I strongly doubt the adequacy of the right-left division in the modern world. I myself belong to a political movement that came from the ultra-left tradition. But it is so different from most people among the so-called leftists (actually, they are very different from each other) that it can hardly be called "leftists". I will give an analogy - the alevites among Muslims . Alevites are so different from other Muslims (their belief in the sacredness of work , equality of men and women, and reincarnation) that they should hardly be called "Muslims".
The USSR and Western capitalism, Hitler and Stalin are all alien for people who defend the ideas of council communism . We do not swoon at the comparison of Stalin and Hitler, we reject fascism and anti-fascism and we do not intend to defend the British Empire or USA. We are disgusted with Chavez and Maduro, Clinton and Trump, western imperialism and the so-called national liberation movements. We are opposed to any imperialist wars and conflicts. We reject everything that divides workers people including nationalism and any separatism.
By rejecting wage labor, we are opposed to everything that many of the leftists supports: parties, trade unions, parliamentarism, state planning. Our ideas of the class struggle are behind the innumerable divisions imposed on workers by the state, its religions and spectacles .
We do not support left-wing identity politics and separatist feminism, we do not swoon if people joke about Jews or Blondes and we stand for equality of men and women, Arabs and Jews, Germans and Poles in the common struggle. While respecting differences and minorities, we are in favor of freeing the majority of people from wage labor.
The heart of our views is the idea of autonomous workers ’ councils created during the class struggle of the lower classes, during their resistance and revolts against business and state. Revolutionary organizations are always created by the masses themselves in the course of the social struggle whether it is the Commune of Paris in 1871, the Workers ’Councils in Budapest in 1956, the Workers ’ Councils in Iran in 1979 and in Iraq during the uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991.
This modern struggle of grassroots workers is chaotic and often misguided (like the demand for a government made up of non-partisan experts in Iraq and Lebanon, or constitutional reform in Chile). Nevertheless, giant waves of class resistance from Chile to Iraq, from strikes in Italy to Tahrir square riot in Cairo, come every 5-10 years in the 21st century. No epidemics and no repression will be able to prevent this global movement against modern turbo-capitalism. Business itself has created huge networks of production and information that have engulfed the planet, and now the resistance also has become global.
In time the masses will gain the necessary experience and will be able to create the thing which is called a “party” by Anton Pannekoek (but it would be better to call it a revolutionary minority like the German KAPD or AAUD-E or the radical anarcho-communists “Friends of Durruti” in Spain). This core is not a bureaucracy commanding the masses, nor a force intent on taking power. This is the initiator of protests, the generator of certain ideas and practices, the active core of the working class, which initiates strikes and protests and prepares the creation of councils.
However, it is not the party, but the Autonomous assemblies of workers themselves (and the Councils strictly controlled by these regular assemblies) that will establish their power, taking control of all spheres of public life.
We could speed up this process by creating an international network of activists, protestors, publicists, etc., which could become a translator and distributor of this ideas in our countries. Today, the authorities are trying to block different States. Our goal is to create an international network in order to build a the human universe without borders, without businessmen, without officials, without poverty.
You've got this backwards, everyone of those groups followed after the explosion in class struggle and were not its initiators. Many of them arguably only got off the ground when the class conflicts had already begun to decline.
They weren't the generators of anything, the relationship was the inverse.
Many of your examples don't fit your description either, the Friends of Durruti were members of a syndicalist union and wanted a movement dominated by an alliance of the unions, the AAUD-E was also a union movement and the KAPD was split between a union wing that essentially existed just to support the AAUD and AAUD-E who were themselves formed after the council movement had already been established and was being rolled back. And a party faction which absolutely did see its role as leading the working class to take power in much the same way as any other party.
If the socialist movement should have learned anything it is the invaluable lessons of the radical feminist movement's experiences and critiques.
I think this is a bit of a limited view. Even if those organisations could not create the situation of mass mobilization but these organisations and the infrastructure to organize people would not have existed if it was not for the preceding experiences of the organized working-class. Would KAPD really have come to be if the trade union movement and social-democratic labor movement had never existed? I don't think we should underestimate how much conscious organizing is needed for things like a successful strike struggle.
comradeEmma
Err yeah that was my point, don't know why you're framing this as a disagreement.
Maybe I misunderstood then
At a time when so much feels strange and unfamiliar, there's something quite comforting about finding Meerov still writing exactly the same post as ever. Some corner of a foreign field that is forever really angry about how modern anarchosyndicalists are not proper anarchosyndicalists, etc.
