Are the unions against the working class?

Hi

Hands off AR-person, you don't get to share my analysis.

Love

Chris

(This is meant to be funny)

Hi

Oh yes, one more thing. I'm not against the ICC.

Chris

I know some states are more liberal than others. The main reason I said what I said was that I'm sick of hearing that "our" state is something to be defended. The British state has acted barbarically in the past and is doing so at the moment in Iraq. I'm not stupid, I know the nazis were worse! Equally, I do see them as different ends of a continuum. In the 70's and 80's they were quite prepared to blow us all to hell in nuclear war, weren't they?

The trouble is, that when dealing with the jehovah's ICC, people are driven to defend the undefensible!

Hello

Sorry I haven't replied: I have been busy with other things.

For some odd reason, we are moving into a discussion of what states are progressive and what states are reactionary. Saii replies in moral terms, asking me whether I think a state which does A is as 'bad' as a state which does B. This moral analysis abstracts from the class analysis of the state. The state is neither 'good' nor 'bad', just as the way in which capitalism is neither 'good' nor 'bad'. It represents particular class interests, interests which are antagonistic to those of the working class.

Saii, then claims that what he is doing, or saying we ought to do, is practical. He tells us that the British state is not as 'bad' to those who live under it as an Islamic state is. True, yes, but that is not the point, as it continues to abstract from the class nature of the state. Yes, I can write, and rant, as much as I want, and I take full advantage of that, but this does not make the capitalist state in Britain progressive, or even progressive in relation to another state, precisely because the capitalist system as a whole has lost its previous progressive character and it is time for the working class to take to the field as an independent class. This has not been something which happened last week but which we can see occuring from the 1840s, in particular the 1848 revolution in France.

Saii says that the court order will give the workers time and teach them confidence. Well, firstly, what time will the court order give? This court can decide to rescind the order giving formal control to the workers of Zanon at any time. Also, does Saii think that the bourgeois army, its secret agents etc, are going to care about a court order. Legally Allende was in power in Chile, and we all know what happened to him. We cannot trust the laws of the bourgeois state, which claim to give us rights, because these rights are not rights at all as they can be easily taken away from us again. The only rights we can have, as Stirner pointed out, and as I suggested before, are the rights we assert for ourselves. "The emancipation of the working class must be the act of the working class itself".

To the question of this court order teaching self-reliance, I don't know how it does that. I am not saying that workers should kneel down until the ICC come. What you are in fact saying however is that workers should kneel down BEFORE THEIR CLASS ENEMY, and in fact that they should EXPECT their class enemy to provide for them, through court orders and other such stuff.

I am not talking about workers kneeling down before anybody, or waiting for anybody. What I am saying, and I think this is an important point, is that they should not kneel down before the bourgeois state. They may already be subservient to the bourgeois state, but by attempting to maintain the illusion that they are not in fact subservient to the bourgeois state and the bourgeoisie, which is what you do when you tell the Zanon workers to get court orders, as it creates the illusions that the bourgeois state is representative of the workers, you do not destroy but maintain this subservience.

Back to the question of the state, the analysis I have been reading seems to be suggesting that the question is largely about what state is better than another state, and there are in fact some contributors who claim that a certain state is better than another state. This makes the question, not a question of conflicts between classes, but of that between nation states, and thus is rather useless. We need to realise that ultimately we have no interest in maintaining the British state against another state, that the current set of politicians and leaders will be as just as vicious as any Islamic cleric, or any Adolph Hitler, if they need to be. It was Tory governments who carried out the Boer War, that war in which the concentration camp was first used. It was a Liberal, Robert Lowe, who favourably quoted Walter Bagehot as calling the working class "the great unwashed, dirty multitude, scum" etc, in his arguments against the Second Reform Act. Now all of these people are more afraid of openly attacking the working class. But they still do it covertly, and when they are able to and need to, they will do it overtly.

Chris made some comments I would like to respond to. Firstly, it probably isn't the best idea to call the ICC a church, although I think they seem to function in that way to an extent. I think the quote you give from the ICC, more importantly your commentary on it, is incorrect. All nations do strive to expand themselves, it is just that most of them cannot do so as they are dominated by the larger nations, like Britain and the United States.

I am also running on a bit, so just on more point. If you disagree with the nature of the ICC's intervention into the working class, something I think I also disagree with to an extent, could you tell me what you think their intervention ought to be?

