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>>"I agree with much of your argument, Dan, but the alternative form of
socialist organization you propose strikes me as no less dogmatic and
no less easily diverted into quibbling over vocabulary.
ML"<<
Which is why the labouring class must educate itself, become more aware
of its own strength and the mechanisms used by the upper class to keep
it in subservience... the labouring class must emancipate itself.
And it can only do this through the class organizations at its disposal
: the unions.
Unions may not seem revolutionary, especially when their leadership
strikes deals with the powers-that-be to better control and divide the
working class. However, unions are composed of thousands of shop
branches, in thousands of industries. In each local workplace, unions
provide a place where workers can come together and express their
grievances. They may be unable to act because of fear, but these local
sections represent the true seeds of a world organized by workers
themselves.
Each time workers get together and start voicing their frustration, they
empower themselves, they become more determined and less fearfull of
management. And they organize themselves. They exchange information.
They learn about contract law, labour rights and what others in the same
industry are doing.
So it makes sense for revolutionaries to promote REVOLUTIONARY UNIONS.
Of course, these unions might encourage their members to vote for
Socialist parties, but their aim is far more ambitious than simply
having a party take over the levers of power. The objective of a
revolutionary union is to REPLACE the entire Capitalist system and the
present-day state apparatus with a democratic communist federation of
workers' councils.
This is what Marx had in mind when he founded the 1st international in
1864 : the founding of a world-wide federation of workers' unions that
would educate themselves and organize themselves so as to be ready, when
the corrupt Capitalist system began to crumble, to take over the running
of the economy and society.
Unlike a party, a union is democratic : the base organizes itself and
sends delegates that represent the views of the workers. As it is
self-managing, each section tightly limits the powers given to those
that represent it and can recall them at any time.
Building ONE GREAT UNION is less sexy, and more messy, than building the
mass Communist Party of Workers and Peasants, but it is more rewarding
in the long term. The workplace, the production centre, is the real
point where workers can gather and discuss how Capitalism has made a
real mess of things. Outside the workplace, they are paradoxically
reduced to mere consumers and voters in this topsy-turvy world, this
"Sheindemokratie", where nobody has any idea what anybody else is doing
and where so-called "equality of opportunity" is the buzz word used by
the élite to justify its dominance.
The working class must emancipate themselves. The party form is helpful
in many regards, but even profound social engineering cannot produce an
emancipated people, one that controls its own destiny through its
democratic control of the means of production and distribution.
Join, or form, a revolutionary union !
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