9. The Management of Society

We have already discussed the type of change that would be brought about by the “vertical” and “horizontal” cooperation of Workers’ Councils, a cooperation secured through industrial councils composed of delegates from various places of work. A similar regional cooperation would be established through Councils representing all the units of a region. Cooperation will finally be necessary on a national level, for all the activities of society, whether economic or not.

A central body, which would be the expression and the emanation of the producers themselves, would ensure the general tasks of economic coordination, inasmuch as they were not dealt with by the plan itself – or more precisely, inasmuch as the plan will have to be frequently or constantly amended (the very decision to suggest that it should be amended would have to be initiated somewhere). Such a body would also coordinate activities in other areas of social life, which have little or nothing to do with general economic planning. This central body would be the direct emanation of the Workers’ Councils and of the local General Assemblies themselves. It would consist of a Central Assembly of Council Delegates, which Assembly would itself elect, from within its own ranks, a Central Council.

This network of General Assemblies and Councils is all that is left of “the State” or “power” in a socialist society. It is the whole “state” and the only embodiment of “power.” There are no other institutions from which proposals or decisions might emanate to influence people’s lives. To convince people that there would be no other “state” lurking in the background we must show:

1. that such a pattern of organization could deal with all the problems that might arise in a free society – and not only with industrial problems;

2. that institutions of the type described could coordinate all those social activities which the population felt needed coordination (in particular, non-economic activities) – in other words, that they could fulfill all the functions needed of a socialist administration (which are radically different from the functions of a modern State). We will finally have to discuss what would be the significance of “parties” and of “politics” in such a society.

a. The Councils: An Adequate Organization for the Whole Population

The setting-up of Workers’ Councils will create no particular problems in relation to industry (taking the term in its widest sense to include manufacture, transport, building, mining, energy production, public services, etc.). The revolutionary transformation of society will, in fact, be based on the establishment of such Councils and would be impossible without it.

In the post-revolutionary period, however, when the new social relations become the norm, a problem will arise from the need to regroup people working in smaller enterprises. This regrouping will be necessary if only to ensure them their full democratic and representational rights. Initially, it would probably be based on some compromise between considerations of geographical proximity and considerations of industrial integration. This particular problem isn’t very important, for even if there are many such small enterprises, the number of those working in them only represents a small proportion of the total working population.

Paradoxical as it may seem, the self-organization of the population into Councils could proceed as naturally in agriculture as in industry. It is traditional on the left to see the peasantry as a source of constant problems for working class power, because of its dispersion, its attachment to private property and its political and ideological backwardness. These factors certainly exist, but it is doubtful if the peasantry would actively oppose a working class power exhibiting towards it an intelligent and socialist attitude. The “peasant nightmare,” currently obsessing so many revolutionaries, results from the telescoping of two quite different problems; on the one hand, the relations of the peasantry with a socialist administration, in the context of a modern society; on the other hand, the relations between peasantry and State in the Russia of 1921 (or of 1932), or in the satellite countries between 1945 and the present time.

The situation which led Russia to the New Economic Policy of 1921 is of no exemplary value to any, even moderately, industrialized country. There is no chance of its repeating itself in a modern setting. In 1921, it was a question of an agriculture which did not depend on the rest of the national economy for its essential means of production, and which seven years of war and civil war had compelled to fall back on itself entirely. The Party was asking of this agriculture to supply its produce to the towns, without offering it anything in exchange. In 1932, in Russia (and after 1945 in the satellite countries), what happened was an absolutely healthy resistance of the peasantry to the monstrous exploitation imposed on it by a bureaucratic state, through forcible collectivization.

In a country such as France – classically considered “backward” in relation to the numerical importance of its peasantry – workers’ power would not have to fear a “wheat strike.” It would not have to organize punitive expeditions into the countryside. Precisely, because the peasant is concerned with his/her own interests, s/he would have no cause to quarrel with an administration which supplies him/her with petrol, electricity, fertilizers, threshing machines and spare parts. Peasants would only actively oppose such an administration if pushed to the limit, either by exploitation or by an absurd policy of forced collectivization. The socialist organization of the economy would mean an immediate improvement in the economic status of most peasants, if only through the abolition of that specific exploitation they are subjected to through middlemen. As for forced collectivization, it would be the very antithesis of socialist policy in the realm of agriculture. The collectivization of agriculture could only come about as the result of an organic development within the peasantry itself. Under no circumstances, could it be imposed through direct or indirect (economic) coercion.

