the communist revolution and the necessity of workers’ self-management

by Chris Kane

If co-operative production is not to remain a sham and a snare; if it is to supersede the capitalist system; if united co-operative societies are to regulate national production upon a common plan, thus taking it under their own control, and putting an end to the constant anarchy and periodical convulsions which are the fatality of capitalist production – what else, gentlemen, would it be but communism, “possible” communism?

Karl Marx, The Civil War in France

The communist revolution is fundamentally different from the process imagined by those who see the capturing of Parliament or a coup d’état by an elitist party as an end in itself.  Marx, as is now well known, emphasised the self-emancipation of the working class: in 1871, amongst the conclusions he drew from the experience of the Paris Commune, he said that:  1. we cannot lay hold of the existing state machinery, 2. the commune was the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of the working class.  Alongside the Paris Commune we now have extensive historical experience of similar forms of workers’ self organisation by which to address its relationship to the communist society latent already in the class struggles within capitalism, whose potential has almost been realised in past efforts to reach the first phase of communism.

where next for the LRC?

This article was commissioned as a discussion item for Stroppy Blog and as such only represents my own opinions, not necessarily those of anyone else from The Commune – David Broder.

The turnout at the Labour Representation Committee conference on November 15th reflected the role of the current economic crisis in pushing people long involved in the left back into activity: numbers were up from 200 last year to around 270 (not as reported on our website), even though the number of young people involved has declined.

There were several positive steps made at the conference that could breathe fresh life into the organisation, not least its call for a series of discussions on workers’ self-management, social ownership and what we mean by socialism – developing the work begun by the Left Economics Advisory Panel on breaking from Old Labour and Stalinist conceptions of socialism – and the LRC’s affiliation to Hands Off the People of Iran. Hopefully both steps will allow the membership of the LRC to be more involved week-to-week and month-to-month.

the 1970s class struggle – where did it all go? forum, 8th december

The final meeting in our ‘uncaptive minds’ series on 1970s class struggle will be a forum on the lessons of the decade, what has changed in capitalism and where the workers’ movement has gone wrong. Drawing on the discussions at our previous six meetings, we will also look to tease out how we can apply this experience in our struggles today.

We have a panel of four speakers leading off the debate:

– John McDonnell MP

– Jeremy Corbyn MP

– Joe Marino, general secretary of the Bakers’, Foods and Allied Workers’ Union

– Steve Hedley, RMT London Underground regional secretary

There will be plenty of time for discussion and debate at the meeting, which kicks off at 6:30pm on Monday 8th December. The venue is in central London – email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com or phone 07595 245494 to find out more details.

the origins of the movement for workers’ councils in germany

Ninety years ago the German working class unseated the Kaiser and the military establishment with a series of strikes and mutinies which brought World War I to a close.

Conscripted sailors and soldiers created strike committees, and then joined with industrial workers to create workers’ councils akin to the soviets which existed during the Russian revolution. These enjoyed extensive working class participation and in some cities held power: but over the subsequent five year revolutionary wave the working class was time and again crushed by the Social Democrats and the right-wing troops it could call upon to defend capital.

For our latest pamphlet we have reprinted a seventy-year old pamphlet on the workers’ council movement produced by the Dutch GIK (Group of International Communists) accompanied by the autobiography of leading GIK member Jan Appel (a participant in the revolution and the commandeering of a ship) along with a chronology of the German revolution.

