Capitalism and the class struggle since World War II ---- Introduction ---- In this
chapter, we will analyse some of the changes to capitalism and society since World War II,
the point at which anarcho-syndicalism was all but wiped out by fascism, Stalinism, total
war and social partnership. We will see how the post-World War II social democratic
settlement limited the space for a re-emergence of radical currents in the workers?
movement by integrating trade unions, as the representatives of workers, into the
capitalist system. We will then look at the upsurge of class struggles from 1968 which
marked the crisis of the social democratic settlement, and how their eventual defeat paved
the way for the rise of neoliberalism and the ?offshoring? of the traditional centres of
militancy in the mines and factories.
In analysing neoliberalism, we bring the analysis up to date with the conditions for
organising today, characterised by casualised service sector employment and a withering of
the institutions of political and economic representation ? political parties and trade
unions ? which were central to the post-war settlement.
The social democratic settlement in Britain
?The war changed the balance between labour and capital. Most think that it shifted the
balance in labour?s favour. The real lesson of the Second World War was that it crushed
the independent organisations of the working class.?130
World War II all but wiped out the radical currents in the workers? movement, with the
strongholds of Germany, Spain and Italy crushed by fascism and total war. But following
the war, the ruling class feared a repeat of the revolutionary wave which spread across
Europe and beyond following World War I. In the first chapter we encountered Tory MP
Quintin Hogg?s 1943 remark that ?we must give them reform or they will give us
revolution.? But this idea had older roots.
?When introducing the electoral reform to the British parliament in 1831, the prime
minister Earl Grey said ?There is no-one more decided against annual parliaments,
universal suffrage and the ballot, than am I (?) The Principal of my reform is to prevent
the necessity of revolution (?) I am reforming to preserve, not to overthrow??131
The British ruling class in particular had had the longest experience of capitalism and
had arrived at the idea of ?reforming to preserve? fairly early on. What changed following
World War II, almost universally across the most industrialised countries, was that this
was integrated into the prevailing management of capitalism. The strategy of repression
which had characterised pre-war industrial relations (tanks on the streets in 1926,
gunboats in the Mersey in 1911) was eclipsed by a strategy of recuperation. This was not
entirely new, but was adopted in a far more systematic way than ever before, particularly
in the form of the welfare state. Class conflict was institutionalised and harnessed as a
motor for capitalist development, with reforms improving living standards sufficiently to
marginalise revolutionary tendencies amongst the working class.
The post-war settlement was the ruling class being forced to accept the fact of the
working class as a collective social force. This meant the temporary suspension of the
capitalist project to reduce us all to atomised individuals offering our labour power on
the market, in favour of the institutionalisation of the working class as a collective
entity. This involved taking the reformist tendencies which had emerged within the
workers? movement and giving them a seat at the table. The working class threat was
accepted as a fact of life, an overhead cost of doing business. Thus, it had to be given
representation within the capitalist system to prevent it disrupting or rupturing that
system. The economic representation of the working class was to be handled by the trade
unions. The political representation of the working class was to be handled by the Labour
Party. We have already encountered these institutions in Chapter 1. Here, we are more
concerned with how this model of ?reforming to preserve? stabilised post-war capitalism
and marginalised the revolutionary tendencies within the workers? movement.
The other side of this institutionalisation of the working class as a collective was the
development of consumerist individuality. Keynesian economics, which became mainstream
after the great depression of the 1930s, stressed the importance of aggregate demand, the
economists' term for the total money available for consumption. This was to be stimulated
by two sources: wage rises and state spending. For the wage rises, the trade unions were
brought in as social partners in productivity deals. The unions would guarantee peace on
the shop floor and assist management in making productivity improvements (such as through
new technology or working practices). In return, management would share some of the
productivity gains with the workers in the form of annual wage rises. These productivity
deals were the backbone of post-war social partnership in the workplace, and provided the
basis for the expansion of the consumer market outside of it. At the same time, state
spending, particularly via the new welfare state, provided direct employment for millions
and stimulated the economy somewhat independently of the booms and busts of the business
cycle. State deficit spending was used to smooth out dips in private sector activity and
thus soften recessions, whilst maintaining more or less full employment.
This regime meant building a domestic consumer market to absorb some of the output of the
post-war boom, and created a virtuous circle of economic growth, consumerism and relative
industrial peace. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew continuously until 1974, and days lost
to strikes remained relatively low until the late 1960s. The role of the state, into which
the trade unions were more or less integrated, was to guarantee order and social peace. We
should note that the basis of this post-war recognition of the working class as a
collective force had a material basis, not just in the balance of class forces, but also
in the organisation of production. The economy was approximately 70% primary (extractive
industries, agriculture) and secondary sectors (manufacturing). Mining and manufacturing
had been the backbones of industrial militancy before the war, and would be again in the
1970s. Consequently, large employers often dominated employment in a given town, which
meant there were large collections of workers who could be represented through
institutionalised collective bargaining. This was fairly successful at keeping workers?
militancy in check, and channelling it away from open class struggle. The social
democratic logic is captured in a quote from across the Atlantic. A leader of the Canadian
Auto Workers? Union writes:
?Good unions work to defuse [workers?] anger ? and they do it effectively. Without unions,
there would be anarchy in the workplace. Strikes would be commonplace, and confrontation
and violence would increase. Poor-quality workmanship, low productivity, increased sick
time, and absenteeism would be the preferred form of worker protest. By and large, unions
deflect those damaging and costly forms of worker resistance. If our critics understood
what really goes on behind the labour scenes, they would be thankful that union leaders
are as effective as they are in averting strikes.?132
This social partnership was fairly successful from capital?s point of view for the first
two decades following the war. However, in the late 1960s and early 1970s it began to
break down. Throughout the post-war period there had been a slow decline in political
party membership, from peaks of over 2 million for the Conservatives and 1 million for
Labour to around half that by the late 1970s. However, trade union membership continued to
grow, peaking in 1979. The reasons for the breakdown of the post-war regime were numerous.
The post-war boom was coming to an end. The international financial system was breaking
down, with the US withdrawing from the gold standard in 1971, inaugurating an era of
floating currency rates. The 1973 OPEC oil embargo sent energy prices soaring. At the same
time, labour unrest was on the rise, and social struggles from anti-racism to feminism, to
environmentalism and gay liberation, were also breaking out. A full account of all the
factors leading to the breakdown of the post-war social contract could take a pamphlet in
its own right. For our purposes, it is enough to note that a convergence of factors put
increasing strain on profits and thus on the regime of relative social peace based on
productivity deals. This set capital and labour on a collision course once more.
In Britain, the first major salvo in the resurgent class war was the first national postal
strike in 1971, which was kept in check by the trade union,133 followed by the successful
miners? strike of 1972. The latter strike had a strong autonomous streak to it, with
action led by the rank and file and the union playing catch up. Fearing wildcats would
break out, the National Union of Miners (NUM) called an official strike for January. The
employers offered a new productivity deal, but this was rejected and the strike began.
From the first day, all 289 pits were closed and the strikers at many of them, against
the instructions of the NUM, refused to provide safety cover. Having already warned that
?pressure from below? would ?lead to anarchy?, by the third day of the strike, NUM
president Gormley said that "the men are being a damn sight more militant than we would
want them to be." The following day he complained that "some men have been overambitious
in applying the strike."134
The strike was spread through flying pickets organised mainly by rank and file NUM members
and shop stewards. Strikers organised mass pickets of power plants and coking plants (most
famously at Saltley), leading to power cuts due to lack of coal. There were solidarity
actions by other groups of workers, including transport drivers, many of whom refused to
cross picket lines, or even tipped off strikers of their destinations so there could be a
flying picket waiting to turn them away. This culminated in a one off, three day week in
February with over 1.5 million workers temporarily sent home due to the effects of the
strike. The result was an emphatic victory for the miners, which helped set the
expectations for workers in other sectors.
?A hastily cobbled together government enquiry recommended wage increases of between 15%
and 31.6%, about 4 times what the NCB had originally offered, and a bit more than the
miners had originally asked for. Even then, the NUM, under pressure from the miners who
had clearly realised the enormity of their power, even rejected this deal, holding out for
an extra ?1 a week for the non-faceworkers. After appropriately romantic candle-lit
beer-and-sandwich-type negotiations at 10 Downing Street, this demand was precisely what
the miners got ? a pretty good result which boosted working class confidence everywhere.?135
The miners struck again in 1974. Tory Prime Minister Ted Heath called a general election
just two days after a union ballot went in favour of a strike, asking the question of
voters, "Who governs the country?" Neither Heath's Tories nor Labour won a clear mandate.
The miners? strikes thus more or less ensured the downfall of Ted Heath?s government,
which had introduced the 1971 Industrial Relations act precisely to curb such examples of
working class power. And they also sent shock waves through the ruling class as a whole.
