1 This is a revised and updated version of an essay that first appeared in the newsletter Self-Management 6, no. 1 (Fall 1978). I thank Stephen M. Sachs for his initial encouragement, Dick Parker for providing me with documents on the Venezuelan experience, and George Katsiaficas for his comments during the course of revision.
2 The evolution of the Mondragón cooperatives is instructive in this respect. See Huet 1997.
3 On China, see Richman 1969, ch. 9; on Yugoslavia, Bourdet and Guillerm 1975, esp. 174. 4 On Cuba’s place in this epochal sequence, see Raby 2006, 111–31. The historical basis for Cuba’s eventual institutionalization of worker-control structures is discussed in Wallis 1985, 254–57.
4 For a more comprehensive listing and discussion, not limited to revolutionary moments, see Bayat 1991. A cogent overview of the place of workers’ councils in socialist revolution is E. Mandel 1973, 1: 5–54.
5 On the key role of workers in the October Revolution, see for example D. Mandel 1984, esp. 260–63.
6 See his expression of support for the factory committees, quoted in Cliff 1976, 244. For background on this issue, see Carr 1952, 62–79.
7 Lenin 1970, 17. Lenin’s critique of Taylorism refers to the allocation of labor and of the product rather than to the way the work is carried out. For fuller discussion of alternatives, see Sirianni 1982, 256–60.
8 For firsthand testimony on the workers’ commitment (based in part on archival material newly released after 1991), see Murphy 2005, esp. 63–74.
9 Based on Leval 1975 and on Dolgoff 1974, especially chapters 6 and 7.
10 Based on Brenan 1950, part 2; Jackson 1965, ch. 1; and Payne 1970, ch. 2.
11 As the Economist stated in February 1938, “Intervention by the state in industry, as opposed to collectivization and workers’ control, is reestablishing the principle of private property.” Quoted in Broué and Témime 1972, 313.
12 Zimbalist and Petras 1975–76: 25, 27. For comprehensive analysis of the Chilean case, see Espinosa and Zimbalist 1978 and comments in Wallis 1983, 186–88.
13 For a narrative overview, see Smirnow 1979; for direct portrayal of worker control, Guzmán 1978.
14 I witnessed this directly in Nicaragua in 1984. The involvement of professionals as well as workers in autogestion was illustrated in France in 1968 (Seale and McConville 1968: chapter “The Liberal Professions”). In some instances, managerial personnel also lent support to worker initiatives (Katsiaficas 1987, 106).
15 See Commoner’s (1976) remarks on solar technology; also Wallis 2004.
16 On the importance Marx attached to the work process, Braverman 1974, 8; on Marx’s interest in cooperatives, Bourdet 1971, 102; on his view of “leaders,” Marx and Engels 1942, 311.
17 Proudhon (1809–1865), author of the famous phrase “property is theft,” stressed the idea of communes as the basis for a federal society without a central political authority.
18 See Reed 1977, e.g., 32: “At that time [ July 1917] the majority of the Soviets was ‘moderate’ Socialist . . . .” See also Koenker 1981 for an account of institutionalized soviets “between the revolutions” in Moscow.
19 Mensheviks then in control of the Petrograd Soviet.
20 Luxemburg’s description in The Mass Strike of newly formed workers’ organizations during the 1917 Russian Revolution.
21 The Dutch were among the earliest and most radical in turning toward the left of the social democracy. Pannekoek, Gorter, and Roland-Holst joined the Social Democratic Workers’ Party (SDAP, the Dutch version of Second International socialism) at the end of the nineteenth century, and fought against the party leadership of Pieter Troesltra during the first decade of the next. In 1907 they formed the left wing of the party and associated around the newspaper De Tribune (hence the name Tribunists). In 1909 they split off as the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The SDP, which would later transform itself into the Communist Party of Holland, was the only instance of a Communist Party being founded from a party preexisting the October Revolution in Russia (see Hansen 1976).
22 This stand was analogous to the revolutionary syndicalists—and this parallel was stressed by Kautsky, who attacked Pannekoek and Luxemburg as supposed anarchists. But this similarity was inevitable: Those oriented politically to the left of social democracy before the war shared the same political space with revolutionary unionism, because the revolutionary character that the social democracy was losing in its political practice seemed to be transferred more and more to the political practice of revolutionary syndicalism. See for example, concerning Pannekoek and the Tribunists, the influence of Domela Nieuwenhuis, the father of Dutch socialism, who later joined the anarcho-syndicalist movement. He questioned the parliamentarianism of the SDAP and became one of the main advocates of the mass strike strategy against the menace of war threatening Europe.
23 Pannekoek didn’t explicitly quote Marx, but we can certainly refer to his famous phrase, “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes” (1871). This is the main teaching of the Paris Commune, as Marx and Engels stated in their 1872 preface to a German revised edition of The Communist Manifesto (1848).
24 I refer to two main aspects of Korsch’s theories, which due to space constraints I am unable to explain in detail here: his conceptualization of the constitution of political forms (see Negt 1973) and his principle of historical specification (see Kellner 1977).
