Council communism

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Council communism is understood as a Marxist movement whose idea of communism is primarily shaped by the idea of collective self-administration and grassroots democracy in workers' councils .

Conception

According to the communist councilors, the workers' councils should take the place of the government in the communist revolution , but prevent the formation of an authoritarian state. The corresponding form of society is called council democracy or council republic . Council communism stands in irreconcilable opposition to capitalist society, to parliamentarism and also to authoritarian Marxism-Leninism . The Soviet Union was strongly supported in their early days of idea and practice of council democracy ( "All power to the Soviets" was a slogan of the Bolsheviks ) until no later than under the rule of Stalinism dissolved the power of the councils gradually.

The exercise of power in council communism mainly takes place in the councils, which act as executive , legislative but also as judiciary in one. The representatives of these organs are subject to an imperative mandate , ie they can be voted out of office by the electorate at any time. There is accountability, which ensures radical democracy .

As a rule, members of the bourgeoisie do not have access to the councils, as they were already excluded from the Soviets in the Russian Revolution . The Paris Commune , already euphorically welcomed by Karl Marx, is regarded as a model for a council-democratic organizational structure, but syndicalist conceptions have also been incorporated into the development of the idea of ​​council communism .

History and influence

The idea of ​​council democracy experienced its heyday, especially in Germany, with the November Revolution in 1918 and the period immediately following.

In the narrower sense, council communist organizations developed in the course of the factional struggles within the German left, which increased after the November Revolution . After the exclusion of many left deviationist from the German Communist Party (KPD) , led by Paul Levi end of 1919, the established Communist Workers' Party of Germany (KAPD) and the left toward union General Workers Union of Germany (AAUD) . At the time of their founding, these organizations had around a hundred thousand members - and thus had more members than the KPD.

The most important substantive difference between the KPD and the councilor communists was their assessment of the leadership role of the party, which the council communists vehemently rejected in favor of the idea of ​​self-administration. The assessment of the development in the young Soviet Union was much different: The council communists called the Party rule in the Soviet Union after the overthrow of the Soviets as state capitalism , which they advanced the fact in the view that the mere nationalization of the means of production is not to their socialization out have. Instead, the state has taken on the function of the capitalist class within society. There was no exemption from wage labor .

Originally there were still good contacts to the III. Communist International , it broke soon afterwards. Lenin sharply attacked the council communists in his book Left Radicalism, the Childhood Illness in Communism .

At the end of 1921, parts of the AAUD separated from the KAPD and continued to exist as the General Workers' Union - Unit Organization (AAUE) . The council communist movement increasingly lost its influence in Germany after the revolutionary unrest that flared up again in 1923.

Council communist organizations in the final phase of the Weimar Republic and in the resistance against fascism were the Red Fighters , the Communist Council Union and the Communist Workers Union of Germany (KAUD) .

Council communist ideas also had an impact on the social revolutionary movement in the Netherlands , Great Britain , Bulgaria and Denmark .

The most important theorists of councilor communism include Anton Pannekoek (pseudonym Karl Horner), Paul Mattick , Karl Korsch , Otto Rühle , Herman Gorter , Willy Huhn , Cajo Brendel , Sylvia Pankhurst and the later national Bolsheviks Heinrich Laufenberg and Fritz Wolffheim . The later New Left around 1968 as well as the Situationists in France in particular were influenced by councilist ideas.

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