Organization of Soviets

[Servia]

How were the soviets organized? How was it decided who would participate in a soviet? Were the representatives of different industries? Questions such as these.

And I ask specifically in regards to the days of the Russian Revolution, especially the early days.

[Guardia Rossa]

I guess it was something like the workers of a certain industry elected a representative body, some representative bodies (A District, a City?) elected another representative body, wich elected another representative body, and so on, until the supreme soviet.

Someone call Tim, Rafiq or Xhar-Xhar...

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The soviets (in 1917) were organised pretty much ad hoc. The largest dated back to the beginning of the First World War as workers' representative organs, the Petrograd soviet in particular. In Petrograd at least the delegates were elected by universal suffrage, with the various city boroughs and military units giving a varying number of representatives (the soviet was never organised according to the principle of one vote per person). It was a geographically-delimited body. The corresponding industrial bodies were usually called factory committees (but also councils of elders etc.)

The soviet elected an executive committee and various bureaus and directorates. In later periods financial directorates became particularly important. There were also independent organs subordinated to the soviets - i.e. the Petrograd commune (until it was merged with the Soviet as the Petrograd Labour Commune).

Soviets elected representatives to the central Congress of Soviets, which elected a central executive committee. Regional groupings of soviets were rare and short-lived, e.g. the Union of Communes of the Northern Region. There were regional soviets, e.g. gubernia soviets and so on, but these declined in importance after the First Congress of Soviets.

[Jacob Cliff]

The soviets (in 1917) were organised pretty much ad hoc. The largest dated back to the beginning of the First World War as workers' representative organs, the Petrograd soviet in particular. In Petrograd at least the delegates were elected by universal suffrage, with the various city boroughs and military units giving a varying number of representatives (the soviet was never organised according to the principle of one vote per person). It was a geographically-delimited body. The corresponding industrial bodies were usually called factory committees (but also councils of elders etc.)

The soviet elected an executive committee and various bureaus and directorates. In later periods financial directorates became particularly important. There were also independent organs subordinated to the soviets - i.e. the Petrograd commune (until it was merged with the Soviet as the Petrograd Labour Commune).

Soviets elected representatives to the central Congress of Soviets, which elected a central executive committee. Regional groupings of soviets were rare and short-lived, e.g. the Union of Communes of the Northern Region. There were regional soviets, e.g. gubernia soviets and so on, but these declined in importance after the First Congress of Soviets.
Out of curiosity, what is the need of a central executive committee? I've come across anarchists and such who say that such further decentralization is actually detrimental and/or "elitist."

[Hatshepsut]

Plus the fact that the soviets weren't specifically a Bolshevik institution. The Petrograd Soviet was an organization of workers and military personnel recognized by both of the 1917 Provisional Governments (Kerensky came on in July 1917 and immediately clashed with the Bolsheviks, forcing Lenin back into hiding for a while). It had supervisory control over various Petrograd facilities, such as the post and telegraph offices, which the Bolsheviks seized in November after having recruited many of this soviet's members.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Out of curiosity, what is the need of a central executive committee? I've come across anarchists and such who say that such further decentralization is actually detrimental and/or "elitist."

The Congress of Soviets couldn't be in session continuously, and as such the CIK was intended to serve as the permanent body that would represent the soviets between sessions of the Congress. It was also somewhat more manageable than the Congress, which often had more than a thousand delegates.

Ideally, the Congress would have been the highest body and the CIK simply a subordinate organ, and the CIK in turn wouldn't have given way to the Soviet of People's Commissars and the Soviet of Labour and Defence, but by its nature the d.o.t.p. will never have ideal conditions.

[Jacob Cliff]

The Congress of Soviets couldn't be in session continuously, and as such the CIK was intended to serve as the permanent body that would represent the soviets between sessions of the Congress. It was also somewhat more manageable than the Congress, which often had more than a thousand delegates.

Ideally, the Congress would have been the highest body and the CIK simply a subordinate organ, and the CIK in turn wouldn't have given way to the Soviet of People's Commissars and the Soviet of Labour and Defence, but by its nature the d.o.t.p. will never have ideal conditions.
Not to make utopian blue printings, but how do you think a proletarian dictatorship would be structured differently in, say, the U.S. or Britain?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Not to make utopian blue printings, but how do you think a proletarian dictatorship would be structured differently in, say, the U.S. or Britain?

