Council Communism

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"The answer to the question of the purpose of the theory of value is quite different for the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. The bourgeoisie asks about the prices of commodities, the proletariat about the organisation of society."

Council Communism, also called Dutch-German Left Communism[5], or simply Councilism[6], 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.

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 and serve as the "head weapon" of the revolution along with the idea that the communist party must have a thoroughly worked out programmatic basis that is "Hard as Steal and Clear as Glass" and must be organized and disciplined in its entirety from below, as a unified will[7]. 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[8].

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[9] and Bordiga's work with the same name[10]. 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 NameHEXRGB
 Red#D40100rgb(212, 1, 0)
 Black#202020rgb(32, 32, 32)

Relationships

Friends

  • Marxism - If only more people understood what you said, especially in your later years...
  • Ergatocracy - The dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be ignored.
  • Marxist Feminism - Women in society should stand up against the family structure until it is abolished.
  • Classical Social Democracy - Universal class consciousness is the basis of revolution. As nice as most of you are, I don't want you to be confined to the prison of parliamentary struggle.
  • De Leonism - I have a pretty good view of you, but you should pursue individual liberation.
  • Proletarian Internationalism - The spiritually corrupt bourgeoisie is dead! The proletariat all over the world should seek true freedom!
  • Revolutionary Progressivism - Workers should have the right to self-determination of their identity. They are free in their thinking and use their spiritual and material power to promote the progress of society.
  • Humanism - Virtue in the proletariat is great.
  • Anti-Authoritarianism - Our goals are the same, but more of you should embrace communism.
  • Civil Libertarianism - Same as above.
  • Direct Democracy - The people can only really overthrow capitalism through workers' councils.
  • Impossibilism - Revolution is the only way for the proletariat to seize power.
  • Scientocracy - Scientific and rational inquiry is much better than any paper struggle.
  • 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.
  • Eco-Socialism - Pannekoek seems to appreciate you.
  • Situationism - My based son who uses fancy jargon and criticizes consumerism.
  • Communization Theory - My grandson, although I can't figure out what he's really after.
  • Libertarian Marxism - The modern heir of my spirit.

Frenemies

  • Authoritarian Socialism - Comrades, communism can only be achieved by having the proletariat carry out a bottom-up revolution.
  • Democratic Socialism - When are you going to fully embrace the revolution?
  • Anarcho-Syndicalism - Syndicalism and Anarchism are cringeworthy, and I'm sick of a lot of people confusing us. Uh, you sympathize with my thinking?
  • Maoism - In the Cultural Revolution, you seem to have borrowed my methods of struggle against the revisionists. What you don't really realize is that your behavior is just an art of suicide within the party system. Uh, I have some place in your modern variant?
  • National Bolshevism - The dregs of social totalitarianism mixed with neo-feudalism. But some of you seem to be influenced by me.
  • Spartacism - Indeed a true revolutionary leader and communist, however, you are an economist and an entryist.
  • 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. We also worked together in Vietnam.
  • Anarcho-Collectivism - Bakunin was a great revolutionary and his conflict with Marx is much more complex than modern Marxists believe, yet I think we should both moderate each other's opinions.
  • Anarcho-Communism - Even though we look alike, I still follow the principle of the dictatorship of the proletariat in Marx's opinion.

Enemies

  • Capitalism - You will perish eventually.
  • Authoritarian Capitalism - The bourgeoisie itself, which rejects the autonomy of the working class, will only perish faster.
  • Totalitarianism - Capitalism in its heyday.
  • Religion - All of mankind's sublime and moral impulses are tied to a belief in virtue and manifest themselves in the garb of religion. Religion is merely the deceptive veneer of ideological imperatives.
  • Imperialism - The destruction of all ancient civilizations is linked to you, including China and also India. The communist revolution against capitalism is the last war against war.
  • Syndicalism - Trade unions are useless in the struggle against capital!
  • Social Darwinism - You have falsified actual Darwinist theory!
  • Liberalism - Your democracy is only a tyranny of the minority!
  • Reformism - Self-help movement within the bourgeois state.
  • Menshevism - Parliamentary politics simply doesn't work, and your tactics will destroy the proletariat!
  • 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.
  • Social Liberalism, Third Way and Neoliberalism - The rival bourgeoisie is uniting to besiege the proletariat... We need to unite and replace the irrational struggles on the parliamentary battlefield with scientific seminars.
  • Ho Chi Minh Thought - You cracked down on us and the Trotskyists! Luckily enough Ngo Van was able to flee from the scene.
  • Reactionary Socialism - Petty bourgeois socialist, a fantasist who tries to achieve emancipation by self-will alone.
  • Fascism - Instead of putting an end to the struggle, your imperialist stooping has established a neo-feudalist economic form.
  • Nazism - Cope harder, you can't unburn the Reichstag.Wait, it was restored in 1999.
  • Kautskyism - You forgot your Marxism at home.
  • Marxism–Leninism - You are merely a natural conclusion of Blanquism.
  • Leninism - The Russian Revolution represented a great advance for the proletariat, the masses having progressed from a state of barbarism under a bourgeois society to a situation where dignity was sought. But the notion that revolutionary parties such as Leninism organize is contradictory, and the price of this progress is simply the replacement of a corrupt regime with a heavier one, an oppressive dictatorship.
  • Heh, how are workers going to take power if they don't need parliamentary struggle and party leadership?
  • Comrade Lenin, we don't want you to have to equate political leaders with the working class. Because we are looking for an organization that is purely controlled by the proletariat, that is the workers' councils for self-liberation. And you want only the unconscious masses, not revolutionary individuals.
  • State Capitalism - This is the true face of the Bolsheviks!
  • Dengism - This is the whole process by which a state capitalist institution betrays its ruling class!
  • Anarchism - 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.
  • Guild Socialism - Reactionary! Well, I mean our end goals are similar, but your dislike of Marx and promotion of corporatist economics separates us
  • 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!

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