Ultra-leftism

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In Marxism, ultra-leftism encompasses a broad spectrum of revolutionary communist currents that are generally

Trotskyists to refer to extreme or uncompromising Marxist sects.[1]

Historical usage

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The term ultra-left is rarely used in English. Instead, people tend to speak broadly of left communism as a variant of traditional Marxism. The French equivalent, ultra-gauche [fr], has a stronger meaning in that language and is used to define a movement that still exists today: a branch of left communism developed by theorists such as Amadeo Bordiga, Otto Rühle, Anton Pannekoek, Herman Gorter, and Paul Mattick, and continuing with more recent writers, such as Jacques Camatte and Gilles Dauvé. This standpoint includes two main traditions, a Dutch-German tradition including Rühle, Pannekoek, Gorter, and Mattick, and an Italian tradition following Bordiga. These traditions came together in the 1960s French ultra-gauche.[2] The political theorist Nicholas Thoburn refers to these traditions as the "actuality of ... the historical ultra-left".[3]

The term originated in the 1920s in the German and Dutch workers movements, originally referring to a Marxist group opposed to both

material conditions that would prevent such a programme from being feasible.[citation needed
]

The ultra-left is defined particularly by its breed of anti-authoritarian Marxism, which generally involves an opposition to the

parliamentary democracy and wage labour. In opposition to Bolshevism, the ultra-left generally places heavy emphasis upon the autonomy and self-organization of the proletariat. It rejected the necessity of a revolutionary party and was described as permanently counterposing "the masses" to their leaders.[5]
Dauvé also explained:

The ultra-left was born and grew in opposition to Social Democracy and Leninism—which had become Stalinism. Against them, it affirmed the revolutionary spontaneity of the proletariat. The German communist left (in fact German-Dutch), and its derivatives, maintained that the only human solution lay in proletarians' own activity, without it being necessary to educate or to organize them ... Inheriting the mantle of the ultra-left after the war, the magazine Socialisme ou Barbarie appeared in France between 1949 and 1965.[6]

One variant of ultra-leftist ideas was widely revived in the

libertarian socialist movements such as Big Flame, the Situationist International, and autonomism.[7] During the May 1968 events in France, ultra-leftism was initially associated with the opposition and critique to the French Communist Party (PCF).[8] Ultra-leftism was thus used by the established currents of the communist movement to prevent, sometimes correctly, against "self-indulgent ultra-leftism [that] could only make it more difficult for the revolutionary left to win rank and file PCF members away from their leaders″.[9]

Pejorative usage

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Used pejoratively, ultra-left is used to label positions that are adopted without taking notice of the current situation or of the consequences which would result from following a proposed course. The term is used to criticize leftist positions that, for example, are seen as overstating the tempo of events, propose initiatives that overestimate the current level of

militancy, or which employ appeals to violence in their activism.[10]

The mainstream Marxist critique of such a position began with

Communist Party of China during the Sino-Soviet Split' (pp. 7–8)".[13]

Trotskyists and others stated the Communist International was pursuing a strategy of unrealistic ultra-leftism during its Third Period, which the Communist International later admitted when it turned to a united front strategy in 1934–35.[14] The term has been popularized in the United States by the Socialist Workers Party at the time of the Vietnam war, using the term to describe opponents in the anti-war movement including Gerry Healy.[15][page needed] Ultra-leftism is often associated with leftist sectarianism, in which a socialist organization might attempt to put its own short-term interests before the long-term interests of the working class and its allies.[16]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 978-0-19-885662-7
    .
  2. ^ "Bring Out Your Dead". Endnotes. Vol. 1. 2008. Archived from the original on 8 June 2017.
  3. ^ Thoburn, Nicholas (Spring 2013). "Do not be afraid, join us, come back? On the "idea of communism" in our time". Cultural Critique (84): 1–34.
  4. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.454.6346
    . As for the term 'ultra-left', which is often equated with 'sectarianism', it can only define those currents which historically split from the KPD between 1925 and 1927. Left communism never appeared as a pure will to be 'as left as possible'.
  5. ISBN 1-931859-32-9
    .
  6. ^ Dauvé, Gilles (1983). "The Story of Our Origins" (PDF). La Banquise. No. 2.
  7. ISBN 978-3-319-62632-1
    .
  8. ISBN 978-0-520-02652-0
    .
  9. ^ Birchall, Ian (May 1988). "The Left and May 68". Socialist Worker Review. No. 109.
  10. ^ "Danger of Ultra-Leftism". Socialist Alternative. Retrieved 13 December 2018.
  11. ISBN 9781844674596
    .
  12. ^ Nicholas Thoburn "Do not be afraid, join us, come back? On the "idea of communism" in our time" Cultural Critique Number 84, Spring 2013, pp. 1-34
  13. ^ "Introduction" in Smith Evan, Worley Matthew Against the grain: The British far left from 1956, Oxford University Press, 1 December 2014
  14. ^ e.g. John Molyneux "What do we mean by ultra-leftism?" (October 1985) in Socialist Worker Review 80, October 1985, pp. 24–25.
  15. ISBN 0873486897. Archived from the original
    on 20 November 2008. Retrieved 15 November 2016.
  16. ^ "A Critique of Ultra-Leftism, Dogmatism and Sectarianism, Introduction". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 13 December 2018.

Further reading

External links

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