Left-Communist admits perpetual failure of spontaneous workers councils

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://libcom.org/library/workers-councils-red-mole-revolution (by Sheila Cohen)




The term ‘Workers’ Councils’ can perhaps stand as a catch-all title for an unpremeditated, quasi-spontaneous, ‘ground-up’ organisational form reproduced over many periods and across many countries by groups of workers previously unaware of such a structure or of its historical precedents. Its highest form the Soviet, its ‘lowest’ the simple workplace representatives’ committee, this formation recurs time and again in situations of major class struggle and even everyday industrial conflict.

Why do workers always, independently and apparently ’spontaneously’, adopt the same mass meetings-based, delegate-generating, committee-constructed form for their most powerful expressions of resistance? The answer is simple, because the form is simple; the form is constructed from the requirements of the situation, not plucked from thin air. Workers in a situation of upsurge are unlikely to look around at a range of possible alternatives: the workers’ council structure, at whatever level, immediately serves the necessities of the situation.

[...]

As this comment suggests, a related and equally defining characteristic of such delegate-based, accountable workers’ organisations was their freedom from official and institutional structures, in particular, of course, the established trade unions. Such independence and autonomy continually recurs as a feature of the workers’ council formation.

Here's something interesting in light of my position against broad economism (including the strike fetish economism of the ultra-left):


The history of workers’ council formation reveals that, perhaps by contrast to socialist orthodoxy, such transformation of consciousness is almost universally rooted in material issues which tend to spark often insurrectionary levels of revolt from an apparently trivial or ‘economistic’ base. Perhaps the most historic example of this is the Petrograd typographers’ strike in 1905 which, in Trotsky’s words, ’started over punctuation marks and ended by felling absolutism’ – as well as, of course, generating the first Petrograd Soviet (Trotsky 1971 p85). The resurgence of soviet power in the February 1917 revolution was in its turn sparked by women textile workers’ strikes and protests over bread shortages (Trotsky 1967 p110) as well as a strike against victimisation at the giant Putilov engineering works. In Italy, working-class women forced to queue for hours for meagre rations as well as working up to 12 hours a day in the factories launched a hunger riot which ’soon reached insurrectionary proportions when the women made [a] crucial link with workers’ industrial power…’ (Gluckstein pp169-70).

History provides many other examples of movements which, while ultimately challenging the system, are rooted in relatively mundane grievances. In the Chilean, Portuguese and Iranian upsurges of the mid to late 1970s emphasis was placed by workers, as always, on basic material needs; as one Chilean agricultural worker put it, ‘We’ve people to feed and families to keep. And we’ve had it up to here’ (Gonzalez 1987, p51). Yet out of these materially-based struggles ‘there emerged a new form of organisation …calling itself the ‘industrial belt’ – the cordon’ (p51, emphasis in original).

In Portugal, even after quasi-revolutionary committees, CRTSMs, were established in the factories, ‘Those who set [them] up saw the workers’ commissions as being merely economic’. In Iran, the movement which led up to the 1979 ‘revolution’ was preceded by ‘…strikes, sit-ins and other industrial protests [most of which] were confined to economic demands’ (Poya 1987).

Such ‘economistic’ considerations, often dismissed by the intellectual left, are shown over and over not to preclude an explosion of consciousness which rapidly races towards overarching class and political considerations in a dynamic which, crucially, is not dependent in pre-existing ’socialist’ awareness. As one organizer In 1930s America noted, ‘the so much bewailed absence of a socialist ideology on the part of the workers, really does not prevent [them] from acting quite anti-capitalistically’ (Brecher p165). Draper (1978) succinctly sums up this point: ‘To engage in class struggle it is not necessary to “believe in” class struggle any more than it is necessary to believe in Newton in order to fall from an airplane’ (p42).

The problem, however, is that the form is conducive to left-economistic fantasies. Glorified strike committees and growing political struggles out of mere economic struggles go hand in hand.

The final analysis is ultimately this:


The above analysis has not sought to address the question of the historic failure of the workers’ council formation to achieve a lasting regime of workers’ power and ownership, participative democracy and freedom from the oppressions under which the world currently labours.

[Uppercut]

Very interesting. Local councils are nice and all but they need some structure for them to be sustainable. From what I can tell, workers councils usually pop up when revolutionary situations come around and production relies on solely the workers at the local level without higher guidance. They're more of a temporary form of production until things settle down.