A socialist society would start by recognizing the rights of the peasants to the widest autonomy in the management of their own affairs. It would invite them to organize themselves into Rural Communes, based on geographical or cultural units, and comprising approximately equal populations. Each such Commune would have, both in relation to the rest of society and in relation to its own organizational structure, the status of an enterprise. Its sovereign organism would, therefore, be the General Assembly of peasants and its representational unit the Peasant Council. Rural Communes and their Councils would be in charge of local self-administration. They, alone, would decide when or if they wanted to form producers’ cooperatives, and under what conditions. In relation to the overall plan, it would be the Rural Communes and their Councils that would argue with the Central administration, and not individual peasants. Communes would undertake to deliver such-and-such a fraction of their produce (or a given amount of a specific product) in exchange for given credits[25] or given amounts of the means of production. The Rural Communes themselves would decide how these would be distributed among their own members.

What about groups of workers involved in services of various kinds (from postmen to workers in entertainment)? There is no reason why the pattern of their self-organization should not resemble that pertaining in industry as a whole. And, what about the thousand-and-one petty trades existing in towns (shop-keepers, cobblers, hairdressers, doctors, tailors, etc.)? Here, the pattern of organization could resemble what we have outlined for an “atomized” occupation such as agriculture. Working class power would never seek forcibly to collectivize these occupations. It would only ask of these categories to group themselves into associations or cooperatives, which would at one-and-the-sametime constitute their representative political organs and their responsible units in relation to the management of the economy as a whole. There would be no question, for instance, of socialized industry individually supplying each particular shop or artisan. It would supply the cooperatives of which these shopkeepers or artisans would be members, and would entrust to these cooperatives themselves to distribute within their own ranks. At the political level, people in these occupations would seek representation through Councils, for it is difficult to see how else they could be genuinely represented. There would be no fraudulent elections of either the western or Russian types.

These solutions admittedly present serious shortcomings when compared with industrially based Workers’ Councils – or even when compared with the Rural Communes. Workers’ Councils or Rural Communes aren’t primarily based on an occupation (when they are still so based, this would reflect their weakness rather than their strength). They are based on a working unity and on a shared life. In other words, Workers’ Councils and Rural Communes are organic social units. A Cooperative of artisans or of petty traders, geographically scattered and living and working separately from one another, will only be based on a rather narrow community of interests. This fragmentation is a legacy of capitalism, which socialist society would sooner or later seek to transcend. There are possibly too many people in these occupations today. Under socialism, part of them would probably be absorbed into other occupations. Society would grant funds to the remainder to enable them, if they so wished, to organize themselves into larger, self-managed units.

When discussing people in these various occupations, we must repeat what we said about the peasantry – namely that we have no experience of what their attitudes might be to a socialist society. To start with, and up to a point, they will doubtless remain “attached to property.” But up to what point? All that we know is how they reacted when Stalinism sought forcibly to drive them into a concentration camp. A society which would grant them autonomy in their own affairs, which would peacefully and rationally seek to integrate them into the overall pattern of social life, which would give them a living example of democratic self-management, and which would give them positive help if they wanted to proceed towards socialization, would certainly enjoy a different prestige in their eyes (and would have a different kind of influence on their development) than did an exploiting and totalitarian bureaucracy, which by every one of its acts reinforced their “attachment to property” and drove them centuries backward.

b. The Councils and Social Life

The basic units of social organization envisaged so far would not only manage production. They would, at the same time and primarily, be organs for popular self-management in all its aspects. They would be both organs of local self-administration and the only bases of the central power, which would only exist as a Federation or regrouping of all the Councils.

To say that a Workers’ Council will be an organ of popular self-management (and not just an organ of workers’ management of production), is to recognize that a factory or office isn’t just a productive unit, but is also a social cell and locus of individual “socialization.” Although this varies from country to country, and from workplace to workplace, a mass of activities, other than just earning a living, take place there (canteens, cooperatives, sports clubs, libraries, rest houses, collective outings, dances), activities which allow human ties both private and “public” to become established. To the extent that the average person is today active in “public” affairs, it is more likely to be through some activity related to work than in his capacity as an abstract “citizen,” voting once every 5 years. Under socialism, the transformation of the relations of production, and of the very nature of work, would enormously reinforce the positive significance, for each worker, of the working collective to which s/he belonged.

