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.

  • Mardoniush [she/her]
    ·
    4 years ago

    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.