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ABSTRACT
This article traces a discontinuous tradition of council thought from the Dutch and German council communist tendencies of the 1920s to its re-emergence in the writings of three important mid-twentieth-century political theorists: Cornelius Castoriadis, Claude Lefort, and Hannah Arendt. It connects an intellectual history of the council concept in post-war Europe with a political history of the small revolutionary groups that fostered council-related political activity during this era. It claims that, as the experience of the European council movements began to be interpreted within a new political context, this gave rise to several radically altered forms of council thought. In this more subjectivist and praxis-oriented tradition, the councils became a utopian placeholder for theorists to explore their particular interests in human creativity (Castoriadis), self-limiting power (Lefort), and political freedom (Arendt). This analysis develops our understanding of the continuities and ruptures of the council tradition within political thought.
Notes
1 Anweiler, Die Rätebewegung in Russland 1905–1921; Gluckstein, The Western Soviets.
2 See Mandel, “Workers’ Control and Workers’ Councils”.
3 Medearis, Why Democracy is Oppositional, 129–33. See also Medearis, “Lost or Obscured?”; Medearis, “After the Councils”.
4 Breaugh, The Plebeian Experience.
5 Dubigeon, La démocratie des conseils.
6 Azzellini and Ness, Ours to Master Ours to Own, Workers’ Councils; Muldoon, Council Democracy. See also Kets and Muldoon, “The ‘Forgotten’ German Revolution”.
7 See, for example, Oertzen, Betriebsräte in der Novemberrevolution; Kolb, Die Arbeiterräte in der deutschen Innenpolitik, 1918–1919.
8 Intellectual historians have shown interest in the major theoreticians of the councils in the 1920s, with a number of studies of A. Pannekoek, H. Gorter, O. Rühle, and K. Korsch. See Gorter et al., Non-Leninist Marxism; Gerber, Anton Pannekoek and the Socialism of Workers' Self-Emancipation 1873–1960; Bricianer, Pannekoek and the Workers Councils; Bock, Pannekoek und Gorter; Mattick, Anti-Bolshevik Communism.
9 Regarding the political activity of council communists during the 1930s, The Dutch Group of International Communists (G.I.K.), consisting of members such as Cajo Brendel, Henk Meijer, and Paul Mattick, formed in 1927 and published a number of important theoretical works in addition to the journal Rätekorrespondenz (Council Correspondence). See Bourrinet, The Dutch and German Communist Left (1900–1968).
10 Singer, “Cornelius Castoriadis”, 141.
11 Holman, “The Councils as Ontological Form Cornelius Castoriadis and the Autonomous Potential of Council Democracy”, 132.
12 For the first comprehensive analysis, see Popp-Madsen, “The Self- Limiting Revolution and the Mixed Constitution of Socialist Democracy Claude Lefort’s Vision of Council Democracy”. See also Arato, “Lefort, the Philosopher of 1989”, 116–17.
13 Lefort, “La question de la revolution”.
14 Canovan, Hannah Arendt, 235; Sitton, “Hannah Arendt’s Argument for Council Democracy”; Muldoon, “The Lost Treasure of Arendt’s Council System”; Buckler, Hannah Arendt and Political Theory, 104–26; Lederman, “Hannah Arendt, the Council System and Contemporary Political Theory”.
15 For historical overviews of council communism, see Rachleff, Marxism and Council Communism, The foundation for revolutionary theory for modern society; Bourrinet, The Dutch and German Communist Left (1900–1968); Linden, “On Council Communism”.
16 For an overview of these debates, see Bourrinet, The Dutch and German Communist Left (1900–1968).
17 Luxemburg, “The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions”; Pannekoek, “Mass Action and Revolution”; Pannekoek, “Marxist Theory and Revolutionary Tactics”.
18 Gerber, Anton Pannekoek and the Socialism of Workers’ Self-Emancipation, 1873–1960, 118–20.
19 Rachleff, Marxism and Council Communism, The foundation for revolutionary theory for modern society.
20 Pannekoek, “The German Revolution – First Stage”.
21 For a more in-depth analysis of council communism as an ideology, see Muldoon, “The Birth of Council Communism”.
22 Gorter, “Open Letter to Comrade Lenin”.
23 Ibid.
24 Pinta, “Council Communist Perspectives on the Spanish Civil War and Revolution, 1936–1939”, 123.
25 Dauvé, Eclipse and Re-emergence of the Communist Movement, 93–4.
26 Reichenbach and Dutschke, “The KAPD in Retrospect”.
27 For an overview of the events, see UN General Assembly, Report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary.
28 Ibid., 154–70.
29 Declaration of the Government of the U.S.S.R. on the Principles of Development and Further Strengthening of Friendship and Cooperation between the Soviet Union and other Socialist States 30 October 1956.
