Selling out

I've heard from you guys and specifically Devrim mention of how you reject anarcho-syndicalist uninos because ultimately they wind up becoming absorbed into capitalism, functioning as ordinary 'yellow' unions and capitulating to the state and the bourgeoisie.

In place you call for nothing more than spontaneous workers organisation into workers councils which you believe will sort of happen anyway.

Question: How will the workers know to form such councils, when and in what manner?

And also, what would stop these spontaneous revolts of workers from selling out, accepting bourgeois payouts and 'bribes', basically not going as far as to destroy capitalism altogether? Surely if the workers are organising just like that, in their own organisations, they are more suspectible to being tricked or not going all the way to revolution than an anarchist union is, one which has spent years of struggle in which workers educate themselves, create links and understand they have to completely destroy capitalism?

Basically - surely workers in spontaneous, un ideologically driven revolt will sell out again as they did in May 68, Russia 1905, etc?

I've heard from you guys and specifically Devrim mention of how you reject anarcho-syndicalist unions because ultimately they wind up becoming absorbed into capitalism, functioning as ordinary 'yellow' unions and capitulating to the state and the bourgeoisie.

In place you call for nothing more than spontaneous workers organisation into workers councils which you believe will sort of happen anyway.

That's a fair description of our position, but it needs a little explanation. When capitalism was in its epoch of ascendancy (pre-WW1) capitalism was capable of granting lasting reforms, so workers we able to successfully organise permanently on both the economic level (trade unions) and political level (mass social-democratic parties).

When capitalism became decadent the conditions under which the workers struggled changed profoundly. On the economic level, there was much fiercer competition between capitals, and each one was pushed to attack the living and working conditions of workers in a much more permanent manner. The era of long-lasting reforms was over. On the political level, the development of state capitalism had seen parliament completely subordinated to the executive, and the social-democratic parties implicated in the support for WW1. The period of mass parties and participation in elections was over.

So, our position on the unions isn't a policy we've made up just because we don't like them. There isn't a personal, subjective choice to make. There aren't good and bad unions -- the objective conditions are imposed by the very character of capitalist society. The union form is historically out-dated.

This article from IR 23 was published as an appendix to the new edition of our pamphlet 'The Trade Unions Against the Working Class'. The theory of decadence is the red-thread running through the vast majority of our positions.

Question: How will the workers know to form such councils, when and in what manner?

This is linked to the above point. The workers' councils are the form of organisation that is in tune with the prevailing historic conditions. Who told the workers in Russia in 1905 to form soviets? Who told the workers in Poland in 1981 to form workers' councils? Not revolutionaries.

Again, we don't 'call' for workers' councils out of a policy choice -- we're just in favour of the form that is aligned to contemporary historic conditions, and as demonstrated by the experience of the workers' movement in the period of capitalism's decadence.

How would the workers know what to do, when and how? Again, the very conditions they are struggling in would lead them in that direction. A dispute starts in a workplace over a trivial matter. A mass meeting is held that elects a strike committee. The same thing happens in workplaces thoughout a town, district and region. Workers seek solidarity from other workplaces. Delegates of the strike committees meet together in a council/soviet... etc. etc. Luxemburg's pamphlet on the Mass Strike is very good on this question.

And also, what would stop these spontaneous revolts of workers from selling out, accepting bourgeois payouts and 'bribes', basically not going as far as to destroy capitalism altogether?

Nothing. That's why the working class needs a political party to wage a political struggle inside and outside the workers' councils. We are in favour of such a world-wide communist party.

Basically - surely workers in spontaneous, un ideologically driven revolt will sell out again as they did in May 68, Russia 1905, etc?

We're not in favour of an 'un-ideological' revolt. The revolution has to be fought at the ideological level -- consciousness is the key to success -- but the union form (either trade, syndicalist, or anarcho-syndicalist) isn't the vehicle for this struggle. Workers' councils are primarily political weapons -- the economic aspect will become increasingly secondary as the struggle proceeds to a situation of dual-power and then insurrection.

Why did the CNT end up supporting the Spanish Republic in 1936? And then participating in the Liberation of Paris from the Nazis?
http://libcom.org/history/1943-1944-...ation-of-paris

What's to stop an anarcho-syndicalist union selling out (again)?

double-post

Who told the workers in Russia in 1905 to form soviets? Who told the workers in Poland in 1981 to form workers' councils? Not revolutionaries...consciousness is the key to success...

Comrade Beltov,

I agree with most of the points you have made. Gramsci used to make the distinction between a war of position (a movement for the working class to begin acting in its own interest, or to gain consciousness) and a war of maneuver (the actual insurrection against capitalism).

