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131-604: Defunct Left communism , or the communist left , is a position held by the left wing of communism , which criticises the political ideas and practices espoused by Marxist–Leninists and social democrats . Left communists assert positions which they regard as more authentically Marxist than the views of Marxism–Leninism espoused by the Communist International after its Bolshevization by Joseph Stalin and during its second congress . There have been two primary currents of left communism since World War I , namely

262-461: A coup d'état or putsch along the lines of Blanquism . Revolutionary socialists, particularly Trotskyists, argue that the Bolsheviks only seized power as the expression of the mass of workers and peasants, whose desires are brought into being by an organised force—the revolutionary party. Marxists such as Trotskyists argue that Lenin did not advocate seizing power until he felt that the majority of

393-451: A mixed economy with an empowered public sector and a thriving private sector . Centre-left policies tend to favour limited state intervention in matters pertaining to the public interest . In several countries, the terms far-left and radical left have been associated with many varieties of anarchism , autonomism and communism . They have been used to describe groups that advocate anti-capitalism and eco-terrorism . In France,

524-715: A "People's Commune of China" based on the democratic ideals of the Paris Commune . The uprisings of May 1968 led to a large resurgence of interest in left communist ideas in France where various groups were formed and published journals regularly until the late 1980s when the interest started to fade. A tendency called communization was invented in the early 1970s by French left communists, synthesizing different currents of left communism. It remains influential in libertarian marxist and left communist circles today. Outside of France, various small left communist groups emerged, predominantly in

655-567: A Workers International states, "[w]e campaign for new workers' parties and for them to adopt a socialist programme. At the same time, the CWI builds support for the ideas of revolutionary socialism". In "The Case for Revolutionary Socialism", Alex Callinicos from the Socialist Workers Party in Britain argues in favour of it. Revolutionary socialist discourse has long debated the question of how

786-478: A belief that there are unjustified inequalities that need to be reduced or abolished through radical means that change the nature of the society they are implemented in. According to emeritus professor of economics Barry Clark, supporters of left-wing politics "claim that human development flourishes when individuals engage in cooperative, mutually respectful relations that can thrive only when excessive differences in status, power, and wealth are eliminated." Within

917-619: A capitalist bourgeois ideology. Marxists were responsible for organizing the first International Working Women's Day events. The women's liberation movement is closely connected to the New Left and other new social movements which openly challenged the orthodoxies of the Old Left. Socialist feminism as exemplified by the Freedom Socialist Party and Radical Women and Marxist feminism , spearheaded by Selma James , saw themselves as

1048-587: A central feature of political debates on the Left. During the French Revolution, nationalism was a key policy of the Republican Left. The Republican Left advocated for civic nationalism and argued that the nation is a "daily plebiscite" formed by the subjective "will to live together". Related to revanchism , the belligerent will to take revenge against Germany and retake control of Alsace-Lorraine , nationalism

1179-739: A councilist direction while also identifying more and more with Luxemburg's work. They also worked with the French Fraction of the Communist Left and seem to have disintegrated at the end of the war. This disintegration was sped no doubt by the capture of leading militant Karl Fischer, who was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp where he was to participate in writing the Declaration of the Internationalist Communists of Buchenwald when

1310-570: A desire for greater economic equality and workers rights with demands for environmental protection. Democratic socialist Bolivian president Evo Morales has traced environmental degradation to capitalist consumerism , stating that "[t]he Earth does not have enough for the North to live better and better, but it does have enough for all of us to live well". James Hansen , Noam Chomsky , Raj Patel , Naomi Klein , The Yes Men and Dennis Kucinich hold similar views. In climate change mitigation ,

1441-720: A distinction is made between the centre-left and the left represented by the Socialist Party and the French Communist Party and the far-left as represented by anarcho-communists , Maoists and Trotskyists . The United States Department of Homeland Security defines "left-wing extremism" as groups that "seek to bring about change through violent revolution, rather than through established political processes". Similar to far-right politics , extremist far-left politics have motivated political violence , radicalization , genocide , terrorism , sabotage and damage to property,

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1572-466: A few years. This was because it was founded on the basis of revolutionary optimism and a purism that rejected what became known as frontism. Frontism entailed working in the same organisations as reformist workers. Such work was seen by the KAPD as unhelpful at a time when the revolution was thought to be an imminent event and not merely a goal to be aimed at. This led the members of the KAPD to reject working in

1703-523: A firing squad, and children were deprived of any religious education outside of the home. Today in the Western world , those on the Left generally support secularization and the separation of church and state. However, religious beliefs have also been associated with many left-wing movements such as the progressive movement , the Social Gospel movement, the civil rights movement , the anti-war movement ,

1834-423: A force within left-wing politics. The influential Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels , published amidst the wave of revolutions of 1848 across Europe, asserted that all of human history is defined by class struggle . They predicted that a proletarian revolution would eventually overthrow bourgeois capitalism and create a stateless , moneyless and classless communist society . It

1965-560: A founding theorist of the autonomist tendency . Two major traditions can be observed within left communism, namely the Dutch–German current and the Italian current. The political positions those traditions share are opposition to popular fronts , to many kinds of nationalism and national liberation movements and to parliamentarianism . The historical origins of left communism come from World War I . Most left communists are supportive of

2096-549: A left-wing response to The Limits to Growth model that predicted catastrophic resource depletion and spurred environmentalism, postulating that capitalist technologies were the key cause responsible for environmental degradation, as opposed to human population pressures. Environmental degradation can be seen as a class or equity issue, as environmental destruction disproportionately affects poorer communities and countries. Several left-wing or socialist groupings have an overt environmental concern and several green parties contain

