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A workers' council, also called labor council,[1] is a type of council in a workplace or a locality made up of workers or of temporary and instantly revocable delegates elected by the workers in a locality's workplaces.[2] In such a system of political and economic organization, the workers themselves are able to exercise decision-making power. Furthermore, the workers within each council decide on what their agenda is and what their needs are. The council communist Antonie Pannekoek describes shop-committees and sectional assemblies as the basis for workers' management of the industrial system.[3] A variation is a soldiers' council, where soldiers direct a mutiny. Workers and soldiers have also operated councils in conjunction (like the 1918 German Arbeiter- und Soldatenrat). Workers' councils may in turn elect delegates to central committees, such as the Congress of Soviets.
Supporters of workers' councils (such as council communists,[4] libertarian socialists,[5] Leninists,[6] anarchists,[7] and Marxists[8]) argue that they are the most natural form of working-class organization, and believe that workers' councils are necessary for the organization of a proletarian revolution and the implementation of an anarchist or communist society.
The Paris Commune of 1871 became a model for how future workers' councils would be organised for revolution and socialist governance. Workers' councils have played a significant role in the communist revolutions of the 20th century. This was most notable in the lands of the Russian Empire (including Congress Poland and Latvia) in 1905, with the workers' councils (soviets) acting as labor committees which coordinated strike activities throughout the cities due to repression of trade unions. During the Revolutions of 1917–1923, councils of socialist workers were able to exercise political authority. In the workers' councils organized as part of the 1918 German revolution, factory organizations such as the General Workers' Union of Germany formed the basis for region-wide councils.
Anarchism
Anarchists advocate for a stateless society based on horizontal social organisation through voluntary federations of communes, with workers' councils and voluntary associations acting as the basic units of such societies. Early conceptions of this theory have come from the writings of French anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. His theory of mutualism envisioned a society organised through workers' councils, cooperatives, and other types of workers' associations.[9][10]
At the First International, followers of Proudhon and the collectivists led by Mikhail Bakunin have endorsed the use of workers' councils both as a means for organising class struggle and for forming the structural basis of a future anarchist society.[11] Writing for the French anarchist journal The New Times, Russian theorist Peter Kropotkin has praised the workers of Russia for using this form of organisation during the Revolution of 1905.[12]
Modern anarchists, such as proponents of participatory economics, advocate for the use of workers' councils as a means for participatory urban planning as well as decentralised planning of the economy.[13]
Council Communism
Council Communism is a libertarian Marxist current that advocates for a system of workers councils, as opposed to a communist party or trade union, to coordinate class struggle. Workers directly control production and construct higher organizational bodies from below. Recall-able delegates can be elected from individual workplaces to represent workers on a societal level. Council communists, such as the Dutch-German current of left communists, believe that their nature means that workers' councils do away with bureaucratic form of the state and instead give power directly to workers through a soviet democracy. Council communists view this organization of a revolutionary government as an anti-authoritarian approach to the dictatorship of the proletariat.[14]
The council communists in the Communist Workers' Party of Germany advocated organizing "on the basis of places of work, not trades, and to establish a National Federation of Works Committees."[15] The Central Workers Council of Greater Budapest occupied this role in the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, between late October and early January 1957, where it grew out of local factory committees.[16]
Orthodox Marxism
Leninism
Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin proposed that the dictatorship of the proletariat should come in the form of a soviet republic. He proposed that the socialist revolution should be led by a revolutionary party, which should seize state power and establish a socialist state based on soviet democracy. Lenin's model for the dictatorship of the proletariat is based on that of the Paris Commune, and is meant to fullfil the task of suppressing the bourgeoisie and other counter-revolutionary forces, and "wither away" after the counter-revolution is fully suppressed and as the state institutions begin to "lose their political character".[6]
Some academics and socialists disputed the commitments Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky had toward workers' councils after the Russian Revolution of 1917, noting that workers' councils "were never meant to become a permanent political form of self-governance" and were therefore sidelined by the Communist Party.[5][17][18][19] Some socialists have argued this as an example of the Bolsheviks' betrayal of socialist principles,[5] while others have defended it as necessary for the social conditions at the time to maintain and advance the Revolution.[20]
