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Home , Herman Gorter, Paul Mattick

Council

Christopher Huxley

D.A. Smart, ed., Pannekoek and Garter's (London: Pluto Press 1978). , Anti-Bolshevik Communism (London: Merlin Press 1978). Ralph Miliband, Marxism and Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1977).

ALTHOUGH THESE THREE VOLUMES offer quite different contributions written over a period of more than 60 years, the authors share an interest in controver­ sies that continue to be at the heart of Marxist politics. Topics covered include the role of trade unions in capitalist society, the nature of revolutionary organi­ zation, the relationship of political parties to the working class, and a critical assessment of Marxist revolutionary movements. A common theme running through all three books is the recognition that a Marxist theory of politics needs to take into account those spontaneous expres­ sions of working-class power that have arisen in every significant revolutionary upheaval in the twentieth century. The classic model of popular organization for action and control was the appearance of Soviets during the 1905 . The Soviets represented a sudden and unexpected innovation which owed little or nothing to Marxist theory and practice. Since that time similar manifestations of workers' self-activity have repeatedly arisen, either parallel with, or counterposed to, the power exercised by established organizations claiming to represent the interests of the working class. D.A. Smart's book contains a selection of essays by Anton Pannekoek and , two leaders of the council communist current that once occu­ pied a prominent place in the European revolutionary movement. Following a short-lived but eventful period between the end of World War I and the early 1920s, the ideas of these two thinkers largely disappeared from the political scene. For a long time what little awareness there was of Pannekoek was likely

Christopher Huxley. "," Labourite Travailleur. 12 (Fall 1983). 216-222.

216 COUNCIL COMMUNISM 217 to be derived from two mentions given By the time the two activists were able to him by Lenin, the one favourable in State return to Germany at the end of the war and Revolution, the other the relentless the process of communist regroupment, criticisms in 'Left-Wing' Communism, An stimulated by the success of the Bol­ Infantile Disorder. The revival of interest sheviks in Russia in 1917, had begun to in the ideas of the council communists take clearer organizational form. Panne­ that has occurred since the koek and Gorter soon found themselves should ensure that continuing attention in sharp disagreement with the line and will be given to these writings, translated major actions of German Communist into English for the first lime. In addition Party, the KPD(S), formed at the beginning lo his translations, the editor provides an of 1919. They shared the views held by a introduction which helps place the politi­ clear majority of the membership who cal ideas within their historical context, opposed the leadership's policies for a Pannekoek began his political activity centralized party which would campaign at the turn of the century in the Dutch in parliament, in the trade unions, and in social-democratic party. There he met the institutionalized factory councils. For Gorter, some ten years his senior, who at its part the ruling faction of the party was the lime was co-editor of the party's able to claim the support of Lenin and the theoretical journal. In 1906 Pannekoek Russian leadership. In 1920 the left com­ left his astronomical research at the Uni­ munists declared themselves a separate versity of Leyden and moved to Germany. organization, the Communist Workers' The first text in Smart's collection is a Party of Germany (KAPD), with the objec­ critique that Pannekoek wrote of Karl tive of affiliating with the Third Interna­ Kautsky in 1912. Pannekoek argued that tional and winning support for their poli­ the growing numerical and sociological tics. The KAPD was intended to comple­ weight of the working class was produc­ ment the General Worker's Union of Ger­ ing important new forms of spontaneous many (AAUD), a loosely structured federa­ mass action which pointed to the need to tion of factory organizations formed to re-think the traditional tactics of trade- provide the basis for a system of revolu­ union and electoral struggle. The article tionary worker's councils. Larger than the revealed a major disagreement with KPD(S), the KAPD numbered up to 40,000 Kautsky on the conquest of power, with and had Gorter as its theoretical spokes­ Pannekoek insisting on the necessity to man. neutralize the institutions of the capitalist Separate contributions by Pannekoek state. and Gorter, written in 1920 and 1921 The abandonment of the anti-war posi­ respectively, examined the reasons for the tion by the German Social-Democratic failure of the German working class to Party (SPD) in 1914 confirmed Pannekoek seize power following military defeat and and Gorter's worst fears about the politics the collapse of the old regime. Both of the leading party of the Second Interna­ authors explained that the spontaneous tional. An extract from Gorter's work establishment of a system of workers' Imperialism, the World War and Social councils proved to be much less radical in Democracy analyzes this defeat for work­ Germany than in Russia due to the ers' internationalism and points to the counter-revolutionary role played by need to break with reformist tendencies and the trade-union within the workers' movement. movement. During the war Pannekoek was Pannekoek and Gorter's analysis of deported back to Holland where he col­ the different conditions prevailing in laborated with Gorter in the Left Radical Western Europe and Russia formed an opposition to the leadership of the SPD. important basis for their famous disagree- 218 LABOUR/LE TRAVAILLEUR

