The Question of Workers’ Control of Production

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PART I

In answering your inquiry I will endeavor here, as an introduction to the exchange of opinions, to outline a few general considerations which concern the slogan of workers’ control of production.

The first question that arises in this connection is: can we picture workers’ control of production as a fixed regime, not everlasting of course, but as one of long duration? In order to reply to this question, the class nature of such a regime must be more concretely determined. The workers have in their hands – control. That is: ownership and right of disposition remain in the hands of the capitalists. Thus the regime has a contradictory character, presenting a sort of interregnum.

The workers need control not for platonic purposes, but in order to influence practically the production and the trading operations of the employers. This cannot, however, be attained unless the control, in one form or another, within these on those limits is transformed into direct functions of disposition. In a developed form, workers’ control thus signifies a sort of economic dual power in the factory, the bank, trading enterprise, and so forth.

If the participation of the workers in the administration is to be lasting, stable, “normal”, it must rest upon class collaboration, and not upon class struggle. Such a class collaboration can be realized only through the upper strata of the trade unions and the capitalist associations. There have been no few such attempts: in Germany (“economic democracy”), in England (“Mondism”), etc. Yet, in all these instances, it was not a case of workers’ control over capital, but of the subserviency of the labor bureaucracy to capital. Such subserviency, as experience shows, can last for a long time: as long as the patience of the proletariat.

The closer it is to production, to the factory, to the shop departments, the more impossible is this regime, for it is a question here of the direct vital interests of the workers, and the whole process develops before the eyes of the workers themselves. Workers’ control through factory councils is conceivable only on the basis of sharp class struggle, but not on the basis of collaboration. Yet even this means dual power in the undertaking, in the trust, in the branch of industry, in the whole of industry.

What state regime corresponds to workers’ control of produdction? It is obvious that the power is not yet in the hands of the proletariat, otherwise we would have no workers’ control of production but the control of production by the workers’ state as an introduction to the regime of state production on the foundations of nationalization. What we are talking about is workers’ control in the domain of the capitalist regime, under the power of the bourgeoisie. However, a bourgeoisie, which feels itself firm in the saddle, will never tolerate the dual power in its factories. Workers’ control, consequently, can be carried out truly under the condition of an abrupt change in the relationship of forces unfavorable to the bourgeoisie and its state. Control can be forced upon the bourgeoisie by the proletariat only violently, along the road to the moment when it takes away from it the power, and then also the ownership of the means of production. Thus the regime of workers’ control, by its very essence provisional, a transitional regime, can correspond only to the period of the convulsing of the bourgeois state, of the proletarian offensive, and of the falling back of the bourgeoisie, that is, to the period of the proletarian revolution, in the furthest sense of the word.

If the bourgeois is already no longer the master, that is, not entirely the master in his factory, then he is, consequently, also no longer completely the master in his state. This means: the regime of the dual power in the factories corresponds to the regime of the dual power in the state.

This relationship, however, should not be understood mechanically, that is, not in the manner that the dual power in the factory and the dual power in the state see the light of day on one and the same day. The advanced regime of the dual power, as one of the probable stages of the proletarian revolution in every country, can develop in different countries in different ways and out of different elements. Thus, under certain conditions, with a deep and persevering economic crisis (strong state of organization of the workers in the factories, a relative weakness of the revolutionary party, a relative strength of the state which has a strong Fascism in reserve, etc.) workers’ control of production can precede the developed political dual power in one country.

Under the conditions traced above in broad outline, especially characteristic of Germany, the dual power in the country can develop precisely out of workers’ control as its main reservoir. One must dwell upon this fact if only to reject that fetishism of the Soviet form which the epigones in the Comintern have put into circulation.

According to the official view prevailing at the present time, the proletarian revolution can be accomplished only by means of the Soviets, where the Soviets have to arise directly for the purpose of the armed uprising. This stereotype is absolutely worthless. The Soviets are only an organizational form, the question is decided by the class content of the policy, and in no case by its form. In Germany, there were Ebert-Scheidemann Soviets. In Russia, the conciliationist Soviets turned against the workers and soldiers in July 1917. That is why Lenin, for a long time, took into account that we would have to carry out the armed uprising not with the aid of the Soviets but of the factory committees. This calculation was refuted by the course of events, for we succeeded, in the month and a half to two months before the uprising, in winning over the most important Soviets. Yet this example alone shows how little we were inclined to consider the Soviets as the all-saving means. In the Fall of 1923, defending against Stalin and others the necessity of passing over to the revolutionary offensive, I fought at the same time against the creation of Soviets in Germany on command, side by side with the factory councils, which were already actually beginning to fulfill the role of Soviets.

