| Index: > A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
|
|||||
| First Prev [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 ] Next Last |
| This article is part of the Communism series of entries. Communist ideologies Leninism Trotskyism Stalinism Maoism Left communism Anarcho-Communism Past and present states (main article) Soviet Union China Cuba Vietnam Yugoslavia Some Communist parties CP of China CP of Italy CP of France CP of the USA CP of Vietnam CP of Cuba CP of Nepal(M) Other Articles Communist PartyComintern Cominform Warsaw Pact Comecon List of Communist Parties October Revolution Socialism Planned Economics Anti-Communism |
Left Communism is a term describing a whole range of communist viewpoints which oppose the political ideas of the Bolsheviks from a position which is asserted to be more authentically Marxist and proletarian than the views held by the Communist International after its first two Congresses. Left Communism is also sometimes referred to as the Communist Left.
Two major traditions can be observed within Left Communism, the Dutch- German tradition and the Italian tradition. Their political positions have little in common except for a shared opposition to what is termed frontism , but there is an underlying commonality at a level of abstract theory. 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 Russian Revolution of October 1917, 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 socialismFor information on mainstream political parties using the term "Socialist", see Social democracy and Democratic socialism For the governments of the USSR, the PRC, and others, see: Communist state Other variants of Socialism include Marxism, Communism, an in 1914Events January 4 77 seal hunters freeze to death on ice near Labrador January 5 Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor February 13 Copyright: In New York City the ASCAP (for American Society of Compos, 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, and the German-Dutch and Russian wings both opposed the "right of nations to self-determination", which they denounced as a form of bourgeois nationalism.