Reddebrek
Many of your examples don't fit your description either, the Friends of Durruti were members of a syndicalist union and wanted a movement dominated by an alliance of the unions, the AAUD-E was also a union movement
1) This is an example of you distorting the meaning of what I wrote about. I wrote about the revolutionary movement outside the trade unions. "By rejecting wage labor, we are opposed to everything that many of the leftists supports: parties, trade unions, parliamentarism, state planning. " I don't know what you call a Union. Any organized group of people can be called that.
I call a trade-union a legalistic organization that fights for the improvement of the position of workers in the workplace in order to sign better collective agreements with businesses, uses as tools the state court and other state mechanisms of control and mediation.
aaud-e was not a trade Union. It was a Union of factory ideological organizations that set social and revolutionary goals. Officially, this movement rejected trade unionism and even regarded revolutionary syndicalism critically. Moreover, this movement did not organize strikes for wages and considered its goal to be a revolutionary uprising.
The Friends of Durruti were an independent ideological group that was part of the CNT. And the CNT was in 1936-1937 a controversial structure united a huge number of groups: from supporters of anarchist communal armed uprisings to revolutionary syndicalists (who did not complain about their bosses to the state commissions or to the court of their "mother-state", as many modern "anarcho-syndicalists"), and from intellectuals organizing libertarian schools to trade unionists (trientistas or part of them). This contradictory organization as a whole had little in common with modern trade-unions.
***
2)
Reddebrek
"You've got this backwards, everyone of those groups followed after the explosion in class struggle and were not its initiators. Many of them arguably only got off the ground when the class conflicts had already begun to decline."
I think in this case you are not trying to distort the meaning of what I wrote, but you just did not understand what I wrote.
I'll say it again:
"This modern struggle of grassroots workers is chaotic and often misguided (like the demand for a government made up of non-partisan experts in Iraq and Lebanon, or constitutional reform in Chile). Nevertheless, giant waves of class resistance from Chile to Iraq, from strikes in Italy to Tahrir square riot in Cairo, come every 5-10 years in the 21st century. No epidemics and no repression will be able to prevent this global movement against modern turbo-capitalism. Business itself has created huge networks of production and information that have engulfed the planet, and now the resistance also has become global.In time the masses will gain the necessary experience and will be able to create the thing which is called a “party” by Anton Pannekoek (but it would be better to call it a revolutionary minority like the German KAPD or AAUD-E or the radical anarcho-communists “Friends of Durruti” in Spain). This core is not a bureaucracy commanding the masses, nor a force intent on taking power. This is the initiator of protests, the generator of certain ideas and practices, the active core of the working class, which initiates strikes and protests and prepares the creation of councils."
What Pannekoek or Ruhle called a "revolutionary organization" was precisely the result of a long radical class struggle. The initiator of this struggle, if you will, was on the one hand capitalist oppression and poverty, and on the other hand self-organization and the dignity of the proletarians.
This chaotic self-organization led to the crystallization of ideological and practical revolutionary cores. In turn, these cores tried to give the mass struggle a more consistent character, while at the same time not trying to replace the power of the institutions of self-organization of workers (Councils of delegates or others).
So We are talking about the process of gradual development of self-organization of employees. At first, the movement is very chaotic and often influenced by authoritarian and exploitative doctrines, as in Chile todey or in Iraq today (from social democracy to liberalism or even Islamism of Muqtada Sadr), although there is no doubt that it carries the creative potential of self-government.
Then, in the course of the struggle, a minority of the most consistent supporters of a society based on the total power of the workers ' assemblies is crystallized.
Then, this minority tries to influence the mass movement by word and deed, straightening its path to stateless communism.
However, it is not the party, but the Autonomous assemblies of workers themselves will establish their power, taking control of all spheres of public life.
Why is this important? Because my text is an attempt to understand modern events, not just historical experience. I am referring to the modern revolutionary mass movements and protests that broke out in 2019 simultaneously on two continents: South America and the Middle East, covering entire groups of countries (Ecuador, Chile, Colombia+ ++ and Lebanon, Iraq, Iran)
1) comradeEmma
If the socialist movement should have learned anything it is the invaluable lessons of the radical feminist movement's experiences and critiques.
