Anton Pannekoek’s Workers’ Councils: a Concrete Utopia of the Proletarian Revolution

Anton Pannekoek is one of the main exponents of Council Communism. Council Communism was consolidated, as we have seen1 , in the second half of the 1920s. It emerged as a theoretical expression of the workers' movement that had been taking place since the Russian Revolution of 1905, but especially in 1917, in the German Revolution from 1918 to 1923, in the attempts at revolution in Italy in 1919, etc. In these experiences, a form of workers' struggle developed that had already been outlined in the Paris Commune of 1871: the workers' councils.

As workers begin to self-organize into workers' councils, the tendency is for the struggle to become increasingly radical. In fact, when they are formed, the councils already express a very high level of revolutionary radicalism.2 These emerged historically as a full opposition to organizations that had already completely capitulated to capitalism: parties and unions. These organizations do not express the class interests of the proletariat, but rather of another social class: the bureaucracy. The bureaucratic class is not the owning class in capitalist society; the bourgeoisie plays this role. The bureaucracy is an auxiliary class of the bourgeoisie. This means that it is a class opposed to the proletariat. However, because it is not a homogeneous class, but rather a stratified one, there are strata within it that are close to the proletariat and others that are close to the bourgeoisie (VIANA, 2008). This peculiarity allowed it, from its fractions closest to the proletariat, to express itself as a representative of the working class. This explains the development of the “workers’” or “left” parties and the trade unions.

History shows that there is no way to fight without being organized. However, not just any type of organization serves the proletariat. Parties and unions are proof of this. Whenever workers demonstrate any form of organization that goes beyond the strict control of these institutions, these institutions do everything possible to return to normality and continue to be leaders of the workers. Thus, whenever councils emerged, they placed themselves in complete opposition to these institutions.

It is this characteristic that allows us to explain the development of council communism. While one group of authors expressed the interests of the bureaucracy, speaking in the name of the proletariat (Social Democracy, Bolshevism and Syndicalism), others produced their thought from an opposing perspective, expressing the interests of the proletariat (Council Communism, some anarchists). This debate unfolded throughout the German revolution from 1918 to 1923, during the Russian revolution from 1917 to 1921, in the Italian insurrection of 1919 and in all the other workers' demonstrations in France, England, Holland, Hungary etc. during that period and continues to this day. It is within this framework that we must understand Anton Pannekoek's thought.

We will focus our analysis on the work The Workers' Councils. Published in 1947, that is, two decades after all the debate that took place in the 1920s and continuing into the 1930s, it is a period that allows the author to reflect more accurately on the events, on their deeper revolutionary implications, on the tendencies that such revolutions expressed, etc. The analysis of the work will be developed using as a guiding thread the idea of ​​“concrete utopia” as discussed by Bloch (2005, 2006).

Utopia and Revolution

The word utopia, coined by Thomas More in his work Utopia, is commonly misunderstood. In the usual way of understanding it, utopia is considered to be a dream of lunatics, ideas that do not correspond to reality, unrealizable ideas, etc. Utopian would be that type of thinking that envisions a non-existent world, that yearns for a reality that will never come to fruition. In short, an individual who produces utopian ideas would be a Don Quixote of La Mancha fighting windmills in his eternal search for the beautiful Dulcinea del Toboso.

Bloch (2005, 2006), in The Principle of Hope, gives another meaning to the term. He resignifies it, giving it the status of an analytical category of the not-yet-existent. Psychoanalysis made a great contribution to the understanding of mental mechanisms when it revealed the nature and content of the unconscious. Freud was responsible for this task. The unconscious is fundamentally the return of elements of consciousness that were repressed throughout the individual's life history. This process of repression is at the origin of the psychic illnesses of our society. The unconscious, as psychoanalysis has revealed since Freud, returns from the dark cellars of oblivion in the form of dreams, slips of the tongue, jokes, symptoms, etc. In any case, the unconscious is always the return of the past. Unveiling the unconscious therefore means not demonstrating the new, but only bringing to consciousness elements that are already old, forgotten from other times.