25 Korsch was one of the main theorists of postwar socialization. His interest in the topic had its origins in his relationship with the Fabian Society during his residence in London (1912–1914: see his writings of those years in Korsch 1980) but reached its peak at the end of the war, when he—while still a member of the USPD (Independent German Social Democratic Party)—temporarily served on the commission created after the German November Revolution (1918) to prepare the socialization of German industries. The somewhat artificial tone of his writings of those years is probably a result of the no less “artificial” character of the commission, which Pannekoek (see Bricianer 1975) and others denounced as a move by the social democratic leadership to avoid any real socialization.
26 As Korsch does here, Pannekoek also warned about the similarities between the statizations intended by the Social Democrats (Rathenau, Bauer) in the postwar period and the nationalizations carried out by the bourgeoisie (Neurath, Wissel) during the war. And he pointed out that nationalizations under state control were not socialism; socialism was the power of the proletariat. But since in the ideal world of social democracy socialism and state economy were not far away from each other, the Social Democrats would not entertain any arguments against the state socialism policies, which tended to reduce the proletariat to slavery (in “Wenn der Krieg zu Ende geht,” Vorbote 1, no. 2 [April 2, 1916], quoted in Bricianer 1975). After the war Pannekoek wrote: “Just as the ‘socialist’ government is only the continuation of the old bourgeois domination under the socialist banner, ‘socialization’ is only the continuation of the old bourgeois exploitation under the socialist banner” (1919b).
27 The factory committees that had emerged together with the so-called soviets in February 1917 had lived those experiences of workers’ control. But their institutionalization, after October 1917, with the November decree, marked the beginning of their suppression: first, by subordinating the committees to mainly party-guided trade unions, and then by replacing them with managers appointed by the state without any other procedure (see Brinton 1972).
28 As Gerlach points out correctly in his introduction to Korsch (1974).
29 Korsch travelled to Spain in 1931 with the German anarcho-syndicalist Augustin Souchy (although he was a militant of the CNT-FAI), and his closest collaborator, the Hungarian Paul Partos, who collaborated as of 1933 with the Spanish Revolution, also joining the CNT-FAI (Kellner 1977).
30 About the unitary organization experience (in particular, the Allgemeine Arbeiter Union—Einheitsorganisation led by Rühle) see Barrot and Authier 1978.
31 About Gramsci’s role in this political alignment of the PCI with Moscow, see the short but accurate analysis of Bates 1976.
32 After he broke definitively with the KPD in early 1926, Korsch recognized that the critique of the Bolsheviks by Luxemburg and Liebknecht in 1917–18 and the later critique by the Tribunists Pannekoek and Gorter in 1920–21 had paved the way for his split (Korsch 1930a).
33 See the classical compilation of Holloway and Picciotto 1978 and, for a summary of the debate, see Bonnet 2007.
34 This essay is the result of my research on Richard Müller, one of the leaders of the Revolutionary Stewards, published as Ralf Hoffrogge, Richard Müller—Der Mann hinter der Novemberrevolution, Berlin 2008. Special thanks goes to Tavi Meraud for assisting me with this English translation based on the essay “Räteaktivisten in der USPD—Richard Müller und die Revolutionären Obleute,” in Ulla Plener, ed., Die Novemberrevolution 1918/1919 in Deutschland, Berlin, 2009.
35 The complete history of the Revolutionary Stewards’ movement has yet to be written; neither West nor East German historiography has produced a monograph covering the movement as such. Essays on the topic are rare. For an overview of the available literature see the publications mentioned in footnote 1.
36 The weaker position of women in collective bargaining derived not only from the attitude of the employers, but also from biases of the unionists themselves, who in their majority saw working women as an exception while the male breadwinner was the norm.
37 Translation of this and other quotes from German sources by the author.
38 Unpublished recollections of Paul Blumenthal, Bundesarchiv Berlin (Federal Archives Berlin), SG Y 30/0079, 10.
39 On the origins of the Revolutionary Stewards see also the unpublished recollections of Paul Eckert, Bundesarchiv Berlin (Federal Archives Berlin), DY 30 IV 2/2.01.
40 In 1917 and 1918 the Stewards made connections with other cities and regions; in the DMV sections of Düsseldorf and Braunschweig in particular there were strong subgroups of the organization. See Morgan 1975, 211. Richard Müller himself stated that the Stewards eventually became a nationwide organization.
41 On the strike of January 1918 see Boebel and Wentzel 2008.
42 On the biography of Ernst Däumig see Morgan 1983; see also Naumann 1986.
43 Fritz Opel is correct when he states that the Stewards did not have a political concept of their own for quite a long time and were ideologically dependent on the writings of the Spartacus League and the USPD. Nevertheless they always remained totally independent when planning political actions. See Opel 1957, 55. On the radicalization of the Stewards between 1914 and 1918 see also Hoffrogge 2008, 25–63.
44 On the Executive Council see Materna 1978; on the Council of the People’s Deputies see Miller 1969.
45 Speech by Müller given before the general assembly of the Berlin workers’ and soldiers’ councils on December 23, 1918.
46 When searching for historical predecessors of the German councils of 1918, Dirk H. Müller suggests looking at the political culture at the grass roots of the unionist movement; see Müller 1985.
47 Some of Müller’s and Däumig’s writings on council communism were reprinted in Schneider and Kuda 1968. For an in-depth analysis of their ideas see Hottmann 1980; for council theory see also Hoffrogge 2008, 108–116.