ment with Lenin. In contrast to the atten­ KAPD came to an end when it rejected an tion given Lenin's criticisms, the posi­ ultimatum to merge with the organization tions actually advanced by the left com­ that went on to become the Communist munists usually escape careful scrutiny. Party of Germany (KPD). For the next two In " and Communist years the KAPD and the AAUD declined, Tactics," Pannekoek explained why he with splits developing in both organiza­ thought revolutionaries should avoid par­ tions over whether to participate in strug­ ticipation in established unions and parlia­ gles for improved wages and other mentary institutions. Such forms of reforms. By the end of 1923 the move­ organization and struggle, he argued, ment was of little political importance. might have been appropriate during the Gorier persisted in various attempts to ascendant phase of capitalist development regroup the council communists up to his in which the emerging working class was death in 1927. Pannekoek turned to his able to wring certain concessions, but was intellectual work which he continued until quite unsuited to a period of world war shortly before he died in 1960. and economic collapse in which the pro­ Despite agreement on most political letariat, through its new forms of organi­ questions, marked differences of style zation, discovered its revolutionary poten­ characterize the work of Pannekoek and tial. But even under these circumstances, Gorier. The impassioned declarations of Pannekoek had no illusions that the over­ Gorter, expressed in almost verse-like throw of capitalism would be either spon­ form, are a reminder of his reputation as a taneous or easy. Nowhere was this more lyric poet and stand in sharp contrast to (rue, he argued, than in Western Europe the writings of Pannekoek, whose scien­ where, unlike in Russia, the working class tific background and sense of history had to be prepared to make the revolution combined to produce a more analytical alone, without relying on middle-class approach to political problems. Through leaders to forge alliances with other social the contributions of both authors the classes. The importance of factory-based reader gains a good appreciation of the organizations and workers' councils was main ideas of the council communists and understood in terms of their genuinely of their differences with both Second and proletarian and democratic character and Third Internationals. North American hence their potential to transform the con­ readers might also be interested in Pan­ sciousness of millions of workers. nekoek and Gorter's critique of anarcho- , as articulated in the revolu­ Also of interest is Pannekoek's short tionary unionism of the Industrial Work­ afterword to the above article in which he ers of the World (IWW). Their basic objec­ replied to Lenin's attack on the left com­ tion concerned the IWW's failure to take munists. Rather than attempt to answer sufficient account of such crucial institu­ Lenin's arguments for taking advantage of tional forces as the capitalist state, as well union and parliamentary activity as a way as the important spheres of and of making contact with less conscious culture. Flowing out of this criticism, workers, Pannekoek tersely dismissed Pannekoek and Gorter stressed the need such tactics as an opportunistic capitula­ for a revolutionary party based on histori­ tion to the narrow needs of the new Rus­ cal materialism, whose members under­ sian state. stood the need to change more than just The period after 1921 was not favour­ the ownership and organization of produc­ able to the politics of Pannekoek and Gor- tion. The goal of communism required an ter. There was little support for the left internationalist perspective that could not communists at the Third Congress of the leave any sphere of political or intellectual Comintern and the affiliation of the life untouched; least of all did Pannekoek COUNCIL COMMUNISM 219

