The General Strike - and then what?

[Die Neue Zeit]

The General Strike - and then what?

From SWP to anarchists, Britain's left is calling for a general strike. Such calls are likely to get louder in the run-up to the TUC demonstration in London on 26th March.

To some, the general strike is a tactic to extract concessions from the ruling class. Others believe a general strike can bring down the Con-Dem government. And then there's even those who regard it as a route towards working class rule and socialism.

What happens when a general strike is declared? How long can we last when everything comes to a standstill? How will the ruling class fight back? Who or what will fill the power vacuum if the government is toppled? Is a trade union based struggle sufficient to overthrow capitalism and establish a socialist society?

http://cpgb.podbean.com/2011/03/14/mike-macnair-the-general-strike-and-then-what/ (Mike Macnair's opening)

http://cpgb.podbean.com/2011/03/14/david-broder-the-general-strike-and-then-what/ (David Broder's opening)

http://cpgb.podbean.com/2011/03/14/discussion-the-general-strike-and-then-what/ (Floor discussion)

http://cpgb.podbean.com/2011/03/14/the-general-strike-and-then-what-mike-macnair-sums-up/ (Mike Macnair sums up)

http://cpgb.podbean.com/2011/03/14/the-general-strike-and-then-what-david-broder-sums-up/ (David Broder sums up)

[Robespierre Richard]

Have they considered setting up institutions of popular democracy as an alternative to the current government? Because as it is, the general strike is usually considered a revolutionary measure whether among Trotskyists, Anarchists, or socialists.

[Paulappaul]

General Strike's and the Union form abiding to it are predetermined and State regulated. Another infantile attempt of leftists to try and use the state against itself as if the ruling class is chill with that. Not to mention from a Worker's perspective it is totally alienating to a have a Union planning out and telling when to strike. Dare I say, that Unions themselves, reproduce Capitalist relations of authority. Consider the Division of trades, the hierarchy, Union congress' completely replicating Bourgeois Democracy, etc.

Good read of Rosa Luxemburg's Mass Strike may do you good comrade. No doubt, the struggle must inherently be Political and Economic, as Deleon says, because what constitutes a struggle for power between classes is a battle on both. But along a General Strike and a Political Party of Labor? Come on.

Rather then General Strike, how about Wildcat Strike or better yet, a Mass Strike? In Wisconsin the means are there, for the Working Class to create their own forms of organisation which challenge the state and the bourgeois as a class. Such a Strike throws up both Political and Economic demands and naturally organizes as a class against a class. As Public Employees are being effected big time, the same can be pursued in England.


Because as it is, the general strike is usually considered a revolutionary measure whether among Trotskyists, Anarchists, or socialists.

No it isn't.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Comrades Mike Macnair and David Broder were also discussing Mass Strikes, with the former being rather critical of them.

[Paulappaul]

I listened to it, I must have missed the Mass Strike piece. Care to sum up?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Mike Macnair began the topic by linking General Strikes and Mass Strikes to his historical discussion in Revolutionary Strategy. He criticized the transmission of strategy from Bakunin to Sorel to Pannekoek to Luxemburg, and he also criticized Trotskyism with respect to Portugal in the 1970s, precisely because spontaneist workers councils were formed but could not seriously pose the question of power vs. the official CP.

It's basically a partyist vs. strike-ist debate.

Tactically, though, Macnair said that *general strike tactics* (not mass strikes or other wildcat strikes) can achieve defensive or slightly offensive aims.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Anarchist origins (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004317)

Opening by Mike Macnair (CPGB) at the March 12 London Communist Forum

We set up this debate in response to widespread calls from the Trotskyist left for the TUC to call a general strike against the cuts. My presentation is based on material I have written on the general strike in my book Revolutionary strategy.

There are three levels of the question. The first level is the history of this strategy. The second is the explanatory framework which examines why, in history, the strategy has been shown not to work. The third, which I did not discuss in the book, is the merits, or otherwise, of the tactical use of general strikes and whether such a slogan is tactically appropriate at present.

Strike strategy

The strategy of the insurrectionary general strike defended by the majority in the French Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire was within the LCR in 2006. It was linked to the idea of May 1968 as the ‘dress rehearsal of the European revolution’, and to the Mandelite line of aiming for dual power, which meant aiming for the creation of workers’ councils, or soviets, in the context of a general strike or generalised strike movement. The Mandelites argued that it was only through the formation of workers’ councils in the context of a general strike or strike movement that it was possible for the working class to acquire sufficient class-consciousness to break with the reformists and take power for itself. To this was added: it is only through experience of workers’ councils that it is possible for the working class to see that there is a non-Stalinist alternative to capitalism.

Actually this general strike strategy is not original to the Mandelites. In substance it is Bakunin’s line as of the 1870s. According to him, building workers’ organisations under capitalism is inevitably going to lead to their control by the bourgeoisie. They become instruments of capitalist rule. Hence the working class can only act politically against the bourgeoisie through an insurrectionary general strike, leading to the immediate abolition of the state.

Bakunin’s line was reinterpreted by the anarcho-syndicalists to permit partial strike struggles, and this shift allowed big post-Bakuninist trade union confederations to be built: the CNT in Spain in particular, but also the Italian trade union movement, to a considerable extent the Belgian trade union movement, and the French CGT before World War I.