Hi

I love you communist, appalling handle by the way. I’m pretty sure Iceland’s plan for imperial expansion is not currently being curtailed by the U.S., the UK or even Norway.

I really don’t think the Icelanders would invade Norway, even if they could.

“States” do not expand on their own, only through human desire. Capitalism is not anthropomorphic.

What evidence do you have for Iceland “striving to expand itself”, in the direct sense? (rather than through treaty collaboration or some other dilution of your explicit position)

I don’t mean to come over officious or hostile, I stand to learn a lot from your response.

Love

Chris

Why should the ICC 'intervene' in the affairs of the working class, other than on the lines of anyone else - i.e working towards improving you community and building class strength, so that when things do kick off there is every chance it will hve the support structure to do well? It's blindingly arrogant - not to mention deluded - to assume the ICC is influential enough (or given the evidence posted above, ever could be) to stage any kind of meaningful 'intervention'.

I'm stumped as to why you can't grasp the very simple concept that some states act worse than others - and will continue to do so. Yes they all have - partly - the same theory behind them and would possbly work in similar ways if handed exactly parallel circumstances, but those circumstances are not parallel, and states do not act in the same way (see lazy's comment).

There's no moral analysis in that statement, it is materially true. Britain has not at any point sought to back up its control with the genocide of its own people. That it may do so in the future when circumstances change is irrelevant, it is not doing so now (and indeed, didn't during the miners' strike which was regarded by Thatcher as a revolutionary act, as opposed to what say, the reds were doing in Germany in 1933-39). To ignore this is abstracting your debate away from practical solutions far more than anything I've written.

Yes of course a court order can be overturned, or undermined, and the Zanon workers thrown out, but as you well know, the state wishes to remain viable in the eyes of its people. Image is everything in an advanced capitalist state. As such, they will tend to allow the situation to spin out while a court order is sought, particularly if there appears to be international interest. If the court orer is won, they will almost certainly not try a frontal attack, but will attempt to weaken the group in other ways, in order to avoid making martyrs of the factory workers.

It's basic tactics. In order to weaken the state's ability to be violent, you pull them into the public arena where that violence becomes more noticable to the general populace. To make yourself more difficult to villify, you go through the legal routes. You start petitions, go through the courts, anything to spin it out and put off the day when you have to leave.

The more effective you are at this, the more people will believe in you the next time you have to fight, and the more they will believe you are in the right. What's more, the tactics you've learned for how to embarrass and put off the state can be passed on and used elsewhere. the fact that you did run your own lives for a while is a massively important practical and contemporaneous example to people all over the country (and in the case of Zanon, the world). So yes. It is teaching people self reliance.

You and the ICC however, have suggested nothing practical to extend their tenancy of the factory, no practical way to resist the state that won't simply end up with the whole lot of them dead or in jail. Yet you claim your way of debate and some mythical (tactially barren) reckoning between the two sides is worthwhile? How is a pile of dead bodies going to stop the state? If the alternative is simply to not do anything to defend yourself, beause you 'understand' that doing so is pointless, that IS kneeling down, no matter how you try and dress it up.

Fighting the state on its own terms is not ideal, I'll agree but bollocks to your alternative, and bollocks to the comment that they're somehow selling out. They, unlie you, apear to have some tactical sense and good on em.

Hiya all

Since people are replying to me, I probably should say something. I think it to be rather odd, however, that the ICC have just disappeared from this thread, considering that they initiated it in the first place.

I would like to respond to Chris' remarks. Firstly, I have no idea what Iceland is planning, or whatever. And to be honest, even if I could find the information easily, I don't think I would. I am talking about general principles which affect all bourgeois states, not about individual examples of what this particular state would want to do. If you want to find out Iceland's expansion programmes, then you should probably contact them, although I am sure they wouldn't be willing to let you know anyway. Anyway, Iceland is rather incapable of doing anything in terms of expansion, and therefore it is pretty unlikely that they will have done much to draw up plans in the first place. Do you think Hussein would have invaded Kuwait if he actually thought that the US and UK would go in and bomb Iraq?

