Ultra-leftism - The Ultra-left Current in Marxism

The Ultra-left Current in Marxism

The term Ultra Left is rarely used in English, where people tend to speak broadly of left communism as a minor variant of traditional Marxism, but the equivalent term in French—ultra-gauche—has a stronger currency, as it is a more positive term in that language and is used to define a movement that is still in existence today: a branch of left communism descending from people such as Amadeo Bordiga, Otto Rühle, Anton Pannekoek, Herman Gorter, and Paul Mattick, and continuing to present day writers such as Jacques Camatte and Gilles Dauvé (also known as Jean Barrot).

The term originated in the 1920s in the German and Dutch workers movements, originally referring to a Marxist current opposed to both Bolshevism and social democracy, and with some affinities with anarchism. The ultra-left is defined particularly by its breed of anti-authoritarian Marxism, which generally involves an opposition to the state and to state socialism, as well as to parliamentary democracy, and to wage labour. In opposition to Bolshevism, the ultra left generally places heavy emphasis upon the autonomy and self-organisation of the proletariat.