There is much to say for the idea that in the present revolutionary ascent, too, the factory councils in Germany, at a certain stage of developments, will fulfill the role of Soviets and replace them. Upon what do I base this assumption? Upon the analysis of the conditions under which the Soviets arose in Russia in February-March 1917, in Germany and Austria in November 1918. In all three places, the main organizers of the Soviets were Mensheviks and Social Democrats, who were forced to do it by the conditions of the “democratic” revolution during the war. In Russia, the Bolsheviks were successful in tearing the Soviets from the conciliators. In Germany, they did not succeed and that is why the Soviets disappeared.

Today, in 1931, the word “Soviets” sounds quite differently from what it did in 1917–1918. Today it is the synonym of the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks, and by that the bugbear on the lips of the social democracy. The social democrats in Germany will not only not seize the initiative in the creation of Soviets for the second time, and will not only not join voluntarily in this initiative, but will fight against it to the last possibility. In the eyes of the bourgeois states, especially of its Fascist guard, the Communists setting to work creating Soviets will be equivalent to a direct declaration of civil war by the proletariat, and consequently, can provoke a decisive clash before the Communist party itself deems it expedient.

All these considerations prompt us strongly to doubt if one could succeed, before the uprising and the seizure of power in Germany, in creating Soviets which would real embrace the majority of the workers. In my opinion, it is more probable that in Germany the Soviets will first arise on the morning after the victory, already as direct organs of power.

The matter stands quite differently with the factory councils. They already exist today. They are composed of Communists as well as of social democrats. In a certain sense, the factory councils realize the united front of the working class. It will broaden and deepen this one of its functions with the rise of the revolutionary tide. Its role will grow, as will its encroachments into the life of the factory, of the city, of the branches of industry, of the district, of the whole state. Regional, district as well as federal congresses of the factory councils can serve as the basis for the organs which actually fulfill the role of Soviets, that is, the organs of the dual power. To draw the social democratic workers into this regime through the medium of the factory councils will be much easier than to call upon the workers directly to begin with the forming of Soviets on a definite day and at a definite hour.

The factory councils’ central of a city can thoroughly fulfill the role of city Soviets. This could be observed in Germany in 1923. By extending their function, applying themselves to ever bolder tasks, and creating federal organs, the factory councils, intimately connecting the social democratic workers with the Communists, can grow into Soviets and become an organizational support for the uprising. After the victory of the proletariat, these factory councils-Soviets will naturally have to separate themselves into factory councils in the proper sense of the word, and into Soviets as organs of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

By all this, we in no case want to say that the rise of Soviets before the proletarian overturn in Germany is completely excluded in advance. There is no possibility of foreseeing all conceivable variants. Were the collapse of the bourgeois state to come long before the proletarian revolution, were Fascism to run its head into the wall, or fall to pieces, before the uprising of the proletariat, then the conditions could arise for the creation of Soviets as the fighting organs for power. Naturally, in such a case, the Communists would have to perceive the situation in time and raise the slogan of Soviets. This would be the most favorable situation conceivable for the proletarian uprising. Were it to follow, it would have to be utilized to the end. Yet, to count upon it in advance is quite impossible. Insofar as the Communists must reckon with the still sufficiently firm bourgeois state, and the reserve army of Fascism at its back, to that extent the road through the factory councils appears to be the more probable one.

PART II

The epigones have purely mechanically accepted the idea that workers’ control of production, like Soviets, can only be carried out under revolutionary conditions. Were the Stalinists to attempt to bring their prejudices into a definite system, they would probably argue as follows: Workers’ control as a sort of economic dual power is inconceivable without political dual power in the country, which in turn, is inconceivable without the Soviets being counterpoised to the bourgeois power; consequently – the Stalinists would conclude – the slogan of workers’ control of production is admissible only simultaneously with the slogan of Soviets.

From all that has been said above, it proceeds clearly how false, schematic, and how lifeless is such a construction. In practise, it results in the unique ultimatum which the party puts to the workers: I, the party, will allow you to fight for workers’ control only in the event that you are prepared simultaneously to build up Soviets. But this is precisely what is involved – that these two processes must in no case run absolutely parallel and simultaneously. Under the influence of crises, unemployment and predatory manipulations of the capitalists, the working class in its majority may be prepared to fight for the abolition of business secrecy and for control over banks, commerce and production even before they have reached an understanding of the revolutionary conquest of power.

Two Ways Out

Taking the path of control of production, the proletariat will inevitably have to advance further in the direction of the seizure of power and of the means of production. Questions of credits, of raw materials, of markets alternately lead the control beyond the walls of the isolated enterprise. In a country as highly developed industrially as Germany, the questions of exports and imports alone suffice to elevate workers’ control immediately to the level of state tasks and to counterpose the central organs of workers’ control to the official organs of the bourgeois state. The essentially irreconcilable contradictions of the regime of workers’ control will have to be accentuated to the degree that its sphere of influence and its tasks are extended, thereupon to show themselves promptly as intolerable. A way out of these contradictions can be found either in the capture of power by the proletariat (Russia) or in the Fascist counter-revolution, which establishes the naked dictatorship of capital (Italy). It is precisely in Germany, with its strong social democracy, that the struggle for the workers’ control of production will in all probability be the first stake of the revolutionary united front of the workers, which precedes the open struggle for power.

