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Title: Workers Against Work Author: Alex Trotter Date: From Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed #51, Spring/Summer 2001, Language: en Topics: work, AJODA, AJODA #51, CNT, France, Spain, Spanish Revolution, review, book review, workers Source: Retrieved on January 1, 2019 from https://web.archive.org/web/20011205102625/http://www.anarchymag.org:80/51/review_workers.html
Workers Against Work: Labor in Paris and Barcelona During the Popular
Fronts by Michael Seidman (University of California Press, 1990) 384
pages, $50.00 (£30) hardcover.
This is a comparative study of workers resistance to the labor
discipline imposed by their own representation in its various flavors
(i.e., Socialists, Communists, anarchosyndicalists, and sundry other
leftists and liberals) in two different but contemporaneous situations
in the 1930s. Unlike most academic labor histories, which seem to
emphasize (favorably) political and economic activities of unions and
parties, Seidman's is a social history of everyday life under the
Popular Fronts in Spain and France, and gives much-needed attention to
the revolt against work. Seidman does an admirable job of showing how
the "progressive forces" contended with not only their declared enemies
on the Right, but also the indifference and unruliness of the masses
whose cause they claimed to champion, even if he does seem at times too
defensive in his sympathies for the resistant workers. Alas, the $50
price will be daunting to most potential readers, especially the very
workers and work-resisters who would presumably most benefit from it.
For those with Internet access, it is possible, though a pain in the
ass, to read the entire book on line at the University of California
Press Web site (which is what I did). The address is as follows:
http://www-ucpress.berkeley.edu:3030/dynaweb/public/books/history/seidman
-- whew! Got that?!
Seidman examines the social and historical differences between France
and Spain and the ways these differences produced divergent styles of
leadership by the coalitions of the Left, and yet shows how similar were
the methods used in the two countries by workers to evade or mitigate
the demands of productivism, as were some of the methods used by
leftists (revolutionary in Spain, reformist in France) to promote
discipline in the workplace, either through blandishments or through
coercion. Two definitions of class consciousness came into sharp
conflict; for the activists, it meant working productively to build
socialism, but for the workers it meant avoiding the demands of wage
labor as much as possible. Seidman discusses the particular struggles of
women, immigrants, and the unemployed as well as those of the main body
of male, citizen, waged workers.
Spain was much less industrially developed than France. There had never
been a real bourgeois liberal revolution, and the Enlightenment had made
only a tentative impact. The main power remained in the hands of the
oligarchic landowning class, the Catholic Church, and the military.
Catalonia had the most advanced industry in Spain, but even there, the
bourgeoisie was relatively weak. The bosses' style of rule remained
paternalistic to an extraordinary degree, with frequent resort to direct
police repression and military intervention in politics (the
pronunciamiento). The working class during the first part of the 20th
century was extremely combative, violent confrontations with employers,
the Church, and the police being the order of the day. The Popular Front
came to power in a situation of actual takeover by workers; churches
were burned and factories were abandoned by their owners, who fled for
their lives. The principal workers' organizations, the
anarchosyndicalist CNT and the Marxist UGT, expressed a revolutionary
ideology up to and throughout the 1930s. Marxists and anarchists alike
upheld an ideology of modernization and development, which in their view
were tasks the proletariat would undertake because the bourgeoisie could
not or would not.
France, by contrast, had established a democratic stability, with
separation of church and state; a strong bourgeois class, committed to
innovation and the ideology of progress, into which Jews and Protestants
were integrated; highly developed industries, and a unified national
market. Anticlericalism had faded as a cause after the Dreyfus Affair.
There was free public education under the Third Republic, so little need
was felt for modern schools like those run by the anarchosyndicalists in
Spain. By the time of the Popular Front the main workers organizations
the Socialist Party (SFIO), the Communist Party (PCF), and the CGT
unions had largely abandoned revolutionary ideology. By endorsing French
patriotism in World War I (the union sacrée), the Socialists and CGT had
integrated themselves into the nation and shown the ruling class that
they were not a revolutionary threat. Anarchosyndicalism in France faded
after the war and was replaced by Communism as the principal
revolutionary ideology. Despite political and tactical squabbles between
them, the Socialists and Communists cooperated in the building of the
Popular Front. There was violence during the Popular Front, but the
capitalist class remained in control of the means of production. Nor did
extreme right-wing threats against the state, in the manner of Franco,
ever manifest. The officer class in France maintained loyalty, albeit
grudging perhaps, to the republic, even under the first "red" government
since the Commune.
Seidman compares Spain's level of development in the 1930s to that of
prerevolutionary Russia's; the strength of revolutionary ideology there
was similar to that of the Soviet Union. Like the Russian Marxists, the
anarchist revolutionaries of Spain saw themselves as enlighteners. The
Spanish Popular Front (which included the CNT, POUM, Socialist Party,
Communist Party, and Catalan nationalists) appropriated Soviet methods,
including Stakhonovism, socialist realist propaganda art, and even labor
camps for recalcitrant workers, staffed by guards recruited from within
the CNT. Despite their disagreements, the followers of Marx and of
Bakunin united in their efforts to extract more labor from the workers.
