AAUD/AAUD-E reader

Excellent!

sabot

Excellent!

agreed!

Nice one!
Your work is greatly appreciated.

Juan Conatz (Liquidationist Faction)

8-)

This mentions them quite a bit too: http://libcom.org/library/bourgeois-proletarian-revolution-otto-ruhle

Jared

This mentions them quite a bit too: http://libcom.org/library/bourgeois-proletarian-revolution-otto-ruhle

Yes this piece is really good! Was translated by CWO who are pretty damn close per se in continuation from KAPD Essen Tendency/ the original 4th Communist Workers International aka the KAI. (fuck yah!)

Anyway mainly it is a really good piece, and should sorta be included.

there is definitely more down the mattick line there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Council_Correspondence

there are some links in that wiki that lead to some pretty interesting scans.

i have also heard about these two other things. there is definitely more in a bunch of the readers about the national bolsheviks and some other writings too, mostly about how the main people got kicked out of kapd or something.

yeah i think i remember the split from AAUD-E too but very obscure.

I didn't include writings from individuals from that period, just historical overviews and organizational documents. At some point, I could make a supplement of writings from members around that era (and later).

Thanks for all your current and future efforts! Really valuable

Nice one!

Just one question: Why nothing on KAPD?

Kont, read Juan's post above and read between the lines. From what I can tell Juan's interest is in the connections between IWW and German left, which was mainly through figures of Hamburg left and more specifically workplace organisation.

sabotage

CWO who are pretty damn close per se in continuation from KAPD Essen Tendency/ the original 4th Communist Workers International aka the KAI.

hmm, i think CWO lean more toward the Italian left communists and not as much the KAPD Essen tendency?

Juan Conatz

Also, is there any info out there about the group of council communists (that included Paul Mattick) that were in the IWW and heavily involved in unemployed movements? I came across this and never knew about that.

I remember reading that PM dropped out of activity in IWW partly due to McCarthyism and anti-communist hysteria...

Harrison

hmm, i think CWO lean more toward the Italian left communists and not as much the KAPD Essen tendency?

Yes that's right, but when the group was formed the reverse was the case. Sabotage is right that the group (or more precisely RP, who merged with Workers Voice to found the CWO) translated that Ruhle pamphlet. The name CWO was in reference to the influence of the German left on the group.

Juan Conatz

A Wob just sent me this

Left-wing splinter groups in the Weimer Republic
http://bayfiles.com/file/kfsT/XSx9h2/UBC_1974_A8_M54.pdf

This looks really interesting. Thanks for posting for it.

Perhaps these scans should be uploaded. They are pretty amazing read like I said earlier just if because it represents the council communist current that existed in the USA. :D

A neat note about these is that Paul Mattick at the time was very close to the circles around the KAUD and the GIKH (I believe Pannekoek was too in retrospect) and so a lot of the theory behind the United Workers Party and later just the "Council Communists" group seems reflect of that, i.e. seeing the party or revolutionary grouping just being an advanced minority of militants with revolutionary consciousness and that obviously fighting organizations of the proletariat in the Soviets and the "Committees of Action" (which seems an English translation for the factory organizations/Rate phenomenon) were where it was at. That such an organization was just the instrument of encouraging work in that direction, a catalyst like the syndicalists would say.

http://archive.org/details/World-wideFascismOrWorldRevolutionManifestoAndProgramOfTheUnited
http://archive.org/details/BolshevismOrCommunismOnTheQuestionOfANewCommunistPartyAndThe
http://archive.org/details/WhatNextForTheAmericanWorkers
http://archive.org/details/LeninismOrMarxism

So obviously many of us have been reading over this stuff...so now I have a question or two...

What lessons do we think we can learn from the experience of these general worker's unions (unionen) that were set up in Germany?

A main tenant of revolutionary syndicalism is fighting here and now, not only in a revolutionary situation, I'm agnostic on if that is problematic or not.

My main question is the unionen were based on ideally organization by factory and economic region, i.e. the goal was to organize as class wide as possible.

This supposedly at least to some left communists like Dauve, was in counter-position to the syndicalists at the time who still either wanted to organize by trade or by industry.

In both cases there could be a case for accusations of "workerism" which more accurately could be described as focusing to much on the productive sector and not reproduction as well.