2227-721: A part of the Left by their contemporaries. Feminist pioneer Mary Wollstonecraft was influenced by Thomas Paine . Many notable leftists have been strong supporters of gender equality such as Marxist philosophers and activists Rosa Luxemburg , Clara Zetkin and Alexandra Kollontai , anarchist philosophers and activists such as Virginia Bolten , Emma Goldman and Lucía Sánchez Saornil and democratic socialist philosophers and activists such as Helen Keller and Annie Besant . However, Marxists such as Rosa Luxemburg, Clara Zetkin, and Alexandra Kollontai, who are supporters of radical social equality for women and have rejected and opposed liberal feminism because they considered it to be

2358-482: A part of the Left that challenges male-dominated and sexist structures within the Left. The connection between left-wing ideologies and the struggle for LGBTQ rights also has an important history. Prominent socialists who were involved in early struggles for LGBTQ rights include Edward Carpenter , Oscar Wilde , Harry Hay , Bayard Rustin and Daniel Guérin , among others. The New Left is also strongly supportive of LGBTQ rights and liberation, having been instrumental in

2489-563: A position within the political mainstream that accepts capitalism and a market economy. The terms far-left and ultra-left are used for positions that are more radical , more strongly rejecting capitalism and mainstream representative democracy , instead advocating for a socialist society based on economic democracy and direct democracy , representing economic, political and social democracy. The centre-left includes social democrats , social liberals , progressives and greens . Centre-left supporters accept market allocation of resources in

2620-792: A pre-revolutionary situation opening in Italy and prepared to participate in the coming revolution. In 1943 the Internationalist Communist Party was founded by Onorato Damen and Luciano Stefanini , amongst others. By 1945 the party had 5,000 members all over Italy with some supporters in France, Belgium and the US. It published a Manifesto of the Communist Left to the European Proletariat , which called upon workers to put class war before national war. In France, revived by Marco in Marseilles,

2751-694: A proposal by Trotsky to avoid an immediate split with the Second International. Though initially opposed to it, Lenin voted for Trotsky's resolution to avoid a split among anti-war socialists. In December 1915 and March 1916, eighteen Social Democratic representatives, the Haase - Ledebour Group, voted against war credits and were expelled from the Social Democratic Party. Liebknecht wrote Revolutionary Socialism in Germany in 1916, arguing that this group

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2882-707: A radical transformation of the economy. The Military Opposition and the Workers' Opposition inherited some characteristics and members of the Left Bolsheviks, as did Gavril Myasnikov 's Workers Group of the Russian Communist Party during the debates on the New Economic Policy and the succession to Lenin. Most Left Bolsheviks were affiliated with the Left Opposition in the 1920s, and were expelled from

3013-456: A ruling elite of individuals) while it prepares a population for capitalist exploitation. Within anarchism, this subject has been extensively discussed by Rudolf Rocker in his book titled Nationalism and Culture and by the works of Fredy Perlman such as Against His-Story, Against Leviathan and The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism . The failure of revolutions in Germany and Hungary in

3144-430: A state of affairs is a precondition for establishing socialism and orthodox Marxists believe it is inevitable but not predetermined. Revolutionary socialism encompasses multiple political and social movements that may define "revolution" differently from one another. These include movements based on orthodox Marxist theory such as De Leonism , impossibilism and Luxemburgism , as well as movements based on Leninism and

3275-451: A stress on the need to build a communist party or workers' council entirely separate from the reformist and centrist elements who "betrayed the proletariat", opposition to all but the most restricted participation in elections and an emphasis on militancy. Apart from this, there was little in common between the two wings. Only the Italians accepted the need for electoral work at all for

3406-674: A strong socialist presence. The Green Party of England and Wales features an eco-socialist group, the Green Left , which was founded in June 2005. Its members held several influential positions within the party, including both the former Principal Speakers Siân Berry and Derek Wall , himself an eco-socialist and Marxist academic. In Europe, several green left political parties such as the European United Left–Nordic Green Left combine traditional social-democratic values such as

3537-404: A temporary state between the capitalist state of affairs and a communist society . Marx defined the proletariat as salaried workers, in contrast to the lumpenproletariat , who he defined as the outcasts of society such as beggars, tricksters, entertainers, buskers, criminals and prostitutes. The political relevance of farmers has divided the left. In Das Kapital , Marx scarcely mentioned

3668-565: A variety of tactics. Therefore, Lenin defended the use of parliamentarism and working within the official trade unions. As the Kronstadt rebellion occurred at a time when the debate on tactics was still raging within the Comintern, it has been wrongly seen as being left communist by some commentators. In fact, the left communist currents had no connection with the rebellion, although they did rally to its support when they learned of it. In later years,

3799-549: A very short period of time which they later vehemently opposed, attracting criticism from Vladimir Lenin in "Left-Wing" Communism: An Infantile Disorder . Left Bolshevism emerged in 1907 as the Vpered group challenged Vladimir Lenin 's perceived authoritarianism and parliamentarianism. The group included Alexander Bogdanov , Maxim Gorky , Anatoly Lunacharsky , Mikhail Pokrovsky , Grigory Aleksinsky , Stanislav Volski and Martyn Liadov . The Otzovists , or Recallists, advocated

3930-614: Is bourgeois nationalism . Some Marxists, together with others on the left, view nationalism , racism (including antisemitism) and religion as divide and conquer tactics used by the ruling classes to prevent the working class from uniting against them in solidarity with one another. Left-wing movements have often taken up anti-imperialist positions. Anarchism has developed a critique of nationalism that focuses on nationalism's role in justifying and consolidating state power and domination. Through its unifying goal, nationalism strives for centralisation (both in specific territories and in

