The Birth of Council Communism

Abstract

This chapter demonstrates the pivotal importance of the German Revolution on the development of council communist thought. It claims that differences between the Bolsheviks and “left” or “council” communists occurred initially over questions of revolutionary strategy for Europe and only later over a critique of the centralisation and bureaucratisation of the Russian Revolution. This chapter also traces a shift in theorists’ understanding of the workers’ councils during and after the German Revolution. It argues that while participants in the revolution such as the Revolutionary Shop Stewards were more inclined to view the councils as the initial structures of a post-capitalist society, this shifted in the later council communist ideology towards a more open principle of workers’ self-emancipation. The outlines of council communism did not emerge immediately during the experience of workers’ councils in the German Revolution. Rather, they emerged gradually through theoretical debates within the Communist International.