Workers Councils, Council Communism and Marxism

[Viva Fidel]

Did Marx himself mention "workers councils" and how they would run? Also, what are the differences between Council Communism and Marxism? At the surface, they seem the same to me. How do council communists like Luxemburg and Pannekoek differ from Marxists (non-leninists/trostkyists)?

[Rawthentic]

Council communists are Marxists, but advocate direct proletarian power in the form of worker's councils. I mean, in what other form could workers run their workplaces?

And they are non-Leninists.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

And they are non-Leninists.

because Lenin hated workers councils.......

[Rawthentic]

I don't know about hated. But he sure did curtail and ultimately destroy the power that the Soviets (worker's councils) had.

[TC]

workers councils run the cuban economy and state and the collectivized sections of the venezuelan economy, both are leninist in ideology. Workers councils are part of marxism leninism not contrary to it.

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

I don't know about hated. But he sure did curtail and ultimately destroy the power that the Soviets (worker's councils) had.

surely you jest?

Someone's knowledge cannot be so full of holes as this?

Lenin, having realised that the Civil War had destroyed the workers councils operating, had destroyed the urban working class, meant that part of workers democracy had ceased.

Lenin didn't do that himself, it was a product of the white counter revolution.

And, since the Bolsheviks had won the majority of the soviets then they as the representatives, in dire circumstances, had to try and get the country running again, since the workers were scattered all over the country side and or dead.

remember, syndicalist's in the Bolshevik party were supporting Lenin at this time, so it was hardly the power hungry act of some mad dictator.

[Rawthentic]

I never said it was all Lenin's fault, even though certain policies did destroy worker power, such as the introduction of one-man management and the NEP.

[Janus]

Did Marx himself mention "workers councils" and how they would run?
I don't think he actually used the specific term itself but he certainly argued for worker's self-organization and self-government. Just look at his writings on the Paris Commune for example.


Also, what are the differences between Council Communism and Marxism? At the surface, they seem the same to me. How do council communists like Luxemburg and Pannekoek differ from Marxists (non-leninists/trostkyists)?
There really aren't any differences since council communists see themselves as Marxists; they see themselves as a continuation of the Marxist trend.

[BobKKKindle$]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think Council Communism is part of the Left-Communism movement. In which case one of the differences between Council Communism and other forms of Marxism would be their attitude towards participating in existing political institutions (whether using political office and elections is an effective or justifiable tactic) and how class consciousness can be developed - although obviously this is not really related to post-revolutionary economic organisation.



Lenin, having realised that the Civil War had destroyed the workers councils operating, had destroyed the urban working class, meant that part of workers democracy had ceased.

This may be partly true, but I think the biggest impediment to proletarian workplace democracy was the policy of War Communism which was introduced shortly after the start of the civil war, under which workers where subject to military discipline within factories and in matters relating to industrial relations, and centralised managemenet was introduced in all nationalised factories. In the circumstances, however, this could just be justified as workers had shown themselves incapable of making sound judgements and considering the broader needs of the revolutionary movement in a period of economic and political crisis.

[Forward Union]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14, 2007 12:53 am
because Lenin hated workers councils.......
In practice, obviously.

Council Communism is a form of Libertarian-Communism.

One of the biggest differences between Counsil communism, and Leninism is it's rejection of the role of a revolutionary party or Vanguard. Instead, counsil communists believe that workers should take over the means of production themselves and run them, themselves, as revolutioanry parties lead to ' revolutionary Dictatorhsips'. In a sence they are very similar to Anarcho-Syndicalists.

Some do suggest that the Party should exist as a useful facillitaion and propaganda tool before and during the revolution, but cannot take authorotative steps to direct the revolution.


Lenin, having realised that the Civil War had destroyed the workers councils operating, had destroyed the urban working class, meant that part of workers democracy had ceased.

I remember reading a book, produced by the Solidarity Federation I think, that mapped out the actions of the Bolshevik party from october 1917, onward. And, contrary to Trotskyist propaganda, The Bolsheviks, had already begun to deconstruct workers power, prior to the civil war. The overall economic planing was handed to a panel of capitalist advisors. And the soviets were banned from making decisions that effected the national economy. And this was in November 1917.

Of course, eventually, the soviets were to be banned from making decissions full stop. But I quite liked the start of the next chapter,

"1918, The Russian Civil war (trotskyists start reading here)"

[Leo]

Council Communism is a form of Libertarian-Communism.

I don't think this is historically true, although some councilist currents coming from council communism might have came close to libertarian communism, libertarian socialism, anarchism etc.

