On Tue, May 21, 2024 at 06:22 AM, Michael Meeropol wrote: > > Reading the information about Chinese workers engaging in (very dangerous) > acts of resistance suggests a possible parallel --- > > American Slavery (in the US) >
A closer parallel would be the early period of labour unrest before unions won the right to organize and strike. As we know, there were many spontaneous walkouts and other forms of resistance to oppressive labour conditions. However, this protest activity was accompanied by, and was a major contributor to, the formation of union federations like the Knights of Labor, AFL, and IWW. As noted previously, this wasn't the case where capitalism was overthrown by parties affiliated to the 3rd International, where pre-revolutionary independent trade unions were replaced by larger organizations controlled by the state. When there have been spontaneous outbreaks of worker discontent, the state has not relied not only on repression but on the official "socialist" unions to act as shock absorbers addressing workers' grievances - in essence, performing the same role as company unions under capitalism but on a much larger scale. What seems to distinguish spontaneous worker resistance in the CP-led states is the relative absence of independent trade union organization arising out of it. Repression alone can't explain it as trade unions in the capitalist countries were certainly as viciously repressed before they finally won legal acceptance. The existence of large state-run unions in the so-called workers' states may be the decisive factor. Consequently, while the incidence of scattered spontaneous protest interests me a measure of working class discontent in China, I'm especially interested in any news about the existence and growth of independent nationwide trade unions as a measure of working class self-organization and its potential to move the society to the left. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#30440): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/30440 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/106146595/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: marxmail+ow...@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [arch...@mail-archive.com] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