One of the first acts of the 1974 Labour government was to work with the TUC to impose
wage restraint. This was agreed in the region of 5%, at a time when inflation was running
between 15% and 25%. In effect, these were massive pay cuts. In 1976, Labour called in the
International Monetary Fund to bail out the UK, demanding austerity measures in return.
The Labour government, the TUC, and international capital were on a collision course with
the working class.
What became known as the ?winter of discontent? began with a strike by 15,000 Ford
workers, emphatically rejecting the 5% pay offer and demanding 25% and a 35 hour working
week. They were soon joined by 67,000 more Ford workers, bringing 23 Ford plants to a
halt. As the unofficial strikes spread, the Transport and General Workers Union (TGWU)
sought to regain control and made their demands official. Strikers returned to work a
month later, accepting a 17% pay offer. Next up were lorry drivers and public sector
workers, including refuse collectors, nurses and ambulance drivers, and famously, the
Liverpool gravediggers. Working days lost to strike action reached 2.9 million in 1979,
and trade union membership peaked at 13.2 million. Workers across many sectors struck for,
and won, pay increases far in excess of what the government was willing to offer. These
went some way to clawing back the income lost to rampant inflation throughout the 1970s.
They also marked the definitive death of the post-war social contract.
This was also the point where the strike movement reached its limits. Capitalism was being
squeezed by numerous factors, not just industrial unrest, but also international and
economic pressures. In many cases employers genuinely couldn?t afford workers? demands.
Now, of course, employers always claim they can?t afford the demands made of them. The
difference was that in the 1970s many of them opened their accounts and empty order books
to the workers, demonstrating they really were up against it. In other words, working
class militancy collided with the limits of possible gains under capitalism. As
sociologist Michael Mann wrote of this social contract:
?Britain has enshrined the rule of both interest groups and classes, jointly. The labour
movement is part sectional interest group, part class movement, irredeemably reformist,
virtually unsullied by Marxist or anarchist revolutionary tendencies.?136
He was right; the post-war social settlement had marginalised revolutionary tendencies on
the shop floor. This meant when workers ran up against the limits of capitalism, the
movement stalled. Many workers felt betrayed by the trade unions and the Labour Party, but
no revolutionary movement emerged. There was no serious attempt to push beyond strike
action into more radical action, such as expropriating workplaces (as happened in France
and Italy around the same time). Having made the country ungovernable, the working class
blinked, unsure what to do with this power. This paved the way for the neoliberal counter
revolution, which sought to systematically break the bastions of that power in the mines
and factories, and impose a new social settlement based on individualism and debt. But
before looking at this, let us consider the movements in France and Italy during this same
period, which had much in common with the industrial unrest in Britain, while in many ways
coming closer to revolutionary upheaval.
France ?68 and Italy ?69
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, struggles erupted around the world in both the NATO and
Warsaw Pact countries, both on the industrial and the social fronts, with anti-war,
women?s struggles, civil rights, and students? movements all coming to the fore. We will
focus on two movements, which provide some of the clearest glimpses of what a
revolutionary movement might look like in a developed country: France in 1968 and Italy?s
?Hot Autumn? of 1969. Much like in Britain, here we see workers? struggles coming up
against the trade unions, but also pushing beyond them, but also falling short of any
revolutionary break with capitalism, and ultimately being recuperated back into capitalism
and the trade unions.
The unrest in France began with a student movement. In May, a wave of university
occupations was violently repressed by the CRS (riot police). Alleged student leaders were
victimised, and mass demonstrations were held to support them. Many of these
demonstrations clashed with the police, who suppressed them with considerable force. The
demonstrations grew, with many workers joining students in the streets. These climaxed in
the ?night of the barricades? (May 10th-11th), which saw running battles between students
and CRS well into the early hours of the morning. Student and education workers? unions
called for solidarity strikes against the repression. Initially these were resisted by the
main union confederations, but workers began striking locally regardless:
?From a few hundred strikers on 14th May at the Sud-Aviation air craft factory in Nantes
the strike spread rapidly: 2 million strikers by 18th May, 9 million by 24th May, reaching
nearly 10 million two days later.?137
Before going further, a brief note on French industrial relations is in order, as it is
somewhat different to Britain. In France, there is a system of works councils (?Comit?s
d'Entreprise?). These function like workplace parliaments, with workers voting for unions
to represent them, and union reps taking up seats on the council proportionate to their
vote. Workers don?t have to be members of unions to vote for, or be represented by, the
works councils, and as a result of this union density is quite low, around 20% in 1968.
Consequently, union branches were not particularly strong, but normal disputes would be
run by a negotiating committee, often cross union, in consultation with mass
meetings/assemblies of the workforce (although usually treating these as a rubber stamp).
In 1968, however, the workers at a rank and file level met and initiated strike actions
without the sanction of any of the unions, although some retrospectively made the strikes
official as the movement developed.
Consequently the strike wave spread and developed through initiative from below. Without
any official strike call, the largest general strike in European history blossomed on a
wildcat basis.138 Workers report listening to the radio as they occupied their factories,
hearing the movement spread and gather momentum:
?Socialism seemed possible. (...) It was a ten year pressure cooker which finally
exploded, and without the control of the Stalinists and other reformists and other
professional organisers.?139
Workers set about marching on other factories to bring them out on strike and, in many
places, formed joint action committees with radical students, which sought to spread the
strike, discuss the political implications and spread propaganda, such as the famous
slogans daubed across the walls of Paris ('all power to the imagination!', 'never work!',
'beneath the pavement, the beach!'). However, strikers found the gates of factories
policed by union men:
?I went to the gates of 5 or 6 factories and each time I arrived full of enthusiasm. I
bumped into the CGT delegates, probably members of the PCF [French Communist Party]. It
was impossible to enter the factories and discuss with the strikers. I realised that the
factories were not occupied (?) we were not in 1936. I hoped that the demos would arrive
and break through this blockade. (?) At no point did we have sustained and political
contacts with workers in the large workplaces, independent of the unions.?140
Thus the strikers, who had seized the initiative to generalise the strike, began to lose
that initiative. In fact, it would be an exaggeration to say they ever really controlled
the struggle, even when they were spreading it. Despite the feeling of many participants
that they were making their own destiny, the trade unions remained largely in control:
?In every factory, a strike committee (or occupation committee) was set up to organise and
co-ordinate the strike, but its composition and mode of election or nomination varied.
Although the unions had not actually called for the strike, they successfully controlled
it in most cases: the strike committee was an inter-union committee composed of union
officials and shop floor delegates.?141
In other words, while not authorised by the unions, in most places the struggle stayed
within the normal forms of French industrial relations, with control firmly in the hands
of union dominated committees. As befits the nature of a blossoming movement from below,
the demands raised varied from strike to strike, from occupation to occupation. Some
focussed on solidarity with the students, others on wage rises, others on shorter hours.
This allowed the trade unions to set about demobilising the strike:
?The trade-union strategy had a single goal: to defeat the strike. In order to do this the
unions, with a long strike-breaking tradition, set out to reduce a vast general strike to
a series of isolated strikes at the individual enterprise level. The CGT led the
counter-offensive.?142
This was to be achieved by creating separate negotiations for each strike or occupation in
a factory by factory basis, dividing and ruling the movement. Workers, lacking any
pre-existing channels outside the unions to allow them to co-ordinate activity, were
largely unable to form such direct links within the struggle itself, finding the factory
gates policed by union officials. The trade unions gradually succeeded in degeneralising
the strike. Both the trade unions and the government united in calls to ban demonstrations
and enter negotiations. The CGT, very much degenerated from the radical roots we
encountered in Chapter 2, called for a return to work. The strike wave ebbed, and by June
was over. Order prevailed once more in Paris.
A final point to discuss is what effect the struggles had on the participants. Indeed,
many workers were radicalised by the experience, demoralising though it was to be
demobilised and outmanoeuvred by the trade union apparatus.
?The real gain of 1968 for our class was elsewhere. This was the birth, everywhere, in all
the factories, of a minority of workers who had more or less broken with the union
apparatus. There, something changed and in the ten years which followed, we can talk about
the important strikes of the 1970s which escaped, in whole or in part from the apparatus
of the PCF/CGT, and there were some big strikes in those years.?143
There was talk amongst Trotskyists that a ?workers? vanguard? had been born in the
factories. However, where did they go? Some became sucked into the trade unions, aiming to
reform them but finding themselves reformed to the realities of trade unionism. ?A good
number went to the LCR or LO [Trotskyist Parties] and the Maoists, and the biggest part
went nowhere.?144 Consequently, while 1968 created militants who would shape the disputes
over the following decade, many were either absorbed into the trade unions and political
parties or demobilised altogether.
The following year in Italy saw struggles which, although not as large numerically, in
many ways went further beyond the control of the trade unions. The ?Hot Autumn? saw waves
of strikes and occupations alongside a growing student movement and increasing
mobilisations outside of the factory, with mass squatting and women?s movements prominent.
