> On Jan 27, 2026, at 08:14, David Walters via groups.io > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Mark, the comment you made (under this thread I'm not sure why)
Go to the first message in this thread, https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/40367. Please then follow the URL and go to the article to find the quote, "What is absent is a central force that can give a working class content to this movement and help drive it forward. That force is the unions." I was responding to that quote. > was contextualized about raising class consciousness and why unions are not > the answer with a one liner about Phlekanov and Lenin. The one liner is directly relevant to the above quote. Here's a longer quote from WITBD, "We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc." And you know all this, of course. > I was responding the issue of class consciousness and how that develops. The > intent of Lenin's What is to be Done? is about raising class consciousness > and noted, or suggested, that doing that proceeds from different > directions...via political parties as that consciousness develops or via > unions. Another issue is the manifestation of working class consciousness and > what forms it takes, such as parties, or unions, that the working class for > itself. In that, even Mamdani and Sander's rhetorical appeals to the "working > class" ignore this completely. Rather than trade union leadership of the class, Lenin referenced Plekhanov that trade union struggles teach resistance to capitalism, and Lenin posited the need for a political party where trained activists in history, theory and politics intervene in the trade unions to direct union struggles in a more political direction. Lenin thought that the revolutionary political organization should lead the unions, rather than vice versa. And you know this, too. I think you and I might have discussed Lenin in 1977 or 78. > > [Syndicalism is a term with two meanings. 1, it means focusing exclusively on > union activity and the development/organization of the trade unions and 2, > the more historic usage, is that workers revolution can only necessarily > proceed via the trade union movement be the essential vehicle for such > workers power. Essentially the program of the old IWW and before that, the > huge French revolutionary Syndicalist movement that had inspired many > wobblies, anarchists, and revolutionary workers. William Z. Foster organized > the "Syndicalist League" prior to being won to communism] JR's quote made me think of the IWW. thanks, Mark -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#40404): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/40404 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/117460647/21656 -=-=- 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: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
