revolutionary organisation

It's an interesting discussion Catch. I'll post my thoughts later. Basically I think we are getting too bogged down with the term revolutionary here.

The wider issue is that class struggle is not on the up. Having some militant union co-ordination would begin to address this. That's what I'm interested in the wobblies for. There are a number of interesting developments in the UK and Ireland at the moment with fringe unions. A serious anarchist communist political strategy should aim to get them working together.

As far as unions being a means of revolutionary transformation of society - in and of themselves they are not. That requires a political organisation with a programme to bring us to the point of dual power with the bourgeoisie, and it requires councils to form and take over running society. Rank and file unions can be useful to bring us to that point though, by developing the confidence and solidaritistic aspects of the class, especially if there is a hegemony of class struggle ideas. However it takes decades to develop though and we haven't even properly started yet.

I think the trouble with believing that unions can be completely revolutionary is the tendency for people with those views to treat them as political organisations (ie to only want to work with people you agree). That can mean insistence on 'purist' politics and adherence to revolutionary goals, hegemony of 'revolutionary' tactics, a refusal to countenance 'reformist' activity and use of iconography which is at best part of a left-wing subculture. All of that leads to unions losing members, and ceasing to be mass organisations.

I get the impression the IWW in the US suffers from those sorts of issues (confusion between being a political organisation and being a union, and, I would add as well, being a trade union in that there seems to be those who don't want to build dual card power). I don't think we suffer from it so much in the UK but the confusion is still there at the moment, and really if we are to become powerful we have to eliminate it.

In many ways I'd prefer to be involved in building a non-revolutionary anti-partnership union (for the reasons you outline), but given that IWW membership has jumped from 130 or so with one job shop in January to well over 250 now in June, with four job shops, all in the one industry, in the UK we appear to be the only show in town. I'm quite confident with the drives on in education and healthcare where our membership is based, we might start to make some headway soon. Apparently there is also talk of midwives starting up an anti-partnership trade union to counter the RCM. There's also the IWU and the OILC. I think as well this Unite develop could force a realignment which could end up being very interesting. I don't believe those developments are 'revolutionary' (unless you believe in the concept of non-reformist reforms, and non-reformist mass organisations, which I don't) but they may well advance the class struggle.

Leninist much?

Problem with your dialectic is it doesn't seem to grasp that the specific political organisation can only guarantee it's revolutionary purity on the basis that it's not an actual revolutionary organ of significance, if it were to become significant it would be as open to decomposition as anyother organ, unless of course we think calling oneself a revolutionary automatically insulates oneself from wider dynamics. You only have to look at how the purists in the FAI quickly ended up acquising to the counter revolution whilst it was the less pure in the syndicates and sections of the CNT that rose up in the May Days.

well quite but what it does show is the folly of imagining reformism can be neatly resisted by keeping a specific pure organisation detached from the everyday organs of struggle, a formula that seems to tempt alot of people, who basically want to have some mass organisation unrevolutionary in itself and then the revolutionary organisation to sit beside it, infact that's how I see some people in the AF's move away from talk of work place resistance groups in favour of the IWW, unless of course the AF's aims and principles are wrong and a revolutionary syndicalist organisation like the IWW can actually be revolutionary.

Although I don't think this is aimed at me, just in case it is:

I don't think it's the role of an organisation to sit alongside much bigger ones as some kind of guiding light ( FAI/CNT or what Dundee United has put forward on here).

Revolutionary organisations will be the assemblies/councils whatever - and will spring up during times of heightened class struggle - they'll supercede both minority groupings and any unions/othe mass organisations that might exist before them, and are likely to have to fend off and actively oppose those organisations if they're to succeed (as they've generally failed to in the past where even given a chance - cf. factory committees in Russia). Obviously existing organisations and informal social groupings will persist as loci within mass assemblies either through design, or through personal ties as much as anything else. On a positive note this might allow for some kind of wider communication of communists and possibly the formation of some kind of shared literature to combat that which will definitely be produced by others. But the extent that communists should have a role 'as organisations', or 'as communists' within such assemblies should be to argue the case for workers controlling their own struggles and defending their organisations from recuperation or marginalisation. That's badly worded, but a revolution will only be successful to the extent that previous forms of organisation are superceeded, rendered irrelevant, or if necessary smashed.