48 The “Spartacist rising” was sparked by the refusal of the Berlin chief of police, Emil Eichhorn, a member of the USPD, to give up his position. In defense of Eichhorn, Berlin workers called a general strike, which evolved into a revolutionary uprising. Unfortunately the uprising was defeated by the military in a matter of days; this was due not only to the army’s brutality but also to a lack of public support. Although the majority of workers supported the general strike, only a minority supported the armed uprising; after the devastation of World War I, violence in political struggles was unpopular, even among the most radical workers.
49 Richard Müller later blamed the shock of the disastrous January uprising for the subsequent failure of the strikes in March 1919. See Müller 1925b, 154.
50 On the fighting in March there is an unpublished eyewitness account by Franz Beiersdorf, Bundesarchiv Berlin (Federal Archives Berlin), DY 30 IV 2/2.01.
51 The protocols of this assembly were published as Protokoll der Verhandlungen des ersten Reichskongresses der Betriebsräte Deutschlands—Abgehalten vom 5.–7. Oktober 1920 zu Berlin, Berlin 1920.
52 For the information I could find about his later career see Hoffrogge 2008, 198–216.
53 The most striking manifestation of this interweaving of the economic and political was the ubiquitous demand for “polite address” (second person plural) from management. The minister of trade and industry, himself an entrepreneur, declared this a political demand (Kleinbort 1923, 11).
54 Like the other measures, this was aimed at preventing managerial abuses and ensuring justice. Of particular concern to workers was the presence of well-to-do elements hiding in factory employment from the draft.
55 Mainly through consumer cooperatives.
56 For a view of the range of the committees’ activities in state enterprises, see Fabrichno-zavodskie komitety Petrograda v 1917g. protokoly, Moscow: Nauka, 1979.
57 This plant had seen thirty-one strikes in 1912–14, for a total of 103,970 lost worker-days. It had 1,200 workers in 1917 (Kruze 1961, 73, 323).
58 It is not clear how this conflict ended.
59 The Putilov factory had been placed under state management in 1915 but remained privately owned, with the stockholders on the board of directors keeping a close watch over its affairs.
60 The full protocols are published in FZK, 4.
61 This does not necessarily mean that the committees were still under the control of their general assemblies, another area of question that requires further research.
62 Quote in chapter title is from Bordiga 1920.
63 The Chamber of Labour (Camera del Lavoro) was (and still is) an umbrella body that brought the different unions together within a specific geographical area.
64 Levy underlines that Gramsci’s emphasis was not only on geographical ward committees but also on industrial organizations (Levy 1999, 144–145).
65 A motion in favor of the factory councils was approved at the first congress of the UAI, a national federation of anarchist groups established in Bologna in July 1920. The USI was founded in 1912 by the revolutionary wing of the Socialist trade union movement. After the war, the anarchists and direct action syndicalists were the dominant force of the USI, led by the anarchist Armando Borghi.
66 The Socialists and the trade unions opposed the introduction of daylight savings time, considered a return to wartime practices.
67 Please note that “libertarian” and “anarcho-syndicalist” are used interchangeably in this chapter, as both were terms used to describe the nature of the revolutionary committees.
68 On the revolution and civil war see Broué and Témine 2008; Bolloten 1991; for an outline of the main historiographical debates and further reading, Durgan 2007.
69 The Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista was founded in September 1935 on the basis of the BOC and the Trotskyists. The new party opposed the Popular Front as “class collaboration” but decided to sign the electoral pact once it had failed to persuade the other workers’ organizations to set up a “Workers’ Front”; see Durgan 2006, 35–38.
70 The only complete study of the revolutionary committees concerns Catalonia; see Pozo 2002.
71 The Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya was founded in July 1936 by the Catalan Communist Party, the Catalan Federation of the PSOE; the Social Democratic Unió Socialista de Catalunya, and the left Nationalist Partit Català Proletari.
72 The CCMA was made up of three representatives each from the ERC, CNT, and UGT, two from the FAI, and one each from the PSUC, POUM, Acció Catalana Republicana, and the Unio de Rabassaires.
73 By the end of October the control patrols were made up of 931 militants, around 400 from the CNT (Guillamón 2007, 89).
74 The Consejo Levantino Unificado de la Exportación Agrícola was set up by the CNT and UGT in September 1936 and eventually had 270 branches and 1,500 warehouses. It managed to export 750,000 tons of oranges—a figure unmatched until 1951.
75 Refers to those parties that continued to support the liberal democratic program of the Popular Front: (moderate) Socialists, Communists, and Republicans (liberals).
76 The Generalitat Council was made up of three representatives each from the ERC and the CNT/FAI, and one each from the UGT, PSUC, POUM, ACR, and the Unió de Rabassaires, plus a military adviser.
77 In theory the new councils had the same proportional representation as the Generalitat Council; see note 10.
78 The clearest example of this was the establishment in October 1936 of the small business and traders’ association, the Federació Catalalan de Gremis i Entitats de Petits Comerciants i Industrials (GEPCI), which became part of the UGT.
79 Benaventura Durruti had been one of the most prominent anarchist military leaders and prewar advocates of direct action.
