Log in

View Full Version : Council Communism, and job allotments.



superborys
27th May 2010, 05:47
I have been, since my registration here at RevLeft, trying to determine which party/branch of Communism I can relegate myself to. For a while I was torn between Anarcho-Syndicalism and some others, but tonight, while reading more about each branch, I have stumbled upon Council Communism, and I think it fits my qualifications entirely.

I haven't read entirely into it, but the concepts, and the fact that I, before knowing of Council Communism, thought that the early stages of Soviet Russia were quite Communist (the things in question being the soviets and how they actually mattered, until Lenin 'temporarily' banned them.), makes me think that Council Communism is probably the most reasonable of the ones I've read.

From what I've read, it represents real democracy, with the workers actually making decisions, and their decisions being based into a federation system where eventually things are decided upon, or in some other fashion I'm too lazy to describe here.


Am I missing something obvious about Council Communism, or am I fortunate enough that my views on Communism are shared so widely by people that it deserves a Wikipedia page?


In an unrelated question, I have been wondering how Communism can possibly be 100% fair regarding the proletarians. How would Communism fairly appropriate positions of labor to the people? I understand it's been suggested that people would just keep their current positions, but I can assure you if I shoveled refuse out of streets for a living, even if it was all I could do and was grateful to have a job, I would be extremely upset that, after partaking in a Communist revolution, I was not allowed to get a new job.

How would Communism fairly appropriate jobs? Why would some people get to design buildings and use their intelligence as they please whereas some people are stuck having to shine shoes and shovel garbage, so to speak?

I am really hung-up on this, and I feel if this cannot be answered, then Communism is just utopia.
However, if the theory that people have to work much less because of advancement in the means of production, then I can see it being not-so-unreasonable that people are expected to keep their old jobs, but I still see it as largely unfair.

I have discounted job rotation as viable, at least not in the upper echelons of society, because if one day a fisherman is told, "Go clean the floors with this mop", sure, he'll do it, but I'm almost certain he'll do a poor job of it at first.

A way I see to circumvent this is to test people for intelligence, and evaluate them for their skill, current collegiate degrees, etc., and then the people who are not qualified for a job that's very high-up are given the opportunity to go to school to further their job standing, and thus this process would increase the intelligence of society as a whole, all of this deciding and such being done under the guidance of not a bureaucracy, but councils. :D



Could anyone clarify this for me?

ContrarianLemming
27th May 2010, 06:05
Although I know this doesn't answer your question, I think it's important to remember that when it comes to groups like council communism and anarcho syndicalism, there really isn't much difference in theory and even less difference in practice, you will find that council communists call th very earliest stages or russia "real" communism while anarchists call it "real" anarchism or socialism, same goes for the paris commune, council communists call it the perfect Dictairship of the proletariat, anarchists call it the perfect anarchy.

SO we need to remember theres a great deal of overlap, you can call yourself a council communist, and so could I, but I am just as easilly an anarcho syndicalist.

In your description of council communism, it's also worth mentioning when escribing it that council communism is a form of maxism, and it is anti union.

Blake's Baby
27th May 2010, 12:11
... so really there is very little connection in theory with Anarcho-Syndicalism, which theorises the union as being the vehicle for the transformation of society.

Some of the Russian Anarcho-Syndicalists (the group around Maximoff, I forget the name of their paper, 'Wokers' Voice' I think or it may have been 'Workers' Truth') supported the soviets and the revolution; some didn't because it wasn't the unions who took over. I think probably most Anarcho-Syndicalists since have been pro-revolution and anti-party.

The Council Communists were the first group to theorise that the unions had become a counter-revolutionary weight on the working class, following in the footsteps of Rosa Luxemburg's analysis of reformism in the German SPD. I think in that period (1916-1921 say) the German left was the clearest expression of both the development of Marxism to its revolutionary conclusion - no support for any factions of the bourgeoisie, against the unions and reformist socialists, against all capitalist wars and for world revolution - and also a stark warning about the fate of the revolution in Russia - they were among the first (not the first) to theorise the state capitalist dictatorship.

Sadly, after the end of the cycle of revolution in the 1920s I think the German Left really lost it. The idea that the Russian Revolution was 'bourgeois' from the beginning I think was nonsense, it sneaked in a whole load of conceptions from Menshevism and ended up in a weird way as an apology for Stalinism. This wasn't deliberate, they still maintained their internationalist credentials by refusing to support bourgeois wars, but with the idea that all parties are bourgeois rackets from the start, they theroised themselves out of existence. There are now no organised Council Communists currents that I know of. But elements of their analysis are shared by Left Communists and Luxemburgists (the two Revleft Groups I'm a member of, for similar reasons).

------

How work works under socialism is a very big topic and really belongs in a thread of its own I think. A short answer would be; most jobs under capitalism are unnecessary, and would go; the massive increase in workers able to do socially necessary jobs (from 'redundant' industries, currently unemployed etc) and the progressive re-organisation of work (to eliminate waste, commuting etc) would mean that vastly more labour power would be available to society to do those things that have to be done. And yes, I'm in favour of a rota. If I have to help on the bin-lorry one morning a month, and twice a year I spend a day cleaning the sewers, I'll put up with that as it's socially necessary.

Universal Struggle
27th May 2010, 12:23
what is council communism comrade, i have always wondered.

Thankyou

AK
28th May 2010, 11:56
what is council communism comrade, i have always wondered.

Thankyou
This site may be useful to you: http://kurasje.org/index.html