The Solidarity Federation's book, Fighting for ourselves: anarcho-syndicalism and the
class struggle, aims to recover some of the lost history of the workers' movement, in
order to set out a revolutionary strategy for the present conditions. In clear and
accessible prose, the book sets out the anarcho-syndicalist criticisms of political
parties and trade unions, engages with other radical traditions such as anarchism,
syndicalism and dissident Marxisms, explains what anarcho-syndicalism was in the twentieth
century, and how it's relevant - indeed, vital - for workers today. --- You can buy hard
copies of Fighting for ourselves for ?6 (including p&p) from Freedom Press (UK - ?5 in the
shop), and for $10+p&p from Thoughtcrime Ink Books (North America). For other countries
please get in touch.
Book information
Publisher: Solidarity Federation and Freedom Press (London, UK)
Publication date: Oct 27, 2012
ISBN: 978-1904491200
Paperback: 124 pages.
Dimensions: 210 x 148 x 8mm
Introduction
?Against the offensive of capital and politicians of all hues, all the revolutionary
workers of the world must build a real International Association of Workers, in which,
each member will know that the emancipation of the working class will only be possible
when the workers themselves, in their capacities as producers, manage to prepare
themselves in their economic organisations to take possession of the land and the
factories and enable themselves to administer them jointly, in such a way that they will
be able to continue production and social life.?
- Statutes of the International Workers Association (IWA-AIT)1
?One must try to increase as much as possible the theoretical content of all our
activities, but without the 'dry and shrivelled doctrinalism' which could destroy in part
the great constructive action which our comrades are carrying forward in the relentless
fight between the haves and the have nots. Our people stand for action on the march. It is
while going forward that we overtake. Don't hold them back, even to teach them ?the most
beautiful theories?...? - Francisco Ascaso2
?The spirit of anarcho-syndicalism (...) is characterised by independence of action around
a basic set of core principles; centred on freedom and solidarity. Anarcho-syndicalism has
grown and developed through people taking action, having experiences, and learning from
them (...) the idea is to contribute to new and more effective action, from which we can
collectively bring about a better society more quickly. That is the spirit of
anarcho-syndicalism.?
- Self Education Collective3
As we write this in 2012, capitalism is experiencing one of its periodic crises. In
Britain, the depression is now longer than the so called Great Depression of the 1930s.
The state is seizing the opportunity to tear up past working class gains across the board,
from healthcare provision and reproductive rights, to unemployment, disability welfare and
access to higher education, from job security to wages. This has provoked brief moments of
intense, defensive struggles. In the winter of 2010 students took to the streets across
the country against a tripling of tuition fees to ?9,000 per year. The movement erupted in
November with the trashing of the ruling Conservative Party HQ at Millbank, as thousands
broke away from the official National Union of Students march. That spirit continued
throughout the following few months, with rowdy demonstrations across the country. The
state response was brutal, with riot police suppressing the protests and ?kettling?
thousands for hours in freezing conditions. The rioting in central London was, at the
time, the worst in a generation. But more was to come.
Meanwhile, the public sector unions slowly moved into action, calling a series of one day
strikes. Unity lasted for just two days of action before unions started dropping out and
signing deals with the government, and the tangible feeling of power and possibility has
been steadily demobilised into one of inevitable defeat as workers are divided by those
supposed to represent their interests.
In August 2011, riots once again broke out across the country. This time, they followed
the police shooting, and subsequent cover up, of an unarmed man in Tottenham, north
London. Hatred of the police proved a common bond. Rival gangs declared truces and over
four days rioting and looting spread first across the capital, and then across the
country. Rioters voiced anger at police brutality and harassment, political corruption and
the rich, only for the government, media and much of the left to dismiss them as
apolitical. The riots died down, but much of the underlying tension remains.
So then, we are living in times of unprecedented attacks on our living conditions on all
fronts, of rising social tension and sometimes violent eruptions of class conflict. And
yet if anything, the surprise is not that there have been riots and the odd strike, but
that there have been so few. How are we to make sense of this? How are we to fight back,
to take the initiative? Against this society, what do we want to put in its place? The
20th century discredited state socialism, and rightly so. But with it, a whole history of
international class struggle, of revolutions and counter revolutions, victories and
defeats, spontaneous uprisings and vast workers? organisations has been eclipsed too. This
pamphlet aims to recover some of that lost history, in order to set out a revolutionary
strategy for the present conditions. We focus on the forgotten side of the historic
workers? movement, not in search of blueprints but inspiration. We draw that inspiration
from those tendencies which focussed not on capturing state power through elections or
insurrection in order to impose ?socialism? from above, but which took seriously the idea
that ?the emancipation of the working class is the task of the workers themselves?, posing
working class direct action against the double yoke of capital and the state.
We focus on anarcho-syndicalism, the tradition we come from, but touch on numerous other
lesser known radical currents along the way. We certainly don?t think we have all the
answers, but we do think we?re at least asking the right kind of questions. How can we
organise ourselves to both defend and advance our conditions? How can we oppose the
attacks of both capital and the state, when dominant liberal and leftist approaches see
the state as the protector of our ?rights? and push for participation in the parliamentary
process? What kind of society are we fighting for, if not one ruled by the impersonal
forces of capital and the violence and hierarchy of the state?
We see revolutionary theory as an aid to organising workers struggle and not, as is so
often the case, as a means of dominating and controlling it, or of producing dense and
enigmatic tomes to establish one?s credentials as a ?thinker?. As capitalism is dynamic so
must be the methods we use as workers to fight it. It is only through our collective
immersion in day-to-day struggles that we can adapt and change tactics to meet changing
conditions. And as our tactics change and develop so must our ideas. Doing and thinking
are but moments of the same process of organisation. It is through our involvement in our
daily struggles that, as an anarcho-syndicalist union initiative, we are able to ensure
that revolutionary theory keeps pace with practical realities and remains relevant to the
workers? movement and to our everyday lives.