4061-721: Is another revolutionary socialist tradition. Emerging from the Communist International but critical of the post-1924 Soviet Union , the Trotskyist tradition in Western Europe and elsewhere uses the term "revolutionary socialism". In 1932, the first issue of the first Canadian Trotskyist newspaper, The Vanguard , published an editorial entitled "Revolutionary Socialism vs Reformism". Today, many Trotskyist groups advocate revolutionary socialism instead of reformism and consider themselves revolutionary socialists. The Committee for

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4192-421: Is sometimes used to justify hostility towards supranational organizations. Left-wing nationalism can also refer to any form of nationalism which emphasizes a leftist working-class populist agenda that seeks to overcome exploitation or oppression by other nations. Many Third World anti-colonialist movements have adopted leftist and socialist ideas. Third-Worldism is a tendency within leftist thought that regards

4323-627: Is used for social and cultural politics. In the United Kingdom during the 1980s, the term hard left was applied to supporters of Tony Benn such as the Campaign Group and those involved in the London Labour Briefing newspaper as well as Trotskyist groups such as Militant and the Alliance for Workers' Liberty . In the same period, the term soft left was applied to supporters of

4454-568: The Bible . In the late 19th century, the Protestant Social Gospel movement arose in the United States which integrated progressive and socialist thought with Christianity through faith-based social activism. Other left-wing religious movements include Buddhist socialism, Jewish socialism and Islamic socialism. There have been alliances between the left and anti-war Muslims , such as

4585-618: The Blanquist view emphasised the overthrow by force of the ruling elite in government by an active minority of revolutionaries, who then proceeded to implement socialist change, disregarding the state of readiness of society as a whole and the mass of the population in particular for revolutionary change. In 1875, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) published a somewhat reformist Gotha Program , which Marx attacked in Critique of

4716-772: The Bolsheviks . Council communists criticised the Bolsheviks for use of the party form and emphasised a more autonomous organisation of the working class, without political parties. Although she was murdered in 1919 before left communism became a distinct tendency, Rosa Luxemburg has been heavily influential for most left communists, both politically and theoretically. Proponents of left communism have included Herman Gorter , Antonie Pannekoek , Otto Rühle , Karl Korsch , Amadeo Bordiga and Paul Mattick . Other proponents of left communism have included Onorato Damen , Jacques Camatte , and Sylvia Pankhurst . Later prominent theorists are shared with other tendencies such as Antonio Negri ,

4847-969: The Democratic and Republican parties, or as synonyms for liberalism and conservatism , respectively. Since the Right was populist, both in the Western and the Eastern Bloc , anything viewed as avant-garde art was called leftist across Europe, thus the identification of Picasso's Guernica as "leftist" in Europe and the condemnation of the Russian composer Shostakovich 's opera ( The Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District ) in Pravda as follows: "Here we have 'leftist' confusion instead of natural, human music". The spectrum of left-wing politics ranges from centre-left to far-left or ultra-left . The term centre-left describes

4978-717: The Internationalist Communist Party and the British Communist Workers Organisation . Prominent post-1968 proponents of left communism have included Paul Mattick and Maximilien Rubel . Prominent left communist groups existing today include the International Communist Party , the International Communist Current and the Internationalist Communist Tendency . In addition to the left communist groups in

5109-700: The Marx–Lenin–Luxemburg Front . In April 1942, its leadership was arrested by the Gestapo and killed. The remaining activists then split into two camps as some turned to Trotskyism forming the Committee of Revolutionary Marxists (CRM) while the majority formed the CommunistenBond-Spartacus. The latter group turned to council communism and was joined by most members of the GIK. In 1941, the Italian fraction

5240-619: The October Revolution in Russia, but retain a critical view of its development. However, some in the Dutch–German current would in later years come to reject the idea that the revolution had a proletarian or socialist nature, arguing that it had simply carried out the tasks of the bourgeois revolution by creating a state capitalist system. Left communism first came into focus as a distinct movement around 1918. Its essential features were

5371-581: The Republicans and Eugène Etienne , the president of the Parliamentary Colonial Group. After the antisemitic Dreyfus Affair in which officer Alfred Dreyfus was falsely convicted of sedition and exiled to a penal colony in 1894 before being exonerated in 1906, nationalism in the form of Boulangism increasingly became associated with the far-right. The Marxist social class theory of proletarian internationalism asserts that members of

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5502-601: The Respect Party and the Stop the War Coalition in Britain. In France, the left has been divided over moves to ban the hijab from schools, with some leftists supporting a ban based on the separation of church and state in accordance with the principle of laïcité and other leftists opposing the prohibition based on personal and religious freedom. Social progressivism is another common feature of modern leftism, particularly in

5633-695: The Roman Catholic Church and supporting atheism and the separation of church and state , ushering in a policy known as laïcité . Karl Marx asserted that "religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people ". In Soviet Russia, the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin originally embraced an ideological principle which professed that all religion would eventually atrophy and resolved to eradicate organized Christianity and other religious institutions. In 1918, 10 Russian Orthodox hierarchs were summarily executed by

5764-543: The Saint-Imier International and later the International Workers' Association (IWA–AIT) . The Second International (1888–1916) became divided over the issue of World War I . Those who opposed the war, among them Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg , saw themselves as further to the left. In the United States, leftists such as social liberals , progressives and trade unionists were influenced by

5895-618: The Second Republic was an attempt by the Left to re-assert itself after the 1848 Revolution , but only a small portion of the population supported this. In the mid-19th century, nationalism , socialism , democracy and anti-clericalism became key features of the French Left. After Napoleon III 's 1851 coup and the subsequent establishment of the Second Empire , Marxism began to rival radical republicanism and utopian socialism as

