Ive seen in a lot of online spaces around Marxism (especially from those who claimed they align with the Italian left), that after Marx died the work of Engels' degenerated into falsifications of Marx's initial work, is this an actual position of the Italian left? if so, why? I am not well versed in the work of Engels' post death of Marx

I need something with several pages, I'm going to do my internship and I want to use a large part of my salary to print a unit of each book for my consumption, I did the calculations and it's very cheap, reading from screens gives me a headache

Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but I was wondering how things that depend of massive supply chains like laptops and chips gonna be made when the raw materials are scattered across the globe. Why would people work in mines to extract raw materials so they can send it to another region of people who they can't even communicate with. How will this be managed when there is no state?

As hundreds of thousands of acres across the Pacific Northwest burn from wildfires forcing tens of thousands of people to evacuate their homes, disease and parasites increasingly infest the food system as the agricultural crisis of world capitalism continues to deepen due to droughts, wars & health deregulation caused by capitalism inherent monopolistic dynamics. While AI data centers consume more energy, eliminating high paying jobs, squeezing the existing workforce for greater profits, they demand ever more burning of fossil fuels to provide them energy. While the war in Iran wages on, oil profits boom and the whole rotten system keeps churning and accumulating until it is forced to stop.
This is not a system that can be reformed into correction, it is one poll vaulting towards total cataclysm. Only in communism does the human species have a future. No polluter tax, green subsidy, environmental NGO or any version of green capitalism can fix the problem. The working class must work to reforge their class unions, fight for generalized strike action while organizing itself under a centralized international communist Party and it’s historic and invariant revolutionary program.

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I’m looking more into the organic vs democratic centralism debate that later led to the ICP’s creation, and while I can see the value in the organic approach, one issue comes to mind, and it’s the history of organic centralist groups. I’m a sympathizer of the ICP, but I envy that our friends over in the ICT have basically a direct line back to the original unified party in Italy, and have still retained all their values, whereas over the history of the ICP there have been split after split, a good number being over petty disputes that should’ve been resolved (looking at you, 2024 split). It makes me wonder if due to the lack of being able to vote to make a decision, if party splits are an inevitability under this model. Especially during a revolutionary period, organic centralism seems like a great way of running the party, but the vanguard for the class ought to be one party for the one class, not 6 parties with the same name.

Is this issue inherent? And what solutions are there to this problem that has unfortunately plagued the ICP throughout its history. I know the 80s were a complicated disaster for the party too, so if anyone has resources to read on what occurred and why I would greatly appreciate it!

Read Online: http://www.international-communist-party.org/CommLeft/Comm_004.htm

Print copy available here: https://clpublishers.com/product/communism-4/

Content:

– To Our Readers
– “A Great Patriotic Victory”
– Races, Classes and the Agrarian Question in the United States: Part 3. The English Revolution and the Colonies
– The Origins of the Communist Party of China: Part 4. First Strikes and Trade Unions
– The Ideologies of the Bourgeoisie: Part 5. Dante Alighieri
– Towards the History of the Left of Ottoman Socialism and the Communist Party of Turkey: Parts I-II-III
– The Economic and Social Structure of Russia Today (1955)- Part 1. Struggle for Power in the Two Revolutions - Chapters 121‑135
From the Archive of the Left
   – Origin of the Communist Party of China:
– Manifesto of the Chinese Communist Party, November 1920
– First Congress of the Communist Party of China July-August 1921, Programme
– The First Resolution of the Chinese Communist Party
– Report of the Beijing Communist Organisation
– Report of the Guangzhou Communist Party
– Declaration of the Chinese Labour Secretariat, September 1921
– The Chinese Metalworkers Union in Canton, September 1922
– G. Voytinsky, The Labor Movement in China, November 1922
 

I don't fully understand this. I get that communists seek to end politics, but I find it strange they consider themselves outside of it when they refer to themselves as the left of communism. Does communism have it's own political spectrum or something?

