We start the discussion with a brief explanation about anti-capitalist councils and their fundamental difference from what others call councils. For us ” The activists of movement of abolition of wage-labor “, councils are a movement of the working masses against the existence of capital and capitalism, against all forms of oppression and injustice, assault and savagery that capital routinely with class wrath applies on workers and other toilers in all sphere of social life. On this basis, the anti-capitalist councils are not only a weapon of the class war against capital in today’s conditions, but at the same time, they are the only real growthling substrate and growthing of the future human society, in the bottom of hell of brutality and barbarism of capitalism. The gigantic expansion of the means of production, technique and industries under the control of the existing system while providing the necessary economic foundations for the establishment of the future society, but by itself, apart from the octopus-like growth of capital and the increasingly inhuman domination of dead work (capital) over living work (labor force), it is nothing else. The anti-capitalist council movement of the working masses is the only social, historical and real strength that represents the life, development and flourishing and the process of the victorious birth of socialism of the abolition of wage labor from the depth of the existing dominant relations. The council, with this narrative, has nothing to do with the councils emphasized and praised by the range of Leninist parties or groups. What they call council, is only the realm of attracting infantry for the party’s machine and the rise of the party organization to the throne of political power. This congregation, if they talk about council in other circumstances and occasions, the purpose is just a trading store of syndicalism under a bogus flag.
The anti-capitalist councils are a manifestation of the power of the working masses and to apply this united and organized power against capital in all areas of social life and necessarily all realms of contradiction between the working class and capitalist class, also the system of wage slavery. It is only through the formation of these councils that the proletariat will truly line up as a united social class against capital, and against the capitalists and their state, and it shows the war of one class against another one. In every social and class campaign, from the fight for a wage increase to the reduction of daily work, from obtaining political freedoms to abolishing child labor, from the fight against gender and ethnic inequalities to the improvement of the environment, from the uprising to free medicine, treatment and education, kindergarten and care for the elderly and disabled, and other forms of social welfare until the rebellion against the bellicosity of the bourgeoisie, in all these campaigns, as a social class, enters the battlefield against capital. The anti-capitalist councils base its act on the disruption of the surplus value production process, and also the productive, political and civil, legal and social order of capital, and it does it as much as possible to force capital to make maximum retreat. At the same time, the councils are a center of education and elevation of class awareness and interference, a substrate for preparing and equipping the working masses for planning and establishing a society, which will be free from the relation of purchasing and selling labor-force, exploitation, classes and state. It’s only through the anti-capitalist council movement that the proletariat can crush the state machine of bourgeoisie, abolishing the relation of wage labor and establishing the foundation of the new society.
In some cases, including more explicitly in the ” Communist Manifesto “, Marx emphasized that the proletariat in the class war for the destruction of capitalism must first shatter the state machine of the bourgeoisie and establish its own political power. This statement of Marx, like most of his teachings, has been distorted in the worst way. The fact that the working class has to pull the bourgeoisie down from the throne of the governance and take the helm steerage of political power in order to abolish the relations of wage slavery, is an obvious explanation. This is something that should not be debated, but all the discussions are about how to do that. Both approaches, the social democracy and parties loyal to the Second International on the one hand, and on the other hand, the Leninist currents, with different appearances, but with a single foundation, have distorted the mentioned speech and induced its opposite to the working masses. All the differences between these two spectrums were finally and basically summed up in the difference between the solutions for capturing political power by a party from above the head of the workers. The first tendency recommended the theory of resorting to parliamentarism to achieve political power, and the second considered resorting to militancy wrath as the solution. When Marx was talking about the inevitability of replacing the state machine of capital with the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, he, with complete clarity and without any ambiguity, was emphasizing the seizure of power by the comprehensive masses of working class as a social class. Firstly, establishing the political power of the workers in the form of a social class requires a widespread and nationwide council structure, and secondly, it can only be realized by an organized anti-capitalist nationwide council movement. Interpretation and any other narrative of this meaning – what the Leninist parties have done and still are doing – is a complete denial of the core of Marx’s concept, and the communism of abolishing the wage labor of the proletariat. Herein, there lies a substantive difference between the working class and any other class in history, including the bourgeoisie, in the seizure of political power. The proletariat cannot and it is not possible to seize political power through a party and organization or any other institution that is dominating the working class. The reason for this matter is very clear. Although this reason, with all its openness and transparency, seems very blasphemous, unreasonable and contrary to the facts for the party trustees. On this basis and as far as the designers and defenders of the theory of party formation are concerned, basically, we are not facing an earthly and materialistic dialogue within the process of the class struggle of the proletariat against capitalism. But on the contrary, we face a deeply dogmatic metaphysical and ideological confrontation, an approach that bases its work on the sanctity of the existence of the party, and it is determined to induce what is only the mechanism of establishing one form of planning the relation of purchasing and selling labor power with another form, and by this, they are calling it the manifestation of the class power of the proletariat, socialism and the steering order of human liberation. In fact, they are simply not able to get out of the fence of this ideological dogma servitude.