I don't know what you call it in this case "the radical feminist movement's experiences and critiques"
I wrote quite specifically about separatism and separatist feminism. Separatist feminism, which advocates a separate movement from men, should be rejected. In the same way, any separatist movements that advocate separate existence or grouping of people on the basis of race, ethnicity, etc. should be rejected.
comradeEmma
Would KAPD really have come to be if the trade union movement and social-democratic labor movement had never existed?
The fact is that the predominant part of the German revolutionary workers who supported the movement of factory Councils of delegates were strengthened in their ideas not by trade unions and social-democracy, but on the contrary, in the struggle against trade unions and social-democracy!
"Since strikes were prohibited by the trade unions, with every new strike necessity forced the adoption of a form of organization in the factory to conduct the struggle, led by “revolutionary men of confidence” (Revolutionären Obleute, “Revolutionary Delegates”), most of whom were regularly elected trade union delegates who did not follow the ADGB (General Federation of German Trade Unions) line. These factory delegates, who were opposed to the war and the social truce conceded to the bourgeoisie, formed the organizing center for the biggest strike to take place during the war, in January 1918. At that time about one million workers in the armaments industry mobilized against the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in solidarity with the Russian proletariat. As a result, most of the Revolutionären Obleute did not go on to form a trade union left... It was in 1919 that the most radical elements in the Revolutionären Obleute decided to issue a call to get out of the trade unions and to form revolutionary factory organizations. "
https://libcom.org/history/councilist-movement-germany-1914-1935-history-aaud-e-tendency-grupo-de-comunistas-de-con?fbclid=IwAR01mbPzdv-JXU94jaQ-TuiCC075hDH-RwWPHpbVIstMTjFIjeH99jErq-E
In General, I do not understand how such ultra-authoritarian bureaucratic structures as the German trade unions and the social democratic party could become a good school for those who are fighting for a state-free communism and for the self-organized mostly horizontal Association of councils. On the contrary, the experience of social democracy and trade unions is destructive for such a struggle for stateless communism.
But although the example you give is unfortunate, I agree with the idea that the organization of the revolutionary minority is formed as the result of a long spontaneous struggle of workers. Look at my answer to Reddebrek
These people did not come out of nowhere. Most probably learned how to organize through the social-democratic organisations, came into contact with the Marxist doctrine through the extensive educational aspect of the social-democratic movement and along that they probably made most of their connections with other militants through their part in the social-democratic movement. Pannoek, Otto Rühle, Herman Gorter and so on were all long-term members of SPD and all wrote very important party literature against the revisionist wing of the party. Pannekoek's writing on the Berlin party-school and its role in the struggle against revisionists power over the rank-and-file is especially interesting,
Either way, no one is disputing that they hated the social-democratic organisations but would these militants have actually become the militants they were if it were not for their schooling in the social-democratic movement, how different would their views have been? We have to remember that people like Pannekoek and Gorter were never shop-floor workers and belonged to some form of petit-bourgeois layer in society, the political effort to get these elements under proletarian leadership is an immense task that demands a strong and organized working-class. Had they not come into contact with an organized movement they might as well have stayed as isolated academics like the modern "council communist" and "autonomists" in the US.
Me
The fact is that the predominant part of the German revolutionary workers who supported the movement of factory Councils of delegates were strengthened in their ideas not by trade unions and social-democracy, but on the contrary, in the struggle against trade unions and social-democracy!
These people did not come out of nowhere. Most probably learned how to organize through the social-democratic organisations,
comradeEmma
These people did not come out of nowhere. Most probably learned how to organize through the social-democratic organisations, came into contact with the Marxist doctrine through the extensive educational aspect of the social-democratic movement and along that they probably made most of their connections with other militants through their part in the social-democratic movement.
The problem was that the methods of organizing the social democratic party and trade unions were authoritarian and centralist. They were never a school of socialism or a socialist organization, but, on the contrary, flesh of the flesh of bourgeois society, bourgeois organization. As Otto Ruhle explained in his works, the very principle of centralism, the bureaucracy, the party or trade Union hierarchy are bourgeois forms of organization that copy the Corporation or the bourgeois state.
A centralized party or trade Union organization is a bourgeois system in the most direct sense, since the leadership manages the work of ordinary members, appropriates the funds earned by them (party contributions), manages financial resources at its discretion, investing money in various projects. The Central Committee of a party or trade Union is a group of exploiters.