[automattick]

I just read the selections you posted, but also concur that it is quite interesting. I agree that councilism (regardless of what my avatar might suggest) is but one form of actual shop-floor democracy, if I may use the term. The biggest problem for left communism is how to be militant in a such a situation. The whole idea of militancy is to not necessarily start, but to encourage and offer plans of how to continue a strike or whatever and move on successfully to the next stage. The plan is to strike while the iron is hot, and make sure that the cool-down symptoms of unionist collective bargaining don't entirely derail the movement.

A problem? Indeed and I'm glad you brought up this issue, one which I think many in the Left Communist group will find interesting as well.

[bcbm]

The above analysis has not sought to address the question of the historic failure of the workers’ council formation to achieve a lasting regime of workers’ power and ownership, participative democracy and freedom from the oppressions under which the world currently labours.

all communist methods are a historic failure if thats your criteria.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Genuine, mass party-movements are the sole exception. Automattick, I raise this as an extreme advocate of "partyism" in the sense that real parties are real movements and vice versa.

My model is based on the pre-war SPD and inter-war USPD (because of their "alternative culture" of cultural societies, sports clubs, funeral homes, etc. and in modern times including services like food banks) as outstanding role models for left politics today, and is extended to mass red unionism itself explicitly raising political demands such that it functions as a de facto mass political party in all but name.

[bcbm]

Genuine, mass party-movements are the sole exception.

what "lasting regime of workers’ power and ownership, participative democracy and freedom from the oppressions under which the world currently labours" have they created?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Although the Bolivarian process is petit-bourgeois, one can see the impact of participatory democracy in the communal councils and the PSUV itself (without which there would be no sustained communal councils).

[Paulappaul]

Yeah, the Bolivarian revolution is a joke. Although it's brought about a better lifestyle for Proletarians, it hasn't brought about any form of Socialism and it repeats of the same forms of oppression as the previous administrations. Some good links on Chavez:

http://libcom.org/library/venezuela-vetelca-story-first-ever-bolivarian-factory

http://en.internationalism.org/ICConline/2006/march/chavism_fraud.html :thumbup1:

Such a revolution shows faith in the Parties and the Electoral vote can do nothing.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't think you got my point, as emphasized by the word "although."

[Paulappaul]

I don't think you got my point either. I understand you believe it's "petite-bourgeois" with which I agree with you, however if you read the links I posted such "participatory democracy" is mearly a tool of the PSUV machine. Which expels your theory of Mass Party action in Venezuela producing Socialist results. Workers' Councils have gotten much farther then any Party in Venezuela towards true Socialism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I see no problems with the PSUV machine's influence over the participatory-democratic process. Genuine participatory democracy necessaily implies mass political parties and tendencies in them competing for support by offering various policies.

Without the PSUV, no higher grassroots public organizations beyond communal councils (in this case, communes and communal cities).

[Paulappaul]

That's not Participatory Democracy. That's a Forum of elected Revolutionaries, much like the Soviets in Russia. True Participatory Democracy implies a level of Autonomy from external conditions.

Such "communal councils" in Venezuela don't even agree with your perception of Participatory Democracy. The councils in Venezuela are dominated in ideology by that of the State. A good link on the subject is this (http://libcom.org/library/revolution-delayed-10-years-hugo-ch%C3%A1vez%E2%80%99s-rule-charles-reeve-el-libertario).

Honestly, I see Venezuela and the Socialist movement backing it coming to the same Train wreck as Stalin. Although the problems are obvious and in reality, we place our hope in Chavez that maybe he will turn it around and create true Socialism, after all, what he has done is "progressive".

If Chavez really wanted to be Socialistic he'd allow the working class to frame their own polices, to manage production on their own. Through their own trail and error, they would raise themselves to a Vanguard level. Conciseness and Revolutionary expression doesn't come from a Mass Party. It comes from the self activity and self expression of the working class. If you subject the working class to deciding on what tendency is best for them or what party is best for them your reproducing the same forms of Alienation present on the Factory floor, and in all aspects of Capitalism.

Every means of Organization have failed no doubt. Workers' Councils and Industrial Unions have produced the closet means of achieving Socialism though. Through their Strikes they have taken on a Political Character. Despite what your link has said, the revolutions in Iran, Hungary, France and Portugal all formulated Political Demands. Have you ever read Revolutionary Rehearsals? Although it's full of Trotskyist rhetoric, it's a good read.

[AK]

The above analysis has not sought to address the question of the historic failure of the workers’ council formation to achieve a lasting regime of workers’ power and ownership, participative democracy and freedom from the oppressions under which the world currently labours.You don't think that's because "revolutionary" parties subjugated the workers' councils and subverted their sovereignty and authority? Or maybe it was that the other workers' uprisings were crushed by brute military force? Nah, couldn't be.

