On the Bookshelves: “A critique of Luxemburg’s Theory of Accumulation”

Contribution to a discussion on Marx’s accumulation and crises theory of Capitalism

Bibliographic data: Phil Sutton, A Critique of Luxemburg’s Theory of Accumulation. Independently published, 30 May 2021. Paperback, 98 pages. ISBN-13: 979-8733143033. Per copy: £6.23 Ordering information via Amazon-UK.

Back-cover text

«From: The Accumulation of Capital by Rosa Luxemburg (1913):

“Capital accumulation progresses and expands at the expense of non-capitalist strata and countries, squeezing them out at an ever faster rate. The general tendency and final result of this process is the exclusive world rule of capitalist production. Once this is reached, Marx’s model becomes valid: accumulation, i.e. further expansion of capital, becomes impossible. Capitalism comes to a dead end, it cannot function any more as the vehicle for the unfolding of the productive forces, it reaches its objective economic limit.”

This pamphlet critically investigates how Rosa Luxemburg justifies her theory of the accumulation of capital and whether the events of the last century of capitalist development confirm or deny her theory.»

Read the Author’s Introduction & the Table of Contents

On the Bookshelves: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!”

An Articles Selection from G.I.C. – Authors,

1926 – 1938

Bibliographical data: ‘Group of International Communists. From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!’ Translator and editor: Hermann Lueer. First edition: Red & Black Books, Hamburg, June 2021. Pocket, 105 pages, ISBN-13: 978-3-9822065-7-8. (ca. €8.07). Kindle e-Book, ISBN-10: 398220657X. (ca. €4.21).

From the back-cover: « Most Marxists do not like Marx. At least, they don’t like the economic principles of the communist society that Marx derived from his critique of capitalism. But most Marxists do not criticize Marx in this respect either, they prefer to interpret him.

“Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution”, the now legendary 1930 pamphlet of the Group of International Communists, was both a detailed exposition of the communist mode of production that Marx and Engels had only sketched out and a fundamental critique of the revisionism of the political parties that invoked Marx.

The book at hand contains a selection of articles published by the members of the Group of International Communists in various periodicals between 1926 and 1938, whose critique has lost none of its relevance to this day. »

Read the editor’s foreword & table of contents

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

The first complete German and English editions (2020)

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

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

Book Presentation: The German-Dutch Communist Left from its Origins to 1968

The 3^rd, revised Edition in French (June 2018)

Back cover text

The German-Dutch Communist Left, represented by the German KAPD and AAUD, the Dutch KAPN and the Bulgarian Communist Workers Party, separated from the Comintern in September 1921 because of principled disagreements on all important questions: parliamentarism, syndicalism, united fronts, the Bolshevik party-state using anti-proletarian violence (Kronstadt). This radical current had the audacity to assert that it was not the “communist party”, but the workers’ councils that constituted the finally discovered form of the proletarian dictatorship, and thereby of the communist transformation. It attracted the ire of Lenin, who wrote in June 1920 his famous book on left extremism, “Left-wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder, (¹) to which Herman Gorter delivered a slashing response in his pamphlet Open letter to comrade Lenin. (²)

A political History of the German-Dutch communist Left (Preface)

The Author’s Introduction to the new Edition (Prepublication)

Despite the theoretical and political renown of Gorter and Pannekoek in the international labor movement, the Communist Left in the Nether­lands is the least known of the left currents that emerged within the II. International, and later joined the Communist International. Their exclu­sion in 1921 from the Komintern wrapped the names that had symbolized the most intransigent internationalism in a veil of oblivion.

Book Review: “In Search of Rosa’s Heritage”

The German Marxist Willy Huhn (1909 – 1970)

Jochen Gester: Auf der Suche nach Rosas Erbe. Der deutsche Marxist Willy Huhn (1909-1970); Die Buchmacherei, Berlin, 2017.

Paperback, 628p. + CD 207p. (Pdf); €22,-. ISBN 978-3-00-056463-5. Orders via Die Buchmacherei, with postal charges.

In this article you find:

• The book description by the Editor

• The review: Willy Huhn, an unknown coun­cil communist

 

On the Bookshelves: ‘Envers et contre tout’

From the Left Opposition to the Foundation of the ‘Union Communiste’ (France, 1924 – 1939)

Presentation by the Author

Presenting a work is always hazardous. This work was, at its beginning, about writing the history of the Left Opposition in a period in which the international revolution had been defeated in 1921 – 1923, a defeat that has been continued by the eradication of the revolutionaries in Russia and everywhere else in the world, including China.

Our historical saga concludes with the birth of the ‘Union Communiste’ (“Communist Union”) who represents the bundling in France of the internationalist communists.

Well, this book can be read from a different angle: how has the bourgeoisie arrived at defeating the working class morally and physically in order to take it into the Second imperialist war? 

From the Bookshelf

Collectif d’édition Smolny	BOUKHARINE, OSSINSKI, RADEK, SMIRNOV : La Revue Kommunist (Moscou, 1918) Les communistes de gauche contre le capitalisme d’État
	Collectif d’édition Smolny, 2011. Texts translated from Russian into French by Julia Gousseva
	408 p. Paperback, 14 x 21 cm, €20,-. ISBN 978-2-9528276-3-8.
Helen Caldicott	Crisis Without End. The Medical and Ecological Consequences of the Fukushima Nuclear Catastrophe
	The New Press (New York), 2014
	256 p. Hardcover 5.5 x 8.25 in, $26.95. ISBN 978-1-59558-960-6.
Philippe Bourrinet	The Dutch and German Communist Left (1900-68). ‘Neither Lenin nor Trotsky nor Stalin!’ – ‘All Workers Must Think for Themselves!’
	Brill (Leiden/ Boston), 2016
	639 p. Hardback, incl. 52 (color) illustrations, €210/$252. ISBN 978-90-04-26977-4.