Obviously if there was massive repression or things began to wind down, then organised groups would be necessary to take up the slack in allowing for communication and more long-term strategic attempts, or documenting and analysing failures and successes for future attempts - but then your not on the brink again.

As such, although I think there's definitely a role for an organisation of communists (both something workplace/day-to-day related in the UK, and propaganda groups/international discussion), I don't think they'll be 'revolutionary organisations' in themselves - although I'm sure I've used that as shorthand lazily, possibly even on this thread!

Actually that's not what I've argued at all. That would be very limited and arrogant.

Yeah, but that's not a programme for the class, it's a programme for the organisation.

I might have made it clearer if what I'd wrote was:-

An organisation which sorts out what it feels are the priorities for its organisation based on a shared political understanding and agreement on tactics by all of its members. The organisation would then get active in campaigns and mass organisations like unions and residents associations and would then try and make a case together for the best ideas already present in those organisations as well as the experiences it brings to these mass bodies.

That's really a different gig from being a 'guiding light,' even if it's shorthand, as it's a different concept.

I like Saul Alinsky's reading of programmatic organising. He wrote that he felt that you couldn't just insist on things, ideas etc. which had no currency in the people you are organising with. You had to take what was already there and use that as a bridge into the next narrative for the organisation/campaign/whatever. It's the role of a group of individuals who agree with each other and choose where to get active in campaigns, based on their priorities, why they feel people should come towards their point of view. You can't do that as a 'guiding light' as it just sets you apart.

Just for Revol, I also don't necessarily believe that the specific group, so organised, will necessarily be right - they can be as wrong as easily as anyone else. That doesn't mean they shouldn't try and exercise their ideas on the world though, same as anyone else.

^ What he said. Nice post man!

I agree with that.

No I think past organising and struggles are important, but don't believe these will happen successfully via a mass revolutionary organisation.

Again, long-term preparation for taking over production doesn't have to be via a mass revolutionary union - for a start, unions organise workers in their workplaces, I think it very likely that many workplaces in the UK will simply cease functioning entirely since they produce nothing of use to anyone at all - with workers ending up doing completely different jobs. I don't see a central role for self-managed call centres, direct mail, or insurance firms for example.

The factory committees did co-ordinate nationally despite slanders against them, although those efforts were still-born to a large extent. Which permanent mass organisations do you feel had a positive role in the Russian Revolution?

eh?

- actually I'm saying that open entry unions would contain too many differences and splits, and simultaneously, I'd have to lie to get into solfed as it stands now, since I don't agree with all their As and Ps.

Well even as someone almost completely isolated (politically) in my workplace, I've managed to have a decent effect in getting people to discuss and act on grievances, wages and working conditions. Having a vehicle through which I could discuss those experiences, get advice, and produce shared literature around them would be good. Like I said, although I'm sure both solfed and the IWW are good for that, I couldn't join them without glossing over the statements I'd be signing up to.

I agree with that as well, this has got nothing to do with permanent mass organisations though.

No, I said in some instances we do use direct action in some instances we don't. You are right that at some points you need to compromise in order to build strength but eschewing available avenues because of a stronger commitment to ideologiy is cultish and irresponsible. No group operating in class struggle is homogenously revolutionary, to do that is impossible. If your interest is in keeping a revolutionary line your best bet is a political group.

I would say the IWW is not entirely revolutionary, but not entirely unrevolutionary either. There is a lot of stuff happening in a lot of places that is very under the radar, not publicised highly but is also based on direct action, I would say this is revolutionary.

