potere operaio: the last firebrands

In August we staged a series of forums on what we can learn from past communist organisations. Martine Bourne reports on the discussion about Italian group Potere Operaio.

Potere Operaio (Workers Power) were the focus of the second meeting of the series organised by the London group on communist organisation and class struggle. Potere Operaio emerged in 1967 as a grouping operating independently of the trade union movement. They stood as a faction within the Communist Party-led CGIL trade union during internal elections at the Petrolchimico company based in the industrial zone of Venice, Porto Marghera. From here they built themselves into a national organisation which at their high point had 10,000 activists, but by 1973 had split.

the commune issue 17

The September issue of The Commune is now available. Click the image below to see PDF or use the list of individual articles as they are posted online.

Contact us at uncaptiveminds@gmail.com if you would like to buy a printed copy (£1 + 50p postage) or set up a subscription. (£12 a year UK/£16 EU/£20 international.

News

spectre of communism haunts china’s rulers – Adam Ford on the recent strike wave

solidarity with the miners’ strike in ukraine – by Chris Kane

demo to support berns salonger cleaners – an IWW member writes on recent solidarity initiatives with migrant workers in sweden

is UNISON ready to fight the cuts? – a UNISON branch official looks at the state of the union as it gears up for major confrontations with the government

Life at work

a “zero hours” contract… for thousands of hours – Jack Staunton writes on his work in a government market research call centre

‘the security is to keep us in!’ – Sharon Borthwick reviews Rivethead, a ‘book of tales from the assembly line’

Strategies for fighting the cuts

building a movement against cuts – by Steve Ryan

nothing will be like it was before – Tom Denning writes on strategies we need and strategies we don’t

no escape from theory – Oleg Resin revisits the 1970s ‘state debate’ and questions the nature of public services

the ‘social wage’ and the hackney nurseries campaign – Camille Barbagallo and Nic Beuret look at how the cuts axe is falling, and why

proposed principles for anti-cuts movements – a motion by Dave Spencer to The Commune’s upcoming conference

Events

from meltdown to upheaval – an assembly on the crisis and how we organise hosted by The Commune, 11th September

the commune around britain – details of local groups and forums

women at the cutting edge – Feminist Fightback meeting on the crisis, 30th October

Our network, the left and theory

potere operaio: the last firebrands – Martine Bourne reports on one of the recent London forums on communist organisations past and present

a syndicalism for the 21st century? – Sheila Cohen draws the lessons of the 1910-14 Great Unrest for a modern understanding of workers’ democracy

for creative and critical thinking on the left – Permanent Revolution’s Eleanor Davies calls for joint forums and a culture of openness

a spectre of communism haunts china’s rulers…

Adam Ford reports on recent upheavals in China

With the US empire in terminal decline, the Chinese economy has become essential to the globally integrated capitalist economy. China is now the world’s second largest economy, having officially overtaken its neighbour Japan, with a gross domestic product of over a trillion US dollars in the second quarter of 2010. It has long enjoyed gargantuan economic growth, and even weathered the storm of the global economic crisis up to this point.

But its status as “sweatshop of the world” now seems extremely vulnerable to both internal and external shocks, and a period of huge social upheaval is on the horizon.

for creative and critical thinking on the left

Eleanor Davies, a member of Permanent Revolution, proposes joint forums and a culture of openness

Permanent Revolution members attended The Commune’s recent summer school and found it to be a day of open discussion with many committed activists. One of the things that stuck out most was the number of people who wanted to talk about taking the day forward in terms of working together with a common goal of rebuilding the movement.

The plenary session was opened by Chris Ford of The Commune who made the point that, as we approach a period where the working class will come under the savage attack of the Con-Dem government, the left is marginalised to the point where we have very little influence in any sphere of society. The idea of ‘communist regroupment’ was posed and met with favourable if cautious response.

cricket match to raise money for iranian workers, august 29th

August 29th will once again see Hands Off the People of Iran play the Labour Representation Committee in their annual solidarity cricket match to raise £1,500 for the charity Workers Fund Iran, which raises money for Iranian workers. (workersfund.org). In the face of an enormous political and economic crisis, a new round of UN sanctions and war threats, Iranian workers are in a very difficult situation.

This is why it is absolutely vital that the workers’ movement in this country organizes material and ideological solidarity with workers’, women’s and students’ struggles in Iran – they are our natural allies and a true beacon of hope for genuine democracy and freedom.

a coalition of cuts, a coalition of resistance

Gregor Gall, professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Hertfordshire, explores the difficulties of forming alliances and coalitions to fight the cuts.

In previous articles for The Commune, I laid out the arguments for, and problems and challenges contained therein, in constructing civil alliances between the providers (via unions) and users of the services in order to oppose cuts in and privatisation of public services.

from meltdown to upheaval: 11th september assembly

The Commune are hosting an assembly on Saturday 11th September, debating the effects of the crisis, the existing resistance and the questions it raises regarding how we organise. We have now filled in more of the timetable and blurbs for workshops, see below.