[Zanthorus]

You don't think that's because "revolutionary" parties subjugated the workers' councils and subverted their sovereignty and authority? Or maybe it was that the other workers' uprisings were crushed by brute military force? Nah, couldn't be.

The fact that either of those things could happen in the first place should be a cause for concern about the stability of workers councils. If a revolutionary minority can take control of mass popular democratic movements and subvert their sovereignity half the time and the mass popular democratic movement can be crushed through military force the other half then socialism as a whole is pretty screwed (Note: I don't actually buy the first one, but it does show a little bit of inconsistency in the anarchist position on Russia).

[Die Neue Zeit]

That's not Participatory Democracy. That's a Forum of elected Revolutionaries, much like the Soviets in Russia. True Participatory Democracy implies a level of Autonomy from external conditions.

Maybe I was exaggerating a bit. I'm a demarchist, but random selection of officials combined with competing policies up for plebiscites still necessitates the existence of mass parties collectively commanding the political situation. Kautsky noted this as a necessary feature of modern society in his book Parliamentarism, and it can be extended towards even the demarchist model.


Such "communal councils" in Venezuela don't even agree with your perception of Participatory Democracy. The councils in Venezuela are dominated in ideology by that of the State. A good link on the subject is this (http://libcom.org/library/revolution-delayed-10-years-hugo-ch%C3%A1vez%E2%80%99s-rule-charles-reeve-el-libertario).

The problem with the Venezuelan model so far and with all democratic theory discussions is how to effect a more participatory democracy beyond the grassroots level. You can't do that without national plebiscites and random selection (the latter getting rid of irrational electoral campaigns).


Honestly, I see Venezuela and the Socialist movement backing it coming to the same Train wreck as Stalin. Although the problems are obvious and in reality, we place our hope in Chavez that maybe he will turn it around and create true Socialism, after all, what he has done is "progressive".

I have yet to post this elsewhere and explain, but Chavez appears to be a combination of Proudhon, Lassalle, and Bismarck re. "socialism." The communal councils, cooperatives, etc. can be traced to Proudhon. The left nationalism and state aid for cooperatives can be traced to Lassalle. The state aid for worker self-management, although not found in Bismarck's policies, can be traced to the informal coalition between Lassalle and the Iron Chancellor against the liberal bourgeoisie (despite the well-known overreaction by Marx, Engels, Bebel, and W. Liebknecht). The image of Bismarck explains why Chavez disagrees with Mao on the "national bourgeoisie" and is thoroughly anti-bourgeois.


If Chavez really wanted to be Socialistic he'd allow the working class to frame their own polices, to manage production on their own.

You obviously haven't heard about his "Socialist Guyana" project, have you?

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/5404


Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez took a bold and historic initiative, when he decided at a meeting in Puerto Ordáz in Guayana, Bolívar state, to put workers at the forefront of the running of the primary industries located in this region.

As part of the Plan Guayana Socialista (Socialist Guyana Plan), the workers of the nearby factories had organized "round-tables" (working groups), where they had been discussing concrete proposals to advance in the direction of workers’ control as the only solution to the critical state of affairs in the companies concerned.

You could call these "state-aided factory committees," evoking both Lassalle and Bismarck.


Conciseness and Revolutionary expression doesn't come from a Mass Party.

To quote Lars Lih, "As we set about the task of rediscovering Lenin's actual outlook, the terms 'party of a new type' and 'vanguard party' are actually helpful – but only if they are applied to the SPD as well as the Bolsheviks. The SPD was a vanguard party, first because it defined its own mission as 'filling up' the proletariat with the awareness and skills needed to fulfill its own world-historical mission, and second because the SPD developed an innovative panoply of methods for spreading enlightenment and 'combination.'"

[Paulappaul]

I'm a demarchist, but random selection of officials combined with competing policies up for plebiscites still necessitates the existence of mass parties collectively commanding the political situation.Good for you :thumbup1:


Kautsky noted this as a necessary feature of modern society in his book Parliamentarism, and it can be extended towards even the demarchist modelGood to see some Kautsky supporters still around. If you get a chance, message me some good works by him.


The problem with the Venezuelan model so far and with all democratic theory discussions is how to effect a more participatory democracy beyond the grassroots level. You can't do that without national plebiscites and random selection (the latter getting rid of irrational electoral campaigns).Why can't you do that with say, Workers' Councils, Industrial Unionism or Communes? Why Demarchy?


