Communization Theory

Work in Progress

"Workers of the world, unite! Separately, in your own homes." - Marxism–Leninism
CamelGOD is currently working on this page. Please do not interfere with their work. Instead, contact them to propose additional edits.

Communization Theory or Communization is an Ultra-Left political movement which views the dictatorship of the proletariat to no longer be a sufficient transition to communism, instead proposing a process known as communization which is the destruction of Capitalist social relations and the replacement of them with communist ones. Despite their dislike of the dictatorship of the proletariat (or at least its traditional interpretation) and the state, they dislike Anarcho-Communists for saying that the destruction of capital is immediate, instead imagining it as a process of insurrection. They take from a variety of tendencies such as Bordigaism, Councilism, Situationism, Autonomism, and Insurrectionary Anarchism. The crux of their theory is the dislike of workerism, proposing that the communist movement must be a movement by which the proletariat rejects proletarianism, as the proletariat is a class defined by its own oppression. This puts them at odds with many Marxists who emphasize the worker in the dictatorship of the proletariat and in lower stage communism or Socialism. Despite its Marxist roots, the movement is very diverse, with it becoming aligned with movements such as the Post-Left, Insurrectionary Anarchism, Ego-Communism, Nomadology, etc yet still keeping to its Marxist roots.

"Animals that kill usually have far more social relationships than those they prey upon."

Gilles Dauvé

History

Currents

Communization can generally be divided into multiple currents:

• Post-Autonomism, a political tendency founded by figures such as Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt, while not traditionally part of Communization Theory nor proclaiming itself to be so, shares many fundamental similarities with Communization Theory, such as its rejection of the dictatorship of the proletariat and its abandonment of the proletarian-as-revolutionary-subject. What differentiates Post-Autonomism from other communizing tendencies is its affirmation of multiplicity and difference as the foundation of revolutionary action, with the diverse multitudes serving as the revolutionary subject. The preferred mode of action is the revolutionary construction of new and autonomous communities independent of existing systems. This frequently leads to Post-Autonomists being accused (by both Non-Marxist Communizers and Marxist Communizers) of optimism, pacifism and even Liberalism due to their lesser focus on violence and emphasis on differential identities.

• Anarchist Communization, as it has been labelled by outsiders, is a school of Communization exemplified by French collectives Tiqqun and later Comite Invisible. While they share the Post-Autonomists rejection of the proletarian-as-revolutionary-subject, they are markedly different in their ruthless and oftentimes borderline misanthropic critique of capitalist society and outright abandonment of positive identity. Owing their greatest theoretical debts to French post-structural philosophy and the Situationist International, these communizers focus on psychosocial and cultural critique over economic analysis and share more in common with Post-Leftist movements than Marxism and display a notable hostility to any defined identities and strict doctrines.

• Marxist Communization is the most Marx-influenced branch of Communization Theory, drawing most of its perspectives from both Marx himself and the historical Dutch-German and Italian Left Communists. Perhaps set in motion by Jacques Camatte's Post-Marxist theories which were nonetheless rooted in the (Italian)Left Communist tradition, these Communizers, led by Gilles Dauve, Theorie Communiste and Endnotes, reject the party-form, all forms of time/labor counting and generally the dictatorship of the proletariat itself, while they are divided on issues such as the periodization of capitalism into particular eras and sociocultural perspectives(particularly Dauve, who has some rightfully controversial cultural takes.)

• There are other smaller schools which could arguably be considered parts of Communization Theory, such as Andrew Culp's Dark Deleuzianism, some varieties of Post-Anarchism (particularly those influenced by Georges Bataille and Georges Sorel,) Zerzan's Primitivism and the Ego-Communist tendency in general.