Workers’ Councils and Rural Communes would probably take over all “municipal” functions. They could also take over many others, which the monstrous centralization of the modern capitalist state has removed from the hands of local groups, with the sole aim of consolidating the dominion of the ruling class and of its bureaucracy over the whole population. Local Councils, for instance, might take over the local administration of justice and the local control of education.

The two forms of regroupment – productive and geographical – today seldom coincide. Peoples’ homes are at variable distances from where they work. Where the scatter is small, as in a number of industrial towns or industrial suburbs (or in many Rural Communes), the management of production and local self-administration might be undertaken by the same General Assemblies and by the same Workers’ Councils. Where home and work place don’t overlap, geographically-based local Councils (Soviets) would have to be instituted, directly representing both the inhabitants of a given area and the enterprises in the area. Initially, such geographically-based local Councils may be necessary in many places. One might envisage them as “collateral” institutions, also in charge of local affairs. They would collaborate at local and at national level with the Councils of producers (Workers’ Councils) which alone however would embody the new power in production.[26]

The problems created by the parallel existence of the two kinds of Councils could soon be overcome, if changes took place in where people chose to live.{17} This is but a small aspect of an important problem that will hang over the general orientation of socialist society for decades to come. Underlying these questions are all the economic, social and human problems of town planning in the deepest sense of the term. At the limit, there even lies the problem of town and country. It is not for us here to venture into these fields. All we can say is that a socialist society will have to tackle these problems as total problems, from the very start, for they impinge on every aspect of peoples’ lives and on society’s own economic, political and cultural purpose.

What we have said about local self-administration also applies to regional self-administration. Regional Federations of Workers’ Councils or of Rural Communes will be in charge of coordinating these bodies at a regional level and of organizing activities best tackled at such a level.

c. Industrial Organization of “State” Functions

We have seen that a large number of functions of the modern State (and not merely “territorial” functions), will be taken over by local or regional organs of popular self-administration. But, what about the truly “central” functions, those which affect the totality of the population, in an indivisible manner?

In class societies, and in particular under classical 19^th-century “liberal” capitalism, the ultimate function of the State was to guarantee the maintenance of the existing social relations through the exercise of a legal monopoly of violence. According to classical revolutionary theory, the state consisted of “specialized bodies of armed men, and prisons.” In the course of a socialist revolution, this state apparatus would be smashed, the “specialized detachments of armed men” dissolved and replaced by the arming of the people, the permanent bureaucracy abolished, and replaced by elected and revocable officials.

Under modern capitalism, increasing economic concentration and the increasing concentration of all aspects of social life (with the corresponding need for the ruling class to submit everything to its control), have led to an enormous growth of the state apparatus, of its functions, and of its bureaucracy. The State is no longer just a coercive apparatus which has elevated itself “above” society. It is the hub of a whole series of mechanisms whereby modern society functions from day to day. At the limit, the modern State subtends all social activity, as in the fully developed state capitalist regimes of Russia and the satellite countries. Even in the West, the modern state does not only exercise “power” in the narrow sense, but takes on an ever-increasing role in management and control not only of the economy, but of a whole mass of social activities. In parallel with all this, the State takes on a whole lot of functions which in themselves could perfectly well be carried out by other bodies, but which have either become useful instruments of control, or which imply the mobilization of considerable resources which the State alone possesses.

In many people’s minds, the myth of the “State, as the incarnation of the Absolute Idea” (which Engels mocked a century ago), has been replaced by another myth, the myth of the State as the inevitable incarnation of centralization and of the “technical rationalization” required by modern social life. This has had two main effects. On the one hand, it has led to people considering outmoded, utopian or inapplicable some of the more revolutionary insights of Marx or Lenin (in relation to the events of 1848, 1871, or 1905). On the other hand, it has led to people swallowing the reality of the modern Russian State, which simultaneously epitomizes[27] the most total negation of previous revolutionary conceptions of what socialist society might be like, and exhibits a monstrous increase of those very features criticized, in capitalist society, by previous revolutionaries (the total separation of rulers and ruled, permanent officialdom, great privileges for the few, etc.).