The left nationalism and state aid for cooperatives can be traced to Lassalle.On a side note, I've heard this alot (particularly from the ICSS) but never been able to find it anywhere in Gotha Programme or other works relating to Lassalle. Where did you find it?


You obviously haven't heard about his "Socialist Guyana" project, have you?Eh... I wouldn't really consider Co-Managements as a form of Socialism. Theatrically it had the potential, but as in Vetelca, it's failed miserably to be realized. I posted a link a while back about this from a Workers Perspectives in Vetelca.


'filling up' the proletariat with the awareness and skills needed to fulfill its own world-historical missionTo which I said,


It comes from the self activity and self expression of the working class

[Zanthorus]

Workers are not spontaneously revolutionary though.

[Paulappaul]

No doubt. Revolutions imply certain conditions.

[Zanthorus]

One of which is subjective and won't be achieved through the "self-activity and self-expression of the working class" but through active intervention in the class struggle by the revolutionary minority.

[Paulappaul]

It really matters what you mean by that. In every revolutionary struggle there are separate conditions and realities which could give birth to numerous possibilities. The Reactionary response of the Students in May gave birth to one the most famous struggles in the last century, to the development of Strike Committees, Industrial Unions and Workers' Councils. Such a development was created against the will of Trade Unions and Communist Parties, it was spontaneous uprising. The same can be said for Iran.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

DMZ's bizarre political potpuorri and attempts at historical reenactment aside, the fact remains that the working class must take direct control of production, distribution, etc. It exercises this control through bodies of its own creation, forged in its struggles to pursue its own interests.

Such bodies aren't any less legitimate because they've been isolated or crushed in the past anymore than strikes aren't legitimate because they've suffered the same fate.

And while Cohen's article from The Commune is OK, there are much better works out there (e.g.: Pannekoek's Workers Councils (http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1947/workers-councils.htm)).

[Die Neue Zeit]

Good for you :thumbup1:

Good to see some Kautsky supporters still around. If you get a chance, message me some good works by him.

Done.


Why can't you do that with say, Workers' Councils, Industrial Unionism or Communes? Why Demarchy?

I support industrial unionism and preferrably class unionism. It's just that such unionism needs to be explicitly political and thus have a sense of "partyism," as opposed to the anti-party tripe of the IWW. Demarchy isn't incompatible with workers councils, industrial unionism, or communes; it is just incompatible with elections. You can have workers councils, industrial unionism, and communes that all select at random their officials and not elect them.


On a side note, I've heard this alot (particularly from the ICSS) but never been able to find it anywhere in Gotha Programme or other works relating to Lassalle. Where did you find it?

I have read Chapter 1 of Lars Lih's Lenin Rediscovered, which has a section on Lassalle. It doesn't go into the left nationalism, but it does go into the producer-coops-with-state-aid stuff. Keep in mind, though, that Lassalle, in spite of his political faults, was the first Anti-Economist. "State aid" was contrasted with "self-help" by the need for political activity.

[Die Neue Zeit]

DMZ's bizarre political potpuorri and attempts at historical reenactment aside, the fact remains that the working class must take direct control of production, distribution, etc. It exercises this control through bodies of its own creation, forged in its struggles to pursue its own interests.

You have just advocated Left Economism ("point of production" crap), since the struggle for socialism is economic and not political.


Such bodies aren't any less legitimate because they've been isolated or crushed in the past anymore than strikes aren't legitimate because they've suffered the same fate.

Because those bodies failed to tackle the question of the state! Reform coalitionists (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=2432), most of the historical Kautskyan Marxist center (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=2489), and left-syndicalists or left-spontaneists like yourself (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=2649) have, in their own unique way, failed to tackle the question of the state (http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=3186)!

Reform coalitionists ignore the fact that their respective states are like competing firms against other states over the world market (hence why reformist reforms necessarily lead to imperialism). Most of the historical Kautskyan Marxist center, while appreciative of the need for bureaucracy, failed to fully counterpose their own bureaucracy-building schemes (through the mass party-movement) against the existing state bureaucracy (in order to prevent the subordination of the party bureaucracy to the state bureaucracy). Ultra-left syndicalists and spontaneists ignore the fact that ad hoc organizations simply cannot administer society because the very bureaucracy-building they reject cannot be done in a fortnight!

[When the civil breakdown occurs, sympathizers of the ultra-left strategic orientation are almost always forced to resort to hired hands, the "specialists" from the prior state bureaucracy.]

