Announcement: ‘Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution’ (G.I.C.,1935)

The first complete German and English editions

“Habent sua fata libelli.”
(Books have their fates.)

Read this book presentation: ‘Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution’ (G.I.C.,1935)

 

A Free Retriever’s Digest Vol.5 #2 (April – June 2021)

New Edition

Contents:

 

54 pages (A4, pdf)

Available for free download here:

210501 A Free Retriever’s Digest Vol.5 Nr2

The next release is envisaged in July 2021. The deadline for sending in notifications and contributions is Sunday, June 20, 2021.

Topic: The 1921 ‘Kronstadt Tragedy’ – Beginning of the Counterrevolution?

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Kronstadt uprising and its defeat we present a small selection of titles from the vast literature available, which we consider of interest in order to go into its wider historical significance and implications:

• The Program of the Kronstadt Uprising is presented and analyzed in a chapter of the work by Ida Mett: La commune de Cronstadt. Crépuscule sanglant des soviets (Paris 1938, 1948) [“The Kronstadt Commune. Bloody Twilight of the Soviets”]. It was first published in English by Solidarity, London 1967.

• A council communist analysis that came about contemporaneous to the publication of Mett’s work in the West can be read in Willy Huhn’s work “Trotsky – The Failed Stalin” (1952), from which we provide a chapter in translation.

• An extensive bibliography and documents‘ collection established by ‘Fragments d’Histoire de la gauche radicale’ (“Fragments of the History of the radical Left“, mainly in French language) in collaboration with ‘Les Révolutions-1917’ is presented at the hand of the authors’ survey text.

• Last but not least, we recommend The Retreat of the World-Revolution – The 1921 ‘Kronstadt Tragedy’, an extract from Chapter V: Gorter, the KAPD and the Foundation of the Communist Workers’ International (1921–7) of Ph. Bourrinet’s political historiography The Dutch and German Communist Left (1900–68) (Brill, Leiden – Boston 2017).

The editor, April 26, 2021.

 

Click to read these contributions to The 1921 ‘Kronstadt Tragedy’ – Beginning of the Counterrevolution?

 

Trotsky and the Kronstadt Uprising of 1921

The violently crushed Kronstadt uprising of March 1921, followed by the introduction of the NEP, marked a decisive turn in the consolidation of the state capitalist regime that had come to bearing through the October insurrection in Russia 1917. The struggle for “soviets without the communists” (i.e. without the Bolsheviks) led by the insurgent mariners would be the last attempt by the proletarian masses to reconquer political power over the state, whose grip had been strengthened under pressure of the ‘civil war’ in Russia, with its so-called ‘war-communism’, to the detriment of the councils (soviets). Having achieved a military victory over the “white armies” through an unprecedented militarization, the Bolshevik regime was confronted with a plain catastrophe at the economic level, resulting in mass famines and peasant insurrections, like the Makhnovchina in the South. The Kronstadt uprising was the top of the iceberg of a mass movement that had its counterpart among the industrial proletariat. With its defeat, and the subsequent repression of political life, the backbone of the proletarian mass strike in Russia since 1905 was crushed, sealing off the counter-revolutionary involution of the Bolshevik party in power.

The following chapter from his major work Trotsky – the failed Stalin presents the analysis elaborated by the council communist Willy Huhn at the beginning of the 1950s of the role of the Bolshevik party, its leadership and of Trotsky in particular in these key events, with regards to the later political current of “trotskyism”.

Our translation is followed by a brief editor’s note on some historical inaccuracies by Huhn.

Last updated: April 22, 2021

 

Pages: 1 2

Topic: Has Capitalism entered its Decadence since 1914? (II)

Discussion Contributions

Apropos of the recently started series The Falsehoods of the International Communist Current (ICC) — A Critique, we have opened a new section on our topics pages, which collects Discussion Contributions on the Question of Capitalism’s Decadence by commentators of this work in progress. At present it contains the following essays:

Autumn 2020:

Decline and Senility of Capitalism with Marx, Engels and Communism.

A critical recapitulation and determination of capitalism’s historical phase (Anibal & materia, May 22, 2020)

Some Key Questions for Luxemburg’s Theory of Accumulation.

Problems for the modern day supporters of Luxemburg’s theory of total dependence on precapitalist markets (Link, November 27, 2020)

Spring 2021:

Capitalism is coming to an end. But how?

Does China’s further integration into capitalism lead to the latter’s “obsolescence”? Fredo Corvo replies to C.Mcl. (Version of March 14, 2021)

The Decadence of Capitalism. A Discussion

Aníbal & materia (Version of March 22, 2021)

 

Click to read Discussion Contributions on the Question of Capitalism’s Decadence

 

This section may be updated with new contributions. We invite interested readers to send in their commentaries and/or contributions. Please read the modalities in the Colophon.

