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Trotsky on Workers' Control Introduction The question of Workers' Control is receiving wide publicity in the Trade Union and Labour Movement.
Unfortunately, it is mixed up with the idea of Workers' Management which is an entirely different conception.
We reprint below the Chapter on Workers' Control taken from leon Trotsky's book "What next for Germany". Written towards the end of 1931, the material in it clearly explains the differences At the same time, it shows the between the two.
method of Marxism in contrast with those of Stalinism and Reformism.
EDITOR.
38.
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From the Archives:
we speak of the slogans of the revolutionary period, the latter should not be construed in too narrow a sense. The Soviets should be created only in a revolutionary period. But when does that begin? One cannot consult the calendar and thus learn. One can only feel one's way The Soviets must be created at the time when they can be The slogan of workers' control over production relates, particularly and in general, to the same period as the creation of Soviets. But neither masses toward control over production considerably prior to the time when they will evince themselves ready to create Soviets. Brandler and his left shadow - Urbahns - have used the slogan of control over production, independently of the political background. This has served no purpose other than to discredit the slogan. incorrect to reject the slogan now, under the conditions of the looming political crisis, only because on the face of it the mass offensive doesn't For the offensive itself, slogans are necessary which would inevitably precede the penetration of the slogan into the masses. The campaign for workers' control can develop, depending upon the circumstances, not from the angle of production but from that of consumption. The promise of the Bruning government to lower the price of commodities simultaneously with the decrease in wages has not materialised. who are today very far from the thought of seizing power. over the outlays of industry ana the profits of trade is the only real form of struggle for lower prices. Under the conditions of general dissatisfaction, workers' commissions, with the participation of worker house-wives, for the purpose of checking up on the increase cost of margarine can become very palpable beginnings of workers' control over industry. It is selfevident that this is only one of the possible manners of approach and it was given only as an example. Here the matter will not as yet concern the management, of industry; the working women will not go so far at once, such *Let it be borne in mind that in China, the Stalinists worked against the creation of Soviets during the period of revolutionary upsurge; whereas, when they decided upon an insurrection in Canton during the wave of recession, they appealed to the masses to create the Soviets on the very day of the Whenever through action.
created.* exist as yet.
insurrection!
should this be construed mechanically.
define the perspectives of the movement.
question cannot but absorb the most backward Special conditions may draw the But it would be The' period of propaganda must strata of the proletariat, Workers' control 39.
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a thought is far removed from her mind. But it is easier for her to pass from the consumer control to the productive control and from the latter to the direct managment, depending upon the general development of the revolu- In contemporary Germany, under the condition of the present crisis, control over industry signifies control not only over the operating but also over the partly operating and shut down industries. the gaining over the control of those workers who worked in those industries dead industries into motion, under the leadership of Factory Committees on governmental administration of industry, i.e., to the expropriation of the is not a prolonged, "normal" condition, like wage scale agreements or social The control is a transitional measure, under the conditions of the highest tension of the class war, and conceivable only as a bridge to The Brandlerites accuse the Left Opposition of having snitched from them the slogan of control over production after having jeered at this slogan for slogan of control over industry was first issued, on a wide scale by the Bolshevik party in 1917. In Petrograd, the charge over the entire campaign in this sphere, as well as in others, was placed in the hands of the As an individual, who watched this work and participated in it, for initiative, or to make use of their theoretical information. accusation of "plagiarism" is formulated with considerable carelessness. But this is not the chief trouble. The matters are much worse with the second part of the accusation - until now, the "Trotskyists" have argued against a campaign under the slogan of control over production, but right now they come out for this slogan. The Brandlerites see herein our inconsistency! As a matter of fact, they only reveal a complete ignorance of revolutionary dialectic, which is packed into the slogan of workers' control by reducing it to a technical prescription for "mobilising the They condemn themselves when they cite the fact that they have been repeating for a number of years the slogan which is suitable only for of an oak tree, year in and year out, in all probability at the bottom of his heart, also holds to the conviction that the woodman, who had chopped down the tree with the blows of his axe, has criminally plagiarised from For us, therefore, the slogan of control is tied up with the period of dual-power in industry, which corresponds to the transition from the tion.
prior to their dismissal.
the basis of an economic plan.
capitalists by the workers' government.
insurance.
the revolutionary nationalisation of a number of years.
Soviets.
I bear witness that we were masses".
a revolutionary period.
him, the woodpecker.
bourgeois regime to the proletarian.
40.
The task thereby must consist of setting the industry.