[Boriznov]

The difference between Council Communists and Leninists are the way how the revolution will be fought. Councilists want that the worker would lead themselves in the workers councils so that when the revolution is won, all will be directly in the hands of the workers. As with Leninists they want that the vanguard party to 'lead' the revolution and after the revolution begin the socialist stage (dictatorship of the proletariat) so then after the socialist stage communism can begin.

[More Fire for the People]

To my knowledge Marx never wrote about workers’ councils because as a working class phenomenon they had either not appeared on a large scale or not appeared at all during his time. The creation of workers’ council was an international tendency within the working class decades after the first international workers’ movement of the 1870s-1890s. The emergent Russian working class took the first steps towards workers’ councils in 1905 with the creation of strike coordination committees — “soviets”.

Marx did, however, write on other forms of working class organization. The first and foremost organization of the working class in Marx’s epoch was the trade union. Marx writes “Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (Trades’ Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots.”

In the first steps towards consistency and self-awareness as a class the workers formed trade unions. These associations were associations of the working class, for the working class — but only insofar as these organizations struggled for the immediate interests of the different sects of the working class. These associations contended worker against worker via trade and ethnicity. The ruling class in every country made use of this fact in order to pacify the working class by recuperating trade unions into the political order. In our epoch the workers’ council and the industrial union surpass the trade union as forms of organization. This fact is evident that in that in our time the most powerful strikes are either those conducted informally — NYC Transit Strike ’05, French Labor Protests ’06, and the Oaxaca Protests ’06 — and those strikes coordinated by industrial unions and workers’ parties but because of their minute size informal strikes take the precedent.

Council communists are a branch of Marxists. Their key positions are support of workers’ councils, rejection of the trade unionism, and opposition to wars of national liberation.

Luxemburg was not a council communist though she played an important role in the development of the movement. She formulated the basic tenets of council communism but she also emphasized the need for a communist party that acts as the most conscious sect of the working class that works within the existing political forms of the working class in order to give the proletarian movement a progressive content.

Pannekoek rejected all parties and emphasized the necessity of creating workers’ councils.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ That rejection, if held by every single council communist today, is exactly why their movement and ideology are an infantile disorder.

On the other hand, I did state in other threads my rejection of trade unionism, and the setting up of workers' councils as their replacement. Unions don't run Venezuela's recovered factories: workers' councils do. However, that replacement CANNOT come about without what "Red Rosa" said, but with more "Leninist" overtones.

[Jitsu]

While workers councils certainly play a role to a greater or lesser extent in Authoritarian Vanguard regimes like the USSR and Maoist China, and also in Cuba, the workers councils are not the primary seat of political power the way they would be in Council Communist and other Libertarian Communist traditions. They reject "The dictatorship of the Vanguard".

[Leo]

Pannekoek rejected all parties and emphasized the necessity of creating workers’ councils.

Well, to be fair, Pannekoek rejected the party after the Stalinist counter-revolution. He defended the party when in 1920s. He was a leading member of the Socialist Party of Netherlands, one of the most respected people in the Second International being the only scientist in an organization defending "scientific socialism", he was among the founders of the Communist Party of Netherlands and later on he was among the founders of the Communist Workers Party of Netherlands. He rejected the party after he was disillusioned by the Stalinist counter-revolution.

[Jitsu]

Originally posted by Leo [email protected] 14, 2007 09:12 pm

Pannekoek rejected all parties and emphasized the necessity of creating workers’ councils.

Well, to be fair, Pannekoek rejected the party after the Stalinist counter-revolution. He defended the party when in 1920s. He was a leading member of the Socialist Party of Netherlands, one of the most respected people in the Second International being the only scientist in an organization defending "scientific socialism", he was among the founders of the Communist Party of Netherlands and later on he was among the founders of the Communist Workers Party of Netherlands. He rejected the party after he was disillusioned by the Stalinist counter-revolution.
A similar story is true for Kropotkin.

[Leo]

In what sense? Although Pannekoek rejected the party, he never crossed the class-line and he never supporter the bourgeoisie. Kropotkin on the other hand, was the Kautsky of anarchism, he supported the Russian bourgeoisie during the World War 1, he even became an adviser of the Kerensky government and was offered to the ministry of education.

[TheGreenWeeWee]

Actually, I understand that trade unionism tries to be a brotherhood between workers and capitalist. Industrial Unionism state that there is no such relation can exist. I can't understand why Leninist still insist that they have a right to rule. No one wants a vanguard anymore. Leninist can advise but they should never force their viewpoint on workers and respect differing views that exist.