But, this very evolution of the modern state contains the seed of a solution. The modern state has become a gigantic enterprise – by far the most important enterprise in modern society. It can only exercise its managerial functions to the extent that it has created a whole network of organs of execution, in which work has become collective, fragmented and specialized. What has happened here is the same as what has happened to the management of production in particular enterprises. But, it has happened on a much vaster scale. In their overwhelming majority, today’s government departments only carry out specific and limited tasks. They are “enterprises,” specializing in certain types of work. Some (such as Public Health) are socially necessary. Others (such as Customs) are quite useless, or are only necessary in order to maintain the class structure of society (such as the Police). Modern governments often have little more real links with the work of “their” departments than they have, say, with the production of motor cars. The notion of “administrative rights,” which remains appended to what are, in fact, a series of “public services,” is a juridical legacy, without real content. Its only purpose is to reinforce the arbitrariness and irresponsibility of those at the top of various bureaucratic pyramids.

Given these facts, the solution would not lie in the “eligibility and revocability” of all public servants. This would be neither necessary (these officials exercise no real power) nor possible (they are specialized workers, whom one could no more “elect” than one would elect electricians or doctors). The solution would lie in the industrial organization, pure and simple, of most of today’s government departments. In many cases, this would only be giving formal recognition to an already existing state of affairs. Concretely, such industrial organization would mean:

1. the explicit transformation of these government departments into “enterprises” having the same status as any other enterprise. In many of these new enterprises, the mechanization and automation of work could be systematically developed to a considerable degree;

2. the function of these enterprises would be confined to the carrying out of the tasks allotted to them by the representative institutions of society;

3. the management of these enterprises would be through Workers’ Councils, representing those who work there. These office workers, like all others, would determine the organization of their own work.[28]

We have seen that the “plan factory” would be organized in this way. A similar pattern might apply to whatever persists or could be used of any current structure relating to the economy (foreign trade, agriculture, finance, industry). Current State functions, which are already “industrial” (public works, public transport, communications) would be similarly organized. So, probably, would education, although here there would be latitude for a very wide variety of techniques and experiments.

d. The “Central Assembly” and Its “Council”

What remains of the functions of a modern state will be discussed under three headings:

1. the material basis of authority and coercion, “the specialized bands of armed men and prisons” (in other words the army and the law);

2. internal and external “politics,” in the narrow sense (in other words the problems that might be posed to a self-managed society if confronted with internal opposition or with the persistence of hostile exploiting regimes in neighboring countries);

3. real politics: the overall vision, coordination and general purpose of social life.

Concerning the Army, it is obvious that “the specialized bands of armed men” would be dissolved. The people would be armed. If war or civil war developed, workers in factories, offices and Rural Communes would constitute the units of a nonpermanent, territorially-based militia, each Council being in charge of its own area. Regional regroupings would enable local units to become integrated, and if necessary, would allow the rational use of heavier armament.[29] If it proved necessary, each Council would probably contribute a contingent to the formation of certain central units, which would be under the control of the Central Assembly of Delegates.{18}

As for the administration of justice, it would be in the hands of rank-and-file bodies. Each Council might act as a “lower court” in relation to “offenses” committed in its area. Individual rights would be guaranteed by procedural rules established by the Central Assembly, and might include the right of appeal to the Regional Councils or to the Central Assembly itself. There would be no question of a “penal code” or of prisons, the very notion of punishment being absurd from a socialist point of view. “Judgments” could only aim at the reeducation of the social “delinquent” and at his/her reintegration into the new life. Deprivation of freedom only has a meaning if one considers that a particular individual constitutes a permanent threat to others (and in that case, what is needed is not a penitentiary but the medical – and much more often social – help of fellow human beings{19}

Political problems – in the narrow, as well as in the broader sense – are problems concerning the whole population, and which the population as a whole is, therefore alone, in a position to solve. But, people can only solve them if they are organized to this end. At the moment, everything is devised so as to prevent people from dealing with such problems. People are conned into believing that political problems can only be solved by the politicians, those specialists of the universal, whose most universal attribute is precisely their ignorance of any particular reality.

The necessary organizations will comprise, first of all, the Workers’ Councils and the General Assemblies of each particular enterprise. These will provide living milieux for the confrontation of views and for the elaboration of informed political opinions. They will be the ultimate sovereign authorities for all political decisions. But, there will also be a central institution, directly emanating from these grass-roots organizations, namely the Central Assembly of Delegates. The existence of such a body is necessary, not only because some problems require an immediate decision (even if such a decision is subsequently reversed by the population) – but more particularly because preliminary checking, clarification, and elaboration of the facts is nearly always necessary – before any meaningful decision can be taken. To ask the people as a whole to pronounce themselves without any such preparation, would often be a mystification and a negation of democracy (because it would imply people having to decide without full knowledge of the relevant facts). There must be a framework for discussing problems and for submitting them to popular decision, or even for suggesting that they should be discussed. These are not just “technical” functions. They are deeply political, and the body that would initiate them would be, whether one liked it or not, an indispensable central institution – although entirely different in its structure and role from any contemporary central body.

