KRAS document discussion continued

Hello. Excuse me - I hope I'm not joining in with a non-sequitor because I just was clued into this discussion and don't have time to take anything more than a cursory look at the whole conversation... but still I'd like to put in my two cents.

First I'd like to turn around one aspect of this conversation a bit which was something to the effect that somebody who's in a 20 person group is in a bad position to judge what reality is like in a union with thousands of people. To that you can throw in a number of points to consider, for example that people who live in places with long traditions of active civil society, some facade of "rule of law", (in other words, even the theoretical possibility of enforcing labour law) and perhaps fewer problems with absolute political corruption might find it very hard to imagine what life is like in places without large and active rank and file union movements, or with totally hierarchical and politically corrupt unions, or with unions who call for the restoration of authoritarian communism. Just a radical thought to consider is that some look into the consequences of authoritarianism and corruption, of ideals gone wrong which is the sad legacy of many workers in post-communist countries can certainly account for a critical view of certain aspects of unionism and activity.

There is probably much to comment on concerning the practice and development of union movements in Russia or Poland, as there is obviously to discuss concerning the history of the Spanish civil war/ revolution. Just last week I republished a piece I wrote (in Polish - unfortunately not in English) about the lessons of the Spanish Civil War and about the Friends of Durruti, about the ideas of Balius, etc., of course of the occasion of the passing of the last friend. The reaction to it (apart from totally idiotic rantings of people who just represent an anti-intellectual stream and start screaming that the 1930s have no relevance at all to modern-day Poland and that discussion is just a substitute for action), rather predictably, was formed mostly around ideological lines related with different visions of unionism. To simplify some of the issues, I can outline a few basic points:

A. While everybody can agree that the economic goals of a union have concrete importance (in other words, all workers would be interested in fighting against things like wage reduction, unfair dismal etc.), how far are we willing to compromise in order to achieve economic goals? Where are the points where to achieve the economic goals we actually give up some of the political goals and where is it that accomplishing economic goals actually serve simply to sidetrack revolutionary ones. (To paraphrase what somebody wrote on our service this week, Rooseveltism was the tool for maintaining capitalism.) If it is political suicide to resign from economic goals in certain union situations, how can one avoid compromise in the situation where capital has the upper hand?

B. If creating a union, we want to have active, not passive membership, and where that is not feasible, at very least rotation of functions, accountability and transparency, recallability and a constant drive to encourage active participation. Then there is a question about how unions actually measure up in this respect, especially keeping in mind that the larger it is, the more layers of delegation it will have and the more passive membership. It is a question about what position anarcho-syndicalists can have to economic unions which have strict hierarchies and where the rank and file are removed from the decision making process. (And, in the worst case scenario, like in Poland, the leadership participates in political elections and use union funds for political campaigns.) In my opinion, cooperation with the union hierachies of such makes no sense and the only logical strategy is to try to radicalize the rank and file. Yet we deal in Poland with anarcho-syndicalists who first and foremost agree with the union leadership to mobilize cadres, to fund some of their projects, etc. and who basically have resigned from criticizing this type of unionism or participation in politics for pragmatic reasons of compromise. This is, we know, not only in Poland.

C. The question of making alliances when you do not feel strong enough to gain economic victories is difficult. You might agree with solidarity from anybody to prevent somebody from being fired, but what are the costs of long-term alliances with hierarchical unions?

D. The question of communists joing anarchist unions is not very abstract since I know at least three groups like this. Provided a person follows the outlined anarchist principles of organization and does not try to provoke or overturn them in favour of authoritarian ones, this should not be a problem but a question is about how many such people it is healthy to maintain in a group without having to worry about the group being hijacked.

E. Finally, in the situation where a real struggle has occurred and the pressures are enormous, to you still go forward and aim for the accomplishment of libertarian principles or do you get cold feet and try to take some deal to avoid the prospect of a failure? And in the situation where the conflict comes to a question of eliminating those in your way, do you do it, or do you have moral pangs about it and go back a step and try to resolve matters without a definitive forcing of will on others? (Balius' question of the revolutionary vanguard and the junta.)

For me, these questions are clear enough, but of course one can imagine many situations where they may fall in different light, as well as imagining that the more rank and file you have, especially the more you have organized around a particular workplace or economic issues instead of political consent, the more likely you are to different ideas on these issues.

So this begs another question: how to maintain a high level of unity of action in wide-open groups with mass membership in fields other than the clearly economic? And how to do that without the imposition of defacto authorities - in other words, people who try to abuse their positions, go around democratic positions or who use their reputation to force their ideas to the front? (I'm sure we all know that there were a number of times during the civil war events when the "leaders" of CNT tried to go around the locals or were able to exert enough influence to pursuade others, even though theoretically, there were even vote held, one wonders about the equality.)

It should be painfully obvious that these (greatly simplified) points manifest themselves in numerous ways and that simply there is disagreement on tactics. And one thing which seems part of the arsenal (at least this is how some morons from Poland interpret the whole thing in a simplistic manner) is that those who become "bigger" due to choosing the tactics that, frankly speaking are almost guaranteed to do so, like to promote themselves as being the "more successful" option, although our criteria for "success" is not necessarily size, nor "power", but also may be (for example) the ability to create a union with active members, or in a particularly difficult area. (For example, I consider it to be a bigger accomplishment to organize workers in areas with traditionally more mobile and temporary work force than amongst say certain sectors of industrial workers with a long tradition of union organization.) Maybe a "success" means successful integration of economic goals in a workplace with other goals inside a community. Maybe in some situations, a "success" is as simple as registering a union without getting fired. There are many areas for assessment. But when looking through some ideological blinders, it becomes difficult to actually have a fair and critical assessment.

If it is painfully obvious that there will therefore always be those who choose another route, so be it, but I'd certainly like to be free of pricks and dullards who come to such brilliant conclusions that one way is right because one group has more people, or who are so completely lazy and impatient that they don't see any point in building something from scratch when they can prop themselves up on some shitty unions or who cannot tolerate small failures.
In particular I'm like to be rid of those who try to redefine anarcho-syndalicalism, to make it "syndalicalism", to steal it away or to Bolshevize it like the morons who resurrected a PRL (communist government) era newspaper and put the IWA label on it and want to present themselves as some wierd synthesis of Labourists, Communists and Anarchists.

If we in fact define not only our ultimate goals but ensure that people have a cursory idea of strategy than we do have to think of how to effectively counter reformist tendencies so that we come out ahead in situations where clearly, reformists will have some natural advantage over us. Here, critical analyses of practices and history can be helpful, but more than just serve as valid criticism, they should provide us with ideas of how to avoid mistakes, move forward and to dissuade people from the attractions of reformist positions.