Welcome

This site is an international resource of materials about 'Council Communism'.

In short 'Council Communism' was/is the critical and theoretical reflection of the revolutionary mass struggles of the working class in Western Europe   -  especially those in Germany  -   following  the I. World War.

On these pages you can learn more about the 'Council Communist' tradition, its origins, its basic principles and positions, its historical development, organisations, theorists etc.

Please return from time to time to watch the changes.

Previous editions          

• Heinrich Laufenberg: The Hamburg Revolution  -  1919
  Together with Fritz Wolffheim Laufenberg was a leading figure in the German Revolution in Hamburg. For the first period from November 1918 into early 1919 Laufenberg was Chariman of the general Workers Council of Hamburg. In this text Laufenberg gives his account of the development of the Workers and Soldiers Councils in Hamburg and of the political questions that were dealt with concretely.
   

• Fritz Wolffheim: Betriebsorganisationen oder Gewerkschaften ?  -  1919
  With a background from the IWW Fritz Wolffheim participated in the German Revolution and became a leading figure in the workers struggles in the Hamburg area. This text contains a speech held by Fritz Wolffheim on August 16, 1919, before the assembly of the Communist Party’s Hamburg local. It was decided 'by unanimous consent of the assembly' that this speech should be published as a pamphlet.
  -  An English translation  -  Factory Organizations or Trade Unions ?  has also been added.
   

• Anton Pannekoek:  World Revolution and Communist Tactics  -  1920
  This text is one of the most important works of Anton Pannekoek and together with Herman Gorters 'Open Letter to Comrade Lenin' it constitutes the opening of both the theoretical and tactical disagreements with the main political course of the Bolsheviks and the newly formed III. International.
   

• Herman Gorter: Open Letter to Comrade Lenin  -  1920
  Preparing for the 2.nd Congress of the III. International in 1920 Lenin attacked the various Left Communist currents outside Russia in his "Left Wing Communism - An Infantile Disorder". Hermann Gorter's response in this "Open Letter to Comrade Lenin" is one of the first critiques against the reformist positions of the Bolshevics and the III. International from the international perspective of a real communist world revolution. And it is also one of the most famous texts of the German/Dutch Left Communists. 
  -  The German version of this text is already in the Archive.
   

• Franz Pfemfert: The 'Infantile Disorder' and the Third International  -  1920: 
  Pfemferts reply to Lenin is not as famous as Gorters, but not less interesting. The style of this text is sharp and more confronting   -  a Pfemfert-speciality. But the positions and differences between the German/Dutch Left Communists and the Bolshevics are also marked much clearer  - showing the more radical positions of the socalled Saxony-wing around Otto Rühle compared to those of Gorter and the KAPD-leadership at that time. 
  -  The German version of this text is already in the Archive.
   

• Paul Mattick: Marinus van der Lubbe - Proletarier oder Provokateur ?  -  1934
  In the evening of February the 27th 1933 Marinus van der Lubbe set fire to the German Reichstag-building in an attempt to call the German workers to open struggle against the Nazis. During the following trial and later van der Lubbe was slandered and rediculed by both Left and Right. The Nazis accused him of being a Stalinist and the Stalinists accused him of working for the Nazis. Most other political currents took more or less the same positions - depending on orientation. In this article Paul Mattick defended Marinus van der Lubbe as an honest revolutionary worker.
   

• Paul Mattick: The Permanent Crisis -  on Grossman's theory  -  1934
  In the first years of the 30's the Council Communists had an intense study an debate on the nature of the Crisis of Capitalism at that time. Especially Paul Mattick insisted on the theoretical clarification on this issue and made several presentations of his views. In this article Mattick presented the theory of Henryk Grossman and advocated the concept of Capitalism developing into a 'Death Crisis' because of the chronical over-accmulation of capital and the inability of Capitalism to moblize sufficient counteracting initiatives.
   

• Henk Canne-Meijer:  Die Arbeiterrätebewegung in Deutschland  -  1938/1952
  Originally this account on the radical German workers movement following the I. World War was published in 1938 the Dutch Council Communist bulletin Radencommunismus. After the II. World War this text was revised and added a resume of the 'Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution'. The text was published in French in 1952 and again in 1965. And from then on translations have been made into many other languages.
  -  The English version of this text  -  Origins of the Movement for Workers Councils in Germany  -  was already in the Archive, but has now been updated into a more complete copy.
   

• The Gallery Section has been opened
  Celebrating the 10 years of existence the Kurasje Archive opens the Gallery of portraits and visuals of known and less known persons somehow related to Council Communism. There are currently about 100 portraits in this collection. If you possess or have access to items that are not here please contact us at: kurasje@iname.com                      

Previously:

• Listings from earlier