ON
WORKERS CONTROL OF PRODUCTION
By Leon Trotsky
{The following letter from Leon Trotsky to his followers in the United States, which is not readily available today, was published in The Militant in two issues, October 17 and 24, 1931.
(While it deals with an acute problem of the time -- how to stop the fascists in Germany from gaining power -- it should nevertheless prove of current interest to revolutionists concerned with general problems of tactics and strategy because of the striking example it provides of how Trotsky approached such questions; that is, the method utilized by the Bolsheviks in Russia which made pos— sible the revolutionary success of 1917.
[The heart of the method is (1) to never lose sight of the goal of socialisn, to keep it constantly at the center of all calculations -- understanding that the ruling class, as shown by history and by many current examples in the world today, can be expected to utilize the most violent means to retain power; (2) at the same time to estimate as realistically as possible the actual mood of the masses -their level of understanding, immediate capacity for struggle and the issues on which they are prepared to take action if only of the most limited nature for the moment; (43) to seek slogans, lines of action, and of organization that will help bridge the gap between the present thinking and feelings of the masses and the revolutionary socialist goal.
{The reasons for this approach would seem to be rather obvious. Nevertheless, several points are worth noting. First of all, it is held as axiomatic that deep-going revolutions are made by the masses and not by a small minority, no matter how revolutionary-minded, dedicated or self-sacrificing this minority may be. A minority of conscious revolutionists in society can play a leading role; in fact, such a minority is called on to play the leading role, but it cannot substitute for the masses. It follows that there are no short cuts to success. The minority must first organize itself; then become rooted in the masses; finally, it must participate in the self-organization of the masses in such a way as to make success possible when the masses, as a result of their own experiences, go into action.
(This does not mean that revolutionists, as an organized vanguard, play no role in the mobilization of the masses. On the contrary, they can act as a catalyst when conditions are propitious for this. To play this role necessitates the most careful study of economic, social and political processes and the selection of correct slogans and lines of action.
{On the one hand, it is necessary to have a proper appreciation of economic developments, both the long-range ones as well as the most conjunctural. On the other hand, it is necessary to know accurately the psychology of the masses and their various strata as it actually is and not as it ought to be or as the revolutionists would prefer it to be.
{General considerations of this kind lay behind Trotsky's thinking when he wrote the letter below. But it was written in a specific context -- the Germany of 1931. This makes the letter all the more instructive, since it provides an actual example of Trotsky's procedure. The country was being profoundly shaken by a major depression. The workers were becoming radicalized; big business was readying the Nazi club with which to smash the labor movement and much else besides; the middle class was torn between the polarizing centers to the left and the right. Germany was clearly moving toward a showdown in which the alternative was a socialist revolution or fascism.
(The working class was so powerful and the labor movement so solidly organized that the odds were against Hitler and his Nazis. Unfortunately the workers were in disarray politically.
{The loyalty of the broad vanguard was divided between the Social Democratic and Communist parties. This would not have been fatal if either of these parties had been truly revolutionary and able to work out policies adequate to the situation. Neither Trotsky nor any other revolulutionary Marxist expected anything of the Social Democratic leadership, which had already shown its bankruptcy during the first world war and the ensuing revolutionary period when it supported the German ruling class and saved it from a socialist overturn.
[The key piece was the Communist party which, like the Social Democratic party, had millions of followers. But here a new complication had arisen. The Communist party, despite its relative youthfulness, had become deeply affected by Stalinism. Whether the damage was irreparable could be determined only by further experience.
[For the handful of genuine revolutionists, then, the problem boiled down to reaching the militants of the Communist party, convincing them -- at their
level of development -~ as to the real nature of the situation, its dangers and opportunities; then, through these militants, reaching the rank and file Social Democrats, and finally the working class as a whole.
{This was the context in which Trotsky wrote his letter on the use of workers control as one of the slogans which should be considered in Germany.
{It might be argued that the Nazi victory disproved the efficacy of Trotsky's method. But Trotsky's method was not applied against Hitler. In place of it, Stalin's line was followed by the German Communist party, with the catastrophic consequences that led at the next stage to World War II and the imperialist invasion of the USSR. Where Trotsky's method, which was also Lenin's method, was actually used in a comparable situation it assured the greatest revolutionary victory yet achieved by mankind -the victory of October 1917 in Russia.
{Some obvious typographical errors have been corrected and in a few places phrases in the translation have been reconstructed to make them more readable. ]
* * x
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, and 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 or 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 class collaboration can be -90~
realized only through the upper strata of the trade unions and the capitalist associations. There have been no few such attempts: in Ger ("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 enterprise, in the trust, in the branch of industry, in the whole of industry.
What state regime corresponds to workers' control of production? It is obvious that the power is not yet in the hands of the proletariat, otherwise we would have, not 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 dual power in its factories. Workers' control, consequently, can be carried out only 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 deepest 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 dual power in the state.
