From: "Kurasje Archive" <kurasje-AT-iname.com>
Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 16:28:36 +0800
Subject: Re: spontineity... Re: AUT: marxism vs. leninism


Sharon Vance wrote:
> Thanks for answering my question. No one else seemed to take it seriously. I
> think they should. Most people in the US can not imagine a world without
> wages and money, and not taking these practical issues seriously doesn't
> bring them, me included, any closer to seeing a non-wage, no money based
> society as a real, practical possibility.

And Dave Graham wrote:

> For my sins when I was seriously influenced by the German Left [that  is the 
> 'Infantiley Disordered of 1921] of the 1920s and 30s, I made a real effort 
> to uncover this strand. There is in existence a work of theirs called the 
> 'Fundemental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution', an 
> Introduction to which is on the Subversion website [I think - Steve will 
> correct me if I am wrong] and

The dutch council communist group GIK(Holland) produced the 'Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution' and had it published in 1930. 

An english version of this texts is at the Kurasje-web-site, where you will also find some remarks on it by Jan Appell in his 'Memories' from 1966. 

The 'Fundamental principles....' is a rather heavy text and may be difficult to swallow. It contains also as an epiloque a presentation of its main ideas in relation to Marx's 'Critique of the Gotha Programme'. This epiloque may be read as introduction as well.

As Dave mentions the GIK(H) also produced a shorter introduction or 'Summary' which was published in 1931. And this is to be found at the Subversion-site at:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8195/gik-pc.htm

The 'Fundamental principles ...' was an attempt by the GIK(H) to overcome the simple postulate of communism as a complete negation of capitalism at it's very roots: production and distribution of commodities through money as the basic social forms in which capital produces and accumulates itself as dead labour exploiting living labour through the labour power as a special and class-constituent commodity-relation. By critizising various social-democratic and bolshevic theories of 'planned economy' and following Marx's fundamental 'Critique of political economy' it was an attempt to raise the idea of communism more theoretically and coherent.

The text is still important as one of the very few attempts ever made to treat the idea of communism systematically and reflect some of the questions that can be raised about the possible functioning of a society without the market  -  planned or not  -  as regulatory social mechanism. 

It is however pure theory and in its elaboration of things one may also get a little scared or pessimistic concerning the rather schematic and institutionalized vision of the coming world. Most council communists thus take the text a highly important theoretical critique of modern capitalism - both 'planned' and 'regulated' private capitalism and 'socially' centralized state capitalism. But taken by the word it is also just a negative affirmation of the present world til destroy and as such only an utopian vision - well founded though.

The real proces of class struggles developing to revolutionary confrontations with capitalism and the taking over of all social means of production and distribution by the producers will be one of struggle and 'class war', where you cannot plan and institutionalize the new world along theoretical schemes. Decisions about what and how much to produce, how to distribute the products etc. will in the initial stages of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' be a very practical matter of concrete needs and imposed solidarity from the 'war against chaos and barbarism'. What the world will look like on a later and more peaceful stage of realized communism is by nature beyond imagination.

Thus the line of discussions between council communists back in the 30'ies quickly went on to deal with the more practical questions conserning the development of 'the new workers movement', i.e. the radicalisation and clarification within the daily struggles of the workers towards collective self-organisation and more powerfull confrontation with capitalism. And that is were the discussion still goes.

Jens
-- 


Kurasje - Council Communist Archive
http://kurasje.tripod.com


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