6026-520: The Third Estate ) generally sat to the left of the presiding member's chair in parliament while the ones in favour of the royal veto privilege sat on its right. That habit began in the original French National Assembly . Throughout the 19th century, the main line dividing Left and Right was between supporters of the French republic and those of the monarchy 's privileges. The June Days uprising during

6157-490: The Western world include strong opposition to the death penalty , torture , mass surveillance , and the war on drugs , and support for abortion rights, cognitive liberty , LGBTQ rights including legal recognition of same-sex marriage , same-sex adoption of children, the right to change one's legal gender , distribution of contraceptives , and public funding of embryonic stem-cell research . The desire for an expansion of social and civil liberties often overlaps that of

6288-516: The centre-left , especially social democrats who adopted the Third Way . Left-wing politics are typically associated with popular or state control of major political and economic institutions. Other leftists believe in Marxian economics , named after the economic theories of Karl Marx . Some distinguish Marx's economic theories from his political philosophy, arguing that Marx's approach to understanding

6419-618: The displacement of Keynesianism and post-war social democracy . One of the first actions of Ed Miliband , the Labour Party leader who succeeded Blair and Brown, was the rejection of the New Labour label and a promise to abandon the Third Way and turn back to the left. However, Labour's voting record in the House of Commons from 2010 to 2015 indicated that the Labour Party under Miliband had maintained

6550-645: The left–right political spectrum , Left and Right were coined during the French Revolution , referring to the seating arrangement in the French National Assembly . Those who sat on the left generally opposed the ancien régime and the Bourbon monarchy and supported the Revolution, the creation of a democratic republic and the secularisation of society while those on the right were supportive of

6681-413: The libertarian movement. Public education was a subject of great interest to groundbreaking social progressives such as Lester Frank Ward and John Dewey , who believed that a democratic society and system of government was practically impossible without a universal and comprehensive nationwide system of education. Various counterculture and anti-war movements in the 1960s and 1970s were associated with

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6812-403: The welfare state through industrial democracy and the social market to the nationalization of the economy and central planning , to the anarcho-syndicalist advocacy of a council-based and self-managed anarchist communism . During the Industrial Revolution , leftists supported trade unions . At the beginning of the 20th century, many leftists advocated strong government intervention in

6943-476: The working class should act in solidarity with working people in other countries in pursuit of a common class interest , rather than only focusing on their own countries. Proletarian internationalism is summed up in the slogan: " Workers of the world, unite! ", the last line of The Communist Manifesto . Union members had learned that more members meant more bargaining power. Taken to an international level, leftists argued that workers should act in solidarity with

7074-399: The " proletariat can and must build the socialist society in one country". In April 1925, Nikolai Bukharin elaborated on the issue in his brochure titled Can We Build Socialism in One Country in the Absence of the Victory of the West-European Proletariat? , whose position was adopted as state policy after Stalin's January 1926 article titled On the Issues of Leninism (К вопросам ленинизма)

7205-399: The 1918–1920 years ended Bolshevik hopes for an imminent world revolution and led to the promotion of the doctrine of socialism in one country by Joseph Stalin . In the first edition of his book titled Osnovy Leninizma ( Foundations of Leninism , 1924), Stalin argued that revolution in one country is insufficient. By the end of that year in the second edition of the book, he argued that

7336-537: The 1970s onwards, environmentalism became an increasing concern of the left, with social movements and several unions campaigning on environmental issues and causes. In Australia, the left-wing Builders Labourers Federation , led by the communist Jack Mundy, united with environmentalists to place green bans on environmentally destructive development projects. Several segments of the socialist and Marxist left consciously merged environmentalism and anti-capitalism into an eco-socialist ideology. Barry Commoner articulated

7467-526: The 19th and 20th centuries. In addition, the term left-wing has also been applied to a broad range of culturally liberal social movements, including the civil rights movement , feminist movement , LGBT rights movement , abortion-rights movements , multiculturalism , anti-war movement and environmental movement as well as a wide range of political parties . ‌ The following positions are typically associated with left-wing politics. Left-leaning economic beliefs range from Keynesian economics and

7598-406: The British Labour Party who were perceived to be more moderate and closer to the centre, accepting Keynesianism . Under the leadership of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown , the Labour Party adopted the Third Way and rebranded itself as New Labour in order to promote the notion that it was less left-wing than it had been in the past to accommodate the neoliberal trend arising since the 1970s with

7729-434: The Earth. This principle is reflected in much of the historical left-wing thought and literature that came afterwards, although there were disagreements about what this entailed. Both Karl Marx and the early socialist philosopher and scholar William Morris arguably had a concern for environmental matters. According to Marx, "[e]ven an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not

7860-424: The French fraction and expelled Marco from their group. This led to a split in the French fraction and the formation of the Gauche Communiste de France (GCF) by the French fraction led by Marco. The history of the GCF belongs to the post-war period. Meanwhile, the former members of the French fraction who sympathised with Vercesi and the Internationalist Communist Party formed a new French fraction which published

7991-530: The German–Dutch tradition in particular would come to see the suppression of the revolt as the historic turning point in the evolution of the Russian state after October 1917. Many small currents to the left of the mass communist parties collapsed at the beginning of World War II and the left communists were initially silent too. Despite having foreseen the war more clearly than some other factions, when it began they were overwhelmed. Many were persecuted by either German Nazism or Italian fascism. Leading militants of

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8122-407: The Gotha Program , where he reiterated the need for the dictatorship of the proletariat . The reformist viewpoint was introduced into Marxist thought by Eduard Bernstein , one of the leaders of the SPD. From 1896 to 1898, Bernstein published a series of articles entitled "Probleme des Sozialismus" ("Problems of Socialism"). These articles led to a debate on revisionism in the SPD and can be seen as

