Syndicates and councils

No a syndicate, or trade union, revolutionary or otherwise, is usually a permanent, bureacratic, long term institution, whereas councils are convened by the people involved where and when they feel there is a need to organise collectively for a certain purpose. When the need has been realised councils are dissolved and new councils created only when the need arises again for collective, horizontal decision making.

Syndicats in one form or another were used by Hitler, Stalin,Mussolini and Franco. Unless we are very careful they can become a means of oppression.

Not the IWW's Comittee on Industrial Classification (CIC, personally i prefer COC, that's a freudian slip, that's one for dioc), who are currently being hounded for having images of K. Marx on there website.

Hey John, t-shirts...

Maybe you could organise your community/workplace whatever way the people involved decide, I'll be arguing for instantly recallable delegates, rotation of all positions of possible influence, and self management for everyone involved, and for those who've yet to express their opinions.

I wouldn't presume to tell people how, where or when they should organise but...

...personally I feel the class war has moved into our communities with a vengeance. That's not ignoring the workplace, but being realistic about the potential for workplace based resistance. If you think otherwise feel free to prove me wrong.

What makes you think working class people can't understand when they're being preached to, and how to organize beyond it? A cursory glance at our history shows the working class driving any revolutionary situation forward when it's possible. It's not us who throws the anchors on.

Comrade: onging = old, stale. Permanent = stagnant,

I'll decide what kind of organisation I need, and where, when and how I'll organise for myself and my class.

Hello there;

Yeah, it has to be the workplace/community you're in in the first instance but solidarity has to be built beyond that. It also has be be built by workers or people living in the community and one individual cannot do that - but we can initiate discussion and as you propose put forward arguments. So we should probably add to that horizontally based and federal co-ordination.

You see, this is why i asked - what u argue for here is exactly what anarcho-syndicalists argue, so by your own reckoning you must be bureaucratic as well. (btw how do you propose to argue for those who've 'yet to express their opinions'? maybe thats not what you mean but it doesn't read well does it?).

Yes and no, I think you'll find that the class war has always been right there in our workplaces AND in the hearts of our communities. From slum landlords to pawnbrokers, to the running down of social housing, council tax, water charges... It may appear to be a new 'move' into them but thats really because a more aggressive and confident capitalism has deliberately moved against the concessions working class people had won over decades of struggle. This is both in our communities and our workplaces. Thatcher and Regan are credited with starting this onslaught and under thatcher it took the form of an assault on the unions, the beginning of privatisation of elements of the welfare state and other nationalised industries, and in the 'property owning' revolution - an attack on state controlled social housing and the promotion of massive debt for those working class people conned into taking out mortgages.

Because the working class has suffered defeat after defeat does not remove the potential for workplace resistance but there has to be organisation, and that organisation has to be permanent, if we are to have any chance of turning those defeats around. Again explain how community resistance can undermine and lead to the overthrow of capitalism? It can be effective in opposing certain attacks and in forcing some concessions. But if you want to set up your local estate as a no-go area this cannot be maintained in isolation - without the 'fields, factories and workshops' being taken out of the hands of capitalists and put under direct workers control you haven't done anything about capitalism. You may have excluded the state - but just for a while.

You seem to be substituting yourself for the working class in its entirety here yozzee, not a particularly healthy thing to do but handy given you seem to feel that its up to you to decide on the type of organisation needed for you and 'your' class. Implying of course that I couldn't be working class cos I don't agree with you. What utter fucking shite.

You fail to grasp that there are different tendencies in the working class and that while some sections of the working class in certain periods become the vanguard of the revolution often other sections of the working class are indeed involved in throwing on the anchors. What about scabs? Working class conservatives, nationalists, social democrats, leninists, etc? Yellow unions? This class is not homogenous beyond the fact of its economic existance.

I don't for a second believe that working class people can't tell when they're being preached to but if arguing for effective, worker controlled resistance as opposed to ad hoc councils is preaching (and arguing for councils as defined by you isn't cos your obviously just more workin' class) then we could actually do with a bit more of it.

