From International Socialism (1st series), No. 20, Spring 1965, p. 29.
Thanks to Ted Crawford & the late Will Fancy.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Workers’ Councils
Adolph Sturmthal
Harvard University Press/OUP, 40s.
For socialists the main interest of workers’ councils lies in what they represent politically. For Sturmthal, ‘Political councils ... are outside the industrial systems with which we are concerned.’ When he does deal with them, he manages to suggest that they need not be revolutionary organisations because, to take one example, ‘workers’ councils were used in Hungary during the rebellion of October 1956, as leaders of the anti-Communist movement’ (p. 23).
The book does, however, contain a lot of facts on the formal structure and operations of workshop organisations as bargaining and managerial units in France, Germany, Yugoslavia and Poland, the section on Germany being by far the most interesting.
Last updated on 18 February 2017