[Jitsu]

I cant speak for Kropotkins early history, but the Leninist/Stalinist/Maoist governments turned a lot of prominent socialists and Communists off to the "Dictatorship of the Vanguard", and many of them became Libertarian Communists as a direct result of this abuse of power.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14, 2007 09:28 pm
I can't understand why Leninist still insist that they have a right to rule. No one wants a vanguard anymore. Leninist can advise but they should never force their viewpoint on workers and respect differing views that exist.
What the hell are you babbling about? "Leninists" have NEVER insisted on such illusory "rights" to rule. On your second point, nobody wants a vanguard because they've been hegemonized into thinking that way; only a vanguard (and an international socialist party (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=65355&st=0&#entry1292299122) at that) can provide proper counter-hegemonic efforts. On your third point, the respect for "differing views" is a key tenet of democratic centralism.

Many of you here just don't like to stomach the idea of "unity in action" that should go with all the "freedom of discussion."

[Jitsu]

You cannot abolish class society and create a new ruling class of Vanguards at the same time.

You have to choose between one or the other. Class society with a dictatorship of the Vanguard, or the abolition of class society in its entirety.

If you refuse to abolish class society, then at least be honest with yourself and with others.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14, 2007 09:53 pm
You cannot abolish class society and create a new ruling class of Vanguards at the same time
Do I hear the parecon reformist Michael Albert (http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=4635)?

[Jitsu]

Parecon is interesting enough, and preferable to what we have now, but honestly it is not my first choice. Those are my own words, and I didnt borrow them from anybody. If somebody else happened to have used them, it must be because they are brilliant.

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by Viva [email protected] 14, 2007 12:27 am
Did Marx himself mention "workers councils" and how they would run? Also, what are the differences between Council Communism and Marxism? At the surface, they seem the same to me. How do council communists like Luxemburg and Pannekoek differ from Marxists (non-leninists/trostkyists)?
Rosa Luxemburg was not a Council Communist. If for no other reasons, then just because Council Communism only came into being after she was murdered.

Luís Henrique

[TheGreenWeeWee]

Hammer wrote: What the hell are you babbling about? "Leninists" have NEVER insisted on such illusory "rights" to rule. On your second point, nobody wants a vanguard because they've been hegemonized into thinking that way; only a vanguard (and an international socialist party at that) can provide proper counter-hegemonic efforts. On your third point, the respect for "differing views" is a key tenet of democratic centralism.

A key tenet? Why was there an "iron and bamboo curtain"? Surely if democratic tenet was in existance then the population of workers would have had no fear in expressing their likes or dislikes. What you present is just the "party line" that the vanguard is the only way or no way at all. I mean look at the track record of vanguardism in the Soviet Union. It sucked big time. That in itself is a good reason for rejection.

Many of you here just don't like to stomach the idea of "unity in action" that should go with all the "freedom of discussion."

Freedom of discussion or freedom from discussion or criticism? I am not quite sure what "unity in action" means. I could imagine.

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by Viva [email protected] 14, 2007 12:27 am
Did Marx himself mention "workers councils"...?

Close.

Workers' councils were a practical (not a theoretical) discovery, thus, it took theoreticians a very long time to see their potential, role and essentials. Lenin and the Bolsheviks certanly did not learn anything from the 1905 experience. Later, in 1917, soviets and committees were used only as a transitional factor, with aim of bringing the "proletarian party" to asumption of state power.

Now, as for Marx, he spoke of two things close to workers' councils:

“...From the first moment of victory, mistrust must be directed no longer against the conquered reactionary parties, but against the workers’ previous allies, against the party that wishes to exploit the common victory for itself alone... The workers must put themselves at the command not of the State authority but of the revolutionary community councils which the workers will have managed to get adopted... Arms and ammunition must not be surrendered on any pretext.” (K. Marx & F. Engels, Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League, 1850)

“...all France organised into self-working and self-governing communes ... the suffrage for the national representation not a matter of sleight-of-hand for an all-powerful government, but the deliberate expression of organised communes, the state functions reduced to a few functions for general national purposes.

Such is the Commune — the political form of the social emancipation, of the liberation of labour from the usurpations (slave-holding) of the monopolists of the means of labour, created by the labourers themselves or forming the gift of nature. As the state machinery and parliamentarism are not the real life of the ruling classes, but only the organised general organs of their dominion, so the Commune is not the social movement of the working class and therefore of a general regeneration of mankind, but the organised means of action...” (K. Marx, Draft for the Civil War in France, 1871)

“...the rural communes of every district were to administer their common affairs by an assembly of delegates in the central town, and these district assemblies were again to send deputies to the national delegation in Paris, each delegate to be revocable and bound by the mandat impératif...” (K. Marx, Civil War in France, 1871)

[RedLenin]

Lenin and the Bolsheviks certanly did not learn anything from the 1905 experience.
Perhaps you should read Lenin and Trotsky? They certainly learned a lot from the 1905 revolution.


soviets and committees were used only as a transitional factor, with aim of bringing the "proletarian party" to asumption of state power.
At first the soviets were led by the Mensheviks and SR's. The soviets could easily have taken power at this time but they did not. Under the leadership of the Mensheviks and SR's the soviets would have been reduced to talking bodies, incorporated into Kerensky's regime, and would have eventually disapeared altogether. It was only under the leadership of the Bolsheviks that the soviets became organs of proletarian power.

