of a country in which commodity economy is poorly developed (or not developed at all) is almost exclusively agricultural. This, however, must not be understood as meaning that the population is engaged solely in agriculture: it only means that the population engaged in agriculture, also process the products of agriculture, and that exchange and the division of labour are almost non-existent. Consequently, the development of commodity economy eo ipso means the divorcement of an ever-growing part of the population from agriculture, i.e., the growth of the industrial population at the expense of the agricultural population. “It is in the nature of capitalist production to continually reduce the agricultural population as compared with the non-agricultural, because in industry (in the strict sense) the increase of constant capital at the expense of variable capital goes hand in hand with an absolute increase in variable capital despite its relative decrease; on the other hand, in agriculture the variable capital required for the exploitation of a certain plot of land decreases absolutely; it can thus only increase to the extent that new land is taken into cultivation, but this again requires as a prerequisite a still greater growth of the non-agricultural population”

- Lenin, The Development of Capitalism in Russia, 1923

For socialism to develop, it needs a high amount of development of capitalism, so it must develop capitalism itself. The Mensheviks proposed not to develop socialism at all, while the Bolsheviks proposed to quickly develop capitalism under strict oversight by the proletariat, and then take over. This was state capitalist, but it quickly became socialism. This argument used by 'left'-communists can only logically lead to Menshevism: a complete bourgeois economy. Not only this, there was a lack of tools to organize and keep track of production, which was required for central planning.

 At present petty-bourgeois capitalism prevails in Russia, and it is one and the same road that leads from it to both large-scale state capitalism and to socialism, through one and the same intermediary station called “national accounting and control of production and distribution”. Those who fail to understand this are committing an unpardonable mistake in economics. Either they do not know the facts of life, do not see what actually exists and are unable to look the truth in the face, or they confine themselves to abstractly comparing “socialism” with “capitalism” and fail to study the concrete forms and stages of the transition that is taking place in our country.

- Lenin, The Tax In Kind, 1921

Bordigism

The next trend in 'left'-communism is Bordigism. Amadeo Bordiga, the namesake of Bordigism, said that:

It is only when society is moving beyond these three features of present-day economy – private ownership of the products, monetary market, organisation of production by enterprises – that it will be possible to say that it is going towards socialism. [emphasis mine: A.G.]

- Bordiga, Propriete et Capital, 1948

This not only says that there can be no commodity production under socialism, but that there can be no personal property, a conclusion eerily similar to the opinions of reactionaries on what socialism actually means. Again, Marx and Engels do not agree with this at all, as shown in the Communist Manifesto:

We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others.

- Marx, Communist Manifesto, 1848

Perhaps a new communist could be excused for not having read the Communist Manifesto, but not Bordiga, the founder of the Italian communist party. Not only this but he was apparently also against worker ownership of the means of production:

The socialist programme insists that no branch of production should remain in the hands of one class only, even if it is that of the producers. [Bordiga's italics, but I made it bold: A.G.]

- Bordiga, La programme revolutionaire, 1958

Essentially Bordiga is arguing against any ownership of the means of production at all. He believes in neither private nor public ownership of the means of production. This formulation, however, does not make sense. Bordigism is full of these types of formulations, which are, formulations that use 'fancy' terming and sound good, until you realize what the actual meaning is. Bordigism, makes no sense.

Bordiga was also against democracy:

Democracy cannot be a principle for us. Centralism is indisputably one, since the essential characteristics of party organization must be unity of structure and action. 

- Bordiga, The Democratic Principle, 1922

Again in a basic work (The Principles of Communism), Engels refutes him:

Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat.

- Engels, The Principles of Communism, 1847

However, Bordiga was not only against a democratic constitution. He was against any constitution in general.

Anything such as a codified and permanent constitution to be proclaimed after the workers revolution is nonsense, it has no place in the communist program. [emphasis mine: A.G.]

- Bordiga, Proletarian Dictatorship and Class Party, 1951

This trend is made even stranger by the fact that he claims to be Leninist.

"Left" Communism and Leninism

  As I mentioned before, Lenin wrote a polemic on 'Left'-Communism, entitled "'Left-wing' Communism: An Infantile Disorder." In it, he gave scathing critiques of 'left'-communism, including on the portrayals by 'left'-communists of the party and of democratic centralism:

I repeat: the experience of the victorious dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia has clearly shown even to those who are incapable of thinking or have had no occasion to give thought to the matter that absolute centralisation and rigorous discipline of the proletariat are an essential condition of victory over the bourgeoisie. [emphasis mine: A.G.]