Arising out of this mass syndicalist movement came theorisation; particularly Georges Sorel argued that violence - direct action (action directe) - was the key to working class independent class-consciousness. For Sorel, direct action was the difference between what he called the decomposition of Marxism, the allegedly scientistic, deterministic Marxism of Karl Kautsky and others in the German SPD, and a really revolutionary policy.

Very similar arguments were put forward in Italy by Arturo Labriola within the Italian Socialist Party (PSI), and by Benito Mussolini - later a fascist, but in the pre-war period a leader of the ‘direct action’ left of the PSI. In Germany, Robert Michels’ book Political parties was written as a syndicalist critique of the SPD. Michels himself became a fascist in the inter-war period, and his book has become a standard textbook of US political science courses, an instrument to make students believe that all politics is about manipulations by small elites.

Closer to the ideas of ‘classical Marxism’, but influenced by the syndicalists, were those of Rosa Luxemburg, in particular in The mass strike, the political party and the trade unions; Anton Pannekoek; Karl Korsch; the young György Lukács in the 1920s; and the young Gramsci. It was from these sources that the ‘new left’ which emerged after Hungary 1956, and hence the 1960s-70s far left, took general-strikism.

This idea of the strategy of the general strike was common coin of the far left in the early 1970s. It became much less plausible after the Portuguese revolution of 1974-76. The reason was because the Portuguese revolution did involve mass strikes, the formation of workers’ council-type organisations, and so on. And yet Portuguese politics was polarised around the question of government. What sort of government to support?

The far left was by and large sucked in behind the ‘official’ Communist Party and its popular frontist bloc with a section of the officers grouping, the Armed Forces Movement. There was another section of the Trotskyists - the American Socialist Workers Party and Pierre Lambert’s international tendency based in Paris - who got sucked in behind a different popular frontist bloc: that between the Portuguese Socialist Party and the ‘Socialist International’, which in its post-World War II form is merely an agency of the US state department.

So in the Portuguese revolution there were masses on the streets, mass strike movements, self-organisation, workers’ control initiatives, proto-workers’ councils - but still at the end of the day politics was polarised by the question of government, and therefore by the pre-existing mass parties of the working class: the Communist and Socialist Parties. And the Trotskyist groups and Maoist groups of one sort or another found themselves inevitably in the tail of one or more of the contending forces capable of forming a government.

From Alexander Rabinowitch’s book Bolsheviks come to power it becomes clear that the same was true in Russia in 1917. It is traditional for the left to think of the political tendencies in the Russian Revolution as just the big parties and their fractions: there are the Mensheviks (Defencists and Internationalists), the SRs (Right and Left) and the Bolsheviks. But in fact there was a thriving anarchist movement in Russia. And there was a range of left communist groups. If you look at the groups which Rabinowitch lists in the voting in the Congress of Soviets, in whose name the Bolsheviks took power, what you actually see is a coalition led by the Bolsheviks, along with the Left SRs and a whole range of little groups, including the anarchists. Because the anarchists and the various small communist groups at the end of the day were not able to challenge for power, they were necessarily drawn in behind the Bolsheviks.

Come the Spanish Revolution in the 1930s, there were no soviets, because neither the Socialist Party nor the ‘official’ Communist Party, nor the superficially anarcho-syndicalist CNT union confederation wanted to create them. And the small groups to their left were not capable of creating soviets against them. But these small groups - and most strikingly the POUM - were drawn in behind the people’s front of the Communist Party, the Socialist Party and the liberals. Equally strikingly, the mass ‘anarcho-syndicalist’ CNT was also sucked in behind the people’s front. The question of government turns out to be the decisive question. Why should that be, as a matter of theory?

The problem

Suppose a very powerful mass left or trade union movement calls everybody out on strike. All the power is cut, no petrol is supplied, the transportation systems are shut down, nobody is working in the big supermarkets, the hospitals, etc. The reality is that a one-day general strike of that sort would be tolerable. A prolonged general strike, in which everybody goes home and that is the end of the story, would be intolerable to the society. Very rapidly people would start running out of food, parts of towns would burn, and so on. The social division of labour is just too integrated for the sort of all-out general strike in which everybody stops work and stays out.

Immediately, therefore, the question is posed not just of going out on strike, but of the working class deciding what production should continue and what production should stop; who is actually to strike and who is to carry on working. Hence, the working class has to take over the factories that need to be kept running.

But the working class then has to have means of taking decisions. Moreover, it has to take over both the physical assets of capital and its planning information. That is, the working class has to actually expropriate the capitalists in order to conduct the general strike.

Now, the class might expropriate the capitalists, while promising to hand everything back afterwards. But the capitalists are not going to believe that. So a sustained, all-out general strike immediately poses the question of political power. It is an insurrection, whether you call it an insurrection or not: an attempt to overthrow the state and capitalist property rights and seize power.

Now, the second level: actually a lot of these problems are not just characteristic of an-all out general strike, but also of a massive strike wave. Luxemburg’s The mass strike is mostly a description of Russia in 1905. Political crisis lets loose the mass movement. You do not have a general strike once and for all - a single general strike - but some local general strikes, some industry-wide strikes, strikes for economic demands here, protest strikes for political demands there, and so on. The picture has been corroborated by very many subsequent revolutionary crises.