In the huge car factories of the north, industrial action was rippling beyond the control
of the trade unions. Workers developed autonomous tactics and forms of shop floor
organisation. One of the most effective was the ?checkerboard strike?, where one part of
the assembly line would stop work, and by the time the management and union officials had
got them to start up again, another part of the line would stop. Due to the linear nature
of the production process, these small stoppages would bring whole factories to a halt. A
worker at Fiat?s Mirafiori plant described the situation:
?The presses weren?t producing a thing, the crane men and the trolley drivers had nothing
to transport, and thus the production lines were virtually at a standstill. This was
dangerous for the unions. They had lost control (?) The very fact that the line was not
running sparked off meetings and discussions among the men: first of all inside the
factory, next to the stationary assembly lines, and then outside, together with the groups
of students who had gathered at the gates. The strike spread down the line, and political
discussion followed it. Everyone was arguing and talking, and it was suggested that the
demands of the Press Shop could be taken up by the assembly lines. The strike had begun in
protest against the speed of the line. But work speeds are decided from above in the
factory, and are based on the whole way that capitalism organizes work, that is, gradings
and wages. So our initial limited protest soon spread to all aspects of the work
relationship.?145
This captures very well the dynamics of the struggle, where seemingly everyday demands
about the pace of work quickly gave way to an openly political struggle for power,
contesting management?s right to manage. In this context:
?[M]any comrades thought that we should begin to push harder. But for the time being this
was difficult, because there was nowhere they could turn for organizational support. The
unions were out of the question, and the students hadn?t yet arrived on the scene.?146
The workers organised through impromptu assemblies, using recallable, mandated delegates
outside the trade unions to negotiate with management. In many places, these delegates
came together in factory councils. The trade unions sought to recapture the initiative and
turn the delegates into representatives. Many militants saw this for what it was ? an
attempt to demobilise them and recreate representative structures. Consequently, they
raised the slogan ?we are all delegates!? and stopped work to negotiate with management en
masse. Against this, ?union officials aimed to discipline the movement so the workers
acted through the organization which represented them, and not outside it.?147
They did this through an ?institutionalisation from below?, dividing the most active
militants from the rest of the workers and sucking them into union positions. The CGIL
union (Italian General Confederation of Labour), which had originally opposed the delegate
system, did a u-turn and made it the basis of the union structure. As the tide of struggle
ebbed, the most active militants found themselves stranded as union representatives,
mandated by assemblies which were rapidly dwindling. ?Many leading activists became
full-time union organizers after 1969, while in 1970 up to 50 per cent of delegates
resigned.?148 There was no real organised revolutionary alternative to this, so many of
the best militants became absorbed into the trade union structures for lack of a better
strategy. This is partly reflective of the fact many of the most organised revolutionary
elements in the Hot Autumn were those coming from Leninism. The ?workerists?, organised in
groups like Potere Operaio (Workers Power), Lotta Continua (Continuous Struggle) and
Avanguardia Operaia (Workers? Vanguard), had nonetheless broken with the mainstream
Marxist conception of the party and support for the trade unions. Instead, they sought to
organise politically in the economic sphere, with bulletins and anti-union agitation
within the factories. The workerists recognised how the post-war settlement had harnessed
class conflict to drive capitalist development, and discerned a ?strategy of refusal?
amongst the workers in the vast factories of the Italian north:
?[T]he refusal of even passive collaboration in capitalist development: in other words,
the renunciation of precisely that form of mass struggle which today unifies the movements
led by the workers in the advanced capitalist countries.?149
They made the argument that the assemblies and delegate councils would inevitably be
recuperated. Thus, they did not seek to provide a revolutionary counter force to the trade
unions, but to organise negatively, against all demands for better wages, conditions and
so on and as a refusal of work, of wage labour ? of capitalism. However, this left the
trade unions unopposed in the factories, while the workerists turned their focus away from
the economic sphere towards armed struggle:
??the majority of workerists chose in effect to abandon to the confederations those
militant workers still unconvinced by the tendency's critique of unionism. In doing so,
they would help to make their fears of union recuperation a self-fulfilling prophecy. As a
consequence, Potere Operaio would encounter great difficulties in building a factory
presence outside established strongholds like Petrolchimico; there as elsewhere, a number
of its activists would choose to participate in the new councils of delegates. (?) the
unions would soon prove successful in overtaking most of the radical rank-and-file factory
groups of the creeping May. While Lotta Continua remained influential at FIAT, and the
CUBs [workplace committees] sponsored by Avanguardia Operaia continued to spread through
Lombardy, the unions' resurgence was to have direct consequences for workerism's political
ambitions. In the crucial years of the early 1970s, the tendency's major organisational
expression would turn away from the problem of class composition [workplace organisation],
towards the all-or-nothing gamble of 'militarising' the new revolutionary movement.?150
The armed struggle proved disastrous, and the state unleashed a huge wave of repression
against the social movements, sweeping thousands into prison. It?s hard to avoid the
conclusion that the workerists cut off their nose to spite their face. It?s true that wage
demands were harnessed by the post-war settlement as a motor of capitalist growth. But
this was precisely a period where workers? demands were exceeding what capital could
profitably concede, opening up a potentially revolutionary moment. As the previously
quoted Fiat worker argued,
?For us the password is FIGHT INSIDE THE FACTORY, because it is only through fighting
inside the factory that we shall be in a position to outlast a prolonged clash with the
bosses and the State. We must put them in the weakest position, where they will have to
pay the highest price, and not us.?151
But in time the workerists rejected the idea that these struggles could prefigure a
revolutionary break: ?this would not be a pre-figuration of the future, because the
future, from the working class point of view, does not exist; only a block on the
present.?152 Thus, the only struggles within the factory they could conceive of were
refusals to make demands, wanting to turn the tables so that management had to make
demands of the workers to return. This was no doubt a radical position. It affirmed the
political (i.e. power struggle) nature of the class struggle and correctly insisted that
revolution is more than the self-management of wage labour. In this sense 'the refusal of
work' was not simply an invention of workerist intellectuals, but an attempt to theorise
the rejection of the work ethic and the refusal to let life be reduced to work that
characterised parts of the strike movement. However, in practice this stance, and the turn
away from the economic sphere to armed struggle, left the field clear for the trade unions
to recuperate the movement. This meant turning militancy away from the strike movement,
where workers were on home turf, towards the armed struggle, where the state had the
advantage.
This is not to say everything would have been fine in the winter of discontent, France
1968 and the Hot Autumn 1969 if there had been well established anarcho-syndicalist
unions. The point is that there were not, and there could not have been, since World War
II had all but destroyed the independent organisations of the working class, and the
social democratic settlement had limited the space for their re-emergence. But in all
three cases, a lack of an organised revolutionary perspective on the shop floor was one of
the factors preventing these struggles pushing beyond the limits of capitalism. Compare
them with Spain, where decades of revolutionary agitation meant workers and peasants knew
what to do immediately when the chance presented itself for expropriation and a push
towards libertarian communism. Likewise, the lack of organisational links outside the
trade unions limited the horizontal spread of the struggles and allowed the trade unions
to regain the initiative. This was especially the case in France, where the factory gates
were patrolled by Communist Party/trade union officials. The attractive idea of forming
the organisations needed to struggle in the midst of struggle proved harder than
anticipated, in part because the forces of reaction and leftist recuperation had a huge
head start.
Finally, we can note that the lack of an organised revolutionary union movement meant
those radicalised by the struggle were generally sucked into the trade union bureaucracy,
the Leninist and Maoist parties, or drifted away altogether. They certainly didn?t regroup
themselves on the shop floor to push a revolutionary perspective and oppose the
recuperation of the committee/delegate/council forms developed in the struggle. Compare
this with the German Revolution, where the FAUD was able to regroup newly radicalised
militants and boycott the factory councils when they were recuperated by the Social
Democrat government. Their numbers declined with the struggle, but they remained much
stronger than they had been before the revolutionary period and were able to carry on
other struggles and agitation. There is no point lamenting this absence. What we can do is
see that autonomous, democratic forms of workers? organisation such as councils and
committees are often prone to recuperation if no clear alternative strategy is in play. As
was written of the French wildcat general strike of 1968:
?This was the first step towards questioning legalism, the first attempt to enter a
revolutionary insurrectionary phase: but there was no follow-up in that direction, and the
movement was kept well under union control on the whole.?153
There?s much to learn from the struggles of this period about how a revolutionary movement
could develop, and also how it can fail. These discussions could fill a pamphlet in their
own right, and we have only skimmed the surface of them here. The failure of these
struggles to develop into an insurrectionary movement against capitalism and the state
also highlights the necessity to have some organised revolutionary effort by workers to
generalise strike movements, to counter the efforts of the trade unions and political
parties to return to normal, and to spread militancy between and beyond workplaces into
wider society. It seems highly unlikely such a revolutionary workers? organisation can be
created on the fly, especially when the trade unions and political parties have decades of
head start. But we also have to acknowledge that the basis of the militancy of this
period, particularly in the mines and the vast car factories, has since been swept away
through ?spatial fixes? (i.e. relocating industries abroad), and economic and social
restructuring. In other words, the neoliberal counter revolution has destroyed the bases
of these revolts, in the West at least.