The not-yet-conscious, as a component of the mental structure, has been neglected by psychoanalysis. This poses the challenge to thought of analyzing, understanding, and unveiling the totally new, the not-yet-existent. However, this does not present itself immediately, clearly crystalline to thought; it appears as a tendency, as a direction, a projecting forward. From a topological point of view, we can say that the unconscious is below consciousness, while the not-yet-conscious is above, beyond the present consciousness, but already existing as a tendency within it. Thus, thinking about the future is not a way of reasoning that builds card castles in the air; on the contrary, it is the way of seeing the world, reality as something tending toward the new, as something that projects itself. Thus, the unveiling of the not-yet-conscious is a process of concrete analysis of the paths that reality follows.

For Bloch (2005),

The not-yet-conscious is thus only the preconscious of the future, the psychic birthplace of the new. And it remains preconscious above all because it contains a content of consciousness that has not yet manifested itself clearly, that is still dawning from the future. Depending on the case, it may even be a content that will emerge objectively in the world. This is the case with all productive situations that are at the origin of things that have never existed before. This is the spirit of the dream forward, this spirit filled with the not-yet-conscious as a form of consciousness of something that is approaching. (BLOCH, 2005, p. 117).

This dreaming ahead is something that recurs. Several thinkers have dedicated themselves to this, to building ideal societies, generally having as a guiding principle a deep sense of community. These utopias are all expressions of trends of their time, that is, they express a historical threshold that each era sets for itself. More's Utopia, Campanella's The City of the Sun, Cabet's Icaria, etc., the works of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, etc. are lost in ideal descriptions of the future society (BLOCH, 2006; PETIFILS, 1977). These utopias are a form of anticipatory consciousness, but they do so from a strictly abstract point of view. That is why Bloch calls them abstract utopias.

Until Marx's work, anticipatory consciousness remained trapped within abstract limits, which prevented it from analyzing the process of constituting the new. The work of Marx and some of his followers gave a completely different impetus to the utopian sense of intellectual production. The detailed description of the future gives way to the concrete critique of the existing. This critique, however, is carried out from a revolutionary point of view , that is, it points out the processes and subjects that will put an end to the current state of affairs. Criticism is carried out by enunciating the inherent contradictions of capitalist society, and this makes it possible to identify the processes by which such contradictions will be eliminated. Thus, criticism points to the new, concrete analysis replaces the utopian abstractions of previous thought, as well as the shallow empiricism that characterizes science. Thus: "From Marx onwards, the insertion of the most audacious intention in the world that is happening, the unity of hope and the notion of process, in short, realism, becomes explicit. Therefore, everything that is inflamed in the dream forward is excluded, as well as everything that is mouldy in sobriety” (BLOCH, 2006, p. 177) (emphasis in the original).

This way:

The consistent dream actively associates itself with what is historically in place and is in a more or less halted progress. Therefore, it is important for the concrete utopia to understand precisely the dream of its object, inherent to the historical movement itself. As a utopia mediated by the process, it is important to highlight the forms and contents that have already developed within the current society (BLOCH, 2006, p. 177).

Marxism is not limited to the initial work of Marx and Engels (original Marxism). Several other authors have set out to understand and deepen historical-dialectical materialism: Rosa Luxemburg, Korsch, Rühle, Mattick, Bloch, etc. Anton Pannekoek is one of these authors who has sought throughout his political and intellectual activity to deepen and take to its ultimate consequences the revolutionary thought of Marx and Engels. Pannekoek has a vast production including several books and dozens of articles. The work we will analyze from now on is The Workers' Councils.

This is, without a shadow of a doubt, an extremely complex and vast book, but it is certainly written in such a clear language and style that anyone with even a minimal level of initiation can easily understand it. As Marx said in the Preface to the first edition of Capital: “(…) one cannot allege that this book [Capital] is difficult to understand. I am naturally assuming that the reader wants to learn something new and is therefore eager to think for himself” (MARX, 1988, p. 4). Thus, Anton Pannekoek’s Workers’ Councils brings this same assertion to the reader. Anyone who wants to learn something new and is eager to think for himself will have an opportunity to glimpse new paths in this work.

Workers' Councils : a Concrete Utopia of the Workers' Revolution

To be utopian, as we are using the term, is to visualize concretely what trends are emerging in reality. A trend is a movement toward which a certain process is directed. Being a trend does not necessarily mean that it will be realized. It is the dynamics themselves that will determine whether or not it will be confirmed. In the case of the workers' struggle, it is the class struggle itself that will determine whether or not it will consolidate a radically different society, a free and self-managed society.