Anyway, back to our discussion, to this issue, why the proletariat is not possibly and fundamentally able to take over its real class political power through a party or any other institution of power beyond itself. In answering this question, we continue with the following explanations. The workers crush the bourgeois state machine and seize political power, and in this way, to break down the foundation of the existence of capitalism and remove the whole system of economy, politics and law, civility and culture, ethics and traditions and social values or all the effects and consequences of the existence of this system to the dustbin of history. For this purpose, the relation of purchase & sale of labor-force, or wage labor relations should be truly abolished. But the realization of such an event will definitely not be in the capability and capacity of any dominant state over the working masses, with any name, logo and flag or claim. The abolition of wage labor for the working class and from Marx’s view to class struggle, has a specific materialistic and precise meaning, including, the issues of the relation of sell & purchase of labor-power, the relation of separation worker from work and production tools , product of work and the process of determining the fate of work and social life. The abolition of wage labor depends on the abolition of this separation, so that the worker is not separated from his & her work, in defining work, in determining the purpose of work, in planning work and social production, whether it is produced or not produced, how much it should be produced and how to distribute what is produced, and must be shared in the long list of such issues in a direct, informed and fully effective manner. The worker will not be separated from his & her work, when they will, in all the above realms and things like these, in matters such as what part of the product of his annual work is for livelihood and social welfare, which contribution to the provision of intellectual excellence facilities, and what percentage to allocate to research, knowledge and technique, have a free, informed and decisive intervention. In a word, in order that the worker is not separated from the process of determining the fate of his & her work and life, must intervene in the planning of the whole process of product, in how come their work and product be spent for the physical and intellectual well-being, elevation and free growth of human beings and sufficiently and in a completely free and creative way in the most appropriate way. A worker who is not like that and has not been placed in such a situation, regardless of any kind of narration and interpretation, is in any case separated from work, the fate of work, production and life is getting determined by institutions over their head. Such a thing is naturally fanciful and perhaps impossible, but the main issue is that whether he & she agrees or disagrees, they will stamp their real and decisive power on the decision-making process. Here, two very basic questions are placed in front of us. First, how are the working masses able to play this role? and secondly, if the workers are not able to fulfill this role, in that case, which social force or power institution is the one that decides and plans everything on their behalf. Let’s examine the answers to both questions.
