I don't really know much about it other than I've heard people say they don't like Leninists. But like...why? The worker soviets are literally councils that served essentially the same function as what council communists want, but with the party serving as a vector for that organization.
Also, Lenin frequently brings up the Paris Communé when discussing the soviet revolutionary model. He talks specifically about how the initial revolution creates a bourgeois state "without bourgeoisie" and eventually withers away into what you'd call council communism.
Like council communism is just the "higher stage" of communism (or the communist stage of socialism) right? The model exists under Leninist organization and the contradiction of Leninism is the political/bureaucratic elite that isn't the workers. The difference between this state and the bourgeois state is that its really fucking weak usually. Like think about the "fall of communism", it was easily toppled, but instead of getting council communism (which is what the workers would have done if left to their own devices) they reverted to capitalism due to massive intervention of the existing well armed and funded capitalist powers.
It depends what you mean by Council Communism.
My tendency, Luxemburgism (which isn't "pure CC" but is the primary intellectual forebear) isn't against ML, it simply works under the material circumstances of an industrialised capitalist society and a more conscious but also more atomised working class.
This makes many of the assumptions of ML not hold as strongly, in much the same way that the Third World required the adaptions of MLM to deal with the material conditions there. Broadly, it wants the grass level mass workers orgs to be more primary. Mostly these are Councils, but sometimes mutual aid, unions, or other organisations, even a mass Party. Luxemburgists argue that the industrialised state allows a broader working class movement that does not need as dominant a Vanguard Party to operate and lead, even if one might be useful. Again, this does not mean Lenin bad, just Lenin less applicable
In Germany after Rosa's death this devolved into the anti-parliamentary current that Lenin criticises in Infantile disorder. This resolved further into infighting, a wrongheaded emphasis on "spontaneity" that is frankly a curse on western communism, and a strong anti-Soviet current, mostly from an attempt to retain independence, and then a slow decline in the late 20s. Council Communism doesn't really exist as anything more than a strain of theory now.
It wasn't until the Italians ran with it that Council Communism/Left Communism gained its strong anti-ML bias, even though Italian LeftComs are generally focused more on a Vanguard Party.
Interesting history! Thanks for the writeup. I've been thinking a lot about that lately, namely the formation of some sort of worker vanguard in an essentially completely proletarianized society. How there aren't really peasants in the traditional sense anymore as even the peasants have taken loans from the banks and turned themselves into debtors to the capitalists who expropriate their value for ground rents and fronted capital.
The primary this is instantaneous communication. I keep thinking that Leninism is something we should work towards because if something else will work, it'll appear along that road (eg. The Bolsheviks already had councils and it didn't work with just councils, but if that would work now, we would be able to avoid the last step, either way though going all the way through gives lots of options).
My understanding is that Luxemburg was far from a council communist, a commited vanguardist with some different ideas of how that would apply to Germany (and this isnt even contrary to leninism, since lenin when writting in a non Russian contexts of what is to be done, wrote stuff pretty much in line with Rosa as far as vanguard practices and party structures go, and the way most people understand today Luxemburgism doesnt exist as a coherent formulated thing . Luxemburg was just an orthodox revolutionary marxist somewhat to the left of the then paradigm (second international) ,similar to Lenin. I struggle to see how you would formulate an ism out of it and idk if Luxemburg would have had either.
Worse than that the history of "Luxemburgism" is negative since the term was invented to purge Luxemburg & her influence from German Communism & make sure her theoretical works were buried deep under. Being a "Luxemburgist" in the 1920s meant opportunism & "right deviationism." , it wasnt formulated as some tendency around Rosa's contributions.
Edit: This article is an amazing dive into what actually Luxemburg positions were and all the ways they have been missinterpreted and wrapped through the years https://theacheron.medium.com/the-myth-of-luxemburgism-25f63d0e3efd
I've now read half of the article and will probably read the other half later today, but as of now I feel like it trivializes Rosa's contentions with Bolshevik policy. Of course that stems from material conditions, but everything does. And nobody could seriously claim Rosa opposed the Russian Revolution or something like that.
To avoid posting "out of context quotes" I highly encourage everybody to read Chapter 6 of The Russian Revolution, it is a very short read.
tbf, that pamphlet was written before she undertook her own revolution, thus before she had to actually face running it, after which she became much more authoritarian
What Hungover kind of said, I think Luxemburgs critiques of Leninist policy were quite substantial and make her, if not a full tendency, at least a variant of proto-leninism. Even Trotsky had far less disagreement with Lenin imo.
But also I don't think we really disagree all that much, Rosa and Lenin were very much of the same mind in general principles, just in different material conditions. While I wouldn't define the German Left Coms as Right deviationist per se, I do think they were terribly wrong headed and warped Rosa's critique of Leninism into a full break.
Luxemburgism, as far as it exists, is simply a set of tools and theoretical critiques that modify rather than replace ML. Which frankly is what I think tendencies should be anyway.