Beliefs

The Self-Abolition of The Proletariat

The central thesis of (Marxist) communization is that of the self-abolition of the proletariat, or anti-workerism. This view is not in itself opposed to the Marxist position but is rather opposed to the consistent workerization of this position seen in the Marxist movement. Orthodox Marxist parties and movements have usually valorized and lionized the proletarian condition rather than seeing it as something to be immediately overcome. For communizers, and in their opinion, for Marx, the proletarian class only exists in relation to the capitalist mode of production: it itself is a component of capitalism. This is central to the communizer diagnosis of the USSR and later Marxist-Leninist states. These states valorized the proletarian condition and maintained the relations of production which consistently reproduced the proletarian condition. Which came first is irrelevant, as both failures produce one another. What the communizers essentially argue is that Orthodox Marxist and later, Marxist-Leninist experiments did not constitute a definitive break with the capitalist mode of production, but rather a renegotiation of it, because they maintained the fundamental social relations of capitalism and failed to trigger a process of communization, instead creating new structures that quickly crystallized into a permanent bureaucratic structure which eventually gave way to traditional capitalist relations.

For some other communizers, such as the communization of Tiqqun and Comite Invisible, as well as Theorie Communiste, the self-abolition of the proletariat is still upheld, but with a different foundational analysis. Non-Marxist and revisionist Marxist communizers generally decenter the revolutionary subject. Rather than fixing the revolutionary process on a particular class, such as the proletariat, these communizers view revolution, or more accurately insurrection, as a process that is not centered in the conditions and identity of a particular class, as the very process of insurrection actively dissolves class. This is not to say that communization excludes the proletariat. Indeed, it is very likely that insurrection will be performed by and large by the proletarian class. The non-Marxist communizers simply reject the class identity as the root of revolutionary activity, especially Tiqqun and Comite Invisible, who instead view the generalized alienated human subject in capitalism as the revolutionary subject.

Variants

Relationships

Friends

• Autonomism - Hugely influential to me. Great means of struggle.
• Insurrectionary Anarchism - We are very similar. You're a bit naive though.
• Libertarian Marxism - Basically me. Reject the dictatorship of the proletariat though.
• Marxism - Amazing historical analysis and gives us the way forward. The dictatorship of the proletariat is no longer useful though.
• Situationism - You are very flawed but you are very influential to me.
• Impossibilism - The revolution must be achieved through the working class itself.
• Marxist Feminism - The patriarchy was the first class distinction.

Frenemies

• Anarcho-Communism - Kropotkin had great analysis but you are way too dogmatic and don't engage in the materialist analysis of history.
• Council Communism - You show great flaws in the party form but then submit to workerism.
• Italian Left Communism - Great emphasis on the content of communism and the rejection of opportunism, but sadly you emphasize the party.
• Neo-Marxism - Great extensions on Marx's theory but a lot of you are way too liberal.
• Anarcho-Egoism - Petty-Bourgeoisie individualist but some of my theorists like you a lot.
• Ergatocracy - While you are right that the revolution must be achieved by the working class itself, you quickly fall to workerism.

Enemies

• Capitalism - Down with capital! Molotov at your business!
• Reactionaryism - We must revolt against your oppression!
• National Bolshevism You aren't a communist, nor a socialist; just another oxymoronic gravedigger.
• Reformism - An useless system that doesn't work.
• Social Democracy - Capitalism cannot be reformed, it can only be destroyed.
• Totalitarianism - An oppressive and genocidal force that must be eradicated.
• Liberal Socialism - Socialists cannot take power through existing state machinery.
• Leninism - Reject the party form!
• Maoism - Gravedigger!
• Marxism–Leninism - Gravedigger!
• Marxism–Leninism–Maoism - Gravedigger!
• Mutualism - Petty bourgeoisie anarchism.
• State Socialism - Just contradictory.
• Trotskyism - Revisionist fool.
• Utopian Socialism - Rejects the materialist analysis of history.
• Democratic Confederalism - "At last we’ve found a revolution that does not scare the bourgeois."

Further Information

Wikipedia

• Communization
• Gilles Duavé
• Julien Coupat
• Tiqqun
• The Invisible Commitee

Literature

• Endnotes 1 by Endnotes
• Endnotes 2 by Endnotes
• Endnotes 3 by Endnotes
• Endnotes 4 by Endnotes
• Endnotes 5 by Endnotes
• Everything Must Go! The Abolition of Value by Gilles Duavé and Bruno Astarian
• Eclipse and Re-emergence of the Communist Movement by Gilles Duavé
• From Crisis to Communization by Gilles Duavé
• Communization and its Disconects by Benjamin Noys
• Tiqqun 1 by Tiqqun
• The Coming Insurrection by The Invisible Committee