and Goiter want to abandon these matters discredited pro-war and anti-strike to a bourgeois intelligentsia. social-democratic leadership of the estab­ Paul Mattick, the author of the second lished trade unions. When this clandestine book, joined the youth section of the Ger­ activity subsequently expanded to involve man Spartacus League at the height of the the establishment of a widespread system revolutionary developments in 1918. of workers' and soldiers' councils, for a Anti-Bolshevik Communism is a collec­ time effectively replacing the government, tion of a dozen of his political essays and the SPD, other reformist political currents reviews written between 1935 and 1967. and workers remaining loyal to the tradi­ As the title suggests, the book offers a tional trade unions found themselves with sustained critique of the theory and prac­ little choice but to recognize, enter, and tice of . For Mattick there is actively participate in the councils. This an essential continuity in the work of had the effect of blunting their radical Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. potential so that any call for the councils Although no special justification to take power lost all revolutionary con­ would seem to be needed for publishing tent. The prevailing social democratic this collection, especially since it contains ideology that the socialization of produc­ some relatively inaccessible writings, the tion was a governmental concern also dis­ one advanced by the author in his intro­ suaded workers from attempting to use the duction is the need to inform a whole new councils to take over the means of produc­ generation of the radical left about the tra­ tion. dition of the council communists. This is A modified version of the workers' especially important in Mattick's view councils was eventually institutionalized since he sees this non-authoritarian Marx­ as part of the Weimar Constitution. Even ist tradition being all but eclipsed by the today the memory of the original councils competing claimants to the legacy of has not entirely been erased, finding Lenin, whether in the garb of , expression in the semi-incorporated struc­ Stalinism, Maoism, or some New Left tures of contemporary West German variant of anti-imperialism. industrial relations. But what was the fate The major concern of the first group of of the council communists? Mattick essays by Mattick is to analyze the recalls how the almost unbearable tension strengths and weaknesses of the post- between theory and the prevailing condi­ World War I European revolutionary tions in the 1920s gave rise to feelings of movement. Different essays focus on the discouragement and eventually despair as political thought of Kautsky, Lenin, the small groupings of council commu­ Luxemburg, and Trotsky, as well as on nists were reduced to no more than "dis­ the lesser-known contributions of Otto cussion clubs trying to understand their Riihle and . The assessment own failures and that of the German revo­ presented of the failure of the German rev­ lution." (108) olution is somber. "In retrospect," Mat- Yet despite their lack of success, Mat- tick writes, "the struggles of the German tick maintains that up to the triumph of from 1919 to 1923 appear as German fascism, "The fight of the 'ultra- minor frictions that accompanied the left' against the official labour movement capitalistic re-organization process whiah proved to have been the only consistent followed the war crisis." (95) struggle against capitalism that had thus Mattick describes how the German far been waged." (Ill) Here one is struck workers' councils owed their origin to the by Mattick's apparent lack of concern action committees which led the wartime with alternative tactics which might have strikes. These committees represented forestalled or prevented the rise of fas­ substitute bodies which took over from the cism. For example, he seems to reject the 220 LABOUR/LE TRAVAILLEUR

