01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 Chomsky, writing on council communism "Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder Visit the Discussion Salon on anti-Boshevik marxismsm

Chomsky and Pannekoek Nor did the Soviet regime conform in any way to the ideology of Council Communism, which had been of great interest to Chomsky, and which he went on to explore at length (for example, in "Industrial Self-Management" in his Radical Priorities). The movement was generated by Anton Pannekoek's International Council Communists in Amsterdam and Paul Mattick's Council Communist group, and it had as adherents Karl Korsch and Antonio Gramsci (who, like Lenin, supported the workers' councils in Turin after World War I). Lenin sensed the threat that Council Communism posed to the Bolshevik Party, and he wrote a pamphlet denouncing Pannekoek and Herman Gorter's position called Left Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder. Abramovitch's description of workers councils emphasizes the distance that existed between Lenin's Bolshevist-directed version of organizing workers and that which was proposed by Mattick, Korsch, and Pannekoek. "The workers had to make the decisions in terms of the workplace, the people as a whole had to develop self-consciousness and a self-decision-making process, and not some sort of group, party, or what have you making decisions for the bulk of the population and lead[ing] them to the millennium" (12 Feb. 1991).

Rosa Luxemburg, "The War and the Workers"The Junius Pamphlet

Pannekoek and Bertrand Russell were arguably the most important role models for Chomsky, and indeed their work most clearly resembles his own later efforts. An astronomer and professor of astronomy at the University of Amsterdam, Pannekoek was also interested in the theoretical relationship between science and Marxism. He was active in revolutionary movements in Holland and Germany from 1903 until his death in 1960, having come to the left through his early adherence to George Bernard Shaw's Fabian movement. Chomsky says that "Pannekoek is one of those whose work I found very interesting. I learned of it from Paul Mattick, who was circulating it in the United States" (31 Mar. 1995). Pannekoek played a major role in the Second International, in which theoreticians put forth "the assumption that the way to socialism lay through the building of a socialist party aiming at the capture of state power and nationalization of the economy." In the years before World War I, Pannekoek, together with Rosa Luxemburg, became involved "in the struggle to force the German socialist party to support mass direct action. During the war, he was among the first to attack the socialist parties of Europe for supporting the war and to call for class struggle against it" (J. B. and P. M. iii). Like many members of the left with whom Chomsky sympathized, Pannekoek eventually broke with the Third International (he did so in 1920), and then, through his work with Council Communist groups in various countries, went on "to develop the theory of the self-organization of the working class (through the council structure) in opposition to all forms of social organization distinct from those of the class itself as a whole" (J. B. and P. M. iii). It was this later work that Chomsky found most interesting. He considered the Pannekoek pamphlet Workers' Councils to be "really excellent," although he added that another of his political books, Lenin as Philosopher, "I thought was very poorly reasoned, frankly, and the topic struck me as on par with `Gauss as poet'" (31 Mar. 1995). Workers' Councils contains Pannekoek's critiques of social democrats and Bolsheviks, which were prompted by his experiences during World War I and "the failure of German and Russian revolutions to create free socialist societies" (J. B. and P. M. iii). Although the pamphlet was written during the war years 1941 to 1942 when the Germans occupied Holland, it found a new audience in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This audience was made up of members of the student-based antiauthoritarian and libertarian New Left, who were trying to find out "how to organize [them]selves, how to find forms and means of action adequate to [their] desires, even to be clear about the content of [their] desires" (J. B. and P. M. ii). Chomsky's own remarks on Workers' Councils speak to the interests of these students: The workers, [Pannekoek] wrote, "must be masters of the factories, masters of their own labour, to conduct it at their own will." Such "common ownership must not be confounded with public ownership," a system in which workers are commanded by state officials who direct production. Rather, they must themselves take over complete control of the means of production and all planning and distribution. Capitalism is a "transitional form," combining modern industrial technique with the archaic social principle of private ownership. Advanced industrial technology combined with common ownership "means a free collaborating humanity," the proper goal of the workers movement. [Pannekoek] also wrote that "the idea of their common ownership of the means of production is beginning to take hold of the minds of the workers." (Radical Priorities 263) Chomsky emphasizes that Pannekoek's writing on the workers' councils was, in fact, almost unknown beyond a few small circles. He links Pannekoek to Orwell in the sense that each achieved a degree of fame based upon his worst work: that is, the work most easily assimilated into the ruling-class line. Orwell was renowned for 1984, not Homage to Catalonia; Pannekoek became known for his contribution to the Second International, not for his pos ­ World War I work on Council Communism, which for the left-libertarian cause was far more significant. Remarks Chomsky: "The peak of [Pannekoek's] influence was before World War I, when he was a major figure in the Second International. He got a different sort of fame when he was denounced as an ultra-leftist by Lenin. Virtually no one knew of him in subsequent years, to my knowledge, except through Mattick's efforts (and these reached a handful of people; I recall going to a talk of Mattick's in Boston, at which about 5 people were present, most of them personal friends" (31 Mar. 1995). The Council Communists nevertheless kept alive an interest in the theory and practice of councils after the failure of the revolutions in Central Europe and the decline in importance of the soviets in the Soviet Union (Epstein says that it is important to differentiate between the two bodies: "Factory Councils are quite different from the Russian Soviets, which cut across factories and became municipal-type organizations of the working class" [20 Apr. 1995]). Both Pannekoek and Mattick ascribed a central role to the councils, which they identified as a spontaneous form of working-class organization. They were also strong critics of the Soviet Union, which had subordinated the councils to the dictates of the Bolshevik Party, thereby eliminating their power. The social revolution envisioned by Pannekoek would involve overturning systems of production present in both Bolshevik and capitalist societies so that workers would have complete power over their work and control over their destiny. Pannekoek writes: The conquest of political power by the workers, the abolition of capitalism, the establishment of new Law, the appropriation of the enterprises, the reconstruction of society, the building of a new system of production are not different consecutive occurrences. They are contemporary, concurrent in a process of social events and transformations. Or, more precisely, they are identical. They are the different sides, indicated with different names, of one great social revolution: the organization of labour by working humanity. (Workers' Councils 108) Sam Abramovitch describes, from a contemporary vantage point, how a Council Communist program might be set up. People exchange the various commodities that they produce. Each factory is going to have its own committee, and they are going to get together, discuss, and decide that this year "We are going to produce ten thousand pairs of shoes and ten thousand automobiles, and we're going to put them into a pool and from the pool we're all going to get what we need." On a theoretical basis, that is very nice, and if it could work that way then it would be ideal; everybody contributes to social welfare in terms of the common good of the economy and you take whatever you need, and there is an abundance of all of the commodities, so you don't have to hoard or accumulate. But this system requires, as well, a rather dramatic shift in thinking about commodities and their ownership. "You don't need four bicycles in your garage; in fact, you don't need any bicycles in your own garage. You don't have to hoard bread because it is always at the store; you just go and pick it up. You just go and exchange your work for the commodities you need." How would decisions about production and working conditions be made? "The people themselves, communally, would make the decision as to their working conditions, their hours, how they want to arrange the lighting and ventilation of the factory, and so forth." Some might argue that this is what was tried in China or the former Soviet Union; but such an assessment is far from the truth. "In Russia the attempt was [made] early on [with the creation of the soviets] but it was immediately put down by Lenin and the Bolshevik Party" (12 Feb. 1991). Council Communism as a political alternative is rarely mentioned in the West (except in terms of very small-scale endeavors, such as the Israeli kibbutz), despite the support it has received from Chomsky and others. If it had been evoked when Marxism was under fire, the task of anti-Marxist or anticommunist propagandists would undoubtedly have been more challenging.