8253-426: The Italian fraction now worked closely with the new French fraction, which was formally founded in Paris in December 1944. However, in May 1945 the Italian fraction, many of whose members had already returned to Italy, voted to dissolve itself so that its militants could integrate themselves as individuals into the Internationalist Communist Party . The conference at which this decision was made also refused to recognise

8384-429: The Italian left and the Dutch–German left. The Italian left tends to follow Bordigism and considers itself to be "more Leninist than Lenin", but denounces Marxism–Leninism as a form of bourgeois opportunism materialized in the Soviet Union under Stalin . The Dutch–German left split from Vladimir Lenin prior to Stalin's rule and supports a firmly council communist and libertarian Marxist viewpoint as opposed to

8515-412: The Italian left which emphasised the need for an international revolutionary party. The Italian current of left communism was historically represented by the Italian Socialist Party and the Communist Party of Italy but today is embodied in the Internationalist Communist Party of Italy , International Communist Party , and the International Communist Current . The Dutch–German current of left communism

8646-448: The Left is also divided over how to effectively and equitably reduce carbon emissions as the center-left often advocates a reliance on market measures such as emissions trading and a carbon tax while those further to the left support direct government regulation and intervention in the form of a Green New Deal , either alongside or instead of market mechanisms. The question of nationality , imperialism and nationalism has been

8777-443: The Netherlands a revolutionary wing of social democracy had broken from the reformist party even before the war and had built links with German activists. By 1915, the Antinational Socialist Party was founded by Franz Pfemfert and was linked to Die Aktion . After the beginning of the German Revolution in 1918, a leftist mood could be found among sections of the communist parties of both countries. In Germany, this led directly to

8908-485: The New Left. Unlike the earlier leftist focus on labour union activism and a proletarian revolution, the New Left instead adopted a broader definition of political activism commonly called social activism . The New Left in the United States is associated with the hippie movement , mass protest movements on school campuses and a broadening of focus from protesting class -based oppression to include issues such as gender , race and sexual orientation . The British New Left

9039-403: The Reichstag voted for the government's war budget, while the French and Belgian socialists publicly supported and joined their governments. The Zimmerwald Conference in September 1915, attended by Lenin and Leon Trotsky , saw the beginning of the end of the uneasy coexistence of revolutionary socialists and reformist socialists in the parties of the Second International . The conference adopted

9170-424: The Third International) was founded following the October Revolution . This International became widely identified with communism but also defined itself in terms of revolutionary socialism. However, in 1938 Trotskyists formed the Fourth International because they thought that the Third International turned to Marxism–Leninism —this latter International became identified with revolutionary socialism. Luxemburgism

9301-399: The Trotskyist milieu in Southern France and recruited some of them into the Communistes Revolutionnaires (CR) in 1942. This group became known as Fraternisation Proletarienne in 1943 and then L'Organisation Communiste Revolutionnaire in 1944. The CR and RKD were autonomous and clandestine, but worked closely together with shared politics. As the war ran its course, they evolved in

9432-542: The United States, where social progressives played an important role in the abolition of slavery , the enshrinement of women's suffrage in the United States Constitution , and the protection of civil rights , LGBTQ rights , women's rights and multiculturalism . Progressives have both advocated for alcohol prohibition legislation and worked towards its repeal in the mid to late 1920s and early 1930s. Current positions associated with social progressivism in

9563-412: The United States. Left wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism , often in opposition to social hierarchy as a whole or certain social hierarchies. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in society whom its adherents perceive as disadvantaged relative to others as well as

9694-453: The anti- capital punishment movement and Liberation Theology . Early utopian socialist thinkers such as Robert Owen , Charles Fourier and the Comte de Saint-Simon based their theories of socialism upon Christian principles. Other common leftist concerns such as pacifism , social justice , racial equality , human rights and the rejection of capitalism and excessive wealth can be found in

9825-457: The beginning of the war, they took the name Revolutionary Communists of Germany (RKD) and came to define Russia as state capitalist in agreement with Ante Ciliga's book The Russian Enigma . At this point, they adopted a revolutionary defeatist position on the war and condemned Trotskyism for its critical defence of Russia (which was seen by Trotskyists as a degenerated workers' state ). After the fall of France, they renewed contact with militants in

9956-493: The camp was liberated. The year 1952 signalled the end of mass influence on the part of Italian left communism as its sole remaining representative, the Internationalist Communist Party, split in two sections: the group led by Bordiga took the name International Communist Party , while the group around Damen retained the name Internationalist Communist Party . The Gauche Communiste de France (GCF) dissolved in

10087-660: The communist left such as Mitchell, who was Jewish, were to die in the Buchenwald concentration camp. Meanwhile, the final council communist groups in Germany had disappeared in the maelstrom and the International Communist Group (GIK) in the Netherlands was moribund. The former centrist group led by Henk Sneevliet (the Revolutionary Socialist Workers Party, RSAP ) transformed itself into

10218-490: The conception of a party in favour of a unitary class organisation being organised as the General Workers' Union – Unified Organization (AAUE). The KAPD was unable to reach even its founding congress prior to suffering its first split when the so-called National Bolshevik tendency around Fritz Wolffheim and Heinrich Laufenberg appeared (this tendency has no connection with modern political tendencies in Russia which use

10349-545: The conception that the Russian state remained in some way proletarian and also dropped Vercesi's conception of localised wars in favour of ideas on imperialism inspired by Rosa Luxemburg . Vercesi's participation in a Red Cross committee was also fiercely contested. The strike at FIAT in October 1942 had a huge impact on the Italian fraction, which was deepened by the fall of Mussolini's regime in July 1943. The Italian fraction now saw