The neoliberal counter revolution
Margaret Thatcher?s conservative government came to power in 1979, oft repeating the
infamous mantra ?there is no alternative?. In a sense, she was correct. Workers had pushed
more or less up against the limits of capitalism, and been unable or unwilling to push
beyond. Consequently, capital needed to counter attack, to restore order on the shop
floor, discipline the working class and kick start capital accumulation after a decade of
industrial turmoil. Within the capitalist frame of reference, there was no alternative;
the working class needed to be broken.
There are a couple of common myths about neoliberalism which we should first put to bed.
The first is that it represents a ?minimal state? and a ?free market?. This is false on
both counts. While those directly employed by the state fell with the privatisation of the
old state monopolies of British Rail, British Steel, British Telecom, British Gas and so
on, general government expenditure has remained relatively constant since World War II,
rising gradually until the late 1960s and levelling off around 40% of Gross Domestic
Product (GDP).154 Widespread privatisations have been compensated for by subsidies and
state contracts awarded to private sector firms. We should recall that Thatcher reportedly
carried a copy of the classical liberal economist Adam Smith?s ?Wealth of Nations? in her
handbag, and remind ourselves of what Adam Smith had to say about the state and free market:
?Laws and government may be considered in this and indeed in every case as a combination
of the rich to oppress the poor, and preserve to themselves the inequality of the goods
which would otherwise be soon destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not hindered by
the government would soon reduce the others to an equality with themselves by open
violence.?155
The neoliberal state is thus only ?minimal? in the sense that it is focussed on its core
function of class warfare, outsourcing many of the welfare functions and representative
organs which were supposed to guarantee social peace under the social democratic regime.
It is not the sidelining of the state, but a redefining of its role. Utilities, health
care, education and so on are all seen as non-core functions and so there are ongoing
attempts to privatise public services across the board. This 'minimal' state, concerned
chiefly with the management of disorder, has been called a ?security? state. As political
philosopher Michel Foucault wrote:
"The essential function of security (...) is to respond to a reality in such a way that
this response cancels out the reality to which it responds ? nullifies it, or limits,
checks or regulates it."156
The neoliberal state is thus literally laissez faire. Rather than trying to guarantee
order, it 'lets things happen.' Periodic disorder in the markets, especially the
deregulated financial markets, or on the streets is more or less taken for granted, with
the state seeking to nullify undesirable effects (such as eruptions of class struggle).
This is the link between the market liberalisation and the security state that
characterises the neoliberal regime. The dominance of the market over social life and the
increase in repressive state power, ubiquitous surveillance, militarisation of the police
and so on, are by no means contradictory; they presuppose one another. As the state sheds
its social functions, political representation withers; membership of political parties
and participation in elections falls. As this happens, the state can rely less and less on
presumed ?consent? to legitimise its rule, and is likely to rely more and more on brute
force. Students witnessed this in the repression of the movements against the tripling of
tuition fees and the abolition of education maintenance allowance (EMA). The government?s
own official report into the August Riots of 2011 cites ?cynicism/anger towards
politicians, authority, negative experience of the police? as amongst the causes.157 Such
conditions are endemic to the neoliberal regime, especially for those at the wrong end of
rising inequality.
However, while disorder outside the workplace is taken for granted, order within the
workplace is insisted upon. This brings us to the second myth, that neoliberalism is
anti-union. This is only partly true. Everyone remembers Thatcher?s battle with the miners
in 1984-85. Indeed, the working class is still feeling the consequences of that defeat
today. But in order to take on the miners, Thatcher?s government did deals with other
unions. The state picked its battles one by one, and unions which were willing to adapt
themselves to the new conditions were somewhat spared. Essentially, trade unions were no
longer to serve primarily as the mediators of class conflict by negotiating productivity
deals, but rather were to be an outsourced wing of management, disciplining workers and
pushing through ?modernisation? where bosses couldn?t do so alone. It?s unsurprising
therefore that trade union membership has fallen steadily since its 1979 peak of 13.2
million, to around 7.4 million today.
The changing role of the trade unions can be seen in the evolution of industrial tribunals
(now employment tribunals). These were introduced by the 1964 Industrial Training Act as a
low cost alternative to the civil courts for dealing with labour related matters. The
official presiding over the case was known as a "chair", who sat with both a union
official and an employer?s representative. They are now known as ?employment judges?,
which gives an indication of the increasingly legalistic nature of the process. In the
early days, to prepare for an industrial tribunal didn?t require any specialist legal
knowledge on the part of the worker. Although a knowledge of the case law always helped,
it was by no means essential. Nowadays, your prospects are pretty slim without an
employment lawyer; something which trade unions often provide to their members as part of
their service model. While in the past there were many workplaces which would take wildcat
action if a worker was unfairly disciplined or sacked (and there still are a few, some
post office branches and the London Underground being the most frequent), "wait for the
tribunal" is among the most effective ways of making sure this doesn't happen, diffusing
anger into an individual, legalistic process.
Thatcher?s government wasn?t stupid, and was not prepared to leave the centres of working
class power untouched, trade union mediation or not. While the trade unions had long
served to police militancy on the shop floor, they?d proved unable to discipline the
working class during the winter of discontent. And there was a strong correlation between
those industries with strong rank and file union organisation and wildcat militancy. When
the union hierarchy tried to call off strikes, often the branches and shop stewards
ignored them to take unofficial wildcat action. Up until 1968, 95% of strikes had been
unofficial, and the same was true of many of the conflicts of the 1970s.158 Consequently,
the strongholds of the organised working class, particularly mining and manufacturing,
were to be dismantled. So-called ?anti-union? laws were introduced to clamp down on
unofficial action and secondary picketing. But in practice these laws were not so much
anti-union as anti-strike, imposing financial ruin (asset sequestration) on unions which
didn?t clamp down on their members taking unofficial action.
The National Union of Miners couldn?t be trusted to discipline the miners, who had brought
the country to a standstill in 1972 and brought down the government in 1974. The miners
had shown a strong capacity for autonomous action at a rank and file level, particularly
in 1972. A secondary stronghold was in manufacturing, particularly the car industry. These
centres of working class power had to be destroyed lest they rise up again. The defeat of
the miners was well planned, dating at least to the 1978 ?Ridley Plan? which had been
leaked to the Economist. Coal was stockpiled well in advance, some power plants were
converted to run on petroleum, a fleet of scab hauliers was recruited in case rail workers
refused to move coal, and riot squads were deployed to smash picket lines. Deals were done
with other unions to pre-empt sympathetic action. In 1984 the government, via the National
Coal Board (NCB), tore up the 1974 agreement and announced a programme of pit closures,
costing 20,000 jobs. Without waiting to ballot, miners in the affected pits walked out.
They soon spread the strike to other pits via flying pickets. But the story is a familiar
one etched into the collective memory of today?s militants, even those who weren?t born at
the time. Despite a long and bitter struggle, the miners were successfully isolated. They
fought and lost almost alone.
For the manufacturing sector, the process was less sudden. Instead, firms increasingly
employed a ?spatial fix?, relocating to countries with lower wages and laxer conditions.
Often, these were military dictatorships like Brazil and South Korea. Here too, they often
found that the workers they brought together on the production lines got organised, fought
and won better conditions. But in terms of Britain, the militancy was successfully
exported.159 Whereas in the 1970s the British economy had been 70% extractive industries
and manufacturing, today it is more than 70% services. The economic restructuring has
imposed a generational break in militancy across almost all sectors. Most workers born in
the 1980s or since have never been on strike, and for those who have it has been mostly in
one day, largely symbolic actions. Certainly, memories of effective industrial action are
few and far between, and the sectors where this was commonplace are long gone. We have yet
to see much in the way of effective service sector organising, something any contemporary
anarcho-syndicalist strategy needs to address.
The advent of neoliberalism thus represented a shift in the balance of class forces, with
capital once more on the offensive. Consequently, the meaning of ?reform? was redefined,
not as concessions to placate the threat of revolution, but as an ongoing process of
restructuring society in capital?s interests. ?Labour market reform? means casualisation,
?flexibility? (for employers), an increasing role for employment agencies, and rising job
insecurity. Pension reform means cutting pension pay outs and increasing employee
contributions. Financial market reform means deregulation of the sector, leading to
greater financial instability, growing inequality and the massive expansion of personal
credit (all factors in the current crisis). Public sector reform means privatisation and
outsourcing, tearing up terms and conditions and the introduction of private sector
management norms. Industrial relations reform means transforming the notion of relations
into ?human resources?, representing the relegation of the working class from collective
subject to disciplined, individualised, managed object. Welfare reform means cuts and
workfare, i.e. forced labour. Housing reform means the widespread privatisation of the
housing stock, and the decline of social housing. In the absence of a strong working class
movement ?reforming to preserve? was superseded with ?reforming to develop?.