The question is what sort of body would serve as the chief unit of the dictatorship. In Russia there were the Soviets, in Hungary in '56 workers' councils. One can also imagine things like action committees, neighbourhood associations, factory committees, unions and so on playing the same part.

The economic organs would also probably be different. The US and the UK don't have things like the Russian glavki, tsentry, military-industrial committees and so on. Either some of the old organs would be given new content or new ones would be made.

The chief point is to make the organs working ones, instead of just talk-shops, so as to draw the entire working population in the administration and defence of the workers' state.

Both are also advanced capitalist countries; as such, the devastation of the civil war would probably be lesser and there would be less need for things like the SovNarKom, or the equivalent organ would serve in a strictly supervisory role. But it's difficult to say with any certainty when we don't know the forms the revolution is developing in.

(The UK would probably be federated, a socialist federation of the British Isles. The US on the other hand would probably join a socialist federation of North America as a unit; barring some minor territorial adjustments if certain border areas with to secede to a socialist Mexico.)

[Blake's Baby]

Xhar-xhar is right that the soviets were ad-hoc and heterogeneous.

If you want an idea about how the soviets functioned in practice (though obviously about how they functioned in 1905 rather than in 1917) Trotsky's 1905 is a fun and informative read.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1907/1905/index.htm

The majority of Left Communists (the Bordigists, as in many other ways, are an exception to this) think that the soviet form is the finally-discovered form of workers' organisation, specifically for the period of the revolution. Many Left Communists and Council Communists have written about the organisation of the soviets (councils) - see for example Pannekoek's 1947 book on the subject:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1947/workers-councils.htm

When strike committees start to talk to each other - so the striking metalworkers for example send a delegation to discuss co-ordination with the striking railway workers - then that in embryo is a soviet. At their base, soviets have mass assemblies and factory committees. It may be that the future soviets will also include delegates from neighbourhood assemblies similar to those we saw in Spain in 2011. Either way, the point is that the soviets are the working class expressing its own urge to control its conditions and ultimately overthrow capitalism.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Hm, I think we should distinguish between the soviet form, that is, a state based on proletarian, collegial, working bodies, and the soviets as such. The soviets are simply one example of the soviet form. Workers' councils of the sort that existed in Hungary in 1956 are another, as are factory committees and so on.

In any case many (most? all?) soviets in 1917 did not base themselves on mass assemblies or factory councils. The most important, the Petrograd Soviet, was in a way the successor of the "patriotic group" of the Military-Industrial Committee. Which is not to say that mass assemblies and factory councils/committees are a bad thing, quite the contrary. It's just that I don't think we can say what forms are going to arise in the course of the revolution at this point.

(As an aside, what would you say is Bordiga's most important work on soviets and such? Nothing comes to mind, to be honest - Bordiga was often extremely vague on organisational questions, particularly when it comes to organic centralism, which as far as I can tell means the party is going to take the right course of action because it's the right course of action for the party to take.)

[Blake's Baby]

I don't see what you mean. The 'soviet form' has nothing to do with 'the state'. The 'soviet form' is workers power. It is the unification of the working class's organs of struggle (mass assemblies >> factory committees >> district councils of delegates - ie, soviets).

The delegates to the Petrograd Soviet came from the factories and military units. They were elected by the mass assemblies at the base. A soviet is a soviet (maybe we should call them 'workers' soviets' or 'workers' councils' instead) as such precisely because it is composed of delegates from workplaces.

Bordiga didn't pay much attention to the soviets, I don't think. He condemned various people that did - from Gramsci and Damen, on opposite sides in the PCI, to the emerging Council Communist groups in Germany/Netherlands, to Stalin - as being 'syndicalist'.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Sure, the soviet form is workers' power, but it is workers' power that must be capable of acting as an instrument of workers' rule. Hence the connection with the (proletarian) state. Without this, any soviet or workers' council would degenerate until it has become an obstacle to revolution.

And yes, the soviets as a rule included delegates from factories, but these were not connected to the factory committees. The soviets, factory committees, unions and so on existed side by side. As for mass assemblies, these I think only occurred in some cases. I will try to dig up something on the issue later.