[Paulappaul]

I support industrial unionism and preferrably class unionism. It's just that such unionism needs to be explicitly political and thus have a sense of "partyism," as opposed to the anti-party tripe of the IWW. Workers are both their own grave diggers and there own freedom makers. Capital is created by the working class, in the same way it can be stopped. By striking, by shutting down the production of Capital the bourgeois losses power over the control of production. By Mass Striking, Capital losses it's political legitimacy, it's power over the state and of entire system of production. Mass Strikes are a means of combating Capital on a Political atmosphere and Economic. This is what makes them essential to Class Struggle.

Throughout history Strikes have taken on a Political Character. As done in the Belgian Strike which brought Universal Suffrage. As done by in Spain, France and Iran.

To have a demand beyond production is historically sound in Strikes and doesn't require a Party to back it up in Parliament.

On a side a note, have you ever read any of Deleon's stuff?


Demarchy isn't incompatible with workers councils, industrial unionism, or communes; it is just incompatible with elections. You can have workers councils, industrial unionism, and communes that all select at random their officials and not elect them.Elections losses it's meaning when applied to Workers' Councils and Industrial unions. In the past elections have been based on Politics, on class interests, etc. All Class interests in Workers' Councils are same and thus, elections are rendered useless in Workers' Councils. I figure there is difference between "elections" which is those of Elected Representative and Delegates, whose job is to rely information.

[RED DAVE]

One of which is subjective and won't be achieved through the "self-activity and self-expression of the working class" but through active intervention in the class struggle by the revolutionary minority.If you're talking about a vanguard, then right on!! To which I would add the necessity for a vanguard party.

RED DAVE

[Zanthorus]

If you're talking about a vanguard, then right on!! To which I would add the necessity for a vanguard party.

RED DAVE

Yep :)

Although Paullappaul identifies the vanguard party with the dictatorship of the politburo :glare:

[Die Neue Zeit]

Gangsterio has obviously not heard of petit-bourgeois democratism before.

[MilitantWorker]

You should separate the US from Europe. The US never had a strong labour movement, let alone one with a vibrant alternative culture, so there was nothing to co-opt.



Also, I advocated that private-sector collective bargaining be under the monopoly of an independent government organization, which would force unions to adopt a new role, preferrably one of alternative culture and more frequent strike action (to say the least before political activity of their own).

Also, I disagree with the notion of such a tendency for society to be absorbed, if only because the rhetoric for "balanced budgets" is open to pro-privatization campaigns. However, I do agree with your remarks on independence from the state.you really should leave the group "revolutionary marxists" or change your positions

can someone else take the time to address these comments? i have a headache :mad:

[Stranger Than Paradise]

I think terming workers councils "spontaneous" is misleading. They're no more spontaneous than the idea of a revolutionary party. Also, I don't understand the function of a "party" as opposed to "workers councils". Both to me are the framework we use for workers democracy. Jacob, could you tell me why you differentiate?

[Die Neue Zeit]

That's true, but I'm not contrasting workers councils with "revolutionary parties" as most on the left understand them today. I'm contrasting workers councils with organized party-movements, wherein real parties are already real movements and vice versa.

The formation of party-movements isn't spontaneous, and involves a protracted process, whereas workers councils are formed ad hoc for alleged "solutions" of a quick-fix nature.

BTW, MilitantWorker quoted only part of my response to zimmerwald1915 in the Left-Com usergroup:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=3922

[Stranger Than Paradise]

That's true, but I'm not contrasting workers councils with "revolutionary parties" as most on the left understand them today. I'm contrasting workers councils with organized party-movements, wherein real parties are already real movements and vice versa.

The formation of party-movements isn't spontaneous, and involves a protracted process, whereas workers councils are formed ad hoc for alleged "solutions" of a quick-fix nature.

BTW, MilitantWorker quoted only part of my response to zimmerwald1915 in the Left-Com usergroup:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=3922

Thank you for the explanation.

I want to pick you up on your point about workers councils though. You say they form ad hoc but I believe in workers councils accompanied with the long protracted process of building a trade union movement.

[MilitantWorker]

regardless to whether you believe that workers councils are "ad hoc" or not, you have to understand that Kautsky was wrong about the "consciousness coming from without" thing and Lenin essentially addressed theoretical issues with WITBD before he passed on saying that what he wrote was bias in light of the fight against "Economism"

Left Communists are not obsessed with spontaneity as some people coughcoughjacob would suggest. We just understand that the workers cannot develop a revolutionary consciousness (that is to break from "trade union consciousness") without there being the correct material conditions...I know that might sound mechanical or something, but if we are to look at history from a Marxist perspective there is no doubt that in periods of harsh and advanced class struggle the Councils and the General Assemblies have sprung up simply as a product of class contradicitons and human social interaction...the councils are basically a "secretion of the class" as the phrase goes.