In short, reform has become a euphemism for attacking our living standards. Unions have
been allowed to remain social partners so long as they accepted their role was no longer
to police the shop floor in return for annual improvements in pay and conditions, but
simply to manage their stagnation and decline with minimal disruption. This is normally
called ?consultation?, a managerial euphemism if ever there was one, since the outcome is
rarely in doubt. During the ?boom? before the great financial crisis of 2007, pay was cut
year on year in the form of sub-inflation pay offers. During the following austerity, this
process accelerated. Neoliberalism has thus all but eliminated the space for reformism in
the old sense of working through the representative institutions of unions and parliament
to achieve gradual improvements in working class living standards. This is the paradox of
reformism: without the revolutionary or at least, militant and uncontrollable threat, the
reformists lose their seat at the table and capital and the state lose any incentive to
concede reforms. Whether they could do so once more if faced with a renewed working class
threat, or whether that ship has sailed, is an open question. We would err on the side of
caution and say that it may indeed be possible, and as much as possible, we should
organise in such a way that is wise to attempts at recuperation or buy offs.
With all this in mind, we can arrive at the counterintuitive formulation that
neoliberalism constitutes class collaboration on an individual basis. No longer is social
partnership institutionalised via collective bargaining and productivity deals. Rather,
productivity and incentives are increasingly individualised. Home ownership and the
corresponding mortgages were vastly expanded under Thatcher (and since with the ?right to
buy? council housing). This formed a class basis for this 'individualised class
collaboration', a burgeoning middle class identity to replace the ?old fashioned? working
class identity associated with pit villages and manufacturing towns, which were in
inexorable decline. The expansion of personal debt served to discipline the working class,
first through mortgages (which mitigate against strike action which could cost your home)
and later through the expansion of credit card lending which, together with rising house
prices, plugged much of the gap in aggregate demand which, under the social democratic
regime, had been served by productivity deals. Workplaces have seen a proliferation of
minor hierarchies ? team leaders and so on ? to provide a semblance of truth to the ruling
ideology of meritocracy that, if you keep your head down and crack on, you can progress
your career. With the working class ever more atomised, inequality has risen dramatically.
Britain?s Gini coefficient (0 = perfect equality, 100 = perfect inequality) rose from the
mid 20s in the post-war period to 40 and above today, a figure which continues creeping
upwards.
The atomisation of the working class has gone hand in hand with a mental health epidemic.
Depression is rife as stresses, which were once seen as a collective battle between
workers and bosses, are turned inwards as personal failings. After all, since our society
is now a meritocracy, if you?re stuck in a dead end job, perma-temping or on the dole,
you?ve only yourself to blame. Or so the story goes. One in four people suffers a mental
health problem in any given year, most commonly anxiety and depression.160 Studies suggest
that unemployment and rising income inequality are implicated in rising suicide rates.161
When the Greek economy went into crisis following the global recession, its suicide rate
shot up from the lowest to the highest in Europe.162 The depression epidemic is not solely
caused by neoliberal capitalism, of course; mental health is far more complicated than
that. But it?s certainly an important factor. Writer Mark Fisher notes:
?In Britain, depression is now the condition that is most treated by the NHS. (?) it is
necessary to reframe the growing problem of stress (and distress) in capitalist societies.
Instead of treating it as incumbent on individuals to resolve their own psychological
distress, instead, that is, of accepting the vast privatization of stress that has taken
place over the last thirty years, we need to ask: how has it become acceptable that so
many people, and especially so many young people, are ill? The 'mental health plague' in
capitalist societies would suggest that, instead of being the only social system that
works, capitalism is inherently dysfunctional, and that the cost of it appearing to work
is very high.?163
With the fragmenting of working class identity, the Labour Party, whose membership
collapsed from 666,000 in 1979 to 348,000 the following year, became 'unelectable'. That
is, until they reinvented themselves as New Labour, declaring 'we're all middle class now'
(Labour membership was down to 194,000 at the latest count in 2010). Party politics has
thus been transformed from a spectacular image of class conflict, where the party of the
bosses and the party of the workers would do battle (the social democratic tragedy), into
a contest between interchangeable administrators of the capitalist economy (the neoliberal
farce). Neoliberal politics consists of a bland managerial face off, where increasingly
indistinguishable candidates compete for a handful of decisive votes in marginal
constituencies. Personality becomes decisive, but in truth mediocrity reigns. Real power
lies elsewhere, and the sharpest of the ruling class no longer aim at a career in
politics, leaving social administration to a succession of identikit clones.
Miliband imitates Cameron who imitates Blair; a copy of a copy of a copy, becoming more
dull and unappealing each iteration. No wonder interest in party politics is waning! And
good riddance. But it?s testament to the weakness of the working class that these
mediocrities are able to rule us. With barely a semblance of anything at stake, membership
of political parties is in steady decline, and electoral turnout too. Only the occasional
short lived spectacle like the hype around New Labour or Obamamania can buck this trend.
The incumbents promise a steady hand. The opposition promise change. They change places
and change promises. In the 2010 general election, every major party ran on a slogan of
'fairness',164 no doubt after some pollster discovered it was the value that really spoke
to the fabled 'middle England'. In the past, revolutionaries had to make the case against
parliament as the avenue for social change. Increasingly, parliament makes the case for us
all by itself. As a BBC journalist writes:
??the big parties have effectively given up on becoming mass membership organisations.
There will be no return to the 1950s. What we might be witnessing instead is the birth of
a new kind of political party. Not so much a religion to be followed by faithful, as a
pastime to be pursued once or twice a year, when other commitments allow.?165
This more or less brings us to the present crisis. As of 2012, much remains to be seen.
But the Keynesian solution is no longer on the table. Even if there?s the profitability to
sustain new productivity deals (doubtful), or the wealth available for redistribution
(doubtless), the ruling class aren?t going to give it up, save in the face of a renewed
class offensive. This has been contemplated in the pages of the Economist:
??relatively undemocratic governments have historically extended voting rights in order to
convince a restive public of the promise of future redistribution. In the West, that is
not an option. A bit more growth and a bit less austerity might take the edge off public
anger. But if social unrest has its roots in the effects of structural economic changes, a
more fundamental societal reckoning may be needed. A study (?) examined inequality and
unrest in India and found that redistribution can quell an outcry. That may well be the
outcome of the current turmoil, too.?166
But while one off redistributions might placate social movements, they cannot fix the
economic crisis. There is plenty of existing wealth in the world which can in principle be
redistributed, but as Karl Marx pointed out, capitalism is a system of producing new,
surplus value. Moving existing wealth around won?t in itself kick start that accumulation
process. A more fundamental societal reckoning may be needed. The Keynesian/social
democratic regime failed due to its own internal contradictions. It couldn?t be sustained
for more than 25 years or so in only a small part of the world (i.e. the most developed
countries). There can be no return to the post-war settlement, whatever the nostalgic
wishes of the left, for the conditions which made it possible no longer exist. But the
original neoliberal solutions are now off the table too. The basis of neoliberal
individualised class collaboration was the expansion of home ownership and the extension
of easy credit to compensate for stagnating real wages. But with the bursting of the
credit bubble and the fact much of the housing stock has already been sold off, that
option is no longer viable.
What comes next remains to be seen. Neoliberalism may stagger on with further
privatisations, casualisation and reliance on repression to compensate for falling
political legitimacy. This seems to be the favoured course of the British ruling class.
But this can be contested, resulting in either an alternative model of capitalist
accumulation, or the re-emergence of a working class movement aiming beyond capitalism and
the state, and towards a free society based on human needs. The latter, in fact, is likely
to guarantee the former, to the extent it falls short. That is to say, it may take a push
from the class struggle to put the final nails in neoliberalism?s coffin, but there may be
some other form of capitalism that follows, if we don?t push all the way through to
libertarian communism. Certainly, the best capitalism can offer us is alienated boredom
and insecure employment; the worst, medicated misery and unemployment. Wherever the
present crisis leads, we can be sure that the better organised we are, the stronger our
solidarity, then the better prepared we are to influence things favourably in our
direction. At the minute we are far from strong enough to do so. But a revolutionary
unionist practice seems to us more relevant than ever, especially now the possibility for
even modest gains through the reformist unions has been so much eroded.
Summary
In this chapter we looked first at the social democratic compromise. This marginalised
revolutionary tendencies in the workers' movement by integrating the political and
economic representatives of the working class into the state's management of capitalism.