- Lenin, "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder, 1920

However, 'left'-communists continued to praise the Bolsheviks, despite having no understanding of their methods and ideas. For example, the 'left'-communists were against the use of bourgeois parliaments, while praising the Bolsheviks, who used them:

Third, the “Left” Communists have a great deal to say in praise of us Bolsheviks. One sometimes feels like telling them to praise us less and to try to get a better knowledge of the Bolsheviks’ tactics. We took part in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Russian bourgeois parliament in September–November 1917. Were our tactics correct or not? If not, then this should be clearly stated and proved, for it is necessary in evolving the correct tactics for international communism. If they were correct, then certain conclusions must be drawn. Of course, there can be no question of placing conditions in Russia on a par with conditions in Western Europe. [...] the point is not whether bourgeois parliaments have existed for a long time or a short time, but how far the masses of the working people are prepared (ideologically, politically and practically) to accept the Soviet system and to dissolve the bourgeois-democratic parliament (or allow it to be dissolved). It is an absolutely incontestable and fully established historical fact that, in September–November 1917, the urban working class and the soldiers and peasants of Russia were, because of a number of special conditions, exceptionally well prepared to accept the Soviet system and to disband the most democratic of bourgeois parliaments.


[...]


The conclusion which follows from this is absolutely incontrovertible: it has been proved that, far from causing harm to the revolutionary proletariat, participation in a bourgeois-democratic parliament, even a few weeks before the victory of a Soviet republic and even after such a victory, actually helps that proletariat to prove to the backward masses why such parliaments deserve to be done away with; it facilitates their successful dissolution, and helps to make bourgeois parliamentarianism “politically obsolete”.

[emphasis mine: A.G.]
- Lenin, "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder, 1920

I have had too little opportunity to acquaint myself with “Left-wing” communism in Italy. Comrade Bordiga and his faction of Abstentionist Communists (Comunista astensionista) are certainly wrong in advocating non-participation in parliament. [emphasis mine: A.G.]

- Lenin, "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder, 1920

All this goes to show that 'left'-communists who claim to be Leninists, in fact, are not. 'Left'-communism is, fundamentally, anti-Leninist and therefore anti-Marxist.

Modern "Left" Communists

  Modern 'left'-communists tend to adopt different talking points than earlier ones, although they still do tend to use the same basic talking points a lot, such as the belief that there can be no exchange of commodities (commodity production) under socialism.

Socialist Commodity Production (See Socialist Commodity Production)

    To begin, did not slave and feudal societies make use of commodity production? Where they capitalistic in nature? A Marxist would argue that they are not, that they are pre-capitalist modes of production. No, capitalism is not production based upon the commodity, but production based upon capital. The relations of production of capitalism are that of worker and owner, proletarian and bourgeoisie. For capitalism to exist, there must be capital. It is possible for commodity production to exist without capital.

It is said that commodity production must lead, is bound to lead, to capitalism all the same, under all conditions. That is not true. Not always and not under all conditions! Commodity production must not be identified with capitalist production. They are two different things. Capitalist production is the highest form of commodity production. Commodity production leads to capitalism only if there is private ownership of the means of production, if labour power appears in the market as a commodity which can be bought by the capitalist and exploited in the process of production, and if, consequently, the system of exploitation of wageworkers by capitalists exists in the country. Capitalist production begins when the means of production are concentrated in private hands, and when the workers are bereft of means of production and are compelled to sell their labour power as a commodity. [emphasis mine: A.G.]

- Stalin, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, 1951

First, the state cannot carry on any economic development unless the army and the urban workers have regular and adequate supplies of food; the exchange of commodities must become the principal means of collecting foodstuffs. Secondly, commodity exchange is a test of the relationship between industry and agriculture and the foundation of all our work to create a fairly well regulated monetary system. All economic councils and all economic bodies must now concentrate on commodity exchange (which also includes the exchange of manufactured goods, for the manufactured goods made by socialist factories and exchanged for the foodstuffs produced by the peasants are not commodities in the politico-economic sense of the word; at any rate, they are not only commodities, they are no longer commodities, they are ceasing to be commodities).

- Lenin, Instructions of the Council of Labour and Defence To Local Soviet Bodies, 1921

We know that the means of production and subsistence, while they remain the property of the immediate producer, are not capital. They become capital, only under circumstances in which they serve at the same time as means of exploitation and subjection of the labourer.