The accusations has quite an unexpected tone! The indust ti The woodpecker who has drilled away at the bark This presupposes This leads squarely to the question of the Workers' control, in this wise, never obliged to turn to Thalheimer-Brandler The Not at all, contradicts us Thalheimer
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dual-power must signify "equality (!) with the proprietors"; but the workers are fighting for their complete leadership of industries. the Brandlerites, will not allow the revolutionary slogan to be "castrated" signifies the management of the industries by the workers". (January 17, mankind under control is understood the surveillance and checking of one But it remains control. The very idea of this slogan was the outgrowth of the transitional regime in industry when the capitalist and his administrators could not longer take a step without the consent of but on the other hand, when the workers had not as yet provided the political prerequisites for nationalisation, nor yet seized the technical management, nor yet created the organs essential for this. Let us not forget that what is broached here concerns not only the taking charge of corporations, but also the sale of products, and the supplying of factories with raw materials, and new equipment, as well as credit operations, The correlation of forces in the factory is determined by the force of the general onset of the proletariat upon the bourgeois society. Generally speaking, control is thinkable only during the indubitable preponderance of the political forces of the proletariat over the forces of But it is wrong to think that in a revolution all questions must needs be and are solved by force: the factories may be gained with the aid of the Red Guard; their managment requires new legal and adminiiat is interested in leaving the managment during that period in the hands of an experienced administration, but compelling it to keep all the books open and establishing a wide awake supervision over all its affiliations The workers' control begins with the individual workshop. The organ join together with each other, according to the economic ties of the The practice of workers' control only prepares the elements of On the contrary, the workers' management of industry, to a much greater legree, even in its initial steps, proceeds from above, for it is inseparable from state-power and the general economic plan. ment are not factory committees but centralised Soviets. factory committees remains important, of course. But in the sphere of management of industry it has no longer a leading but an auxiliary role. (that is they way they put it!).
1932).
and all-embracing.
the workers; etc.
capitalism.
strative prerequisites; organs.
and actions.
industries themselves.
as yet.
this plan.
But why then call management as control?
institution over the work of another.
A certain period of apprenticeship is required.
of the control is the factory committee.
To them, "control over production and over and above that, knowledge, routine, and On this stage there is no general economic plan They, In the language of all Control may be active, dominant, The proletar- The factory organs of control The organs of manage- The role of the 41.
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In Russia, where following the bourgeoisie, the technical intelligentsia was convinced that the Bolshevik experiment would endure only a few weeks, and therefore had steered its course towards all sorts of sabotage and had refused to enter into any agreements, the stage of the workers' control did not devel- Moreover, the war was destroying the economic structure by changing the Russian experience to be found in relation to workers' control, as a special But this experience is all the more valuable for the opposite reason: it demonstrates that even in a backward country under the general sabotage of not only the proprietors but also of the administrativetechnical personnel, the young and inexperienced proletariat, surrounded by a ring of enemies, was able nevertheless to assemble the management of industry. What wouldn't then the German working class be able to accomplish! as has been said above, is interested in seeing to it that the socialist method of production be accomplished with the least economic convulsions and the least drain upon the national wealth. nearing power and even after seizing power, by way of the boldest and most decisive struggle, the proletariat will evince a complete readiness to establish a transitional regime in the factories, plants and banks. Will the relations in industry in Germany during the period of revolution struggle may not leave place for workers' control, as a special stage. Under the extreme tension of the developing struggle, under the increased pressure of the workers on the one side and the sabotage on the part of the proprietors and administrators, on the other, there may be no room left for agreements, even though temporary. In such a case, the proletariat will have to assume together with the power, the full management of industry. The present semiparalysed state of industry and the presence of a great army of unemployed But, on the other hand, the presence of mighty organisations within the Therefore, it would be inexcusable to reject beforehand the slogan of control is obvious that in Germany, even more than in Russia, the slogan of workers' control has a purport apart from that of workers' man- Like many other transitional slogans, it retains an enormous significance independent of the degree to which it will be realised in reality, op.
workers into soldiers.
regime in industry.
The proletariat, the transition from the private capitalist to be composed differently from those in Russia?
question, particularly from the side lines.
make quite possible such a "condensed" way.
over production.
In any event, it agement• if realised at all.
42.