When this compromise broke down in the 1960s and 1970s, the working class took the
offensive with waves of strikes and militancy. However, these struggles did not reach the
intensity of revolutionary working class insurrection, although at times in France and
Italy it came close. With the stalling of these struggles, capitalism and the state
counter attacked with neoliberal reforms. These destroyed the old bases of militancy, put
limited individual advancement in the place of collective struggles, and created a
paradoxical 'individualised class collaboration'. These neoliberal conditions by no means
mean a minimal or weak state, but a security state which creates the conditions for
disorder whilst seeking to neutralise any outbreaks. This shapes the conditions for
organising collective working class struggles today.
Further reading
Units 19 and 20 of the SelfEd history of anarcho-syndiclaism cover the rise and decline of
social democracy. Aufheben #13 contains a good article on housing and how it was used to
decompose the working class.167 Aufheben?s two part series on the financial crisis is also
worth reading.168 Salt by Escalate is an interesting take on the current crisis of
capitalism and neoliberalism.169 Libcom.org has a good brief introduction to the winter of
discontent,170 as well as several good pieces on France 1968. These include ?Enrag?s and
Situationists in the Occupations Movement? by the Situationist International, ?General
Strike: France 1968 ? A factory by factory account? by Andre Hoyles and ?May-June 1968 ? A
Situation Lacking in Workers' Autonomy? by Mouvement Communiste. Daniel Cohn-Bendit?s
?Obsolete Communism ? the left wing alternative? provides a book length account of the
general strike in France. On Italy, the complete text of Robert Lumley?s ?States of
emergency: Cultures of revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978? is available on libcom and
covers the period of unrest well. Steve Wright?s ?Storming Heaven? covers the same period,
with particular focus on the ?workerist? Marxist political currents. Mario Tronti?s
?Strategy of Refusal? remains a key workerist text from the time, outlining their
unorthodox Marxist perspective. These can also be found on libcom.
/5
Posts tonen met het label The Solidarity Federation's book. Alle posts tonen
Posts tonen met het label The Solidarity Federation's book. Alle posts tonen
maandag 17 december 2012
(en) Britain, The Solidarity Federation's book, Fighting for ourselves: anarcho-syndicalism and the class struggle IV(4/6)
(en) Britain, The Solidarity Federation's book, Fighting for ourselves: anarcho-syndicalism and the class struggle - Endnotes VI (6/6)
IWA statutes, see: www.iwa-ait.org/?q=statutes ---- Quoted in Abel Paz, Durruti ? the people armed. ---- Unit 24 of SelfEd ? SolFed?s self-education course on anarcho-syndicalism. See: www.selfed.org.uk ---- John Quail, The slow burning fuse, p. 246-247. John Turner was one of the publishers of the agitational syndicalist paper ?The voice of labour? which advocated direct action and the general strike. However, his position as a bureaucrat undermined in practice the politics he espoused in theory. ---- See this blog by an anarcho-syndicalist in the PCS trade union: www.libcom.org/blog/trade-union-factionalism-rank-file-organising-11022012 ---- This is not to say a shop steward position cannot sometimes be used to further a direct action based organising strategy, e.g. by using a union recognition agreement as legal cover to hold workplace meetings which organise unofficial, on the job action. Tom Brown, Principles of syndicalism: www.libcom.org/library/principles-of-syndicalism-tom-brown The CWU union called off planned Christmas strikes ? the most powerful weapon in the postal workers? arsenal ? for ?meaningful negotiations? prompted by unspecified concessions. The talks, of course, had to be kept secret from the membership. Three months of silence and demobilisation later, and the CWU recommended acceptance of an almost identical deal involving 40,000 job losses. The ?victory? was that the CWU would be ?consulted? on these cuts. Demoralised by three months of silence and having squandered building momentum in the pre-Christmas strikes, posties voted to accept the deal, though it was widely seen as a ?sell out?. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The communist manifesto: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02... Vladimir Illych Lenin, What is to be done?: http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/ii.htm Leon Trotsky, The history of the Russian revolution: www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/hrr/ch00.htm Amadeo Bordiga, Theses on the role of the Communist Party in the proletarian revolution: www.libcom.org/library/role_party_bordiga Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German ideology: www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm#a4 (the quoted passage appears as an added note in margin of the original manuscript). Vladimir Illych Lenin, State and revolution: www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch01.htm#s4 Leon Trotsky, The history of the Russian revolution: www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/hrr/ch01.htm For a good introductory account, see Ida Mett, The Kronstadt uprising of 1921: www.libcom.org/library/the-kronstadt-uprising-ida-mett See Maurice Brinton, The Bolsheviks and workers? control ? state and counter-revolution: www.libcom.org/library/the-bolsheviks-and-workers-control-solidarity-group Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-syndicalism: www.libcom.org/library/anarcho-syndicalism-rudolf-rocker-chapter-3 Quoted in Bob Holton, British syndicalism 1900-1914, myths and realities, p.36. Subversion, Labouring in vain - a critical history of the Labour Party: http://libcom.org/library/labouring-vain To what extent it did so will be taken up in chapter 4; successful post-war wage struggles ultimately shifted the costs on to the bosses, which is part of why they came to hate the welfare state. See 1978-1979: Winter of Discontent: www.libcom.org/history/1978-1979-winter-of-discontent Syndicalist Workers Federation, How Labour governed 1945-51: http://libcom.org/history/how-labour-governed-1945-1951 Efforts are often made to find ?anarchism? in figures as diverse as the 6th century BC Chinese mystic Lao-Tse, ultra-individualist Ayn Rand, and even leaders of states such as Reagan and Thatcher. Peter Marshall?s liberal history of anarchism, ?Demanding the impossible?, is amongst the worst offenders here as a consequence of stripping away the socialist opposition to private property, like a good liberal, and reducing anarchism to mere ?anti-state? sentiment, so vague even heads of state can share it. There certainly are libertarian and anti-state ideas and movements throughout history, but labelling these ?anarchist? is anachronistic. Peter Kropotkin, Mutual aid: a factor of evolution: www.libcom.org/library/mutual-aid-peter-kropotkin Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th Century: www.libcom.org/library/anarcho-syndicalism-20th-century-vadim-damier Quoted in Maurizio Antonioli (ed), The International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam (1907), p.113. Quoted in Maurizio Antonioli (ed), The International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam (1907), p.123. Malatesta's analysis is astute in that workers' economic positions alone cannot be assumed sufficient to create unity in struggle, let alone libertarian communism. Simply recruiting all the workers into one organisation doesn't dissolve the hierarchies and ideological conflicts among them, nor necessarily make for common struggle. The following quotes and paraphrased argument is drawn from Errico Malatesta?s 1925 Syndicalism and anarchism: http://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1925/04/syndic1.htm Dielo Truda, The organisational platform of the libertarian communists, part 3: http://libcom.org/library/platform-3 Dielo Truda, The organisational platform of the libertarian communists, part 3: http://libcom.org/library/platform-3 Dielo Truda, The organisational platform of the libertarian communists, part 5: http://libcom.org/library/platform-5 Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-syndicalism: http://libcom.org/library/anarcho-syndicalism-rudolf-rocker-chapter-6 Fernand Pelloutier, History of the bourses du travail: http://libcom.org/library/chapter-six-activities-bourses-du-travail Paul Mason, Live working or die fighting, p.124. Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-syndicalism: http://libcom.org/library/anarcho-syndicalism-rudolf-rocker-chapter-6 CGT, The charter of Amiens: http://www.marxists.org/history/france/cgt/charter-amiens.htm Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe, The rise and fall of revolutionary syndicalism, in Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe (eds) Revolutionary syndicalism, p.3. Stewart Bird, Dan Georgakas, and Deborah Shaffer (eds), Solidarity forever: an oral history of the IWW, p.3. Quoted in Patrick Renshaw, The Wobblies: the story of the IWW and syndicalism in the United States, p.46. Patrick Renshaw, The Wobblies: the story of the IWW and syndicalism in the United States, p.47. IWW, Preamble to the IWW cconstitution: http://www.iww.org/en/culture/official/preamble.shtml Stewart Bird, Dan Georgakas, and Deborah Shaffer (eds), Solidarity forever: an oral history of the IWW, p.5. Many of the anarchists described this as ?anti-political?, equating politics with party politics and the state. We use the term in a more everyday sense, that someone who is an anarchist has political beliefs. Stewart Bird, Dan Georgakas, and Deborah Shaffer (eds), Solidarity forever: an oral history of the IWW, p.9. Stewart Bird, Dan Georgakas, and Deborah Shaffer (eds), Solidarity forever: an oral history of the IWW, p.8. Stewart Bird, Dan Georgakas, and Deborah Shaffer (eds), Solidarity forever: an oral history of the IWW, p.3. For instance, see Fred Hansen's recollections: "I didn't know about the revolutionary part at first, but as soon as I got in the organisation, I started reading an awful lot ? not only IWW literature, but the communist literature, the anarchist literature, anybody's literature." In Stewart Bird, Dan Georgakas, and Deborah Shaffer (eds), Solidarity forever: an