10480-474: The conquest of political power as a theory of Blanquist violence, has the misfortune of labeling as a Blanquist error that which has always been the pivot and the motive force of human history. From the first appearance of class societies, having class struggle as the essential content of their history, the conquest of political power has been the aim of all rising classes. Here is the starting point and end of every historic period. [...] In modern times, we see it in

10611-877: The developing world such as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Mexico, the Abahlali baseMjondolo in South Africa and the Naxalites in India have argued that the First World and the Second World Left takes a racist and paternalistic attitude towards liberation movements in the Third World. The original French Left was firmly anti-clerical , strongly opposing the influence of

10742-539: The direct lineage of the Italian and Dutch traditions, a number of groups with similar positions have flourished since 1968, such as the workerist and autonomist movements in Italy; Kolinko, Kurasje, Wildcat; Subversion and Aufheben in England; Théorie Communiste, Echanges et Mouvements and Démocratie Communiste in France; TPTG and Blaumachen in Greece; Kamunist Kranti in India; and Collective Action Notes and Loren Goldner in

10873-484: The division between First World and Second World developed countries and Third World developing countries as being of high political importance. This tendency supports decolonization and national liberation movements against imperialism by capitalists. Third-Worldism is closely connected with African socialism , Latin American socialism , Maoism , pan-Africanism and pan-Arabism . Several left-wing groups in

11004-422: The economy is independent of his advocacy of revolutionary socialism or his belief in the inevitability of a proletarian revolution . Marxian economics do not exclusively rely on Marx and draw from a range of Marxist and non-Marxist sources. The dictatorship of the proletariat and workers' state are terms used by some Marxists, particularly Leninists and Marxist–Leninists , to describe what they see as

11135-554: The economy, preferring social ownership and local control in which a nation of decentralized regions is united in a confederation . The global justice movement , also known as the anti-globalisation movement and the alter-globalisation movement, protests against corporate economic globalisation due to its negative consequences for the poor, workers, the environment, and small businesses. Leftists generally believe in innovation in various technological and philosophical fields and disciplines to help causes they support. One of

11266-404: The economy. Leftists continue to criticize the perceived exploitative nature of globalization , the " race to the bottom " and unjust lay-offs and exploitation of workers. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the belief that the government (ruling in accordance with the interests of the people) ought to be directly involved in the day-to-day workings of an economy declined in popularity amongst

11397-409: The first decade of Soviet rule, before Joseph Stalin attacked ecologists and the science of ecology, purged environmentalists and promoted the pseudoscience of Trofim Lysenko during his rule up until his death in 1953. Similarly, Mao Zedong rejected environmentalism and believed that based on the laws of historical materialism, all of nature must be put into the service of revolution. From

11528-425: The forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. Twenty-four years after The Communist Manifesto , first published in 1848, Marx and Engels admitted that in developed countries, "labour may attain its goal by peaceful means". Marxist scholar Adam Schaff argued that Marx, Engels, and Lenin had expressed such views "on many occasions". By contrast,

11659-485: The foremost left-wing advocates was Thomas Paine, one of the first individuals since left and right became political terms to describe the collective human ownership of the world which he speaks of in Agrarian Justice. As such, most of left-wing thought and literature regarding environmentalism stems from this duty of ownership and the aforementioned form of cooperative ownership means that humanity must take care of

11790-408: The formation of militant organizations, political repression , conspiracism , xenophobia , and nationalism . In China, the term Chinese New Left denotes those who oppose the economic reforms enacted by Deng Xiaoping in the 1980s and 1990s, favour instead the restoration of Maoist policies and the immediate transition to a socialist economy. In the Western world , the term New Left

11921-631: The foundation of the Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD) after its leading figures were expelled from the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) by Paul Levi . This development was mirrored in the Netherlands and on a smaller scale in Bulgaria , where the left communist movement was to mimic that of Germany. When it was founded, the KAPD included some tens of thousands of revolutionaries. However, it had broken up and practically dissolved within

12052-608: The founding of the Communist International , or Comintern. In fact, they controlled the first body formed by the Comintern to coordinate its activities in Western Europe , the Amsterdam Bureau. However, this was little more than a very brief interlude and the Amsterdam Bureau never functioned as a leadership body for Western Europe as was originally intended. The Vienna Bureau of the Comintern may also be classified as left communist, but its personnel were not to evolve into either of

12183-542: The founding of the LGBTQ rights movement in the aftermath of the Stonewall Riots of 1969. Contemporary leftist activists and socialist countries such as Cuba are actively supportive of LGBTQ+ people and are involved in the struggle for LGBTQ+ rights and equality. In politics, the term Left derives from the French Revolution as the political groups opposed to the royal veto privilege ( Montagnard and Jacobin deputies from

12314-422: The international proletariat in order to further increase the power of the working class. Proletarian internationalism saw itself as a deterrent against war and international conflicts, because people with a common interest are less likely to take up arms against one another, instead focusing on fighting the bourgeoisie as the ruling class . According to Marxist theory, the antonym of proletarian internationalism

12445-534: The journal L'Etincelle and was joined at the end of 1945 by the old minority of the fraction who had joined L'Union Communiste in the 1930s. One other development during the war years merits mention at this point. A small grouping of German and Austrian militants came close to left communist positions in these years. Best known as the Revolutionary Communist Organisation, these young militants were exiles from Nazism living in France at