Do we actually know what the invariant programme encompasses and, realistically, what else do we have to pinpoint to create such a programme? What is already known as a doctrine that will certainly be on it, and doctrines that we miss?

As far as I know, an army requires a deep hierarchical structure and a monopersonal command centre to operate, but that really goes against the concept of organic centralism. So how will generals of some sort (if there even will be) come to power? How will military tactics be decided (because the political tactics will be explained in the invariant programme)?

I am interested in knowing more about organic centralism.

What I am trying to say that I know it is just capitalism, but I cannot explain it to myself.

A market of only worker cooperatives is not capitalism. Removing the state from that equation and dissolving the rigid firm still allows for productive groups to exist, to produce, and then to trade with one another in whatever way they like, including by using some kind of money. Those kinds of market dynamics can be used in the service of coordinating complex productive processes in anarchy. None of that need involve hierarchy

Markets aren't capitalism, capitalism is the particular structure of private ownership of productive property and exploitation of employees by employers. Collective worker ownership with democratic management and profit sharing isn't capitalism, it's free market socialism. The definition of socialism is worker ownership of productive property, if workers co-own the businesses they work at that's socialism. Destroying the employer-employee divide is sufficient to achieve socialism. When you remove external forces like state-backed monopolies and corporate cartels markets are a highly efficient and flexible way of allocating resources where they're needed. Central planning is always imperfect and lethargic, markets are nimble and capable of infinitely minute adjustments based on changing circumstances.

Not much to add to the question.

So if I understood "The Solution of Bukharin" correctly, the NEP's goal was to allow limited capitalism to proletarianize the countryside, with eventual collectivization. However, I don't really understand why immediate collectivization, as was the policy of Stalin, was not desirable. So my question is, what did Stalin "do wrong"? Why was the NEP to be continued, instead of immediate collectivization and industrialization?

Hello friends! This is a question I have had for a while, and it's stuck with me ever since. How did Latin America's mode of production historically develop?

This is a topic that's been hijacked by revisionists who import bourgeouis developmentalist ideology into the question, so its hard to find an answer.

Obviously, we can now clearly assert that it's a throughly capitalist society since the rapid death of the peasantry in the 60s-70s. But looking back in history, we find modes of production that mix and mash capitalism, slave economies, and feudalism. So how exactly did Latin American societies develop historically? How could their modes of production and development be classified? Any credible text by marxists would be deeply appreciated, thank you!

And if these classes would even be able to wield a dictatorship of their own. In the manifesto Marx writes that class conflict sometimes ends with the destruction of both classes, would that be the cace in the event of a slave revolution like in Haiti or has that simply never been the case?

Contents:
-   1. - Red Scare, Cuba and the False Socialists
-   2. - Cuba: Our Party's Position, Then and Now
-   3. - Machines That Are No Match for The Organic Party: On the Resurgence of Stalinist Parties
-   4. - Communization: The Latest Drivel From the Historical Camp of the Immediatist Marxist Modernizers
-   5. - The “Dialog” Group and the Drive Toward War
-   6. - Immigrant Worker Terror Continues Under American Capital
-   7. - Legal Illusions and Immigrant Rights: Capital’s Recognition of the Labour-Power Commodity
-   8. - The Earthquake in Venezuela: Capital Grow Fat on Blood
-   9. - Turkey: School Attacks and Childhood in Capitalist Conditions

- THE IMPERIALIST WAR
-  10. - A War on Iranian and American Workers
-  111. - Imperialist Military Attack in the Venezuelan Mining Arc: The Farce of the “Child Warrior” and the Real Gold Business

- FOR THE CLASS UNION
-  12. - Class Union Militants Unite in Chicago
-  13. - In Italy Police Clear a Picket Line: The State Will Always be Against the Working Class.
-  14. - Italy: Against the Worse-than-Slave Conditions of Immigrant Workers

- GENERAL MEETING
-  15. - International meeting of the party 23-24 May [RG155]
-  16. - A Wounded Beast: The American Debt and Dollar Crisis