[Rawthentic]

Yeah..but not for very long at all.

[Lamanov]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 03:39 pm
Perhaps you should read Lenin and Trotsky? They certainly learned a lot from the 1905 revolution.

No, they did not. It was only left up to Trotsky to assert the obvious: a radical workers' action, a social change led by the proletariat, if you will, was possible. Everything else (the soviet experience and wildcat/general strike action - two most important experiences) were left unnoticed by the Bolsheviks.


Under the leadership of the Mensheviks and SR's the soviets would have been reduced to talking bodies, incorporated into Kerensky's regime, and would have eventually disapeared altogether.

Precisely what happened to them durring the New Course and War communism.


It was only under the leadership of the Bolsheviks that the soviets became organs of proletarian power.

Below the power of the allmighty Bolshevik government, once elected in the critical situation and remained non-revocable.

[Janus]

If for no other reasons, then just because Council Communism only came into being after she was murdered.
Right, which would make her one of the pioneers of council communism along with Pannekoek and Liebknecht.

[Leo]

Originally posted by Luis
Rosa Luxemburg was not a Council Communist. If for no other reasons, then just because Council Communism only came into being after she was murdered.

No offense but I find your efforts trying to present this as a huge council communist conspiracy which is trying to make the public think that Rosa Luxemburg was a council communist (and I think you actually used an expression like "that's what they want us to think"!) laughable.

[syndicat]

A problem i have with the term "workers council" is that it is ambiguous. it has been used to refer to a variety of different things. after world war I, the radicals (socialists and anarcho-syndicalists) in Turin, Italy built a shop stewards movement based on assemblies and elected councils of stewards in the workplace. They called them "workers councils", but they were very different than the Russian soviets. They were more like the factory committee movement in the Russian revolution.

Even in the Russian revolution there were different kinds of soviets formed. in the big cities, the soviets were initiated by professional class ("intelligentsia") cadres of the left parties, Mensheviks, SRs, Popular Socialist Party (Kerensky's party). The three main leaders of the St. Petersburg soviet initially were members of the Russian parliament. Moreover, they created very hierarchical bodies with power concentrated into the executive committees. The plenary sessions were mainly just talking shops. Moreover, they didn't have the principle that the delegates elected from a workplace had to work there. On the contrary, they allowed electioneering in which professional class people would run for election to represent some factory. This is how leaders like Trotsky and Martov got elected. This is described by Pete Rachlef in his essay "Soviets and Factory Committees in the Russian Revolution":

http://www.geocities.com/~johngray/raclef.htm

This happened in part because, as Sam Farber points out in his book "Before Stalinism", Russian marxism didn't have a tradition of advocating participatory democracy -- both Mensheviks and Bolsheviks. Their conception of "worker power" was the election of leaders to run things. They didn't have a conception in which the workers would themselves make the decisions.

It was because of this lack of control over the soviets that the workers formed the factory committee movement in St. Petersburg as a completely separate movement to deal with the issues they faced at work, because neither the highly centralized trade unions (basically just appendages of the parties) nor the soviets were really controlled by them.

But there was another type of soviet formed in the Russian revolution. A good example is the Kronstadt soviet of 1917. This is described in much concrete detail by Israel Getzler in his book Kronstadt 1917-21. In Kronstadt, there were regular assemblies of the ship crews, in the army units, and in the workplaces. These elected their shop committee to carry out the decisions of the people there. They elected, and exertcized close vigilance, over their delegate to the soviet. Nobody was allowed to be elected to the soviet from an assembly if they didn't work there -- this was different than the Moscow and St. Petersburg soviets. The plenary sessions of the soviet were the real decision-making bodies. The issues were hammered out and decided there. Power was concentrated in the executive committee. The exeuctive committtee was there only to ensure that the decisions of the soviet were carried out. This type of soviet was sometimes called a "non-party" soviet, altho that name is misleading. The parties had caucuses of their members within the Kronstadt soviet. However, party leaders of the intelligentsia were not allowed to run for election from places they didn't work, and power wasn't concentrated in the hands of party leaders at the top.