From a formal point of view, the concrete utopian dimension of Pannekoek's work is expressed in the title, in the verb tense he uses and in the arrangement of the chapters. Workers' councils, when in self-management struggle, express a completely new content, that is, the embryo of the future society. Understanding this demonstrates how Pannekoek analyzed the class struggle and the movement of reality. Workers' councils are, therefore, the expression of the tendency, from a revolutionary point of view, that aims to build the new or the not-yet-existent , to use Bloch's language. For this reason, the choice of the name of the book as "Workers' Councils" demonstrates the concrete utopian dimension of the work. It is worth noting the use of the word worker, which is a concept typical of capitalist society. By keeping this word, Pannekoek ends up giving in at the logical-formal level to the lexicon of this society. This is naturally explained by the fact that he analyzed a specific type of organization that he saw developing before his eyes in the revolutionary moments he experienced. Marx, for example, when analyzing the Paris Commune, was careful to use the term “self-government of the producers,” precisely because the term “worker” is appropriate for capitalist society. A self-managed society must coin its own terms and concepts. We, mired as we are in capitalism, must be conscious of criticizing the capitalist lexicon.

The verb tense chosen to analyze the workers' experience at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the demonstration of the difficulties and everything the workers will have to do to really build the new society, is another proof of its concrete utopian character. Although it discusses facts, experiences, victories, defeats, processes, etc. that took place, for the most part, in the 1910s and 1920s, the verbs are constantly conjugated in the future, i.e. past experience is used to demonstrate trends, paths, the way forward (BLOCH, 2005), i.e. where the proletarian revolution is heading.

From a formal point of view, one last element demonstrates the concrete utopian character of his work: the arrangement of the topics. The book is divided into six parts: 1) The Task; 2) The Fight; 3) The Thought; 4) The Foe; 5) The War; 6) The Peace. The first four were written between 1941 and 1942, in the early years of the Second World War. The last two in 1944, when the war was already nearing its end. The last two, in fact, represent the author's response to all the barbarity that capitalist civilization has managed to produce and what the workers' response to capitalist wars should be.

The logic of the first two parts seems to be inverted, in that in the first part he analyzes the task that workers will have in rebuilding society after the overthrow of capitalism, that is, what will be the dilemmas, difficulties, impasses, etc. that workers' councils will face in reorganizing society as a whole. Part two refers to the struggle, that is, the first moments of the overthrow of this society. It analyzes the struggle against the bourgeoisie, against the state and also against the parties and unions, which are supposed to represent the workers. From a logical point of view, we are led to understand that the process of destruction of this society should be discussed first: The Fight, and then the reconstruction of the new society should be discussed: The Task. This way of thinking is false, because in fact there are not two processes, but only one: the process of destruction occurs together with the reconstruction. The separation is merely analytical. Thus, immediately setting out the entire task that workers will have to carry out is a method of exposition that is quite consistent with the purpose of the work. All other pages are dedicated to the struggles and processes that will destroy this society, that is, they are criticisms of capitalist society.

Recalling an analysis that Bloch makes of Marx's work to demonstrate the concrete utopian character of his thought in opposition to the previous abstract-utopian thought, he states:

Abstract utopias had devoted nine-tenths of their space to the description of the state of the future and only one-tenth to the critical contemplation, often only negative, of the present. (…) Marx invested more than nine-tenths of his writings in the critical analysis of the present, leaving relatively little space for adjectives of the future. For this reason, Marx gave his work, as has been rightly observed, the name Capital and not, for example, A Call for Socialism (BLOCH, 2006, p. 175)

Bloch analyzes the entirety of Marx's work with a focus on Capital. For us, this interpretation serves once again to demonstrate how Pannekoek constructed the framework of his book. Although in each chapter he dedicates a few words to the organization of self-managed society through its workers' councils, it is definitely in the first that he emphasizes this issue the most.

What are these tasks that workers must complete?

The first is, without a shadow of a doubt, the reorganization of the entire work process within factories and other workplaces. As an authentic Marxist, he considers that: “Work in itself is not repulsive. It is a necessity imposed on human beings by nature to satisfy their needs” (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 30). However, this work is carried out in a way that reproduces capital and not to satisfy human needs. Thus, factories, means of transport, agriculture, consumption, etc. are all subject to the capital-relation. It is because of this that work becomes a duty, an obligation and, more than that, it becomes the means by which workers are exploited on a daily basis. All work relations are organized with the sole aim of reproducing capital, that is, producing, circulating and realizing surplus value. “Each factory is an organization meticulously adapted to its purposes, an organization of forces, inert and alive, united with each other, of instruments and workers” (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 25). In view of this, he states that the first task of workers is “(…) to take the means of production into their own hands. The dominion of capital over machines and over the means of production must be torn from the unworthy hands of those who use them in this way” (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 34).