...let's see what else have I forgotten. Oh yeah...the Union thing but that's a whole 'nother thread but most Left Communists recognize the absorption of the trade union into the state apparatus or bureaucracy, whatever you want to call it

[MilitantWorker]

as Alf pointed to else where on the Web here is a quote from Trotsky:


"In a revolution we look first of all at the direct interference of the masses in the destinies of society. We seek to uncover behind the events changes in the collective consciousness...This can seem puzzling only to one who looks upon the insurrectioin of the masse as 'spontaneous' - that is, as a herd-mutiny artifically made use of by leaders. In reality, the mere existence of privations is not enough to cause an insurrection; if it were, the masses would always be in revolt. The immediate causes of the events of a revolution are changes in the state of mind of the conflicting classes...Changes in the collective consciousness have naturally a semi-concealed character. Only when they have attained a certain degree of intensity do the new moods and ideas break to the surface in the form of mass activities"

[Zanthorus]

Since this thread is a general attack on the the Left-Communist tendency, I was wondering how Jacob would respond to the accusation that Kautsky's opposition to the mass strike tactics of the Left-Radicals was a cover for the SPD's increasing integration into the state and transformation into a beuracratic instrument over the workers, epitomised by their demobilisation of the industrial struggles and suffrage agitation in Prussia that occured in 1910. In fact, far from the Left-Radicals being "economist", Luxemburg held the slogan of a democratic republic (From Engels critique of the draft of the Erfurt Program) against Kautsky who in private justified his vacillations by the pressure being put on the SPD by the trade union beuracracy and the threat of new anti-socialist laws.

[Die Neue Zeit]

regardless to whether you believe that workers councils are "ad hoc" or not, you have to understand that Kautsky was wrong about the "consciousness coming from without" thing and Lenin essentially addressed theoretical issues with WITBD before he passed on saying that what he wrote was bias in light of the fight against "Economism"

You're reading that "scandalous passage" the wrong way.

There are two or three kinds of consciousness that need to be considered, and "from without" needs to be put into perspective:

1) So-called "class consciousness," which if understood from a traditional Labour perspective does come from inside the class as a whole;
2) "Socialist" or "revolutionary" consciousness which can come from inside the class but originates outside the class movement (outside the class as a whole means coming from sources like tenured professors who are coordinator intellectuals and not proletarians) - I wrote my theoretical and programmatic works thus far as a "schoolmaster" outside the class movement; and

3) Political consciousness/awareness, which is something not addressed in previous theoretical works of mine. This is because, at that time, I never fully understood how to fully define Broad Economism. The trick is to recognize that the "struggle for socialism" is economic and not political, thus meaning that proper class struggles (derived from real class consciousness being part of political consciousness/awareness), ordinary labour struggles up to and including radicalization towards mass labour unrest, and "socialist struggles" are three different animals. Today's deficit of political consciousness/awareness is what prevents ordinary folks from being more politically active beyond marching to the voting booth every few years. Until now, I never fully understood just how more profoundly true and important the Orthodox Marxist concept of "false consciousness" is than Gramsci's theory of hegemony. Where does this political consciousness or awareness come from? All I know so far is that, like socialist or "revolutionary" consciousness, generally it comes from outside any potential worker-class movement but not necessarily the class as a whole.

BTW, Lars Lih's excellent commentary on Lenin's pamphlet, which explains away my first two points above, can be found on Google Books:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=8AVUvEUsdCgC


...let's see what else have I forgotten. Oh yeah...the Union thing but that's a whole 'nother thread but most Left Communists recognize the absorption of the trade union into the state apparatus or bureaucracy, whatever you want to call it

But what I'm advocating is "the wholesale absorption of all private-sector collective bargaining representation into free and universal legal services by independent government agencies acting in good faith and subjecting their employees to full-time compensation being at or slightly lower than the median equivalent for professional and other skilled workers." (Just edited it right now to include "universal")

Collective bargaining is a separate function from strike action. The absorption you're talking about doesn't translate into collective bargaining (mislabelled "universal unionization") for everyone in the workforce.


Since this thread is a general attack on the the Left-Communist tendency, I was wondering how Jacob would respond to the accusation that Kautsky's opposition to the mass strike tactics of the Left-Radicals was a cover for the SPD's increasing integration into the state and transformation into a bureaucratic instrument over the workers, epitomised by their demobilisation of the industrial struggles and suffrage agitation in Prussia that occured in 1910. In fact, far from the Left-Radicals being "economist", Luxemburg held the slogan of a democratic republic (From Engels critique of the draft of the Erfurt Program) against Kautsky who in private justified his vacillations by the pressure being put on the SPD by the trade union bureaucracy and the threat of new anti-socialist laws.