But neither the Mensheviks nor the Bolsheviks obtained a majority in the Kronstadt soviet. The largest political tendency in the Kronstadt soviet was the Union of Maximalists, an anti-parliamentary libertarian socialist group. In Kronstadt and elsewhere during the Russian revolution, the maximalists were in an alliance with the Russian syndicalists. At the time of the October, 1917 revolution, the maximalist/syndicalist alliance, which supported the transfer of power from the priovisional government to the soviets, was in control of the Kronstadt soviet.

But it would not be accurate to say that the working class ever really was in power in Russia. Once the Bolsheviks obtained a temporary majority in the Congress of Soviets in October, 1917, they set up a new government committee, Sovnarkom, and appointed a central planning committee, Vesenkha, made up of appointees from above, to plan the economy from above. After the merger of the Congress of Soviets with the Peasant Congress in November, the Bolsheviks were forced into a coalition government with the Left SRs for awhile, due to the Left SRs being the dominant tendency in the peasant congress. But the Left SR commissar of justice, nominally in charge of police and courts, was never able to get control of the Cheka. The Cheka only answered to the central committee of the Bolshevik Party, which was a violation of the soviet principle. No new elections to soviets occurred after Oct 1917 until the spring of 1918. At that time the Bolsheviks lost most of the elections and were in danger of being voted out of office. Both the syndicalists and Left Mensheviks were gaining on the Bolsheviks. The Bolshevik party's response was to overthrow by violence the new soviets, replacing them with a party-controlled Military Revolutionary Committee, or else they just refused to recognize the results of the elections.

Moreover, the whole idea of centralizing control over the economy in a central planning apparatus tends to lead to creation of a managerial hierarchy. Thus by the spring of 1918 Trotsky was beating the drum for one-man management. By that time there were about 400 enterprises that had been expropriated, most of them on the initative of the workers, and these were being run by the shop committees, elected by the workers. But by the end of 1920 these were all gone, and one-man management had been imposed throughout the Russian economy. By that time the civil war was over and workers were getting frustrated that the promises of worker power had not been fulfilled. That was why the push by a number of Bolshevik leaders like Bukharin, Shlyapnikov, Kollantai for "industrial democracy" -- election of the industrial management boards and the national planning board by the union members -- at the 10th party congress in Mar 1921. But this was denounced by Lenin as an "anarchist and syndicalist deviation". He objected because the vanguard would then not be in power because 90 percent of the union members were not party members.

Lenin's theory of the vanguard party assumes that a minority is to be managers of the process of change and that this group then empowers itself, using the mass movement only as the battering ram and trampoline to jump itself into power. Since the fate of socialism crucially depends on the vanguard being in control, this is why, i think, the Bolsheviks moved to stay in power against the votes of the workers and to oppose industrial democracy. But, then, this makes their theory inconsistent with Marx's principle that "the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves." Either the workers gain power or the vanguard party does. It can't be both.

Various aspects of Leninist programmatic and strategic commitments tend to lead to the consolidation of a new managerialist or coordinatorist mode of production. Central planning and the tendency of this to lead to a managerial hierarchy of one-man managers, the emphasis upon the "experts of revolutionary theory" being in control and managing the process of change -- a form of meritocratic ideology, the re-creation of a top-down hierarchical army controlled by the party leaders, the emphasis upon capturing control of a state and then using the state hierarchy as the means to implement one's program.

Once power is concentrated this way, they are not going to give it up. To say that because they have socialist ideas they will eventually contruct a system of worker power is a form of idealism. Ruling classes don't give up their power voluntarily. What will happen is that the "socialists" will prefer an interpretation of "socialism" that rationalizes their hold on power.

[syndicat]

hammer:
"Leninists" have NEVER insisted on such illusory "rights" to rule.

at the 10th party congress of the Communist Party of Soviet Union in 1921 Trotsky said that the party has a "birthright to rule" that takes "precedence over the passing whims of the workers democracy". this was during the debate over the workers opposition proposal for industrial democracy.

[Whitten]

Originally posted by [email protected] 03, 2007 07:34 pm
hammer:
"Leninists" have NEVER insisted on such illusory "rights" to rule.

at the 10th party congress of the Communist Party of Soviet Union in 1921 Trotsky said that the party has a "birthright to rule" that takes "precedence over the passing whims of the workers democracy". this was during the debate over the workers opposition proposal for industrial democracy.
A paraphrased quote from Trotsky doesn't prove anything about "leninists", it just one of many examples of how Trotsky was an elitest wanna-be dictator.