Pantopolis – théorie politique

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G.I.C. Fundamental principles of communist production and distribution
Book cover of Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution

First translation of the final 1935 edition by G.I.C.

G.I.K. Grundprinzipien kommunistischer Produktion und Verteilung
Buchumschlag G.I.K. Grundprinzipien Kommunistischer Produktion und Verleilung

Erstübersetzung aus dem Niederländischen der letzten von der GIK besorgten und erweiterten Ausgabe (1935)

G.I.C. Grondbeginselen van de communistische productie en distributie
Boekomslag G.I.C. Grondbeginselen van de communistische productie en distributie

Eerste uitgave in boekvorm avan G.I.C. Grondbeginselen van de communistische productie en distributie

 

 

History

Left Dis’ selection from the archives of historical documents of the Communist Left.

Subscribe by sending a mail with subject ‘History New’ to : info (arobase/at) left-dis (dot) nl.

May 2024

Spanish

Interesting

April 2024

Spanish

Interesting

March 2024

Spanish

Interesting

February 2024

Spanish

Interesting

January 2024

Interesting

December 2023

Interesting

November 2023

Interesting

October 2023

Interesting

September 2023

Spanish

Interesting

  • Wer will den Krieg? Gründe, Hintergründe und Folgen des Ersten Weltkrieges. Mit Texten von Francis Delaisi (1911) Julian Borchardt (1915) der «Arbeiterpolitik» (1918) und Johann Knief (1919): https://raetekommunismus.de/Texte_Knief_Borchardt/Textsammlung-1_WK.pdf
  • C.Mcl, La TCI, Lénine et l’obsolescence du capitalisme: https://www.leftcommunism.org/IMG/pdf/critique_tci_-_decadence-lenine.pdf
  • Aníbal, Summary of three articles on the decline of capitalism. Evaluation and critique of C.Mcl (Controverses): https://leftdis.wordpress.com/2023/08/24/summary-of-three-articles-on-the-decline-of-capitalism/
  • EL ANTIKAAPEDISMO DEL PCI. Lucien Laugier / THE ANTIKAAPEDISM OF THE PCI. Lucien Laugier https://inter-rev.foroactivo.com/t12288-el-antikaapedismo-del-pci-lucien-laugier
  • Nelke plus Mattick sr and Huhn, Revolutionäre Kritik des Trotzkismus: https://swiderstand.blackblogs.org/2023/08/09/revolutionaere-kritikdestrotzkismus/
  • A. Giannico – SULL’IMPERIALISMO CINESE. Specificità e contraddizioni di una grande potenza in ascesa