As social relations change, that is, as workers take control of the means of production and dominate the relations of production and the whole of social relations through the generalization of the council system, the forms of regulation also change.3 If the forms of property change, that is, they move from private-capitalist property to a form of collective-self-managed property, the forms of regulation will also change. He uses the word law to designate this set of transformations in the sphere of regulation, which leaves room for mistaken interpretations. Taking the transformations in the forms of regulation as transformations in the law may lead those less interested in historicizing concepts to understand that they will be changes that occur as a result of new laws voted in parliament. Nothing could be more contrary to Pannekoek's interpretation. As he himself states: "Such a transformation of the labor system implies a transformation of the law. It is not, of course, a question of having new laws voted in parliament and by Congress. These transformations affect the very foundations of society (…)” (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 36). Thus, speaking of transformations in the forms of regularization is more appropriate than the word law. Once again, Pannekoek gives space to the capitalist lexicon, that is, he uses concepts from this society to express relations of the new self-managed society founded on the system of councils.

It is clear that this is not just a minor change that any organization or institution is capable of making. It is a global change in the mode of production. Workers have found, or rather created, the organization necessary to carry out this task: workers' councils. These are based on organization by workplace, the worker's “natural” locus.

In smaller factories and workshops, where the number of workers is small enough to allow for assemblies in which all workers can participate, this is the appropriate method of decision-making. However, in larger companies, where the number of workers is excessively large, decisions and discussions held in assemblies would impoverish the debate or even make it impossible. Therefore, it becomes necessary to create a council. This will bring together the representatives of the workers in the various sections of the factory. The council is the natural organization from which all decisions will be made. A council is not an organization separate from the group of workers in a given factory; it is simply the conscious and organized expression of the workers of the company in question.

“When a human being has to do a job, he must first conceive it mentally, he must have a more or less clear plan or project. This is what distinguishes human actions from the purely instinctive acts of animals” (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 43). However, in a factory organized according to capitalist principles, those who carry out the activities are granted the right to conceive or plan the activity. The hierarchy within the company is clear proof of this. In a self-managed society, in which producers are the masters of production, that is, they develop the work according to interests and objectives established by themselves, the division between conception and execution of the work process disappears. Thus, councils are not a power over workers, like bosses, parties, unions, or the state. On the contrary, they are the living expression in which the autonomy, creativity, and spontaneity of workers are manifested. “All members of staff will have an equal share in the work of this organization in the factory, in the daily execution and in the general regulation” (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 48).

This organization that regulates and structures work within a given company is the principle according to which society as a whole will be structured. The social organization of companies under capitalism follows the same logic and principles as the organization of work within a single company. The general director within the company corresponds to the head of state in the general social organization, in society.

The principles of the working class are contrary in all respects. The organization of production by the workers is based on free cooperation. Neither masters nor slaves. The same principle presides over the integration of all enterprises into a unified social organization. It is also up to the workers to build the corresponding social mechanism (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 51).

Hierarchy, tyranny, competition, etc. serve to produce and reproduce capital. These principles organize the workplace and the capitalist society as a whole. Cooperation, solidarity, and the pursuit of satisfying the vital needs of human beings are the ethical principles and forces that will guide a self-managed society. Thus, if self-management is the norm according to which the material goods necessary for humanity are produced, the way in which this production is regulated must also obey these principles, generalizing them throughout society.

Thus, an entire system of social organization will be established based on or having as its principle the councils. This system of councils will establish the form of self-government of the future society. “Workers' councils are the form of self-government that will replace, in the future, the forms of government of the ancient world” (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 78).

Compare parliament with the Council System. The first is based on the separation between “general regulation” and “production” per se. In other words, in capitalism, politics is the business of a small number of experts (professional politicians), while production is the business of the ignorant majority of the population. In the Council System, on the contrary, there is a fusion between “general regulation” and “production”. The councils are not something separate from the group of producers; on the contrary, they are the most genuine expression of the general sentiment of the working class. However, the members of the councils are not mere errand boys either; they take part in the decisions that prevail; they are those who best represent the working group to which they are linked. In the Council System, there is no separation between Politics and Economics. This separation is the foundation of the parliamentary system.

