Workers' council
A
workers' council is a
council, or deliberative body, composed of
working class or
proletarian members. While the term may include instances where employers negotiate with workers, or workers deliberate without power, the most common use of the term is to describe self-governing workers without bosses.
Workers' councils have arisen repeatedly through modern
history with a variety of names. Notable instances include Russia during
1917, where the councils were called "
soviets",
Germany during 1918,
Turin,
Italy during
1919-
1920,
Spain during
1936,
Hungary during
1956,
France during
1968,
Chile in
1973 (
cordones), and
Iran during 1978-1979 (
shoras).
The key features of a workers' council include the phenomenon that a single place of work, such as a
factory,
school, or
farm, is controlled collectively by the workers of that workplace. There is no
manager, or the manager is directly under the control of the workers' council, and the composition of the workers council is determined by the workers who comprise it.
Workers' councils have also affiliated and formed higher bodies for coordinating between one another. These bodies usually operate on the principle of recallable
delegates; that is, elected delegates may be recalled at any time through a vote in a form of
impeachment.
During the
Russian Revolution of 1917 and
German Revolution in 1918, the workers' councils replaced the old political institutions and
bureaucracy which excluded people with a left-wing political alignment.
Many
Marxists believe that workers' councils embody the fundamental principles of
socialism, such as workers' control over production and workers' control of the state. Indeed, some have described this as "socialism from below", which they counterpose against what they see as "socialism from above" endorsed by
social democratic ideology and
Stalinism. According to this view, socialism from above is carried out by a centralized state run by a bureaucratic apparatus in the interests of this apparatus, while socialism from below represents the self-administration and self-rule of the working class.
Some notable advocates of a society based on workers' councils are the
council communist movement, various
anarcho-syndicalist and
anarcho-communist groups, revolutionary
democratic socialists, such as the
Debs Tendency of the
Socialist Party USA, and some
Trotskyist groups, such as the
International Socialist Organization, as well as the
Lanka Sama Samaja Party. A modern proposal for a democratically organised economy,
participatory economics, is also based on workers' councils, but with the addition of
consumers' councils as well.
See also: soviet (council)*
Soviet*
Factory committee*
Council Communism*
Anton Pannekoek*
Paul Mattick*
Rosa Luxemburg*
Debs Tendency*
International Socialist Organization*
International Socialist Tendency*
Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies)
*
Industrial democracy*
Noam Chomsky*
Socialist Party USA*
Socialist Labour Party of Croatia*
Solidarity (Polish workers union)
*
Solidarity (UK) (British revolutionary organisation)
*
Anarcho-Communism*
Syndicalism*
Situationists*
Ceylon Transport Board*
Works council*
Mansoor Hekmat