    ON CHINESE IMPERIALISM. Specificities and contradictions of a rising great power

    This text, which collects articles published in the journal “Marxist Perspective,” is the fruit, the synthesis of a 20-year study of China’s social reality. The economic and political rise of the Asian giant in global competition is undoubtedly one of the processes that are marking the contemporary era. Too often, however, it is encapsulated in schematic and stereotypical formulas. Too often the public debate around phenomena related to the emergence of Chinese power is encapsulated, especially in Italy, within hasty polarizations. Now China is portrayed as the unstoppable competitor of the United States, fatally destined to supplant American hegemony globally (if not already succeeding Washington in the role of hegemonic power) now as a giant with feet of clay, equally fatally undermined by innumerable frailties. Now China would embody a fateful squaring of the circle, with an unprecedented and successful weld between capitalist economy and “communist” political power (quotation marks obligatory since the author’s criterion of analysis is based on the recognition of the full capitalist social nature of the People’s Republic of China and the extraneousness of genuine communist revolutionary developments from its path of formation), now it would constitute a gigantic time bomb, resulting from the confrontation between a rigid and authoritarian political system and the dynamic heterogeneity of the economy and social fabric. In contrast, the common thread of the articles that make up this text can be traced precisely in concepts such as the complexity and contradictory nature of a historical path and economic and social reality, with an awareness of the importance of such a fundamental factor as unequal development within the Chinese space. In order to understand certain essential elements of the reality of a power that is pressing the world order, it is necessary to go beyond the surface of easy definitions, convenient simplifications. China shares the social essence, laws and general logic of the capitalist mode of production. But at the same time Chinese capitalism has developed on a specific historical and cultural background, understanding China today means understanding its common capitalist nature and at the same time its specificity. The effort to understand China must contemplate as much the political state synthesis that allows a growing imperialistic force to be projected onto the world theater as the multiple identities of a vast and diverse social reality. Precisely with this complexity in mind, the analytical instrumentation contained in this text goes so far as to address issues such as the drivers of China’s economic growth and at the same time the contradictions often hidden behind the apologetic celebration of this development, such as the conditions of the working class and the conflicts that accompany the trend of China’s increasing economic strength. The analysis even grapples with difficult, highly interesting and fundamental issues, such as the formation and changing persistence of a specific forma mentis in Chinese society, markedly different from that which has taken shape through other historical paths in Europe and in realities generally associated with the concept of the West. In this endeavor the author also draws on the contributions, filtered through the application of the Marxist method, of such scholars as Joseph Needham, Paul Kennedy and Angus Maddison. It is ultimately a work that serves as a valuable and documented tool for understanding and critiquing a historical phenomenon that has acquired a powerful centrality in the becoming of our times.

    To request the [italian] text write to: redazione@prospettivamarxista.org

August 2023

Spanish

Interesting

  • IDA, Replik auf Kritik der Gruppe Krisis.
  • Hermann Lueer in Jungle World: Anders als im Kapitalismus. Die Arbeitszeitrechnung macht die Überwindung kapitalistischer Produktionsverhältnisse möglich
  • Nelke, Analyse und Kritik der Warenproduktion. Mit Kritik der GIK.
  • Coaolizione Operaia, 1953, Lektionen aus Berlin
  • Coaolizione Operaia, Antologia – Bagliori nella notte. See also: UN MONDO CONTRO. Pubblichiamo il documento dei compagni del CIRCOLO INTERNAZIONALISTA «COALIZIONE OPERAIA», tratto dall’introduzione all’antologia Bagliori nella notte edita da Movimento Reale (luglio 2023).

    The work we present focuses on the theoretical-political legacy of the internationalist minorities who fought courageously against the entrenchment of the proletariat in the various fronts of the Second World Imperialist War. Its purpose is not to fill a void in the shelves of Italian nonfiction on World War II and the Resistance in Europe. Its militant necessity has arisen in the course of the political battle to reestablish the cornerstones of Marxist analysis and proletarian internationalism on the occasion of the imperialist war in Ukraine, which broke out on Feb. 24, 2022, and to reiterate forcefully that in the age of imperialism, those who deny by misunderstanding, or worse, by falsification, Marxist analysis of imperialist dynamics in order to support “wars of liberation of oppressed nations” that are not such in fact or to support supposedly “anti-imperialist” blocs, serve – and it is a low service-world imperialism.

    It is a matter of trying to draw a theoretical balance sheet, which is indispensable for building the premises necessary to face the challenges of the future; it is a question of looking higher and farther, on the shoulders of those who have managed to firmly maintain the red flag of proletarian internationalism in the midst of what to date remains the most terrifying imperialist carnage in the history of capitalism, fighting – it is legitimate to say with bare hands – the overwhelming ideological force of bourgeois reaction, in its nationalist, fascist, racist, democratic, Stalinist and social democratic guises.

    These men and women, these “glimmers in the night” of the century of imperialism had a whole world against them: the Axis and Allied imperialist powers, the bourgeoisies at home aligned with one another, Stalinism. Yet despite such adverse conditions, they did not deflect. They did not hesitate to take their place in the onerous work of rebuilding the class independence of the proletariat and for the restoration to the class of its own theoretical consciousness, which is struggle for consciousness of struggle and in struggle, paying a very high price, in terms of slander, denunciation, arrests, deportations, torture, and, often, even with their own lives. This anthology, in addition to being a tribute to their invaluable testimonies and their cruelly defeated battles of yesterday, is intended to be a contribution to the reappropriation by the working class of the tools needed to win the battles of today and, above all, the gigantic battles of tomorrow.

