Left Communism - Early History and Overview

Early History and Overview

Two major traditions can be observed within left communism: the Dutch-German tradition and the Italian tradition. The political positions those traditions have in common are a shared opposition to what is termed frontism, many kinds of nationalism and thus national liberation movements (although, it must be stressed that Bordiga and many Bordigist groups have positions that some left-communists consider supportive of national liberation) and parliamentarianism. There is an underlying commonality at a level of abstract theory and more crucially, left communist groups from both traditions tend to identify elements of commonality in each other.

The historical origins of left communism can be traced to the period before the First World War, but it only came into focus after 1918 . All left communists were supportive of the October Revolution in Russia but retained a critical view of its development. Some, however, would in later years come to reject the idea that the revolution had a proletarian or socialist nature, asserting that it had simply carried out the tasks of the bourgeois revolution by creating a state capitalist system.

Left communism first came into being as a clear movement in or around 1918. Its essential features were: a stress on the need to build a communist party entirely separate from the reformist and centrist elements who were seen as having betrayed socialism in 1914, opposition to all but the most restricted participation in elections and an emphasis on the need for revolutionaries to move on the offensive. Apart from that, there was little in common between the various wings. Only the Italians accepted the need for electoral work at all for a very short period of time, which they later vehemently opposed, attracting the wrath of Lenin attacking Bordiga in "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder, the German-Dutch and Russian wings opposed the "right of nations to self-determination" which they denounced as a form of bourgeois nationalism, the Italians did not have a clear position on national determination however.