?Anarcho-syndicalism? is a term which trips awkwardly off the English speaking tongue, and
tends to elicit either bafflement, or images of burly working men in some 19th century
factory. In French, the term syndicat, in Spanish, sindicato, in Italian, sindacato,
simply means ?union?, an association of workers without any further connotations, which
can be modified by adjectives, such as ?anarcho?, much as we use adjectives to modify the
word union in English ? trade union, craft union, industrial union and so on. Perhaps a
better translation would be ?anarcho-unionism?. But again, in the context of the United
Kingdom, ?unionist? has British nationalist connotations completely at odds with the
working class internationalism of the anarcho-syndicalist tradition. So we stick with the
term, and unless otherwise specified we will use it interchangeably with ?revolutionary
unionism? throughout this pamphlet (there are other advocates of revolutionary unions
which we will also encounter along the way).
This pamphlet aims to shed light on both the forms and content of anarcho-syndicalist
theory and practice, and in the process to dispel some of the more common myths and
misapprehensions. It will explore how anarcho-syndicalist ideas have differed and adapted
to meet changing conditions; outline the relationship with other traditions and
anarcho-syndicalist criticisms of them. We will then bring things up to date with analysis
of the post-WWII world and the conditions for organising today. We will set out our view
as an organisation of what a new revolutionary unionism would look like, and outline
practical steps and strategies to make it a reality. With the continued defeats workers
are experiencing through the trade unions, a revolutionary alternative is needed more than
ever. Indeed, we should not be asking the question ?how can a union be anti-capitalist and
anti-state??, but rather, how can any union that is not so advance our class interests?,
when those interests are inimical to those of capital and state.
The structure of the pamphlet is as follows: Chapter 1 introduces the mainstream workers?
movement, specifically trade unions and workers? parties, in both their Marxist/Leninist
and Labour Party forms. While these have their origins in the 19th century, they continue
to dominate the workers? movement (such as it is) today. Therefore the analysis is not
purely historical, but continues up to the present day. Chapter 2 then explores the
radical currents in the 20th century workers? movement, long forgotten to most but still a
point of reference for many discontented with the limits of the mainstream. This section
explores council communism, a dissident Marxist tradition that still forms an important
point of reference for many of those critical of the existing trade unions, as well as
Marxists breaking with party politics. It also looks at both anarchist and syndicalist
traditions, providing the context for Chapter 3.
With the scene then set, Chapter 3 will introduce anarcho-syndicalism as a fusion of the
anarchist and syndicalist currents. We will see how this fusion took different forms in
different places in response to different conditions, and explore some of the internal
debates within the movement which remain relevant to our time. We will also look at the
Spanish Revolution of 1936, which was both a high and low point for anarcho-syndicalism,
and reflect on what went wrong and the implications for anarcho-syndicalist theory and
practice. Finally, this chapter will draw on the historical discussion so far to set out
the theoretical and practical basis of anarcho-syndicalism and its relation to other
traditions. We will see that anarcho-syndicalism is a practice of trial and error around a
political-economic core, combining the ideas and goals of anarchism with the organised
labour strategy of syndicalism.
Given that the anarcho-syndicalist movement was all but wiped out by the combination of
fascism, repression and total war from 1939 onwards, Chapter 4 will explore the changes in
post-WWII capitalism and assess their implications for anarcho-syndicalist organising.
Specifically, we will look at the post-War social democratic settlement, which sought to
counter the threat of revolution and marginalise radical currents by integrating the
working class (via the trade unions) into capitalist society through a series of reforms.
We will then look at how this settlement went into crisis from the end of the 1960s
through the 1970s with a wave of workers? struggles against capitalism, the state and the
trade unions. But we will see how these struggles were ultimately defeated, and gave way
to the neoliberal counter revolution from the late 1970s, which has dominated global
capitalism ever since.
Finally, Chapter 5 will draw on this analysis of contemporary conditions to assess the
relevance of anarcho-syndicalism today. We will look at how to move from small political
propaganda groups towards functioning revolutionary unions, explore the role of the
revolutionary union, and its means of organising class conflicts within the wider working
class. We will also look at how the everyday activities of the revolutionary union relate
to the revolutionary struggle for social transformation, and explore the significance of
the insurrectionary general strike in the overthrow of capital and state and their
replacement by worldwide libertarian communism: a stateless society based on the principle
?from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs?. Against the
fashionable and market driven disdain for anything ?old fashioned?, we will show how
anarcho-syndicalism represents a simple yet sophisticated and adaptable weapon for the
working class today, and thus why we are proud to nail our colours, red and black, to the
mast of the anarcho-syndicalist International Workers? Association (IWA).
------------------------------------------------------
The mainstream workers' movement
Introduction
This chapter will introduce the mainstream currents in the workers? movement, from their
origins until today. This is done in three parts. First, we look at how trade unions began
as a response by workers to the conditions of early capitalism. By forming associations,
workers could get the strength in numbers to change the balance of power versus employers.
But we will see how, alongside this, a representative function arose, where unions
developed a life independent of their membership and began to operate over their heads,
mediating and ultimately diminishing their power within the limits set down by capital and
the state. We will also see how this led trade unions to see themselves as purely economic
organisations, leaving ?politics? to separate party organisations. We will then look at
the notionally ?revolutionary workers? parties? originating in Marxism and Leninism, and
set out a critique of their inherent statism. Finally, we will retrace the history of the
British Labour Party, dispelling some of the rose tinted nostalgia for this ?workers?
party?, which was always a party of the trade union bureaucrats and never of the workers
themselves.
Trade unionism
Britain was the first industrialised country, and so it was here that the first working
class developed. The Enclosure Acts from 1750 onwards evicted the peasantry from
traditional common land and turned them into rural wage labourers or landless vagabonds.