This way,

In the organization of councils, political democracy disappears because politics itself disappears, leaving room for the socialized economy. The life and work of the Councils, formed and constituted by the workers, bodies of their cooperation, consist of the practical management of society, guided by knowledge, permanent study and constant attention (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 83).

The council system presents itself as a practical form, historically created by workers, which will put an end to the division of classes and thus the social division of labor. Non-productive activities (health, education, arts, sciences, etc.) must also be subject to the same principles of self-organization. In other words, those who are directly involved in these activities must themselves be the organizers and executors of them.

It concludes thus,

In this way, the organization of the Councils weaves in society a network of diversified communities, working in collaboration and regulating their life and progress according to their free initiative. And everything that is discussed and decided in the Councils will draw its true power from the understanding, the will and the action of working Humanity (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 86).

The process of destroying capitalism is simultaneously the process of building social self-management. For the new society to develop, a new human being is needed. This new human being will be built as the ills of capitalism are gradually destroyed. This will only be possible as workers take control of society as a whole, initially by dominating their work process and then all other services and human activities.

The application of science to technical development and this to the production process is, in capitalism, the result of an insane process of competition between capitalist companies and in which the workers as a whole are completely oblivious. In the Council System, scientific and technical development is subordinated to the fulfillment of human needs. The beauty of the work to be developed can be seen in the beauty of the products produced.

To this end, it will be necessary for natural sciences to cease to be a monopoly of a few individuals and to become part of the range of knowledge that constitutes the consciousness of workers. In order for them to make the right decisions in their Councils and assemblies, they will need in-depth knowledge of the forces of nature and the technical procedures of production. Science will cease to be a privilege and will become socialized.

The same is true of the human sciences. They have not yet been able to achieve full development because the assumptions on which they are based are erroneous: the individual, the mechanical connection between individuals, antinomies4 , etc. A true science of society must produce the knowledge necessary for human beings to know themselves, the social mechanisms, etc., that help them in decision-making. Dogmatic, mythical and religious thinking will be replaced by a theoretical awareness of the world.

The educational process, therefore, will be subject to profound transformations. From childhood to old age, human beings must find institutions that allow them to constantly improve themselves and deepen their knowledge about nature, technology, human beings and society.

This careful education of the new generation, both theoretical and practical, and oriented both towards the natural sciences and towards social consciousness, will be an essential element of the new productive system. Only in this way will a smooth development of social life be ensured. And in this way the productive system will also develop in progressively better forms. Through the theoretical mastery of the natural and social sciences, and through their practical application in work and life, the workers will make the Earth the full abode of a free humanity (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 93/94).

But all this will not happen all at once, as a single sudden act, nor will it be unanimous and without resistance. The workers, defending their private interests, which are at the same time the general interests of all humanity, will encounter many opponents and staunch defenders of this society. Thus, they will have to control their own struggles.

Self-Management of Struggles as a condition for Social Self-Management

The ruling classes, that is, the bourgeoisie, bureaucracy, intelligentsia, etc., never tire of affirming the incompetence, incapacity and ignorance of the workers. This has a reason; it is not something gratuitous or without purpose. In all class societies, the ruling classes affirm and reaffirm the inferiority of the exploited classes. In order for the latter to remain exploited, they must truly believe that they are incapable, inferior and ignorant.

A condition for workers to truly conquer their freedom is their self-activity as a class for themselves. No other class has an interest in this happening. The ruling class (bourgeoisie), the auxiliary classes of the bourgeoisie (bureaucracy and intelligentsia) and other upper classes (landowners, for example) insist with all the power they have on the incapacity of the workers. The workers, in turn, must, with all the weapons at their disposal, demonstrate their capacity for self-organization.

Pannekoek (1977) is emphatic on this issue. Both parties and unions, regardless of their orientation, actually represent interests that are not those of the working class. According to Pannekoek's analysis, these organizations represent an expression of the “old workers' movement”. This movement was not yet capable of acting on its own. Unions are the type of organization needed by a dispersed, incipient proletariat living in abject conditions, those of the beginning of capitalist production.