80 The six republics comprising post–World War II Yugoslavia were Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. In addition to the six main nationalities, the federation also recognized a number of national minorities. In 1974, Vojvodina and Kosovo were granted the status of autonomous provinces inside Serbia.
81 The economic profile of the country was as heterogeneous as its demographics. By the 1980s the per capita income of Kosovo was only 72 percent of that of Slovenia, with similar regional disparities in the levels of unemployment.
82 During the World War II Nazi occupation of Yugoslavia, the resistance movement, organized by the Communist Party, emerged as the strongest antifascist force on the ground by skilfully combining popular appeal for national liberation with calls for social reform. As the only political and military faction that effectively crossed ethnic lines within the population, the Communist guerrillas, popularly known as the Partisans, had by the end of the war evolved into a conventional army, with eight hundred thousand men and women under arms.
83 Milovan Đilas was a member of the Politburo and the minister of propaganda. In the mid-1950s Đilas turned into a dissident and started to develop the critique of what he saw as the “new class” inside Yugoslavia, comprised of the Titoist leadership.
84 The establishment of the so-called Proletarian Brigades as the shock troops during the war was severely criticized by Stalin at the time, as Moscow was careful not to scare away the Allies with the overtly revolutionary character of the Communist organized resistance.
85 A journal launched in 1964, Praxis was the focal point for critically inclined left-wing scholars who sought to advance New Left politics internationally. Among other activities, Praxis organized summer schools on the Adriatic island of Korčula, bringing the leading Marxist intellectuals of the time to Yugoslavia, and initiated translations of their works.
86 Industrial strike actions by workers were becoming commonplace during the 1960s, despite being labeled as an absurdity within a self-managed economy and denied legal status. Increasingly tolerated by the authorities, more than two thousand strikes were recorded between 1958 and 1969.
87 This was the official name from 1952–1989.
88 Named for Alexey Stakhanov, a Soviet coal miner in the Donets Basin whose team in 1935 increased its daily output sevenfold, Stakhanovism was officially aimed at increasing industrial production by the use of more efficient division of labor and working techniques. In actuality it was aimed at drastically speeding up and intensifying human effort, analogous to demands placed on workers in capitalist enterprises. Stakhanovism resulted in low-quality products and disorganized production processes and was massively resisted by workers as a means of brutal overexploitation. Its use lapsed gradually after Stalin’s death.
89 It is only with caution that we can regard the newly proclaimed republic as a normal state with a fully functioning administration. Within the government, elites and politicians were competing for ideological influence, thus the image of the strong state as a leviathan was hardly apparent in daily life.
90 Anderson (1972, 213) notes that Iwa Kusumasumantri not only unofficially promoted BBI’s demands but also “officially recognized the BBI as the sole representative of federated labor on Java.”
91 Unlike their counterparts in Java’s plantation areas, who were active in taking over plantation estates, plantation workers in North Sumatra did not undertake such actions as “they were unlikely candidates for revolutionary militancy” because of the “little room for labor activism on the estates and little opportunity for contact with the nationalist underground outside their borders” (Stoler 1983, 163).
92 Since the Dutch colonial period, in early 1900s, the railway system in Java—similar to Java’s administrative matters—has been divided into three “exploration areas”: West, Central, and East. Each was administered by one office in the respective area. They were coordinated and supervised under the Balai Besar (Central Office) located in Bandung, West Java. In the end of March 1946, the central office was moved to Cisurupan (in the West Java area). For a year, until May 1947, it was moved again to Gombong and Kebumen (in Central Java). Later, after the first Dutch military attack in July 1947, it was moved to Yogyakarta.
93 I found no document describing an account of discontent among the workers under their council of leaders, or how power within the council of leaders could be checked and revoked in the case of abuse of power. Such discontent might have occurred; however, there was a general understanding that the workers accepted that the elected council would be the decision-making body in the railway operation, and the council seems to have performed its responsibilities well.
94 There are records as to how the railway workers had to deal with a lack of equipment and the operation of old trains with inefficient engines. Due to a lack of coal, workers had to collect at least twenty-five thousand tons of teakwood daily to keep the track running. It was a common situation railway workers faced daily, even until late 1947. See AMK 1947.
95 After the government had successfully taken over some of the major factories and plantations held previously under workers’ control (around March 1946), the issue of salary became a serious concern among the workers, who were considered civil servants. In May 1946 the government drafted a salary composition for civil servants, which soon caused deep resentment in the labor movement as it favored the higher-ranking workers (the officials). Unions filed protests and negotiations lasted for two years. With some revisions, the government finally drafted a new salary composition for civil servants in 1948.
96 Soemardjan (1957, 196) notes that workers’ control “prevailed in almost every foreign-owned factory in the province.”
97 Kahin (1952, 172) mentioned three sources of support for Tan Malaka: his personal charisma as a leader with outstanding vision, some political and military leaders who were discontented with Sjahrir’s policies, and the “surging tide of nationalism which made it difficult for many people to countenance any negotiations whatsoever with the Dutch.” For Tan Malaka and his organization, Persatuan Perdjuangan, see: Anderson 1972, ch. 12, 269–295. For the life of Tan Malaka, see Mrázek 1972.
