Re: AUT: Unions and revolution

[billbartlett@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Bill Bartlett)]

Neil,

I don't want to be rude, or hurt your feelings unnecessarily, but your last
post was so unintelligible it was creepy. Reading through your post was
like crawling through dense scrub, but here goes.

>Dear  bill Bartlett,
>
>The heyday of working class struggle /anti capitalist
>unions  was over by the early 20th Cent as the  modern
>bourg. state machinery incorporated the unions into the
>legality of its structure. Craft unions are the most preferred by
>capital when they have to accept  union organizing  but industrial
>ones still are needed to keep the labor peace  for capital in key heavy
>industry.

You appear to associate industrial unions with heavy industry. If so you
miss the point entirely, if not the above does not make sense to me.
>
>Unions are no longer workers reform/social  organizations as
>in the 19th cent  as the developement of world economy
>has changed the whole character of our epoch toward
>the  labor skinning to  workers on an INTERNATIONAL
>basis by capital of all nationalities..

Are you just stringing words together at random now. The  above sentence
starts by stating the obvious then descends into idiotic waffle. I defy
anyone to make sense of it as it reads. I can't even guess what point you
are trying to make. Suggest you spend a little time editing your posts
before inflicting them on us.
>
>Today the unions exist mainly as business operations
>to control and police the workers.

You'll get no argument from me there.

>Also they  are inherently
>nationalist and thus spew out the worst anti-worker gutter
>nationalist venom .

Some are, some do. This of course because they are without clear aim, or at
least that is how I see it. "Inherently nationalist" is a strong claim.,
perhaps you have some argument to justify the claim? How it is relevant to
a class union escapes me though, after all - I'm not here to defend *trade*
unions, but to put the case for *industrial* and *class* unionism.

>In the big capitalist  powers like th USA,
>UK, France, etc. they even work hand
>in glove with their  CIA type espionage and intelligence services
>to be partner of labor force controls for multinationals, etc.

"to be partner of labor force controls for multinationals, etc"?
Sorry, but again it is not clear what you are getting at. Your english is a
bit shakey.

>
>Your  examples  in dealing with  Max Angers critique . are
>weak unionite  beer.

Is that an insult? If so it loses something in the translation.

>Why don't  you look and the Russian Soviets/councils/
>mass committees/ of the Russian revolution of 1905?
>How about there again in 1917? What about the Red Turin
>in Italy in 1920? What about German  and Hungarian
>soviets/councils of Workers and soldiers deputies of
>1918-21?  What about France in '68 or Portugal in '74?

Look at them for what? Again your verbal diaroea does little to enhance
your message. Don't allude, spell it out man!
>
>NO permanent organizations of legal reform can be
>made into instruments for revolutionary socialism.

I didn't say they could. The IWW is not and never has been an organisation
of "reform", it is explicitly a revolutionary union. Check it if you don't
believe me.

>You don't build PT boats  with the the intention of
>sinking battleships.

Perhaps not, I don't have much naval knowledge so I can't judge how
relevant the analogy is. I'll take your word for it.
>
>Bill, your DeLeonist  thinking is based on 19th cent epoch
>of capitalism, reforms and the developement
>of unions . Today the modern bourg, state allows
>NO  industrial organization that has as its aim
>the overthrow f bourgeois  property relations any
>breathing room.

Like I say, a bit of proof reading wouldn't go astray. Anyhow, I don't
remember saying that we should rely on the capitalist class giving us any
breaks, so your point is wide of the target.

>That is also why the Revolutionary
>Party (political internationalist programme) of revolution
> needs to be built not to bogart the class  struggle but to
>give it revolutonary impetus .

Sorry, I've only got a pocket dictionary, which denies the existence within
the english language of the verb to "bogart". So the above paragraph
conveys no meaning to me.
>
>Some of the worst nationalist and derisive comments
>about other workers  in the union i am in have
>come not just from right wing yahoos but from the
>local lib-lab  union reps themselves. I think it goes with the
>the bourgeois  territory (collectecting dues--controlling workers, etc)
>that the unions are duty/ideologically bound  to protect.

You're probably right, but what does it have to do with the subject at
hand? But why don't you just quit that union and join a revolutionary
union, the IWW?
>
>Workers for workers rule should of course work in
>unions but in the main to encourage the ranks to take up  building
>of re-newed workers combativity and mass actions.
>Eventually in a combative  wave this might give impetus to NEW
>political and industrial groups based  inside the struggles based
>on replacing the system of wages slavery with workers rule..

Sorry, but again your sentence construction is so sloppy that *nobody*
could pretend to follow your meaning.

Bill Bartlett
Bracknell Tas.




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