At this time, capitalist greed found no resistance to the satisfaction of its interests. The proletariat was brutally debased, exploited to the point where it was no longer able to reproduce itself as a worker lost in hunger, in terrible living conditions, in long working hours. The union was created as a way for workers to put a certain brake on the pace of capitalist exploitation. And the union did this with some effectiveness. With the transition from small to big capital, that is, from “free-competitive” capitalism to oligopolies, unions also evolved. They went from being small workers’ organizations to huge bureaucratic institutions, which Pannekoek (1977) calls “labor parliaments,” because they had all the characteristics that define a parliament: independent bureaucracy with its own interests, electoral disputes for power, competition between political factions, transformation of members into voters, etc. With the development of capitalism, unions became fully capitulated institutions. This means that they no longer represent the interests of workers, even when they call strikes, start wage campaigns, etc. According to Pannekoek (1977), trade unions are the organization that negotiates the value of labor power, establishing, together with employers and the state, the minimum living conditions for workers so that they can continue to be sellers of their labor power.

What has been said about trade unions also applies to political parties. These developed at a time of decline in the workers’ struggle, around the 1870s and 1880s. The first major party that claimed to represent workers was the German Social Democratic Party. This emerged from the merger between Lassalleans and "Marxists"5 and became one of the largest parties in all of Europe, especially in Germany. Political parties6 therefore emerged as a bureaucratic organization, yet another institution that aimed to subdue the working class as a whole. After the events of 1917 and the creation of the Russian Communist Party, a new trend of parties developed, the Leninist or Bolshevik parties. With the development of the Soviet Union, this was the type of party that grew the most throughout the world.

What is left for the workers to do, given that those who claim to represent them are in fact typically capitalist institutions? Social Self-Management cannot be built by reproducing bureaucracy, submission and exploitation. Only workers acting on their own can create the conditions for their emancipation. Pannekoek (1977) calls this process “direct action”. It begins to develop from the moment that workers act independently of the unions, initiating the so-called “wildcat strikes”. “A wildcat strike (illegal or unofficial) is a strike in opposition to strikes decided by the unions in compliance with regulations and laws” (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 103). These wildcat strikes are the embryo of the spirit of autonomy necessary for the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. Thus, we can say that direct action means that workers: “(…) will have complete control of their own struggle” (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 104).

These strikes can evolve into “factory occupation strikes”, that is, those in which workers, when they stop work, instead of dispersing into the streets and their homes, occupy the factories where they work. Employers and lawyers argue that this is expropriation and therefore illegal, since it takes away from the owners the certificate of ownership, the right to use the factory as their property rights allow. Although this argument may be true from a legal point of view, the fact is that in practice workers often use this method of struggle, arguing that they are not actually expropriating, but simply temporarily suppressing the right to property. Occupation strikes are important for the consciousness of the struggle to demonstrate that, in fact, “(…) the factories belong to the workers, together they form a harmonious unit and that the struggle for freedom will be carried out to the end in and through the factories” (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 113).

Pannekoek (1977) associates the economic crisis of capitalism with the rise of workers' struggles. Each period of prosperity in capitalist production corresponds to a decline in the revolutionary spirit. On the contrary, when capitalism shows signs of difficulty, revolts and revolutions pose a threat to the existing order. Like every rising class aspiring to a new mode of production, the proletariat also creates its own characteristics. Unlike past revolutions, the essence and purpose of the proletarian revolution is the elimination of social classes. This can be inferred by analyzing the feelings, practices, etc. that develop in moments of rising proletarian struggle.

Pannekoek considers that: “for workers, the strong community feeling that arises from their struggle for Power and Freedom is at the same time the basis of the new society” (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 137). In other words, there is a complete correspondence between means and ends. Workers know that they cannot fight individually, so they associate, create strike committees, which can develop into councils, develop egalitarian relations in the organizations they create, etc. Thus, being a necessity to fight against capital, organization and solidarity become the very nature of the society to be created.

Naturally, the proletariat will not develop such consciousness by remaining in the ignorance imposed on it by capitalism. The proletarian revolution is above all a “revolution of the spirit” (PANNEKOEK, 1977). But this advancement of consciousness is not the result of more years of school, more hours listening to the radio or watching television, it does not result from reading newspapers produced by the bourgeois press, etc. These means are all adapted to the reproduction of capitalist ideology. The true and only way for the proletariat to advance its consciousness is through self-education.