12576-612: The leading capitalist countries. In the late 1970s and early 1980s the Internationalist Communist Party initiated a series of conferences of the communist left to engage those new elements, also attended by the International Communist Current . As a result of these, in 1983 the International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party (later renamed as the Internationalist Communist Tendency) was established by

12707-764: The orders of the Military Revolutionary Committee under the leadership of Trotsky in October, also termed the Revolutionary Military Committee in Lenin's collected works. Trotsky mobilized the Military Revolutionary Committee to seize power on the advent of the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies , which began on 25 October 1917. The Communist International (also known as

12838-490: The origins of a reformist trend within Marxism. In 1900, Rosa Luxemburg wrote Social Reform or Revolution? , a polemic against Bernstein's position. The work of reforms, Luxemburg argued, could only be carried on "in the framework of the social form created by the last revolution". In order to advance society to socialism from the capitalist 'social form', a social revolution will be necessary: Bernstein, thundering against

12969-519: The owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations". Following the Russian Revolution, environmental scientists such as revolutionary Alexander Bogdanov and the Proletkult organisation made efforts to incorporate environmentalism into Bolshevism and "integrate production with natural laws and limits" in

13100-515: The party in 1927 and later killed during Joseph Stalin 's Great Purge . Left communism emerged in both countries together and was always very closely connected. Among the leading theoreticians of the more powerful German movement were Antonie Pannekoek and Herman Gorter and German activists found refuge in the Netherlands after the Nazis came to power in 1933. The critique of social democratic reformism can be traced back before World War I since in

13231-427: The placement along the political spectrum in a given time and place. At the end of the 18th century, upon the founding of the first liberal democracies , the term Left was used to describe liberalism in the United States and republicanism in France, supporting a lesser degree of hierarchical decision-making than the right-wing politics of the traditional conservatives and monarchists . In modern politics,

13362-421: The point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat. [...] The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; [...] The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by

13493-626: The population, represented in the soviets , demanded revolutionary change and no longer supported the reformist government of Alexander Kerensky established in the earlier revolution of February 1917. In the Lessons of October , Leon Trotsky wrote: Lenin, after the experience of the reconnoiter, withdrew the slogan of the immediate overthrow of the Provisional Government. But he did not withdraw it for any set period of time, for so many weeks or months, but strictly in dependence upon how quickly

13624-538: The recall of RSDLP representatives from the Third Duma . Bogdanov and his allies accused Lenin and his partisans of promoting liberal democracy through " parliamentarism at any price". The faction largely died out by the end of 1918, as its leaders accepted that much of their program was unrealistic under the circumstances of the Russian Civil War and as the policies of War Communism satisfied their demands for

13755-427: The reformist wing of social democracy and other evolutionary approaches to socialism. Revolutionary socialism is opposed to social movements that seek to gradually ameliorate capitalism's economic and social problems through political reform. In The Communist Manifesto , Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote: The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without

13886-479: The revolt of the masses against the conciliationists would grow. For these Marxists, the fact that the Bolsheviks won a majority (in alliance with the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries ) in the second all-Russian congress of Soviets—democratically elected bodies—which convened at the time of the October revolution, shows that they had the popular support of the masses of workers, peasants and soldiers,

14017-446: The same distance from the left as it did under Blair. In contrast, the election of Jeremy Corbyn as the Labour Party leader was viewed by scholars and political commentators as Labour turning back toward its more classical socialist roots, rejecting neoliberalism and the Third Way whilst supporting a democratic socialist society and an end to austerity measures. Revolutionary socialism Revolutionary socialists believe such

14148-452: The same name ). More seriously, the KAPD lost most of its support very rapidly as it failed to develop lasting structures. This also contributed to internecine quarrels and the party actually split into two competing tendencies known as the Essen and Berlin tendencies to the historians of the left. The recently established Communist Workers International (KAI) split on exactly the same lines as did

14279-639: The same year. Left communists entered a period of almost constant decline from this point onwards, although they were somewhat rejuvenated by the events of 1968 . Examples of left communism ideological currents existed in China during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR). For example, the Hunan rebel group the Shengwulian argued for "smashing" the existing state apparatus and establishing

14410-431: The source for a better kind of social revolution . This view has been criticized by several Marxists , especially Trotskyists , who characterized this approach as "substitutionism" which they described as a misguided and non-Marxist belief that other groups in society could "substitute" for and "replace" the revolutionary agency of the working class. Many early feminists and advocates of women's rights were considered

14541-715: The start of World War II and were members of the Trotskyist movement but they had opposed the formation of the Fourth International in 1938 on the grounds that it was premature. They were refused full delegates' credentials and only admitted to the founding conference of the Youth International on the following day. They then joined Hugo Oehler 's International Contact Commission for the Fourth (Communist) International and in 1939 were publishing Der Marxist in Antwerp . With

14672-504: The struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. In 1902, Vladimir Lenin attacked Bernstein's position in his What Is to Be Done? When Bernstein first put forward his ideas, the majority of the SPD rejected them. The 1899 congress of the SPD reaffirmed the Erfurt Program , as did the 1901 congress. The 1903 congress denounced "revisionist efforts". On 4 August 1914, the SPD members of

14803-462: The subject. Mikhail Bakunin thought the lumpenproletariat was a revolutionary class, while Mao Zedong believed that it would be rural peasants, not urban workers, who would bring about the proletarian revolution . Left-libertarians , anarchists and libertarian socialists believe in a decentralized economy run by trade unions , workers' councils , cooperatives , municipalities and communes, opposing both state and private control of

14934-489: The term Left typically applies to ideologies and movements to the left of classical liberalism , supporting some degree of democracy in the economic sphere . Today, ideologies such as social liberalism and social democracy are considered to be centre-left , while the Left is typically reserved for movements more critical of capitalism , including the labour movement , socialism , anarchism , communism , Marxism and syndicalism , each of which rose to prominence in