Meanwhile, the need for large numbers of workers to staff the burgeoning manufacturing
industries created an intense wave of urbanisation. Rural migrants were joined by former
craft workers thrown into unemployment by the competition of industry. The labouring
population of town and country were completely dispossessed, having nothing to sell but
their labour power. They were the first members of a class which today accounts for the
majority of humanity ? the proletariat.
At first, industrialisation was seen as the death knell for the power that producers,
organised in craft guilds, had over production. The system of apprenticeships and
monopolisation of specialist skills had given craft workers a degree of control over their
work that automation was set to wipe out in the new deskilled, mechanised division of
labour. However, the fear that workers would never again exercise collective power over
the production process would prove to be premature. After a few decades, new forms of
collective organisation began to emerge. As early as 1799 and 1825 Combination Acts were
passed as capital sought to curtail emerging working class organisation.
These early unions were small and transient. Typically they tended to form for the purpose
of organising a conflict with the bosses, dissolving some time later following the
conclusion of the conflict in victory or defeat. This posed several problems for the union
movement. Firstly, the division of workers at each firm into small and transient unions
meant a strike at one firm could simply mean ruin and subsequent unemployment as rival
firms took advantage. Secondly, the impermanence of these early unions meant they were
largely reactive rather than proactive, being formed to counter specific conditions rather
than fight for the general improvement of working class living standards, let alone
holding aspirations of revolutionary social transformation. These pitfalls led to the
growth of a burgeoning amalgamation movement.
The amalgamation movement saw smaller unions combining into larger, more permanent ones.
Their increased resources meant paid organisers could be employed to further swell the
membership, which was stabilised by the introduction of services such as unemployment and
sickness benefits, which at that time were not provided by the state. But amalgamation
also had unintended consequences. Unions went from being a means to organise class
conflicts to becoming an end in themselves, as permanent representatives of workers,
acting on their behalves and supposedly in their interests. It is this latter role which
came to dominate the union movement and with which we are mostly familiar today in the
shape of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) unions.
It is therefore possible to identify two distinct meanings bound up in the term ?union?.
The first is simply that of an association of workers, joining together for some common
purpose (whatever that may be). In other words, the union is the means by which workers
relate to one another. That relationship may be horizontal or hierarchical, usually
voluntary but, as in the case of ?closed shops? where workers have to join the union,
sometimes compulsory. Their association may be long-lasting as in today?s trade unionism,
or more transient as in the early, pre-amalgamation unions. The purpose of their
association may be simply economic ? ?bread and butter issues? ? or encompass wider social
or political goals. We can call this the associational function. This function is a
product of the reality of life under capitalism. Individually, workers are powerless.
Collectively we have power. Workers needed to defend themselves against the opposing
interests of the bosses and have historically organised themselves into combinations such
as trade unions in order to do this, realising that workers' strength lay in their
association.
The second function, perhaps most familiar in the age of the ?service provider? union
model, is that of the representation of workers vis-?-vis capital. This usually means
management, but sometimes includes politicians and the state, should they decide to
intervene in a dispute. We can call this function the representative function. The
representative function carries with it certain assumptions. Firstly, it is premised on
the legitimacy of the existence of social classes, between which it seeks to mediate.
Secondly, in order to gain the right to negotiate on workers? behalves, representative
unions tend to jettison any explicit politics which could put off potential members, since
size becomes the all important factor in determining their place in the TUC pecking order
(in the UK, this has normally meant outsourcing ?politics? to the Labour Party).
Both of these functions have become closely intertwined in the course of the historical
development of the trade union movement. It is worth quoting a substantial passage on one
such example of this process, because it raises a number of issues which will come up
again and again in this pamphlet:
"Much can be explained by John Turner's experiences. From the time of the Harrow Road
'riots' in 1891 until its amalgamation with another small union in 1898 Turner had been
(unpaid) president of the United Shop Assistants Union. On amalgamation the total
membership of the union was approximately 700. Turner became paid national organiser and
threw himself into a recruiting drive around the country. The membership grew rapidly as a
result of prodigious efforts on his part. But his experiences in the 'United' Union had
brought about a change of approach. Branches then had come into being as different work
places had come into conflict with their employers and then faded away as victory or
defeat seemed to make union membership less important or more dangerous. Now Turner, to
ensure a stable membership, had introduced unemployment and sickness benefits and as a
result had members 'of a good type, paying what was, for those days, a fairly high
contribution'. His policy worked, but he was now primarily organising a union whereas
previously he had primarily been organising conflicts with employers.
?By 1907 the pressure had relaxed somewhat and Turner was a fairly comfortably off trades
union official of some importance. By 1910 the Shop Assistants Union had a membership of
13,000 in the London area, making it the largest union in the district. In 1912 John
Turner became president of the union. Although he called himself an anarchist until he
died it did not show itself in his union activities. Heartbreaking experience as it might
have been, the small union before 1898 had been anarchistic, that after 1898 was no
different to the other 'new' unions either in power distribution or policy. There were
straws in the wind by 1906. The executive of the union was being seen in some quarters as
a bureaucratic interference with local militancy and initiative. And complaints were to
grow. By 1909 Turner was accused from one quarter of playing the 'role of one of the most
blatant reactionaries with which the Trades Union movement was ever cursed'."4
Here we see precisely how the associational function of these small unions were
supplemented by the representative function, and at what cost. The representative function
is not as innocent as it first appears, as it has implications for the union as a whole.
First, in order to represent workers vis-?-vis management, a union needs to maximise its
membership in order to show to bosses it really is representative when it claims to speak
for the workforce. The easiest, but not the only, way to achieve this is to employ full
time officials out of the dues of the membership, as happened in John Turner?s case.
Second, such unions need to be able to deliver industrial peace in return for the
satisfaction of demands, otherwise they would not be able to secure a seat at the
negotiating table. This in turn tends to develop the union as a purely economic
organisation, pushing politics out (typically to political parties), and leads to the
creation of a bureaucracy with interests separate from the rank and file membership. That
bureaucracy then becomes structurally dependent on their position as mediators between
workers and capital and thus prone to reformism and class collaboration, regardless of the
professed ideology of the bureaucrats.5 In other words, a consequence of representing
workers to capital is that you also must represent capital to workers, becoming a barrier
to militant rank and file initiative.