oral history of the IWW, p.189. A recent series of pieces in the IWW?s Industrial Worker argues there?s at least four interpretations of the term ?One Big Union?, some of which complement and some of which contradict one another: 1) every worker or most workers join the IWW; 2) a vision of a universalism/libertarian socialist principles for the IWW; 3) a vision of a new society (where unions run things instead of states, not unlike Marx?s comment about replacing governance of people with administration of things); and 4) a vision for revolutionary change (the class united). See http://libcom.org/library/industrial-unionism-one-big-unionism 1919: The murder of Wesley Everest: http://libcom.org/history/articles/murder-frank-everett Stewart Bird, Dan Georgakas, and Deborah Shaffer (eds), Solidarity forever: an oral history of the IWW, p.179. See http://www.marxists.org/history/usa/unions/iww/timeline.htm for a timeline up to 1983. The IWW has recently enjoyed something of a resurgence, most notably with the Starbucks Workers Union. As a living organisation in much changed circumstances, this is omitted from the analysis here. Many of the debates and contradictions of old live on. However, the contemporary debate of most interest to anarcho-syndicalists is that around the notion of ?direct unionism?, which advocates a form of direct action unionism rather than reliance on representation and contracts. See http://libcom.org/tags/direct-unionism for a developing archive. See also the Recomposition blog, which contains much of the ?direct unionism? material as well as accounts of contemporary workplace activity along direct action lines: http://libcom.org/blog/recomposition Bob Holton, British syndicalism 1900 ? 1914, myths and realities, p.32. However, there were attempts to form independent syndicalist unions in Britain before WWII. Some of these are documented in 'First Flight' by Albert Meltzer and 'Dare to be a Daniel' by Wilf McCartney, both published by the Kate Sharpley Library. The shop stewards? committees in Clydeside during WWI had their roots in this agitation. Quoted in Joseph White, Syndicalism in a mature industrial setting: the case of Britain, in Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe (eds), Revolutionary syndicalism, p.103. Joseph White, Syndicalism in a mature industrial setting: the case of Britain, in Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe (eds), Revolutionary syndicalism, p.104. The 1912 pamphlet ?The Miners? Next Step? is one of the most famous examples of this union reform agenda, although it went largely unrealised. It also advocated use of parliament, but making MPs recallable by the unions, a novel compromise between anti-parliamentarism and parliamentary socialism. See http://libcom.org/library/miners-next-step-swmf-1912 1912: the syndicalist trials: http://libcom.org/history/articles/syndicalist-trials-1912 Joseph White, Syndicalism in a mature industrial setting: the case of Britain, in Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe (eds), Revolutionary syndicalism, p.115. Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe, The rise and fall of revolutionary syndicalism, in Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe (eds), Revolutionary syndicalism, p.6. Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe, The rise and fall of revolutionary syndicalism, in Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe (eds), Revolutionary syndicalism, p.7. There is also the infamous case of the Casa del Obrero Mundial in Mexico which, during the Mexican Revolution, sided with the liberal government against Zapata?s insurgent peasants only to be repressed by the government once the peasant uprising was under control (see John M. Hart, Revolutionary syndicalism in Mexico in Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe (eds), Revolutionary syndicalism), and the aforementioned partial co-option of British syndicalism into a trade union reform movement. Anton Pannekoek, Letter on workers? councils: http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1952/letter-councils.htm Council communists love acronyms. We will only touch on the main ones here, but see the further reading for more detailed accounts. The German word ?union? (Ger: 'union') has nothing to do with the word ?trade union? (Ger: ?Gewerkschaft?). Both the council communist unions and the anarcho-syndicalist FAUD used the word ?union? in part to distinguish their revolutionary organisations from the mainstream trade unions. Program of the AAUD: http://www.marxists.org/subject/germany-1918-23/dauve-authier/04.htm Dave Graham, An introduction to left communism in Germany from 1914 to 1923: http://libcom.org/library/introduction-left-communism-germany-1914 Anton Pannekoek, Workers? councils, p.60. Anton Pannekoek, Workers? councils, p.65-66. Anton Pannekoek, Workers? councils, p.61. Anton Pannekoek, Workers? councils, p.62. In Pannekoek?s defence, it?s worth noting that he was writing at a time (1936) where revolutions had been breaking out in recent memory in numerous countries, and it may be unfair to generalise his writings from that specific context to the present day conditions. Pannekoek likely had the AAUD in mind when writing 'Workers? councils'. Amadeo Bordiga, Theses on the role of the Communist Party in the proletarian revolution: http://libcom.org/library/role_party_bordiga Guidelines of the AAUD-E: http://libcom.org/history/guidelines-aaud-e Otto R?hle, The revolution is not a party affair: http://libcom.org/library/the-revolution-is-not-a-party-affair-otto-ruhle Otto R?hle, From the bourgeois to the proletarian revolution: http://libcom.org/library/bourgeois-proletarian-revolution-otto-ruhle Gilles Dauv? and Denis Authier, The communist left in Germany 1918-1921 (appendix): http://libcom.org/library/appendix-i-groupuscular-phase Dave Graham, An introduction to left communism in Germany 1914-1923: http://libcom.org/library/introduction-left-communism-germany-1914 Gilles Dauv? and Denis Authier, The communist left in Germany 1918-1921: http://libcom.org/library/communist-left-germany-1918-1921 Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-syndicalism: http://libcom.org/library/anarcho-syndicalism-rudolf-rocker-chapter-6 ?mile Pouget, Direct action: http://libcom.org/library/direct-action-emile-pouget ?mile Pouget, Direct action: http://libcom.org/library/direct-action-emile-pouget ?mile Pouget, Sabotage: http://libcom.org/library/3-labour-market ?mile Pouget, Direct action: http://libcom.org/library/direct-action-emile-pouget ?mile Pataud and ?mile Pouget, How we shall bring about the revolution, p.18. Note the original French ?syndicat? is translated here simply as ?union? as opposed to ?trade union? in the English printed edition, since they are clearly talking about the revolutionary union and not ordinary trade unions. ?mile Pataud and ?mile Pouget, How we shall bring about the revolution, p.63. ?mile Pataud and ?mile Pouget, How we shall bring about the revolution, p.134-5. The FORA?s founding pact of solidarity, quoted in Revolutionary unionism in Latin America ? the FORA in Argentina: http://libcom.org/library/revolutionary-unionism-latin-america-fora-arge... Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.82. Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.103. Quoted in Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.102-103. See Revolutionary unionism in Latin America ? the FORA in Argentina: http://libcom.org/library/revolutionary-unionism-latin-america-fora-arge... Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.49. Hans Manfred Bock, Anarchosyndicalism in the German labour movement: a distinctive minority tradition in Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe (eds), Revolutionary syndicalism, p.59. Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.50. Hans Manfred Bock, Anarchosyndicalism in the German labour movement: a distinctive minority tradition in Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe (eds), Revolutionary syndicalism, p. 72-73. Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.50-51. Hans Manfred Bock, Anarchosyndicalism in the German labour movement: a distinctive minority tradition in Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe (eds), Revolutionary syndicalism, p.63. Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.68. Guy Debord, Society of the spectacle, thesis 94: http://libcom.org/library/society-of-the-spectacle-debord-four This argument is often advanced by those influenced by council communism, seemingly unaware that the council communist critique was aimed at the German trade unions (Gewerkschaften), and not the various revolutionary unions (anarcho-syndicalist FAUD, council communist AAUD, AAUD-E?). For example, Anton Pannekoek dedicates a section of his book ?Workers? councils? to a scathing critique of trade unionism, and then praises the North American IWW just a few pages later. Although we can?t, of course, know how a more successful revolution may have changed that course of history. Such counter factual speculations are of limited value, but the point of the isolation of the revolution stands. Gaston Leval, Collectives in the Spanish revolution: http://libcom.org/library/collectives-leval-3 Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.123. Quoted in Abel Paz, Durruti in the Spanish revolution, p.457. Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.123. Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.124. Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.130. Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.126. More precisely, ?the CNT? didn?t want this because it wasn?t a unitary whole. There were competing visions of what the CNT should be and this was the de facto compromise between the competing tendencies. Durruti commented that: ?Some think the organisation is simply a vehicle for defending their economic interests. Others see it as an organisation that works with the anarchists for social transformation. Of course it makes sense that it's so difficult for the straight union activists and anarchists to get along.? Indeed, Fransisco Ascaso, referring to the ?straight union activists? of the Thirty, commented that ?all organisations tow a great deal of dead weight behind them, and that is something the CNT cannot avoid.? Abel Paz, Durruti in the Spanish revolution, p.381 and p.288 respectively. Abel Paz, Durruti in the Spanish revolution, p.342. Peiro ?was a member of a group affiliated to the FAI? (Stuart Christie, We, the anarchists! A study of the Iberian Anarchist Federation, p.50). He was also one of the signatories to the ?Manifesto of the Thirty? and thought conditions were not right for revolution, arguing for a less radical approach. De Santilli?n was not a straight reformist and argued vociferously against conflating syndicalism with the labour movement in general (We, the anarchists! A study of the Iberian Anarchist Federation, p.16). But within the FAI he was one of the more reformist members in practice. Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.116. Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.126. In de Santilli?n?s defence, his argument was based on the impossibility of libertarian communism in one country. However, class collaboration is still not an anarcho-syndicalist solution. Vadim Damier, Anarcho-syndicalism in the 20th century, p.138. De Santilli?n argued these reforms would lead to the kind of socio-economic changes the CNT stood for, but nonetheless this was a reformist position to take. It tends to call itself ?revolutionary syndicalism? or even insist it is also anarcho-syndicalist. It is typically labelled by its critics ?reformist syndicalism?. We?ve avoided either term here to avoid confusion. In Maurizio Antonioli (ed), The international anarchist congress of Amsterdam (1907). These splits were acrimonious, destructive and sometimes violent. But we cannot help thinking it was for the best, since revolutionary and reformist unionism cannot easily coexist in the same organisation outside of very specific conditions which bind them together. Pierre Besnard, Anarcho-syndicalism and anarchism: http://libcom.org/library/anarchosyndicalism-anarchism-pierre-besnard Vladimir Illych Lenin, Political report of the central committee to the extraordinary seventh congress of the Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik): http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/7thcong/01.htm Quoted in Solidarity Federation, Anarcho-syndicalism in Puerto Real: from shipyard resistance to community control: http://solfed.org.uk/?q=pamphlets/puertoreal Marcel van der Linden, Second thoughts on revolutionary syndicalism: http://libcom.org/library/second-thoughts-revolutionary-syndicalism-marc... Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-syndicalism: http://libcom.org/library/anarcho-syndicalism-rudolf-rocker-chapter-5 CNT, CGT y SO llaman a la huelga general el 29 de marzo: http://www.cnt.es/noticias/cnt-cgt-y-so-llaman-la-huelga-general-el-29-d... Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-syndicalism: http://libcom.org/library/anarcho-syndicalism-rudolf-rocker-chapter-3 ?mile Pataud and ?mile Pouget, How we shall bring about the revolution, p.63. Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe, The rise and fall of revolutionary syndicalism, in Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe (eds), Revolutionary syndicalism, p.1. James Heartfield, World war as class war: http://libcom.org/history/world-war-class-war Quoted in Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, Why did the West extend the franchise? Democracy, inequality and growth in historical perspective: http://scholar.harvard.edu/jrobinson/files/jr_west.pdf Quoted in Ed Goddard, Red flags torn: http://libcom.org/library/red-flags-torn-brief-sketch-some-problems-unio... See Joe Jacobs, Sorting out the postal strike, 1971: http://libcom.org/history/sorting-out-postal-strike-1971-joe-jacobs Quotes and chronology from Endangered Phoenix et al, 1926-1985: So near ? so far ? a selective history of the British miners: http://libcom.org/library/chapter-05-1972-miners-strike Endangered Phoenix et al, 1926-1985: So near ? so far ? a selective history of the British miners: http://libcom.org/library/chapter-05-1972-miners-strike Michael Mann , Ruling class strategies and citizenship: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0038038587021003003 Andre Hoyles, General strike: France 1968 ? a factory by factory account: http://libcom.org/library/general-strike-france-1968-factory-factory-acc... Strikes in India today dwarf France 1968, e.g. see: http://libcom.org/blog/world%E2%80%99s-biggest-ever-strike-india-28th-fe..., although as a percentage of the workforce France 1968 was probably bigger (around 66%, 10m out of 15m workers). Mouvement Communiste, May-June 1968 ? a situation lacking in workers' autonomy: http://libcom.org/library/firsthand-account-montreuil-ca Mouvement Communiste, May-June 1968 ? a situation lacking in workers' autonomy: http://libcom.org/library/firsthand-account-montreuil-ca Andre Hoyles, General strike: France 1968 ? a factory by factory account: http://libcom.org/library/general-strike-france-1968-factory-factory-acc... Situationist International, Enrag?s and Situationists in the occupations movement: http://libcom.org/library/enrag?s-situationists-occupations-movement Mouvement Communiste, May-June 1968 ? a situation lacking in workers' autonomy: http://libcom.org/library/conclusion-0 Mouvement Communiste, May-June 1968 ? a situation lacking in workers' autonomy: http://libcom.org/library/conclusion-0 Unknown Fiat worker, Organising at Fiat, 1969: http://libcom.org/history/organising-fiat-1969 Unknown Fiat worker, Organising at Fiat, 1969: http://libcom.org/history/organising-fiat-1969 Robert Lumley, Institutionalization from below: The unions and social movements ? 1970s Italy: http://libcom.org/history/institutionalization-below-unions-social-movem... Robert Lumley, Institutionalization from below: The unions and social movements ? 1970s Italy: http://libcom.org/history/institutionalization-below-unions-social-movem... Mario Tronti, The strategy of refusal: http://libcom.org/library/strategy-refusal-mario-tronti Steve Wright, Storming heaven: http://libcom.org/library/the-workerists-and-the-unions-in-italys-hot-au... Unknown Fiat worker, Organising at Fiat, 1969: http://libcom.org/history/organising-fiat-1969 Mario Tronti, The strategy of refusal: http://libcom.org/library/strategy-refusal-mario-tronti Andre Hoyles, General strike: France 1968 ? a factory by factory account: http://libcom.org/library/general-strike-france-1968-factory-factory-acc... Joe Hicks and Grahame Allen, A century of change: trends in UK statistics since 1900: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons/lib/research/rp99/rp99-111.pdf p.22. Adam Smith, Lectures on jurisprudence, p.208. Michel Foucault, Security, terror, population, p.47. Gareth Morrell, Sara Scott, Di McNeish and Stephen Webster, The August riots in England: understanding the involvement of young people: http://www.natcen.ac.uk/media/769712/the%20august%20riots%20in%20england... p.34. The Donovan Report, referenced in DAM, Winning the class war: http://libcom.org/library/winning-class-war-anarcho-syndicalist-strategy See Beverly Silver, Forces of labour: http://libcom.org/library/forces-labor-beverly-j-silver Mental Health Foundation, Mental health statistics: http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/help-information/mental-health-statistics/ E.g. see David Gunnell, Nicos Middleton, Elise Whitley, Daniel Dorling and Stephen Frank, Why are suicide rates rising in young men but falling in the elderly? ? a time-series analysis of trends in England and Wales 1950?1998: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0277-9536(02)00408-2 and Alfonso Ceccherini-Nelli and Stefan Priebe, Economic factors and suicide rates: associations over time in four countries: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00127-010-0275-2 Helena Smith, Greek woes drive up suicide rate: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/18/greek-woes-suicide-rate-highest Mark Fisher, Capitalist realism: http://libcom.org/library/capitalist-realism-mark-fisher p.19. 'Fairness means giving people what they deserve' (Conservatives); 'A future fair for all' (Labour); 'We will build a fairer Britain' (Liberal Democrats); 'Fair is worth fighting for' (Greens). Brian Wheeler, Can UK political parties be saved from extinction?: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12934148 The Economist, Unrest in peace: http://www.economist.com/node/21533365 Aufheben, The housing question: http://libcom.org/library/aufheben/aufheben-13-2005/the-housing-question Aufheben, The return of the crisis ? part 1: http://libcom.org/library/return-crisis-part-1 and part 2: http://libcom.org/library/return-crisis-part-2 Escalate Collective, Salt: http://libcom.org/library/salt-escalate-collective Sam Lowry, 1978-1979: Winter of discontent: http://libcom.org/history/1978-1979-winter-of-discontent Anton Pannekoek, Workers? councils, p.62. This quote, and indeed much of this section, is taken from DAM?s Winning the class war: http://libcom.org/library/winning-class-war-anarcho-syndicalist-strategy ?mile Pataud and ?mile Pouget, How we shall bring about the revolution, p.63. The cases of Workmates and Puerto Real form pamphlets #1 and #2 in our Theory and Practice series: http://solfed.org.uk/?q=pamphlets Rudolf Rocker, Anarcho-syndicalism: http://libcom.org/library/anarcho-syndicalism-rudolf-rocker-chapter-3 As the revolutionary union develops the capacity to organise more effective struggles and begins to attract the attention of the state, the importance of Locals undertaking anti-militarist agitation amongst the troops increases. Particularly in garrison towns, fraternisation with the troops could be pursued, as could organising around ex-service personnel, military housing, or the workplace and other grievances of the families of troops. The exact content of effective anti-militarist activity will need to be worked out in practice, but it will increase in importance as the class struggle heats up. The storming of the Bastille on the morning of the 14th July 1789 symbolises the outbreak of the French Revolution, where the rising capitalist class seized power from the monarchy. The Communist Party attempted a similar mythologising of the storming of the Winter Palace, staging a mass spectacle with over 100,000 spectators in 1920. These iconic events stand in for much messier and contradictory revolutionary and counter revolutionary processes.
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