15065-455: The theory of vanguardist -led revolution such as the Stalinism , Maoism , Marxism–Leninism and Trotskyism . Revolutionary socialism also includes other Marxist , Marxist-inspired and non-Marxist movements such as those found in democratic socialism , revolutionary syndicalism , anarchism and social democracy . Revolutionary socialism is contrasted with reformist socialism , especially

15196-496: The theory of socialism in one country. European social democrats strongly support Europeanism and supranational integration within the European Union , although there is a minority of nationalists and Eurosceptics on the left. Several scholars have linked this form of left-wing nationalism to the pressure generated by economic integration with other countries, often encouraged by neoliberal free trade agreements. This view

15327-425: The time accept any of these criticisms and both currents would evolve. To a considerable degree, Lenin's well known polemic Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder is an attack on the ideas of the emerging left communist currents. His main aim was to polemicise with currents moving towards pure revolutionary tactics by showing them that they could remain based on firmly revolutionary principles while utilising

15458-579: The tiny Communist Workers Party of Bulgaria . The only other affiliates of the KAI were the Communist Workers Party of Britain led by Sylvia Pankhurst , the Communist Workers Party of the Netherlands (KAPN) in the Netherlands and a group in Russia. The AAUD split on the same lines and it rapidly ceased to exist as a real tendency within the factories. Left communists generally supported the Bolshevik seizure of power in October 1917 and entertained enormous hopes in

15589-522: The traditional trade unions in favour of forming their own revolutionary unions . These unionen , so called to distinguish them from the official trade unions, had 80,000 members in 1920 and peaked in 1921 with 200,000 members, after which they declined rapidly. They were also organisationally divided from the beginning, with those unionen linked to the KAPD forming the General Workers' Union of Germany (AAUD) and those in Saxony around Otto Rühle who opposed

15720-581: The traditional institutions of the Ancien Régime. Usage of the term Left became more prominent after the restoration of the French monarchy in 1815, when it was applied to the Independents . The word wing was first appended to Left and Right in the late 19th century, usually with disparaging intent, and left-wing was applied to those who were unorthodox in their religious or political views. Ideologies considered to be left-wing vary greatly depending on

15851-581: The two historic currents that made up left communism. Rather, the Vienna Bureau adopted the ultra-left ideas of the earliest period in the history of the Comintern. Left communists supported the Russian Revolution , but did not accept the methods of the Bolsheviks. Many of the Dutch–German tradition adopted Rosa Luxemburg 's criticism as outlined in her posthumously published essay entitled The Russian Revolution . The Italian left communists did not at

15982-473: The vast majority of Russian society. In his pamphlet Lessons of October , first published in 1924, Trotsky argued that military power lay in the hands of the Bolsheviks before the October Revolution was carried out, but this power was not used against the government until the Bolsheviks gained mass support. The mass of soldiers began to be led by the Bolshevik party after July 1917 and followed only

16113-464: The whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air. Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie. In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to

16244-582: The works of Thomas Paine , who introduced the concept of asset-based egalitarianism which theorises that social equality is possible by a redistribution of resources. After the Reconstruction era in the aftermath of the American Civil War , the phrase "the Left" was used to describe those who supported trade unions, the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement . More recently, left-wing and right-wing have often been used as synonyms for

16375-480: Was an intellectually driven movement which attempted to correct the perceived errors of the Old Left . The New Left opposed prevailing authoritarian structures in society which it designated as " The Establishment " and became known as the "Anti-Establishment". The New Left did not seek to recruit industrial workers en masse, but instead concentrated on a social activist approach to organization, convinced that they could be

16506-464: Was historically represented by the Communist Workers' Party of Germany , General Workers' Union of Germany , and the Communist Workers' International . Left communism differs from most other forms of Marxism in believing that communists should not participate in democratic elections, and some argue against participating in trade unions. However, many left communists split over their criticism of

16637-465: Was in this period that the word wing was appended to both Left and Right. The International Workingmen's Association (1864–1876), sometimes called the First International, brought together delegates from many different countries, with many different views about how to reach a classless and stateless society. Following a split between supporters of Marx and Mikhail Bakunin , anarchists formed

16768-407: Was not a revolutionary socialist group despite their refusal to vote for war credits, further defining in his view what was meant by a revolutionary socialist. Many revolutionary socialists argue that the Russian Revolution led by Vladimir Lenin follows the revolutionary socialist model of a revolutionary movement guided by a vanguard party . By contrast, the October Revolution is portrayed as

16899-410: Was published. This idea was opposed by Leon Trotsky and his supporters, who declared the need for an international " permanent revolution " and condemned Stalin for betraying the goals and ideals of the socialist revolution. Various Fourth Internationalist groups around the world who describe themselves as Trotskyist see themselves as standing in this tradition while Maoist China formally supported

17030-459: Was reorganised in France and along with the new French Nucleus of the Communist Left came into conflict with the ideas which the fraction had propagated from 1936, namely of the social disappearance of the proletariat and localised wars and so on. These ideas continued to be defended by Vercesi in Brussels. Gradually, the left fractions adopted positions drawn from German left communism. They abandoned

17161-667: Was sometimes opposed to imperialism . In the 1880s, there was a debate between leftists such as the Radical Georges Clemenceau , the Socialist Jean Jaurès and the nationalist Maurice Barrès , who argued that colonialism diverted France from liberating the "blue line of the Vosges ", in reference to Alsace-Lorraine; and the " colonial lobby " such as Jules Ferry of the Moderate Republicans , Léon Gambetta of

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