The desire for economic representation makes perfect sense in the absence of a
revolutionary perspective, just as the desire for political representation ? i.e. suffrage
? makes sense in the absence of an anti-parliamentary perspective. If you are not opposed
to the capitalist system, representation within it is the most you can ask for. In this
respect, the unions originally developed in this direction because this is what many of
their members, who were not for the most part revolutionaries, wanted. But once a
bureaucracy develops, what the members want becomes far less consequential, as they are no
longer in control. Thus the unions in this country long ago accepted the legitimacy of the
existence of social classes, between which they sought to mediate. They do not want to put
an end to an exploitative social system but to get the best for workers within it, which
in practice means collaborating with the bosses and the capitalist system. The class
collaboration of the unions has led them to become more and more a part of the system. It
means that they now not only fail to defend workers' interests but often go firmly against
them. Their priority is not fighting the class struggle but getting 'recognition' at any
price (recognition from the bosses, of course, not the workers, i.e. recognition of their
representative function to speak on workers? behalves).
Once associational and representative functions become intertwined, unpicking them becomes
increasingly difficult. The union becomes backed by a powerful bureaucracy with vested
interests in the status quo, and often the ability to expel unruly troublemakers. We have
recently experienced opposition from branch union officials to even holding a members?
meeting in the course of a dispute!6 The energy it would take to reform or dislodge such
bureaucracies, not just the elected officials but the structures themselves, is many times
that required to simply bypass the bureaucracy and take action outside it. In 1969 the
Donovan Report, which came out of the Royal Commission into the unions and was set up by a
Labour government, found that 95% of post-war strikes were unofficial. This changed after
the anti-strike legislation of the 1980s which forced unions to police their rank and file
more thoroughly on pain of asset seizure, but it is a simple illustration of the ease with
which action can be taken. Many, if not most, of these unofficial strikes would have been
organised in the workplace by rank and file union members and lay officials like shop
stewards.
And this raises another problem. Militant workers, including those with socialist or
anarchist leanings, find there is usually a shortage of willing shop stewards. And what
better way to participate in the class struggle? Soon enough you get trained up in ?rep
work?, learning how to file grievances, do casework and navigate the complex industrial
relations legislation. This is the terrain of representative functions, a million miles
away from direct action.7 Opportunities might open up for facility time ? paid time off
work to carry out union responsibilities. Such an escape from the day job is welcome.
Maybe a role opens up higher up the ladder, a regional convenor or a branch official. As
another potential shop floor militant climbs the ladder into the bureaucracy, militancy
and revolutionary aims and methods tend to get left behind, or are neutered by the
bureaucrat?s role.
This is not, of course, the inevitable consequence of taking a shop steward position, and
there are pros as well as cons. Taking on positions as stewards can give us greater access
to the workplace making it easier to organise. It also puts us in touch with other
militants who may share our aim in wanting to organise in the workplace. But without a
clear alternative to the representative approach, it?s easy to become sucked in. The
strategy of many state socialist groups is precisely for their members to climb this
ladder. Anarcho-syndicalists need a clear strategy to avoid these pitfalls.
In the past the unions paid lip service to the emancipation of the working class and to
?socialism? (meaning the Labour Party). They don't even pay lip service now. Today?s TUC
unions are the product of over a century of bureaucratisation. Associational and
representative functions are now so blurred as to be indistinguishable. Indeed, you join a
union in order to be represented. They have become vast corporations in their own right,
complete with head offices, highly paid executive boards, legal departments and hundreds
of wage labourers in their employ. The TUC for the most part still backs the Labour Party,
despite it abandoning any pretence of being a workers? party. Some Socialists have
repeatedly tried to form a new one to replace it. Either way, politics is pushed out of
the unions and into the parliamentary arena, a clear separation of the economic and the
political. All the time we hear workers and leftists accusing the trade union leaders of
?selling out? and being bureaucratic. This is, of course, true, but anarcho-syndicalists
view this as inevitable in organisations which collaborate with capitalism and the state
rather than seek to destroy them.
How does this play out in practice? Let us start by looking at the basic building block of
any union ? the branch. The first thing to note is that the vast majority of branches
exist and function away from the workplace, the seat of struggle. Rather than the branch
proactively organising in the workplace, activists or workers with specific grievances
find the onus on them to initiate contact and maintain channels of communication. This
they only do on rare occasions and it is safe to say that most workers only attend branch
meetings on a handful of occasions throughout their working lives, if at all. Indeed,
internal union surveys show that at any given point only 5% of union members attend branch
meetings. Nor is it necessarily the case that even those who attend on a regular basis
have much in common. Many unions organise meetings on the basis of where members live.
These meetings can consist of groups of people who may not work in the same workplace or
even the same industry, the only thing in common being that they happen to belong to the
same union. This type of meeting can even be reduced to members just turning up to pay dues.
Even in those few unions that do organise on an industrial basis ? one workplace, one
union ? and thus don?t divide the workforce, union meetings are still dominated, not by
workplace matters, but internal union business. The staple diet of such meetings is
endless correspondence, various motions, countless elections and nominations for
committees, conferences and union positions. What is rarely acknowledged is that these
decisions are taken by a tiny minority of members. As decisions are taken further up the
union ladder, tens of people acting for hundreds eventually becomes hundreds acting for
millions. The culmination of this charade is the block vote where union leaders cast votes
on behalf of hundreds of thousands of members on policies, and for people, that the
overwhelming majority of members will never have heard of let alone voted for. The trade
unions may still have millions of members between them, but in day to day union business
it is a minority of officials and activists that speaks for them.