"The bourgeoisie had gained from the conditions of its capitalist economy the insight that centralism was in many respects superior to federalism. Especially insofar as it united all the dispersed and isolated forces into a whole. They came out in favour of a centralised will and therewith won the ability to do great things. When the capitalist brought the hand-workers together in the factory, went over from domestic industry to co-operation, finally evolved this into manufacture, he went through practical schools of centralism. All the experiences and knowledge thus gained the bourgeois class now utilised in establishing its state structure. It needed a large centralised mechanism that obeyed every finger-touch at the highest point. A mechanism with which it, the small minority, could be the brain, issuing commands, accomplishing its will. And with which the large mass, the proletariat, was subjected to its dominance through strict order and discipline. This mechanism was provided by the centralist system of organisation. It made possible in the best and surest way the domination of few over many...
After the model of the bourgeois state and its institutions, the party too is organised on authoritarian centralist principles. All movement in it goes in the form of commands from the top of the central committee down to the broad base of the membership. Below, the mass of the members; above, the ranks of party officials at local, regional, country and national level. The party secretaries are the NCOs, the MPs, the officers. They give the orders, issue the watchwords, make policy, are the higher dignitaries. The party apparatus, in the form of offices, newspapers, funds, mandates, gives them power to prescribe for the mass of members, which none of the latter can avoid. The officials of the central committee are, so to speak, the party Ministers; they issue decrees and instructions, interpret the decisions of party congresses and conferences, determine the use of money, distribute posts and offices according to their personal policy. Certainly the party conference is supposed to be the supreme court, but its composition, sitting, decision-taking and interpretation of its decisions are thoroughly in the hands of the highest holders of power in the party, and the zombie-like obedience typical of centralism takes care of the necessary echoes of subordination...
The concept of a party with a revolutionary character in the proletarian sense is nonsense. It can only have a revolutionary character in the bourgeois sense, and then only during the transition between feudalism and capitalism. In other words, in the interest of the bourgeoisie. "
"From the bourgeois to the proletarian revolution" - Otto Ruhle. Written in 1924.
Pannekoek wrote the same in his article "Party and class"
Of course, these people did not immediately break with the experience and ideas of social democracy. They were also influenced by Bolshevism for some time and only later realized the exploitative nature of the left-wing centralized party, including Lenin's party. But their views were formed not because of social democracy, but in spite of it. Russian and German Councils formed and then died out during the struggle of the most radical workers against the German trade unions and against Russian Bolshevism. This process had a key influence on the formation of the ideas of Council (German-Dutch) Communism.
I agree with the fact that Marxist ideas learned from the German social democracy, had an influence on them. But then under the influence of reality (first of all, the spontaneous anti-bureaucratic direct action of the workers), these ideas have changed significantly.
In Russia, we are talking about a man who invented something that already existed: "Oh! He invented the Bicycle". Council Communism "invented the Bicycle" - something similar to anarchism but this Bicycle was in some respects better than anarchism, thanks to its uncompromising positions in relation to the imperialist wars, including the first and second imperialist wars, and to the trade unions. And all this happened not because of social-democratic Marxism, but because of the reinterpretation of the intense experience of the self-organized labor struggle against numerous enemies - the imperialist war, the capitalists, the state, social-democracy, trade unions, and Bolshevism.
P.S.
I'll give you an example. My friend was a member of a nationalist group 15 years ago. They were opposed to the police and Pro-government gangs, but they were, of course, members of the authoritarian nationalist movement. Nevertheless, my friend gained experience there such as fighting and participating in clashes. Later, he became an anarcho-communist and internationalist, Under the influence of a variety of life experiences and different ideas. But much of his experience came from his nationalist fighting past. Did him the influence of his nationalist past? Yes, it may be true. However, do not exaggerate this.
meerov21
The U in AAUD-E stood for Union it was a union, and the CNT was union movement in its own words.
What most people call a trade union is a union organised along trade lines.
I never said it was a trade union and you know I didn't because the first part of your comment was a false claim of distortion on how to define the word union. Officially the AAUD-E believed the KAPD should dissolve itself immediately because the time for parties had past. So again we have you deliberately misrepresent the views of the groups you claim to take inspiration from.
This is a false characterisation, the CNT was built on Unions, its organisations were unions or built out of union branches, the militia's were recruited from the branches, the collectives were built out of union cells. The Friends of Durruti were CNT members and their ideas all revolved around restoring the CNT as a power and uniting it with the other major union confederation the UGT. Durruti was a revolutionary Unionist.