98 See Wolf (1948, 43–44) for an analysis of this agreement.
99 Reid (1974, 125) notes that “Abdulmadjid and his colleagues had brought (the term) from Holland.”
100 NEFIS Publicatie no. 11, dated June 27, 1946 (061300), notes that “the whole trend of regime policy is to make unions corporatively orged [sic] than syndicalist.” This document was kindly provided by Professor Benedict Anderson.
101 Many Socialist leaders were setting up “labor courses” in their attempt to educate the masses on Marxist-Socialist ideas. These trainings later on led to the establishment of the “Marx House” in Madiun.
102 For figures on the economic situation pertaining at this time, see Ruedy 2005, 195; Bennoune 1988, 89–90; Amin 1970, 129–134; Stora 2001, 124.
103 For more on class formation in colonial Algeria, see Lazreg 1976; Bennoune 1975.
104 On the early national movement, see Ruedy 2005, 131–133.
105 For a good account of this period, see Blair 1970, 54–61.
106 For a discussion of “socialist management,” see Branine 1994. For more on the development of state capitalism in Algeria, see Farsoun 1975.
107 For an excellent account of class struggle in postindependence Algeria, see Bennoune 1976.
108 Clegg (1971) also discusses this notion of a “new class” (185–186). See also the discussion in Tlemcani and Hansen 1989.
109 See also Pfeifer’s claim for the “relative autonomy” of the Algerian state (1985).
110 The Revolutionary Tendency consolidated Perónist groups that identified with socialist transformation, such as armed organizations (Montoneros and Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias), militant youth groups in universities ( Juventud Universitaria Perónista), secondary schools (Union de Estudiantes Secundarios), trade unions ( Juventud Trabajadora Perónista), and organizations from poor neighborhoods (Movimiento Villero Perónista).
111 Popular uprising in Mendoza on April 4, 1972, provoked by ongoing police repression against labor unions and demonstrators, which culminated in the killing of protesters by the police. In the ensuing days, the protests spread throughout the city and turned into a rebellion, marking a break with the prevailing social order despite police use of live ammunition and lethal violence against the workers’ insurrection.
112 One of the biggest mass demonstration in those years, motivated by the return of Perón to Argentina; the different political factions of Peronism clashed violently with each other.
113 Another characteristic of the movement in Mendoza, comparable only to that of Rosario, was that in contrast to the rest of the country, two-thirds of the occupations were accomplished by students (Bonavena and Nievas 1999, 1).
114 “New Left” stands for a heterogeneous variety of political, social, and cultural groups that expressed their rejection of the dominant order in different ways. They shared a common language and the horizon of social change, and were perceived as being part of a whole despite their differences (Tortti 1999, 207).
115 The following presents the results of doctoral research based on contemporary newspaper sources and oral interviews (Scodeller 2009).
116 The analysis of this kind of takeover will be deepened by looking at two cases: that of the Provincial Transport Company (EPTM) and the Infrastructure and Water Services Dependency (DOSS).
117 The CGT had given Martínez Baca, even before he assumed government office, a list of persons who should not be assigned to government positions because of their ideological inclinations. Both the governor and the CGT general-secretary Fiorentini received support.
118 Participants do not recall precisely the duration of the takeover, nor were published newspaper accounts or other news sources found that documented the exact time frame of the events.
119 The bill, “Proposal creating the Department of Infrastructure and Water Services as an autonomous body” was introduced by the left-wing Perónist deputy Rubén R. Lilloy in Mendoza, October 10, 1973.
120 In his analysis of the nationwide takeovers, Nun pointed out the close relationship between the struggle for union democracy and the demands for workers’ control (1973, 223–232).
121 I worked in Portugal as a political organizer for nine months in 1975–76 and returned a number of times to do further research and, in particular, to interview activists. Details of the interviews can be found in my M Phil thesis, “Workers’ Councils in Portugal in 1974–75”; this study draws heavily upon interviews, so in those instances all I have cited here is the interviewee’s name and date.
122 The Centro de Documentação 25 de Abril, which is part of the University of Coimbra, has collected many important documents and bibliographical materials from this period. It has published an annotated bibliography; see Chilcote 1987. Academics attached to the Gabinete de Investigações Sociais have written extensively on the workplace struggles and a number of case studies can be found in their journal, Análise Social. Volume 1 of O 25 de Abril e as lutas sociais nas empresas (Santos et al. 1976) provides a useful overview of the workplace struggles.
123 By contrast with the Communist Party, the Socialist Party had conspicuously supported the strike and stressed the democratic (i.e., non-PCP) nature of the strike organization. By doing so it enhanced its reputation as “democratic” and “left wing”—which proved important later.
124 Contending forces offered two models for building a socialist society: centralism and popular power. The centralized model, supported by the PCP, argued for a socialist transformation from above and for abolishing private ownership, thereby ending exploitation. The popular power (“People Power”) model, which the MFA helped to articulate much more clearly in the early summer of 1975, rejected this notion of socialism “from above,” insisting on direct participation by all.
125 A slight note of caution. Many of the takeovers were driven by necessity, the owners and landlords having abandoned the enterprises. In general the workplaces under workers’ control were the smaller enterprises, and not necessarily those of the most militant workers.