Regarding the first question, one thing is obvious. The working masses are able to play this role when they have achieved a certain level of anti-capitalist awareness, class consciousness and knowledge in the long process of struggle against capitalism. This does not mean that all workers have read the criticism of Hegel’s philosophy of right and German ideology, the Holy Family or the poverty of philosophy, Grundrisse, Capital and other works of Marx . The discussion is not about reading or not reading or people’s classical literacy, rather, it´s the existence of class-consciousness that we emphasize. The vast mass of working people who have broken the state machine of capital down and are looking forward to fundamental economic, political and social changes. They should be able to shed light on the maze of the path of these developments and the path leading to this goal. Otherwise, they will be such people who are forced to do whatever the dominant superior want, so they will find themselves obliged to accept and obey. Such a group of people can be whatever the leaders need in the most glamorous scenarios of democracy and the most exciting shows of egalitarianism, and they can be lined up under every flag, including the red flag of communism and human liberation. They can be forced to follow every capitalist path and at the same time be called the invincible and victorious army of communism and the proletariat. The history of the last hundred years is full of these events and scenarios. The fact that such a large mass of wage slaves with this profile, in no way will they be able to play an effective, informed and free role in the process of planning their work and production and social life, and advancing the human liberation movement. It does not seem to be an undeniable issue. Only the worst and the most demagogic political, intellectual and ideological representatives of bourgeois reactionary can deny this. If we accept this last point, we must also accept that the widespread support of the working masses of a society for a political party with the name and flag of communism, even if this support is at the widest level by itself, there will be no reason for this vast mass to have the necessary power, efficiency and capacity to have a creative and conscious effect in the process of planning work and production in the order of socialist life and the conditions after the revolution. An issue that we witnessed in such a disastrous way in the greatest labor revolution in history, in the October Revolution of 1917. A revolution whose winners, instead of blowing the trumpet of the destruction of capitalism and the historical opening of the huge gate of socialism on contemporary humanity, led the global labor movement to the darkest arena of maintaining wage slavery.
So far, if not for the holy leaders and guardians of the party, but for every conscious worker who seeking freedom from exploitation, humiliation, and the hardships of wage slavery, is clear that the masses of the working class, by marching behind a party above their heads, even if all members of the party constitute “workers”, even if these workers are party members who are fighters and sympathetic people, nevertheless, there is no guarantee for the effective, productive and informed role of the vast masses of workers in the planning of work and production and the future order of life. Therefore, let’s go to the second question. When the huge masses of workers, with their steely confidence in the many leaders and the party composed of vanguards, smash the bourgeois state machine, but as working class members, they are not able to plan the process of socialist transformation of society and the process of real abolition of wage labor. When this is the case, in this case, which social force or which power institution assumes and fulfills this role?
The first point in answering this question is to remember the fact that the revolution and the fall of the state machine of bourgeoisie, especially in the process or framework that the Leninist parties depict, by itself does not create any change in the nature of the existence of capital or existence of the relation of sell & purchase of labor power. In other words, the cycle of increasing the value-adding of social capital and the entire civil and legal, cultural and social structure that preserves it or is similar, even if it is disturbed, still continues to survive. In such a situation, the society is on two paths and on the threshold of determining the definite task. We must either crush the wage labor system and witness the abolition of the process of separation of the working masses from work and work tools, the product of work and the destiny of life, or otherwise, it is capital that imposes its intentions to restore the cycle of value addition and restore its political, legal, civil and social structure on the course of daily events and the working class. There is no third way, and between these two paths, when the vast mass of workers lacks the necessary preparation, ability and capacity to play a class-conscious and effective role in the process of abolishing wage labor and the socialist transformation of the economy. Of course, the second case will happen, as what we saw in the Russian society after the October Revolution in the worst forms. The most important issue, which all Leninist parties very deliberately and consciously ignore, is that the process of abolishing wage slavery and abolishing capitalism, not at all, is not of the kind of common government planning and policies. It is not a process that is carried out by a government on top of society. Even if the constituents of the government are workers too, it does not change the basis of the issue. The process of abolishing wage labor and dismantling capitalism, without any doubt, must be carried out by the broadest members of the working class masses in a nationwide council structure and with the greatest degree of class-conscious influence of these members. Another important point in this regard is that this extensive council structure, contrary to the ideas of all the capitalist parties, absolutely cannot happen all at once, and especially it emerges at the behest of the party leaders. This type of council, or council movement, is nothing more than a recruiting realm of soldiers for the party and it has no other role or subject relevance. A nationwide and widespread council structure capable of planning the process of abolishing wage labor and dismantling capitalism, should be a living symbol of the phase of growth and maturity of a strong labor movement. A movement that has been founded in the depths of the hell of wage slavery by the vast masses of workers and conscious activists of this class, that is a platform and class-weapon of the campaign of the proletariat against capitalism. It has demonstrated the independent anti-capitalist mobilization of the proletariat, and has advanced the class-war of the exploited class against the exploiting class. A movement that has formed and shaped the current socialist alternative of the proletariat against capital, and in the course of time, in the maze of class struggle and in the turbulence of storms, it has advanced this struggle. A council – anti-capitalist movement, which has finally destroyed the capitalist state in order to crush the existence of capital, and establish a new world, a world of free people who are freed from the domination of exploitation and capitalist power. Only such a conscious, huge and history-making class force can be the vanguard of the abolition of wage slavery relations, and the proletariat can only be able to bury capitalism in the graveyard of history by having this movement with its organized anti-capitalist form.