Such a mass, rolling strike wave poses the question of decision-making methods - of political power - as much as an all-out general strike. It is just a little bit slower to get to that point. It is still produces disruption of fuel supplies and so on. The working class still has to decide who is going to be exempted from the strike in order to keep the hospitals running, and so on. As in Russia in 1905, soviets/workers’ councils may emerge as means of taking those decisions. However, local workers’ councils may be fine for taking those decisions within the framework of a single town, but suppose we have a Birmingham workers’ council: it still does not solve the question of how the food is going to get into Birmingham. And that is the crunch which the Bolsheviks came to in winter 1917-18: how will the cities be fed?

The forming of local workers’ councils, even at the most elaborated and developed level, does not solve the problem of how the cities are going to be fed, because we do not grow food in cities except at a trivial level. The food has to come in from the countryside. In Britain, of course, much of the food has to come in from abroad.

So the problem is that even a mass strike wave poses the question of government: it poses the question of decision-making on a national scale and, indeed, on an international scale. The idea of a dictatorship of the proletariat in Britain alone is a stupid illusion: millions would starve and the survivors would hand power back to the international bourgeoisie within months. Dictatorship of the proletariat on a European scale is perfectly feasible. Dictatorship of the proletariat in Britain as the opening stage of a continent-wide revolutionary war: that is a remotely feasible option (not at all a sensible one, but still remotely feasible). But dictatorship of the proletariat in one advanced capitalist country that is dependent on imports for food is an absolute illusion.

General strike tactics

Now we get to the third level. What about one-day, two-day, three-day general strikes as a tactic, as a protest form? The answer is in principle that this is a perfectly acceptable tactic of mobilising people to organise some action. It is, in reality, just a bigger form of demonstration. A more risky form of demonstration, because if you call for a one-day general strike and a small minority come out, many of them are going to get victimised. It is only when, say, a million people come out that too many will be involved for mass victimisation.

So you always have to make a judgment about this tactic. Is the relationship of forces right? Is the dynamic such that calling a one-day general strike, a two-day general strike, whatever it may be, is actually going to lead to a forward movement of the working class - or is it going to lead to an immediate defeat? That is equally true of an all-out insurrectionary general strike. It is also equally true of a strike wave, but, of course, we cannot call for a strike wave. Strike waves are things which happen whether the organised left wants them to or not.

So in each of these cases there is a concrete decision in relation to whether the left should call for a general strike. General strikes can in certain circumstances be an appropriate tactic, and the call can be, too. The Socialist Labour League in the early 1970s sold a great many papers with front-page headlines such as ‘General strike to kick out the Tory government’, because the strike wave and large-scale class confrontations - especially those of the miners and dockers - meant that the issue was actually on the agenda of the broad masses.

But the unspoken part of the slogan was ‘... and return a Labour government’. More exactly, ‘... and return a Labour government committed to socialist policies’, or some variant. Or the International Marxist Group’s variant at the time, ‘... and bring in a workers’ government based on the trade unions’. This, of course, omitted the fact that the Labour Party is the party of the trade union bureaucracy: ‘a workers’ government based on the trade unions’ in reality would mean ... a rightwing Labour administration.

A general strike can lead to a massive defeat, as in 1926. A general strike, or a big strike wave, can create massive disruption - and, as in fact happened in May 68, an election is called, which the right wing win. Or compare the recent Irish election. Everybody blamed the Fianna Fáil bourgeois government. So what did they do? They voted in Fine Gael, the traditional bourgeois party of the right. And the Irish Labour Party has entered into coalition with Fine Gael ... to implement more of the same austerity policies.

The demand for the TUC to call a general strike has underlying it a fetishisation of the general strike, and a fetishisation of strike action, as the only way in which it is possible to resist the attacks of the bourgeoisie and in which class-consciousness can progress. The result of that fetishisation is to fail to address the problem of political authority, which a general strike, or even a mass strike wave, poses.

[Paulappaul]

A Mass Strike, presuposes Workers' Councils which naturally have taken on Governing positions. An example that comes to mind is during the Iranian Revolution where there were longs strikes and the problem of food, health and education was dealt with by the local soviet and regulated by the national soviet.

The question of internationalism is key and there is no answer. If it doesn't develop into an international movement, whether it be party, union or council that the revolution happens you are fucked. This doesn't seem like a critique of the council form but a reality of revolution in general.

Regardless, where now most the world is in protest, massive strikes and seizure of power in America, will set the whole movement here afloat. We live in a massive country which grows alot of its food here. Its not so much a problem of food here.

I don't understand his point on the Portuguese question. There were Workers' Councils, Workers associations and unions which failed to take power on their own. He presumes Workers' Councils don't have the power to take government power. Something that has been proven wrong, time and again.


In substance it is Bakunin’s line as of the 1870s. According to him, building workers’ organisations under capitalism is inevitably going to lead to their control by the bourgeoisie. They become instruments of capitalist rule.Bakunin was right. Marx too lived to see that day that it begun to happen and argued so against it. Unions and Party forms have always failed at their duty even when they've had power. They've always come to crush the workers' movement.

And oh no, something has its roots in Anarchism! What are we gonna do? Madness! Anarchists and Marxists advocating the same thing? Oh wait a tick, they've been doing that ever since the first fucking international.


To the "question of power"

Workers' Councils are class organizations. Like the theoretical "party". They organize both economically and politically, because a class has and must. Political because they inherently pose the question of power, economic for the construction and maintenance for the future mode of production.

[Jose Gracchus]

I've moved away from Macnair. He does bring up good points, but it becomes increasingly obvious that almost everything he writes or says is embedded in apologism and the apotheosis of The Party and inevitably reproduces the statism and anti-pluralism of Second International revolutionary Marxism.