126 See also McGill 1972; Foster and Woolfson 1986.
127 This figure for the number of occupations in Britain in the decade following the UCS work-in was taken from an examination of newspaper reports covering the period. Searches were carried out among UK daily papers that gave coverage of industrial relations, principally the Financial Times, the Times (London), the Guardian, and some weekly and monthly publications such as Socialist Worker and Labour Research. For some specific occupations local newspapers were also searched, such as Manchester Evening News for the engineering disputes and the Hull Daily Mail and the Leicester Mercury for Imperial Typewriters. Cross-referencing of these results was conducted against a number of studies covering shorter periods carried out by the TUSIU (1976), by Metra Consulting (1972), and Hemingway and Keyser (1975). See Tuckman 1985 for details.
128 Comment from author interview with EEF regional secretary in April 1976.
129 The plan was principally authored by Tony Topham of the IWC, who was also a local university tutor in trade union studies. Topham worked with the Hull TGWU during the Imperial Typewriters occupation. The plan was published as a pamphlet by the IWC (1975).
130 I am grateful to Tony Benn for a taped copy of his address and discussion at the Hull Imperial workers lobby at the House of Commons, February 18, 1975.
131 Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro (General Italian Confederation of Labor).
132 Confederazione Italiana dei Sindacati Lavoratori (Italian Confederation of Workers Trade Unions).
133 Unione Italiana di Lavoro (Italian Union of Labor).
134 Italy experienced a “Long 1968,” as levels of social mobilization and conflict remained significantly high until 1980, compared to France, West Germany, and the United States, which saw perhaps more intense but briefer periods of political antagonism during and immediately after 1968.
135 Quaderni Rossi (QR) began publication in 1959 in Turin and was edited by Raniero Panzieri, a senior member of the Socialist Party and by 1960 an Einaudi editor, and Romano Alquati, a Marxist academic, with notable contributors such as Asor Rosa (later the PCI’s main critic of the ’77 Movement), Sergio Bologna, Mario Tronti, Vittorio Foa, Vittorio Reiser, and Goffredo Fofi from Milan and Rome and Toni Negri from Padua. However, Negri, Bologna, Tronti, and Alquati advocated a more direct intervention in factory struggles, splitting from QR in 1964 after the Piazza Statuto Fiat workers’ uprising of 1962 in Turin (which they supported) led to major differences with Panzieri (who condemned Piazza Statuto) to found Classe Operaia, Contropiano, and finally La Classe. QR continued publication until 1966, having produced six issues, now considered to be classics of both neo-Marxist theory and industrial sociology.
136 Partito Comunista Italiana: 1921–1991, center-left Eurocommunist party whose electoral support peaked in 1984 at 34 percent (more than the DC for the only time), but then declined to its present 20–25 percent. It reconstituted itself for the third time in 2007 as the postcommunist Partito Democratico, having previously been the Partito Democratico di Sinistra (1991–1998) and then the Democratici di Sinistra, each time moving further to the right until reaching its present centrist position. As the largest party after the 1996 elections, it formed the first center-left coalition in Italian history, L’Ulivo (olive), which lasted until 2001, and was in power again under the premiership of Romano Prodi (ex-DC) in 2006–2008.
137 Democrazia Cristiana: populist center-right party that maintained its postwar political dominance until the Mani Pulite (clean hands) corruption crisis of 1993–1994, after which it became the Partito Popolare and quickly lost electoral support to Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia (rebranded as Il Popolo della Libertà in 2009).
138 In agreement with Lumley (1989), I prefer the term operaist to workerist, as it avoids the stigmatization related to British workerism, a movement entirely different from and much less radical than Italian workerism (operaismo).
139 An operaist concept describing the new class composition in the factories of Northern Italy from the mid-1950s, made up principally of young, unskilled, and semi-skilled migrant assembly line workers from Southern Italy who did not identify with the unions and the PCI and became the backbone of the autonomous workers’ struggles of the Hot Autumn of 1969. They contrasted with a previous generation of skilled craft workers (operaio artigiano) who were mainly Northern Italian and were the mainstay of the trade unions and the PCI.
140 A category first used by Karl Marx in Grundrisse in 1858, this further development of the concept of the “mass worker” by Negri (1979; Pozzi and Tommasini 1979) was an attempt to theorize the new class composition of the “diffused factory”; the product of the new social movements, industrial restructuring, “marginalization,” and the “refusal of work become movement.” It remains a more controversial and less well-defined social figure than the “mass worker.”
141 Lavoro nero: the post-Fordist sector of precarious, short-term, low-paid, deregulated, and illegal sweatshop labor now performed by the extra-communitari (non-EU) immigrants.
142 See the final chapter of Nanni Balestrini’s Vogliamo Tutto (1971/2004) for a moving description.
143 PSI is the acronym for the Italian Socialist Party.
144 LC, AO, PdUP, and Il Manifesto each had their own daily newspaper in the early 1970s. Only Il Manifesto still continues, with a daily circulation of about twenty-five thousand.