Now assuming that we accept the above truth. This question does arise : what is the task of the theoretical discussions of a conscious, profound and tactful person like Marx, about the transitional state or the dictatorship of the proletariat?
In response to this question, first of all, we must emphasize that we absolutely do not intend to justify Marx’s words. Marx does not need something like that, and anyone familiar with Marx’s approach to class struggle, doesn´t see him & herself authorized to do this kind of work. Marx, as a human being at the peak of anti-capitalist awareness, consciousness, and knowledge, could have put forward some issues in this or that case, or in some other cases with flaws. This has definitely happened, but it is clear that he has resolved the shortcomings and corrected the mistakes with meditation and in an informative manner. In some issues, the historical conditions of the day have not even allowed him to explore, ponder and correct. An example can be given for each of these cases, which is not the need of our current discussion. As far as the current discussion is concerned, Marx has discussed the dictatorship of the proletariat as a transitional state, but Marx has not put forward anything called a special theory of the transitional state, because and more importantly, basically, he was not a fan of this type of theorizing free from the restrictive of time and circumstances. This type of theorizing is in complete conflict with Marx’s materialist narrative of history and class struggle.
Between the autopsy of facts and the promotion of their results to scientific knowledge or class consciousness on the one hand, and the expression of probability about how the events that are about to happen, or will happen sooner or later, on the other hand, there is a huge difference, in the first case, what a class struggle activist does, in terms of methodology (of course, only in this sense), it is similar to a completely scientific research. The research that people in the realm of class battle, based on the total knowledge and intellectual ability of their day and certainly by referring to the social and class base knowledge of their own they do, in order to pave the path for the conflict and struggle of their own class against the other class, till they raise own social class´s awareness level as much as possible. So that they turn this awareness to the existence of consciousness. Into the material force of struggle in the class movement. In the case of Marx, all his political economy criticism texts, whatever he says about man, work and the method of production and the autopsy of civil society in political economy and the role of division of labor, about the matter of relations of material production and the production of thoughts, and describes the relation between life, consciousness and the class sources of thoughts, and his dissects of the class struggle process in Europe and elsewhere is one of these. When Marx dissects the commodity, when he explores the category of value, his discussion about embodied and abstract work, money, fetishistic nature of commodities, work process, production of surplus value, commodification of labor force and the relation of sale & purchase this force, the emergence of the capitalist mode of production, how to organize different parts of capital, rules for the formation of profit rates, productive and unproductive work, different forms of capital, competition and thousands of other issues that is pumping a world of knowledge and consciousness into the process of class struggle of the working masses. In all these fields, Marx sheds light on the realities of social life and subjectivities on the path of class-struggle between social classes from the observatory of the consciousness of the proletariat, and makes the result of this exploration and dissection available for the wage slaves. Marx’s discussion about the transitional state is not one of the above topics. Here, he correctly and very consciously talks about the issue of breaking the bourgeois state machine down and the necessity of capturing political power by the proletariat as a necessary step on the path to the labor revolution and the struggle for the destruction of wage slavery. But the shape, image and organization of the new political power is not something that can be put under the surgeon’s knife of his critical knowledge at the current time, because this is a matter that how it happens belongs to the future. But it must, and this must has to be very important, fundamental and decisive, that the process of realization of the event must be a function of the vital requirements of the class struggle of the proletariat for the abolition of wage slavery and in full organic connection with the entire context related to the dynamic of achieving this goal. Marx’s words about the dictatorship of the proletariat and the transitional state should be analyzed from this point of view. Otherwise, nothing but distortion will be delivered to the working masses, which Leninist parties have historically done on the largest scale. Marx was long talking about the transitional state. But Marx, as was his method of critical thinking, never came up with a predetermined version for the transitional state, until, many years passed and the masses of workers of Paris shook up history for the first time in a part of the world and opened a new window into humanity and the labor movement. The Communards were defeated, but Marx learned significant lessons from the glorious history of the Commune. Above all, he learned that the working class must unhesitatingly smash up the state machine of capital, but this was not the only lesson. Marx also learned other very important lessons, of which the process of capturing political power by the working masses and the general image of the rule of the victorious proletariat were at the top of all of them.