Since I live in the United States, culturally I am most familiar with the working class in the US. I will therefore use the American proletariat for an example. When I was a kid in grade school, group work was a commonly assigned activity. Needless to say the idea of a "council" was never the model followed in these groups.

The point I am trying to make is, the dominate culture in American society is the culture of the ruling class. Their institutions, their ideologies are so embedded in the minds of individual workers that I find it hard to believe that the American worker will unconsciously form workers councils in a revolutionary situation.

With that said, shouldn't we as revolutionaries do more to promote these types of structures during the war of position (to use the same term as Gramsci) so that when a revolutionary situation does arise, workers will be more likely to gravitate towards councils than messianic leaders?

Or would that be off the class terrain?

PS - By the way I forgot to make the point that the RSDLP had gone lengths and lengths to start study groups and circles of political discussion. These circles can be traced back as far as 1861. Theres no doubt in my mind that there was a mutually understood codes of behavior, or even a means to regulating discussion within these circles. Do you not see it plausible that the Russian soviets could have been founded in this tradition? If you think that it is plausible, than contrary to what youve said, revolutionaries could have been partially responsible for the council form..

The point I am trying to make is, the dominate culture in American society is the culture of the ruling class. Their institutions, their ideologies are so embedded in the minds of individual workers that I find it hard to believe that the American worker will unconsciously form workers councils in a revolutionary situation.

You could, of course, say this about workers at many points in time. For example, workers cheered in the streets in Germany in 1914 when war was declared. Four years later they were engaged in an insurrectional struggle against the war. In the right conditions consciousness can evolve incredibly rapidly.

And workers don't form councils "unconsciously". For this to happen, a certain level of class consciousness (if only the recognition that workers have to link up and act as a class!) has to have developed. Revolutionaries obviously played a role in this general process but no revolutionary said to the workers that councils would be a good idea. In fact, most revolutionaries were surprised and even suspicious of the first appearance of the council form.

With that said, shouldn't we as revolutionaries do more to promote these types of structures during the war of position (to use the same term as Gramsci) so that when a revolutionary situation does arise, workers will be more likely to gravitate towards councils than messianic leaders? Or would that be off the class terrain?

Obviously, in a general sense, we have to point to the council form as being the ultimate synthesis of the class struggle but councils can only be formed in very specific historical circumstances: a revolutionary situation. In specific struggles we need to point out tactics that will fulfill the needs of the struggle. Generally, this is to extend the struggle to other workers, etc. There is nothing wrong with this.

What would be "off the class terrain" is to advocate methods in direct opposition to the needs of the struggle, like forming a union etc.

And workers don't form councils "unconsciously". For this to happen, a certain level of class consciousness (if only the recognition that workers have to link up and act as a class!) has to have developed. Revolutionaries obviously played a role in this general process but no revolutionary said to the workers that councils would be a good idea. In fact, most revolutionaries were surprised and even suspicious of the first appearance of the council form.

Of course workers dont form councils uncounsciously..sorry for the sarcasm but that was my point..

Regardless of where the idea of councils originally came from and regardless of the stance of communists at the time..Do you think that in future struggles left communists will be actively advocating the council form on the shop floor..or...in a revolutionary situation in general?

There will be dialogue obviously..

We do advocate the 'council form' today in a sense - we call for struggles to be controlled by assemblies and revocable strike committees which are embryos of the future councils.

For the ICC, this isn't an absolute principle: in some jobs it's more or less compulsory to be in a union, whether because of closed shops (less so than formerly) or other pressures, often coming from the bosses. But as a general rule we don't join the union because it makes it easier to explain the communist position from an 'independent' standpoint.

Some times workers are forced to join a union in the same way they are forced to say take a mortgage or a loan. Not a big issue for left communists .............
Rowntree

Do you guys dislike the IWW too?

Isn't this similar to the debate between Monatte and Malatesta in the 1907 Anarchist congress in Amsterdam?


Link

"Do you guys dislike the IWW too?"

Not a question of dislike. the IWW was once a very important organisation of the proletariat, but it belongs to a different era.

For an in-depth analysis:
http://en.internationalism.org/ir/124_iww

http://en.internationalism.org/ir/125-iww

Couldn't have put it better.....

Unions selling out the workers are very much prevalent in the peripheries...whether they are from the right or left. In the philippines for example, there are many instances that these maladies of selling the workers resulted in corruption within the union bureacracy especially in the higher ups of the echelon. These happens because of their main line of negotiations with the bosses.

Unions today are very much different from the 19th century because of the change character of world capitalism (ie from ascendant to decadent). They are not anymore organizations of struggles of the working class but instruments of the state to police the workers inside the factories.