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Title: Unions and Revolution Author: Workers’ Solidarity Federation Language: en Topics: revolution, South Africa, syndicalist, trade unions Source: Retrieved on January 1, 2005 from http://www.cat.org.au/aprop/unions.txt
Anarchist-Syndicalists stand for a revolution by the working class and
the poor to smash all oppression and create a free stateless socialist
society. The trade unions will play a leading role in this process. It
is also vital to organise in the community.
Class struggle is the key to changing this rotten society. We working
and poor people create all social wealth but we do not get the benefits.
Our work is controlled and exploited by the capitalists and top state
officials — the ruling class.
We are not powerless. We can hit the bosses and rulers with mass
actions, particularly at the workplace. Only we workers and poor people
can create a free society because only we do not need to exploit.
The bosses and rulers created racism (and other oppression). They wanted
to super-exploit Black people to make more profits. They wanted to
divide our resistance by splitting us to into Zulus, Shangaans, Xhosas,
Sothos, Indians, Coloureds and Whites. We can only defeat racism by
smashing the bosses — of all colours.
All Black people are victims of racism, but the Black middle and upper
class elite is shielded from the worst effects of racism by their
privileged status. They can live in the suburbs, go to private schools
and earn big salaries — we can’t. We must fight racism wherever it
exists. But the working class must not form alliances with the Black
managers and capitalists, because they will always choose profits over
socialism.
The trade unions are one of the most important mass movements that the
working class and poor have built. The unions were built to defend and
advance the class interests of the workers and the poor.
Even the most bureaucratic and reformist union must defend its members’
interests or it will collapse. The unions have massive potential power
because they can disrupt production, the source of the bosses wealth.
They promote class consciousness, solidarity, and confidence because
they organise people to fight as working and poor people against the
bosses and rulers.
It is nonsense to say that the unions “serve” the bosses. Even the most
“progressive” boss will oppose the unions because they are a challenge
to his exploitation of workers. Even the most reformist union cannot be
totally “incorporated” into capitalism because capitalism cannot satisfy
the needs of workers.
Unfortunately many unions have a strong bureaucracy of paid officials
and leaders. This group is better paid than ordinary workers and has
many privileges. Because of these conditions they develop different
interests to ordinary union members. Ordinary workers need to take
action to improve their conditions, but bureaucrats want the unions to
avoid struggles and spend their time negotiating with the bosses.
We oppose the union bureaucracy because it undermines union struggle and
because it is a threat to union democracy. The existence of a
bureaucracy is not inevitable. The Spanish CNT (a mass
Anarchist-Syndicalist union federation) had a million and a half members
but only two elected full-time officials. We think the union bureaucracy
must be dissolved and the unions controlled by workers on the ground.
Another problem that exists in many unions are reformist ideas.
According to these ideas, capitalism and the State can be changed to
look after the needs of the workers and poor. We reject these ideas
because we know capitalism and the State are based on putting the wealth
and power of a minority of exploiters ahead of the needs of the workers
and the poor.
We think that unions are powerful weapons in the struggle for better
conditions and against oppression like racism. We also believe that
unions can organise workers to go on the offensive and destroy
capitalism and the State, by organising the revolutionary seizure and
democratic control of the factories, land, and offices.
The idea that unions and union members can only become revolutionary in
“revolutionary conditions” is mistaken. Revolutionary situations are not
something that “just happen” to workers. They are also the product of
workers struggles, workers organisations, and workers aims.
It is also wrong to say unions “exist within capitalism”, and only exist
to improve the terms on which workers are exploited (rather than put an
end to the system itself). In 1936, for example, the Spanish CNT armed
workers to smash an attempted fascist coup, and spearheaded a successful
mass movement of 7 million workers and peasants to seize the land and
factories and manage them through democratic collectives.
We must do two things if we want the unions to play a revolutionary
role. First, get rid of the union bureaucracy and make sure that the
unions are controlled by the membership. Second, win the union
membership over to Anarchist- Syndicalist ideas.
We must work within the existing unions to achieve these goals. All
unions are workers combat units. Leaving the mainstream unions to form
new “pure” revolutionary unions has serious consequences. It withdraws
militants from the unions, leaving them at the mercy of bureaucrats and
reformists. It isolates militants in tiny splinter unions because the
masses prefer to join large, established unions. Small groups of
revolutionaries working inside established unions can achieve impressive
results. For example, the main French (CGT) and Argentinean (FORA) union
federations were won over to Anarchist-Syndicalism in this way in the
early twentieth century.