Let’s hear these lessons from his own words : ” The Commune was made up of city councilors who were elected by the general vote of the people in different areas of the city. These people were accountable at any moment and their positions were completely removable … the Commune should be an executive board, i.e. executive and legislative … as soon as the Commune system is established in Paris and secondary centers of the country, the former centralized government in the states and provinces must give way to the direct government of the producers…”. Marx deals with the true secret of the Commune and says : “Basically, it was a state of the working class, the product of the class struggle of the producers against the classes benefiting from possession and possession …The political form was finally achieved for the economic emancipation of labor [from the shackles of capital] , every person becomes a worker, and productive work is no longer an attribute that can be attributed in certain ways.”
Marx adds that : ” The working class did not expect miracles from the Commune. This social class does not have any pre-made utopia that it wants to establish by force of a decree issued by the authority of the people. This class knows that for the realization of its own liberation and with it the realization of a higher form of social life, towards which the entire movement of the current society is inevitably moving due to the necessity of its economic construction, and it is bound to go through a long period of struggle, through a series of historical processes, will completely change the conditions and circumstances governing the societies and the people themselves.” Summary of : ” Civil War in France “
A very simple comparison between the indicators and components that Marx defines here for the power of the Commune and its establishment method with what Lenin clearly said in his various writings about the dictatorship of the proletariat and the state machine of Bolshevism after the victory of the October Revolution shows huge and strong differences, the differences between the political power of the anti-capitalist proletariat in one place and the centralized dictatorship of state capitalism in another place.
The importance of Marx’s words in the above document is not, by any means, merely describing the coordinates of the political power of the Paris proletariat for a few weeks. The whole importance lies in Marx’s class and anti-capitalist view of the story. But all of Lenin’s words about the government of Russia from 1917 to 1924, the same state that he was describing as the manifestation of the power of the communist proletariat and the supreme leadership headquarters of the socialist transformation of the economy, was spinning around an axis. In real fact, Lenin only talks about how planning of the relation of sale & purchase of labor power by Bolshevik party and a party state machine which dominating over the working class, and that the government’s control over the economic levers and the ownership of work and production centers by the dominant state on the workers is that the promised socialist paradise.
Fifty years before that date, Marx said exactly the opposite of this with all clarity. Marx, with his precision and radical criticism, was talking about the historical lessons of the Commune and what the communards did, as well as the radical role and extent of the influence of the working masses in planning and organizing work and production, and the conscious and great initiative of the workers of Paris in dismantling any form of dominant governance over the working population, also their creative influence in providing the necessary conditions to abolish the capitalist system. Comparing the different approaches of Marx and Lenin, it highlights the truth of Marx’s “communism of the abolition of wage labor” approach, which contains the most valuable and undeniable lessons for the international labor movement and its activists. Marx’s point-by-point analysis, based on the radical study and conclusions, have important determinative lessons for generations of the international working class. The Paris Commune failed because the Communards and the French working class lacked a strong nationwide and conscious anti-capitalist council movement. Marx did not use these phrases in this way and formulation, but any conscious and radical anti-capitalist worker who is pondering Marx’s critical and dissection method, will conclude nothing else. The Communards failed because they did not have enough of the same indicators that Marx rightly counted as the great achievements and very glorious strengths of the class and anti-capitalist alignment of the Communards.