All welcome. We will be soliciting and publishing local and industry-specific reports in the lead-up to the event, see below for examples and see here for the questionnaire. Workshop details below, followed by timetable. The event is from 10am on Saturday 11th September at LARC, 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 (Aldgate East tube).

is marxism just too abstract?

by Nathan Coombs

The following commentary is in response to a forum organized by The Commune and the Marxist-Humanist Initiative, held in London on July 5, 2010.  This involved a talk by Anne Jaclard, “You Can’t Change the Mode of Production with a Political Agenda,” followed by a talk by Andrew Kliman, “The Transformation of Capitalism into Communism in the Critique of the Gotha Program.” Both talks can be read here.

In 1965 Louis Althusser opened his famous paean For Marx with a withering reflection on French theoretical culture at the time. He bemoaned the fact that ‘we have spent the best part of our time in agitation when we would have been better employed in the defence of our right and duty to know’.[i] The result of which was ‘the stubborn, profound absence of any theoretical culture’; whereas, he claimed, ‘Marxism should not be simply a political doctrine, a ‘method’ of analysis and action, but also, over and above the rest, the theoretical domain of fundamental investigation’.[ii] For this task Althusser saw as indispensable the role of intellectuals committed to necessary theoretical work.

Plato: an 'abstract' proto-communist?

a “zero-hours” contract… for thousands and thousands of hours

Jack Staunton writes on his work in a call centre compiling government market research surveys

When drunk we feel a strange kind of tiredness. Not the exhaustion of physical exertion nor the sleepiness which dusks in the late evening, but rather a cloying, dulling hibernation of the mind. This same sensation is brought about by endless hours of repetitive workplace routine.

No-one has ever sincerely smiled this much while wearing a headset

I have worked well over a thousand days at the call centre. I have read through still more thousands of surveys. The call centre does not test us physically or mentally yet it is a massive drain of human energy and vitality.

The idea is to collate telephone surveys for various government departments. We ask businesses how much training they do, if they need more government support, what they think the answer to the recession is. Every survey is unique yet they are all the same: half-arsed and self-contradictory fragments of ideas, answering what they think they are meant to say to a bunch of questions which tell them what they are meant to say.

the national question: for active involvement in all our class’s struggles

Allan Armstrong replies to Clifford Biddulph’s No nationalist solutions

Clifford Biddulph’s No nationalist solutions (issue no. 15 of The Commune) consists mainly of a reply to my article, The Communist Case for Internationalism from Below.  This was written for the Second Global Commune event held on May 22nd in Edinburgh. I appreciate the time Clifford has taken to contribute to this debate. However, there will probably need to be a number of further articles before readers can fully appreciate the politics underlying our two approaches.

Clifford’s reply only addresses a few of the arguments, which I put forward in this article. Instead, Clifford puts forward his own particular critique of nationalism – the neo-Luxemburgist variant of the cosmopolitan approach, which I have already examined and found wanting. Of course, it is perfectly valid for Clifford to write an article offering his own view and to outline its particular origins. In doing so, however, he hasn’t dealt with my critique of the two main approaches to nationalism and the struggle for national self-determination found on the Left – (con)federal and cosmopolitan.

london forum on big flame, monday 30th august

This August The Commune in London has staged a series of meetings on communist organisation, and we have already looked at the examples of Kamunist Kranti in India and 1960s-70s Italian group Potere Operaio.

The final meeting in the series is on Big Flame, a  British libertarian Marxist group in the 1970s. The discussion will be led off by a worker active in Merseyside car factories at that time. All welcome – the meeting is from 7pm on Monday 30th August at the Lucas Arms, Grays Inn Road, near King’s Cross.

manchester class struggle forum on china, 19th august

The next meeting of the Manchester Class Struggle Forum will take place on the subject of class struggle in China.

Recent years have seen a rise in class conflict in China, as workers in “the sweatshop of the world” become increasingly confident in asserting their demands against an authoritarian state, multinational corporations, and servile trade unions. We will be discussing the implications of these developments, and what lessons we can draw from them for the future.

The meeting will be introduced by a presentation on the subject, before moving to open discussion.

building a movement against cuts

by Steve Ryan

So , the cuts continue, and every day new tales of slash and burn emerge from London Fire Brigade through the NHS to the Ministry of Justice.

The Left claim that this is the worst attack since the 1970s: depressingly the response is very far from that of the 1970s.

bristol commune forum on ‘localisation’

The next Bristol reading group session will be on Sunday 22nd August at 6pm in The Factory, Cave Street off Portland Square, Saint Pauls, Bristol. (Note the change of venue).

The session will discuss whether localisation is a viable strategy to enable a form of capitalism which doesn’t threaten the ecology of the planet. Suggested background reading below. All welcome: email uncaptiveminds@gmail.com for more info.