Printed copies cost £1 each – email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com or write to The Commune, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London EC1V 4PY.

click here for pdf

two hands off the people of iran meetings

Barack Obama has made it clear that he “will do anything” to stop Iran from developing the capacility to produce nuclear weapons. The global economic crisis has made world imperialism more belligerent. How do we fight the danger of another disastrous war in the Middle East?
7pm, Wednesday November 26. King’s College London. Strand Campus, The Strand (Temple tube)

Revolutionary Struggle in Iran
with Torab Saleth (Workers Left Unity Iran)
7:30pm, Tuesday 2nd December, University of Manchester Students’ Union – Meeting Room 1

Click here for details of HOPI conference, taking place in London on December 13th.

thinking through the meaning of communism and socialism in the conditions of today

A document produced by comrades involved in l’Encontre www.alencontre.org) and Carré Rouge (www.carre-rouge.org)

As men and women members of the nuclei which publish A Contre-Courant, Carré Rouge, and L’Émancipation Sociale, and those associated with the Swiss journal-cum-website A l’Encontre, we have joined forces to organise work on the theory and practice of the actuality, the present-day relevance of communism or socialism (which are synonymous in the strong sense of the term socialism). In addition we have decided to link up with those who have similar aims and propose to undertake joint work or maintain detailed exchanges of opinion with them. The document submitted explains what urges us to undertake this task; it emphasises the considerable difficulties involved; it sketches our first attempt to map the very area involved.

subway sack young pregnant migrant worker

Natalia Szymanska, a young Polish woman was sacked from Subway in her fifth month of pregnancy on a dubious charge of being in breach of the company’s health and safety policy.

We call on Subway to:-

·       immediately reinstate the pregnant worker,

·       reimburse her for loss of earnings,

·       compensate her for the injury to feeling,

·       treat all workers fairly.

You can make a difference.

hal draper, the state and socialism from below

by David Broder

Recently this site has seen a debate over the question of the state in bourgeois society and after working-class revolution, with comrades from the Trotskyist group ‘Permanent Revolution’ arguing that such a revolution would necessarily have to create a new state which would centrally plan the economy. They call this “socialism”, to be followed by a later classless, stateless era of “communism”. They furthermore argue that state-planned economies such as Cuba’s, despite the lack of working-class power in decision-making, nonetheless represent, in some dilute form, “workers’ states”.

This has little in common with our conception of how working-class power comes about and should be exercised: by the working class itself, democratically, from below and creating its own structures organically. There are no saviours from on high: we do not want a benign régime or enlightened despot to dish out equality of poverty.

With this in mind, we have added three texts to the ‘ideas’ section of our website by the American communist Hal Draper. These argue against state socialist models and for ‘socalism from below’, and see this sentiment as a thread running through the works of Karl Marx.

Click here to read The Death of the State in Marx and Engels; the Two Souls of Socialism; and The Dictatorship of the Proletariat in Marx and Engels.

hugo chávez the maoist and nicolas sarkozy the socialist

by David Broder

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, who during his ten years in power has introduced extensive state-capitalist measures based on the country’s oil wealth, has embarrassed his international fan club in recent weeks with a series of gaffes when on diplomatic business.

Chávez has long entertained close relations with such “anti-imperialists” as Colonel Gaddafi, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Belarussian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko, but his recent speeches have offered a particularly useful insight into the real content of his “21st century socialism” and “Bolivarian revolution”. Once again it is clear that “21st century socialism” is nothing but classic “20th century style state ownership and bureaucracy”.

First came his trip to China in late September, organised in order to sign an arms deal. Upon touching down in the emerging superpower he commented that China “has shown the world that one doesn’t have to attack anyone to become a great power… we are offering tribute in the land of Mao. I am a Maoist.” This was embarrassing not only for the grey Stalinist bureaucrats accompanying him, who have largely eschewed Mao’s ideas in favour of a free-market ideology, but also those such as Socialist Appeal who have for the last two years gushed over an off-hand comment made by Chávez that he is a Trotskyist.

And two weeks ago, after meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Chávez welcomed Sarkozy’s bank nationalisations in a TV address: “Sarkozy, you are coming closer to socialism, welcome to the club: your ideas are interesting… we must create a new system. With differences here and there, but at least it must be something new. We of course call it socialism, you call it nationalism, but hey, we can discuss that.” Chávez, who has used the police to break up steel workers’ picket lines, clearly does not see the working class as the agent of revolutionary change, but rather, himself.