145 A sliding-scale system that was supposed to protect wages against inflation through automatic annual pay rises. It was considered one of the main gains made by the post-1968 workers’ movement but was gradually dismantled, with the acquiescence of the CGIL-CISL-UIL, under the austerity policies of the late 1970s. Seen by neoliberal economists as a principal cause of inflation, it was abolished by a decree of the Craxi government in 1984, a decision ratified by a referendum in 1985. Its abolition represented a major defeat for the workers’ movement and deepened the PCI’s internal crisis.
146 A revolutionary wave of strikes, occupations, and the establishment of workers’ and peasants’ councils on the soviet model, in which Gramsci and Bordiga played prominent roles, similar to workers’ uprisings in Germany, Hungary, and elsewhere following the First World War. It led to the constitution of the PCI in 1921 as a split from the PSI. However, its defeat opened the way for the Fascist counterrevolution in 1922.
147 All translations from Italian to English are by the author, unless otherwise stated.
148 Nickname of the Rome autonomists, taken from Via Volsci, in the historic working-class quarter of San Lorenzo, where their headquarters and Radio Onda Rossa, their transmitter, were situated.
149 A small but influential New Left group, thanks to the importance of its intellectuals including Romano Madera and the later internationally renowned sociologist Giovanni Arrighi, which contributed its journal, Rosso—giornale dentro il movimento, to Milanese and Northern Autonomia when it merged with PO in 1973 to form Autonomia Operaia Organizzata (Organized Workers’ Autonomy) in Milan.
150 Ente Nazionale per l’Energia Elettrica (National Firm for Electrical Energy), the main supplier of electricity at that time.
151 “The 1977 Movement was . . . a new and interesting movement because, firstly, it did not really have roots in previous movements.... It clearly had another social basis, different from both 1968 and 1973. It had a social composition based on youth who had broken with or rejected the political elites, including the elites of 1968, including therefore the groups of Lotta Continua or even of Autonomia. . . . So, it broke not only with the traditional communist movement, but also with 1968. It broke exactly with the vision of communism, while, at the end of the day, the workerists also thought of themselves as being the ‘true communists.’ The ’77 Movement absolutely did not want to be ‘truly communist’” (Cuninghame 2001, 96).
152 Pietro Calogero, a judge linked to the PCI, arrested and charged Toni Negri and other intellectuals associated with Autonomia with terrorism and attempted subversion of the state on April 7, 1979. His theory was that Autonomia Operaia Organizzata (the Milanese branch of the autonomist movement) was the “brains” behind the Red Brigades, that the two organizations were one and the same, and that Negri and others in Autonomia were the “intellectual authors” of the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, the former DC prime minister, in 1978. The accused proved that this theory was unfounded and an excuse for a witch hunt against the extraparliamentary left and, in particular, against Autonomia. After some initial ambivalence in the early 1970s, Autonomia generally denounced the Red Brigades as an anachronistic and counterproductive throwback to the Partisans of World War II.
153 Public buildings, such as disused schools or factories, often squatted (and sometimes conceded by the local government), taken over by groups of autonomists or anarchists (also by non-European immigrants and even football fans) to use as meeting plases and centers of cultural, social, and political activities, given the lack of provision of such facilities by local government. A social phenomenon that has since spread throughout Europe, North Africa, Japan, South Korea, and Argentina, it mushroomed in Italy in the 1990s, resulting in more than one hundred centri sociali occupati/autogestiti (squatted/self-managed social centers) throughout the major cities and towns.
154 This revised article is reprinted with permission of the publisher from Workers, Capital, and the State in British Columbia: Selected Papers, edited by Rennie Warburton and David Coburn © University of British Columbia Press, 1988. All rights reserved by the publisher.
155 If the arbitrator decided to suspend or dismiss the employee(s), the union would have to reimburse the company for the employees’ wages.
156 Hope’s award only applied to twenty-three members. One of the fired employees, Mort Johnson, had brought a libel suit against BC Telephone when he was fired on charges of destroying company property. The company later apologized, explaining that it was a case of mistaken identity. On receipt of a written apology Johnson dropped the suit against the company.
157 Note that 1 crore is equal to 10 million rupees. In 1989, the exchange rate was 16 Indian rupees to 1 U.S. dollar. As such, in 1989, 1 crore rupees was equivalent to US$625,000.
158 The DA, comparable to a cost-of-living increase, is calculated on the basis of the cost-of-living index and added to the base salary.
159 Shankar Guha Niyogi, a social philosopher and trade unionist, led a radical union of workers in Chattisgarh and was murdered in the early 1990s.
160 I have benefited from discussions with Debdas Banerjee in writing this article. Mausumi Bhattacharyya drew my attention to some materials unknown to me. The responsibility for the judgments expressed is, of course, mine.
161 In the Argentinazo, December 19–20, 2001, an alliance of class fractions challenged the state and, through popular demonstrations and direct actions overthrew president Fernando de la Rúa, who intended to implement a neoliberal economic adjustment plan sponsored by multilateral lending agencies.
162 For further information see Pascucci 2009 and Kabat 2009. 3 The piquetero movement is comprised of workers who became unemployed and lived in poverty during the Argentian economic crisis and social turmoil that emerged in the 1990s and continue into the second decade of the twenty-first century. Piquetero activists have demanded food, health care, and social services and have developed a culture of popular struggle.
