How would post-revolutionary elections be held?

[Die Neue Zeit]

While I've discussed a proposed tricameral system of soviets, workplace committees, and communal councils (http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=65207&view=findpost&p=1292296528), I found this particular episode of late Soviet electoral history intriguing:

Despite the party's historic control over local elections--from the nomination of candidates to their unopposed elections--the citizens used the elections to make public their concerns. They sometimes used the furnished paper ballots to write requests for particular public services. For example, the 1985 elections to an Omsk soviet included instructions to move the airfield farther from the city center, construct a new music center, and build parking facilities for invalids. Subsequently, the Omsk soviet took steps to provide these services, all of which had the approval of the relevant party authorities. Thus, in this instance, citizen requests that were reconciled with the interests of the party apparatus. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_democracy)

That even the Stalinist era legalized the constructive spoiling of ballots, which the bourgeois states today forbid (not to mention limiting access to increasingly inept local politicians)...

Anyhow, would this kind of petition activity be allowed? Moreover, would it be necessary, given real workers' power of immediate recall?

[ComradeR]

I would say something like this is absolutely necessary, community (and national) decisions need to be made by the people via petitions like this (which imo would be a very effective way on a regional and national level) and through their local soviet.

[Enragé]

something like this should be the structure of post-revolutionary society

"Among the issues taken up at the congress was the CNT's vision for what kind of society it wanted to create, which it called "libertarian communism." The vision document adopted by the Zaragoza congress attempted to synthesize the communalist anarchist and libertarian syndicalist influences on Spanish Left-libertarian thinking about post-capitalist society.

A dual structure of governance for the society was envisioned, based on both workplace assemblies and assemblies of residents in villages or neighborhoods. The workplace assemblies would elect workplace councils and be linked into national industrial federations, to manage the various industries.

Strong emphasis was placed on the "free municipality" and its autonomy, reflecting the communalist anarchist influence. This would be an institution rooted in assemblies of the residents in villages or urban neighborhoods. In a large city, such as Barcelona, the assemblies would elect the Municipal Council. The members of the council would continue to work a regular job in social production, and important issues would be referred back to the base assemblies for decision.

In the version of social planning proposed by Diego Abad de Santillan(9), the various self-managing national industrial federations would be linked into an Economics Council, as a coordinating body. But the actual plans were to be developed by regional and national congresses of delegates from the industrial federations, with the help of support staff. This is, in effect, a democratic, syndicalist version of central planning.

The Zaragoza congress vision document differs from Abad de Santillan's proposal by adding the structure of residential assemblies and geographic federations of these as the expression of political self-rule but also as the channel for consumer input, with responsibility for articulating proposals for public goods such as health care, media, town beautification, and housing. But how exactly would consumer input be plugged into the system of social planning? In fact the Zaragoza document doesn't say. Traditional anarchism lacked a concept of participatory planning(10) - interactive development of a social plan through consumer/worker negotiation.

The Zaragoza document provided for the linking of the free municipalities into regional and national People's Congresses. In effect, this provided for local, regional and national legislatures. The document also envisions a "People's Militia" - in other words, an army - as a means of defense of the new social order (11). A structure that can make rules for a society and defend its rule-making authority with military force is in fact a polity, a form of government. If a Left-libertarian polity isn't a state, then a distinction is needed between a polity (or structure of governance) and a state. Traditional anarchist writing on this subject was not very clear.

Peter Kropotkin's attempt to make this distinction leads towards the emphasis on local autonomy and decentralization characteristic of Spanish communalist anarchism: Because "the State was established for the precise purpose of imposing the rule of" dominating classes, a move towards socialization of the economy and "liberating labor" requires "a new form of political organization" that is "more popular, more decentralized, and nearer to the folk-mote self-government" than "representative government," the type of state characteristic of capitalism, for Kropotkin(12).
."