'onging' = old, stale and permanent = stagnant - fucking odd dictionary you have there yoz.

At what point in time will you decide that your organisation has been around too long and become stale and stagnant? When you get bored?

Lol I'm not sure you really want seumus on your side

Those last 3 paragraphs, I really don't know what you mean. I think you and I have very different ideas of what anarcho-syndicalism is... You seem to say there's some big concrete post-revolution blueprint which I don't think there is (other than a standard libcom one of federated workers + community councils)

Yeah exactly. Catch where is it you get your ideas on syndicalism from, is it Bookchin? (not having a go just wondering)

The CNT today is not the same as in 1935 (in many negative ways of course, not having 1.5 million members, say,but still...).

The terms are still an accurate description of my, and many other people's politics. Ideas change with time. I think it's far better term than anarchist communism, because syndicalism has a great history and legacy, whereas a-c doesn't. Although I think they are both the same as I've said on many occasions!

care to explain exactly how that was inevitable from the fact that the cnt was a permanent organisation, and not simply a tactical but understandable mistake on their part? and a mistake which anarcho-syndicalists have gone over and over at least as times than any other group to learn from it. and how was it worse than the non-permanent structures thrown up by the working class in russie, that were so quickly taken over and dominated by the bolsheviks and used to crush the revolution? the cnt at least through it's permanent structure was able to survive the civil war, admittedly very much weakened, because it kept out all political parties.

that's a ridiculous set of false opposites. why would it be necessary to dissolve the union to take part in organisational structures? and why are you implying that the revolutionary union is not made of members of the working class?

and catch, all anarcho-syndicalists are anarcho-communists (e.g. the stated aim of the cnt decided in 1918 or thereabouts was the establishing of libertarian communism), it's just that not all anarcho-communists are anarcho-syndicalists. the syndicalist bit is the whole theory and practice of how we get to communism i.e. mass based, openly anarchist organisations. i'm not entirely sure what those a-c's who aren't syndicalists have as a general overrall tactic (that's not a dig, i just really don't see it. i don't mean some rigid point by point programme, just a general idea of how to get there, but that's probably cos i've been concentrating on spanish anarchist history for the last year and half for university...)

No yozzee, I'm saying that you are arguing for the same mechanisms, recallability and accountability, that anarcho-syndicalists see as essential to effective working class organisation. But really for you the issue is 'permanence'. Y'see 'permanence' really shouldn't be 'permanent' in relation to there being a difference between the organisations we need to help us fight capitalism and the organisation of a libertarian communist society after the revolution, but John and Steve seem to be dealing pretty well with that one.

Right, you see there's a bit of a fucked up reading of history going on here. The first unions in Britain and Ireland, of skilled workers and craftsmen, were largely looking to defend their relatively comfortable positions and the position of their trades as the industrial revolution took hold and were a lot more conservative than "dynamic bodies to organise workplace resistance" suggests. It wasn't really until the general union tendency and syndicalism (as the term is generally understood in English as being revolutionary and not simply meaning union or trade union) make an impact with attempts made for the first time to organise the greater masses of workers, that you really see anything that fits the discription you've given of the history of the unions. The 'respectable' unions are the same unions that founded the TUC and were opposed to syndicalist and to a lesser extent general union tendencies - general unions were of course quickly brought on board as we know. But this role in controlling the proletariat, of belief in whats these days called social partnership, that many unions carry out is not really a deviation from the original path set out on by many of these unions - many of them never met your historically idealised view of them in the first place.