In Spain, the disciplinary actions meted out to workers by unions and
the leftist state owed not merely to the exigencies of the war with
Franco, but were consistent with the ideological foundations of Marxism
and anarchosyndicalism, especially the project of rationalizing
production, and the glorification of science and technology, including
an enthusiasm for Taylorism. Other progressivist projects the Spanish
revolutionaries championed were large public works such as roads, dams,
and other infrastructure, and they demonstrated a fondness for the
modernist urbanism of Le Corbusier, which envisioned massive automobile
circulation.
In the initial stages of the Spanish Revolution, piecework was abolished
and wage differentials leveled. But as the CNT and UGT encountered
ongoing resistance by workers to exhortations to produce more and
sacrifice for the war effort, piecework and wage differentials were
reinstated. Workers engaged in all manner of goldbricking, theft of
tools and supplies, faked injuries and illnesses, and reluctance to
attend union meetings or pay dues. The Popular Front responded with
fines, dismissals, campaigns to curtail work stoppages on fiesta (saint)
days, and Grinch-like efforts to eliminate Christmas celebrations and
New Year s bonuses. Unions and collectives insisted on using their own
doctors to examine claims of illness or injury. The label of "sabotage"
was applied with a very broad brush to workers who complained, were
impolite in serving customers, took nonurgent telephone calls on the
job, and didn't ask for more work after completing a job. Slacking off
was even equated with fascism: "The lazy man is a fascist," as one
slogan had it. All adults between 18 and 45 had to have a "work
certificate," which could be demanded for inspection at any time. There
were campaigns against vices such as drinking, gambling, and
pornography. Workers were reminded by the UGT that "the revolution is
not a party time," while the CNT asserted that "the masses must be
reeducated morally."
Seidman throws doubt on the notion that organizations outside the
mainstream of the CNT offered a significant alternative to its
compromises, corruption, and bureaucracy from the standpoint of
resistance to labor discipline. For example, the Friends of Durruti,
whom he calls "extreme leftists," called for more work, sacrifice, and
even forced labor. Durruti himself spoke of the need for the revolution
to be totalitarian. Mujeres Libres, the women' group affiliated with the
CNT, admired the supposed Soviet success in abolishing prostitution.
In France, the strategies of coercion by the Popular Front were softer
than in Spain, reflecting the higher degree of accommodation of the
French working class to the industrial system, and the greater overall
stability of the society. Seidman is at pains to show that the role of
unions and leftists was not purely coercive, that they also, depending
on the situation, assisted workers' demands for less work. Although they
came to power on a massive wave of strikes in 1936, French leftists were
concerned not with building a dictatorship of the proletariat in
conditions of spartan economic development but in fighting to integrate
the proletariat into the emerging consumer society. As a Communist
slogan of the time put it: "The Riviera for all" (i.e., not only for the
rich). The main political purpose of the Popular Front may have been as
a short-term alliance to check the rise of fascism, but it was also an
acknowledgment that a Soviet- or syndicalist-style revolution in France
was not a real possibility, although it lingered on as a rhetorical
pitch.
In contrast with Spain, the main controls on the working class in France
were instituted by the capitalist class itself. French capitalists did
not need to be trumped by left-wing industrial militants in implementing
Taylorist scientific management or piecework. Discipline on the factory
floor was tight, and foremen in France were, as Seidman puts it, loyal
"sergeants" in the army of production, whereas their counterparts in
Spain often actually sided with workers in fights against bosses and
senior management. Although not as radical as the Spanish, French
workers were insubordinate enough to make the captains of industry wish
that the conditions in their factories and workshops resembled those of
"the countries of order" (United States, Britain, and Germany).
Before the Popular Front, a 48-hour workweek was common in France. The
two main achievements of the Left government headed by Socialist leader
Léon Blum were the 40-hour week and paid vacations. Employers gritted
their teeth and submitted to the reduced hours of labor. But workers
showed their gratitude for these leftist- and union-brokered gains by
constantly demanding more in a thousand unsanctioned ways. The strikes
of 1936 that brought the Popular Front to power, and later ones as well,
were largely spontaneous and initially caught militants off guard before
they slowly brought them under control. As in Spain, workers exhibited
lateness, drunkenness, theft, slowdowns, resistance to piecework, fake
injuries, and disrespect for authority. The unemployed would often avoid
accepting offers from government placement bureaus. During the strikes
there was considerable destruction of machinery and other property
costing many thousands of francs worth of damage. Disobedience continued
after the strikes abated. The rhetoric of the Popular Front called on
workers to fight fascism, but workers had their own ideas about this;
for them, the real fascism was iron discipline in the workplace.
"Democratic" bosses, foremen, engineers, and other taskmasters were
often referred to by workers as fascists (there were, in fact, enough
future admirers of Marshal Pétain in their ranks), as were
strikebreakers. Seidman cites one example of a model worker in the
Stakhanovite mold being followed home by hundreds of his fellow workers
who spat on him from head to foot.