It is perfectly true that states do not just expand on their own, but the point I was making was that, the capitalist class, acting collectivelly through the state, will ULTIMATELY (this means long term, not just short term) seek to expand its domination, and to me this is fairly obvious. Let me make it clear: I am not in the ICC, and I have serious disagreements with some of their views, however, I think the fact that all capitalist classes, through the state, their collective political instrument, seek to expand is rather obvious. Obviously the concept of imperialism that the ICC and I use is rather different from that which Lenin used, which referred to the domination of finance and export capital and to monopoly. Theories of collapse and so on are one of my weak points to be honest...

And what is a 'handle'? Is that a username or something? I don't know why you, or anybody else for that matter, would love me, but thanks. Is this some Young Hegelian 'let's reappropriate our human essence' kind of thing? If so, count me in...!!!!

I was going to respond to Saii's comments, but, they are more substantial (no offence to Chris is intended here), and so, if the former does not mind, I would prefer to reply to him at some point over the weekend when I have more time as it would mean I would be able to provide a more considered response, which is what we all should be doing anyway.

Hi

Because you're gorgeous, obviously. “Handle” is a CB-ism, aren’t you into CB?

Perhaps those unwarranted feelings of unattractiveness account for your misinterpretation of the collective will of the Icelandic bourgeoisie.

Love

Chris

http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Fall/I-m-Into-Cb.html

Lazy Riser wrote:

In a way this is true, but doesn't it seem to you that they tend to develop a logic of their own, one that leads them in directions outside of human control? If they don't, I find it hard to understand the world at times.

Equally, the expansion/accumulation of capital is pretty much an automatic process and is outside of human control. One of the states functions is to support this accumualtion.

Hi

I’m not too sure about this, but my personal perspective of this phenomenon casts it as an emergent effect of a complex system, a bit like the way artificial neural networks exhibit “intelligence”.

Negative consequences of these activities arise from irrational actions due to our distorted perception of reality. The distortion is a consequence of the authoritarian conditioning of the working class, chiefly orchestrated by the bourgeoisie throughout its own class and down through the socio-economic hierarchy.

The unions are neither for nor against the working class in general, depending on their specific activity at any particular instant, I would estimate their score as being somewhere between 4 and 6 out of 10 on the Lazy Riser Scale of Universal Goodness.

anti-Tory tactical voting is a 6. Working-class-neutral activities are a 5.

I’m not well am I? Luckily enough, I know a psychiatric nurse.

Love

Chris

Allright Sports Fans...

I would just like to make some remarks in response to Saii's post. Thanks for replying to me.

I do understand that the ICC is not large enough to have any major intervention in anything, at least not here anyway. I don't even know where, although a correspondent of mine tells me they have about 100 members in Paris (and 400 ex members). But just because the ICC cannot intervene properly doesn't mean, that they shouldn't try, and doesn't mean that they shouldn't work towards being in a situation where they can intervene. I think intervention at the moment has to be secondary to building a 'cadre' as such, precisely because we couldn't do much of a job intervening with the numbers we have. We, I mean, not just the ICC, but the communist movement, of which I consider myself to be a part.

Yes, some states act differently to others depending upon the circumstances which exist. I have admitted this, so I am not stumped by this at all. What I am saying though, and what you yourself concede, to an extent, is that they are all fundamentally the same. You only say they have 'partly' the same theory behind them, but don't tell me why this is. You say they do not act the same in the same circumstances, well, I can't respond to that. I really can't, simply because they aren't in the same circumstances and probably never will be in the exact same circumstances. What I am saying is that you seem to be abstracting from the essential class character of the state: that is, that it is a bourgeois state, which, generally, has to take certain actions to preserve the domination of the bourgeoisie, and which will, take whatever actions are necessary, which it can take, to maintain this dominance. To say otherwise, is to say that somehow the Palestinian state is 'nicer' than the American 'state', which is nonsense, as a state is not an individual with feelings, but is an institution, a rather impersonal institution. My point about feelings is not too good here, but the point is that it is not about individual hopes and individual characteristics, like "Arafat, what a decent guy", but is about the nature of the state in relation to society. And if we stick to that basis, we can understand that ALL states are our enemies.

Yes, the British state is not commiting genocide against British people. But hat you are doing is suggesting that the actual character of the British state is different from the character of the German state to the extent that WERE THEY IN THE SITUATION THE GERMAN STATE WAS, they would not take similar actions. Maybe they wouldn't as a result of historical events BEFORE that, but that is not the point. You are suggesting that certain states have certain characters about them, fundamental characters, more than the fact that they are instruments for the oppression of the proletariat.