The call to organize on a class wide basis still seems valid to me. It seems to extend from such an argument that we should have generalized organization on the terrain of the whole community, with specialization as needed.

Is this compatible with a revolutionary syndicalist perspective, or does this supersede it?

i would think there comes a point at the height of class struggle where it is necessary to completely drop wage demands. if an anarcho-syndicalist union cannot fulfil that (not saying it can't), then a new mass union / coordination would have to be created to fight solely communist struggles.

if so, no reason why they couldn't mix membership between them as needed, much like the FAUD and AAUD did in Germany.

As to economic region organising (i don't live in country predominantly defined by factory work), i'm not really sure. It kind of feels academic for me where i live, without the presence of a mass communist movement active in the workplaces. Probably for the purpose of encouraging the break with capital, class wide organisation would be the best to agitate for and organise expropriation and defence, but industrial federations would still be needed to organise the flow of production under workers control.

sabotage

The call to organize on a class wide basis still seems valid to me. It seems to extend from such an argument that we should have generalized organization on the terrain of the whole community, with specialization as needed.

Is this compatible with a revolutionary syndicalist perspective, or does this supersede it?

Maybe this is over my head, but I don't see why this wouldn't be compatible with a revolutionary syndicalist perspective. I know in the IWW there have been attempts with more or less success to organize people outside of the workplace: the unemployed, squeegee folks and panhandlers, students, and prisoners. Not to mention groups like SeaSol, which I tend to think of as a syndicalist organization, which spend as much time organizing tenants as workers. I think efforts like these should be encouraged and expanded.

This article sort of gets at that idea: http://recomposition.info/2012/08/19/winning-the-war/

This will require extending the model of struggle that we employ in the IWW from solely workplace disputes, involving the conflict between workers and bosses, to broader social conflicts in our communities. If we want to organize the working class as a class, we must not only work to build organizations of struggle, but also to build a culture of class solidarity and equality by whatever means possible. I would argue that the best way forward is to extend our model of direct action resistance to capitalism to the community at large, an approach that I term class unionism. The IWW could reach, and organize, a mass of the working class, by working both in the workplace and in the community. In practice, this would effectively mean two complementary modes of organization: the organizing of industrial unions within the economic framework of capitalism, and the organizing of community unions, to oppose the tyranny of capitalist social relations and foster the development of working class identity and culture, within the social relations of capitalist society. The combined social and economic power of such unions – class unionism – would give true meaning to the idea of building the new society within the shell of the old, and exemplify a working class hegemony in opposition to bourgeois society.

will have a look if there are poems by the leading AAUE member Oskar Kanehl translated into English ... another fellow traveller of the AAUE during the early 1920ies, Max Herrmann-Neiße lived in London from 1933 up to his death in 1941, some of his poems from this period are translated into English but these are not particularly radical

a reliable account on the disintegration of the AAUE can be found in Hans Manfred Bock's two studies on the topic (only in German, see below) and in some works on Rühle's biography

* Syndikalismus und Linkskommunismus von 1918 bis 1923. Ein Beitrag zur Sozial- und Ideengeschichte der frühen Weimarer Republik
* Geschichte des „linken Radikalismus“ in Deutschland. Ein Versuch

Entdinglichung

poems by the leading AAUE member Oskar Kanehl

better than poems by a leading AWL member ? :lol:

redsdisease

sabotage

The call to organize on a class wide basis still seems valid to me. It seems to extend from such an argument that we should have generalized organization on the terrain of the whole community, with specialization as needed.

Is this compatible with a revolutionary syndicalist perspective, or does this supersede it?

Maybe this is over my head, but I don't see why this wouldn't be compatible with a revolutionary syndicalist perspective. I know in the IWW there have been attempts with more or less success to organize people outside of the workplace: the unemployed, squeegee folks and panhandlers, students, and prisoners. Not to mention groups like SeaSol, which I tend to think of as a syndicalist organization, which spend as much time organizing tenants as workers. I think efforts like these should be encouraged and expanded.

