11 Facts About Council communism

Council communism is a current of communist thought that emerged in the 1920s.

Strong in Germany and the Netherlands during the 1920s, council communism continues to exist as a small minority in the left.

Council communism emerged in the years after 1918, as some communists in Germany and the Netherlands concluded that the Russian Revolution had led to power being concentrated in the hands of a new political elite.

Council communism argued that in Western Europe the bourgeoisie was more established and experienced and that as a result class struggle must oppose bourgeois institutions such as parliaments and trade unions.

Council communism emphasized the importance of class consciousness among the masses and deemed the avant-garde party model advocated by the Bolsheviks a potential obstacle to revolution.

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Council communism claimed that a refusal to work in parliaments and labor unions would leave workers under the influence of reactionary leaders.

Council communism conceded that there were considerable differences between Russia and the more advanced countries in Western Europe, but held that "it is the Russian model that reveals to all countries something – and something highly significant – of their near and inevitable future" and that certain features of the Russian Revolution were universally valid.

Council communism communists concluded that the Bolsheviks were not in fact building socialism.

Council communism's formed the Communist Workers' Party in February 1922.

Council communism communists did not gain an understanding of the composition of the council movement, the reasons for its decline, and the influence of Leninism and democracy on workers.

In contrast to reformist social democracy and to Leninism, the central argument of council communism is that democratic workers councils arising in factories and municipalities are the natural form of working class organisation and governmental power, maintaining that the working class should not rely on Leninist vanguard parties or reforms of the capitalist system to bring socialism.