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Title: Workers Autonomy, Anarchosyndicalism, Anarchism Author: Miguel AmorĂłs Date: February 28, 2015 Language: en Topics: anarcho-syndicalism, workers' councils Source: Retrieved on 11th May 2021 from https://libcom.org/library/workers-autonomy-anarchosyndicalism-anarchism-%E2%80%93-miguel-amor%C3%B3s Notes: Notes for a talk given at the Ateneo Popular de AlcorcĂłn (Madrid), February 28, 2015. Translated in March 2015 from the Spanish language text provided by the author.
The question of autonomy was already linked to the first historical
manifestations of the working class. By autonomy, we mean the
independence of the workers movement with respect to other classes,
especially the radical factions of the bourgeoisie that tried to use the
working class as shock troops for their own purposes. It therefore means
self-activity, self-organization, political and economic
self-orientation. The International Workingmen’s Association was the
first organization that expressed workers autonomy in its motto: “The
emancipation of the workers must be the task of the workers themselves.”
The way to realize this autonomy, however, proved to be a divisive issue
in the International, which split into two groups: the “Marxists”,
advocates of the parliamentary struggle and central authority, and the
“Bakuninists”, enemies of politics and of all authority, advocates of
revolutionary action. The defeat of the Paris Commune exacerbated these
differences, bringing about a separation between political action and
economic struggle; for the Marxist social democrats, the former was
supreme, and for the Bakuninist anarchists, the main focus was
preparation for the revolution. Social democratic dominance, especially
in Germany, took the form of the creation of workers parties in which
electoral tactics necessarily assumed priority over the trade unions or
syndicates, while in those countries where anarchist influence was
predominant, particularly in Spain, the workers associations employed
anti-political tactics. On the one hand, voting in favor of gradual
reforms and the political mediation of conflicts; on the other, direct
action and the insurrectionary strike oriented towards revolutionary
ends. The social democracy considered itself to be the vanguard of the
proletariat and most of its proponents aspired to the gradual conquest
of the bourgeois State, which was to be achieved step by step thanks to
a tightly organized and disciplined movement. Organized anarchism, on
the other hand, was oriented towards a movement without general staffs
and with a high degree of spontaneity, aspiring to the direct
establishment, without any transition or intermediate stage, of an
egalitarian non-statist social regime based on the free federation of
producers’ associations. The concept of the Producer or the free worker
emerged during this period in opposition to the concept of the Wage
Worker or the slave of capital.
Revolutionary syndicalism was a doctrinal current that proclaimed the
independence of the trade unions from the parties, and advocated the
trade union struggle as the only specifically working class form of
struggle. Born in France with the creation of the Federation of the
Bourses du Travail in 1892 and then the CGT in 1895, it constituted a
reaction against the fragmentation brought about by the parties and
against the subordination of the social struggle to the parliamentary
arena. It was therefore an attempt to bring about class unity above and
beyond any and all ideology by relying on the trade unions, institutions
that were not only supposed to devote themselves to the economic
struggle and workers control, but were also supposed to become the
instruments of social organization and management of production in the
post-revolutionary period. Revolutionary syndicalism did not denounce
political action, but kept aloof from it; its tactics were direct action
against the employing class, boycott, sabotage and the general strike,
thanks to which the revolutionary process would take shape. The trade
unions, previously simple institutions of self-defense, were no longer
considered to be merely fortresses against exploitation, but the motor
forces of the revolution and builders of the new society. The
nationalist tidal wave of 1914 submerged the trade unions, however,
which opposed neither military mobilization nor the war. This meant the
end of revolutionary syndicalism as a majority tendency in France, but
in Spain revolutionary syndicalism took a step forward: the CNT
maintained an anti-militarist stance and adopted a decentralized trade
union structure based on local federations and unitary trade unions
[sindicatos Ăşnicos], similar to the structure of the American IWW, which
embraced all the trades in each industry. At the La Comedia Congress of
1921, libertarian communism was adopted as the goal of the CNT. At
subsequent meetings the CNT decided not to join the Red Trade Union
International promoted by the Bolsheviks and to prohibit militants who
had become members of political parties from serving in responsible
positions in the organization. Thus, what was later known as
anarchosyndicalism took shape. Attempts to revise these positions at the
reorganizational Congress of El Conservatorio, in 1931, encountered
strong opposition from anarchist sectors. The proposal to authorize
political action and to transform the trade unions into industrial
federations on a national scale triggered strong internal opposition,
leading to a split in the CNT, and its unity was not restored until the
Zaragoza Congress in May 1936, after mutual concessions on the part of
the opposed factions. The revolutionary civil war would confirm the
constructive and administrative character of the trade unions as true
unitary institutions of the working class after the UGT-CNT alliances,
but would at the same time belie their anti-militarism and apoliticism:
the trade union bureaucracy, supported by the ideological anarchist
bureaucracy, behaved just like a real patriotic party, and led the
working class to disaster.
