"All Power to the Worker's Councils!" -- History of Anti-Bolshevik Communism

This is Part 2 of a lecture/discussion on the traditions Lenin denounced in “Left-Wing” Communism, An Infantile Disorder. Called council communism, ultra-left, left communism, and including strains of class struggle anarchism, they are still relevant theoretical and practical tools for revolutionary activity today. They draw on the uncompromising internationalism of Rosa Luxemburg, the theories of organization of the German/Dutch left who were veterans of the post-WWI revolutionary uprisings, and the lucid critique of capitalism by Italian left theorist Amadeo Bordiga. There were also cross-fertilizations with the I.W.W. Later groups embodying these ideas were Socialism or Barbarism (SouB) in France, who collaborated with the Johnson-Forest Tendency (JFT) in the U.S. Both found their anti-vanguardist ideas of spontaneous working class self-activity confirmed with workers’ councils in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. In the late 1960s JFT influenced the League of Revolutionary Black Workers in Detroit; SouB member Guy Debord went on to become the main theorist of the Situationist International, whose ideas were realized in the 10 million-strong wildcat general strike in France in May 1968. Around the world, many groups carry on these traditions in the fight for communism. • Links for suggested reading:
http://geocities.com/cordobakaf/bologna.html and http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/12.councils.htm

This event is free and wheelchair accessible.

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