Die Neue Zeit
22nd August 2011, 02:33
Going further back than the bureaucracy of the pre-war SPD (http://www.revleft.com/vb/pre-war-spd-t154872/index.html?t=154872), the General German Workers Association (ADAV):
http://books.google.ca/books?id=byn-2zcQRMQC&printsec=frontcover
The ADAV and the LADAV were undeniably political parties in the modern sense of the term: that is, they were organized on the basis of a dues-paying membership and attempted to influence legislation [...] they had a president and an executive committee [...]
At the summit of the Lassallean organization stood a president with virtually dictatorial powers. According to the organization's statutes, he had to be elected by all the members of the organization [...]
The executive committee was supposed to support and, where necessary, control the president. The twenty-four members of the executive were chosen for one-year terms at the general assembly. Because the members of the executive were scattered all over Germany, they in fact could not effectively control or question the president's actions. In fact, the ADAV's highly centralized, highly dictatorial structure remained deeply controversial, but it persisted, especially during the presidency of Johann Baptist von Schweitzer. Only after his resignation did the general assembly limit the president's powers. Indeed, it was this annual assembly that represented the organization's democratic qualities. Delegates to the assembly were elected at the local-branch level, and their decisions were binding on the president.
The agitational and political backbone of the Lassallean organizations was provided by the official agents who represented the president at the local level. Lassalle had stipulated in March 1964 that members of each local organization should nominate three candidates for this position, one of whom would then be selected by the president himself.
Do I get the feeling that this account by David E. Barclay and Eric D. Weitz exaggerated things with respect to the German worker-class movement of the mid-19th century?
Surely there must have been an informal committee of the president's closest subordinates, meeting in his office without the formal procedures or protocol of the larger executive committee. It's hard to imagine some sort of degenerate tyranny on the part of either a Lassalle-as-loner or a Schweitzer-as-loner, as opposed to a de facto Team Lassalle or Team Schweitzer whereby the president needed social interaction.
The deployment of the formal executive committee all over Germany could have facilitated perhaps some sort of voting by correspondence after each meeting, on the part of at least those closest subordinates. This would have served to bind them into some system of collective responsibility.
Moreover, there must have been some sort of informal-committee-without-the-president, since the drive for collective decision-making ultimately propelled the general assembly itself to limit the president's power.
Thoughts?
http://books.google.ca/books?id=byn-2zcQRMQC&printsec=frontcover
The ADAV and the LADAV were undeniably political parties in the modern sense of the term: that is, they were organized on the basis of a dues-paying membership and attempted to influence legislation [...] they had a president and an executive committee [...]
At the summit of the Lassallean organization stood a president with virtually dictatorial powers. According to the organization's statutes, he had to be elected by all the members of the organization [...]
The executive committee was supposed to support and, where necessary, control the president. The twenty-four members of the executive were chosen for one-year terms at the general assembly. Because the members of the executive were scattered all over Germany, they in fact could not effectively control or question the president's actions. In fact, the ADAV's highly centralized, highly dictatorial structure remained deeply controversial, but it persisted, especially during the presidency of Johann Baptist von Schweitzer. Only after his resignation did the general assembly limit the president's powers. Indeed, it was this annual assembly that represented the organization's democratic qualities. Delegates to the assembly were elected at the local-branch level, and their decisions were binding on the president.
The agitational and political backbone of the Lassallean organizations was provided by the official agents who represented the president at the local level. Lassalle had stipulated in March 1964 that members of each local organization should nominate three candidates for this position, one of whom would then be selected by the president himself.
Do I get the feeling that this account by David E. Barclay and Eric D. Weitz exaggerated things with respect to the German worker-class movement of the mid-19th century?
Surely there must have been an informal committee of the president's closest subordinates, meeting in his office without the formal procedures or protocol of the larger executive committee. It's hard to imagine some sort of degenerate tyranny on the part of either a Lassalle-as-loner or a Schweitzer-as-loner, as opposed to a de facto Team Lassalle or Team Schweitzer whereby the president needed social interaction.
The deployment of the formal executive committee all over Germany could have facilitated perhaps some sort of voting by correspondence after each meeting, on the part of at least those closest subordinates. This would have served to bind them into some system of collective responsibility.
Moreover, there must have been some sort of informal-committee-without-the-president, since the drive for collective decision-making ultimately propelled the general assembly itself to limit the president's power.
Thoughts?