This article sort of gets at that idea: http://recomposition.info/2012/08/19/winning-the-war/

This will require extending the model of struggle that we employ in the IWW from solely workplace disputes, involving the conflict between workers and bosses, to broader social conflicts in our communities. If we want to organize the working class as a class, we must not only work to build organizations of struggle, but also to build a culture of class solidarity and equality by whatever means possible. I would argue that the best way forward is to extend our model of direct action resistance to capitalism to the community at large, an approach that I term class unionism. The IWW could reach, and organize, a mass of the working class, by working both in the workplace and in the community. In practice, this would effectively mean two complementary modes of organization: the organizing of industrial unions within the economic framework of capitalism, and the organizing of community unions, to oppose the tyranny of capitalist social relations and foster the development of working class identity and culture, within the social relations of capitalist society. The combined social and economic power of such unions – class unionism – would give true meaning to the idea of building the new society within the shell of the old, and exemplify a working class hegemony in opposition to bourgeois society.

real quick, i guess i also just wonder what folks think about this in regards to workplace organizing by region, essentially if a corridor or geographic based campaigns, maybe coupled with industrial unionism makes sense. and by unionism i actually mean it more in this organization self-organized by the workers themselves which brings out the best spirit of the german experience and other syndicalist experiences.

i definitely think there should be larger community unionism as well. i do wonder since a big theme here is the non separation of the political and economic, if there should really be a separation other than objective ones between the idea of the proletariat split between producers and consumers. i've brought this up in other threads before but it would make sense to be to have general coalitions that could include community unions and workplace unions. because if we are talking really about "class" unionism focused on the gathering the widest span and struggle then really it would seem we need to find ways to organize the whole class in support of more atomized fights.

Harrison

Entdinglichung

poems by the leading AAUE member Oskar Kanehl

better than poems by a leading AWL member ? :lol:

they are definitely better (but less good than the poems of Max Hermann-Neiße who was one of the leading expressionist poets) ... due to the attachment of a couple of writers and artists to Pfemfert's Die Aktion, first the KAPD and than the AAUE had quite a number of fellow travellers in the world of art e.g. the playwright Carl Sternheim during the early 1920ies ... a list of contributors to Die Aktion 1911-1932: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Aktion#Published_artists_and_writers ... I would love to own the journal's reprint

Die Aktion literature and art connections i thought were very impressive... especially its interrelationship with the 'cologne progressives'.

what about Gorter's poetry? any good in your view?

Harrison

Die Aktion literature and art connections i thought were very impressive... especially its interrelationship with the 'cologne progressives'.

what about Gorter's poetry? any good in your view?

the further he became involved into politics, the more the literary quality of his poems declined ... same with Henriette Roland-Holst

Harrison

Die Aktion literature and art connections i thought were very impressive... especially its interrelationship with the 'cologne progressives'.

what about Gorter's poetry? any good in your view?

some in English translation: http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/18433 ... pretty sentimental stuff

http://libcom.org/forums/history/iww-first-international-etc

some reflections from that book about aaud, faud, iww etc in germany on this thread are deff worth a look

http://libcom.org/forums/history/council-communism-library-29092007

this is also quite an enlightening thread

These last two links lead me to find this:

http://muckracker.wordpress.com/geschichte/nordwest-faud-nordwest-und-der-block-antiautoritarer-revolutionare-1924/

Last link dump for tonight!

I know they were not the AAUD or the AAUD-E but the KAUD were the regroupment of fractions of both and the KAPD and were founded upon the unitary model of the AAUD-E but with added specificity as being a Communist Workers Union, and did not see themselves as the future structure of society like the IWW's OBU (which was a feature both AAUD and AAUD-E shared.) Anyway this piece is interesting for continuity and because the Situationists later praised them for this position:

http://libcom.org/history/what-does-communist-workers-union-want-kaud

OH SHIT and apparently they took on the long held anarcho-syndicalist position!

From here:

http://libcom.org/library/gorter%E2%80%99s-open-letter-details-serge-bricianer

This led to the conflicts and splits mentioned above and their ultimate fruit, the KAUD. The latter group claimed that it was breaking with “the theory of the final struggle which found its expression in the fact that the Union remained uninvolved in concrete struggle” and pronounced in favor of intervention, both political and economic, in wage struggles.12

12. Quoted by H. M. Bock: Geschichte des “linken Radikalismus” in Deutschland, Suhrkamp Verlag, No. 645, p. 145.

the AAUD lead one major strike in 1927: of sailors in the German fishing fleet, Ernst Schneider / Ikarus was the leading figure of the AAUD's sailors' union at that period, some copies of its paper 1927-29 here ... unfortunately, there is no literature about that strike