July 2023

Workers’ revolt in Eastern Germany, original Dutch edition 1953, written by Cajo Brendel

Workers’ revolt in Eastern Germany 1953, other versions of the text by Brendel, a comment, other textx by different authors

On the occasion of a new council communist publication (discussion group CCC):

Labor Time Calculation

June 2023

  • Proletarier – Monatsschrift der Kommunistischen Arbeiter-Partei Deutschlands (KAPD), der Allgemeinen Arbeiter-Union (AAU) und der Kommunistischen Arbeiter-Internationale (KAI). Link to Rätekommunismus site.
  • Brendel, Stellingen over de Chinese revolutie (Daad en Gedachte, 1967, 1974). As PDF.

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

May 2023

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

April 2023

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

March 2023

Interesting historical/theoretical article: Communism, too early? Or from delay to abandonment? On the occasion of the publication of following three texts:

  • Hermann Lueer, The transition to communism: An Intellectual Confusion, with German, Spanish and Dutch translations.
  • Aníbal, A confused intellectual? A detailed critique of Hermann Lueer’s text The transition to communism: An intellectual confusion.
  • The last two chapters of Ph. Bourrinet, Les Conseils Ouvriers dans la théorie de la gauche communiste germano-hollandaise. This text dates from 1999 and has been slightly modified and expanded by the author on the occasion of a recent translation into Dutch, which will appear in volumes on the site Arbeidersstemmen in 2023. An older English translation is also available.

February 2023

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

Articles on the period of transition

Several subjects

January 2023

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

  • Aníbal, Capitalismo, imperialismo, militarismo, guerra. Tendencias determinantes, contratendencias, condiciones.
    Table of contents of this pamphlet (English translation)
    1) Imperialist war, nuclear deterrence and capitalist internationalisation. Contradictions in the past and present, tendencies towards the future.
    2) Conditions for a third world war. Origins of many confusions.
    3) Decadentists and imperialist war. Deployment of mystifications that distort the critical understanding of capitalism and its real tendencies. Practical effects.
    4) “War is the death of civilisation”… Bullshit!!!!
    5) Failed premonitions. World war and alleged decadence of capitalism.
    6) Capitalist leaders talk about the imperialist war.
    7) What revolutionary internationalist defeatism in the ‘Ukrainian’ war really means. By Fredo Corvo and Anibal.
  • Aníbal, Periodo de transición del capitalismo al comunismo.Crítica al leninismo y el bordiguismo. English translation: The period of transition from capitalism to communism, a critique of Leninism and Bordigism.
  • The Classless Society in Motion. A New Theory of Communist Economy
    In 1930 the Group of International Communists laid out their vision for a self-directed society of free and equal producers, echoing and elaborating upon the scattered writings of Marx and Engels on the topic.
    Building on the GIC’s outstanding and long overlooked work – ‘The Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution’ – we further develop their core ideas, introducing a number of new and related principles. With these, we show how a society of free and equal producers is a concrete possibility. What has long been dismissed as an impossible dream, we reveal to be both simple and elegant.
    Using the lens of Marx’s value theory, we analyse and critique the most prominent existing attempts at describing a socialist economy. It will be shown how a lack of understanding of Marx’s analysis of the value form, coupled with a flawed idea of the nature of socialism/communism, fundamentally undermines these projects.
    The material basis of the egalitarian society we describe, emerges organically from and in opposition to the existing capitalist relations of production, abolishing private property, classes, money, markets, exploitation, and the value-form in its wake. Established within an open and transparent general system of accounting, it has no need for a caste of bureaucratic planners or a party dictatorship.
    Planning is a continuous and distributed process. Socialist theory must come to terms with this reality. Planning is not reducible to arbitrary time epochs, decided by administrative convenience. It must be a living, organic, democratic and continuous process, answering only to its own internal rhythms and the rational control of its participants.
    We offer a return to a vision of a society based upon the abolition of wage labour, a position fundamental to the Marxists and Anarchists of the First International.
    It is a socialism we can build today.
    It is a socialism for a political project that does not yet exist.
  • Aníbal, Socialismo,comunismo, sociedad sin clases. Materialismo histórico – crítico frente a teoría y práctica del bolchevismo La URSS : de las limitaciones y el fracaso revolucionario, a la explotación , dominio y mistificación bolchevique sobre la clase obrera.
    English translation: Socialism, communism, classless society. Historical-critical materialism vs. theory and practice of Bolshevism. The USSR : from limitations and revolutionary failure, to Bolshevik exploitation, domination and mystification of the working class.

