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workers' council

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A workers' council is the phenomenon where a single place of work, such as a factory, school, or farm, is controlled collectively by the workers of that workplace, through the core principle of temporary and instantly revocable delegates.

In a system with temporary and instantly revocable delegates, workers deliberate on what is their agenda and what are their needs, and mandate a temporary delegate to divulge and pursue them. The temporary delegates are elected among the workers themselves, can be instantly revoked if they betray their mandate, and are supposed to change frequently. There are no managers and all the decision power and the organization is based on the delegates system. On a larger scale, a group of delegates may in turn elect an higher delegate to pursue their mandate, and so on till the top delegates running the industrial system of a state. In such a system decision power raises bottom-up from the agendas of the workers themselves, and there is not a decision imposition from the top, as it would happen in the case of a power seizure by a supposedly revolutionary party.

Historical examples[edit]

Several times in modern history the idea of Workers' councils has been attributed to similar forms of organization, although in most cases the workers didn't actually have full power control, and were subdued to some external authority. Examples include Russia in 1905 and 1917, where the councils were called "soviets,"[1] Germany during 1918 (Räte), Turin, Italy during 1919-1920, rural Ireland during 1920-1921, China during 1926-1927, Spain during 1936, Hungary during 1956, France during 1968, Chile in 1973 (cordones), Iran during 1978-1979 (shoras[2]), and from at the latest 2002 to the present in Venezuela[3].

For Leninism workers' councils did not mean that working people had the right to decide themselves about the fundamental matters relating to production; for Leninism workers' control was rather a slogan to be used for manipulatory purposes in specific and very limited historical contexts.[1] On March 1917, the Petrograd Soviet was actually against the workers, which protested with strikes its deliberations. On March 8, the Menshevik Rabochaia Gazeta even claimed that the strikers were discrediting the soviet by not obeying it.[4] Despite Lenin declarations that "the workers must demand the immediate establishment of genuine control, to be exercized by the workers themselves", on May 30, the Menshevik minister of labor, Skobolev, pledged to not give the control of industry to the workers but instead to the state: "The transfer of enterprises into the hands of the people will not at the present time assist the revolution [...] The regulation and control of industry is not a matter for a particular class. It is a task for the state. Upon the individual class, especially the working class, lies the responsibility for helping the state in its organizational work."[4][5]

Organization details[edit]

Councils operate on the principle of recallable delegates. This means that elected delegates may be recalled at any time through a vote in a form of impeachment. Recall of management committee members, specialist professionals such as engineers, and delegates to higher councils was observed in the Central Workers Council of Greater Budapest during 1956, where delegates were removed for industrial, organisational and political reasons.

Workers' councils combine to elect higher bodies for coordinating between one another. This means that the upper councils are not superior to the lower councils, but are instead built from and operated by them. The national council would therefore have delegates from every city in the country. Their nature means that workers' councils do away with traditional centralized governments and instead give the power directly to the people. This type of democratic order is called council democracy. The Central Workers Council of Greater Budapest occupied this role in Hungary between late October and early January 1956, where it was formed from local factory committees.

Councils against unions and Stalinists[edit]

A workers' council is a deliberative assembly, composed of working class members, intended to institute workers' self-management or workers' control. Unlike a trade union, in a workers' council the workers are assumed to be in actual control of the workplace, rather than merely negotiating with employers through collective bargaining. They are a form of "workplace democracy."

Marxists and some anarchists believe that workers' councils (communes) embody the fundamental principles of socialism, such as workers' control over production and distribution. Indeed, some have described this as "socialism from below," which they counterpose against what they see as "socialism from above" endorsed by Stalinism or (in the anarchist view) Leninism. According to this view, socialism from above is carried out by a centralized state run by an elite bureaucratic apparatus, whereas socialism from below represents the self-administration and self-rule of the working class.

Some left communists (particularly council communists) and anarchists support a council-based society; believing that only the workers themselves can spark the revolution and so workers' councils will be the foundation of the revolution. There are also Leninists (for example the International Socialist Tendency and its offshoots) who advocate a council-based society[6], but maintain that workers' councils cannot carry out a revolution without the leadership of a vanguard party[7].

During May 68 ( "The largest general strike that ever stopped the economy of an advanced industrial country, and the first wildcat general strike in history" ), the Situationists, against the unions and the Communist Party that were starting to side with the de Gaulle government to contain the revolt, will call for the formation of workers' councils to take control of the factories, expelling union leaders and left-wing bureaucrats, in order to keep the power in the hands of the workers with direct democracy.[8]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Maurice Brinton, pseud. (Christopher Agamemnon Pallis). The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control. (Orig: Solidarity UK, London, 1970), The Bolsheviks and Workers' Control introduction
  2. ↑ Poya, Maryam [1987] (2002). "IRAN 1979: Long live the Revolution! ... Long Live Islam?" Colin Barker Revolutionary Rehearsals, p. 143–9, Chicago: Haymarket Books.
  3. ↑ Venezuela’s Co-Managed Inveval: Surviving in a Sea of Capitalism
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Tony Cliff Lenin 2 Chapter 12 Lenin and Workers’ Control, section The Rise of Factory Committees
  5. ↑ Amosov et al. (1927) Oktiabrskaia Revoliutsiia i Fazavkomy, vol.1, p.83. (published in Moscow)
  6. ↑ Molyneux, John [1987] (2003). The Future Socialist Society, p. 5–6, Haymarket Books. "... the core institutions of the new state will be ... the network of workers' councils."
  7. ↑ Molyneux, John [1978] (2003). Marxism and the Party, p. 79, Haymarket Books. "Only with the growth of the Bolsheviks into a mass party and with the emergence of a Bolshevik majority in the soviets were these embryos of workers' state power able to fulfil their potentiality."
  8. ↑ The Beginning of an Era, from Situationist International No 12 (September 1969). Translated by Ken Knabb.

External links[edit]

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