The Af and the IWW

I basically agree with you about the IWW and my problem with it is that although at the moment it isn't a union, just calls itself that, I don't think it'll be able to resist trying to become one.

There we disagree. Basic principles need to be binding, but tactics have to be diverse because it's almost impossible to pre-judge how they're going to play out. Even exactly the same actions at different times can have different consequences, so members have to be left free to make their own assessment of what they think is valuable. That seems to me to be one of the key advantages of federation. Different groups within the organisation can try different things out, knowing as they do so that there's a well of support that they're able to draw on should they need it. For example, I'm not in the IWW and I've got problems with the tactic, but I will help leaflet for them if the AF members involved need the bodies. I trust these people not to sell out basic principles even if I don't necessarily believe in the specific action.

Very much so, but I think that's a necessary condition. I don't think tactical unity is possible or desirable except in pretty broad terms (no electoralism for example), because it's impossible to be certain how tactics are going to play out. The IWW is a worthwhile experiment that I don't think is going to work - but I'm more than happy to be proved wrong.

I don't know what you mean by 'do it properly'. Certainly there's no intention to 'take over' the IWW, but I don't think that's what you're getting at.

There may be some truth in that, but I think it's a matter of degree. The level of agreement is certainly not as high as in EKS, let alone the ICC, but it's still relatively tight. There are places where I would prefer it to be tighter, and I think that's true of most members, but if being more flexible tactically means being looser theoretically then I'm willing to pay that price. Besides which, although in practice it may not be strictly true, we are in theory a federation, which presupposes a certain amount of diversity.

on the IWW, and Workplace Resistance Groups:

You are right about the fact that it isn’t a union. Personally, I don’t think that it will be able to become a union, but that is a question that only time will answer. A much more interesting question is if it isn’t a union then what is it. I would see it as a coalition of leftist groups, which is not denying that some workers not affiliated to these groups are not also members. In fact it is quite a diverse coalition if it includes both the AF, and the Scottish Socialist Party. As I said before, I haven’t read the AF’s document on ‘Workplace Resistance Groups’ (though I would like to if anyone can post it up), but a coalition of leftist groups isn’t exactly how I conceived it. My conception of a WRG would be more along the lines of something that emerges organically from the struggle, and quite probably would disappear when that struggle receded. What the IWW seems to be doing is setting up a formal alliance of political groups. In some ways reminiscent of BLOC, or the SWP’s rank-and-file movement, though more ‘radical’ and not so dominated by one political group. It seems to me that the AF is making a mistake in being drawn into this alliance. Part of the problem here is that the anarchists seem to have a very similar conception to the Leninists in that they both seem to believe that it is the task of revolutionaries to organise the working class.

EdmontonWobbly writes:

I would say that the first alternative is a return to the ideology of the old workers’ movement. I think that it is possible to draw many similarities between the ideology of anarchism, and social democracy, including its more ‘radical’ Leninist factions. Both of them seek to organise the working class, the social democrats through the political party, and the anarchists through workers economic organisations. It is two sides of the same coin.

The left communist conception is quite different. We say that the working class is completely capable of organising itself, and that the task of revolutionaries is to organise themselves to intervene in the class struggle by arguing for communist tactics.

I am not sure exactly what is meant by the second alternative, but I think that is probably more due to the connotations that the term ‘rank-and-file’ developed in Britain in the 1970, and 80’s of being a sort of radical union pressure group. If EW doesn’t mean this, and he presumes that he doesn’t. I would go more with the second alternative. In fact I would go even further than EW. I would argue for setting up groups on a specifically communist basis. I don’t want to be in a group that advocates ‘voting for left officials’, and ‘making the union more democratic’. I want to be in a group which argues for mass meetings, strike committees, and extension of the struggle. Yes, I recognise that this will obviously mean a smaller group, but I don’t see that as a problem. It does not take a big group to produce propaganda, and as we found when we ran ‘Communication Worker’ back in the 80’s, there will be plenty of people who will help you to distribute your stuff even if they don’t want to get involved in your group, or share all of its perspectives. In periods of struggle yes, of course form groups on a wider basis with your workmates to produce leaflets, and organise actions, but also keep your core group, as Gorter said, “as hard as steel, as pure as crystal”.

I will come back to Ticking_fools comments on political organisation latter.

Devrim

You don't think you would "intervene" in the struggle there too? Cos that's what he means.

I think you're misunderstanding him and arguing against a strawman.

JDMF, you keep saying this in discussions with devrim, I don't see how it helps anything; it's just a strawman.

What if the anarchists are actually workers themselves? What if anarchists and communists find themselves in their own struggle, they have to be part of that organising, as such should they not argue for organisation more suited to communist and anarchist tactics? And what is this split between organisation and tactics? They are completely bound up together, the workers assembly is both a form of organisation and a tactic.

JDMF,
I think that you do misunderstand what I mean here. When we were involved in the postman’s strike we talked about intervening in mass meetings. We used the same term if we were in our own office, or in another office. I think that you understand it that way because you want the see the left communists as a 'quasi-Leninist organisation importing class consciousness from outside the class'. I think that actually our conceptions are quite different than you imagine.

We believe that revolutionaries should organise together to more effectively 'intervene' in the class struggle. There must be some level of political agreement to do this. SolFed, and all anarchist groups do exactly the same thing. I think that the only real disagreement here is over what level of political agreement is required. It is a matter of degree only. Does that then make SolFed a vanguardist organisation. We also believe that mass economic organisations tend to become counter revolutionary outside periods of struggle, but we do see that the only way forward is through the mass organisations of the working class, the mass meeting, the strike committee, and ultimately the workers' councils.