Therefore, there is comparatively little in the the state capitalist and then to That is why, while It is not easy to answer this The actual course of the class
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By its readiness to establish transitional forms of workers' control, the proletarian vanguard wins over to its side the more conservative strata of the proletariat, and neutralises certain groups of the petty bourgeoisie, especially, the technical, administrative, and banking staffs. Should the capitalists and the entire upper layer of the administration evince an utter irreconciliability by resorting to methods of economic sabotage, the responsibility for the severe measures that spring therefrom will fall in the eyes of the nation not upon the workers but upon the slogan of workers' control along with the above mentioned economic and In any case, the extremes of political cynicism are attested by the fact that those people who have issued the slogan of control in a nonrevolutionary environment and thereby have given it a purely reformist character, accuse us of centrist duality, because of our refusal to iden- The workers who will reach the questions of the management of industry will not wish nor will they be able to become drunk with words. become used in factories to dealing with materials, less flexible than phrases, and they will comprehend our thoughts better than bureaucrats; revolutionary thinking does not consist in applying force everywhere and at all times, and far less in choking with verbal enthusiasm over Where force is necessary, there it must be applied boldly, decisively and completely. But one must know the limitations of force, one must know when the blend force with a manoeuvre; the blow with an agree- On anniversaries of Lenin's death the Stalinist bureaucracy repeats conned phrases about "revolutionary realism" in order the more The prostituted theoreticians of reformism attempt to discover the dawn of socialism in the emergency decrees against the workers. From the "military socialism" of Hohenzollerns to the police socialism of Left bourgeois ideologists dream of a planned capitalist economy. But capitalism has had time to demonstrate that in the line of plans it is capable only of draining the productive forces for the sake of war. Disregarding everything else, in what manner can the dependence of Germany - with its enormous figures of import and export - upon the world hostile classes.
administrative purport.
tify control with management.
geniune force.
ment.
Bruning!
market be regulated?
freely to jeer at it during the remaining 364 days. - 0- 0- 0-0-0 - Such is the supplementary political purport of the They have 43.
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We, on our side, propose to begin with the sector of the German- Soviet relations, i.e., the working out of a wide plan of collaboration between the soviets and the Germany economy in connection wit}. and supplementary to the second five year plan. Tens and hundreds of the could be entirely liquidated - it would hardly take more than two or three years - on the basis of an economic plan, which would embrace from all The leaders of capitalist industry in Germany, obviously, cannot make such a plan, because it means their social self-elimination. Soviet government, with the aid of German workers 'organisations, first of all, the trade unions and the progressive representative of German technology, can and must work out an entirely practical plan, capable of openof reparations and supplementary toll pfennigs in comparison to those possibilities whichwill be opened by coupling the natural, technical and organisational resources of the Soviet and German national economies. The German Communists are spreading wide-scale propaganda concerning have been unable to link together both the successes and the difficulties of the Soviet economy with the immediate interests of the German proletariat; with unemployment, with the lowering of wages, and with the general economic They have been unable and unwilling to pose the question of Soviet-German collaboration on a strictly practical as well as deeply During the first stage of the crisis - more than two years ago - we posed this question in print. And the Stalinists immediately set up a hue and cry that we believe in the peaceful co-existence of socialism and capitalstand just one thing to wit, what a potent factor in a socialist revolution a concrete economic plan of collaboration could become, if it be made the subject of discussion in trade unions, and at factory meetings among the workers of operating as well as of shut down industries; with the slogan of workers' control over production, and subsequently with realised only under government monopoly of foreign trade in Germany, and the nationalisation of the means of production, in other words, under the dictatorship of the proletariat. Along this road, one could pull new millions of workers, non-party, social-democrat, and Catholic, into the struggle for largest factories could go ahead at full steam.
sides only these two countries.
ing truly grandiose perspectives.
the successes of Soviet upbuilding.
sugared embellishments.
impasse of Germany.
revolutionary basis.
ism, that we want to save capitalism, etc.
the slogan of seizing power.
power • 44.
That is entirely superfluous.
The unemployment in Germany But the How petty will appear all these "problems"
This work is necessary. They fly into But worse yet, they They failed to foresee and underand if it be linked
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The Tarnows are scaring the German workers with the prospect that the industrial break-down as a consequence of the revolution would result people supported the imperialist war which could bring to the proletariat Discussions concerning the topic that "our German workers" would never agree to suffer "such sacrifices" consist in simultaneously flatthe German proletariat one hundredth of those sacrifices that were swalin frightful choas, famine, etc.
No, never!
workers are too patient.
URBAHNS BRUN ING BRANDLER-THA LHEIMER TARNOW For a monthly Marxist analysis of the World's events tering the German workers and vilifying them.
lowed up in the war of Hohenzollern-Leipart-Wels.
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internationally.
- Right wing Social Democrat.
Read MILITANT Let it be kept in mind that these same The Socialist Revolution will not exact from - Ultra-left Communist who broke with Trotsky to form a "left-Communist" Organisation in This has now completely disappeared.
- Germany Chancellor 'in 1931-32 who organised a semi-dictatorial regime which prepared the way for more dictatorial regimes and then the Right wing Communist leaders in Germany who supported the ideas of Bukharin.
Their tendency has completely disappeared Price: lod.
To burden Unfortunately, the German Order from "Militant", 197 King's Cross Road, London, w.c.1.
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