[Robespierre Richard]

No it isn't.

you tell me bro

anarchism: paris 1968, mass/general strike, "revolutionary"
socialism: UK 1926, general strike, "revolutionary"
trotskyism: trot who talked to me, 2009, general strike, "revolutionary"

[blake 3:17]

I'll need to look at the CPGB stuff later this weekend. The main question is what end does the general strike serve? Is it primarily defensive, symbolic or educational? Or will workers actually take control of the means of production and reproduction?

The simple withdrawal of labour may boost a spirit of rebellion and hurt capital, but doesn't solve the underlying issues.

[Devrim]

he also criticized Trotsky with respect to Portugal in the 1970s,

As far as I remember Trotsky didn't deign to comment on the situation in Portugal in 1970. Personally I think that his silence on the issue spoke volumes.

Devrim

[Paulappaul]

you tell me bro

anarchism: paris 1968, mass/general strike, "revolutionary"
socialism: UK 1926, general strike, "revolutionary"
trotskyism: trot who talked to me, 2009, general strike, "revolutionary"

Not all Anarchists espouse a General Strike. In fact, alot of Anarchists despise Unions and Point of Production Socialism. Take Malatesta for example.

As for Socialists, that is a pretty vague term. Rosa Luxemburg was a Socialist of the Second International who despised General Strikes, and called for Mass Strikes instead. The same can be said, for the more revolutionary left of the Second International.

Looks Like I told you.

[Paulappaul]

Or will workers actually take control of the means of production and reproduction?

They historically have in strikes where they transcend their unions and take up their own commitees. Take the Oakland General Strike, Chile under Allende, Iran 79, etc.

[Robespierre Richard]

Not all Anarchists espouse a General Strike. In fact, alot of Anarchists despise Unions and Point of Production Socialism. Take Malatesta for example.

As for Socialists, that is a pretty vague term. Rosa Luxemburg was a Socialist of the Second International who despised General Strikes, and called for Mass Strikes instead. The same can be said, for the more revolutionary left of the Second International.

Looks Like I told you.

Oh okay so small factions of those movements don't like general strikes. That really refutes my argument that these movements don't tend to have any plans post-general strike whether historically or at present.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I've moved away from Macnair. He does bring up good points, but it becomes increasingly obvious that almost everything he writes or says is embedded in apologism and the apotheosis of The Party and inevitably reproduces the statism and anti-pluralism of Second International revolutionary Marxism.

I don't see anything wrong with "apologism and the apotheosis of The Party" if said organization is much bigger, more institutional than amateurish left sects or electoral machines.

I just wish Broder tried to criticize the centrist strategy directly.

[Paulappaul]

Oh okay so small factions of those movements don't like general strikes. That really refutes my argument that these movements don't tend to have any plans post-general strike whether historically or at present.

Malatesta, Makhno and the "Insurrectionist Anarchists" have led some of the most famous Anarchist rebellions and movements. They are not a small faction by any account. I see the Insurrectionist Anarchists in organizations and in the streets 10 times more then I do any Wobbs. You're an idiot if you think these are just some "small faction" of the anarchist movement.

And really? The Followers of Anti - General Strike Marxists are small? Rosa Luxemburg is just some nobody? There are no Left Communists?

[Robespierre Richard]

Malatesta, Makhno and the "Insurrectionist Anarchists" have led some of the most famous Anarchist rebellions and movements. They are not a small faction by any account. I see the Insurrectionist Anarchists in organizations and in the streets 10 times more then I do any Wobbs. You're an idiot if you think these are just some "small faction" of the anarchist movement.

And really? The Followers of Anti - General Strike Marxists are small? Rosa Luxemburg is just some nobody? There are no Left Communists?

How is this relevant to what I've said? Cut the insults, this is not about insurrectionists. Stop trying to derail the topic.

[Paulappaul]

Insurrectionary Anarchism opposes General Strikes. How is not about one of the biggest currents of Anarchism? My post had literally everything to do with your post.

[Jose Gracchus]

I don't see anything wrong with "apologism and the apotheosis of The Party" if said organization is much bigger, more institutionalized than amateurish left sects or electoral machines.

Yes it does. Historically this has always, always led to "single-party states", not socialism in any sense understood by Marx (ending careerism and bureaucracy by general and universal recall, a skilled workers' wage, etc.?). It is intrinsically antagonistic to mass working-class participation at the point of production or in mass politics. And of course, since you are quite eager to employ the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy when it suits your purposes (e.g., soviets got co-opted by parties in 1918 so fuck soviets let's just have the party declare itself the state), one could easily say this type of politics leads at best (when highly modified on the fly, and in marginal situations) to single-party states, and at worst, to co-option, class-collaborationism, and obedience to the bourgeois state (Kautsky). Its disengenous how you associate by correlation (without demonstrating causation) the shortcomings of Trotskyist, anarchist, etc. practice with the bankrupcy of their politics, but fail to follow the same reasoning when it comes to Kautsky and his statist scabs.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Yes it does. Historically this has always, always led to "single-party states", not socialism in any sense understood by Marx (ending careerism and bureaucracy by general and universal recall, a skilled workers' wage, etc.?). It is intrinsically antagonistic to mass working-class participation at the point of production or in mass politics. And of course, since you are quite eager to employ the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy when it suits your purposes (e.g., soviets got co-opted by parties in 1918 so fuck soviets let's just have the party declare itself the state), one could easily say this type of politics leads at best (when highly modified on the fly, and in marginal situations) to single-party states, and at worst, to co-option, class-collaborationism, and obedience to the bourgeois state (Kautsky). Its disengenous how you associate by correlation (without demonstrating causation) the shortcomings of Trotskyist, anarchist, etc. practice with the bankruptcy of their politics, but fail to follow the same reasoning when it comes to Kautsky and his statist scabs.