    Introduction.
    The enormous confusion about socialism and communism has various social and historical roots. This article highlights the differences between the conceptions of critical historical materialism developed notably by Marx and Engels and those of later Bolshevism, which presented itself as a faithful continuation of the original Marxism, but which on the contrary introduced different and contrary theoretical conceptions, as well as a praxis which from a certain moment, shortly after October 1917, in the following year, in very difficult conditions and international isolation, led it to be a vector of capitalist development, after having managed to lead the proletarian revolution in Russia. Explanations of the weaknesses, errors and inadequacies of such pristine Marxism and its left-wing continuators can be found in other texts.(1) Compiled by Aníbal (December 2022)

    Table of contents.
    1. Socialism and communism in the historical materialist conception of Marx and Engels.
    2. Production and distribution, money, planning, communism, what happened after october 1917?
    3. Socialism and communism in bolshevism. The theory of its leaders (Lenin, Trotsky, Bukharin, Preobrajensky, Stalin) as mystification and alibi of capitalist practices. Antecedents in social democracy. Contradictions and oscillations.
    4. USSR. What was actually happening in workers’ existence: dominant capitalist relations.
    5. Fragments of the fundamental principles of communist production and distribution, by the GIC (Group of Internationalist Communists).
    – From Money to the Calculation of Labour Time
    – The economic power of the proletariat and the control system of general accountancy
    – The essence of communist production
    6. Period of transition from capitalism to communism.
    – Balance points and explanations.
    – Notes on the balance points
    7. Historical texts
        Notes
  • Aníbal, Unos fragmentos muy significativos del anarquista Rudolf Rocker / Some very significant excerpts from the anarchist Rudolf Rocker.
  • Philippe Bourrinet, Recension d’Axel Weipert, Die Zweite Revolution. Rätebewegung in Berlin 1919/1920 [La Deuxième Révolution. Le mouvement des conseils à Berlin, 1919-1920. Idem, English translation. Idem, German translation.
  • Philippe Bourrinet, Les Carnets de la Révolution russe de Nikolaï Soukhanov.

November/December 2022

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

October 2022

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

  • Buchausgabe Anton Pannekoek, Klassenkampf und Nation (1912).
    Ein Klassiker des Rätekommunismus der vor kurzem nur in Frakturschrift zu lesen war. Sehr aktuell wegen der Rolle des ukrainischen und russischen Nationalismus im heutigen Krieg in der Ukraine. Beide Nationalismen werden von manche leninistischen Linken gebraucht um sich an der einen oder der anderen Seite der Frontlinie zu beteiligen.
  • Anton Pannekoek, Klassenkampf und Nation (1912), a classic of council communism. Very topical because of the role of Ukrainian and Russian nationalism in today’s war in Ukraine. Both nationalisms are used by some Leninist leftists to participate on one or the other side of the front line. Also availlable in French translation, in English translation, in Spanish translation.
  • Herunterladen / Download version Grundprinzipien kommunistischer Produktion und Verteilung (1935).

