Left-wing Communism & the Dictatorship of the Proletariat: Lenin’s Critique (4/27/24 teach-in)

On April 27th, 2024, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted an introductory workshop on Lenin's famous 1920 pamphlet: Left-wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder, and its legacy today.
by Jason Adams (Berkeley California - Platypus)
Recommended readings:
Lenin’s “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder (www.marxists.org/archive/leni...)
Gorter’s Open Letter to Comrade Lenin (www.marxists.org/archive/gort...)
Trotsky’s On the Policy of the KAPD (www.marxists.org/archive/trot...)
Description:
The Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was formed in December 1918, splitting from the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD), which was itself born from a split with the original Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). The communists split from the Independents over the latter’s ambiguous and vacillating support of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which would require the dissolution of the bourgeois parliamentarian government, with the SPD then at its head, that the German Revolution had just attained; they wanted to see the revolution through to its socialist end, to push it beyond the fragile mid-point that their former comrades, now turned opportunist, wished to keep it at.
And yet not even a year later, the newly-founded Communist Party would itself split into two hostile camps, being cut in half and giving birth to the Communist Workers Party (KAPD) as the radical leftist counterpoint to the KPD. What exactly was this new split about? After all, both sides shared the same enemy: the bourgeoisie and their government, along with the opportunists and social-chauvinists who were handing the revolution over to them. Both upheld the mass strike as the primary tactic proper to the new revolutionary period, along with the spontaneous council system being born from its contagion. Most importantly, both sides shared the same goal: the dictatorship of the proletariat.
It was in this historical context that Lenin, preparing for the Second Congress of the Third International, wrote his infamous pamphlet “Left-Wing” Communism: an Infantile Disorder, directly addressing (among others) the leaders of the KAPD. Looking to join the new International and influence its overall course, one such leader replied to Lenin in defense of the positions of the KAPD and the radical left in general. Herman Gorter’s Open Letter to Comrade Lenin has become a classic in the left communist tradition. To this tradition, Gorter’s letter is a complete refutation of Lenin’s pamphlet, and perhaps more importantly, an indictment against the Comintern for being opportunist which, in retrospect, can certainly seem prescient. But are things really so simple as the left communists would have us believe? Perhaps the outcome of history has distorted our view on this particular episode of the socialist left, making us see things that are not really there.
In this teach-in, I will use Lenin’s pamphlet and Gorter’s letter to address what is really at stake in this divergence and split within the leftwing of the socialist movement, precisely at the moment when the Second Congress is being held and the victory of the world revolution is still on the horizon. For what is revealed in this semi-dialogue between two socialist thinkers and leaders is more than a mere matter of differing political positions regarding tactics and strategy; rather, what we see are two contrasting orientations toward the revolutionary process as a whole, and towards its end-goal, the dictatorship of the proletariat.
___________________________________
Curious to learn more about Platypus? E-mail [e-mail] to be connected with a chapter in your area.
The Platypus Affiliated Society organizes reading groups, public fora, research, and journalism focused on problems and tasks inherited from the "Old" (1920s-30s), "New" (1960s-70s), and post-political (1980s-90s) Left, for the possibilities of emancipatory politics today.
www.platypus1917.org

[@organiccomposition]

Platoid leers into the ultra-left gets confused and proceeds to repeats Lenin mantras for 2 hours says nothing new in the process to returns to the warm bosom of Trotskyite dogma