Comrade Macnair and I have said before that there was a severely wrong understanding of what "the state" is during the time of the Second International. It expressed itself in the notion that workers could capture the existing bureaucracy of the state and use it for working-class purposes. Lenina Rosenweg said something to the effect that we're for a "non-statist Kautskyism" (here (http://www.revleft.com/vb/lars-t-lih-t139503/index.html?p=1828550#post1828550)). Then of course Comrade Cockshott wrote his stuff on the elective principle with respect to critiquing the book.

The existing bureaucracy /= bureaucratic processes in general. Also, I don't think Marx said anything about all careerism and all bureaucracy being bad.

I didn't say "fuck soviets let's just have the party declare itself the state," but something like "let's just have workers councils inside the party."

[Paulappaul]

Also, I don't think Marx said anything about all careerism and all bureaucracy being bad.In the end, would it really matter? No matter what Marx said, it is bad. And while he exactly bureaucracy was bad, he was worried of Workers' parties capturing movements and turning them towards their own Bourgeois ends.


"let's just have workers councils inside the party."

I would argue just the opposite. The job of the Party in a "Marxian" sense is to be a class based organization of which to set afoot the class war which will bring the proletariat to Communism. Workers' Councils, like Bordiga would say, must arise from the local branches of the Communist Party and ultimately replace it as the German Council Communists in the KAPD would contend.

[Jose Gracchus]

"Workers' councils inside the party" is just hop-skip-and-a-jump to "workers outside the party are not really conscious/dissolute elements/don't really count as workers/ad nauseum". Except the party doesn't have to purge the councils first. You've just moved us up to late-1918 before we've even gotten off the ground.

[Rooster]

Isn't capitalism a system that only works when it is in motion? Isn't this the point of a general strike? To stop that motion?

[Die Neue Zeit]

In the end, would it really matter? No matter what Marx said, it is bad. And while he exactly bureaucracy was bad, he was worried of Workers' parties capturing movements and turning them towards their own Bourgeois ends.

I argued that there is such a thing as Revolutionary Careerism and that the proletariat must master bureaucracy-as-process / bureaucratic processes. SPD-style alternative culture / state-within-a-state-ism (cultural societies, recreational clubs, funeral homes, food banks and pantries, etc.) helps advances in both fronts big time.

Recent correspondence should help explain this more than mere posts. ;)


I would argue just the opposite. The job of the Party in a "Marxian" sense is to be a class based organization of which to set afoot the class war which will bring the proletariat to Communism. Workers' Councils, like Bordiga would say, must arise from the local branches of the Communist Party and ultimately replace it as the German Council Communists in the KAPD would contend.

I don't mind that council approach at all, comrade. I also don't mind that other compromise council approach I suggested: permanent workers' assemblies in the here and now with obligatory financial support (Just don't call massive groups of these a "party-movement!" :D ).

What I do oppose is the notion of workers' councils all the way with no sense of partyism (real parties being real movements and vice versa) at any step whatsoever. There has been no mass strike wave in which emergent workers' councils have had any sense of partyism.


"Workers' councils inside the party" is just hop-skip-and-a-jump to "workers outside the party are not really conscious/dissolute elements/don't really count as workers/ad nauseum". Except the party doesn't have to purge the councils first. You've just moved us up to late-1918 before we've even gotten off the ground.

To be fair, I should point out two things to other readers who may not have read my posts on the subject before:

1) I'm for a genuine one-party system, wherein the party is a party-movement / genuine party like the SPD and not a fictitious state "party" like the CPSU.

2) Yoram Gat over at Equality By Lot has interesting comments, even if I'm in disagreement on some of the details:

http://equalitybylot.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/paul-cockshott-ideas-of-leadership-and-democracy/#comments


Having given the matter some thought following our discussion here, it appears to me that a mass movement is only useful to the extent that it is more democratic than the state is – it can then function as a tool for democratizing the state. That is, those “state within a state” functions would serve a useful purpose if they manage to correct the effects of a non-democratic state.

[...]

What I am thinking is that a democratic mass movement should, (1) of course, have a democratic internal governance (i.e., sortition-based), (2) aim to provide those services whose existence is being prevented by the non-democratic governance of the state.

For example, it could try to create in the US a medical insurance program that would cover all of its members and whose cost would be distributed justly among the members. It could also try to create democratic media (controlled by citizen-editors).

The advantage of having all those functions within a single organization is, I guess, a matter of concentration of resources and attention. Having multiple governing bodies, one for each organization, could spread resources and public attention too thinly, undermining the effectiveness and the democracy of the organizations.

The question remains, given that such an organization does not exist today in most countries, what would be the process that would lead to the creation such an organization? I imagine that the process must start with a widespread realization that the state is oligarchical, and that a democratic alternative exists. Then one could argue that a popular democratic organization can and should be created that would act as a surrogate state until such a time is reached at which the state itself is democratized.