We should also dispel the idea that all branch activists are also involved in the
workplace struggle against the bosses. For a start, in many unions branch secretaries are
required to be on full time release, and so never see the workplace. And even when they
are not officially full time, they can end up sitting on so many committees and holding so
many positions they do not have the time for something as mundane as work. Then there are
those who are active in the union but have no base in the workplace. These people can even
be on the so called 'left' of the union and will argue for all sorts of motions to be
passed from 'troops out' to freeing Palestine, but do little to organise in the workplace.
Indeed it could be argued that unions act as a check on militancy, even at branch level.
How often do angry workers turn to the branch for support and advice over incidents that
have happened at work, only to have all that anger deflected away from taking effective
action by branch officials promising to 'get something done' by contacting head office or
bringing in a full timer? As British syndicalist, Tom Brown, put it in 1943:
"Centralisation takes control too far away from the place of struggle to be effective on
the workers? side in that fight. Most disputes arise in the factory, bus garage or mine.
According to trade union procedure the dispute must be reported to the district office of
the union, (and in some cases to an area office) then to head office, then back again,
then the complicated ?machinery for avoiding disputes? devised by trade union ?leaders?
and the employers? lawyers is set in its ball passing motion, until everyone forgets the
original cause of all this passing up and down. The worker is not allowed any direct
approach to, or control of the problem.
?We are reminded of the memoirs of a certain court photographer who was making a picture
of the old Emperor of Austria [and wanted him] to turn his head a little to the left. Of
course he could not speak to an emperor, so he put his request to a captain of the court
guard, who spoke to his colonel, who spoke to a count, the count passed the request to a
duke and he had a word with an archduke who begged his Imperial Majesty to turn his head a
little to the left. The old chap turned his head and said ?Is that sufficient?? and the
message trickled back to the photographer via archduke, duke, count, colonel and captain.
The humble thanks travelled back by the same road. The steps of trade union communication
are just so fixed."8
Despite their failings, branch meetings do at least retain some links with the workforce
they represent. Once we move above branch level, we enter that strange world of the full
time union official whose working life consists of endless meetings with other union
officials, management and union activists. The only time these people come across ordinary
union members is when they are called in, often by management, to 'resolve' a problem. The
higher up the union structure, the more remote they become, reaching a pinnacle of
detachment with union leaders, who only come across ordinary working class people on a day
to day basis when they have a friendly chat with their chauffeur or the office cleaner.
It is safe to say that the unions exist in the main outside the workplace with the bulk of
union activity taking place above the members? heads. The ordinary member?s commitment is
limited to paying subs, with the expectation of some level of support should trouble
arise. Outside national struggles and strike ballots there is little encouragement to see
the union as anything more than an insurance scheme, perhaps requiring support itself.
These tendencies towards bureaucracy and the development of institutional interests
separate from the workers themselves are natural developments of the representative
function. However, they are also increasingly enforced by law. In the UK, industrial
action is only lawful if it is preceded by a properly conducted ballot, employers are
given sufficient notice, and a host of legal technicalities are followed. Unions are
legally liable for damages arising from unlawful action, and consequently become even more
conservative in authorising ballots and calling off industrial action at any hint of a
legal challenge. The problems with trade unions don?t start with the law, but union
legislation has further crippled effective workplace organisation whilst strengthening the
bureaucratic tendencies that had already developed.
So, given that the unions organise away from the point of struggle, let us turn to their
aims and how they set about achieving them. The main aim of any union is to maintain its
power within the wider trade union movement, and also to exert pressure and maintain
influence on the state, management, and society as a whole. They seek to do this in
various ways, one of the most important being maintaining as high a membership as
possible. This is of prime importance, not least in the TUC pecking order. This has now
reached the point where it seems to matter little how remote or inactive that membership
is, just as long as the dues are coming in and membership figures are up. Of all the areas
in which the unions seek to have influence, by far the most important is their dealings
with management, for it is from this area that all their power flows. They must retain the
right to negotiate wages and conditions with management. Indeed, a ?consultation? role in
cuts has often been championed as a victory for the union, even while it?s a defeat for
the workers. The 2009 postal dispute is one of the more high profile recent examples.9
It is by having the power to negotiate on behalf of workers that the trade unions retain
their influence within the workplace and ultimately attract and retain members. This
representative function is fundamental to the existence of trade unions. In turn it is
having that control and influence in the workplace that they are of use to the boss class.
The unions offer stability in the workplace, they channel workers? anger, shape and
influence their demands and, if need be, police the workforce. Perhaps this is best summed
up by a quote from the boss class itself: when asked by a reporter why his multinational
had recognised unions in South Africa, a manager replied "have you ever tried negotiating
with a football field full of militant angry workers?" It was this threat of an
uncontrollable militant workforce that first persuaded the bosses of the need to accept
reformist unions, seeing them as a way to control the workforce. As that threat of
militancy has receded, the trade unions have become increasingly sidelined, finding
themselves social partners with bosses increasingly unwilling to play the game.
'Revolutionary' workers? parties
The idea of a workers' political party goes a long way back. Perhaps the most famous and
influential example would the 1848 Manifesto of the Communist Party, more commonly known
as the Communist Manifesto, which even before the days of universal suffrage declared that
"the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the
position of ruling as to win the battle of democracy."10 While Marx's ideas subsequently
developed (particularly following the Paris Commune of 1871), what remained constant
throughout what became known as 'Marxism' was the centrality of the 'need' for a workers?
political party. This organisational form reflected the political content of mainstream
Marxism, which is concerned with the capture and use of state power to transform society.
One of the great legacies of the 20th century is the strong association of communism with
state power, and totalitarian bureaucratic state power at that. Whilst most Marxists
distance themselves from the horrors of Stalinism, few reject the idea that revolution
entails the capture of state power or the conviction that the Party is the organisational
form to do it.