The real problem – which in our opinion should be discussed rationally and without excitement – isn’t whether such a body should exist or not. It is how to ensure that it is organized in such a manner that it no longer incarnates the alienation of political power in society and the vesting of authority in the hands of specialized institutions, separate from the population as a whole. The problem is to ensure that any central body is the genuine expression and embodiment of popular will. We think this is perfectly possible under modern conditions.

The Central Assembly of Delegates would be composed of men and women elected directly by the local General Assemblies of various factories and offices. These people would be revocable at all times by the bodies that elected them. They would remain at work, just as would the delegates to the local Workers’ Councils. Delegates to the Central Assembly would meet in plenary session as often as necessary. In meeting twice a week, or during one week of each month, they would almost certainly get through more work than any present parliament (which hardly gets through any). At frequent intervals (perhaps once a month), they would have to give an account of their mandate to those who had elected them.[30]

Those elected to the Central Assembly would elect from within their own ranks – or would appoint to act in rotation – a Council, perhaps composed of a few dozen members. The tasks of this body would be restricted to preparing the work of the Central Assembly of Delegates, to deputizing for it when it was not in session, and to convening the Assembly urgently, if necessary.

If this “Central Council” exceeded its jurisdiction and took a decision which could or should have been taken by the Central Assembly, or if it took any unacceptable decisions, these could immediately be rescinded by the next meeting of the Central Assembly, which could also take any measures necessary, up to and including the “dissolution” of its own Council. If, on the other hand, the Central Assembly took any decision which exceeded its jurisdiction, or which properly belonged to the local Workers’ Councils or to the local General Assemblies, it would be up to these bodies to take any steps necessary, up to and including the revocation of their delegates to the Central Assembly. Neither the Central Council nor the Central Assembly could persevere in unacceptable practices (they would have no power of their own, they would be revocable, and in the last analysis, the population would be armed). But, if the Central Assembly allowed its Council to exceed its rights – or, if members of local Assemblies allowed their delegates to the Central Assembly to exceed their authority – nothing could be done. The population can only exercise political power if it wants to. The organization proposed would ensure that the population could exercise such power, if it wanted to.

But, this very will to take affairs into one’s own hands isn’t some blind force, appearing and disappearing in some mysterious way. Political alienation in capitalist society isn’t just the product of existing institutions which, by their very structure, make it technically impossible for the popular will to express or fulfill itself. Contemporary political alienation stems from the fact that this will is destroyed at its roots, that its very growth is thwarted, and that finally all interest in public affairs is totally suppressed. There is nothing more sinister than the utterances of sundry liberals, bemoaning the “political apathy of the people,” an apathy which the political and social system to which they subscribe would recreate daily, if it didn’t exist already. This suppression of political will in modern societies stems as much from the content of modern “politics” as from the means available for political expression. It is based on the unbridgeable gulf that today separates “politics” from real life. The content of modern politics is the “better” organization of exploiting society: the better to exploit society itself. Its methods are necessarily mystifying: they resort either to direct lies or to meaningless abstractions. The world in which all this takes place is a world of “specialists,” of underhand deals and of spurious “technicism.”

All this will be radically changed in a socialist society. Exploitation having been eliminated, the content of politics will be the better organization of our common life. An immediate result will be a different attitude of ordinary people towards public affairs. Political problems will be everyone’s problems, whether they relate to where one works or deal with much wider issues. People will begin to feel that their concerns have a real impact, and perceptible results should soon be obvious to all. The method of the new politics will be to make real problems accessible to all. The gulf separating “political affairs” from everyday life will narrow and eventually disappear.

All this warrants some comment. Modern sociologists often claim that the content and methods of modern politics are inevitable. They believe that the separation of politics from life is due to an irreversible technological evolution, which makes impossible any real democracy. It is alleged that the content of politics – namely the management of society – has become highly complex, embracing an extraordinary mass of data and problems, each of which can only be understood as a result of advanced specialization. All this allegedly being so, it is proclaimed as self-evident that these problems could never be put to the public in any intelligible way – or only by simplifying them to a degree that would distort them altogether. Why be surprised then, that ordinary people take no more interest in politics than they do in differential calculus?