Not only can the actual political party-movement (revolutionary SPD in power) be democratized, so can any fictional/fictitious state "party" / "party of power" (party-movement citizens promoted to the state at the expense of their party-movement citizenship, while combining seemingly contradictory notions as demarchy on the one hand and nomenklatura and job-slotting on the other) only on the condition that there's an actual party-movement in the same label umbrella but formulating policies and in opposition or at least having professional skepticism re. the "party" (CPSU).

[Paulappaul]

bureaucracy-as-process / bureaucratic processes. SPD-style alternative culture / state-within-a-state-ism (cultural societies, recreational clubs, funeral homes, food banks and pantries, etc.)

The problem is that basic material conditions render a good bureaucracy impossible. No matter what, a Bureaucracy will be despotic and the same can be said for Revolutionary Careerism.

Alternative culture is a feature of Workers' Councils and is not inclinded to just a party movement. The reason is because both mass parties and workers' councils are class based organisations which build their own cultural and and extend solidarity. This is why, for example, the Cordones in Chile and Workers' Councils in Iran provided in revolutionary periods all sorts of services to their fullest capability under the means of production which they had seized.

I'm curious about your one party state, do you still support the idea that it will eventually wither away along with the state?

[Die Neue Zeit]

You have the recent material. The fate of the genuine one-party system is indeed tied head-to-toe with the State apparatus (as opposed to the Social, Labour, and Economic apparatuses), since the autonomous political party-movement stands opposed to the state, CPSU-style "party" (even while transferring experienced members there) within the umbrella calling itself the Party.

Without this to oppose, the autonomous political party-movement will have lost its purpose.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

DNZ, could you expand upon Revolutionary Careerism? And could you perhaps, in your explanation, deal with the possibility that the economic and political interests of any bureaucratic process, post-Revolution (the revolutionary careerists, as you say) become de-aligned from those interests of the working class as a whole, in a post-revolutionary society.

Also, slightly OT but am looking forward to your response, if/when you have time, in my professional revolutionary thread.:thumbup1:

[Die Neue Zeit]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/practical-issues-and-t150581/index.html (for revolutionary careerism)

BTW, I didn't equate "revolutionary careerists" with "bureaucratic process" at all. :confused:

Bureaucratic processes are a set of procedures, what to do under which set of circumstances. For example, you don't have a loud ruckus-of-a-meeting where everyone speaks out of turn. You put procedures in place unless it's clear the purpose of the meeting is to obtain consensus.

[Jose Gracchus]

I wish I could even understand why DNZ is talking about in practice, and imagine it working. But its so obscurantist, vague, avoidant, and layered with unnecessary rhetoric, supposition, and the like, I try and I fail.

[Jose Gracchus]

I mean yeah, I see how Macnair's complaints apply to say, tiny groups of Trots, doing their habitual thing where they wander into say, Madison WI, and are like GENERAL STRIKE. Thereby, hoping the strike committees that form, they will be able to enter and use as forums for demagoguery into conning workers into taking power where none of the consciousness or organization has been laid. Presumably they support this because this is how they imagine Lenin came to power and imagine themselves as Lenin's resurrected in perpetuity.

But how does all that apply to a strike-and-collectivization push by, say, a DeLeonist socialist revolutionary industrial union after the party wins government, or by the CNT?

[Q]

But how does all that apply to a strike-and-collectivization push by, say, a DeLeonist socialist revolutionary industrial union after the party wins government, or by the CNT?

Macnair's critique doesn't apply to such a situation. In fact, he is making the case for a mass revolutionary party as a class formation.

[Jose Gracchus]

If you've read him more thoroughly, he despises the idea of workers' councils, and argues they lead to power of the party, so why not cut out the middle man. Clearly nothing wrong with that logic.

[Die Neue Zeit]

But how does all that apply to a strike-and-collectivization push by, say, a DeLeonist socialist revolutionary industrial union after the party wins government, or by the CNT?

As Comrade Q said, it doesn't. That "party wins government" is already a DOTP scenario. I also wrote of raw syndicalism during the DOTP should the mass party in power be a PNNC and not a communist workers' party, but again it's just simply the communist workers' tendency encouraging workers to go "Sorelian" while not challenging the political authority of the live-and-let-live mass PNNC.

Besides, even the mass PNNC could have its own workers' councils within (and it should to deter spontaneism), thus undermining the legitimacy of sects staying outside or having been kicked out for factionalism (like group meetings in secret without the knowledge of the other tendencies).


If you've read him more thoroughly, he despises the idea of workers' councils, and argues they lead to power of the party, so why not cut out the middle man. Clearly nothing wrong with that logic.

Comrade Miles thinks, like a Comintern resolution, that *proper* soviets are in fact united fronts coalitions. You can't have a united front coalition if it's merely a collection of hyper-activist individuals bandying together for a more concrete form of something like the World Social Forum.

Of course, Comrade Macnair thinks that the notion of a united front coalition government should not limit itself to soviet forms, which was the mistake of the Bolsheviks when they declared their intention to seize power in the name of the soviets (well, not an obvious mistake until spring of 1918, anyway).

[MarxSchmarx]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/practical-issues-and-t150581/index.html (for revolutionary careerism)

BTW, I didn't equate "revolutionary careerists" with "bureaucratic process" at all. :confused:

Bureaucratic processes are a set of procedures, what to do under which set of circumstances. For example, you don't have a loud ruckus-of-a-meeting where everyone speaks out of turn. You put procedures in place unless it's clear the purpose of the meeting is to obtain consensus.