August-September 2022

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

July 2022

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

June 2022

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

May 2022

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

April 2022

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

March 2022

      External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

February 2022

      External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

January 2022

    External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

December 2021

    External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

November 2021

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

October 2021

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

September 2021

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

August 2021

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

  • New book, Movimiento del capital
  • João Aguiar, Uma ou duas classes dos gestores? (in 4 parts)
  • F.D., Hors jeu. “Pourquoi les groupes politiques surgis de mai 68, et qui ont constitué la Gauche Internationaliste, en ont-ils été réduits au sectarisme de chapelle, sans exercer une quelconque influence sur le questionnement provoqué par la postmodernité”.

July 2021

Historical documents

Presentation of four new books

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles

Fringe Left

Posted on 2021/06/18 by majdoorsamachar

German-Dutch Left and Italian Left did not break from the social-democratic framework 
[A bold thesis put forward by Trotskyists, communizers, and their followers (including Internationalist Perspective). Curious to see the argument.] 

and its underlying social strata 
[Probably referring to the theory of workers’ aristocracy, remade by Stalin into workerism, framed by Autonomists to glorify the unlearned mass worker, condemning educated workers]

despite their critiques of many facets of social-democratic theory and practice in Germany and especially of the Bolshevik Party in Russia after October 1917. 
Their remnants in the fringe left, even during these thirty-five years that we have had some interactions with a few of them,
[as far as I had the pleasure to correspond with Majdoorsamachar, it showed insensitive for any critique. Instead, it limited itself to personal attacks and scorn, an old left-bourgeois tradition] 

are stuck in the 1920s. Whereas, with incomparable leaps in productive forces since early-1970s,
[Here we find Stalin’s deformation of historic materialist from history man-made by class struggle in favor of history determined by the evolution of productive forces, understood in a technical sense only]

“revolutionary intellectuals” have increasingly become irrelevant throughout the world.
[It have been ‘Leninism’ in all its forms and the deformations of the tendency Kautsky/Rühle/Brendel/Simon that believed that historical materialism was the product of ‘intellectuals.’ Majdoorsamachar may share that  false thesis in a positive or negative way, it does not apply to the KAPD/GIC current]

Despite our above mentioned reading, on the basis of interactions with most of the strands of the left in India over these forty-five years, it seems that an acquaintance with the German-Dutch Left + Italian Left and their inheritors could be of help in questioning the leninist- stalinist-trotskyist-maoist framings that still have some influence.
[You are most welcome!]

So, this link to the current issue of “A Free Retriever’s Digest” (April-June 2021). Incidentally, this issue also has, “A Note on Peasants in the Indian Subcontinent” which we sent as a response to a write-up in the earlier issue of the magazine.

https://afreeretriever.wordpress.com/2021/05/05/a-free-retrievers-digest-vol-5-2-april-june-2021/“

June 2021

May 2021

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles:

April 2021

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles:

March 2021

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles:

February 2021

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles:

Turn of the year 2020/2021

External links to interesting historical/theoretical articles:

November 2020

Interesting external links of the month:

October 2020

Interesting external links of the month:

September 2020

Interesting external links of the month:

July 2020

A recent discussion article, Council communists of the world, organize (the workers, or yourselves?), was based on following historical document of the communist left:

To ALL historic documents and history at leftdis archive, sorted by LANGUAGE

June 2020

  • Willy Huhn, Lenin als utopist (1948) in Dutch language, see below for German original and English translation

LEFT WING COMMUNISM, NOT an infantile disorder, our new site in construction, invites to a discussion on council communism and the revolution in Russia, starting from Wagners ‘Theses’. We have added documents on the historical context and a biography:

    Annoucement by aaap.be:

To ALL historic documents and history at leftdis archive, sorted by LANGUAGE

May 1rst 2020

New from internationalist sites

Weekly list of links to selected articles on actuality from (mostly) internationalist sites.

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