Was Chávez joking? If his own project were something other than nationalism and state ownership, you might have thought so.

photo-report of ‘dancing on the grave of capitalism’ demo

by David Broder

Three weeks to the day after the SWP’s March on the City demonstration in the City of London, tonight saw the “Dancing on the grave of capitalism” action timed to coincide with Halloween and thus featuring lots of dressing up. This, the latest in a series of anti-capitalist demos organised in response to the financial crisis, took place in Canary Wharf.

The protest was apparently the brainchild of members of the Radical Anthropology Group and people formerly involved in campaigns such as Reclaim the Streets, but in fact the 200-strong crowd was largely composed of Socialist Workers’ Party students (‘SWSS’, banner depicted below). A sprinkling from the Socialist Party, Workers’ Power, Anarchist Federation and Class War were present, as well as some people holding a poppy-decked banner for an Army veterans’ union. The demonstrators stood outside Canary Wharf tube station shouting abstract anti-capitalist slogans as City types looked on, bemused.

The slogan “anti-anti-anti-capitalista” made another appearance, as did “one solution – revolution” although another slogan had been toned down somewhat since the October 10th March on the City demo: “they say bankers, we say wankers” had bizarrely morphed into “they say bankers, we say jobs”. Perhaps they were wary of swearing in the wake of the recent Russell Brand/Andrew Sachs affair.

The demo, which had no demands and no real politics to speak of, merely served as part of the SWP’s ongoing “activist” turn after the abandonment of its electoral fronts.

report of justice for the shrewsbury pickets rally

by Chris Kane

Two hundred people, overwhelmingly workers,  packed out the London Welsh Centre in a rally demanding justice for the Shrewsbury Pickets, the six building workers jailed by the state in 1972. Ricky Tomlinson, the well known actor, got two years and Des Warren three years. They were the victims of a conspiracy by the Tory government, construction companies and security services. The show trial was then the longest case in British legal history.

The speakers on Monday evening were Ricky Tomlinson, an activist in the national building workers’ strike of 1972,  Terry Renshaw of UCATT – another activist who only narrowly escaped prison due to a error by the Police – and former leader of the NUM Arthur Scargill. 

worse than they want you to think – a marxist analysis of the economic crisis

A talk by Andrew Kliman, author of ‘Reclaiming Marx’s Capital’*

update: click here for sound file

In the past few weeks, since we announced this talk, recognition has increased substantially that the United States, and now the world, are caught up in the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.  Because Marxists are famous for “predicting five out of the last three recessions”, I need to point that the term crisis does not mean collapse, nor does it mean slump (recession, depression, downturn).  While the US is probably in the midst of a recession, the downturn has been-thus far-a relatively mild one. For instance, payroll employment has fallen nine months in a row, but the total decline, 760,000, is well less than half of the decline that occurred during the first nine months of the last recession, in 2001, which itself was relatively mild.  

solidarity action for sacked national physical laboratory cleaners

from Jake:

This is to invite you to our next action in support of the five sacked Colombian cleaners working for Amey Plc at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL). (see background story at http://caic.org.uk/node/18)

Date: Wednesday 22 October Time: meet 12.30 Embankment station (south/river exit) to walk together to the Institute of Engineering and Technology, next to the Savoy Hotel, Savoy Place (south side), where there is an all-day conference which NPL is supporting

Bring: anything visible or noisy.

review of ‘resistance to nazism’

by David Broder

Recently I have engaged in a fair degree of research into working-class resistance during the Second World War, and so at yesterday’s Anarchist Bookfair I was interested to pick up a copy of the Anarchist Federation’s pamphlet ‘Resistance to Nazism’ (subtitle ‘Shattered Armies: How the Working Class Fought Nazism and Fascism 1933-45’), reprinted this May.

The stated aim of the pamphlet is to present an alternative ‘history from below’ discussing the struggles and experiences of working-class people rather than looking at the world through the prism of competing governments and military figures. This is a worthy aim indeed.