perspective of those who called for the ment in England during and following existing leaderships of the main working- World War I, was the possibility of such class forces — the SPD and the KPD — to bodies serving both as agents for revolu­ form a united front to resist Nazism. tionary change and as the embryonic Interestingly, Mattick draws no balance organizational form for the new society. sheet of the Comintern's disastrous expe­ Unfortunately Mattick devotes little atten­ rience between 1929 and 1935 with the tion to the task of elaborating the eco­ ultra-left policies of the "Third Period." nomic and organizational principles that These included sectarian attempts to build might actually guide a society structured revolutionary unions and the rejection of around workers' councils. any collaboration with social-democratic The concepts of Marxist political organizations. The bitter irony is that dur­ economy could also have been further ing this period the Comintern actually developed in the same author's discussion adopted, in however a distorted fashion, some of the maximalist tactics apparently of the socio-economic character of the favoured by Mattick. Soviet Union. The analysis presented of the regime as a new form of state Although much of Mattick's analysis capitalism, advanced by certain council builds upon and extends the ideas of Panne- communists as early as 1921, begs many koek and Goiter, he differs with them important questions which Mattick fails to on the role of a revolutionary party. Mat- answer. This is especially apparent in an tick expresses abhorrence with what he essay written in 1947 where he claims that views as Lenin's authoritarian and Jaco­ in all essential aspects the systems of binical conception of a vanguard party, monopoly capitalism, fascism, and state but he is less clear on the sort of party capitalism "are identical and represent organization, if any, that is needed. This only various stages of the same develop­ is in sharp contrast to Pannekoek and Gor­ ment." (71) ier who explain the difference between the The author of the third book has the sort of party that might have been appro­ advantage of greater historical hindsight priate for the Bolsheviks in Tsarist Russia over the writers so far considered. Unlike and the party organization needed in the the previous contributions, Ralph more developed conditions of Western Miliband's work is prepared with an eye Europe and North America. The latter to the need, particularly felt in academic conception involved an attempt to achieve circles, for an introductory study which a dynamic inter-relationship between sets out the elements of a Marxist theory insurgent spontaneity and the program­ of politics. matic leadership offered by a mass revolu­ In addition to drawing upon the classic tionary workers' party. texts of Marx and Engels, Miliband's Paul Mattick is better known to most theorization pays special attention to the readers for his writings on Marxist eco­ writings of Lenin and, to a lesser extent, nomics. Apart from his trenchant critique Gramsci and Trotsky. Such an approach is of Baran and Sweezy's Monopoly Capi­ needed, it is argued, since the two found­ tal , the essays in this collection are not ing fathers of Marxism provide little guid­ primarily concerned with economic ance for understanding the complex rela­ analysis. It is, however, precisely such an tionship between relatively spontaneous emphasis that is sometimes most needed. manifestations of popular power — which Consider, for example, Mattick's analysis Miliband considers under the general rub­ of new forms of working-class organiza­ ric of "counciliar" forms of organization tion. The promise offered by develop­ — and established working-class political ments such as the Russian Soviets of 1905 panics. As already noted in this review, and 1917, or the shop stewards' move­ the relationship proved to be particularly COUNCIL COMMUNISM 221 contentious in Germany and Russia and likely involving recourse to force of arms. has continued to be a source of tension in In advancing his model of social subsequent revolutionary experiences. change Miliband draws selectively from The most original part of Marxism the divergent traditions of reformism, and Politics is the last chapter where , and council communism. Fea­ Miliband presents the case for re-thinking tures of the reformist project of electing a the mutually opposed positions commonly socialist government to re-direct state associated with the strategies of reform institutions are immediately evident. But and revolution. He argues that "the terms he also acknowledges the validity of the of the contraposition are mistaken, in so warning, first given by Marx and Engels, far as neither 'model' represents realistic and re-asserted by Lenin, that the working perspectives and projections." (179, class cannot take over the existing state emphasis in original) apparatus and expect to use it to achieve Turning first to the revolutionary per­ radically different objectives. Miliband's spective, Miliband states that the main response, however, qualifies Lenin's call problem with the Leninist variant of insur­ to smash the existing state and replace it rectionary politics is its failure outside of with a new form of class power. Accord­ Russia. Of the many explanations usually ing to Miliband, the process of transition advanced, Miliband is impressed with "both includes and requires radical those arguments which stress the attrac­ changes in the structures, modes of opera­ tion that liberal-democratic traditions tion, and personnel of the existing state, have had for the supporters of working- as well as the creation of networks of class movements in the advanced organs of popular participation amounting capitalist countries. Insurrectionary poli­ to '.' " (189, emphasis in origi­ tics of the Leninist type have long been nal) abandoned by the major Western Commu­ This attention to manifestations of nist parties and have been replaced by popular power which are autonomous various reformist strategies. from, although not necessarily counter- The classic objection to reformism is posed to, political parties, is a central the spectre of obstruction or defeat by theme in the writings of the council com­ conservative class forces. Events in recent munists but has been cause for some history cited by Miliband as chilling unease in the Leninist tradition, especially reminders of this danger include the 1967 arising out of the Bolsheviks' resolve to take-over by the Colonels in Greece and hold on to power in Russia. Other revolu­ the overthrow of the Allende government tions in which anti-capitalist forces have in Chile in 1973. These, along with other come to power have experienced similar similar experiences, are regularly used in tensions between the requirements of state support of the argument that all efforts to direction on the one hand, and of democ­ achieve a fundamental transformation of racy and popular power on the other. society by constitutionalist and elector- While Miliband places his primary alist means are doomed to failure. emphasis on the possibility of electoral Miliband attempts to answer these objec­ gains by mass working-class political par­ tions by presenting an alternative ties, he leaves considerable scope for "scenario" of social change involving action by a variety of counciliar forms of what he describes as a "strong" version of power. The latter could include the anti-capitalist reformism. At the outset he appearance of workers' councils as well notes that the premise for any such per­ as new types of organization involved in spective is the existence of bourgeois all manner of attempts to redefine political democracy; in its absence radical social priorities. One of the strengths of change is liable to take other forms, most Miliband's contribution is that it suggests 222 LABOUR/LE TRAVAILLEUR the possibility for linking the controver- orientation to the growing, but still frag- sies from early twentieth-century Marx- mented, assortment of potentially anti- ism over workers' councils with contem- capitalist movements which have devel- porary debates concerning a Marxist oped in recent years.

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