For Lenin, the working class on its own could only achieve "trade union consciousness",
i.e. a consciousness of everyday economic life and bread and butter struggles.11 But to
become revolutionary, it required the intervention of intellectuals and the leadership of
a vanguard party. Inscribed in Marxist theory and practice is this separation between the
economic organisations of the working class (trade unions) and the political one (the
Party). And this separation is not neutral, but hierarchical: the party leads the class,
the political trumps the economic. Leon Trotsky expresses this very clearly:
"Only on the basis of a study of political processes in the masses themselves, can we
understand the role of parties and leaders, whom we least of all are inclined to ignore.
They constitute not an independent, but nevertheless a very important, element in the
process. Without a guiding organisation, the energy of the masses would dissipate like
steam not enclosed in a piston-box. But nevertheless what moves things is not the piston
or the box, but the steam."12
Trotsky thinks he is giving credit to the working class, and stressing the lack of
separation between the party and the class. In fact, his metaphor says far more than he
intends. Steam is the unthinking product of applying heat to water, a mere expression of
natural, physical laws. The intelligence in his metaphor is that of the engineers who
design and operate the piston box which captures and directs the energy of the unthinking
mass within it. It is correct that the Party can only ride to power on the back of the
workers. What is not correct is that we have any need for them to do so, or that this
advances the creation of a free communist society. Trotsky?s view was shared even by left
wing Marxists ('left communists'), such as Amadeo Bordiga, whose opposition to the class
collaboration of the Bolsheviks 'united front' strategy reaffirmed that 'the dictatorship
of the proletariat' really meant the dictatorship of the Communist Party: "Political power
cannot be seized, organised, and operated except through a political party."13
This idea of 'the dictatorship of the proletariat' is central to Marxist theory. Much
confusion arises from the word 'dictatorship', which today conjures up images of
repressive, unelected regimes. This is not necessarily what is meant (although it?s hard
to ignore that wherever the ?dictatorship of the proletariat? was established in the 20th
century ended up looking a lot like? a dictatorship). Bearing in mind suffrage had barely
extended beyond male property owners in the 19th century, Marx saw any state as a
dictatorship of the ruling class (anarcho-syndicalists agree on this point). In capitalism
the state is a dictatorship of the capitalist class ? the bourgeoisie ? and this is the
case whether or not the state in question holds free and fair elections or respects human
rights. If we accept this to be true then any revolution would necessarily involve the
proletariat establishing its own dictatorship.
The form this dictatorship takes is one of the divisions within Marxism. More reformist,
gradualist, social democratic currents subscribe to something like the vision of the
Manifesto, aiming to 'win the battle of democracy'. In this analysis, the state is a
dictatorship of capital because it is controlled by capitalist parties. Therefore, if a
workers' party obtains power, the state will serve the interests of the workers. The state
is seen as a relatively neutral instrument which serves the interests of whichever class'
representatives control it:
"[I]t follows that every class which is struggling for mastery, even when its domination,
as is the case with the proletariat, postulates the abolition of the old form of society
in its entirety and of domination itself, must first conquer for itself political power in
order to represent its interest in turn as the general interest."14
This is, of course, where we part company with Marx. The idea was that since the state was
part of the 'political superstructure' built upon the 'economic base', a 'workers state'
would necessarily 'wither away' once it had centralised all the means of production within
itself. By uniting the working class with the means of production and thus eliminating the
'economic base' of the state in private property it renders itself obsolete. In practice,
centralising all property in the state means the state becomes the sole capitalist and
employer.
It is easy to go reading through the works of Lenin and pulling out quotes showing an
authoritarian politics that prefigures the police state he ultimately helped create. 'What
is to be done?', written in 1905 to address the problems of organising under the
repressive Tsarist regime, is a favourite for this kind of criticism. But this is too
easy. Rather, we should criticise Lenin at his most libertarian and his most radical. The
most significant text here is 'State and revolution', written in 1917, between the
February and October revolutions in Russia. In this text, Lenin emphatically rejects the
?opportunist? idea that the existing state can simply be taken over and made to serve the
interests of the proletariat. Rather, he insists it must be "abolished."15 This has even
led some to suggest he was flirting with anarchism.
But a closer reading shows no such thing, as Lenin himself was keen to stress. In place of
the existing state, Lenin had taken up the slogan 'all power to the soviets', which was
popular with Russian workers (and anarchists) at the time. The soviets were councils of
workers and political party delegates which had first emerged in the Revolution of 1905.
For Lenin, linking this to Marx's rethinking of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat'
following the Paris Commune, the soviets were the form of the 'workers state', through
which the proletariat would exercise its dictatorship. So, why would anarcho-syndicalists
take issue with this? On closer examination, Lenin's views are far less radical and
libertarian than they first appear.
Crucially, Lenin retains the fundamentally bourgeois conception of politics as a
competition for power between political parties. His 'innovation' was to transpose this
power struggle from the bourgeois forum of parliamentary politics, to the revolutionary
proletarian forum provided by the soviets. But this change in venue does not change the
fundamental problem of equating the interests of a class with those of its supposed
representatives. Indeed, Leon Trotsky sees the proletariat and the Communist Party as
indistinguishable, writing that "the revolution in the course of a few months placed the
proletariat and the Communist Party in power."16 Which was it? History reveals it was the
Communist Party which established its rule over the proletariat.