We would like to add three other important points here too. First, in the uprising of the Communards, no party had the role of the leadership of the uprising, and the workers were not under influence of any political party and didn’t follow the orders of any party composed of the professional revolutionaries. But it is obvious that the activists and leaders of the labor movement played a much more effective role. In fact, all the individuals were the working masses, each of whom formed a link in the nationwide chains of the Paris uprising, and in the continuation of the uprising, they were responsible for managing the affairs and planning the works, including the defense of the uprising. The second point is that Marx, in his critical study and scrutinizing conclusions, didn’t mention even a word about the effect of the lack of any political party on the failure of the Commune. On the contrary, all the initiatives and the greatness of the creativities of the Communards action are in their giving importance to the role of workers and in valuing the effective intervention of these individuals in the planning with executive affairs and the work and productions process in the direct governance of the producers. The third point, which in turn is very important, is that the workers of Paris, on the doorstep of the beginning of the uprising, were under the influence of Proudhon, Blanche and Bakunin ‘s deceptive and misguided idea, on a relatively wide level. With all this, and despite all the deceptive misguidance of some misguiders, the role played by the workers of Paris in the great event of the Commune was very stunning, glorious and instructive !! One of the most important reasons for the glorious historical lead of the working masses of Paris was that they were not under authority and orders of any dominant political party . But in Russia, the party and the party leadership apparatus became an obstacle to any kind of creative and history-making intervention of the working masses. The socialist transformation of the economy would not have been possible without the free, active and efficient intervention of the working masses, and the dominant capitalist state apparatus and other executive mechanisms had blocked the way for any radical intervention of the conscious and penetrating influence of the working class in Russia. If the Communards could have won the class struggle, they could see the abolition of wage slavery. But in Russia, the more the communist party and the transitional state became victorious, the more the working masses were getting further away from socialism, victory and the prospect of abolishing wage labor.
Marx’s view of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the political power of the transitional period should be analyzed by referring to all these issues, he discusses the rule of the proletariat as a social class, and does not consider any institution that dominant the working masses and society as a manifestation of the rule of the working class. Marx believes the working class as the source of communist consciousness, and he considers the conquest of political power by the proletariat as the threshold for establishing a society in which the free growth of all depends on the free growth of each individual. The architecturing of such a society is only in the adequacy of the ability and class will of the vast working masses that within a powerful nationwide anti-capitalist council movement, and in the wide field of class struggle against capital, is the only living, growing and powerful alternative, against the relations of wage slavery. The party’s strategy is merely a mechanism of the party’s attempt to replace another form of planning the relation of sale & purchase of labor power with another. The anti-capitalist councils are the only platform for this movement’s prosperity, field-leading and strengthening, but the whole discussion is how and in which process these councils will be created. Many say that the council is good, but its establishment requires its own conditions and time. But their purpose and meaning about the conditions and specific time is very clear. When the working masses without any preparation, organizing and deep class consciousness, without any organized independent anti-capitalist power, without any strong ossification of protest against wage slavery, without any of these, under the pressure of economic, political and oppressive by capitalism, and under the whip of poverty, hunger, homelessness and all other kind of miseries, they get pouring into the streets in an explosive manner. The day when a huge number of wage slaves of capital do something like that and the ruling upper class are unable to control their movement, such conditions are suitable for the calculation of existing parties and leftist circles. They are right, in all aspects appropriate, but only for the party to ride over the wave of the working masses’ movement along with other bourgeois reactionary oppositions. maybe they will climb to the throne of power, otherwise they will enter into bargaining to find a place in the state machine of capital. If they do not achieve any of these, the collapse of the former political power , even for a few days, is a chance to pave the way for the ascension to political power. This is the favorable conditions for building a council from the point of view of existing parties, organizations and left groups. The conditions that affect the party’s chance to capture political power and preparing to replace the current type of social capital value-adding cycle planning with another one, and also raising the flag of communism on the roof of the hell of capitalism. The conditions that affect the party’s chance to capture political power and preparing to replace the current type of social capital value-adding cycle planning with another one, and raising the flag of communism on the roof of the hell of capitalism. But the workers do not see any benefit in these council constructions and it will not give them anything, but failure is the only event that can await them.