While the need for effective and free self-organization did not
encounter any barriers that could not be breached in the democratic
countries, in the absolutist countries such as Russia the workers
associations were condemned to an underground existence, and were
therefore unable to exercise much influence. The trade unions were not a
practical force, since most of the workers remained outside of them.
During the insurrectionary movement of 1905, the working class in St.
Petersburg spontaneously created a new unitary organization which
brought together all the proletarian currents, whose purpose was to
transform the masses of striking workers into an effective fighting
force: the Council of Workers Delegates, or Soviet. The Soviet was the
organization that responded to the need for mounting offensive
operations; it meant that the workers, most of whom were previously
unorganized, had gone on the offensive. It was “the natural and
spontaneous form of every major revolutionary action of the
proletariat”, the result of a mass strike, in the words of Rosa
Luxemburg (today we would call it a wildcat strike). The mass strike was
differentiated from the general strike of the revolutionary syndicalists
by virtue of its spontaneity, since it was not proclaimed after a long
period of preparation, and the essential role was played by the
unorganized workers, not by the trade unionists. The parties and trade
unions were instead dragged along by the revolutionary wave, very much
contrary to their intentions. By forming the Council and due to the fact
that the Council was dedicated to organizing all facets of social life,
a transition was made from economics to politics and, as the wildcat
strike gradually assumed the character of a regular war, the transition
was also made from politics to revolution. The Councils therefore
represented collective interests that were far greater than merely
economic interests. They were autonomous institutions of the
proletariat, but they did not represent the workers in their capacities
as members of this or that trade, profession or job, but rather as
members of a class. They were revolutionary democratic class
institutions, the embodiment of workers autonomy in attack mode, when
the proletariat was determined to defeat its enemies and prepared to
direct production itself and manage society without the employers and
the representatives of the State.
In 1917, the Russian revolutionary situation once again saw the Workers
Councils take center stage, this time to be joined by the Councils of
Peasants, Sailors and Soldiers. These Councils obviously did not emerge
in order to modify the terms of the labor market by raising the price of
labor power, but in order to take the place of the municipal councils,
the parliaments and the rest of the State apparatus. They embodied the
form of the revolution, which no party and no trade union could
represent. They constituted its immediate mass expression. To the extent
that victory was not certain, their position was insecure and, as was
the case in 1918 in Germany and Hungary, where the influence of social
democracy was decisive, the Councils were diverted towards conservative
positions that caused them to limit their own prerogatives and finally
led to their dissolution. As instruments of the destruction of
capitalism they occupied a position that was opposed to the trade
unions, which, zealously acting in the interests of their own
self-preservation, were stubborn supporters of the framework of
negotiations with the bourgeoisie. The trade unions arose in an era of
capitalist expansion and formed part of the institutional order, where a
trade union bureaucracy was nourished with interests similar to those of
the bourgeoisie. Once capitalism entered into crisis, they could no
longer perform their defensive and regulatory role, since for the
proletariat it was no longer a question of reinforcing its position
within capitalism, but of putting an end to capitalism. Thus, in
response to the general passivity of the trade unions, along with the
wildcat strikes and occupations, other organizational forms arose such
as strike assemblies, factory committees and coordinating committees.
These structures soon transcended the economic framework and carried out
political actions, and as a result they provoked the opposition of the
trade union and party bureaucracies. At a higher stage of organizational
development, these structures gave way to Workers Councils. But every
revolution that allows the previous forms of State power to subsist or
that allows new forms of State power to be constructed, only digs its
own grave. In Germany, the social democracy was able to paralyze the
councilist dynamic in order to subsequently break it down into its
component parts, so as to make possible the suppression of the councils
by police and military means. In Russia, the Bolsheviks were able to
establish a police apparatus and an army which, constructed separately
from the Councils, facilitated the growth of a political-State
bureaucracy that would domesticate the whole council system and
transform it into a mere decorative feature, but not without first
destroying the councils that resisted these attempts in bloodbaths such
as Kronstadt and the suppression of the councils of Southern Ukraine
(the Makhnovists). In Spain, in 1936, the unitary trade unions played
the same role as the Councils with respect to the defense of the
revolution, production and administration. The slogan, “All power to the
trade unions”, was the translation of the Russian slogan, “All power to
the Soviets”. The Spanish revolution, however, did not destroy the
bourgeois State but attempted to use it to consolidate its gains, and
was compelled to surrender one conquest after another, with the
aggravating factor of nourishing the growth of a workers bureaucracy
that became one of the main factors responsible for the defeat of the
revolution. When the counterrevolution was unleashed, that is, when the
State restored its forces, both the terrain of the Councils as well as
that of the revolutionary trade unions were diminished, since they did
not know how to, and were incapable of, containing and destroying the
State. After a short period of decline, in which they were transformed
into technical institutions of mediation and co-management, both
disappeared.