The KAPD took part in militarist adventures with the KPD, had a program that defined its role as the conquest of power and was denounced by the majority of its membership for being obsolete by 1923. And again you contradict yourself, this supposed revolutionary minority comes out of a situation but is also its initiator? The Friends of Durruti didn't initiate anything they were reactive, their most well known work was written in response to the May Days, events they had nothing to do with starting. The council movement came out of mass strike waves originated by the more radical members of the spd controlled trade unions. Even the decision by the AAUD, and AAUD-E to adopt the newer Union term was a reflection of the Free Workers of Germany union which had been very active for years before hand and many of the KAPD's members had been active in previously.
Meanwhile once the KAPD and its two union organisations get off the ground the council movement has already collapsed. Which is probably why the KAPD joined the KPD on its militarist adventures. Otto Ruhle dropped out of the movement by 1925.
Long radical struggle from within the social democrats. The Friends of Durruti believed the only way to save the revolution in Spain was a new alliance with the socialist party controlled unions.
No, Ruhle spent most of his time actively fighting against his comrades within the councilist movement because he believed they were all trying to use their organisations to replace workers organisation.
In short, I appeal to all who are disgusted with this farce, who want to break with modern leftists and psvedo-anarchists, to all who want to break with identity theory, anti-fascism, trade unionism (including modern "syndicalism", which is a deception and a form of legal trade unionism and cooperation with state courts and other institutions of government and business), I appeal to all who are interested in class struggle and the organization of illegal strikes and workers councils, unite. Now some people in different countries are taking the initiative in this direction. If you are interested, please write to me or comment here. If you deny the class struggle, the occupation of factories, and the workers ' militia/Soviets, then we have no topic for discussion.
The Friends of Durruti didn't initiate anything they were reactive, their most well known work was written in response to the May Days, events they had nothing to do with starting.
Friends of Durruti tried to initiate a new revolution in Spain and overthrow the government, instead of cooperating with it. Their Manifesto was the best document of the Spanish revolution. They were agitating for a new revolution. Just because they failed (Like the Spanish revolution itself) in their efforts doesn't mean they were wrong.
The Friends of Durruti believed the only way to save the revolution in Spain was a new alliance with the socialist party controlled unions.
Where did they claim this? They advocated the destruction of the socialist government and they wanted the alliance of revolutionary workers from the CNT and UHT: "We stand for the unity of the proletariat. But realizing that this unity should be between workers, not with bureaucrats. At the moment, the agreement between the revolutionary wing of the UHT and the CNT is really promising. But we do not believe in the possibility of understanding with the Catalanian UHT or with the followers of Prieto."
(Prietto is the de facto leader of the socialists). Tell me, for what purpose are you telling this?
"Reddebrek The KAPD took part in militarist adventures with the KPD, had a program that defined its role as the conquest of power and was denounced by the majority of its membership for being obsolete by 1923. And again you contradict yourself, this supposed revolutionary minority comes out of a situation but is also its initiator?"
What an incredible pile of demagoguery and inability to understand what i said. Yes, the organization claimed to have won power, but it was primarily about winning power by the workers ' Soviets, not by the party itself. Although there are discussions about this within the party.
And your demagogy about unions has already been exposed by me. Yes, and the AAUD-E called itself the Union (in the sense that they considered themselves an ideological revolutionary Union of workers), but at the same time fought against the trade-unions, as Ruhle wrote. And the fact that there were a lot of tactical disputes and discussions within the movement about the forms of organization of the minority or about the timeliness or untimeness of the uprisings - this has nothing to do with the case.
But the most important thing is that in reality there is a dialectical combination between the work of the revolutionary minority and the spontaneous self-organization of workers. Yes, revolutionary minority comes out of a situation. A huge economic crisis in Germany forced non-party workers and some basic social-democratic activists in 1918-1923 to break with the trade-Unions and social-democratic movement, or at least to act independently of it. This allowed them to form new organizations of the revolutionary ideological minority that fought against the social-Democrats and trade unions - the aaud-e and kapd. In turn, these organizations tried to initiate various working class protests, uprisings, and the creation of various forms of delegate Councils. There is no contradiction: spontaneous uprisings give rise to the crystallization of revolutionary minorities, and then these minorities, in turn, try to initiate the creation of new forms of social self-organization, acting in word and deed.