Strikes

[DarkNation]

I don't know a whole lot about the use of strikes in revolutionary strategy, but that a number of leftists consider them very useful. So far, I've heard of 3 kinds, but I don't know what separates one from the next. I'd like to know not only what each is, but also what different tendencies think about them, as it seems some are hostile to others.

[hatzel]

Could you be so kind as to specify what these 3 kinds are? Or have you just heard 'there are 3 kinds'? If you have the basic idea, it might be easier for us to give you more information about each of these kinds, and what we think of them. If you don't know any more details, that's okay, I'm just trying to focus on building on the knowledge you already have :)

[DarkNation]

Oh snap, I thought I wrote them here. I meant Mass, General, and Wildcat. Silly me.

[Blake's Baby]

Wildcat strikes are unofficial strikes organised by workers in their places of work, as opposed to workers being called out by a union. They may be called at short notice or even consist of a spontaneous walkout. In many countries they're illegal, and generally they include all workers not just members of the union.

The general strike is an old idea, originally I think put forward by the Chartists and subsequently by Anarchists and Syndicalists. It's called by an external agency, ususally a Trades Union federation, sometimes a polical group, on a particualr date and is kinda a game of brinkmanship with the government - can the government last longer than the resolve of the strikers? If the governemnt can't hold out, or if it rushes to the negotiating table, the union wins by default, and can be expected to be courted by politicians for a while, as it takes part in the re-division of the social pie. To be fair, in the 1800s this maybe wasn't such a crap idea.

The mass strike, as theorised by Rosa Luxemburg after the Russian Revolution of 1905, is more like the situation of 'dual power' as existed in Russia during 1917. Luxemburg doesn't think the parties (and especially not the unions) can call the mass strike, it happens when the working class is so disgusted with the way it is forced to live that it begins to reject capitalism en masse and start at least in embryo to organise society on its own terms.

That's a very lose and rough answer, but it's late and I'm going to bed.

[mosfeld]

Strikes can be a very effective tactic which the proletariat utilizes in its struggle for emancipation. However, reformist and bought-off trade unions often use strikes for non-revolutionary purposes and to pacify the proletariat. This does by no mean denounce the workers on strike, but rather the bureaucratic trade union leaders (labor aristocrats) which use these strikes as a bargaining chip and not for revolutionary means. Strikes are always the most effective when under communist leadership.

In Peru, the tactic and development of the armed strike proved to be the most useful, and several armed strikes, led by Maoist workers in Lima, were launched at the height of the PPW as a preparation for the takeover of power.

An example of an armed strike would be during the 17th and 18th of May, 1994, which completely "paralyzed the city (...) hundreds of guerrilla actions, paintings on walls, propaganda, burning of buses, car bombs and attacks on police and military targets as well as economic targets (banks)" This act apparently shocked the dictator Fujimori, since he had officially announced that he had "decapitated the PCP" with the capture of Chairman Gonzalo, but he "did not appear on TV during the two days," as he regularly did.
(The New Flag, Vol. 1, No. 2, (http://www.blythe.org/peru-pcp/newflag/nf0102.pdf)"Successful Armed Strike in Lima" (http://www.blythe.org/peru-pcp/newflag/nf0102.pdf) p. 5 (http://www.blythe.org/peru-pcp/newflag/nf0102.pdf))

These armed strikes often happened spontaneously, too, for example during 29th and 30th of April, 1991, when workers at the Central Highway industry went on an armed strike as a reply to the murder of a company worker. The strike was still mildly criticized by the PCP Central Committee, since they did not "communicate forthwith on this incident to his Party cell," and therefore "did not empower additional means to strengthen the struggle". However, they noted that they could not "criticize him [the leader of the strike] for not counterpoising the Party to Front, because as a communist, he leads the struggle and promotes the response of the masses." It did not bother them that much either, since "the strike was successful and mobilized the masses."
(PCP - May Directives for Metropolitan Lima "On the Armed Strike at the Central Highway Industries" (http://www.blythe.org/peru-pcp/docs_en/dire.htm))

In South Asia, a variant of the strike, the notorious Bandh, which basically means a complete shut down off the particular city in which the bandh is taking place in. The bandh has been widely used by the Nepalese Maoists to bring Kathmandu to a standstill. In India, Maoist led Bandhs have been and are a regular occurance.

Here's a picture from, if I remember correctly, a revolutionary strike which occured in Nepal a while ago.

http://www.thehindu.com/multimedia/dynamic/00113/AVN_NEPAL_113143f.jpg

[The Idler]

Strikes basically demonstrate the weakness of the working-class position and are usually smashed by the police/army or sections bought off to sell out. Most strikers aren't socialists, aren't striking for socialism and don't become socialists even when they're defeated.

[bricolage]

Strikes basically demonstrate the weakness of the working-class position and are usually smashed by the police/army or sections bought off to sell out.
You are right, strikes never win...
Oh right except all the times they do.
Do you think there is no correlation between strike levels and the standard of working class interests? Between strike levels and the ability of the class to defend itself?

