capitalism. Every country abolished passed through successive phases doing so. • Firstly and above all, the working dess must conquer political power without this the ownership and control of the economy by capitalism cannot be broken. This conquest or power need not, indeed usually does not take place around economic issues at all but, for example, flows out of struggle dictatorship, fight independence, etc.
for without this the real practical power and control of the capitalists over the • LULLY cannot be broken. workers' control 'the control of capital' develop before the working class takes power it cannot become a comprehensive and complete economic system until state power is in the hands of the working class. • Thirdly. when practical control of the state and economy has been taken into the hands of the working class the capitalists can in reality, as opposed to parely legally formally, propriated - the full nationalisation of I the decisive sectors of the economy be carried through.
The time it takes to pass through these phases differs. In Russia, under the pressure of civil war, the regime of workers' control, and of 'the control of capital', lasted only six months before the full nationalisation of the economy — although Lenin and Trotsky pointed out that the extreme speed with which this process had to be carried through caused great economic damage. They would have preferred, if the foreign incivil war developed, to carry economic processes much more slowly.
In the case of China, which was not faced revolution with mediate foreign intervention, Socialist Action which has necessarily directly against national and ordered way While wrest, by degrees, - a real regime of munist Manifesto. - can begin to political considerations may no economic consequences.
light of a specific situation.
ex- carried out workers' and tion of the economy.
capital' parliament because state had not possessed by through LIC means but imthe full 11 January 1985 The City, nerve-centre of capital nationalisation of the economy did not take place for several years after the working class had taken political state power. Other tempos are possible.
The speed with which such a transition must be carried out is a purely tactical question. From an economic point of view it would be preferable to make this transition in the economy in a slow for the working class to use 'its political supremacy to all capital from the bourgeoisie' as Marx put it in the ComHowever concrete make necessary to proceed much more rapidwildl the immediate • This question of tempo is a concrete matter which can only be decided in the But this reality, that the actual expropriation of the bourgeoisie, the nationalisation of the economy, can only practice through control of the economy, remains true in every case. A real 'control of capital' is precisely the transition to the practical nationalisaThe approach of 'the control of therefore completely counterposed to the absurd proposal of the Militant that the capitalist class can be expropriated by passing an act of nationalising monopolies. No expropriation of the capitalist class by such parliamentary means could take place at all - both power would be the working class by such Also because no practical control of the economy would exist.
It is the approach of 'the control of capital', but carried through in a much more thorough-going way than its adАВТОР РЕЖИССЕР О. ДОВЖЕЧ vocates at present envisage, that is the real way to approach the transition to a socialist economy. Nationalisation of the financial system, and control of relation the economy, must be extended into the industrial sector through workers' control if a real transition to a socialist economy is to take place.
In order to show the real historical and theoretical framework in which the control of capital should be looked at, the classic case remains that of the Rus which is what our sian Kevolution article by DAVE BAILEY looks at. It originally appeared in the journal International in 1977. Socialist Action has edited it.
control pital F TEA irreconcilability To conome sabotard. responsibility for the severe measures that follow therefrom will fall, in the eyes of the nation, workers but upon the hostile classes.? Such, he added, is the 'political import' of the slogan workers' control.
This issue was of particular importance Russia, bourgeoisie (in this case the peasantry) constituted an outright majority of the population tions carried out whether locally or nationally, described as 'punitive' for sabotage or non-cooperation by the owners.
Although Russia was cut reasonabie to political import of the policy played its part in the Bolshevik success. As Trotsky wrote, the slogan of workers' control 'retains an enormous (political significance independently degree to which it will be realised in reality, if realised at all'.
The controls exercised by various proletarian institutions revolution were quite comprehensive with present-day discussions in Britain about workers' control will be surprised to hear just what the measures taken entailed. issued in April 1917 by the 'exploratory conference of the Petrograd War Industries', stated: 'From the Factory Committee should emanate all instructions concerning inten organsauote usual. tions concerning such matters as hours work, wares. holidays, etc). The factory manager to be kept notified.' by resorting to the Bolsheviks not upon the where the petty Most of the nationalisathe were revolution exclude workers' control in dustrialists short, seems 'agreements' conclude domination.
of the Writers during the only One of the earliest decrees factory committees of should hiring firing, stantly In other words, as conceived by the workers' control implied that the working class would hold ef fective state power. The February insurrection, after which the soviet formed, had delivered nearly all real power to the armed proletariat and soldiers (with the exception of the governmental apex; in this sense, LIULSKY able to say that 'the dictatorship of the workers and soldiers had already been a fact ever since 27 February', and Lenin frequently spoke of the possibility of 'peaceful development' of the Naturally, this state of affairs -proletarian power — did not altogether agreements with the Nevertheless, such occurred under the massive weight of organised proletarian This reflected an alignment of forces opposite to that of trade unionism, where workers are permitted to bargain and come to agreements, but under the organised weight of bourgeois domination.
on workers' control sometimes imply that control is an intermediate state of affairs prior to the outbreak of the revolution.
But the value of such demands does not depend on their realisation before the revolution. The purpose of raising the demand for control today, like the objective function of factory occupations and other such episodic struggles is primarily to expose the bourgeoisie and to prepare the workers for a strug gle to overthrow it To this end, every opportunity must be used to promote the idea that the labour movement can take the place the employing class at the head of society This means that socialists must conquestion existing Why shouldn't the labour movement
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• Secondly state and workers control of the economy must be established -