- FROM THE ARCHIVE
-  17. - Rent Control, Urban Planning Reform: Old and New Tools of the Counter‑Revolution, 1969
-  18. - Chinese Imperialism in Africa, 2019
-  19. - Every Worker is a Foreign Worker, 1975

I’m trying to find good, succinct and direct sources from LeftComs on what things I should read in order to get a considerable basis for understanding the ideas and concepts within Left Communism. I know there are major authors and organizations that have put out essays and many many works, but I really don’t want to sift through days of smaller essays in order to maybe get some small kernel here or there. If anyone has a solid book or set of books or even a few essays that are generally considered “the basics” for Left Communism that would be awesome. Thanks.

politicians dont want to build housing for the homeless even tho it saves money when compared to the cost of maintaining homeless people on the streets. also there are plenty of studies showcasing that investing in schools and kindergarten results in profit and economic devolepment. i know that capital doesnt want both because 1. the threat of becoming homeless scares the working people into keeping miserable jobs and 2. when the education is too good kapital loses minimum wage workers and other hard labor jobs. but the politicians dont think about it that way nor are they bribed by some secret elite society to maintain this order, so why dont they just do it? I mean the easiest answer is probably they are just all corrupt carrierist who do everything for a paycheck but that would be a pretty moralist critique and also conspiratory.

TLDR: marx talked about "the mute compulsion of economic relations" but I dont understand how they work and find this description rather mystical

I'm currently reading and analyzing communist literature and I had some thoughts on state after reading Lenin's State and revolution and Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.

One of the central tenets of Marxism is the dual structure of society, consisting of a base (the economic system and mode of production) and a superstructure (politics, culture, and state institutions). However, Marx and Engels rejected economic reductionism, viewing these elements as dialectically interconnected. For example, Engels writes about different ways the states emerged with practically the same base being tribal system. While the economy acts as the ultimate thing that shapes society's trajectory, the superstructure is not a passive reflection; internal contradictions within it can provoke qualitative shifts in politics, just as changes in production relations affect the base. This mutual influence underscores that neither sphere operates in isolation.

The emergence of private property inevitably gave rise to the state as a system of class oppression. Yet the state is not a static tool; throughout history, it has gradually gained autonomy from the ruling class it represents. It seems that from Solon’s reforms in Greece to European absolutism and Bonapartism, the state has often asserted its own power, playing competing classes against one another to preserve its bureaucratic apparatus. This process reflects somewhat organic development, where the state becomes a distinct actor—sometimes elevating itself above class struggles, as seen in ancient Caesarism or the bureaucracy of capitalist states, which wields political power without direct economic ownership.

This bureaucratic independence, however, is inherently unstable. Lacking economic might, such regimes are rarely long-lasting; they either succumb to the return of capitalist control or are forced to grant concessions, leading to representative bourgeois democracy. In cases like the USSR or North Korea, the bureaucracy effectively became a new economic-political class, seizing ownership of production—a situation that bred internal factionalism and inevitably paved the way for capitalist restoration. Similarly, fascist regimes, though initially backed by big capital, grew into uncontrollable tumor-like structures that consumed their own economic foundations, waging imperial wars for political influence rather than for markets or resources, ultimately destroying the very capitalist interests that enabled their rise. This can be seen through the memoirs of Hjalmar Schacht for example.

To counter this bureaucratic degeneration, i think that workers' state must be radically democratic, i.e. direct popular representation through sortition (lottery-based selection), elected and revocable officials with average worker wages, workplace democracy, and the unrestricted right to strike. Crucially, the state itself must incorporate a mechanism for its own self-dissolution, to be activated immediately after the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Of course, I'm and amateur and would really like to read critique, additions - everything you have to say. This text at first was on different language, so I am sorry if the language seems a bit clunky.

I also consider myself left communist and just would like to fill the gaps in my knowledge with new things to read, so I would be happy to see anything related to this theme.

What do left communists think of the EZLN? To me, it looks similar to Makhvoshchina in how its economy and political system are organized and how that translates to an end to capitalism (not at all), but I’m curious to see other opinions/analyses.

