Left of Lenin Distinctions

September 12th, 2012

The original left-Communists believed in a one-party workers state. They were a faction in the Bolshevik party and were to the left of Lenin on a number of issues. They opposed signing a peace treaty with Germany to get Russia out of WW1, opposed national self-determination, and believed the means of production should have been put under state ownership faster than Lenin planned. Bukharin was their leader originally, but he later changed his views. This term is sometimes used as a generic term for all Marxists to the left of Lenin, not just those who agree with the original left-Communists

Council Communists do not advocate a workers state. They emphasize proletarian spontaneity and the formation of workers councils. They think labor unions are inherently reformist and counter-revolutionary; that they were useful at one point (and do protect workers' wages), but will have to be superseded to overturn capitalism. They consider the Russian revolution, including the October coup, a bourgeois revolution and think communism requires industrialization. Council Communists reject voting in bourgeois elections.

Autonomous Marxists also reject electoralism, consider the USSR state capitalist, emphasize spontaneity, and do not advocate seizing state power. They define the working class very broadly and reject labor unions, political parties, and hierarchical organizations. They place a great deal of importance of worker autonomy and the ability of workers to force capitalism to change, in contrast to more orthodox forms of Marxism that place more emphasis on the laws of motion of capitalism.

Left Communists and anarchists disagree on the state, and have fairly conventional anarchist vs Marxist arguments over it. Autonomous Marxists & Council Communists are similar to anarcho-communism, but many do not have a very good understanding of anarchism and/or have psychological reasons not to call themselves anarchists. They sharply differ from anarcho-syndicalists on the question of labor unions, and to a lesser extent on spontaneity. Anarcho-syndicalists think unions can and should be revolutionary, and are the shell of the new society within the old.