30 Castoriadis, “‘The Only Way to Find Out if You Can Swim is to Get into the Water’”, 5.
31 Ibid., 13.
32 Castoriadis, “Proletariat and Organization”.
33 Castoriadis, “Presentation”.
34 Hastings-King, “L’Internationale Situationniste, Socialisme ou Barbarie, and the Crisis of the Marxist Imaginary”.
35 Castoriadis, “The Proletarian Revolution Against the Bureacracy”.
36 See, for example, Klooger, Castoriadis; Adams, Castoriadis’ Ontology; Memos, Castoriadis and Critical Theory, 51–5.
37 Cervera-Marzal, “Miguel Abensour, Cornelius Castoriadis: un conseillisme français?”, 317.
38 Holman, “The Councils as Ontological Form”.
39 Castoriadis, “On the Content of Socialism”, 48.
40 Ibid., 47.
41 Castoriadis, “The Hungarian Source”, 7.
42 Castoriadis, “On the Content of Socialism II”, 50.
43 Castoriadis, “The Revolutionary Exigency”, 238.
44 Castoriadis, “On the Content of Socialism II”, 47.
45 Ibid., 51.
46 Castoriadis, “The Hungarian Source”, 261.
47 Lefort, “The Hungarian Insurrection”.
48 Lefort, Democracy and Political Theory, 304.
49 Lefort, Complications, 97.
50 Lefort, “La question de la revolution”, 189–91.
51 Lefort, “The Age of Novelty”.
52 UN General Assembly, Report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary.
53 Situtationist International, “Internationale Situationniste #6”.
54 Situtationist International, On the Poverty of Student Life.
55 Debord, The Society of the Spectacle.
56 Ibid., thesis 116.
57 Debord, “Letter to Italian section of the SI in Milan and to Mario Perniola in Rome, 12 March 1969”.
58 Riesel, “Preliminaries on the Councils and Councilist Organization”; Vaneigem, “Notice to the Civilized Concerning Generalized Self-management”.
59 Young-Bruehl, Hannah Arendt, 128.
60 Canovan, Hannah Arendt, 232–8; Muldoon, “The Origins of Hannah Arendt’s Council System”.
61 Arendt, On Revolution, 255.
62 Arendt, The Jewish Writings, 399; Arendt, On Revolution, 257.
63 For Arendt’s references to the councils, see Arendt, The Jewish Writings, 343–74, 388–401; Arendt, The Human Condition, 215–20; Arendt, On Revolution, 247–73; Arendt, Crises of the Republic, 189–91; Arendt, “Totalitarian Imperialism”; Arendt, Men in Dark Times, 52; Arendt, “On Hannah Arendt”, 327; Arendt, “The Impotence of Power”.
64 Arendt, “Totalitarian Imperialism”.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid., 29. Hobsbawm, “Hannah Arendt on Revolution”, 207. For a recent collection of studies on workers’ control of factories, see Ness and Azzellini, Ours to Master and to Own.
67 Ibid., 215–16.
68 Habermas, “Hannah Arendt’s Communications Concept of Power”, 15; Bernstein, “Hannah Arendt”, 141–58; Pitkin, The Attack of the Blob. For an attempt to push back against the dominant reading of Arendt as attempting to purify politics of socio-economic concerns and an argument for the importance of economic matters for public life in Arendt’s work, see Klein, “‘Fit to Enter the World’”, 856–69.
69 The United Nations, Report of the Special Committee on the Problem of Hungary, 22.
70 Ibid., 154.
71 Bernstein, “Hannah Arendt”, 141–58; Pitkin, The Attack of the Blob.
72 See Muldoon, “The Origins of Hannah Arendt’s Council System”.
73 Arendt, On Revolution, 22.
74 Ibid., 210.
75 Ibid., 119.
76 Ibid., 261.
77 Ibid., 269.
78 Ibid., 156.
79 Arendt, “The Cold War and the West”, 12. See Sitton, “Hannah Arendt’s Argument for Council Democracy”.
80 Root & Branch, Root & Branch. For an online archive of articles published by Root & Branch, see https://libcom.org/library/root-branch-libertarian-socialist-journal
81 Rachleff, Marxism and Council Communism.
82 Wolff, Democracy at Work.
83 “Justice versus Power: A debate between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky”.
84 Solidarity, As We See it.
85 Brinton, The Bolsheviks and Workers’ Control; Brinton, For Workers’ Power.
86 Gerber, Anton Pannekoek and the Socialism of Workers’ Self-emancipation, 1873–1960, 197.
87 On the connection between the workers’ councils and Frankfurt School, see Slater, Origin and Significance of the Frankfurt School.
88 Horkheimer, “The Authoritarian State”, 104.
89 Kellner, Herbert Marcuse and the Crisis of Marxism, 16.
90 Marcuse, Counter-revolution and Revolt, 44.
91 Habermas, Between Facts and Norms, 481.
92 Ibid., p. 479. Since these remarks, however, Habermas has altered his view and now concedes that models of market socialism “pick up the correct idea of retaining a market economy’s effective steering effects and impulses without at the same time accepting the negative consequences of a systemically reproduced distribution of ‘bads’ and ‘goods’”. Habermas, “A Conversation about Questions of Political Theory”, 141–2.
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James Muldoon
James Muldoon is a lecturer in political science at the University of Exeter. He is editor of Council Democracy: Towards a Democratic Socialist Politics, The German Revolution and Political Theory and Trumping the Mainstream. His monograph Building Power to Change the World: The Political Thought of the German Council Movements is forthcoming with Oxford University Press in 2021.