 

‘The economic necessity of imperialism’ (Anton Pannekoek, 1916)

From: ‘De Nieuwe Tijd’ (Vol.21 #5, May 5, 1916)

By way of an introduction

For a critique of the theory of the decadence of capitalism, Pannekoek is important because he has always opposed the view that capitalism would automatically and irreparably collapse. In “The Economic Necessity of Imperialism” (1916) he summarizes his critique of Luxemburg’s underpinning of the saturation of the markets at the hand of Marx’s reproduction diagrams. We will not go into this further, but do point out that the ICC’s theory of decadence relies on Luxemburg’s argument. Further, Pannekoek has taken down the tendency of the rate of profit to fall as a theoretical underpinning of Grossman’s and Mattick’s crises theory as well. Instead of an automatic and irreparable collapse of capitalism and an economic necessity of imperialism, Pannekoek argues that the periodic crises arise from the imbalance between economic factors inherent in capitalism. Instead of an economic necessity of imperialism, he posits a social and political necessity that follows from the power of big capital. Only at the margins of his reflections Pannekoek speaks of an end to capitalism in a then – in 1916 and 1946 respectively – distant future: through the exhaustion of the “material” conditions for the expansion of production. In 1916 these are “unlimited quantities” of raw materials in nature; in 1946 he already speaks of “the raw adventurous methods of capital – which on all continents are in the process of destroying the fertility of the earth”. Not unimportant, and even highly topical in the light of the current environmental and health crises. The second material condition mentioned by Pannekoek that capitalism would no longer be able to fulfill, is that of a labor force in “sufficient” quantities to expand production.
F.C., January 2021

(Last edited: March 15, 2021)

A Free Retriever’s Digest Vol.5 #1 (January – March 2021)

Contents:

36 pages (A4, pdf)

Available for free download here:

210131 A Free Retriever’s Digest Vol.5 Nr 01

(Note: due to a correction the initial pdf file has been replaced)

The next release is envisaged in the second half of April 2021. The deadline for notifications and contributions has been set to Sunday, April 4, 2021.

Mr. Trump’s ‘Sixth of January’ 2021

First internationalist statements on the failed coup attempt by a political adventurer (Extracts)

The assault on the Capitol on January 6 by an extremist mob of Trump-fanatics in a stillborn last ditch attempt to “subvert” the outcome of the US presidential election of November 3 – the clear loss for the ‘Republican’ candidacy to that of the ‘Democrats’ – and the prompt initiation by the US Congress, on January 13, of a second impeachment procedure against its main instigator for “high crimes and misdemeanors”, mark the end of a rogue presidency bent on undermining the institutional framework of the worlds’ most powerful bourgeois democracy. These events highlight the rifts within its ranks, first of all within a ‘Republican Party’ exposed for enabling a political adventurer to surf on the tide of right-wing populism and extremism.

Whereas the security precautions for the certification ceremony on January 6 had appeared to be surprisingly weak and inefficient (entailing casualties in the row on both sides), one week before the inauguration of the Biden-Harris presidency Washington D.C. has been turned into an armed fortress, and the country as a whole has been put on alert against further disruptive actions expected from the right-wing extremist spectrum and its militia.

The hallucinating events have led to a number of first statements and communiqués by internationalist groups and individuals that we document by extracts, in chronological order.

(Last updated: February 11, 2021)

Capitalism, Wars and Epidemics (IV. Conclusion)

To be buried by capitalism or to free the entire Earth from a vampiric system?

In the following we publish the conclusion of this article attempting to situate the corona-virus pandemic and its consequences in a broader perspective and from different angles. The previous three parts are also available on this blog:

Part I: §1 Commodity, Commerce and Confinement;  §2 The Precedent of the Spanish Flu: Defense Secrets, Brainwashing and War Economy to better cut up the Cannon Fodder. (Online: March 31, 2020, ‘AFRD’ Vol.4#2 (April – June 2020) p.9 ff.)

Part II: §3 Capitalism, Imperialism and the War of Microbes.
(Online: July 4, 2020, ‘AFRD’ Vol.4#3 (July – September 2020) p.19 ff.)

Part III: §4 The destruction of health systems and of the ecosystem. The commodification of the world. (Online: September 27 (§4.a). Completed on December 15, 2020)

250 years of modern Capitalism: A reconstruction of its dynamics (Part 2)

“I pre-suppose, of course, a reader who is willing to learn something new and therefore to think for himself. […] Every opinion based on scientific criticism I welcome.” (Karl Marx, Preface to the First German Edition of ‘Capital, critique of political economy’, 1867).

Taking up a longstanding concern of Marx’s that he was unable to fulfill, this work in progress treats the development of modern capitalism over the past 250 years, with special attention to the classic country of its origin: Great Britain/the UK, at the hand of examined statistic sources and according to criteria developed by Marx.

With its third chapter: “An economically polarized World” now available in the topics section of this site, our translation is up to date with the work’s version of March 17, 2020 at ‘Capitalisme & Crises Économiques’.

We invite our readers to consult the article through its Table of Contents.

The editor

Election of Biden: Successful democratic campaigns against the US and international proletariat

IGCL: Communiqué on the Situation in the United States (November 7, 2020)

“Trump has been beaten. After a week of counting the pro-Biden ballots sent in by mail, the  electoral ‘recovery’, announced by Trump himself as well, did take place. The American bourgeoisie can legitimately shout success. Isn’t this proof of its political mastery? Didn’t it succeed in imposing the presidential change that it had obviously deemed necessary since the outbreak of the economic crisis and the pandemic? And to appoint Biden? Wasn’t he supported by practically all the different bourgeois factions and the state apparatus, including the highest military officers, some of the Republicans themselves, and even by Fox News, the pro-Trump news channel? But, perhaps more importantly for its success, did it not succeed in mobilizing as never before for these elections? In a country where voter turnout has historically always been low, around 50%, all records since 1900 have been broken and 67% of the American electorate voted.”