for workers' power from below
The next Bristol reading group session will be on Sunday 30th May at 6pm in Café Kino on Ninetree Hill, Stokes Croft, Bristol.
The session will discuss views of council communism and anarcho-syndicalism. Suggested background reading below. All welcome: email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com for more info. Continue reading “council communism and anarcho-syndicalism: 30th may bristol reading group”
The next Bristol reading group session will be on Sunday 30th May at 6pm in Café Kino on Ninetree Hill, Stokes Croft, Bristol.
The session will discuss views of council communism and anarcho-syndicalism. Suggested background reading below. All welcome: email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com for more info. Continue reading “council communism and anarcho-syndicalism: bristol reading group 30th may”
The latest issue of The Commune featured a supplement with an extended piece on workers’ councils by Sheila Cohen. Click image below to see PDF or read full text below.
The red mole may weave unexpected patterns and assume strange disguises; it is digging, digging fast, and moving in roughly the right direction…’
Daniel Singer, The Road to Gdansk. Continue reading “workers’ councils: the red mole of revolution”
by Moshé Machover: only the introduction is presented below, see the full document here.
The importance of this issue cannot be over-stated: it concerns the very essence of communism. If communism means anything at all, it means a radical eruption of democracy. Bursting its present narrow political confines, where it is allowed to hold truncated and partly illusory sway, democracy is to engulf all spheres of social life. This applies in particular to what is, under capitalism, the alienated sphere of economics: major choices that are now made behind the backs of society – imposed by private owners who monopolize wealth, or left to the chaotic play of blind market forces – will be decided consciously and collectively by the community concerned. The enormous extension of the sphere of collective decision-making will necessarily imply a corresponding expansion and deepening of the scope of public supervision, ensuring proper implementation of decisions. Continue reading “collective decision-making and supervision in a communist society”
We have printed more copies of our series of pamphlets, several of which (in particular the long-unavailable Venezuela pamphlet) were out of print. See below for a list of the seven pamphlets available. They cost £1 +50p postage per copy. To order online, work out the total of your purchases then ‘donate’ the money here, making sure to specify in the text box what you are ordering.
Alternatively, write to uncaptiveminds@gmail.com to place your order. We take payment by cheque (addressed to ‘The Commune’, at The Commune, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St. John Street, London EC1V 4PY) or by transfer to Co-op account S/C 089299, A/C 65317440. Continue reading “reprints of the commune’s pamphlets – buy online”
More copies of our pamphlet series, many of which had sold out, are now available. The text of each of the seven pamphlets is online (see the list of subjects below), but you can also order paper copies – £1 +50p postage per copy.
Write to uncaptiveminds@gmail.com to place your order. We take payment by cheque (addressed to ‘The Commune’, at The Commune, 2nd Floor, 145-157 St. John Street, London EC1V 4PY) or by transfer to Co-op account S/C 089299, A/C 65317440. Continue reading “the commune’s pamphlets: reprints now available”
by Allan Armstrong
Introduction
How many people today, even on what remains of the Left, publicly and confidently declare their support for ‘Communism’? Take just three British organisations, which claim to be key parts of the revolutionary Left – the Socialist Workers Party, the Socialist Party and the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty. Nowhere in their What We Stand For columns is there any mention of communism. If these comrades are communists they are ‘closet communists’.
Looking tentatively out from their closets, with doors slightly ajar, they might whisper to those within hearing distance, that ‘Communism’ is nothing to get het-up about really. ‘Communism’ can be safely relegated to a distant future. The real task is “to build socialism”. If they make any reference at all to communism, it is confined to in-house events or theoretical journals and has about as much purchase on their everyday politics as ‘Clause 4 Socialism’ had for the reformist Left who led the old British Labour Party. If Marx hadn’t called himself a communist for most of his life and hadn’t entitled his best-known work, The Communist Manifesto, most of the British revolutionary Left would probably prefer to jettison the term altogether. Continue reading “why we need a new human emancipatory communism”
The next of The Commune’s ‘uncaptive minds’ public forums takes place in London on the evening of Monday June 8th, and is on the question of ‘do we live in a democracy?’.
The recent MPs’ expenses scandal has brought renewed attention to the checks and balances of the House of Commons, from right and left alike. There is widespread anger at the excesses of the worst offenders, with the Speaker of the Commons axed, some arguing for more ‘regulation’ of the system and others calling for a clearout of the current MPs in favour of more ‘responsible’ MPs and more ‘independents’.
But few are questioning the Parliamentary system itself (see our recent editorial): although in recent months the mainstream press has been happy to use Marx’s economics to explain the economic crisis, they don’t dare to touch communists’ radical critique of the state, the ‘executive committee of the ruling class’.
At the meeting we will not only be looking at the current scandal and the response, but also the state of our democratic rights in general and its implications for our struggle for a different kind of society. The speakers leading off the debate will be The Commune’s Nathan Coombs and Labour left MP John McDonnell.
The meeting takes place from 7pm on the 8th at the Artillery Arms, near Old Street. All are welcome – get in touch with us at uncaptiveminds@gmail.com if you would like more information. Map of the venue below. Continue reading “8th june london forum: do we live in a democracy?”
editorial of The Commune
Just as the financial crisis brought home the inadequacy of the capitalist economy, the scandal of the expenses scam by Members of Parliament brings into question capitalist democracy. The mirage of the ‘Mother of all Parliaments’ has given way to a view that most workers of this country once adhered to – that of ‘the rotten House of Commons’.