Yes, the bourgeoisie does need to maintain ideological dominance in order to maintain the current social order. And yes, a court order can help to maintain this, by PRESENTING THE LIE, TO WORKERS, THAT THE STATE IS THEIR FRIEND, THAT THE STATE IS ON THEIR SIDE. The fact that you admit the court order can be reversed at the whims of the bourgeois state shows that the order itself is meaningless. Maybe the court order will be won, maybe not, but let's keep it clear that the state is our enemy, not our friend, and every concession the states gives, it gives solely in order to maintain the bourgeois system. The bourgeois state, is not altruistic, just as we are not altruistic (as Stirner showed).

There is an underlying motive in all it's actions, which relates to the protection of the bourgeois system.

You talk of making ourselves less easy to vilify by going through the legal routes. But what you in fact do, is, by saying, 'no we will only use the legal route of getting our enemy to sign a worthless piece of paper granting us some 'rights'', is suggest that the bourgeois state, that going through legal routes, using the law, not of our class, but of a class which is our enemy, is the ONLY legitimate route. We need to break with the illusion that, not only is the bourgeois state not the only legitimate route, but it is no legitimate route at all, the only legitimate route being the class conscious action of the proletariat.

Yes, there are tactical questions at stake. And yes, I know that perhaps my suggestions are not the MOST useful in the short run. But the point is, we are all for tactics, as long as they conform with general principles, and the presentation of the lie that the bourgeois state is our friend does not conform with these principles.

And no, it isn't teaching people self-reliance. What is the state decides that it doesn't want to grant the court order? What then, are the Zanon workers going to just pull out and say, 'oh, we can' break the law'? It teaches people DEPENDENCE, it tells them that their actions are dependent upon what their enemy, the bourgeoisie and its state, decides. The state only has the authority over you which you give to the state, either willingly or unwillingly. These Zanon workers have managed to reject the authority of the state by occupying and operating the factory for themselves, and you are saying to them that they ought to ask the state for permission to operate it. They don't HAVE permission: they are doing it illegally (aren't they?). So what you are doing, is when it come down to it, is saying that, when the legal question comes up, we should stay within the bounds of the law, and not just that, we should, having broken the law, GO BACK INTO accepting the bounds of the law.

So that is why I saw you are kneeling down before the bourgeois state. Telling workers to assert their class independence, and OPPOSITION to the bourgeois state cannot be called kneeling down, no matter how much you dress it up.

The bourgeois state will have trouble with swaggering in and jailing or killing the Zanon workers, precisely because of the negative effect it will have on other workers. It will show the state out to be an ENEMY of worker's organisation and control, but the granting of the court order, and the pretence on the part of the state of working with the workers, will create and maintain the illusion that the state is not their enemy, but is in fact their friend. It became clear, in Russia, that the state was not the friend of workers, and that is why revolutionary politics thrived, among other reasons of course. In Britain, where trade unions are all friendly with the state and the employer, and have been for a long time, revolutionary politics do not develop very well, as the state appears to be the friend of the workers, as do the TU's and Labour and left parties, who seem to be making progress on their behalf.

What is the IWW's attitude towards this whole thing? I am not sure, and so I would be interested in finding out.

Also, what is a CB? Citizen Band Radio, is that it?

Hi

Yes.

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/trucker_lingo.shtml

communist, appalling handle by the way, what's your analysis of the programme of the Chavez government in Venezuela?

http://www.libcom.org/newswire/stories.php?story=05/07/19/9132308

Love

Chris

Before we go onto things like Chavez, could somebody send me a couple of links so I can find out more about what is happening with the Zanon workers?

Friends

The ICC, www.internationalism.org, have sent me some links, which I found to be of interest, and I am forwarding them to this thread, as they relate to the questions we are talking about. The question, of whether we ought to support people who tell us that we ought to go through the bourgeois state to achieve our objectives, of whether we should accept the very legitimacy of the bourgeois state in the first place, of whether we should compromise our class independence in the vain hope of making short-term progress is of great importance.