I think the concern is that as these procedures become more and more mature in a party whose organization is complex and reasonably broad-based, buraucratic procedures provide the groundwork for "revolutionary careerists" (or worse, e.g., saboteurs) to manipulate the rather impersonal system for their own advantages or to push their particular line. Random sampling within a party consisting of committed cadre in terms of organizer roles, treasurers, and the like is an intriguing solution to this problem that I agree should be taken more seriously.
.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Earlier, comrade, I didn't put "revolutionary careerists" in quotes because that paradox is something to strive for. There are swine, infiltrators, provocateurs, etc. and then there are revolutionary careerists. I suppose it's a more provocative way of saying "professional revolutionary." Random sampling would indeed help stress the revolutionary adjective.

Then of course there's my reconciliation of extreme democracy measures (like random sampling) with the Soviet nomenklatura list system pioneered by Stalin himself (not the more popular reference to "the bureaucratic elite") (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomenklatura#The_Party.27s_appointment_authority). :D

[Q]

GRather then General Strike, how about Wildcat Strike or better yet, a Mass Strike?

I'm sorry for sounding totally noob here, but what is the difference between a general and a mass strike?

[Paulappaul]

I'm sorry for sounding totally noob here, but what is the difference between a general and a mass strike?

General Strikes are Union and State approved strikes for economic measures. Mass Strikes are Wildcat strikes that have extended across trade lines and form class organizations i.e. Workers' Councils that are both political and economic at the same time. Mass Strikes = Russia 1905, 1917, Germany 1918, May 68, etc.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The point is that Comrade Macnair sees no fundamental difference between them if strikes are the strategy to power. He says that general strikes can achieve tactical victories here and there. Now obviously the reformism inherent in general strikes means that it can't be used as a strategy to power, so when he criticizes Bakunin, Sorel, Pannekoek, Luxemburg, etc. he says "general strikes" when in fact it's quite applicable to mass strikes.

There's also the problem that not all mass strikes are political enough (Die Linke calls for freedom of political strikes to clarify the issue, but Macnair's criticism applies to political strikes, too).

[Zederbaum]

MacNair's contention that anarchist and Trotskyist strategy shares more than either would like to admit is not one I, coming from an anarchist background, would have given much credence at first glance. After some consideration I think it is a valuable insight, though I would quibble with some of the smaller details.

It's a positive sign that Bakunin isn't dismissed as a Blanquist and MacNair substantially hits the mark when he identifies the origins of syndicalism with the Bakuninists. I would mention, however, that Bakunin wasn't a vulgar spontaneist in the sense that he thought a revolution could be straightforwardly grown out of economic struggles but he did think that they would engender class solidarity and leave potential for the development of socialist consciousness. In other words, they created favourable terrain. But in addition he advocated the creation of a political organisation to push socialist consciousness.

He saw the early 1870s as a revolutionary period in certain places, most obviously in France. He did recognise that the revolutionary potential was defeated and that it would be a long time before one re-emerged. In fact he predicted that it would take a massive war amongst the great powers to weaken them sufficiently such that revolution would be viable again.

The tragedy of anarchism is that after Bakunin's death it abandoned fairly quickly his basic tactical approach in favour of anti-organisationalism and allowed the virus of individualism to contaminate it. Even with the re-emergence of revolutionary syndicalism in the 1890s, his conception of a dual-organisational strategy (namely a mass union open to any worker + a political organisation to push socialist ideas) remained neglected until Makhno and Arishnov resurrected it in the 1920s.

Regarding the General Strike itself, anarchists did debate whether it would be sufficient to bring down capitalism. The question of power is posed by a general strike, as MacNair says. Malatesta recognised this in the 1907 debate at the International Anarchist Conference where he stated it would be necessary to move from a strike to an insurrection fairly quickly.

[Zederbaum]

I should add that on reading MacNair's piece, I was reminded of the Menshevik taunt aimed at Lenin in April 1917 for adapting Bakuninism by calling for the Workers' Councils to take power:
"Lenin has made himself candidate for one European throne that has been vacant for 30 years; the throne of Bakunin!"

[Rowan Duffy]

Not all Anarchists espouse a General Strike. In fact, alot of Anarchists despise Unions and Point of Production Socialism. Take Malatesta for example.

To ascribe this view to Malatesta is totally inaccurate. Read the debate between Malatesta and Monatte in the Amsterdam conference of 1907 for instance.

The gist is that Malatesta does not believe that the political body can be dissolved in favour of pure syndicalism. He supports activity in the unions, and for unions as large (and open) as is necessary for effective struggle.



La conclusion à laquelle en est venu Monatte, c’est que le syndicalisme est un moyen nécessaire et suffisant de révolution sociale. En d’autres termes, Monatte a déclaré que le syndicalisme se suffit â lui-même. Et voilà, selon moi, une doctrine radicalement fausse. Combattre cette doctrine sera l’objet de ce discours.

http://www.fondation-besnard.org/article.php3?id_article=225

EDIT: I found a link to Malatesta's contribution in English "Eleventh session - Thursday 29 August - Afternoon session" http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=6632

[Rowan Duffy]

It should also be noted, that not only was Malatesta not opposed to unions he was also in favour of the working class returning to production under their own direction.


workers thought that the moment was ripe to take possession once [and] for all the means of production. They armed for self-defence. . . and began to organise production on their own. . . . It was the right of property abolished in fact. . . it was a new regime, a new form of social life that was being ushered in. And the government stood by because it felt impotent to offer opposition." Life and Ideas, page 134

[YSR]

K, I know I'm jumping into this stuff a bit late, but I think MacNair has not really done his homework before writing that piece. He hits a lot of "this guy said this in this time" stuff okay, but he misses the actual analysis of how general strikes (which I use interchangeably with "mass strikes," the differences are meaningful but ultimately not that important in terms of how they work) actually go or don't go.

