Down with the Bourgeois Republic! Down with Its Constitution! – Amadeo Bordiga
An article from 1947 by Amadeo Bordiga in which he discusses the debate over the constitution of the new Italian republic, the role of religion and secularism in Italian history, the opportunism of the Communist Party, “conformism” in Italian politics, the incompatibility of religion and socialism, the idolatry of the “sacred and inviolable” rights of the “Individual”, the fraud of political decentralization (which he correctly saw as opening the door of politics to the Mafia), the “demagogic appeal to labor” in modern “totalitarian” ideologies (the goal of the workers movement is “a society founded not on labor, but on consumption”), the illusion of self-management, etc.
Silences on the suppression of workers self-emancipation: historical problems with CLR James's interpretation of V.I. Lenin
Matthew Quest, writing for Insurgent Notes, details CLR James' treatment of Lenin across decades of James' work. While CLR James broke with with Trotskyism and Trotsky as well as the Leninist party form, he never properly broke with Lenin or his works.
Dialogue with Bordiga – Jacques Camatte
In this 1988 essay, Jacques Camatte reassesses the continuing relevance of Bordiga’s emphasis on the need for a “radical break” (scisma) with democracy—a view that Camatte maintains is “not the exclusive property of the extreme right”—which, since the prospect for communist revolution was nullified by the victories of the United States in the two world wars, must now, according to Camatte, serve as the presupposition for another radical break—a break with the culture that is the product of the Enlightenment and its cult of science and productivity—and our reconciliation with nature.
6 underrated Marxists who don't get enough love
Submitted by libcom on Oct 16 2017 12:24
It's a sad fact that many of the most radical Marxists, whose participation in working class struggle and ideas challenged not only capitalist society but also the social democratic and Leninist tendencies in the workers' movement tend to get ignored by anarchists and Marxists alike.
Towards the Final Jubilee: Midnight Notes at Thirty Years Craig Hughes (Ed.)
A pamphlet published on the occasion of an anniversary meeting
between Midnight Notes Collective and Friends (2009)
commemorating 30 years of Midnight Notes.
Bordiga and the passion for communism – Jacques Camatte
Jacques Camatte’s 1972 essay on Amadeo Bordiga, discussing the Italian Marxist’s notorious “invariance”, his “hermeneutics” of “the precise connection between the proletariat and theory”, his “prophetic vision” of the communist future, his identification of the party with the class, his disdain for the cult of personality, his “anti-gradualism”, the impact of the publication of the Grundrisse and the Economic Manuscripts of 1844 on his thought, his precocious environmentalism, his anti-individualism, and his failure to recognize the significance of May ’68, pointing out that despite all his contradictions and limitations “his works are full of starting points for new research”.
Beyond the Party: The evolution of the concept of “the Party” since Marx – Junius Collective (Pour une Intervention Communiste)
An essay by Pour une Intervention Communiste on the origins and development of the concept of “the Party” in the Marxist tradition, with critical analyses of the contradictions of Marx’s and Engels’ vacillations on this issue, and their partial responsibility for the subsequent career of the Party concept in its permutations at the hands of Liebknecht, Bebel, Kautsky, Lenin, Trotsky and Bordiga (social democratic continuity, the dictatorship of the Party), and its radical yet insufficient reformulations by Luxemburg, the KAPD and others (“return to Marx”, “historic Party”, the “Marx Party”—or even the “Debord party”) as a revolutionary minority whose goal is to promote proletarian autonomy.
Anti-Bolshevik communism – Paul Mattick
A collection of works by Paul Mattick. Communism aims at putting working people in charge of their lives. A multiplicity of Councils, rather than a big state bureaucracy is needed to empower working people and to focus control over society. Mattick develops a theory of a council communism through his survey of the history of the left in Germany and Russia. He challenges Bolshevik politics: especially their perspectives on questions of Party and Class, and the role of Trade Unions.
Karl Marx's Capital
Otto Rühle's 1939 abridgement of the first volume of Marx's Capital.
1848 The Year of Revolutions- George Woodcock
Submitted by Reddebrek on Aug 24 2017 01:27
George Woodcock charts the events of the revolutionary wave that swept Europe in 1848. Assessing their political characters, their accomplishments and defeats.
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