The social revolution is not a party matter!, is the rallying cry of council communism, thrown against the leadership claims of the Bolsheviks as early as 1920. This courage has made council communism legendary – critically organizational and anti-authoritarian, equally opposed to both social democracy and Bolshevism, deeply rooted in the radical labor movement of the early 20th century. Council communists were regarded as anarcho-Marxists and at the same time as orthodox representatives of a pure Marxism. From this duality arose the criticism of this movement: sectarian, utopian, blind to the changing forms of capitalism. Felix Klopotek demonstrates that there is neither cause for legend-building nor does the blanket criticism have the facts on its side. He proposes a systematic appropriation of the council communist experience, which proves to be surprisingly relevant: the developed council communism is the critique of capitalism as a totalitarian system that has transformed the organizations of the labor movement into agencies of counter-revolution.