163 Fazon work refers to on-demand work for a customer who provides the raw materials and pays only for the labor.
164 All interviews quoted, except when mentioned to the contrary, come from the Oral Archive in the CEICS, Center of Study and Research in Social Sciences (Centro de Estudios en Ciencias Sociales,
www.ceics.org.ar.) The interviews as well as the observations on which this chapter is based were conducted by researchers of the Labor Process Research Group from the CEICS, directed by Marina Kabat. Other scholars that participated in this group are Silvina Pascucci, Nicolas Villanova, and Florencia Moreno.
165 We use the definition of Marx, who distinguishes “productive process” from “labor process.” The former refers to all the technical stages in the production of a good, while “labor process” describes all the instances in which workers add value to the product. Thus the latter concept is much more focused on workers’ activities. See Marx 1990.
168 In 2008, the organizational name was changed to the Ministry of Communal Economy (Minec), and in 2009 to the Ministry of Communes (Milco).
169 The total number varies among different sources between 762 (Melcher 2008), 800 (Díaz 2006, 151), and 877 (Piñeiro 2007). Sunacoop director Juan Carlos Baute estimated in a personal interview a total of 800–900 cooperatives for the year 1998.
170 These formations are in contrast to indirect social property, for example, strategic national industries that are managed by the state.
171 The “socialist factories” included the following plants: eighty-eight food processing; twelve chemical; forty-eight machine tools; eight electronics and computer/cell phones; ten plastic, tires, and glass; eight transport facilities; four construction; and three recycling industries. Most were built with the contribution of machines and expertise from Argentina, China, Iran, Russia, and Belarus (Azzellini 2009, 188).
172 Community-controlled reseller network for liquid gas.
173 The Class Unity Revolutionary and Autonomous Current (C-CURA) was one of the biggest and most active currents in the UNT. It had a Trotskyist background. It split in 2007; the minority kept the name C-CURA and took stands against joining the PSUV and the constitutional reform, and the majority organized as Marea Socialista (Socialist Tide), joined the PSUV, and stated critical support for the government.
174 There have also been some exceptions. The best-known is the struggle of the steelworkers of Sidor (Siderúrgica de Orinoco) in 2007–2008 to achieve nationalization of the plant. Despite the negative attitude of the Bolivarian governor of the region the movement had strong local support and mobilized until Chávez ordered the nationalization of the company.
175 One spokesperson for ten workers.
176 For further information about the transformation efforts at Alcasa under Carlos Lanz see Azzellini and Ressler 2006.
177 One should not forget that before the arrival of Columbus, extremely complex societies existed in Latin America that could also be considered “self-managed.” These societies influenced Marx and Engels’s thoughts about communism. For some post-Columbian examples, see Péret 1999 and Lugon 1949.
178 The solidarity economy in Latin America, in spite of some connections to “third sector” theories and practices, is more politicized than in Europe. Cruz (2006) defines the solidarity economy as “the set of economic associative initiatives that a) labour, b) the property of means of operation (production, consumption, credit, etc.), c) the economic results, d) knowledge about their operation, e) the power to decide on matters relating to it are shared by all those who participate directly, looking for relations of equality and solidarity among its participants” (69).
179 Quantitatively speaking, the mapping of the solidarity economical companies by SENAES together with the Solidarity Economy Brazilian Forum found about one hundred fifty recovered companies out of the twenty-two thousand companies registered (SENAES 2005). To access the mapping data, visit Portal do Trabalho e Emprego,
www.mte.gov.br/ecosolidaria/sies.asp.
180 SIES data is not very accurate regarding the RFs. It is known, though, that only forty-one enterprises are supported by representative bodies, sixteen by ANTEAG and twenty-five by UNISOL. The numbers cited in this chapter reflect a reduction made in response to the data collected about the main reason for the enterprise’s creation.
181 During the period of enslavement, masters lived at the mansions and enslaved people lived in shanties.
182 For a more in-depth view of sugarcane in the northeast of Brazil, we suggest the works of José Lins do Rego. Rego was a novelist of Brazil’s Northeastern school, best known for his five-volume Sugar Cane Cycle. His books have been translated into multiple languages. See, for example, Plantation Boy (Menino de engeho, 1932).
183 After numerous legal battles, the workers “received” the twenty-six thousand hectares of land, but the sugar mill itself was not included and remained in bankruptcy.
184 Under the mill’s former owner, at workers’ “cooperatives” or sheds—essentially small grocery stores—workers were practically obliged to buy products that were overpriced and of bad quality. This arrangement is similar to the “truck system.” To learn more about what “cooperative” means to mill workers, see Julião (1962 and 1972).
185 Despite the fact that the entities representing the RFs have written chapters, organized books, and more, showing us their social projects, it is inaccurate to state that there is an anticapitalist theory to them. Even so, the differences between ANTEAG and UNISOL must be recognized. ANTEAG is older (1994), has a smaller structure, and organizes about sixteen RFs. UNISOL is newer, belongs to CUT—Brazil’s largest union—and organizes about twenty-five RFs and some popular cooperatives created in the 2000s. To learn more about the differences between ANTEAG and UNISOL see Cruz 2006.
186 Alienation is understood as the loss of control over the products of one’s labor, over the working process, over oneself and over human civilization (Marx 1982; Mészáros 2002; Antunes 2005).