Syndicalism rediscovered
The current issue (No.76)[1] of the Socialist Workers’ Party theoretical magazine Socialist Workers Review contains no less than two articles on syndicalism. The first, in their Labour History section is a rather unimaginative piece on the Industrial Workers of the World, fair up to a point and very superficial, like most Trotskyist-populist writing these days. The only bit is in the tail, where we learn that the Wobblies didn’t understand that they must have revolutionary Leadership in order to achieve socialism (sic.), so now you know!
The other rant is in their What do we mean by… column. Syndicalist ideas we learn to our great surprise ‘aren’t just an historical curiosity’, it appears that the SWP think they are still relevant, and they go on to state what syndicalism is all about (well almost). The first part informs the good Party member (the ‘bad’ Party member would not bother to read this rubbish) how there are several forms of syndicalism and we learn some very odd things. For example, that European syndicalists looked to transform existing unions into syndicalist ones while their American comrades wanted to build new ones. These people really do know how to rewrite history. In future issues no doubt we will learn that it was Marxists who founded the French CGT and the Spanish CNT?!
The second part of the article goes in for the kill, syndicalism is a revolutionary tendency (thank you very much), but far from fully developed. Trotsky, who else, pinpointed a number of ‘serious’ flaws in syndicalist theory. First, we just don’t understand trade unions. Sectionalism and union structure are not the real problems, class collaboration based on union bureaucracy is a far more fundamental problem instead. Some how the SWP just can’t get it into their heads that when it comes to class collaboration and bureaucracy they leave the syndicalists standing. We furthermore learn that our errors stand out clearly when set against Marx and Lenin’s ideas. Which are we learn, achieving political power, we poor sods have no conception of the political role of the vanguard of the working class organised in a revolutionary party. Added to this, ‘trade union consciousness is inevitably lower than socialist consciousness because unions by their nature include all workers’. Now it’s not for us to say that socialists lack consciousness, but during the recent great coal strike we did not see such signs of high level consciousness from the massed ranks of the Labour Party, many trade unionists showed a far higher level of commitment to the struggle of their fellow workers, than the so-called Party members. Today in South Africa, the trade union movement is to the forefront in the struggle against the Apartheid State.
Like the preceding article on the IWW in the same issue, these well trained parrots of the SWP know only a few lines, it comes as no great surprise to be told that the syndicalists lacked ‘a Marxist current, the embryo of a revolutionary party which could connect the struggles of the workers with the political object of taking state power.’
Our question must be why all the attention being given to syndicalism, after all for years the Marxists have told us we were living in the past, our ideas were dated and made obsolete by the events of 1917. Could it be that after the events of the miners strike, the SWP and the other party people now realise that the workers shall not rush to swell their ranks and those few they did attract during the struggle have now left them. The ranks of the anarchist/syndicalist movement were not swelled during the strike or after, but our ideas have gained wide spread respect in stark contrast to the tired and obsolete rantings of the various Marxist sects, who today are now reduced to fighting over such revolutionary issues as the amount of local tax they shall or shall not screw out of the people.[2]
Notes:
1, June 1985 issue of Socialist Workers Review is actually no.77. https://www.marxists.org/history/etol//newspape/socrev/1985/sr077/sr77.pdf
2, A dig at Militant in Liverpool.
From Black Flag No.136 15/7/1985