Should the slogan of workers’ control, however, be raised right now? Is the revolutionary situation “ripe” for it? This question is hard to answer. There is no measuring instrument which would permit the determination, once and for all, of the degree of the revolutionary situation. One is compelled to check it up by deeds, in struggle, with the aid of the most variegated measuring instruments. One of these instruments, under the given conditions perhaps one of the most important, is precisely the slogan of the workers’ control of production.

The significance of this slogan lies primarily in the fact that on the basis of it, the united front of the Communist workers with the social democratic, non-party, Christian and other workers, can be prepared. The attitude of the social democratic workers is decisive. The revolutionary united front of the Communists with the social democrats – that is the fundamental political condition which is lacking in Germany for the immediate revolutionary situation. The presence of a strong Fascism is surely a serious obstacle on the road to victory. Yet, Fascism can retain its power of attraction only because the proletariat is split up and weak, and because it lacks the possibility of leading the German people on the road to the victorious revolution. The revolutionary united front of the working class already signifies, in itself, the political death blow for Fascism.

For this reason, be it said in passing, the policy of the Communist Party of Germany leadership in the question of the referendum bears an all the more criminal character. The most rabid foe could not have thought up a surer way of inciting the social democratic workers against the Communist party and of holding up the progress of the policy of the revolutionary united front.

Necessary Preparations

Now this mistake must be made good again. The slogan of workers’ control can be of extraordinary aid in this regard.

However, it must be approached correctly. Advanced without the necessary preparation, as a bureaucratic command, the slogan of workers’ control may not only prove to be a blank shot, but discredit the party even more strongly in the eyes of the working masses and undermine the confidence in it also of those workers who still vote for it today. Before this highly responsible fighting slogan is raised, the situation must be read well and the ground for it prepared.

We must begin from below, from the factory, from the workshop. The questions must be scrutinized and adapted to certain typical industrial, banking and commercial enterprises. Especially crass cases of speculation must be taken as a point of departure, veiled lock-outs, mendacious diminution of profits aimed at reductions of wages or mendacious exaggeration of production costs for the same purpose, and so forth. In the factory which has fallen victim to such machinations, the Communist workers must be the ones through whom are felt the moods of the rest of the working masses, above all, of the social democratic workers: to what extent they would be ready to accept the demand to abrogate business secrecy and to establish workers’ control of production. Using the occasion of particularly crass individual cases, we must begin to conduct propaganda persistently with a purely positive way of putting the question, and in this way measure the power of resistance of social democratic conservatism. This would be one of the best ways of establishing to what degree the revolutionary situation has “ripened.”

The preliminary feeling out of the ground assumes a simultaneous theoretical and propagandistic elaboration of the question of the party, a serious and objective instructing of the advanced workers, in the first place, of the factory councils members, of the prominent trade union workers, etc. Only the course of this preparatory work, that is, the degree of its success, can show at what moment the party can pass over from propaganda to further agitation and to direct practical action under the slogan of workers’ control.

The policy of the Left Opposition in this question follows clearly enough from what has been presented, at least in its essential features. It is a question in the first period of propaganda for the correct principled way of putting the question and at the same time of the study of the concrete conditions of the struggle for workers’ control. The Opposition, on a small scale and to a modest degree corresponding to its forces, must take up the preparatory work which was characterized above as the next task of the party. On the basis of this task, the Opposition must seek contact with the Communists who are working in the factory councils and in the trade unions explain to them our views of the situation as a whole, and learn from them how our correct views on the development of the revolution are to be adopted to the relationships in the factory and the workshop.

* * * *

P.S. I wanted to close with this, only it occurs to me that the Stalinists might make the following objection: you are prepared to “dismiss” the slogan of Soviets for Germany; but you criticized us bitterly and branded us because at one time we refused to proclaim the slogan of Soviets in China. In reality, such an “objection” is only base sophism, which is founded on the same organizational fetishism, that is, upon the identification of the class essence with the organizational form. Had the Stalinists declared at that time that there were reasons in China which hindered the application of the Soviet form, and had they recommended some other organizational form of the revolutionary united front of the masses, one more adaptable to Chinese conditions, we would naturally have met such a proposal with the greatest attention. But we were recommended to replace the Soviets with the Kuo Min Tang, that is, by the enslavement of the workers to the capitalists. The dispute was over the class content of an organization and not over its organizational “technique”. But we must promptly add to this that precisely in China there were no subjective obstacles at all for the Soviets, if we take into consideration the consciousness of the masses, and not that of Stalin’s allies of that time, Chiang Kai-Shek and Wang Chin Wei. The Chinese workers have no social democratic, conservative traditions. The enthusiasm for the Soviet Union was truly universal. Even the present-day peasants’ movement in China strives to adopt Soviet forms. All the more general was the striving of the masses for Soviets in the years 1925–1927.

August 20, 1931