and


"Finally, at a national plenary of the CNT on September 3rd, at the insistence of the regional delegation from Catalonia, the CNT decided to propose the formation of a revolutionary labor government to replace the national Popular Front government: a National Defense Council (Junta Nacional de Defensa) made up of seven delegates of the UGT and seven of the CNT, with Largo Caballero as president(25). The national council would be part of a federalist system with regional Councils of Defense. The authority of the councils would be limited to the social self-defense function - "people's courts," police, a unified People's Militia. The Defense Councils would have no authority to intervene in the management of industry; industries would be managed by the workers. A Russian agent in Spain wrote to the Soviet authorities: "The thought of creating such a council finds a wide response even among the masses that are not under the anarchists' influence."(27) The CNT proposed a unified People's Militia that would be controlled by "joint CNT-UGT commissions."(26) Organized labor would have a monopoly of armed power in Spain.

The CNT's timing was off, however. For the first six weeks after the military coup, ineffective liberals presided over the government in Madrid. By early September, however, Largo Caballero, executive secretary of the UGT, had just been made prime minister. He had said publicly that the revolution had to be put on hold to defeat the fascist army. Marcel Rosenberg, the Soviet ambassador, warned Caballero that the CNT proposal would destroy the "international legitimacy" of the Spanish Republic. Manuel Azaña, President of the Republic, threatened to resign. To placate the Communists, CNT representatives met with the Central Committee of the PCE and assured them that they would still be represented via their trade union cadres in the UGT."

Disregard the stuff about the particular spanish political situation, but i think that the structure outlined here for the new "state"/confederation would be a good starting point post revolution. Dont you think?

(btw both quotes were taken from http://libcom.org/library/workers-power-an...ion-tom-wetzel) (http://libcom.org/library/workers-power-and-the-spanish-revolution-tom-wetzel))

[Q]

Originally posted by [email protected] 22, 2007 03:56 pm
Disregard the stuff about the particular spanish political situation, but i think that the structure outlined here for the new "state"/confederation would be a good starting point post revolution. Dont you think?
It sounds pretty much exactly the way like a soviet democracy would work, so yeah, I completely agree.

[Enragé]

Originally posted by Q-collective+October 23, 2007 06:42 am--> (Q-collective @ October 23, 2007 06:42 am)
[email protected] 22, 2007 03:56 pm
Disregard the stuff about the particular spanish political situation, but i think that the structure outlined here for the new "state"/confederation would be a good starting point post revolution. Dont you think?
It sounds pretty much exactly the way like a soviet democracy would work, so yeah, I completely agree. [/b]
i never said it didnt ^^

Good soviet democracy = Good confederative anarchist decision making and vice versa

so anarchists and trots, cut the crap and unite :P

[blackstone]

As stated earlier, a dual structure of governance for society is needed. This post revolutionary society will be based on both workplace organizations and assemblies of residential or community organizations.

In a decentralized economy utilizing participatory planning, worker and consumer or neighborhood councils negotiate and revise their proposals for what they intend to produce and consume.

These plans include, private consumption such as cement for Jose to fix his house or collective consumption such as repaving Main St or constructing a new music center.

Through this system of requests, proposals, rejections and amendments, a social plan is constructed for the whole economy due to each neighborhood's plan being aggregated into the plan for the whole county, state, region and so on.

So we see here workers' and consumers' councils allowing ordinary citizens to make decisions about production in their workplaces and about their private and collective consumption.

Like in Cuba, there will be regular meetings in which the people from a certain area can raise concerns and get answers from their representatives.

[Rawthentic]

These plans include, private consumption such as cement for Jose to fix his house or collective consumption such as repaving Main St or constructing a new music center.
Thanks for the cement, lol. ;)

[blackstone]

Originally posted by Live for the [email protected] 25, 2007 10:32 pm

These plans include, private consumption such as cement for Jose to fix his house or collective consumption such as repaving Main St or constructing a new music center.
Thanks for the cement, lol. ;)
I dunno, CompañeroDeLibertad mentioned that as a possible resident concern and i mentioned it again to show how it can possibly me handled. In all actuality, he probably won't have to raise that concern at a meeting but buy the cement himself at a Home Depot type establishment.