Latin America

http://en.internationalism.org/taxonomy/term/52/9

Chavez, in Spanish

http://es.internationalism.org/ismo/54_socialismo.html

Translation of Chavez into English

>> link here

Above link shrunk by admin

Hi communist -- do you agree with your fellow-ICC member beltov's statement, on the '1939 and all that' thread? He says that the victory of the nazis in 2WW would have made no difference, and that the holocaust was only a small detail of history.

Communist

euuuhhh... it's largely exaggerate : I live near Paris... and i never see a militant of this ICC... never see a tract, never see a poster, never see a militant in a demonstration...

neither do we, mate!

I was a militant shop steward in the 70s and 80s. Many strikes at my factories and others in the region. Demonstrations, meetings, etc, etc. But unhappy about the policing role I and other militant stewards had to play outside of strikes. However militant you are, if you're in the union, you have to obey the union rulebook. You are captured and perform the roles laid out by the whole structure. It's not for nothing the Allies used British expertise to set up trade unions in Germany and Japan after the war.

Coming across ICC material in the early 70s, I understood from that the real role of the unions, and have been close to the ICC since then. If you are serious about a revolutionary perspective, you have to be serious about the role of the unions.

Just an aside about the birdbrain accusations about the ICC being "academics" and "not intervening". For decades now the ICC has intervened internationally in some very dangerous situations. It's immediate forerunners were hunted by both the Nazis and the Stalinists when they intervened with an internationalist perspective during WWII.

And the "academic" insult is actually an insult directed at the working class, ie, it's too stupid to be theoretical. This is related to the union questions ie, the working class can't organised itself, it needs to use existing capitalist structures that went over, lock, stock and barrel to the bourgeois state around the start of WWI.

the problem with the ICC position is not its analysis of unions and their role as mediators but rather the pseudo ultra leftist position that seems to think that currently the unions are acting as some sort of massive block on an otherwise revolutionary proletariat. Anyone whose worked in an non unionised workplace knows that such a claim is just bollox. Unionisation could be an important start for many workplaces, for others it might be pointless or even a step backwards, but in a workplace that is unionised and relatively militant eg the RMT, it would be ridiculous to stand outside shouting about "mediations of capital" especially since many of the best militants are in the union and at the same time aware of it's limitations, but they recognise that a union is an important point of departure for many workers. In other places say with "social partnership" the union could be seen a huge leap backwards even from informal individualised resistance, in such workplaces one would expect succesful structures to be outside official channels (many workers i would imagine would remain in the union if only for legal protection).

It just seems absurd to talk about being outside and against the unions in a time of such capitalist onslaught, this isn't Germany 1918, Barcelona 1936 or a remotely luke warm summer nevermind a "hot one". The Unions aren't exactly holding back wave after wave of proletarian militancy, if they were they wouldn't be being pushed out of state/capital hegemony in the way they are.

a quick post to make two points

Support for Baboon! If we can get over the insults against the ICC coming from so many posts, it would be possible to have a real discussion about how revolutionaries can intervene in their workplace, among other things.

In reponse to revol68, the ICC does not say that it's the unions holding a class that would otherwise be on the verge of revolution. We have spent a lot of time analysing the real levels of consciousness in the class and in particular we have looked at the reasons for the profound diffculties the working class has been through over the past 15 years. You may not agree with our analyses, but they are a long way from the simplification you put in your last post.

Then it is a real shame that you cannot come up with any useful guides to action on teh basis of your copius analysing.

All your politics seems to boil down to, in practical matters, or in analysis of history, is suggesting extremely pointless and unsuitable actions, that seem to come from an liking for striking certain doctrinare positions rather than a genuine desire to concretely advance working class strength.

Alf -- do you also think that people shouldn't have fought against fascism, from the 1920s onwards?

The working class is a revolutionary class - the only revolutionary class possible. There is nothing inevitable about a proletarian revolution. One thing is certain, the union question is absolutly central. This doesn't mean that every worker has to understand every point. It is the lines of march that are important.

There was no more militant union after the war than the miners union. There were no more workers more shafted by capitalism after the war than the miners. Steelworkers were in a similar situation. What defeated the 84 miners strike (crucial internationally) wasn't the right, Thatcher and so on, but Scargill, the NUM and the slogan "Defend the Union". Scargill, a small time NUM claims lawyer, who rose to the top with his leftist gab, needed police protection after the 72 strike when he was attacked by south Wales and Yorkshire miners after they had literally knocked aside the union goons and barriers who tried to stop them spreading their strike.