I myself would like to know if there was any agitation within the SPD for mass civil disobedience from 1892 onwards. Notwithstanding the fundamental question of party-movement organization, I prefer any arrival towards mass political strikes to come from the mass civil disobedience road (think: US Civil Rights Movement) than from more typical strike roads up to and including typical general strikes (not the kind Macnair wrote about).

Kautsky, if you recall, was himself frustrated by SPD attempts to censor his RtP work. He clearly mentions the need for a Democratic Republic in that work. I just think that the USPD should have been formed then instead of in the middle of WWI, leaving what's left of the SPD to become the liberal-secular "labour" party needed to succeed where Bismarck failed: reducing the Catholic Centre Party to a political rump.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

...let's see what else have I forgotten. Oh yeah...the Union thing but that's a whole 'nother thread but most Left Communists recognize the absorption of the trade union into the state apparatus or bureaucracy, whatever you want to call it

What you're referring to is a permanent organisation; the unions within a society of low class consciousness are built to co-operate with the state. I wouldn't say there's much difference between Anarcho-Syndicalism because we too recognise these unions as bureaucratic. We advocate a a union which will develop at a time of revolutionary consciousness, this is the same as workers councils in my eyes, It is a praxis to organise our workplaces and further workers democracy. The difference as far as I can see is that Syndicalists advocate building the workers movement around current union arrangements and work from there outwards.

What is the Left Communist stance on working within unions?

[Die Neue Zeit]

The implementation of my proposal by the state would mean that more syndicalist unions won't have to bother with collective bargaining. They can focus on "workplace democracy," "industrial democracy," and strike action.

[Zanthorus]

What is the Left Communist stance on working within unions?

To put it simply, there isn't one. Or at least not a unified one. The German Left were one of the first communist groups to make a critique of trade union beuracratisation after their experiences in the November revolutions and advocated the destruction of the trade unions. However some of them, like Pannekoek for instance, were sympathetic to unions like the IWW which sought to unite workers as a class. The Italian Left on the other hand took basically the same position as Lenin's in Left-Wing Communism on the need for communists to attempt entryism into the unions. The ICC takes the line of the German Left even further by rejecting revolutionary unionism as well as regular "yellow" unionism because of their belief that any permanent institutions for the defence of the economic interests of the class in the epoch of capitalist decadence necessarily becomes instruments of capital itself.

[MilitantWorker]

You're reading that "scandalous passage" the wrong way. There are two or three kinds of consciousness that need to be considered...

Or really...well here it is:

"But the bearer of science is not the proletariat but the bourgeois intellectuals; (...) so then socialist consciousness is something brought into the class struggle of the proletariat from outside and not something that arises spontaneously within it."

Here we can clearly see what Kautsky essentially implies. Moving on...




1) So-called "class consciousness," which if understood from a traditional Labour perspective does come from inside the class as a whole;
2) "Socialist" or "revolutionary" consciousness which can come from inside the class but originates outside the class movement (outside the class as a whole means coming from sources like tenured professors who are coordinator intellectuals and not proletarians) - I wrote my theoretical and programmatic works thus far as a "schoolmaster" outside the class movement; and

3) Political consciousness/awareness, which is something not addressed in previous theoretical works of mine...Where does this political consciousness or awareness come from? All I know so far is that, like socialist or "revolutionary" consciousness, generally it comes from outside any potential worker-class movement but not necessarily the class as a whole.


I wasn't aware that these ideas were a result of your theoretical works, sir. I think the fact that you've tried to take credit for 150+ years of thinking, struggling and fighting shows us which direction you are coming from with your positions.

It's really hard for me to address your positions seriously after you've attempted to attack left communist positions with bogus reading material. Attack this all you want and then we might actually get somewhere theoretically. On the subterranean maturation of consciousness - ICC (http://en.internationalism.org/node/3149)

Some highlights from that include:


"The condition for coming to consciousness by the class is given by the historic existence of a class capable of apprehending its future, not by its contingent, immediate struggles. These, their experience, provide new elements to enrich it, especially in periods of intense proletarian activity. But these are not the only ones: the consciousness arising from existence also has its own dynamic: reflection and theoretical research are also necessary elements for its development."