[...]
So long, therefore, as the labourer can accumulate for himself—and this he can do so long as he remains possessor of his means of production—capitalist accumulation and the capitalistic mode of production are impossible. 
- Marx, Capital Vol. 1, 1867

It was shown that the appropriation of unpaid labor is the basis of the capitalist mode of production and of the exploitation of the worker that occurs under it; that even if the capitalist buys the labor power of his laborer at its full value as a commodity on the market, he yet extracts more value from it than he paid for; and that in the ultimate analysis, this surplus-value forms those sums of value from which are heaped up constantly increasing masses of capital in the hands of the possessing classes. The genesis of capitalist production and the production of capital were both explained. [emphasis mine: A.G.]

- Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, 1880

An attack on the idea of socialist commodity production is not only an attack on Lenin & Stalin, but an attack on Marx & Engels, who defined capitalism not only as commodity production, but also as expropriation of surplus-value.

Socialism in One Country

A vast majority of 'left'-communists are against the idea of socialism in one country, that is, the idea that it is possible to build socialism in, well, one country.

It was only within the guidelines of the invariant basis of this program that it was possible to add several points concerning our analysis of fascism, and more generally of the increasingly fascist nature of modern capitalist society, and concerning the relations between the world proletarian party and the state which is born as a result of the revolutionary victory, renouncing all the treachery and deceit of such an idea as “socialism in one country”. [emphasis mine: A.G.]

- Bordiga, Fundamental Theses of the Party, 1951

Attempts at a greater national sufficiency, forced upon Russia, as it has been forced upon all other capitalistic countries, is now celebrated as ‘the building up of socialism in one country’. The disruption of world economy, which explains and allows the forced development of state capitalism in Russia, is now described as ‘a side-by-side existence of two fundamentally different social systems’. However, the optimism of the labour movement seems to increase with each defeat it suffers.

- Paul Mattick, Council Communism, 1939

However, Lenin proves this attack on socialism in one country to be folly. Capital is at different levels of development in different countries, and it needs to have a certain level of development for a proletarian revolution, so a proletarian revolution will occur at different times in different countries. This is a simple proof, which completely disproves attacks on socialism in one country.

The victory of socialism in one country does not at one stroke eliminate all war in general. On the contrary, it presupposes wars. The development of capitalism proceeds extremely unevenly in different countries. It cannot be otherwise under commodity production. From this it follows irrefutably that socialism cannot achieve victory simultaneously in all countries. It will achieve victory first in one or several countries, while the others will for some time remain bourgeois or pre-bourgeois.

- Lenin, The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution, 1916

As a separate slogan, however, the slogan of a United States of the World would hardly be a correct one, first, because it merges with socialism; second, because it may be wrongly interpreted to mean that the victory of socialism in a single country is impossible, and it may also create misconceptions as to the relations of such a country to the others. Uneven economic and political development is an absolute law of capitalism. Hence, the victory of socialism is possible first in several or even in one capitalist country alone.

- Lenin, On The Slogan for a United States of Europe, 1915

This is not an argument against internationalism. Internationalism does not mean simultaneous international revolution, because that is impossible. What it does mean can be found within Leninist theory. For example, revolutionary defeatism is a proletarian internationalist theory. The thesis of this theory is to desire the defeat of one's own government in an imperialist war. This may seem ludicrous, but it is not. The thesis of this theory is not to desire the other imperialist parties in the war to win. It is to desire that the imperialist war be turned into a civil one, a revolution. This theory, instead of falling for the social-chauvinist, imperialist trap of wanting 'your' country, ruled by an exploitative minority, to to win the war once it breaks it, wants this victory to belong to the international proletariat, including the parts of it found in all belligerent countries.

"Red Bourgeoisie"

The "red bourgeoisie" is quite a strange political slogan. It is meant to say that central planners and politicians, somehow, form a separate class from the proletariat. Marxism defines class as a group with a separate relationship to the means of production. Central planners and politicians, under socialism (e.g. the USSR) did not have a separate relationship to the means of production than the proletariat. By this logic, the intelligentsia is a separate class, while it is in actuality a stratum.

This “working-class intelligentsia” already exists in Russia, and we must make every effort to ensure that its ranks are regularly reinforced, that its lofty mental requirements are met and that leaders of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party come from its ranks.

- Lenin, A Retrograde Trend in Russian Social-Democracy, 1899

The logical conclusion of this concept is exploitation coming from the intelligentsia, which does not make sense in the slightest. The proletarian intelligentsia can exist, and it does. Therefore, the "red bourgeoisie", does not.

"Stalinist-Hoxhaists"

Recently, a new trend in 'left'-communism has emerged, which, strangely, calls itself "Stalinism-Hoxhaism", and is against the ideas of both Stalin and Hoxha. The primary organization representing it is the Comintern (Stalinists-Hoxhaists) or Comintern (SH). This organization rejects "socialism in one country", a revisionist and ultra-left spin on the existence of capitalist encirclement.