If these “arguments” – presented as the very latest in political sociology, but in fact, as old as the world[31] – prove anything, it is not that democracy is a utopian illusion but that the very management of society, by whatever means, has become impossible. The politician, according to these premises, would have to be the “Incarnation of Absolute and Total Knowledge.” No technical specialization, however advanced, entitles its possessor to influence areas other than his/her own. An assembly of technicians, each the highest authority in his/her particular field – would have no competence (as an assembly of technicians) to solve anything.

Only one individual could comment on any specific point, and no one would be in a position to comment on any general problem.

In fact, modern society is not managed by technicians as such (and never could be). Those who manage it don’t incarnate “Absolute Knowledge” – but rather generalized incompetence. In fact, modern society is hardly managed at all – it just drifts. Just like the bureaucratic apparatus at the head of some big factory, a modern political “leadership” only renders verdicts – and, usually quite arbitrary ones. It decides between the opinions of the various technical departments designed to “assist” it, and over which it has very little control. In this, our rulers are themselves caught up in their own social system, and experience the same political alienation which they impose on the rest of society. The chaos of their own social organization renders impossible a rational exercise of their own power even in their own terms.[32]

We discuss all this because it enables us once again to stress an important truth. In the case of politics as in the case of production, people tend to blame modern technology or modern “technicism,” in general, instead of seeing that the problems stem from a specifically capitalist technology. In politics, as in production, capitalism doesn’t only mean the use of technically “neutral” means for capitalist ends. It also means the creation and development of specific techniques, aimed at ensuring the exploitation of the producers – or the oppression, mystification and political manipulation of citizens, in general. At the level of production, socialism will mean the conscious transformation of technology. Technique will be made to help the people. At the level of politics, socialism will imply a similar transformation: technique will be made to help democracy.

Political technique is based essentially on the techniques of information and of communication. We are here using the term “technique” in the widest sense (the material means of information and of communication only comprise a part of the corresponding techniques). To place the technique of information at the service of democracy doesn’t only mean to put material means of expression in the hands of the people (essential as this may be). Nor does it mean the dissemination of all information, or of any information, in whatever form. It means, first and foremost, to put at the disposal of mankind the necessary elements enabling people to decide in full knowledge of the relevant facts. In relation to the plan factory, we have given a specific example of how information could be used so as vastly to increase people’s areas of freedom. Genuine information would not consist in burying everyone under whole libraries of textbooks on economics, technology and statistics: the information that would result from this would be strictly nil. The information provided by the plan factory would be compact, significant, sufficient and truthful. Everyone will know what s/he will have to contribute and the level of consumption s/he will enjoy if this or that variant of the plan is adopted. This is how technique (in this instance economic analysis, statistics, and computers) could be put at the service of democracy in a decisive field.

The same applies to the technique of communication. It is claimed that the very size of modern societies precludes the exercise of any genuine democracy. Distances and numbers allegedly render direct democracy impossible. The only feasible democracy it is claimed is representative democracy, which “inevitably” contains a kernel of political alienation, namely, the separation of the representatives from those they represent.

In fact, there are several ways of envisaging and of achieving representative democracy. Parliament is one. Councils are another, and it is difficult to see how political alienation could arise in a properly functioning Council system. If modern techniques of communication were put at the service of democracy, the areas where representative democracy would remain necessary would narrow down considerably. Material distances are smaller in the modern world than they were in Attica, in the 5^th century B.C. At that time the voice range of the orator – and hence, the number of people s/he could reach – was limited by the functional capacity of his/her vocal cords. Today, it is unlimited. In the realm of communicating ideas, distances haven’t only narrowed – they have disappeared.

If society felt it to be necessary, one could, as from today, establish a General Assembly of the whole population of any modern country. Radio-television could easily link up a vast number of General Assemblies, in various factories, offices, or rural Communes. Similar, but more limited, link-ups could be established in a vast number of cases.[33] The sessions of the Central Assembly or of its Council could easily be televised. This, combined with the revocability of all delegates, would readily ensure that any central institution remained under the permanent control of the population. It would profoundly alter the very notion of “representation.”[34]