Workers Councils are often confused with Factory Councils; they are in
fact two completely different things. Factory Councils emerged during
the occupations movement of March 1921 in Turin as institutions that
organized the workers in their workplaces without the intercession of
the trade unions. A precedent for them may be found in the English Shop
Stewards of 1915–1920, and the Russian Factory Committees. The Factory
Councils were rank and file representative institutions with economic
functions related to “workers control” of production. They therefore
lacked the political-administrative functions of the Workers Councils,
which pertained to a higher stage of the class struggle. They largely
exercised functions that previously fell under the jurisdiction of the
trade unions, such as the direct representation of the workers or the
management of production against capitalism. The Factory Council was not
the definitive formulation of class autonomy in the pre-revolutionary
period, but only its first step. The Factory Councils formed part of the
Soviets in Russia and ended up being mixed with them in Germany, before
they were finally destroyed. The need for Councils was not resuscitated
by the defeat of fascism in the Western capitalist bloc; but the
Councils did reemerge in the Stalinist bloc. The Council system
reappeared in Hungary in 1956 as the popular response to police
terrorism and party dictatorship, and at the same time called for the
reorganization of the economy on really socialist foundations rather
than on the house of cards of State capitalism. This gave rise to the
parallel formation of Revolutionary Councils (which included artists,
writers, soldiers, students and government officials) with clearly
political-administrative functions, and Workers Councils (or Factory
Councils) which replaced the corrupt trade unions of the regime as the
genuine representatives of the economic interests of the workers. The
Council system was revealed to be the only democratic alternative not
only to the dictatorship, but also to the parliamentary system. The
direct democracy of the assemblies is as far removed as possible from
the pseudo-democracy of the parties, because only in the Council system
is the realization of the political principles of equality and freedom
possible. The Council Republic of Hungary lasted twelve days before it
was destroyed by Russian tanks. What is remarkable is the fact that the
regime had no problems making economic concessions, knowing full well
that in that sphere, in any event, crises would not jeopardize its
power. The repression directed against intellectuals, however, was
implacable. Real freedom is not born from labor and consumption, but
from thought. A submissive people is a people that does not think,
whether because it is not allowed to think, or because it has lost the
ability to think. This principle is totalitarianism’s great contribution
to domination. The period of reconstruction that followed the Second
World War led to a long period of economic expansion that encouraged
social pacts oriented towards economic development. During subsequent
moments of crisis—May ’68 in France, the Carnation Revolution in
Portugal, the Assembly Movement of 1975–1977 in Spain, the Autonomist
Movement in Italy, Solidarnosc in Poland, the fall of the Berlin
Wall—factory councils arose under different names, but only had an
ephemeral existence. The working class lacked the level of coherence and
cohesiveness sufficient to impose its own solution and drive events
forward in a revolutionary direction. These outbursts were nothing more
than ephemeral anti-capitalist lightning bolts condemned to a rapid
extinction, since the market economy, by incorporating bureaucratic
State capitalism, was capable of overcoming with relative ease the
contradictions to which it gave rise.
To oppose councilism to anarchosyndicalism would be sterile and absurd,
since both forms of autonomy arose in particular local conditions, with
different traditions and different degrees of organization, and militant
workers with diverse ideologies participated in them. Now that the stage
of globalization has come to an end and the last developmental cycle of
capital has concluded, the main problem is of an altogether different
nature, that is, the problem of the extremely low level of combativity
of the mass of wage workers, their scarce willingness to organize and
even less to conceive perspectives of liberation. It is not just that
the masses show absolutely no interest in questioning the society in
which they survive; for their resignation contributes to that society’s
stability. The question of why the working class has ceased to act like
a working class has been asked for more than thirty years and there is
no easy answer to this question, but any subversive activity has to
begin by answering it in a convincing way. No theory of proletarian
revolution has been able to survive such a disappearance and such
conformism without damage, and anarchism is no exception. For the
decline of the revolutionaries goes hand in hand with the decline of
their theories, which are now pale doctrinaire reflections of an idyllic
and mystified past. The most disparate organizations, ideologies and
attitudes take shelter under the label of anarchism, and their common
denominator is confusion, cultural isolationism [guetismo] and their
insufficient presence or absolute absence in the rare instances when
conflicts do occur. There is, however, one aspect of anarchism that
remains untarnished, the rejection of authority, of politics and of the
State, which no subversive project can avoid confronting. And, from the
traditions of councilism and anarchosyndicalism, we still have the
examples of unity, direct democracy and autonomy. The groups that share
these minimal libertarian and councilist demands—the autonomous
groups—must shed light on the current condition of the working class
which will help to catalyze a really social, anti-capitalist and
anti-authoritarian movement, and this task is mainly (although not
exclusively) theoretical. In any case, militant activism must not
entrench itself in a position that corresponds to a particular stage of
debate and social struggle on the part of the oppressed and the
disadvantaged. The function of an autonomous group is to contribute to a
higher degree of consciousness of grievances and oppression, which would
tend to materialize in the creation of more or less formal organizations
of self-defense. The only goal towards which such groups can aspire is
that of arousing the self-organization of social dissidence in the
course of struggles that will not fail to arise. These struggles are
their medium and only in them must they seek their examples. Only on the
basis of these struggles will a movement of economic, political and
social secession be capable of emerging, a movement that will finish off
capitalism and the State: two words, but one thing.