This relationship, however, should not be understood mechanically, that is,
not in the manner that dual power in the factory and 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 persistent economic crisis (strong state of organization of the workers in the factories, relative weakness of the revolutionary party, 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, 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 Soviets, where Soviets must arise directly for the purpose of the armed uprising. This stereotype is absolutely worthless. 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 Aus-~ tria in November 1918. In all three
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places, the main organizers of the Sovi-
ets 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 suc-
cessful in tearing the Soviets from the
conciliators. In Germany, they did not
succeed and that is why the Soviets dis-
appeared.
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 ini-
tiative 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 possi-
bility. 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 prole-
tariat, 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 really 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 vic-
tory, already as direct organs of power.
The matter stands quite different-
ly with the factory councils. They already
exist today. They are composed of Commu-
nists as well as of Social Democrats. In
a certain sense, the factory councils
realize the united front of the working
class. They will broaden and deepen this
function with the rise of the revolution-
ary tide. Their role will grow, as will
their encroachment 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 coun-
cils can serve as the basis for the organs
which actually fulfill the role of Sovi-
ets, that is, the organs of 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 ona
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 connect-
ing 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 a 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 sucha 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 ex~ tent the road through the factory councils appears to be the more probable one.
The epigones have purely mechanic-— ally 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 counterposed 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 follows clearly how false, schematic, and lifeless is such a construction. In practice, 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 influerce 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
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over banks, commerce and production even
before they have reached an understand-
ing of the revolutionary conquest of
power.
Taking the path of control of pro-
duction, 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 in turn extend
the question of control beyond the walls
of the isolated enterprise. In a country
as highly developed industrially as Ger-
many, the question of exports and imports
alone suffices to elevate workers' con-
trol immediately to the level of state
tasks and to counterpose the central or-~
gans of the bourgeois state. The essen-
tially 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 ex-
tended, 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 counterrevolu-
tion, which establishes the naked dicta-
torship of capital (Italy). It is pre-
cisely in Germany, with its strong Social
Democracy, that the struggle for workers'
control of production will in all proba-
bility be the first stake of the revolu-
tionary united front of the workers, which
precedes the open struggle for power.
Should the slogan of workers' con-
trol, however, be raised right now? Is
the revolutionary situation "ripe" for
it? This question is hard to answer. There
is no measuring device which would permit
one to determine, once and for all, what
degree the revolutionary situation has
reached. One is compelled to gauge it by
deeds, in struggle, with the aid of the
most varied measuring devices. One of
these devices, under the given conditions
perhaps one of the most important, is
precisely the slogan of 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 Com-
munist workers with the Social Democratic,
nonparty, Christian and other workers, can
be prepared. The attitude of the Social
Democratic workers is decisive. The rev-
olutionary united front of the Communists
and Social Democrats -- that is the fun-
damental political condition which is
lacking in Germany for an immediately
revolutionary situation. The presence of
a strong Fascism is surely a serious ob-
stacle on the road to victory. Yet, Fas-
cism can retain its power of attraction
only because the proletariat is split and
weak, and because it lacks the possibil-
ity of leading the German people on the
road to a victorious revolution. A revo-
lutionary 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 German Communist party 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.
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 conmmercial enterprises. Especially crass cases of speculation must be taken as a point of departure, camouflaged lockouts, fraudulent hiding of profits in order to justify cutting wages or fraudulent 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 expose business secrets and to establish workers' control of production. Utilizing particularly crass individual cases, we must begin to conduct propaganda persistently in a completely positive way, and thus 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."
wo
The preliminary probing of the ground assumes a simultaneously theoretical and propagandistic elaboration of the
* {In 1931, the Nazis initiated a referendum that aimed at ousting tthe Social Democratic government in Prussia. The German Communist party, under Stalin's theory that the Social Democrats were "Social Fascists" and constituted the "main danger," supported the referendun, calling it the "Red Plebiscite."]
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question of the party, a serious and ob-
jective educating of the advanced work-
ers in the first place, of the factory
council members, of the prominent trade-
union workers, etc. Only the outcome of
this preparatory work, that is, the de-
gree of its success, can show at what
moment the party can pass over from pro-
paganda to further agitation and to di-
rect 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 ques-
tion in the first period of propaganda
for the correct principled way of putting
the question and at the same time of
study of the concrete conditions of the
struggle for workers' control. The Oppo-
sition,* on a small scale and to the
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 work-
ing in the factory councils and in the
trade unions, and 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 adapted 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 slo-
gan of Soviets in China.** In reality
such an "objection" is only base soph-
istry, which is founded on the same orga-
nizational fetishism, that is, upon the
identification of the class essence with
the organizational form. Had the Stalin-
ists 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 atten-
tion. But we were recommended to replace
the Soviets with the Kuo Min Tang, that
* [The International Left Opposition, the
faction organized under Trotsky's leader-
ship within the Communist International
to defend the program of revolutionary
Marxism against Stalinist revisionisn.]
** [At one point in the 1925-27 revolu-
tion in China. ]
is, by the enslavement of the workers to the capitalists. The dispute was over the class content of an organization and not over 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
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Wang Chin Wei. The Chinese workers have
no Social Democratic, conservative tra-
ditions. 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.
ISRAELI