Particularly in his section "The Problem" towards the end of the piece. Has he ever read anything about how general strikes happened? People didn't just randomly go hungry cause no food was being delivered: unions and/or strike committees authorized "exempted" firms to continue with essential work, under popular control. People kept shit together through voluntary militias and defense groups. Some limited production continued under worker control.

This is a really important feature of general strikes that MacNair ignores, because it's got hella political implications: working people, through their voluntary organizations, making political decisions about the process of production and how they want it to work for them. Ya'll, that's communism. From Minneapolis and Seattle in 1934 to more recent general workers actions, this assumption of political power by what are supposed to be purely "economic" bodies, according to the Partyists, is in fact the repudiation of the need for a guiding light outside of the direct workers struggle. The decisions made by these bodies, be they union or voluntary committees, highlight the ability of workers to run production independently and make political decisions

Having been involved with the discussions around what a general strike might look like in WI last month, I can tell you that these kinds of decisions, about how production might work or not work, were under serious discussion by organizers on the ground. I spoke to a room full of people in mid March who were seriously considering how they would organize for and run a metropolitan economy. That's what's up. Obviously the AFL-CIO and the Democrats hijacked the movement, and it's a movement that we simply weren't ready for right now in the first place, but general strikes continue to have appeal in the class and important implications for how we visualize the ongoing war against capital.

[Jose Gracchus]

I'm not big on excessive "point of production" conceptions of socialism, because of their frequent inability to see the evolution of production and industrial society from Europe, 1910 and the World, 2011. That said, YSR is right. Macnair's polemics approach everything from the angle of what are the feckless workers to do without the all-knowing party and its programs having worked out all the details on their behalf before hand. It is the workers' role to merely passively endorse the "correct" party with its "correct" "program" and "correct" "lines", and then go back to taking orders, only from the new party "leadership."

[Die Neue Zeit]

Macnair's polemics approach everything from the angle of what are the feckless workers to do without the all-knowing party and its programs having worked out all the details on their behalf before hand.

I'm very, very tempted to start a separate multi-subject thread based on our discussion yesterday re. delegation and Bordiga's invariance.

As I said then (for other posters), I think Bordiga got it wrong on invariance. The issue, going against reformism and such, is much older than this, and also hits delegation: representation.

Gather at random 1,000 workers at the moment to draft a populist labour program and subject this program to the delegative principle. What you could easily get is reactionary nationalism of the likes of the Hungarian right-wing per the constitution thread in the Politics forum (obviously the material below is not my position):

Wanna end wage theft? Go for "wage subsidies" (no debate on my material re. supply-side economics).

Wanna minimize unemployment?

Wanna minimize speculation? Prohibit foreign ownership of land. [How race-biased this can easily get?]



While the Post-Keynesians and other radical academic economists have the bulk of the blame for not proliferating their material on structural pro-labour reform, they're not the only guilty party.

When Marx and Engels campaigned for the planks in the Principles of Communism, the Communist Manifesto, and the Demands of the Communist Party in Germany, these programmatic [i]representations went against those promoting among the workers illusions in economic liberalism. When Lassalle campaigned for workers' coops with state aid as the second plank of his two-plank campaign (the other being universal suffrage), this programmatic representation went against the wishes of German cooperativists seeking to emulate British "self-help" crap. When Guesde campaigned for a "legal minimum wage, determined each year according to the local price of food, by a workers' statistical commission," this programmatic representation went against the wishes of French tred-iunionisty so interested in continuing mere labour disputes.

Of course, like with materialism and vulgar materialism, there's the fine line between representation and philosophical Idealism.

[Jose Gracchus]

Gather at random 1,000 workers at the moment to draft a populist labour program and subject this program to the delegative principle. What you could easily get is reactionary nationalism of the likes of the Hungarian right-wing per the constitution thread in the Politics forum (obviously the material below is not my position):

That's quite the bald-faced assertion, and once again suggests to me that despite your attacks on liberalism, you have similar view of the average worker: a simpleton who cares only for "horse races" [in the classic Webbsian formulation].

[Die Neue Zeit]

What I stand for is the actual representation of the workers by workers. Liberalism is for the "representation" of the workers by other classes. Re. "simpletons":



No, the bourgeoisie strips of you what liberties they had thus far condescended to grant you. Fundamental difference.


No. The voters have the ability to grant or restrict any liberty to inmates as they wish. It is no matter of the Bourgeosie if they choose not to use those rights.

If the Capitalists take advantage of the Proletariat--it is no ones fault but the Proletariats.


No one's drugging the Proletariat. You are on one being condesending to them. I'm treating them as if they are grown adults that have the right to choose their own destiny. You think they are pawns.

I don't agree but I respect their choices.

I don't think it's a matter of adults vs. young children. Political literacy is generally around the level of a horny teenager on his way to maturity.