In 84 the ruling class set up the confrontation to isolate the miners (building coal stocks up to the NUMs certain knowledge). All other unions kept "their" workers physically isolated. The ISTC steel union in Wales and the power workers union in Lancs, threated their workers they would not defend them against management (ie, they would be sacked) if they joined the strike (there were many unofficial moves for this). While soldiers on leave from Germany and elsewhere were joining their families and friends on the fields of struggle, the unions (now we know acting in knowing complicity with the Thatcher govt. - the ISTC for example) did all they could to subvert the strike. You have to draw the conclusions in front of your eyes.

Compare the actions of the MKS in spreading the 1980 Polish strikes - an unofficial body made up of the workers themselves against the state run (admittedly weak) official unions, and the strangulation of the movement by the Solidarnosc trade union. The latter not least set up by US propaganda and money and British know how.

This faith displayed in the unions echos a touching faith in British democracy (how lucky we are to live here).

Just over 150 years ago children in Britain were being slaughtered, miamed and abused daily by British capital. Here the unions were workers organisations and had a positive role to play in the struggle. WWI saw millions of British youth (and others of course) massacred in a war defending not their interests but the British state. Here the unions became part of the state (everywhere) supporting the war and British capital. British diplomacy in the early 1930s was central to putting Hitler into power, and British exported rifles armed his SA thugs giving them a boost up the ladder of the state. The fact that this protege turned on his sponsors is not at all unusual in decadent capitalism. In fact it is normal in this war of gangsters - look at Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden. Look too at the destruction and murder of WW2. Britain was the first to use poison gas against civilians in its wars in Iraq from 1919. Look at the death that Britain sowed between India and Pakistan. Its overt support for Pol Pot and his killing machine. The list is endless. Democracy has been responsible (directly and indirectly - but mostly directly) for more death and destruction than all the other regimes put together (and that's where it has not set these regimes up itself). Britain has been right at the front of this process.

Hiya

Well, maybe they were exaggerating. Or maybe they were misled, because it wasn't a member of the ICC who told me this.

I don't know anything about Beltov, or any of the other ICCers, but I must make it clear that I am not in the ICC, so Beltov is not a 'fellow ICC member'. I am thinking, at the moment, that I will be denounced as a parasite in the press of WR in the next few weeks, so watch that space!

In response to revol68, I think he may have a point about the unions, in that the ICC seems to suggest that what they do is hold workers back, into reformism, who would otherwise be revolutionary. I would not prefer non-unionism to unionism, but would prefer working class self-organisation to unionism, and this is the position I would hope the ICC would hold.

What I would say is that in terms of my own critique of trade unions, I would say that they keep workers within the bourgeois legal framework, and keep control of industrial disputes in the hands of leaders who are removed from the rank and file. It is necessary to support attempts of workers setting up their own organisations, run on a mass basis. I have a bit more sympathy towards the formation of industrial organisations than the ICC (well, what does the ICC support people doing? They haven't said much on this thread).

Pontificating.

Yeah I think you have a point. A friend of mine was chatting with the ICC on one of the threads on this forum, and as soon as he asked them what the ICC actually did, they just shut up and never replied. I have had smiliar sort of responses from them as well, such as complete failure to respond to my criticisms of their Luxemburg theory. My friend and I, until the other day sympathetic to the ICC, have decided that since they think, and they told us this, that discussions about some fuckwits in Argentina, are more important than discussions about the nature of the state and the nature of the process of the working class taking and power and establishing communism, we think that having a good piss up in the pub is far more relevant than they are.

I'll tell you all when they finally get round to calling me a parasite on the proletariat (funny innit!).

Well i would say im in almost one hundred percent agreement with you in terms of unions, though i think there is an important difference between the term "union" as it is used in common usage, and a union like the IWW or CNT, which contrary to the ICC's ridiculous position do not seek to mediate between the working class and capital nor do they foster sectionalism and in the case of the CNT where it has the influence it calls for mass workers assemblies and where possible extends the struggle beyond the "factory gates".

I would call myself a libertarian communist with very heavy sympathies to anarcho syndicalism, and coucnil communism. Both these traditions contain some of the richest lessons in proletarian self organisation but they are not pre made blue prints.

