ICC Bordiga/Damen article

Thanks, very good indeed. Now I wish there's someone who could dig up a copy of Camatte's Bordiga et la Passion du Communisme.

If you google it, you'll find that there are a few online versions, but probably you have to 'subscribe'.. Eg http://documents.tips/documents/camatte-bordiga-et-la-passion-du-communisme-1972.html I of course have a slightly yellowing 1974 Spartacus paperback version.....

Alf wrote:

If you google it, you'll find that there are a few online versions, but probably you have to 'subscribe'.. Eg http://documents.tips/documents/camatte-bordiga-et-la-passion-du-communisme-1972.html I of course have a slightly yellowing 1974 Spartacus paperback version.....

Thank you. I've searched around, but like the page you link to, I haven't found any online versions that include the translations of Bordiga's texts, only Camatte's intro. Above all I'm curious about which texts of Bordiga's it includes, I could probably find them in other languages or in Italian. If you're able to scan the contents page or quote the titles, it would be great.

here you go: - 'The programme revolutionnaire de la societe communiste elimine toute forme de propriete de la terre, des installations productives et des produits du travail' - 'Le contenu original du programme communiste est l'abolition de l'individu comme sujet economique, detenteur de droits et acteur de l'histoire humaine - 'Commentaires des Manuscrits de 1844' - 'Tables immuables de la theorie communiste de parti' - 'A Janitzio on n'a pas peur de la mort' plus, Camatte 'Bordiga (1889-1970): Quelques reperes biographiques'

Thanks very much.

Ah, Craftwork, I was doing the same thing. Thanks though. I'm going to see if one of the ones that's not to be found in English is interesting enough to translate. I'm learning Italian, but having the French alongside is sure to help. The first text is also on here: http://libcom.org/library/revolutionary-program-communist-society-eliminates-all-forms-ownership-land-instruments-

Some interesting commentary on the positive contributions of Bordiga but despite the title only a very thin critical reference to the historical differences between Damen and Bordiga and subsequent developments as expressed in the different approaches today between the ICC and the 'Damenists' of the ICT/CWO as regards the role of 'the Party' or communist minorities more generally, with which the ICT/CWO appear to be in the throws of more recent discussion as on their site here: www.leftcom.org/en. I'm not a partisan of either tendency but anyone coming to this text as their first introduction to the differences would need to compare and contrast the views of both.

The aim of the article, as part of a much longer series about the transition period and communist society, was to examine the different approaches of Damen and Bordiga to this problem. It was not intended to go into the whole range of disagreements between the two, nor into the subsequent differences between the ICC and the ICT. The complete series (so far) can be found on this page: http://en.internationalism.org/go_deeper

hmm might translate...

That's very good, but what language are you thinking about? It will also be published in French and Spanish

DP

I just finished translating the second of these texts, the Original Content of the Communist Program:

http://libcom.org/library/original-content-communist-program-obliteration-individual-economic-subject-rights-holde
http://libcom.org/library/original-content-communist-program-obliteration-individual-economic-subject-rights-hol-0

In addition, Libcom user Alias Recluse translated (via Spanish) the Revolutionary Program of Communist Society, as noted above; Libri Incogniti translated (via German) the Commentary on the Manuscripts of 1844; and Conor Murray translated In Janitzio Death Is Not Scary for the Ritual Mag. So that leaves us with the Immutable Tablets of the Communist Theory. I’ll get to it in a few months, unless there are other takers...

Done.

looks like the Historical Materialism Book series is publishing a collected works by bordiga

https://brill.com/view/title/22024

Seems that new book might be a translation of Camatte's collection Bordiga et la passion du communisme.

No, it definitely isn't. Camatte's collection included just the five articles listed above by Alf, all of which were originally published between 1958 and 1961; the Brill book is going to include many more texts covering Bordiga's entire politically active life, from pre-WWI writings to 1965.

That said, while I can see how a few university libraries might order the book once it comes out, it escapes me why anyone else would be willing to shell out the frankly insane amount of cash for an anthology containing many writings that have already been translated and are freely available online. To wit (and I might have missed some):

1. Against the War
2. Against the War as Long as It Lasts
3. From the Old to the New Anti-militarism
4. We Take Our Stand
5. The ‘Fait Accompli’
6. Nothing to Correct
7. Against Abstentionism
8. The Electionist Illusion
9. The Electoral Trap
10. Revolutionary Preparation or Electoral Preparation
11. The System of Communist Representation
12. Is This the Time to Form ‘Soviets’?
13. Take the Factories or Take Power?
14. The May 1920 Theses – Abstentionist Communist Fraction of the Italian Socialist Party
15. The Tactics of the Communist International – Fourth Congress (1922)
16. Theses on the Tactics of the Communist Party of Italy (Rome Theses – 1922)
17. Report to the Fourth Congress of the C.I. (1922)
18. Report to the Fifth Congress of the C.I. (1924)
19. Draft Theses for the Third Congress of the Communist Party of Italy (Lyons, 1926)
20. The Trotsky Question
21. Bordiga at the Sixth Enlarged ECCI (February 1926)
22. Letter to Karl Korsch
23. Lessons of Counter-revolutions
24. Forty Years of Organically Analysing Russian Events within the Dramatic Context of the Social and Historical Course of the World
25. Property and Financial Capital
26. Welfare Economics
27. The Law of Hunger
28. Murder of the Dead
29. Inflation of the State
30. America
31. America Again!
32. Attack on Europe
33. The USA’s European Policy
34. Korea and the World
35. Democratic ‘Points’ and Imperial Programmes
36. ‘Old’ and ‘New’ Imperialism
37. You cannot stop, only the proletarian revolution can stop you, destroying your power
38. With the Academic Seal of Approval the American Economy becomes ‘People’s Capitalism’
39. The Factors of Race and Nation in Marxist Theory
40. East
41. The Multiple Revolutions
42. ‘Racial’ Pressure of the Peasantry, Class Pressure of the Coloured Peoples
43. ‘Negro’ Rage Shook the Rotten Pillars of Bourgeois and Democratic ‘Civilisation’
44. The Revolutionary Programme of Communist Society
45. Who’s Afraid of Automation?
46. The Immediate Revolutionary Programme in the Capitalist West
47. Considerations on the Party’s Organic Activity When the General Situation is Historically Unfavourable

It is my understanding that some time after the book is published there is a paperback edition that is a lot cheaper for example

The Ellen Meiksins Wood Reader costs 150 punds in hardback but 25 in paperback

Ah, that makes much more sense. Good to hear that!

Good to know there's going to be more, I didn't see the table of contents was available. The price is indeed way too high considering most of it is online. Hoping for the paperback.

Just a quick note, from "The May 1920 Theses – Abstentionist Communist Fraction of the Italian Socialist Party", thesis 13:

So what is it about Left-Communism what is meant to be libertarian?

Anarcho, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are speaking from ignorance rather than in bad faith but that is a very particular viewpoint which the vast majority of the communist left reject. The ICC innparticular are very clear on this fact that the Party should never take power. Power should always be in the hands of the Soviets/councils and the organs of direct workers control.

Neither does it apply to the CWO-ICT, for which, as we always repeat, the Party/International is not a government in waiting, and the working class as a whole does not delegate its power to it. We've always been opposed to the concept of the "dictatorship of the party".