Surprisingly Revol I am actually a worker myself too, and have been involved in strikes at work. Yes, of course you take part in this organising. I think so that it is not something which emerges from political organisations. I can argue for a strike committee, and even be on a strike committee, but it is the mass meeting that forms it, and elects me to it, not a political organisation.

Devrim

A query:

Is the IWW in the UK (or in Canada) linked to the IWW in the US, or are they separate organizations?

Here in the states the IWW definitely attempts to function as a real union, fighting for contracts, negotiating with government mediators, the whole nine yards. It is nowhere close to being what either Devrim or the AF seem to define as a "workplace resistance group", but is rather a permanent political organization attempting to function legally in the economic sphere. I personally tend to view it as nothing more than an historical reenactment society, with no more link to the original IWW than the Society for Creative Anachronism has to the people of medieval England.

Personally, I find that bollocks. Sure, working people are capable of organising themselves - this is of fundamental importance, it's just that your position takes a determinist step back and views this process as an eruption of forces rather than their evolution and expansion from within an often contradictory and always changing environment. To me, communist tactics means simply anything that increases the self-activity and strength of the class for-itself. It is something that empowers me and people like me, together, that, if even momentarily, breaks the illusion of our assigned roles - fuelling further assaults.

Sitting on a checkout or whevever, I don't want to be told that I should argue for 'communist tactics' or join a group that one day will intervene in such terms. Your 'left communist' advice is to even a politicised person, on its own, of no help whatsoever. It's like sowing seeds on dry, barren earth. Here and now, what I want to do is radically challenge the power managers have over me, of the fixation of work, what I earn and yes defend my bourgeois rights. Is this reformism or something of sheer necessity to every worker? How will we go about this in reality, starting from where we are? (Seriously, I'd really like you to elaborate on these practicalities).

All this means, of course, we'll see very little co-ordinated and cumulative struggle (and against more than the superficial conflicts) when people like ourselves divorce these everyday issues from 'communist tactics'. There needs to be a conscious expression of communist ideas (the existence of propaganda groups etc.) but not at the expense of their development where it matters. And it certainly isn't an attempt to 'organise the class' by doing this, by throwing up and encouraging on-going organisation (if 'permanent organisation'). The theoretical arguments against their capability of revolutionary change are correct, it doesn't detract from their relevancy.

Finally, for the post-structuralist, beyond-ultra leftist I am (), I'd say the old workers' movements still have more to offer than they we usually give them credit. That it's not quite so easy to say, "ah, but that's the old workerists for you", even when many of the criticisms are in themselves valid, because, in point of fact, we don't have any new workers' movement at hand.

The IWW isn't a coalition of the AF or any other group, it has members from a variety of political organisations or of none at all, all of course must agree with the Preamble. And even where SSP members are involved, I think it's still a decidedly non-partyist organisation.

Sorry, double post.
Dev

I don't think there's any chance of a syndicalist or anarcho-syndicalist union developing in the UK, not without a massive upswing in class struggle which'd probably throw up it's own organisations anyway. I've said this on other IWW threads on here, but to me it seems primarily a nostalgia thing. If it's just a loose network of workplace militants without pretensions to much more than that, then why call it the same name as a revolutionary syndicalist union that had it's heyday over 80 years ago? If it's a proto-union, who realistically thinks that it's going to turn into one? (apart from one poster who's not turned up yet).

Yeah I do, and rarely get a straight answer to it from anyone

fwiw, I think the AF's WRG piece contradicts being in the IWW as well.

and this bit of the As&Ps

Unless it's not a syndicalist union of course

So there are several ‘positions’ in the AF regarding the IWW then.

1. The IWW is a great idea and can become a union and we should support it and join it.
2. The IWW will never be a real union but it’s like a workplace resistance group and therefore we should support it and join it.
3. The IWW and all unions are a waste of time but we should support it a bit.
4. All unions are crap but we should stay in reformist unions until we can set up (non-permanent) workplace resistance groups.
5. All unions are crap and we should have nothing to do with any of them.

And you all belong to the same organisation??????

thanks devrim for the detailed reply, the differences we have at this current stage of play are minor, but if we are dreaming then lets dream properly, which is i would like to see workers as part of a revolutionary union and being active participants in the decision making and policy forming role. I know that many on this board, left communists in particular, do not trust workers to make right choices and therefore are keen on building separate tightly knit political groups for the "most advanced sectors of the working class" who with their political and theoretical expertese and superior understanding are able to intervene and use platforms to push their politics.

I understand the desire to trivilialise solidarity into going to pickets and throwing a few quid into the bucket, but perhaps what you mean by intervention is what i see as solidarity, with a slight difference of emphasis?

back to the topic: i think its great that many in AF have woken up to the possibility of revolutionary unionism and are joining IWW - a step towards the right direction

hehe, ok, i apologise for any loaded description, but the point remains

But yeah, like i said, hardly any difference in our politics at the current stage of play, but it could change quickly.

I don' think that we have a distrust of workers, but you certainly seem to have a deep mistrust of the communist left. Can I ask a question before we continue? Would you advocate an anarchist political organisation alongside your anarcho-syndicalist union?

Devrim

But isn't the issue that they think outside of revolutionary times their groups will be very small, whereas you think yours could be mass (i.e. an actual economic organisation, not a small political one as at present)?