Luxemburgism
Rosa Luxemburg was a vocal proponent of radical socialist democracy, and advocated for the revolution to be led by workers' and soldiers' councils.[21] She was also openly critical of the actions of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution, arguing that their approach was anti-democratic and totalitarian.[22]
At several times, both in late modern and in recent history, socialists and communists have organized workers' councils during periods of unrest. Examples include:
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune of 1871 (La Commune de Paris) was a revolutionary government that seized control of the city of Paris, which governed the city for two months based on socialist principles through the combined efforts of social democrats, anarchists, Blanquists, and Jacobins.[23] The commune was headed by the Commune Council (French: conseil de la Commune),[24] which was composed of delegates who were each subject to immediate recall by their electors. The events of this period has been a significant influence on the development of Marxist and anarchist political theory and revolutionary praxis. Friedrich Engels named the Paris Commune as the first example of a dictatorship of the proletariat.[25]
Strandza Commune
1905 Russian Revolution
The 1905 Russian Revolution saw the spontaneous emergence of workers' councils (otherwise known locally as soviets) in the Russian Empire.[27] Trotsky would assume a central role in the 1905 revolution[28][29] and serve as Chairman of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Delegates in which he wrote several proclamations urging for improved economic conditions, political rights and the use of strike action against the Tsarist regime on behalf of workers.[30]
Revolution in Congress Poland
- Poland during 1905, (rady robotnicze);[31]
Red Clydeside
- Glasgow, Scotland during 1915 (Rent Strikes)[32]
Revolutions of 1917-1923
1917 Russian Revolution
Councils such as the Petrograd Soviet were formed by striking workers to coordinate the revolution, exercising political power in the absence of the Tsar's governance.[33]
Despite Lenin's declarations that "the workers must demand the immediate establishment of genuine control, to be exercised by the workers themselves", on May 30, the Menshevik minister of labor, Matvey Skobelev, pledged to not give the control of industry to the workers but instead to the state: "The transfer of enterprises into the hands of the people will not at the present time assist the revolution [...] The regulation and control of industry is not a matter for a particular class. It is a task for the state. Upon the individual class, especially the working class, lies the responsibility for helping the state in its organizational work."[34][35] Council communists criticize the Bolsheviks for superseding the soviet democracy formed by the councils and creating a bureaucratic system of state capitalism.
Makhno Movement, 1918-1921
During the Russian Revolution, the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine led by Nestor Makhno established a stateless territory in Eastern Ukraine on the principles of anarchist communism. The Makhnovists established a system of free soviets (vilni rady), which allowed workers, peasants, and militants to self-govern their communities through workers' self management and send delegates to the Regional Congress of Peasants, Workers and Insurgents.[36]
German Revolution, 1918-1919
Irish Revolutionary period
During the Irish War of Independence & Irish Civil War a number of worker's councils were set up for various degrees of time, between 1919 - 1923. See: Irish soviets.[37]
Spanish Revolution
The Spanish Revolution of 1936 saw the creation of anarchist communes across much of Spain. These communes operated under the principle "From each according to his ability to each according to his needs". Decision-making in the communes were conducted through workers' councils (comités trabajadores).[38]
Post-Independence Algeria
Algeria, in the aftermath of the Algerian War, oversaw the widespread practice of workers' self-management. This was subsequently suppressed by conservative forces in the country.[31][39]
Indonesian War of Independence
1956 Hungarian Revolution
Protests of 1968
May '68
During the May 1968 events in France, "[t]he largest general strike that ever stopped the economy of an advanced industrial country, and the first wildcat general strike in history",[40] the Situationists, against the unions and the French Communist Party that were starting to side with the de Gaulle government to contain the revolt, called for the formation of workers' councils (comités d'entreprise) to take control of the cities, expelling union leaders and left-wing bureaucrats, in order to keep the power in the hands of the workers with direct democracy.[40]
Solidarność riots, 1970
- 1970, (rady robotnicze);[31]
Sri Lanka
- Sri Lanka during the 1970–75 United Front government established Workers' Councils and Advisory Committees in Sri Lanka.[41]
Australia
Processo Revolucionário Em Curso
1979 Iranian Revolution
Solidarność Strike, 1980-1981
- 1980–1981 (rady robotnicze);[31]
Canada
December 2001 Riots, Argentina
Rojava Revolution
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