Yozzee just because you "say there's something inherently wrong with permanent unions whether fully reformist like the TUC ones, or partly reformist like the 'revolutionary' ones" doesn't actually make it true. You aren't providing any evidence here at all. The majority of those who took seats in Spain were by the way intellectuals and FAIstas, all good anarcho-communists. We could point out that anarchist-communists like Goldman and Berkman supported the Bolsheviks when it was obviously unreasonable to do so and use that to comdem us all as well, of course there are major differences but the belief that these people took posts because they were anarcho-syndicalists is pretty flawed reasoning. And what generationterrorist said

Oh, I can see capitalism crumble - to the allotments fellow revolutionaries we have a world to feed! Sorry but there really isn't anywhere in my estate to grow enough food to feed everyone who lives here. None of us know much about agriculture either as far as I know. How are you gonna generate power for our estates and our hospitals, maintain the water and sewerage services, while we're all hemmed up in our estates having run away from our workplaces leaving them to the bosses and people who (quite rightly) reckon that this 'revolution' is being carried out by a bunch of hippy crack pots??? Yeah, I can see the experimental alternatives to 'work' kicking off in the housing estates now - fuck them ems round in Blah Street are churning out the cookers, Sidney has invented a new environmentally friendly freezer but fuck who cares that we don't have the facilities in the social centre to produce any - sure everyone runs away from work anyway. Jesus fucking christ. Oh look theres a massive fucking gas leak but all the gas workers have fucked off to Majorca. Boom!

Now thats utter bollox - 'anarcho-syndicalist without a Union' read that? So what anarcho-syndicalist union am I actually going to argue for people to join? And by the way this 'fucking syndicalist' has at least some real life experience of workplace organising do you Yozzee? As for:

Its not mine I can't create fuck all on my own. It's not a trade union. There ain't any revolutionary situation, and there won't be one come along all on its own (all spontaneous like) unless working class people start getting together and organising for it. Revolutionary situations may see other 'structures' thrown up but these will be reactive in terms of the situation and will not be well equipped to defend the revolution from counter-revolution of the capitalist or particularly the authoritarian left varieties. If however a section of the working class 'sponaneously' throws up what is to all intents and purposes an anarcho-syndicalist union than yeah I'd join that. It sounds like you my friend have a real problem with having working class people learning, together, from past experience how to build effective organisations. Again you've gone for a what I say is working class but those syndicalists aren't cos they don't agree with me. If you don't believe we should be building the organisations now that will put us in a better position to see through a successful social revolution then I'm afraid that your notions would be what condemns us as a class to yet another valiant failure - if we even get that far.

edited - spelling again

JoeBlack2 this did work, to my knowledge, particularly in rural and agricultural collectives where all the people involved in the collectivisation were not members of the CNT or the FAI or the UGT or POUM or anything else in particular.

But really when you say;

A lot of anarcho-syndicalists would challenge your rather mechanical division between 'ideology' and tactics. But thats by the by. You have to admit that this is really just your opinion - because this hasn't been tested and there is no amount of intellectual gymnastics that you could engage in to prove it - is there? So no, you do not have god like intellectual qualities or insights, this is an opinion masquerading as a 'fact'.

Yeah, lets get this straight. I said general union tendency and syndicalism - I should have pointed out that the syndicalist tendency was very much smaller, though in the formation of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union significant. The point is these were tendencies in the working class that were more militant because they had to be and in the case of syndicalism more explicitly revolutionary than trades or craft unionism had been. But its not that 'syndicalism' came along and made unions more dynamic its more that as you see a more mass based form of unionism among less skilled and unskilled workers that more militant forms of action and active solidarity become essential to winning disputes. Skilled craftsmen organised to maintain the apprenticeship system and limit entry to their respective trades, so when they enter a dispute with the employer the scarcity of their skill is often enough to ensure success in a dispute. Workers who have to be trained (like miners, train workers etc.) or where there is a shortage of labour can and did sometimes win disputes on their own. The move towards organisation by unskilled workers demanded the militancy associated with, well, with syndicalism really. Direct action, secondary picketing, blacking and extensive solidarity.