Interesting point in 2004 a think tank called the New Economic Foundation devised what they called the 'Measure of Domestic Progress' which took count of economic, social and environmental well being, what they found out was that the best year in Britain since 1950 was 1976. 1976, two years after a miners strike had brought down a government, in the middle of a decade characterised by mass strike waves. Now on the one hand the think tank stuff was probably partly bullshit, measuring things on a national cross-class scale, on the other seeing as most of the cross class nation is working class I'd say there is some relationship. Another thing, in 2005 the Labour Party campaigned with the slogan 'Lowest Unemployment for 29 years, track back and you are in the same place as above. Because back then when jobs were going to be cut, when wages slashed the class could defend itself. Look what happened after.

But not only that strikes demonstrate the capacity for class action something Marx noted years and years ago; "Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers."


Most strikers aren't socialists, aren't striking for socialism and don't become socialists even when they're defeated.Strikes have the capacity to break down barriers within the class, to provide embryonic forms of a future society and can come closer to socialism than most else. Most definitely strikes are limited, most definitely class action cannot be confined to them, most definitely there must be an expansion of the fight beyond them and so forth... but most definitely they an integral part of class struggle.

Strikes have the potential to force demands to be met, to utilise the nature of work, that alien thing that is forced upon us, against those that reap its rewards. It is both an acceptance of the working class condition but further a utilisation of that condition towards its own self-eradication.

All power to the wildcats.

[The Idler]

If it suits capital (capitalism or individual capitalists) in certain circumstances and periods, industrial action might lead to better wages or conditions. If it doesn't suit capital then strike-fetishists are basically risking workers livelihoods and starving them when they know it will only end in defeat (legal, political, economic or military). This is more plain to see and more common in poorer, less-privileged countries.

Capitalists hold the power, workers don't, withdrawing labour-power is an example of this exploitative relationship - it hurts workers more than it hurts capitalists. Sure, a party might attract a few more members who think its very radical to call for strikes, but its irresponsible to lead vast numbers of the working-class to defeats - simply in order to attract a handful of new members.

If you want to talk about specific examples, how more militant would you like than Britain in 1926 or British miners in 1985?

[mosfeld]

I'd basically like to redirect you to my earlier post in this thread -- strikes under the leadership of reformist minded trade union sellouts might do nothing for the revolution, but strikes are entirely different under genuine communist leadership.

[bricolage]

If it suits capital (capitalism or individual capitalists) in certain circumstances and periods, industrial action might lead to better wages or conditions.
So it suits capital to let industrial action win... which is why the state will spend mass amount of time, money, manpower and physical force on fighting such action? Of course the other option is that sometimes strikes are victorious and force capital into concessions but you are convinced they can only ever fail so ignore this.


If you want to talk about specific examples, how more militant would you like than Britain in 1926 or British miners in 1985?Both examples of workers being sold out by unions... but that's a whole other issue.
But then what about Britain in the 1970s? Like I said though that is when the class was winning so you jump straight to the defeats in the 80s.

But anyway once again you miss the potentiality of strikes to form collective class strength, regardless of victory or defeat. I'll agree I find it hard to see how this comes about in what exists a lot of the time - one day ritualised affairs pulled out by bureaucratic unions which generally have no relationship to the elite decisions on demands made and are called off when they look like threatening this - however it's a massive mistake to assume this is all that strikes can be.

[Die Neue Zeit]

He's coming from a pro-party perspective. :)

[The Idler]

So it suits capital to let industrial action win... which is why the state will spend mass amount of time, money, manpower and physical force on fighting such action?
Whenever a state has spent a massive amount of time, money, manpower and physical force on fighting industrial action it has always defeated strikes. Sometimes its cheaper to make temporary concessions.

[bricolage]

Whenever a state has spent a massive amount of time, money, manpower and physical force on fighting industrial action it has always defeated strikes. Sometimes its cheaper to make temporary concessions.
But it's not always a result of that time, money, manpower and force. You mentioned the miners strike, the policing operation was enormous in taking out 'the enemy within' however Thatcher admitted that if the strike had resulted in a sustained spread to other sectors the miners would have been victorious. All that brute force would have meant nothing.

[bricolage]

He's coming from a pro-party perspective. :)
Actually he's coming from a 'strikes don't win' perspective instead of a 'mere labour struggle' one, at least your argument, while theoretically bankrupt, isn't this factual incorrect.

[The Idler]

But it's not always a result of that time, money, manpower and force. You mentioned the miners strike, the policing operation was enormous in taking out 'the enemy within' however Thatcher admitted that if the strike had resulted in a sustained spread to other sectors the miners would have been victorious. All that brute force would have meant nothing.
So why didn't it spread? Scargill tried "revolutionary leadership" in a trade union then when that didn't work he went on to form a party.

[bricolage]

So why didn't it spread? Scargill tried "revolutionary leadership" in a trade union then when that didn't work he went on to form a party.
Because unions stood in the way, because workers didn't identify collective class interests, because yadda yadda yadda...
Whatever reason you pick it doesn't invalidate the point that if it had spread all the policing would have been for nothing, it is, on the whole, the inactivity of the class and not the activity of the state that leads to the defeat of struggles.