Hiya

I am glad we agree generally speaking in terms of unions.

There is of course a difference between the IWW and the Unison. The IWW claims to be attempting to transcend the wages system itself, whereas unison is quite openly willing to remain within the bourgeois framework. The problem with the IWW, is that it spends all its time on wages issues, and so transcending these is quite difficult. Having said that, I think as the class struggle develops, the IWW will be more able to transcend that, not just because of its members being communists (most of them being communists just now), but because of their ideas being supported more within the working class as a whole, so it can be made clear to the class as a whole that what they stand for is communism, and, most workers won't just laugh at them, as they do now.

Who is the CNT? Isn't that a Spanish syndicalist union which was set up during the civil war?

The ICC is unable to recognise the necessity of proper organisation to combat the capitalist class on a day to day basis in the factories. THey seem to rely on 'councils' which will form during a strike and stop soon after it, which keeps workers in the factories isolated from one another, as the only other form of organisation they will take part in (assuming they aren't in a sham union, which we can't call organisation really), is that of voting as isolated individuals for people to 'represent' them in Parliament.

I don't know what I would call myself, although I would consider my perspectives to be sympathetic to left-communism. I do not fully agree with anybody to be honest, and I think I have a different conception of the 'vanguard', 'leadership', and so on, to anybody I have ever came across, which is, in my view anyway, probably as a result of the fact that I try to consider the actual process itself, whereas most others consider only the start of the process and the end of it: eg 'Capitalism and Socialism', but do not consider the processes whereby that is achieved. If they do, they generally do it only in a supeficial fashion, saying that for example: 'if the state exists in capitalism, but not in socialism, the state must be destroyed in the process of getting Socialism', but do not explain what that entails and all the connected processes. I think I am giving too much credit here to be honest, but anyway, hope this wee rant helps!

I have still not been called a parasite yet. I forgot to tell all of you, that about a week before they denounced me, they wrote a private message to me telling me what great quality my posts were and what a great depth of understanding and discussion I had and took part in. Jesus, I know, praise from the ICC! Here is the part:

"As to the final attack by the ICC, that I have not had a certain level of solidarity with the ICC, consider the fact that I posted defences of the ICC’s refusal to sign a petition calling for the bourgeois state to grant the occupation of a factory by workers, and that they wrote to me, that

“we would just like to salute the quality of the interventions you have made on the Unions thread. They have been of a quality and depth not often seen in these forums, as you are probably aware”.

Our buddies from the ICC even had the audacity to write:

”We look forward to intervening side by side in the future!” "

(Email from ICC, 27th September 2005).

The CNT was a anarcho syndicalist union that was formed decades before the Spanish Civil War and who at it's peak proclaimed a membership of over 1 million and openly held "libertarian communism" as it's goal. It would have been more "political" than the IWW and placed a great deal of effort on working class self organisation outside the immediate work place.

When I refer to the rich lessons of the IWW i am talkng of it's peak years and not to the rather depressing organisation that exists now and is largely comprised of college students joining for abstract reasons rather than as a pratical means to further working class resistance.

In regards to councils well i think that workers councils will arise in nearly any revolutionary moment, the question is how deep will it's roots be, for me that will depend heavily on the confidence the working class puts in itself, it's ability to fight off oppurtunist parties and all those who seek to use them to further a "Politcal" agenda with a big "P". I see the formation of working class organisations for the express purpose of fighting for basic day to day demands as and a vital component in the working class developing confidence in it's own strength. Fleeting workers councils alone will be seriously disadvantaged and much more open to political oppurtunism ie Argentina.

Just to add the CNT is historically probably the most advanced mass working class organisation, in terms of it's recognition of capital as permeating the whole social terrain, even today it's tactics are flexible and imaginative and always seek to extend struggles outwards in as many directions as possible, whilst remaining coherent.

i think you have a bit outdated view on this. Naturally IWW are a far cry from the peak days and will most likely never reach that again, but considering the political climate, they are doing really well, and what's most important they have a good growth rate (something which most anarko groups can't seem to get going...).

So while the "college students" like yourself were joining and are joining i think that was actually a good thing keeping the idea alive and providing some strength in numbers as long as the realisation was always there that the actual work has to be done in workplaces rather than as a propaganda group.

The news about the truckers, and many retail industry workers joining have been encouraging though.