Left Communism and The Communist International
As discussed above, the left communists initially rallied to the Russian Revolution of October 1917 and to the new Communist International. In fact, they controlled the first body formed by the Comintern to coordinate its activities in Western Europe, the Amsterdam Bureau. However, this was little more than a very brief interlude and the Bureau never functioned as a leadership body for Western Europe as was originally intended. The Vienna Bureau of the Comintern may also be classified as left communist, but its personnel were not to evolve into either of the two historic currents that made up left communism. Rather, the Vienna Bureau adopted the ultra-left ideas of the earliest period in the history of the Comintern.
Left communists supported the Russian Revolution, but did not accept the methods of the Bolsheviks. Many of the German-Dutch tradition adopted Rosa Luxembourg's criticisms, as outlined in her posthumously published essay entitled "Marxism or Leninism?". In this essay, she rejected the Bolshevik position on distribution of land to the peasantry, and their espousal of the "Right of nations to Self Determination" which she rejected as historically outmoded. The Italian left communists did not at the time accept any of these criticisms and both currents would evolve.
To a considerable degree, Lenin's well known polemic Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder is an attack on the ideas of the emerging left communist currents. His main aim was to polemicise with currents moving towards pure revolutionary tactics by showing them that they could remain based on firmly revolutionary principles while utilising a variety of tactics. Therefore Lenin defended the use of parliamentarism and working within the official trade unions.
As the Kronstadt rebellion occurred at a time when the debate on tactics was still raging within the Comintern, it has been wrongly seen as being left communist by some commentators. In fact, the left communist currents had no connection with the rebellion - although they did rally to its support when they learned of it. In later years, the German-Dutch tradition in particular would come to see the suppression of the revolt as the historic turning point in the evolution of the Russian state after October 1917.
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Famous quotes containing the words left, communism and/or communist:
“It is restful, tragedy, because one knows that there is no more lousy hope left. You know you’re caught, caught at last like a rat with all the world on its back. And the only thing left to do is shout—not moan, or complain, but yell out at the top of your voice whatever it was you had to say. What you’ve never said before. What perhaps you don’t even know till now.”
—Jean Anouilh (1910–1987)
“Communism is inequality, but not as property is. Property is exploitation of the weak by the strong. Communism is exploitation of the strong by the weak.”
—Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865)
“In communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, shepherd or critic.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)