Council Communism

This page is about an important IRL ideology "This knowledge is essential to political science!" - Scientocracy This page is about an ideology that not only exists in the real world, but is also of reasonable importance. Please do not make major edits to this page without citing sources, so that it may stay accurate.

Council Communism
“While there cannot be socialism without workers' control, neither can there be real workers' control without socialism.”
Basic Information
Aliases	The Communist Left Dutch-German Left Communism True Communism (By Himself) Infantile disorder Ultra/Ultra Leftoid (Pejoratively) Anti-Bolshevik Communism Councilism (derogatory term, by Communizers) Anti-Pothole Aktion Mace Windu Communism
Alignments	Leftist Unity  LibLeft  Culturally Left  Socialists  Communists  Democratic
Ideological Influences
Influenced by	Anti-Bolshevism Anti-Parliamentarianism Anti-Syndicalism Hegelianism (Korsch) Bremen Left
Influenced	Autonomism (Claude Lefort and Henri Simon) Communization Theory Leninism Libertarian Marxism Maoism Situationism
Ideological Information
Notable Theorists	Herman Gorter (1864-1927) Netherlands Anton Pannekoek (1873-1960) Netherlands Otto Rühle (1874-1943) German Empire Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) UK Jan Appel (1890-1985) German Empire David Wijnkoop (1876-1941) Netherlands Karl Korsch (1886-1961) German Empire Max Hoelz (1889-1933) German Empire Paul Mattick (1904-1981) German Empire/ USA Marinus van der Lubbe (1909-1934) Netherlands Ngo Van Xuyet (1912-2005) Vietnam Cornelius Castoriadis (1922-1997) Greece/ France Guy Debord (1931-1994) France Paul Mattick Jr. (1944-) USA
Character Information
Likes	The Proletariat Workers' councils Proletarian Revolution
Dislikes	Reformism Kautsky Lenin "Socialism from above" Crapitalism Syndicalism
Song	Op de barricades

Council Communism, also called Dutch-German Left Communism, or simply Councilism, is a particular strain of left communism that emphasizes the role of worker's councils in organizing both the revolution itself and as a foundation of post-capitalist society. This direct proletarian control over production and distribution (Where the councils take control over the economy) is seen by Council Communists as the true character of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Contents

1. History
2. Beliefs
3. Personality and Behavior
4. How to Draw
5. Relationships
   1. Friends
   2. Frenemies
   3. Enemies
6. Further Information
   1. References
7. Gallery
   1. Portraits
8. Navigation

Beliefs

A diagram of a proposed socialist economic and political system based on workers' councils

Council communists differ widely on the specifics, but they all agree that, generally, the association of free and equal producers can only be achieved by the system of workers councils.

Council Communism, at its core, believes in the establishment of a dictatorship of the proletariat by means of a network of workers' councils. Council Communism rejects social democratic methods like participation in parliaments and trade unions. Historically, council communists like Herman Gorter, Anton Pannekoek and the KAPD believed that the party is needed in the conquest of political power by the workers along with the idea that the communist party must have a thoroughly worked out programmatic basis and must be organized and disciplined in its entirety from below, as a unified will. However, some of the more recent councilists (like Ruhle and Mattick) would end up rejecting the party, believing it to be useless in the proletarian struggle and believing that the proletariat can do the revolution by itself without needing any forms of organization other than the soviets.

Council Communists/Dutch-German Left Communists differ from Italian Left Communists on the idea of the party. This can be seen in Pannekoek's Party and Class and Bordiga's work with the same name. While the Dutch-Germans generally hold the position of "proletarian dictatorship above the party", the Italians do the exact opposite, emphasizing on the need for party dictatorship.
In spite of this difference, both agree that the Communists are the avant-garde/vanguard of the working class, and that the conquest of political power by the proletariat is a necessity, a principle even, for moving towards communism.

Personality

Council Communism, like the name, implies that they really like councils and will usually insist other leftists to get into a Council together before deciding anything.

How to Draw

Flag of Council Communism

1. Draw a ball with eyes;
2. Make it red;
3. In the middle draw a black circle with a red star in it;
4. Around the circle draw 9 black bars forming a circle.;

You're done

Color Name		HEX	RGB
	Red	#d40100	212, 1, 0
	Black	#202020	32, 32, 32

Relationships

Friends

• Marxism - If only more people understood what you said.
• Marxist Feminism - No democracy can exist unless everyone has an equal voice.
• Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism - It is time for mankind to ensure itself of material abundance by establishing a free, self-managed world-society of productive labor, thereby freeing its mental powers for perfecting its knowledge of nature and the universe.
• Situationism - My based son who uses fancy jargon and criticizes consumerism.
• Luxemburgism - Indeed a true revolutionary leader and communist, however you are an economist and an entryist.

Frenemies

• Trotskyism - We consider Trotsky the most able spokesman for Bolshevism, and he should have been Lenin’s successor. By his revolutionary fervor Trotsky captivated all the dissidents that Stalinism had thrown out of the Communist Parties, and in inoculating them with the Bolshevik virus it rendered them almost incapable of understanding the great new tasks of the proletarian revolution.

Enemies

• Syndicalism - Trade unions are useless in the struggle against capital!
• Social Darwinism - You have falsified actual Darwinist theory!
• Guild Socialism - Reactionary!
• Liberalism - Your democracy is only a tyranny of the minority!
• Social Democracy - Social democracy and communism are opposed with respect to their immediate practical aims: the first seeks the reorganization of the old bourgeois State; the second, a new political system.
• Ho Chi Minh Thought - You cracked down on us and the Trotskyists! Luckily enough Ngo Van was able to flee from the scene.
• Nazism - Cope harder, you can't unburn the Reichstag.Wait, it was restored in 1999.
• Kautsky - You forgot your Marxism at home.
• Marxism–Leninism - You are merely a natural conclusion of Blanquism.
• Leninism - The renegade Kautsky of course has his own disciples.
• The intellectuals - Social organization does not depend on qualities of the intellect of a minority. What intellectuals bring along to social organization is only the haughty prejudices of the capitalist class!
• Anarcho-Communism - We fight the Anarchists most energetically, in spite of the fact that they call themselves enemies of capitalism, because they are enemies of the working class movement; because their propaganda always threatens to destroy organization and discipline, the chief weapons of the proletariat in its struggles, and tends to divert the workers from the most important part of their struggle, the conquest of the power of the State.
• National Bolshevism - No to National-Communism!
• Communization Theory - The one tried and failed to adapt the situationist theory of situations into anarchism. You are the remnants of the centrist from the days of old who gave up their reform for a political ownness which will lead to disorganized society of collapsed economies with no structure. Truly the communist who left the ways of the workers.

Further Information

Literature

• The Radical Tradition: A Study in Modern Revolutionary Thought by Richard Gombin.
• Worker's Councils by Anton Pannekoek
• Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution by the GIK
• Open Letter to Comrade Lenin by Hermann Gorter
• The German Revolution - First Stage by Anton Pannekoek
• The Revolution is Not a Party Affair by Otto Rühle
• The Council Communist Reader by Radical Reprints
• Marx and Keynes by Paul Mattick

Wikipedia

• Council Communism
• Workers' council
• Filippo Otto Rühle
• Anton Pannekoek
• Paul Mattick

Videos

• Council Communism by TogetherRed

Gallery

Portraits

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•