Blum criticized workers for refusing overtime, including weekend work,
and lowering productivity. But he seems to have been genuinely popular.
He promised that the Socialist government in France would not open fire
on the workers, as the Social Democrats in Germany under Noske had after
World War I. He managed to keep that promise, but then, France never
really came to a revolutionary situation in the 1930s, so that pledge
did not meet its supreme test.
The Left, like the Right, conducted a civilizing offensive on the
working class aimed at controlling lifestyle in the interests of
productivity. Even the expansion of nonworking time was part of this
drive. The licentiousness of popular culture would be fought through the
organization of leisure time (not to be confused with idleness or
laziness) and the promotion of consumption. Militants scolded workers
for smoking, drinking, playing cards, or betting on horses. Meanwhile,
the era of bargain stores for the masses and credit buying plans had
begun. The CGT instituted a vacation savings plan. Vacations were viewed
in a utilitarian light, as a necessary restorative in preparation for
more work. The automobile was starting to take over, although at this
time most workers could not afford one; most commuting was still done by
bicycle. The Communists whined that French auto makers had failed to
"democratize" the automobile.
The end of the Popular Front in Spain came, of course, through Franco's
military victory over the republic. In France, it came about for various
reasons, including the increasing reluctance of the bourgeoisie to
suffer competitive disadvantage in international markets because of the
reduction in hours of labor. Increased wages were accompanied by
increased prices, which angered the middle classes. The increasing
international tensions caused by Hitler's moves contributed to the
desire of the French ruling class to put its house in order so as to
meet the threat. The Daladier government, dominated by the Radical
Party, a liberal ally of the "red" parties in the Popular Front, told
French workers that they must cut out the nonsense and start working
harder and longer. As much as the Socialists, Communists, and unions
tried to enforce this task, it was not enough for the champions of order
and the "right to work." Another spontaneous general strike ensued in
1938 to prevent the extension of the 40-hour week; it was blamed by the
bosses on the Communist Party, and the PCF was eager to claim credit for
organizing it. When this strike failed, the momentum of the Popular
Front was gone.
It was the resistance or indifference by workers to schemes of workplace
utopia that contributed to coercive responses from the state and labor
activists, Seidman asserts. "One can speculate," he says, that the
bureaucratization and centralization of the CNT and the state may have
been slower had workers sacrificed wholeheartedly. Democratic workers'
control could have had more chance to succeed, and the centralized war
economy might have had fewer advocates. But he doesn t offer any proof
of these speculations, which makes me wonder why he offers them at all,
especially since they seem to contradict the main theses of the book. Is
he hedging his bets? Seidman shows another conflict by acknowledging
that workers resistance to increases in worktime and productivity hurt
the war effort against franquismo in Spain as well as French military
preparedness in a time of Nazi-directed German rearmament. (French
aviation workers balked at weekend work in their effort to defend the
hard-won 40-hour week, whereas German workers in aviation were turning
in 50- to 60-hour weeks.) But elsewhere he points out that the real
thing to regret is that German workers didn't follow the example of
their French comrades in asserting the right to be lazy. This is an
issue he might have explored in greater depth.
Closer to home, American readers might want to compare Workers Against
Work with John Zerzan's Elements of Refusal for an analysis of the
relationship between labor unions, the state, the capitalist class, and
workers everyday struggles against work in the United States during the
same time period.
The achievements of the French Popular Front seem paltry today. A
40-hour week? Paid vacations? The near revolution of 1968 seemed like
the beginning of the end for this quantitative death on the installment
plan, but it is still very much with us.
The author concludes by invoking Paul Lafargue's Right to Be Lazy, and
suggests, along with Lafargue, that the abolition of the state and of
wage labor (Seidman never says abolition of work) depends on an
automated cybernetic utopia in which machines do all the work. This is a
problematic concept that goes unexamined at the end of Workers Against
Work. One may speculate that the way to eliminate resistance is not by
workers control of the means of production but rather by the abolition
of wage labor itself. He also says that the workers resistances he
describes should not be read as false consciousness, backwardness, or
sympathy for the Right. Well, who would come to that conclusion? Few
among the Left/union organizers and activists of today would think of
reading this book, and fewer still could stomach it if they did.
Seidman's phrasing here betrays an academic timidity in seeming
anticipation of the disapproval of his leftist colleagues in the
sociology or history department.
According to Seidman, "resisters did not articulate any clear future
vision of the workplace or of society." This statement points to one of
the mysteries inherent in the struggle against work. Now, as then,
resistance to work is ubiquitous but inchoate. It has no need of
militants, indeed scorns them, but agitators of the zerowork persuasion
may play some kind of secret, undefined role in its encouragement.
Unorganizable, it is like a magma beneath the surface of contemporary
society. We don't know whether its next great eruption is very near, or
more distant, or in what country it will happen next. And maybe this
book can help.