Remember that Lenin had not rejected the idea of the vanguard party. He had not rejected
the idea of ?politics? as a struggle for state power between competing parties. And so his
party competed for power in the Soviets. Enjoying genuine popularity in many places, they
consolidated their majority by becoming representatives rather than delegates. Where they
could not secure majorities, they did what all politicians do if they can get away with
it, and gerrymandered and manipulated their majorities. Once majorities were secured, the
soviets were sidelined or suppressed, as the Communist Party formed a government. And
indeed this government was a dictatorship in the more familiar sense, complete with a
secret police which began rounding up revolutionaries, from anarchists to rival
socialists. The brutal suppression of the Kronstadt Commune is only the most iconic event
of this counter-revolution.17
Even at its most radical, Leninism maintains the separation of the economic struggles of
the ?masses? from the political party who leads them, and maintains that revolution is a
question of first the Party seizing state power, before using that power ? those secret
police and standing armies ? to impose 'communism' from above in the form of economic and
social diktats.18 By contrast, the soviet/council system poses economic delegates against
political representatives; bottom-up, direct democracy against top-down decrees; the free
federation of workers against the dictatorship of the proletariat. Against the
nationalisation of all property in the 'workers state', it poses the expropriation of
social wealth to serve human needs, without a 'transitional phase' of a dictatorial state
which we're promised will 'wither away.' To conceive of soviets as a state is to strip
them of their revolutionary character and transform them into a mere alternative means of
electing a government to run the state apparatus. Hence Rudolf Rocker writes:
"The council system brooks no dictatorships as it proceeds from totally different
assumptions. In it is embodied the will from below, the creative energy of the toiling
masses. In dictatorship, however, only lives barren compulsion from above, which will
suffer no creative activity and proclaims blind submission as the highest laws for all.
The two cannot exist together. In Russia dictatorship proved victorious. Hence there are
no more soviets there. All that is left of them is the name and a gruesome caricature of
its original meaning."19
Despite the collapse of the USSR and its allied bloc, which for a long time provided moral
(and sometimes material) support to much of the statist left, ?revolutionary? workers?
parties are still very much the staple of leftist organisation. These latter day Leninists
are most likely to be found in anything resembling a popular movement, where they?ll
promptly form a ?coalition? and appoint themselves leaders. Calling for ?unity? behind
their leadership (often, rival ?coalitions? each calling for ?unity? and decrying the
actions of the other), they tend to smother any grassroots initiative with a stifling
routine of marches (a great recruiting ground) and diversions into parliamentary politics.
The examples are too numerous to list here. But whilst we can complain about the antics of
the Left, ultimately their ability to control movements rests in the weakness of a
libertarian, direct action culture within the wider working class which would render such
manoeuvres transparent and ineffective.
However, whilst making ample reference to Lenin and Trotsky, in practice the current array
of state socialists fall short even of those flawed figures. Today, most of the
?revolutionary? parties serve as little more than the extra-parliamentary wing of the
Labour Party, urging ?vote for Labour without illusions? like clockwork every election. In
2010, this followed just four months after the very same ?revolutionary? party had
co-organised a ?Rage Against Labour? march against the Labour Party Conference in
Brighton! We imagine even Lenin would blush at such naked opportunism. There are
exceptions with those socialists who seek to found an alternative Labour Party, although
this pretty much adds up to the same thing. Revolutionary rhetoric serves as a mask for
reformist practice. And so we come to the Labour party.
The Labour party
Unlike the Communist and Socialist Parties of the mainstream Marxist position, the Labour
Party (and many of its equivalents around the world) has never claimed to be
revolutionary. To criticise it for failing to be so would therefore miss the point.
However, the Labour Party, as its name would infer, has long purported to represent the
interests of the working class. This pretence only finally expired with the rise of ?New
Labour?, although many on the left still cling forlornly to its corpse. Others, having
been kicked out of the party for being too left wing, have resolved to form a new workers?
party to serve the purpose the old one did before its recent neoliberal turn. What both of
these perspectives share is the assumption that the Labour Party ever was an asset for the
working class. Rose tinted spectacles aside, this premise cannot be sustained.
The Labour Party was founded in 1906 with the election of 29 MPs from the Labour
Representation Committee, made up mainly of trade union officials with support from
socialist groups. The immediate trigger for this was the ruling in the 1901 Taff Vale case
which had made trade unions liable for loss of profits during strike action. The ruling
was reversed by the Liberal-Labour supported Trades Disputes Act in 1906.
The honeymoon was short lived. There was a rising wave of class conflicts in 1910-1914, as
discontent with both union bureaucracies and Labour MPs spread amongst the more combative
sections of the working class. Historian Bob Holton writes that for many militant workers
?the clear-cut non-parliamentary message of syndicalism proved more attractive, since it
avoided the problems of political incorporation which increasingly beset the Labour Party
in parliament? (we will discuss British syndicalism in the following chapter). Indeed, in
1912 the Liberal cabinet minister, Lloyd George, declared the parliamentary socialists
?the best policemen for the syndicalist.?20
Having opted to support the First World War, therefore sending millions of workers to die
for their bosses, Labour?s first taste of real political power came during the war when
they were rewarded with a part in a coalition government. They further underlined their
ruling class politics by opposing the upsurge in workers? militancy that wartime austerity
helped ferment. As strikes spread, particularly on ?Red Clydeside?, Labour responded by
helping break them. As socialists and anarchists were imprisoned for refusing to sign up,
Labour rallied to ?Win the War? and sought to expel pacifist/anti-war elements from within
its ranks.
The first two majority Labour governments were no better. When J. H. Thomas, union leader
and MP, ?was appointed to the Colonial Office (?) he introduced himself to his
departmental heads with the statement: 'I?m here to see there is no mucking about with the
British Empire.'? Their first term only lasted 10 months, but on top of their enthusiastic
imperialism they managed to oppose strikes by dockers, London tramway workers, and railway
workers, invoking the 1920 Emergency Powers Act against the latter two, threatening to
declare a state of emergency. In 1926, and back in opposition, the party feared the
general strike would lead to revolutionary events and scrambled to prevent it. Three years
later they again formed a minority government with a promise to lower rampant
unemployment. Within two years it had more than doubled.21
From its very inception ?working class political representation? acted like every other
capitalist political party ? at best simply overseeing the misery caused by the capitalist
economy, and at worst actively repressing working class self-organisation. In other words,
Labour has acted for the bosses and against the working class.
