Ph. Bourrinet: The Workers’ Councils, in the Theory of the German-Dutch Communist Left

“[This study] traces the political struggles born within the Second International to understand the nature of the emergence of this new form of organization that appeared in the struggle of the proletariat at the hinge between the 19^th and 20^th Centuries, a hinge that saw a capitalist system that had reached maturity with a numerically important and concentrated working class beginning to pose the question of revolution by bringing about the emergence of these unitary organs that were both economic and political… “the form finally found of the dictatorship of the proletariat” as Lenin will state during the revolution in Russia 1917. It also details the evolution of the understanding that this political current has released, while pointing out its strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, it sheds valuable light on the place assigned to the Workers’ Councils, both in the revolutionary phase and during the transitional period and the future society, formulating in passing, and to our knowledge, one of the best presentations and criticisms of the work of one of its eminent representatives – Jan Appel – on the organization of the future society: Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution. (¹) It also exhumes – and this is precious – some elements not often underlined in Marx on this subject. Finally, it closes by posing a whole series of relevant political questions that still need to be deepened in order not to fall back into the ruts of the past and to pose future questions in the clearest possible terms.” (Controverses, January 27, 2023)

The following English translation is published as a work in progress. The finished chapters can be accessed via the Table of Contents.

1 Read, on this site: ‘Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution’ (G.I.C.,1935), on the completed version in Dutch of 1935, and its first German and English translations; and: The G.I.C. and the Economy of the Transition Period – Introductory Article – situating the G.I.C.’s main work and the difficulties of its reception within the milieus of the communist Left. (Editor’s note)

‘Radencommunisme’ (1938): Trotsky and Council Communism

In August 1938 appeared “Radencommunisme”, with the subtitle “Marxist monthly journal for autonomous class movement”, as the theoretical organ of “council communist groups” in the Netherlands. This joint edition by the G.I.C. and the group ‘Proletenstemmen’ (“Proles’ Voices”) envisaged a reorientation of the council communist movement both in terms of a continuing theoretical deepening and of developing a wider presence within proletarian milieus, in view of the emergence of a new worker’s movement, in rupture with the historically obsolete conceptions of syndicalism and the mass party of the old worker’s movement.

From this journal 16 issues were released, before the Nazi-German occupation of the country rendered public political activities impossible in the course of May 1940, and the G.I.C. quasi instantaneously ceased to function, as it was not prepared for clandestine activity.

‘Radencommunisme’ (1938 – 1940)  lists the articles we had occasion to translate or revise in English, starting with its editorial of August 1938.

As a first elaborate contribution, the new journal opened with the first of a two-part article, sharply contrasting the views of Trotsky and his followers (the concept and role of a “Bolshevik-Leninist” vanguard party), to the council communist view on the dictatorship of the workers’ councils: Trotsky and Council Communism (‘Radencommunisme’, 1938).

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

Essay: On unionism and its revolutionary overcoming

A contribution to a debate between council communists
(Roi Ferreiro, August 17, 2020)

The following essay is a discussion contribution on the (trade- or industrial) union question from the perspective of overcoming the latter’s inherent limitations, which has been proposed in a recently emerging, council communist discussion forum.

Departing from the radicalizing tendencies that openly combated the official trades’ unions during the revolutionary upsurge in Germany 1917-1923, the essay  takes care to reestablish the vision of Marx and Engels on the possibilities and limits of ‘unionism’, both in their own time and in general. It subsequently attempts a terminological clarification, relating the ‘union’ or ‘syndicalist’ types of organizations and struggles to their historical period and respective aims and origins. Based on these preliminary considerations, the essay engages in an  investigation of the limitations and pitfalls in the conceptions, slogans and practices embodied by the K.A.P.D. and the Arbeiter-Unionen, as the most advanced expressions of a workers’ struggle for class autonomy at the time. Limitations and pitfalls that can also be found in more recent manifestations of proletarian struggles since the 1960s, albeit in a profoundly altered political-historical context, engaging very different force relations. A series of reflections is advanced that amount, a.o. to situating the workers’ struggles of the past decades as marked by a decline of ‘unionist’ illusions, and to re-calibrating the question of self-organizing in workers’ struggle. It appears that the old theses defended by the GIC in the 1930s are considered as still of use.

Pages: 1 2

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)

Supplement to AFRD #03 (June – July 2018)

The G.I.C. and the Economy of the Transition Period – Introductory Article

As a supplement to issue #03 of A Free Retriever’s Digest we publish a two-part article that introduces the major political–theoretical work of G.I.C., and attempts to clarify the main misunderstandings that still mark its reception. It is freely available for download here. The following presents its summary.

The G.I.C. and the economy of the transition period (1)

Origin and meaning of the ‘Fundamental Principles’

The work Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution (further: Fundamental Principles) of the Group of International Communists (GIC) is an important text of the communist Left on the economic problems of the transition period from capitalism to communism. The GIC describes the relevance of the Fundamental Principles as follows:

“As soon as the rule of the working class has become a fact in an industrialized country, the proletariat is confronted with the task of carrying through the transformation of economic life on new foundations, those of communal labor. The abolition of private property is easily pronounced, it will be the first measure of the political rule of the working class. But that is only a juridical act which aims at providing the legal foundation for the real economic proceeding. The real transformation and the actual revolutionary work then only begins.”  (¹)

The G.I.C. and the economy of the transition period (2)

Misunderstandings and anti-critique

In the foregoing, reference has been made to the misunderstandings that have arisen over time due to inadequate translations and summaries of the Fundamental Principles and unfamiliarity with the three preliminary studies. This section introduces the most important of these misunderstandings and corrects them with references to the 1935 version of the Fundamental Principles.

The Crisis in Socialist Theory: The “Group of International Communists” in Holland (1947)

Title:	The Crisis in Socialist Theory; The “Group of International Communists” in Holland (Dr. Anton Pannekoek)
Language:	English
Document:	Left, No. 132 (London, October 1947), p. 225-228; Reprinted in: Southern Advocate for Workers’ Councils, No. 40 (Melbourne, December 1947).
Author(s):	Anton Pannekoek
Web links:	http://www.aaap.be/Pages/Pannekoek-en-1947-The-Crisis-In-Socialist-Theory.html
Subject:	Socialist theory; Marxism
Categories:	Council Communism; G.I.C.; Anton Pannekoek
Remarks:	Source transcription from MIA revised by Vico/AAAP (January 9, 2018). With bibliographical references. Dutch & French translations are available at the Antonie Pannekoek Archives website.

Topic: Marx and the Question of the State

Max Hempel (1927) or: Marx and Engels versus Lenin’s ‘State and Revolution’

Jan Appel’s critique from 1927 of the ‘Bolshevik’ regime in Russia and Lenin’s ‘State and Revolution’ has been republished in an annotated edition in German on the web site “Left Wing” Communism – an infantile Disorder? Likewise a re-edition of its adoption by the G.I.C. from 1932 has seen the light of day in Dutch. These documents refute the myth that the historical German-Dutch communist left was virtually bereft of a realist appreciation of the question of the state, as propelled by quite some partisans of ‘the party’ and others in the internationalist milieu.