People bemoan the fact that the size of the modern “city,” compared with those of yesterday (tens of millions rather than tens of thousands), renders direct democracy impossible. They are doubly blind. They don’t see, firstly, that modern society has recreated the very milieu, the work place, where such democracy could be reinstituted. Nor do they see that modern society has created and will continue to create the technical means for a genuine democracy on a massive scale. They envisage the only solution to the problems of the supersonic age in the coach-and-four terms of parliamentary political machinery. And, they then conclude that democracy has become “impossible.” They claim to have made a “new” analysis – and, they have ignored what is really new in our epoch: the material possibilities of at last transforming the world through technique, and through the mass of ordinary people who are its living vehicle.

e. The “State,” “Parties,” and “Politics”

What would “the state,” “politics,” and “parties” consist of in such a society? There would be residues of a “state” to the extent that there would not immediately be a pure and simple “administration of things,” that majority decisions would still prevail, and that there, therefore, still remained some limitations to individual freedom. There would no longer be a “state” to the extent that the bodies exercising power would be none other than the productive units or local organizations of the whole population, that the institutions organizing social life would be but one aspect of that life itself, and that what remained of central bodies would be under the direct and permanent control of the base organizations. This would be the starting point. Social development could not but bring about a rapid reduction of the central aspects of social organization: the reasons for exercising constraints would gradually disappear, and the fields of individual freedom would enlarge. [Needless to say, we are not talking here about formal “democratic freedoms,” which a socialist society would immediately and vastly expand, but about the “essential” freedoms: not only the right to live, but the right to do what one wants with one’s life.]

Freed from all the paraphernalia and mystifications which currently surround it, politics in such a society would be nothing but the collective discussing and solving of problems concerning the future of society – whether these be economic, education, sexual – or whether they dealt with the rest of the world, or with internal relations between social groups. All these matters which concern the whole of the population would belong to them.

It is probable, even certain, that there would be different views about such problems. Each approach would seek to be as coherent and systematic as possible. People, dispersed geographically or professionally, might share particular viewpoints. These people would come together to defend their views, in other words would form political groups.

There would be no point in pretending that a contradiction wouldn’t exist between the existence of such groups and the role of the Councils. Both could not develop simultaneously. If the Councils fulfill their function, they will provide the main living milieu not only for political confrontations, but also for the formation of political opinions. Political groups, on the other hand, are more exclusive milieux for the schooling of their members, as well as being more exclusive poles for their loyalty. The parallel existence of both Councils and political groups would imply that a part of real political life would be taking place elsewhere than in the Councils. People would then tend to act in the Councils according to decisions already taken outside of them. Should this tendency predominate, it would bring about the rapid atrophy and finally the disappearance of the Councils. Conversely, real socialist development would be characterized by the progressive atrophy of established political groups.

This contradiction could not be abolished by a stroke of the pen or by any “statutory” decree. The persistence of political groups would reflect the continuation of characteristics inherited from capitalist society, in particular, the persistence of diverging interests (and their corresponding ideologies), even after their material basis had shrunk. People will not form parties for or against the Quantum Theory, nor in relation to simple differences of opinion about this or that. The flowering or final atrophy of political groups will depend on the ability of workers’ power to unite society.[35]

If organizations expressing the survival of different interests and ideologies persist, a libertarian socialist organization, voicing its own particular outlook, will also have to exist. It will be open to all who favor the total power of the Councils, and will differ from all others, both in its program and in its practice, precisely on this point: its fundamental activity will be directed towards the concentration of power in the Councils and to their becoming the only centers of political life. This implies that the libertarian organization would have to struggle against power being held by any particular party, whatever it may be.

It is obvious that the democratic power structure of a socialist society excludes the possibility of a Party “holding power.” The very words would be meaningless within the framework we have described. Insofar as major trends of opinion might arise or diverge on important issues, the holders of majority viewpoints might be elected delegates to the Councils more often than others, etc. [This doesn’t necessarily follow, however, for delegates would be elected mainly on the basis of a total trust, and not always according to their opinion on this or that question.] The parties would not be organizations seeking power; and the Central Assembly of Delegates would not be a “Workers’ Parliament”; people would not be elected to it as members of a party. The same goes for any Council chosen by this Central General Assembly.

The role of a libertarian socialist organization would initially be important. It would have systematically and coherently to defend these conceptions. It would have to conduct an important struggle to unmask and denounce bureaucratic tendencies, not in general, but where they concretely show themselves; and above all, it might initially be the only group capable of showing the ways and means whereby working class democracy might flower. The work of the group could, for instance, considerably hasten the setting-up of the democratic planning mechanisms we have analyzed earlier.

