The German-Dutch Communist Left - Libcom

Like SB, it paraded a strong anti-bolshevism and an attraction to ‘things of everyday life’ (sexuality, nuclear
armament, housing, women’s liberation). Like SB it declared its support for ‘national liberation struggles’,
which was never the case with the old council communism. Between 1968 and 1973 Solidarity served as a
bridge between anti-bureaucratic ‘modernism’ and the councilism that was developing in a multitude of small
groups in several countries, in Europe as well as in the United States.
Following 1968 a number of groups claimed continuity with council communism. In France the most important
was Informations et Correspondance Ouvrières (ICO; ‘Workers’ News and Correspondence’), which came into
existence in 1960 and was animated by Henri Simon and former members of SB. 1279 It had a considerable
influence between 1968 and 1971, before disappearing in 1973. In the period following May 1968 it was the
largest councilist group in France. Like the British group Solidarity it tried to create an amalgam of SB’s theories
and those of the old council communism. At the time a multitude of other groups formed a veritable ‘councilist’
political milieu. 1280
Outside France and Great Britain, the echo of ‘councilism’ following May 1968 was more limited. Outside
Europe, in the USA, we should not ignore the group of Paul Mattick junior: Root and Branch in Boston, close to
the ICO. 1281 Like all the councilist groups it proved ephemeral and disappeared in the mid-seventies. By contrast
in Scandinavia, and above all in Sweden, ‘councilism’ found fertile ground at the beginning of the 1970s. In
Sweden several groups emerged, of which Internationell Arbetarkamp (International Workers’ Struggle) and
Förbundet Arbetarmakt (United Workers’ Power) were the most important. 1282 Both emerged about 1972-1973;
the former rapidly disappeared, while the latter survived until 1977. Laying claim to the ‘modernism’ of SB and
Solidarity, they were the protagonists of this current in Scandinavia. But their translations have also made known
1279 For the trajectory of ICO (whose origins are in Informations et Liaisons Ouvrières (ILO), a split from Socialisme ou
Barbarie in 1958), see Henri Simon’s October 1973 pamphlet ICO, un point de vue. Henri Simon makes a severe evaluation
of the activity of ICO, which he left in 1973: “What was happening in the struggles and in the factories was abandoned
(because it was ‘boring’ always hearing the same thing), in favour of debates on their individual preoccupations (which
moreover were much reduced by the fact that most belonged to the marginal or student milieu); this idealism was
accompanied by activities in every direction at the whim of events [...] As for material tasks, the right was declared in
meetings for anyone to say and do whatever they liked at any moment: all methodical discussion, any pre-planned agenda,
was considered an odious repression.” (op. cit., p. 8). This account gives an idea of the ‘atmosphere’ in some “councilist”
groups post-68, situated between marginality and ‘daily life’ activism and ‘anti-authoritarianism’.Henri Simon later went on
to create the little group ‘Echanges et Mouvement’ which publishes the bulletin Echanges, linked with Cajo Brendel’s Daad
en Gedachte.
1280 May 68 was rich with every kind of ‘councilist’ – or semi-’councilist’ – group: ‘Pouvoir Ouvrier’; ‘La Vieille Taupe’ led
by Jean Barrot [Gilles Dauvé] and Pierre Guillaume [the latter became in the 80s and after a protagonist of the ‘negationist
theory’ which denies the existence of Hitler’s gas chambers and the Holocaust, and turned quickly towards the ultraright];
the ‘Groupe de Liaison pour l’Autonomie des Travailleurs’ (GLAT); the ‘Cahiers du communisme de conseils’ in
Marseilles; the ‘Organisation conseilliste de Clermont-Ferrand’, Pouvoir international des conseils ouvriers (PICO), etc.
Under the influence of ‘Révolution Internationale’, which was originally council communist and close to ICO in 1968-70,
and of his leader Marc Chirik, an ex-trotskyist, then ex-bordigist militant, who returned from Venezuela to France in 1968,
these last two groups finished by fusioning with this last one (1972), to form finally an international group (ICC) in 1975.
This lat one became more and more a sectarian hybridation of bolshevism-leninism, and bordigism, leading regular
cruisades against ‘parasitism’, i.e. other political groups of the same tendency (See: its “Theses on parasitism”,
International Review, No. 94, London, 1998).
1281 See the pamphlet by J. Brecher, et al., Root and Branch: The Rise of the Workers Movement (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett
Publications, 1975).
1282 The ‘International Arbetarkamp’ came out of the ‘Manifestgruppen’ (a split from maoism) in 1973. It joined an
association with the Barrot’s periodical Le Mouvement communiste, the Swedish/Danish group ‘Kommunismen’ (1971 split
from Scandinavian bordigism, actively led by Carsten Juhl), and Jacques Camatte’s group ‘Invariance’ (a split from the
bordigist PCI in 1967). These groups thus formed an international ‘modernist’ movement, whose theory emphasised the
‘negation of the proletariat’ and of economic struggles. In Scandinavia, a more influential group was ‘Arbetarmakt’ (or
FAM), founded in 1972, to disappear at the end of the 1970s, which brought together a good 100 members. This group was
a mixture of ‘leftist’ and ‘anti-imperialist’ (Vietnam) activism in practice, and ‘councilism’ in theory [for its positions, see
its platform: Politisk plattform, uppgifter, stadgar Förbundet Arbetarmakt, Sept. 1973).
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