The anti-capitalist activists of the labor movement see the process of establishing
councils in a different way. From their point of view, the natural current course of the story is as follows : The conscious workers breathe in the atmosphere of life and work, exploitation, poverty and misery, displacement and daily struggle of their class. They discuss each of these tragedies with other fellow workers and together look for a solution, and by this way, they share their suggestions and solutions with other workers in this way. For the greater success of their day-to-day class struggles, they try to understand capitalism more deeply and share this deeper understanding with other class comrades. They try to dissect the political, civil, legal, cultural and social superstructures of capital and use the results of this study and autopsy as a compass for their daily class struggle and other fellow workers. The anti-capitalist labor activist, along with other masses of fellow workers, in the context of the ongoing class war with capital in different fields, pursues all these tasks, and the council, for an anti-capitalist worker and consequently for the entire masses of fellow workers, is a platform for resourcefulness and planning, advancing and implementing all these class tasks. The establishment of a council movement does not require the issuing of a call and the establing a founding congress, the appointment of a central committee along with the selection of an executive committee or applying license for any political activities or ridiculously other items too.
The aim of our works and efforts to build councils is not the architecturing, arrangement and make up of the theoretical framework and then the formation of a special science academy to discover the ways of massifying ideas. Theories are not supposed to come out and find labor activists and connect these activists together, or that the theories will have legs and wiggle among the working masses and organize them, and in this style and manner, will build a council and start a revolution.
Our point of departure is not the ideas, but the workers who are involved in the class struggle against capital. The workers, of which we are some of them, because we belong to each other and our life and pains, suffering and everything are the same, all Like each other, we bear the pains caused by the tremendous pressure of exploitation and oppression, the intellectual and physical suppression and all forms of lacking of any rights by capitalism. When we feel ourselves in such a situation, then the matter of council and the establishment of councils become an inseparable part of our daily life and class struggle with capitalism. We are not trying to build an organizational structure and attract worker membership that will increase the number of its members. This does not mean building an anti-capitalist council, but rather its exact opposite and in a way turning in the same architected path of the extinctable spectrum of left-reformism. Indeed, our whole efforts are focused to encourage the workers’ daily struggle into a much more conscious struggle against capital, and this anti-capitalist struggle should be organized more consciously in a council form. Our point of departure is not just organizing the workers. We want to organize the anti-capitalist movement of the workers. An organization that does not take any other container except the council. This can only be done in the context of the life, work and struggle of the labor masses and in the ups and downs of the day-to-day events of the labor movement. Let’s talk more specifically.
Demanding an increase in wages, accords and bonuses and allowances, or unpaid wages. It is a field, and of course only a field, of the always and everywhere ongoing struggles of the working masses. In the center of these struggles, as we all witness, the strategy and solutions of the reformist background have an active presence everywhere. Tying the demands to the inflation rate and the poverty line, this or that specific figure, the cost of living and many other criteria are falling on the workers’ livelihood and work conditions,that sit-ins, petitions, and the like complement the above.
The anti-capitalist approach has a completely different solution in the midst of these upheavals. This anti-capitalist approach tells the working masses that the current conditions are a proof of weakness and desperation of the vast working masses in all parts of the world, who are caught in the delusions of right and left tendencies of the defender of capitalism. We workers will not be able to make even the slightest improvement in our working and living conditions through bargaining with the capitalists and the state of capital. Due to the lack of radical action and council organizing, we validate our exploitation, oppression and homelessness and also other imposed miseries by capitalism. When we accept to be and remain wage slaves, when we accept that the relatively free price of our labor-power is our only right in this world, when we consider the transformation of results of our work and production into capital as our rightful destiny, when we see our separation from the means of work, the product of work and production and accept all these calamities, then how do we expect that the capitalists and capital state will give in to this or that demand of our livelihood, welfare, or social and politic ?!