To better understand what this means, let's see how Pannekoek approaches the issue:

Action breaks out spontaneously, imposed by capitalism on workers who do not want it. It is not so much the result as the starting point of their spiritual development. Once the struggle has begun, workers must continue to attack and defend themselves; they must use their forces to the maximum (…). A period of intense intellectual efforts begins (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 140).

It is the very dynamics of capital that drives the proletariat to move. However, this does not mean any passivity, because this is only the starting point, everything else is yet to be built and depends only on the self-activity of the class. Thus, as the struggle develops, the consciousness of the proletariat also evolves towards increasingly radical points of view. It is the consciousness of itself as a class that will allow the proletariat to destroy capitalism and build its freedom. “The self-emancipation of the working masses presupposes the emancipation of thought, self-education” (PANNEKOEK, 1977, p. 141). Self-education is, therefore, the process by which workers in the process of struggle educate themselves and learn to learn how to fight in the process of struggle itself.

Thus, the proletariat must fight autonomously. This means overcoming its trade union and party bureaucracies. It will gain its autonomy as it strives to defend its own interests, both immediate (wages, better working conditions, etc.) and long-term (destruction of capitalist power within the workplace, destruction of the state, generalization of the council system, etc.). This struggle will involve intense intellectual activity, since the proletarian revolution must be above all a “revolution of the spirit,” as Pannekoek (1977) states. Finally, we can say that the generalization of the council system or the establishment of Social Self-Management is the result of an entire era of struggle between the capitalist class and the proletariat, the outcome of which, if positive, is resolved on the side of the latter. The construction of this new society is simultaneously the construction of a new human being, which is, ultimately, the great objective of the workers’ revolution.

Final Considerations: Dialectical Method and Concrete Utopia in Workers' Councils

A final word about the method is necessary. Pannekoek (1977) does not construct this entire theoretical framework by resorting to metaphysical abstractions, that is, without correspondence with reality. He does not do so in the style of philosophers, that is, by resorting to the speculative method, according to which theories are elaborated by resorting to mental speculations. The theoretical edifice he constructed is not the product of a consciousness that loses itself in idealistic reveries.

On the other hand, it is not the product of a mere description of empirical data that can be observed experimentally, as is the fashion in science. The scientific method demands, par excellence, empirical description and analysis. This implies that only that which can be accessed through experience constitutes the object of scientific analysis. In this way, science manages to describe and analyze that which presents itself directly to consciousness, or rather, consciousness is limited to that which is directly presented to it, mainly through the senses. The scientific spirit is incapable of thinking, explaining, analyzing the completely new, of understanding or even conceiving the not-yet-existent. In short, of understanding reality as a totality, which is riddled with processes of tendency.

The problem of method then arises as follows: how can we analyze reality without getting lost in abstract speculations or without resigning ourselves to the mere description and analysis of what merely exists? This is one of the fundamental points where Marxism surpasses both philosophical speculation (idealism) and empirical analysis (mechanistic or vulgar materialism, according to Marx's expression). The Concrete is precisely the concept that allows us to better analyze reality, since it is its expression. The Concrete, according to Marx, is the “synthesis of multiple determinations”, which means that it is not convenient to use the idea of ​​causality to explain it, since this refers to a single cause for phenomena, which invariably leads to determinism (environmental, technological, sociological, biological, etc.).

Every phenomenon is therefore the result of a complex of processes that determine each other. In order to understand and explain reality, it is necessary to reconstitute this Concrete in thought , since social reality is not susceptible to experimentation. Marx calls this heuristic resource abstraction. Thus, one starts from the concrete-given, that is, that which immediately appears in experience, and reconstitutes it in thought, thus finding the determinations that explain it, producing the concrete-thought. The starting point and the end point of research is the Concrete , but at the beginning it is given (unexplained) and at the end it is thought (explained).

It should be noted that the Concrete and the empirical are not to be confused. The latter is the product of the description and analysis of data accessible to experience. On the contrary, the Concrete is the result of the conceptual elaboration of the elements and processes that constitute social reality. The empirical resigns itself to expressing only a few elements of reality in a very partial way. The Concrete, in turn, allows us to articulate in a broad conceptual whole the processes that explain social life as a whole.