"Even if they are part of the same unity, and interact reciprocally, it is wrong to identify class consciousness with the consciousness of the class or in the class, that is to say, its extent at a given moment." (see IR 42)


Thus, point six of the same January ‘84 resolut*ion on the international situation quoted above attacks the thesis that "insisted on a ‘qualitative leap' as a precond*ition for putting an end to the retreat follow*ing Poland (in particular, the calling into ques*tion of the trade unions). Such a conception implies that consciousness matures wholly outside the struggle, and that the latter is only a concretization of a previous clarification. Taken to the extreme, this comes down to modernism, which expects from the class struggle breaks with the past, and the birth of a revolutionary consciousness in opposition to a false ‘economic' consciousness. What this forgets, and hides, is that the spread of class consciousness is not purely an intellectual process unfolding in the head of each worker, but a practical process which is above all expressed in and fed by the struggle."


"outside of' periods of open struggle, the cons*ciousness of the proletariat retreats, and the class is atomized...This is because, for the class, its consciousness is a collective one, and only in struggle does it experience itself collectively. When it is atomized and individualized in defeat, its consciousness reverts back to that of bourgeois individualism; the reservoir runs dry."


"The author (of What is to be Done?) himself subsequently acknowledged the biased nature, and therewith the erroneousness, of his theory, which he had parenthetically interjected as a battery in the battle against ‘Economism' and its deference to the elemental nature of the labor movement."


Lenin's thesis (borrowed from Kautsky) goes against all of Marx's most crucial statements about consciousness. Against the Theses on Feuerbach, where Marx attacks the contemplative materialism of the bourgeoisie which regards the movement of reality as an external object only, and not "subjectively" - ie, it does not see con*sciousness and conscious practice as an integral axed active element within the movement. The penetration of this standpoint into the ranks of the proletariat gives rise to the substitutionist error (in the Theses, Marx points to Owen as an expression of this) which involves "dividing society into two parts, one of which is superior to society" and forgets that "the educator him*self needs educating." Above all it goes against the position defended in The German Ideology that social being determines social consciousness, and consequently against the same work's most explicit statement about class consciousness: "...from the conception of history we have sketched we obtain these further conclusions: In the development of productive forces there comes a stage when productive forces and means of intercourse are brought into being, which, under the existing relationships only cause mischief, and are no longer productive but destructive forces...and connected with this a class is called forth, which has to bear all the burdens of society without ‘enjoying its advantages, which, ousted from society, is forced into the most decided antagonism to all other classes; a class which forms the majority of all members of society, and from which emanates the consciousness of the necessity of a fundamental revolution, the communistconsciousness, which may, of course, arise among the other classes too through the contemplation of the situation of this class."



To put it simply, there isn't one. Or at least not a unified one. The German Left were one of the first communist groups to make a critique of trade union beuracratisation after their experiences in the November revolutions and advocated the destruction of the trade unions. However some of them, like Pannekoek for instance, were sympathetic to unions like the IWW which sought to unite workers as a class. The Italian Left on the other hand took basically the same position as Lenin's in Left-Wing Communism on the need for communists to attempt entryism into the unions. The ICC takes the line of the German Left even further by rejecting revolutionary unionism as well as regular "yellow" unionism because of their belief that any permanent institutions for the defence of the economic interests of the class in the epoch of capitalist decadence necessarily becomes instruments of capital itself.

this, +1

[Die Neue Zeit]

Or really...well here it is:

Here we can clearly see what Kautsky essentially implies. Moving on...

The vehicle of science is not the proletariat, but the bourgeois intelligentsia; modern socialism arises among individual members of this stratum and then is communicated by them to proletarians who stand out due to their intellectual development, and these then bring it into the class struggle of the proletariat where conditions allow.

Lars Lih wrote that "these words show that Kautsky's scenario is not 'bourgeois intellectuals bring the message to the worker class from without' but rather 'proletarian Social Democrats bring the message to the worker movement from without'."

[MilitantWorker]

huh?

doesn't "social democrat" mean something completely different today than it did 100 years ago? especially in the vocab of the average worker...

[Die Neue Zeit]

I was quoting Lars Lih's book on Lenin, and he used the term "proletarian Social-Democrat" to refer to working-class members of international Social Democracy back in the day.

[Bonobo1917]

One of which is subjective and won't be achieved through the "self-activity and self-expression of the working class" but through active intervention in the class struggle by the revolutionary minority.
The development of such a revolutionary minority is PART of the self-expression of the working class, if it is to be fruitful at all. That is why the word "intervention" is not suitable here. The minority does not come from the outside to intervene. The minority PARTICIPATES in the process, stimulating it counsciously.

[Die Neue Zeit]

But it comes from outside the class movement, though.