That is to say what I've already said: Insofar as the IWW uses direct action it is revolutionary insofar as it does not it isn't. In my mind this is better than the tension that exists in politiical groups, you either steer a group as a minority or become a marginal sect.

Catch, I'm not sure I undersand this. What's by nature individualized and atomized? Use of the law? That's not actually the case. I think that that stuff is definitely problematic and is at best a second choice. But it's not necessarily individualized and atomized. In 2004- 05 lost two jobs for organizing activity (one a firing and the second a slow-down that resulted in the office being closed). In one we went to the labor board to file charges in the attempt to get back wages. That really sucked but the loss was worse than using the NLRB. And we went in a group and supported each other, came out with stronger relationships. The second time I got help and ended up helping others file for unemployment. Same results. In both cases, a big part of the actions against the boss were not institutionally mediated. In both cases using institutional mediation afterward was the result of our having lost but was actually less isolating than any noninstitutional responses we could have had.

I don't know. In my experience struggle plus conversations can really radicalize people. If people are joining a mass organization (albeit a very small one like the IWW right now) in the context of struggle and there are decent formal and informal mechanisms in place (like member orientations) then I don't think this fate you see is inescapable.

Right now you will not have a body which is simultaneously a mass organisation and an organisation of the ‘pro-revolutionary minority’, to borrow spikymike’s phrase, because the later is tiny. Period. The later is likely to remain tiny in the foreseeable future in the English speaking world. This fact does not preclude a pre-figurative strategy of building working class power in the here and now (or a culture of resistance or however one wants to phrase it). Nor does it preclude building permanent mass organisations (the argument concerning such is a different one). It does preclude the possibility of building an organisation which is very large and which has both revolutionary politics and a constantly radical practise. Any strategy in the immediate future based around building in the here and now mass revolutionary organisations is likely to be as successful as it was in the last couple of decades.
In this regard the IWW is better than the IWA groups as the IWW’s politics are looser and broader, while that of the IWA groups is quite narrow and as such they have no capacity to be a broad front.

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. What I'm primarily interested in at the moment is building industrial unions which are anti-partnership, have real density in certain industries and are member controlled. Right now I couldn't give a stuff whether they are 'revolutionary' or not, and I see too much politics as being a hinderance to that objective.

I don't think the IWW should repeal those sections of its constitution but I really think we should not stress those aspects. What I'd like to see is a mass organisation built as above with revolutionary tendencies active within it. I'm frankly a bit surprised SolFed have not already joined us en masse to do exactly that, but I guess we've only started to seem like we have some potential to develop into a serious option in the past six months, and we're still several years away from being of any consequence to the wider struggle. We are moving there though.

Yeah exactly. You defo could see the development of relatively horizontal fighting unions right now - the UK's got the OILC for example. They wouldn't be 'revolutionary', but I couldn't give a stuff about that as if they were they'd be tiny, but they would be a fucking great leap forward in the UK right now. It would advance the struggle. If the struggle advances then the class will move further to the left, making more struggle possible. It's a bit of a no-brainer really. We need mass fighting organisations in our communities and workplaces, and that's the best way for the struggle to advance, which is the best way for more ideological groups like anarcho-syndicalist unions to develop. The IWW has more potential to develop in such a way because we don't insist that our members are revolutionary, like some IWA sections do, and we're very vague on the whole 'rev' thing anyway.

Not the impression one would get from this thread here: http://libcom.org/forums/thought/anarcho-syndicalism-and-libertarian-communism

There are a number of different variants of anarcho-syndicalism, some perhaps inhabiting the same organisations, and from reading that thread it does seem that is exactly how some members of SolFed, at least, see their organisation, that is, as the basis of a mass revolutionary union.

well I can't speak for them but I think they're very silly if they imagine that's how things will go, much more likely to see growing groups of militant workers networking and an organic linking up of struggles (hopefully), I mean these people fetishing the need for a mass formal union really need to look at how even the CNT came about, that is a linking up of local unions, clandestine work place resistance groups, peasants and farm labourers movements.

Which is why I started the thread.