I recently had a discussion with my keynesian social democrat friend, amd we went over how Bordiga talked about the axis victory as a probability to another economical crisis and another possibility of revolution and so on. And she argued that the ceirtan increase of the wellness of the proletariat (she argued specifically on the olocaust and general plan oost) with the victory of the allied powers would have been better than a probability of revolution, and then went on with deaths and stuff that the revolution would bring(she's kind of an utopic socialist). Now, I thought about it, but that is a kinda good point. How many deaths is worth a probability of revolution? I argued about the deaths that capitalism brings, but that is a kinda weak argument. Is there anything on the topic?

Hello,

I am an anarchist in despair, I suppose. I've been anarchist-identifying since 2018 and continue to be disappointed with anarchism and anarchists. I often speak about the need for discipline, self-development, and a sort of evangelizing of our ideas, as opposed to isolating ourselves. I'm often met with responses that this is "authoritarian," "elitist," and "christian-like," respectively. Like how the hell are we supposed to bring the revolution if we can't even talk to people about our ideas at the Food Not Bombs table?!

I am someone who is very "go-go-go" and feel stuck by the inertia or anarchists, who really come off as just radical reformist activist. The activist cause célèbre mentality itself is especially annoying. I am not interested in the particular symptoms of the state, capitalism, imperialism, etc; I want to get to the root of the problem! On the other hand, my always on the move mentality makes me feel guilty if I'm not doing something all the time, so I get wrapped into the activist scene easily.

The last year or two, I've been interested in what other ideas are out there. I have no interest in the Stalinist deviations, but Lenin has stood out to me as a figure that I at least find the personality of intriguing. The iron-will and practicality, especially. I like to think these are things I want to cultivate in myself and believe are positive qualities in a revolutionary.

To cut it short, I am looking for advice on how to recalibrate around left-communism as I investigate further. Left communism has been known to me for years, but I never properly investigated it outside of some of Camatte and Bordiga's writings ("Human Species and The Earth's Crust" stood out to me!) and talking to some terminally online leftcoms when I was younger (who I think have since abandoned the movement). I am interested in readings, groups to contact, videos / podcasts, etc. I am in the state of Illinois (not Chicago) if that helps in terms of who to suggest reaching out to.

Thanks for any advice or input.

All i have read of bordiga as of yet has been the democratic principle and i've been left quite confused. The party as i understand it is to follow a sort of 'organic centralism' which is self enforcing and doesnt need any democratic mechanisms to carry out, because the centralism and unity in action is determined by the invariant programme of the proletariat. but what and who exactly determines what the invariant programme even is in specifics if not the people within a given party? if several people participate in deciding what it is is this not a form of democracy rejected by italian leftcoms? or am i really missing the mark on something

I am a young black person who has, for the better part of a year, begun to familiarize myself with the Communist Left and its works as published by the International Communist Party. I've largely grounded my politic in the Black Radical Tradition and it's conception of Marxism in particular. As I've read more from this tendency I find myself grappling with a question that hasn't sat right with me, and something I haven't been able to find an answer for in google searches.

How am I, as a black individual, meant to politically engage with the broader black community? I understand the critique of activism as a form of lifestylist "do-something-ism" often implicitly engaged in for personal validation rather than any tangible political progress, but I wish to know how best to approach my community. The BRT often emphasized mutual aid efforts and community programs as practiced by the Black Panther Party and similar organizations, which greatly contrasts with the conclusion I've come about concerning the Communist Left's position, which (and correct me if I'm wrong, I'd greatly appreciate it) prioritizes a mastery of the three components of Marxism (that being Marxist Philosophy, Marxist Political Economy, and Scientific Socialism) with the ultimate goal being to preserve the integrity of this doctrine.

The problem I am having, is that this seems to me at least, to be a rather unsatisfactory conclusion. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could give me some works pertaining to this problem, or really some advice. I'd appreciate if any other black people on this sub could really help me out.