Activists of the anti-capitalist approach, and the abolition of wage labor, share these words with their working colleagues. At the same time, with a set of statistics and analysis and autopsies, they offer their solutions in the atmosphere of struggle and in response to the curiosity of the working comrades. They reveal the statistics and figures of the annual social product of labor and production of the working class with all accuracy, and they shed light over what the bourgeoisie has done with this whole product of work and production. It shows where and on what all the surplus values resulting from the work and exploitation of the working class and other toilers have been invested and spent for, and what has been paid to the workers under the name of wages, that is a very small amount of this huge volume of values and surplus values. The activists of the anti-wage labor approach make the working masses aware in the maze of the autopsy of capital and capitalism, and by this way getting to the roots, and propose their own class radical solution. They tell the working masses that we are facing a class war over the entire product of labor, and we demand that the entire product of labor and production of the working class be removed from the possession of the capital owners, and also we want to prevent the conversion of the product of our work and production into capital. They remind the working masses that the basic problem is that in order to remove any amount of this product of labor and production from the control and ownership of the capitalists, and in order to impose any of our demands on the capitalist class and its state, we must have an united and independent anti-capitalist power. The more our organized class power is, the more and more important demands we impose on the capitalists and their state. We have to raise our demands, but the actual success rate of our day will be determined by the exercise of our power of class struggle against capital, and in order to remove as much of the product of our labor and production as possible from the possession of capitalists, we need more and more organized anti-capitalist council power.
The anti-capitalist council movement follows the same view and approach, solution and method of struggle in all other fields of social life. In the realm of the fight against inhumane gender apartheid, it does not repeat the slogans with capitalist nature of the Leninist parties, and it does not tie these catastrophic inequalities to the lack of democracy, civility and human rights of the bourgeoisie. On the contrary, the anti-capitalist movement does put hands on the roots and digs the real source of all the injustices and discrimination in the depth of the existence of capital, and exposes the result of this research to the working masses. It shows how and in what forms, capital keeps women at home, and, or sends them to the labor market, and the rootinly subordination of both forms of oppression and gender apartheid from the process of profit-seeking of capital. It explains how women’s domestic work is tied to the saving of the largest items of social capital reproduction costs, and in this regard, to the infinite increase of surplus values. It reveals the root of any existing difference in the social position of men and women in the relation of production of surplus value, and the whole discussion and solution of the anti-capitalist approach in the field of struggle against dictatorship, and deprivation of freedom or human rights of individuals is exactly of the same kind. The activists of this approach everywhere state that what the bourgeoisie calls “right”, even in the best case, is a manifestation of total injustice and the slaughtering of people’s social rights. They also explain why the foundation of the existence of capital is in a fundamental conflict with any freedom, authority and real rights of human beings. They emphasize this important fact that in the system of separation of mankind from work, the product of his & her work and the fate of their social life, any talk about the realization of human rights is just distortion and brainwashing of people.
Anti-capitalist activists, in the heart of the daily struggles of the working masses, as members of the working class, carry out this class battle hand in hand, and they try with all their might to involve as many workers as possible with their analyses, strategies and solutions in every protest, struggle and uprisings of the workers. Anti-capitalist councils emerge in this way and in the process of these class battles. That is why the councils are the manifestation of unity, empathy and comradeship, and the exercise of the organized class power of the workers more and more in the context of their ongoing confrontation against capital.
We, the anti-capitalist workers, do not create something called a ” council ” to embed the workers in it, but, on the contrary, we will use all our strength to give a much deeper understanding of capitalism to the involved working masses in the ongoing struggle.
The anti-capitalist workers ,by preparing a much more conscious class struggle for attacking the vital artery of being of capital,
and, with more class radical readiness for revolting against the whole structures of power, also any other capitalist institutions such as legislative & executive one, civility and cultural one, and importantly the state of capital, we will organize a much more radical anti-capitalist council movement.
By
Naser Paydar
Feb. 2023