In the midst of a deep recession, with even the Metropolitan Police were openly exposed as lying killers at the G20 protests, such a loss of confidence in the key institution of the UK state is a matter of deep concern for the establishment. Amidst the media frenzy The Times warned that despite the corruption the “traditions of Parliament have also protected freedom and the rule of law” and now “an important reputation is being jeopardised for the wrong reasons”. Continue reading “it’s their parliament, not ours!”
The next of The Commune’s London reading group series on ‘communism from below’ is to take place on Monday 13th April. The subject of the discussion, taking place from 6:30pm at the Old Red Lion, near Angel tube, is “workers’ self-government vs. state socialism”.
We will be looking at the questions
– To what extent is it possible to use the existing state’s structures to force ‘socialist’ reforms?
– Should we refuse to make any demands on bourgeois governments?
– What arguments could be made for and against the slogan “nationalisation under workers’ control”?
– Does William Paul’s “industrial executive committee” reflect our idea of working-class power?
– How can self-managed workplaces relate to the needs of society as a whole?
– Does the idea of a “workers’ party” imply an elite counterposed to grassroots activism and workplace democracy, and does it really allow a broader programme of social revolution?
The suggested reading material is:
– William Paul – The State: Its Origins and Function, Chapter 11
– Marx – Critique of the Gotha Programme
– Hal Draper – The Two Souls of Socialism
All are welcome to come and take part in the discussion. Email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com for more info.
An abridged version of an article from a comrade in Kyiv
Over a month after 300 workers at an engineering plant in the Ukrainian town of Kherson launched an occupation of their factory in defence of their jobs and demanding the payment of unpaid wages, the movement took a step forward early this month with the occupation of the provincial government building. This followed large demonstrations through the town, also including other trade unionists and young activists.
On Monday 2nd March workers from the Kherson Machine Building Plant (KHMZ) occupied the ground floor of the building of the Kherson provincial state administration and provincial council. About 500 workers arrived at the building in the centre of Kherson and demanded a meeting with management and the council, in order to seek payment of wages in arrears. Continue reading “workers in ukraine occupy the kherson engineering factory… and the local council”
This month marks the tenth anniversary of Hugo Chávez’s coming to power in Venezuela, and ten years of the “Bolivarian revolution”. This process has included waves of state intervention in the economy and fervent rhetoric against US imperialism. But while some on the left see this Chavista movement as the new “socialism for the 21st century”, groups such as ours have argued that it is actually more like an old-fashioned attempt at modernisation by a technocratic élite; that increased bureaucratic power over capital is not inherently progressive; and that the “revolution” in Venezuela allows for very little working-class control or initiative from below.
Here we present a translation of a March 2008 interview conducted by the French anarchist ‘Charles Reeve’ with two members of the El Libertario group in Caracas, the nation’s capital, which offers some stark insights into the reality of the situation. Looking at various aspects of the Venezuelan economy and living standards in the country, it argues that Chavismo and the mythology of the “Bolivarian revolution” conceal a raft of neo-liberal reforms and attacks on workers’ rights, and that we must break out of the dynamics of Chávez vs. the opposition in order to build an autonomous working-class alternative.
Continue reading “the revolution delayed: 10 years of hugo chávez’s rule”
by Chris Kane
On 7 February a demonstration was held in Kherson in Ukraine in solidarity with the workers of the engineering plant now under workers occupation. Many workers came from other factories in Kherson and activists from left organisations in Ukraine. The workers occupied the engineering plant in opposition to redundancies and elected a workers council which is now in control of the factory.
Click here for an earlier report outlining the dispute.
Send messages of support for the workers at the factory: solydarity.ksmz@gmail.com
And to the coordinating committee in support of the occupation: rabochiy_komitet@googlegroups.com
More photos below:
Continue reading “demonstration at worker-occupied factory in ukraine”
Our series of reading groups kicks off at 6:30pm on Monday January 19th with a discussion on the subject of working class self-organisation and “communism from below”. Email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com to find out more info on the central London venue. The texts for this first meeting are:
The Communist Manifesto (click here)
Arguing against different conceptions of “socialism” prevalent at the time, such as paternalistic “utopian” projects, Marx and Engels’ 1848 Manifesto argues that it is the working class must take power in order to revolutionise society. Tracing the development of Western society through the ages, Marx argues that we must get rid of capitalist ownership and the repressive social order and create a new, free and collectively organised system based on the development achieved by humanity thus far.
The Civil War in France – Engels’ 1891 introduction (click here) and chapter five (click here)
Marx’s thundering eulogy to the Communards – the Parisian workers who seized power in 1871 in the midst of France’s defeat in a war against Prussia – and the new order they established, casting aside the state bureaucracy and standing army and taking control with their democratic working-class “commune”. Introduction by Engels traces French history in the intervening decades and summarises the work.
Communism and Society (click here)
This section of British communist William Paul’s 1922 work argues against conceptions of introducting socialism through Parliament, and like Marx in The Civil War in France denies that the working class can take over the existing state machinery. Paul’s piece focuses on the self-organisation of the class and the manner in which the organisation of struggles against capitalism prefigures the society which will replace it.
Socialism and self-management (click here)
Yugoslav Marxist Mihailo Markovic’s piece looks at different aspects of workers’ self-management, with particular reference to post-war Yugoslavia where organs expressing elements of workers’ democracy were in conflict with the state bureaucracy under Marshal Tito. He argues that the state and party should be replaced by organs of workers’ self management whereby the mass of the population make economic, political and social decisions for themselves.
the commune 