The world capital reigns above all by its armed power. Therefore, this armed power must be destroyed by the power of the world-proletarian weapons. All counter-revolutionary forces must be disarmed on a global scale. The world proletariat conquers and performs its political power by means of arms. The world-dictatorship of the proletariat is the armed ruling-system of the reigning workers' world. Given the counter-revolutionary armies of the world bourgeoisie, the conquest and defense of the political power of the world proletariat is impossible without its own proletarian, red world-army. This proletarian, red world-army, guided by the Comintern (SH), shall develop to an army of the socialist world - integrated in the process of world production, integrated in the world-socialism's construction, integrated in the whole development of the socialist world-society. The proletarian, red world-army will be abolished (together with the whole system of the world-dictatorship of the proletariat) - not until the epoch of world-communism and by no means beforehand.


[...]

During the period of the construction of world-socialism up to the transition to world-communism still consists the danger of capitalist restoration. This happened with former socialism which the world-imperialists have imbibed. This time, however, we will be equipped with global ways and means, namely we will replace capitalist-revisionist world-encirclement by socialist world-encirclement. In addition, the world proletariat will lead a determined struggle against all manifestations of bureaucratism. We have learnt the tragic historical lessons of restoration of capitalism and suffered from its disastrous consequences. Never again! The dictatorship of the world-proletariat will lead the sharpest global class struggle against all the open and hidden forces of restoration of world capitalism. [emphasis mine: A.G.]
- Comintern (SH), Our 12 main MEASURES for the overthrow of world capitalism, 2018

The representative of this new 'left'-communist ideology is also, unsurprisingly, homophobic:

As far as our position on heterosexuality, homosexuality or bi-sexuality etc. is concerned, we are guided by our communist principle. We are against all those bourgeois sexual movements in the capitalist society which are hostile to our struggle for the world socialist revolution.

-  Comintern (SH), Problems of Sexuality: Questions and Answers, 2016

This development of 'left'-communism disguising itself with empty support for Marxism-Leninism is a new one, and one not unexpected. Remember neo-revisionism, that is, revisionism that claims to be anti-revisionist (e.g. Maoism). That those who were once politically class conscious have fallen into the bourgeois trap of these ideologies is a sad fact.

Conclusion

Comrades, 'left'-communism is a bourgeois, revisionist ideology that cannot practically work, as it completely misunderstands Marxism and attempts to revise it. Marxism-Leninism is not obsolete, and it is the revolutionary science that will emancipate the proletariat, following the path of Marx and Engels. For workers of the world to unite does not mean that socialism cannot be built in one country, the vanguard party can lead the rest of the proletarian class to victory, and commodity production but not capital can be built under socialism.

    'Left'-communism is a liberal ideology, which is appealing to those who are afraid of figures such as Lenin and Stalin and see them as scary, but it is by no means harmless. It must be put an end to. 'Left'-communism is only 'left' in words and symbols, but utterly and hopelessly rightist in deed.

Lenin referred to the "Left Communists" as Lefts sometimes with and sometimes without quotation marks. But everyone realises that Lenin called them Lefts ironically, thereby emphasising that they were Lefts only in words, in appearance, but that in reality they represented petty-bourgeois Right trends. [...] There you have a picture of the specific platform and the specific methods of the "Lefts." This, in fact, explains why the "Lefts" sometimes succeed in luring a part of the workers over to their side with the help of high-sounding "Left" phrases and by posing as the most determined opponents of the Rights, although all the world knows that they, the "Lefts," have the same social roots as the Rights, and that they not infrequently join in an agreement, a bloc, with the Rights in order to fight the Leninist line.  [...]  But if the Trotskyist trend represents a "Left" deviation, does not this mean that the "Lefts" are more to the Left than Leninism? No, it does not. Leninism is the most Left (without quotation marks) trend in the world labour movement. We Leninists belonged to the Second International down to the outbreak of the imperialist war as the extreme Left group of the Social-Democrats. We did not remain in the Second International and we advocated a split in the Second International precisely because, being the extreme Left group, we did not want to be in the same party as the petty-bourgeois traitors to Marxism, the social-pacifists and social-chauvinists. [emphasis mine: A.G.]

- Stalin, Industrialisation of the country and the Right Deviation in the C.P.S.U.(B.), 1928

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Philip Kovalchik, Heather Mason, and Saul Wenger for your help in writing this article.

Workers of the World, Unite!