The claim that I'm implying the working class can't organise themselves is ridiculous. Your belief that all working class self organisation starts as dynamic and no doubt 'revolutionary' and gets corrupted by 'permanence' is what I was criticising. Again there are many different currents in working class self organisation many of them are not "dynamic bodies to organise workplace resistance" and even some that are are reactionary. Are the hundreds of 'pigeon' clubs and other working class social clubs in Belfast revolutionary, well in so far as there is some control of these social clubs by the membership I suppose yes you could claim that but really no, there is little likelihood of these providing a revolutionary focus. A few more pertinent, at least to people from the north of Ireland, examples would perhaps be seen in the fact that the largest example of working class self organisation we've witnessed in recent years, which at its height mobilised 60,000, is a loyalist paramilitary organisation - the UDA. We've also had, in 74, the mobilisation of workers as workers (along with 'supportive' mobilisation in at least some of our housing estates) which toppled a government. The most effective and largest political strike post WWII - and that was the Ulster Workers Council strike, organised to bring down the Sunningdale power sharing executive and end the 'council of Ireland' that was to establish a role for the southern government in governing Northern Ireland. So sorry working class self organisation sometimes doesn't quite fit with anarcho expectations.

To identify more closely with one, revolutionary, current over another is not to claim that the working class cannot self organise, only an idiot would believe that. The point is not that a small current like syndicalism is more important than the 'proletariat' the point is that you have created an image of and history of the proletariat to suit your arguments. It seems that you are imbuing it with a consistant and revolutionary dynamism that is only corrupted by 'permanent' organisations. And that is really where your argument falls apart.

Um, right, I was actually pointing out that you had 'forgotten' to mention they were actually anarchist communist "intellectuals and FAIstas", as for the rest of course its "fucked up" but the permanence or otherwise of the anarcho-syndicalist union has percious little to do with it. And as I said others on this thread have tackled that point.

No, the answer the question deserved is that we need both community and workplace organisation but that without workplace organisation we cannot effectively carry out a social revolution against the economic system that is capitalism. Nor can we sustain a revolution if we cannot continue to meet at least the most basic needs of working class people - that means taking over our workplaces not running away from work. If we're "pissing in the wind" in any attempts at workplace organising we're more than pissing in the wind if we expect to carry through a social revolution and not provide the basic essentials of every day life.

There are some things we actually need something resembling a 'blueprint' for, maintaining power supplies to working class communities, making sure we are all fed and defense manufacture all fall under this category. Without that particular blueprint we're sorta fucked mate. So no the question deserved a much better answer than you gave.

For myself I do not imagine 'anarcho-syndicalist' masses, I do believe that anarcho-syndicalist forms of organisation will be essential to the success of any future social revolution. And as anarchists of course we should organise in "all spheres" of working class struggle - all spheres of life could lead you into lots of 'activisty' nonsense that only substitutes for the real task of building working class resistance to capitalism and states. In case you haven't noticed I'm not in an anarcho-syndicalist union or propaganda group I'm in a small class struggle anarchist organisation that does not believe that it will become an anarcho-syndicalist union. Its an organisation which despite its small size has a good record on involvement in working class struggles.

I do realise that in a revolutionary situation other 'councils' or bodies of people will take over workplaces and communities without necessarily being in any anarcho-syndicalist union. I think most anarcho-syndicalists do and would also work with and through these future organisations. What anarcho-syndicalists, as far as I know, reckon is that these bodies are unlikely to have the resources to successfully carry through a revolution on their own. The proletariat of course can carry through a successful social revolution but why do they have to continuously relearn the lessons of past struggles through their own defeats?

I mean this happened in the soviets and the Bolsheviks were able to muscle in and fuck over the revolution, more recently its happened in Argentina with no real notion of where its going or any idea that the 'revolution' should even be permanent seems to prevail. There certainly doesn't seem to have been a successful social revolution carried through on the basis you advocate.

And y'know Yozzee if thats yer case rested its a pretty crap case.

Whew thanks for reminding me of that - I was dangerously close to trying to walk across Dublin bay.