The single most cited ?achievement? of the Labour Party is the ?foundation? of the welfare
state in 1948 (in reality, this was an expansion of the limited welfare state introduced
by the Liberals in 1912). Universal healthcare and unemployed benefits certainly represent
gains for the working class insofar as they are paid for by the bosses. But why were they
introduced? The foundations for the welfare state were laid by the 1942 cross party
Beveridge Report, which recommended the measures later implemented by Clement Attlee?s
Labour government when they came to power in 1945. Wary of the worldwide revolutionary
wave which followed the end of the First World War, there was a cross party consensus that
war weary workers would need to be given incentives not to turn their discontent, or even
their guns, on the government. The Tory Quintin Hogg summed up the prevailing mood in 1943
when he said ?we must give them reform or they will give us revolution.? Following the
war, a wave of squatting by homeless workers swept disused military bases and 'bombed out'
residential areas. With the threat of revolution seeming to lurk behind these actions, the
welfare state was a reform needed as much by the ruling class as the workers.
But even this self-interest was not enough. The second strand of the cross party consensus
was that a welfare state served ?the national interest? of building profitable British
industry by shifting the cost of maintaining the workforce from private businesses on to
the state via national insurance payments deducted from workers? wages.22 It is ironic
that ?Labour?s greatest achievement? was supported by a cross party consensus which would
have almost certainly seen the recommendations of the Beveridge report implemented
regardless of who won the 1945 general election. Certainly, the fact it was political
?representatives of the working class? overseeing its introduction seems of little
importance when they were implementing ruling class consensus. In any event, without the
tangible threat of working class unrest, that consensus would never have been acted on. So
let us fast forward to the 1970s to see how ?working class political representation? dealt
with significant working class struggle.
The 1970s was a decade of major industrial unrest, as inflation hit double figures and
wages failed to keep pace with the spiralling cost of living. Legislation limiting pay
rises was proving unpopular and unenforceable in the face of widespread unofficial action
outside of the control of the TUC unions and their Labour Party associates. Consequently,
Labour turned to the TUC to implement ?voluntary? pay freezes, with partial success as
unions policed their angry membership. The crisis deepened and by 1976 Britain went to the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) for emergency assistance. This came with the usual
strings attached ? austerity measures and public service cuts which the Labour government
was only too keen to implement. The confrontation between the working class and their
?political representatives? came to a head in 1978-79 in the so called winter of
discontent.23 As strike waves brought the country to a standstill Labour became
unelectable. They wouldn?t taste power again until their ?New Labour? rebranding, having
jettisoned any pretence of advancing working class interests (a claim by this point
thoroughly discredited by their record in office and in opposition).
From its very beginnings the political representation of the working class has never
served the working class. It cannot. As even Lenin recognised, the state serves capitalism
and cannot be made to serve the interests of the proletariat. This does not only apply to
the Labour Party, but all political parties. Consider the German Green Party, who once in
government sent riot police against protesters trying to stop nuclear waste being
transported through their communities ? precisely the kind of green activism they had once
supported. In 2001 they supported the invasion of Afghanistan as part of a coalition
government. In Ireland too, the Green Party went from vocal supporters of the ?Shell to
Sea? movement against the Corrib gas project to actually implementing it. Green minister
Eamon Ryan was put in charge of the project, the Greens having dropped their election
promises in order to enter a coalition government. On that note, the Liberal Democrat?s
rapid u-turn on tuition fees in 2010, from a promise to abolish them to trebling them once
in government, provides a recent illustration of this dynamic (and one which fuelled the
student protests and riots across the country). In 2011 in Lewisham, one self-described
?socialist?, the Labour Councillor Mike Harris even defended his making ?democratic
socialist cuts? (which are apparently better than nasty ?Tory cuts?).
We are reminded of the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin?s sardonic remark, that ?when the people
are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called ?the People's
Stick?.?? Party politics aims at capturing the state, but when you capture the state, the
state also captures you.
Summary
We have seen that while trade unions have their roots in working class associations, they
have become increasingly dominated by their representative functions. This has led to the
development of powerful, paid bureaucracies who collaborate with bosses and the state,
putting their own needs above those of the membership. The result is often an inability to
even win basic defensive struggles, and frequent interference with rank and file
initiative and militancy. But while the trade unions at least have their roots in working
class associations, the so called ?workers parties? do not. Leninist parties, even at
their most radical, remain fixed on the capture of state power for themselves in order to
implement ?socialism? by diktat. The Labour Party meanwhile was founded by trade union
bureaucrats and has always played an anti-working class role. This is because of the
nature of political parties, which have to compete for state power. The prize means
getting to manage capitalism, which pits the party against the working class. All these
mainstream ideologies of the workers? movement effect a separation of the economic and the
political. ?Politics? is seen as the business of the party, its venue the state (normally
through engagement in the parliamentary process). ?Economic? issues are seen as the domain
of trade unions. This dual system of political and economic representation of the working
class ends up acting against the working class. We need to look elsewhere for inspiration.
Further reading
Units 1-3 of the SelfEd history of anarcho-syndicalism cover the origins of capitalism and
the early workers? movement. Our critique of the trade unions stems mainly from our
collective experiences with the trade unions within the Solidarity Federation and its
predecessors the Direct Action Movement (DAM) and the Syndicalist Workers? Federation
(SWF). Consequently there is little to recommend by way of reading. We have drawn heavily
on the 1991 DAM pamphlet ?Winning the class war?, which remains a worthwhile read. The
basic argument set out there has been updated and expanded here to feed into the
discussions in the rest of this pamphlet. In terms of Marxism and Leninism, Maurice
Brinton?s ?The Bolsheviks and workers control? remains a classic account of the counter
revolutionary role played by Lenin's Bolsheviks in sidelining workers? self-organisation
in the factory committees and soviets, and ultimately replacing them with party
dictatorship. Daniel Cohn-Bendit?s ?Obsolete Communism ? the left wing alternative? also
contains a critical account of mainstream Marxist theory and practice. The author, a
prominent anarchist in the events of May 1968 in France (see Chapter 4) has, funnily
enough, subsequently become a Green MEP. In terms of critical accounts of the Labour
Party, the SolFed's predecessor the Syndicalist Workers Federation wrote a three part
account of 'How Labour governed 1945-51'.24
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