A libertarian organization is, in fact, the only place where, in exploiting society, a get-together of workers and intellectuals can already be achieved. This fusion would enable the rapid use of technology by the organs of working class power. But, if some years after the revolution, the libertarian group continued to grow, it would be the surest sign that it was dead – as a libertarian revolutionary organization.

f. Freedom and Workers’ Power

The problem of political freedom arises in two forms: freedom for political organizations and the rights of various social strata of the population.

Nationally, the Councils alone would be in a position to judge to what extent the activities of any given political organization could be tolerated. The basic criterion which would guide their judgment would be whether the organization in question was seeking to reestablish an exploiting regime. In other words, was it trying to abolish the power of the Councils? If they judged this to be the case, the Councils would have the right and the duty to defend themselves, at the ultimate limit by curtailing such activities. But this yardstick won’t provide an automatic answer in every specific instance, for the very good reason that no such universal answer can ever exist. The Councils will each time have to carry the political responsibility for their answers, steering a course between two equal and very serious dangers: either to allow freedom of action to enemies of socialism who seek to destroy it – or, to kill self-management themselves through the restriction of political freedom. There is no absolute or abstract answer to this dilemma. Nor is it any use trying to minimize the extent of the problem by saying that any important political tendency would be represented inside the Councils: it is perfectly possible and even quite probable that there might exist within the Councils tendencies opposed to their total power.{20}

The “legality of Soviet Parties,” a formula through which Trotsky believed, in 1936, that he could answer this problem, in fact, answers nothing. If the only dangers confronting socialist society were those due to “restorationist” tendencies, there would be little to fear for such parties wouldn’t find much support in the workers’ assemblies. They would automatically exclude themselves from meaningful political life. But, the main danger threatening the socialist revolution, after the liquidation of private capitalism, doesn’t arise from restorationist tendencies. It stems from bureaucratic tendencies. Such tendencies may find support in some sections of the working class, the more so as their programs do not and would not aim at restoring traditional and known forms of exploitation, but would be presented as “variants” of socialism. In the beginning, when it is most dangerous, bureaucratism is neither a social system nor a definite program: it is only an attitude in practice. The Councils will be able to fight bureaucracy only as a result of their own concrete experience. But, the revolutionary tendency inside the Councils will always denounce “one-man management” – as practiced in Russia – or the centralized management of the whole economy by a separate apparatus – as practiced in Russia, Poland or Yugoslavia. It will denounce them as variants, not of socialism, but of exploitation, and it will struggle for all light to be shed on the organizations propagating such aims.

It is hardly necessary to add, that although it might conceivably become necessary to limit the political activity of this or that organization, no limitation is conceivable in the domains of ideology or of culture.

Another problem might arise: should all sections of the population, from the beginning, have the same rights? Are they equally able to participate in the political management of society? What does working class power mean in such circumstances? Working class power means the incontrovertible fact that the initiative for and the direction of the socialist revolution and the subsequent transformation of society can only belong to the working class. Therefore, it means that the origin and the center of socialist power will quite literally be the Workers’ Councils. But, working people do not aim at instituting a dictatorship over society and over the other strata of the population. Their aim is to install socialism, a society in which differences between strata or classes must diminish rapidly and soon disappear. The working class will only be able to take society in the direction of socialism to the extent that it associates other sections of the population with its aims. Or, to the extent that it grants them the fullest autonomy compatible with the general orientation of society. Or, that it raises them to the rank of active subjects of social management, and does not see them as objects of its own control – which would be in conflict with its whole outlook. All this is expressed in the general organization of the population into Councils, in the extensive autonomy of the Councils in their own field, and in the participation of all these Councils in the central administration.

What happens if the working class does not vastly outnumber the rest of the population? Or, if the revolution is from the start in a difficult position, other strata being actively hostile to the power of the Workers’ Councils? Working class power might then find concrete expression in an unequal participation of the various strata of society in the central administration. In the beginning, for example, the proletariat might have to allow a smaller voice to the Peasants Councils than to other Councils, even if it allows this voice to grow as class tensions diminish. But, the real implications of these questions are limited. The working class could only keep power if it gained the support of the majority of those who work for a living, even if they are not industrial workers. In modern societies, wage and salary earners constitute the overwhelming majority of the population, and each day increases their numerical importance. If the large majority of industrial workers and other wage earners supported revolutionary power, the regime could not be endangered by the political opposition of the peasants. If the aforementioned sections did not support revolutionary power, it is difficult to see how the revolution could triumph, and even more how it could last for any length of time.