In addition to abstraction, the category of totality also forms part of the scope of historical-dialectical materialism. Thus, by abstracting reality, that is, conceptually elaborating it in thought from a totalizing perspective in which reality is seen as a set of processes that determine each other, the dialectical method goes beyond empirical analysis, since it does not isolate aspects of reality. Furthermore, historical-dialectical materialism is not only a cold, neutral and disinterested analysis of reality, since this is impossible; it is above all a revolutionary theory, that is, it aims to contribute to the process of social transformation.

This implies that the dialectical method requires the perspective of the proletariat. Historical-dialectical materialism is an analysis of the tendency, since the proletarian revolution is a tendency that exists in capitalist society. Since the tendency is something that constitutes reality, it must also compose the possibilities of analyzing reality, otherwise there is a risk of not understanding anything. Thus, it can be clearly seen that concrete utopia requires historical-dialectical materialism and this is the necessary condition for its elaboration.7

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References

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BLOCH, E. The Principle of Hope. V. 2. Rio de Janeiro: Contraponto/Ed. Uerj, 2006.

JENSEN, K. A luta operária e os limites do autonomismo. Revista Ruptura, year 8, number 7, August 2001. Goiânia, Movimento Autogestionário, 2001.

KORSCH, K. Marxism and Philosophy. Porto: Afrontamento, 1977.

LUKÁCS, G. History and Class Consciousness. New York: Routledge, 2003.

MAIA, Lucas. Comunismo de Conselhos. Revista Enfrentamento. n. 04, jan./jun. 2008.

MARX, K. & ENGELS, F. Poverty of Philosophy. São Paulo: Book Exhibition, n/d.

MARX, K. & ENGELS, F. Critique of the Gotha Programme: Comments on the Margins of the Programme of the German Workers' Party. In: Marx, K. & Engels, F. Communist Manifesto. Porto Alegre: LP&M, 2002.

MARX, K. & ENGELS, F. Capital: Critique of Political Economy. VI São Paulo: Abril Cultural, 1988.

MARX, K. & ENGELS, F. Towards the Critique of Political Economy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

PANNEKOEK, A. Lenin as Philosopher. In: La izquierda comunista germano-holandesa contra Lenin. Barcelona: Espartaco Inernacional, 2004.

PANNEKOEK, A. The Workers' Councils. Madrid: Zero, 1977.

PETITFILS, J.-C. Os Socialistas Utópicos. São Paulo: Círculo do livro, 1977.

VIANA, N. A consciência da história. Rio de Janeiro: Achiamé, 2007.

VIANA, N. Escritos metodológicos de Marx. Goiânia: Edições Germinal, 2001.

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• 1See: Council Communism (MAIA, 2008).
• 2Jensen (2001) analyzes the development of the workers' struggle in the following way. Historically, the workers' struggle goes through the following stages: spontaneous , autonomous and self-managed. Spontaneous struggles are those that occur in the day-to-day life of capitalism; they are everyday struggles expressed in disinterest in work, absenteeism, sabotage, etc. It is a struggle that is not expressed collectively, nor is it self-aware. The second stage is already marked by a certain degree of organization; workers have already overcome their union and party bureaucracies; strikes are already taking place; pamphlets and pickets are already appearing, etc. However, at this stage, the struggle has not yet acquired a revolutionary character, since it remains at the level of demands put forward by capitalism, such as better wages, better working conditions, demands for housing, land, etc. The third stage is the one in which the struggle has acquired a consciously revolutionary intentionality; that is, in addition to denying capitalism, the assumptions of the future society are already being affirmed. In other words, the self-management stage requires a revolutionary consciousness. In fact, to this day, the form historically found by the working class as a whole to express its revolutionary consciousness and practice has been workers' councils.
• 3For a discussion on the concept of forms of regularization, cf. Viana (2007).
• 4For a critique of the sciences (human and natural), taking into account the social division of labor and how these express the bourgeois point of view, cf. Lukács's (2003) classic study, History and Class Consciousness.
• 5This party, as well as these Marxists, were criticized by Marx (2002).
• 6For a discussion on the concept, history and function of political parties, see Viana (2003), Pannekoek (1977, 1975) among many others.
• 7For an in-depth discussion of historical-dialectical materialism, see Marx (1982, 1985, n.d.), Korsch (1977), Viana (2001, 2007), Bloch (2005, 2006), Pannekoek (2004), etc.