Anton Pannekoek 1922: Irish Communist Policy

[Stallit 2 de Halfo]

Irish Communist Policy

Anton Pannekoek 1922


Dear Comrade

I have read with much satisfaction your article on the programme of the Irish Communist Party, and I think you are perfectly right in calling it a non-Communist programme. Indeed, the essence of Communist thought is that the great transformation of society from Capitalism to Communism can only be accomplished by the common efforts of the workers themselves, all of them acting where they stand in the process of production.

The belief that some foreign power, the State, may accomplish it for the workers by decrees and laws is a social-democratic belief — nay, only the most narrow-minded social democrats believe it; most social democrats in former times knew quite well that the chief force of transformation must come from below.

The state is not a supernatural being; it is the organised host of politicians, leaders and officials backed by armed force. The belief that the State may establish Communism by legislative means is the belief that this small host of officials and leaders, by their wisdom, may save the mass of the workers from slavery — these workers having nothing to do but vote for them. Now the experience of Germany has proved that placing Labour leaders at the head of the State is simply a change of rulers, which cannot bring any real revolution.


On the other hand, Russia in the first years of the Revolution showed that after the workers had already seized the power in the workshops, in the Army, and on the land, by their committees, the revolution could be accomplished by seizing the State power — i.e., all this activity was centralised, united, and organised by central organs, and made a strong united body against attacks from the Capitalist side.

The programme of the Communist Party of Ireland is not only non-Communist because it appeals to the State for everything, but also because it asks from this State only reforms. It would have been, though not Communist in its means and ways, nevertheless Communist in its aims, if it had constituted measures for abolishing Capitalist exploitation and introducing Communist ownership. But even this it doesn’t do. It supposes a State Power ruled by the workers — for awaiting these measures from a State ruled by Capitalists would be pure nonsense — while private enterprise still dominates the economic field; but it does not make use of this State Power to attack and destroy private enterprise, but only to reform it to somewhat less intolerable conditions for the workers. The model of this programme probably must be sought for in the Russian conditions, where the Communist Party tries to keep its political domination at the same time that it must allow Capitalistic enterprises to come on. But also in our own West European conditions we may find the roots for it. It tries to combine the interests of the working class for reforms with the interests of the petty bourgeoisie; by the State ownership of banks, railways, and big industries, it promises to free petty enterprises from the crushing domination of big finance and heavy industry. That is the reason why it does not proclaim the abolition of private property: it desires to eat from two cakes; at the same time, it does not attempt to win solely the workers by the great ideal of Communism and revolution, to which at this moment the great mass is indifferent, which thus exact great pains and long efforts. It also attempts to win the petty bourgeois class and also the middle-class minded mass of the workers. It attempts to win both these classes within a short time, not raising their mind to the higher standing of the great Communist prospects, by vanquishing their bourgeois narrow-mindedness, but baiting them with the programme of a reformed petty capitalistic world, wholly in line with their inherited thoughts.

It is nothing else than the “New Zealand Socialism” of twenty years ago, invented by bourgeois reformers wanting the aid of the small working class against foreign finance, and resulting in strangling the class struggle and the freedom of movement of the workers.

In Ireland it has its roots in the economic backwardness of the country, with its small proletariat, its great mass of petty bourgeoisie, its great mass of petty bourgeoisie, its great mass of small land holders and labourers who hope to become petty-owners. It tries to give them a common programme, which, of course, cannot be Communist.

Perhaps it may be said that, as Communism is not yet possible in such a country, this programme of a reformed society of petty enterprise controlled by the working class is to be preferred to everything else, and the best possible way out. But the idea of a stable society on this basis of peaceful co-operation of classes is an illusion. You have already shown it in your article with regard to workers’ control.

The same impossibility may be seen regarding unemployment. “Full maintenance for the unemployed at full trade union rates” is asked for. Where would the State get the funds necessary under this programme? The funds must in some way come from production; either from the profit on State industries, or from taxes paid by small enterprise. Of course these capitalists would not be content to pay to the unemployed such rates; they would try to lower them, in order to restore the pressure of unemployment on the wages. Here arises the natural and fundamental enmity of the classes, the chief opposition of their interests, the impossibility of peacefully combining their efforts. As long as private enterprise exists, it must try to hold itself against competition by lowering the cost of production, or else be ruined. It cannot be content to secure a fixed living to the workers.

In 1848, in Paris, this payment of unemployed was the chief cause of the shopkeepers and other petty bourgeois becoming furious against the “do nothings” and crushing the proletarian revolt in the June massacre. But also from the Communist point of view this leaving the workers unemployed and paying them a life rate is not right. Communism means production of an abundance of goods, leaving people idle who are desirous to work is spoiling the resources of the community. A Communist society will not leave them unemployed, but will let them produce goods for the community, thus for themselves and others to increase the general wealth.

Thus the so-called Communist programme is not the programme of Communists desirous to show to the workers the difficult but only real way to freedom; it is the programme of politicians desirous to win the great mass of adherents from various poor classes, by a programme of reforms that means coalition of workers, small farmers and petty bourgeois.

What you say about the results of the coalition in the States of Eastern and Middle Europe shows that this coalition uses the force of the proletariat to promote the formation of a numerous class of small land owners, extremely hostile to any Communism, thus it throws obstacles in the way to Communism. It does still more so by filling the minds of the workers with illusions, and by diverting their eyes from the only way to freedom; the way of class struggle, clear class-consciousness and confidence in their own power.

[Stallit 2 de Halfo]

Public Ownership and Common Ownership

Anton Pannekoek 1947

The acknowledged aim of socialism is to take the means of production out of the hands of the capitalist class and place them into the hands of the workers. This aim is sometimes spoken of as public ownership, sometimes as common ownership of the production apparatus. There is, however, a marked and fundamental difference.

Public ownership is the ownership, i.e. the right of disposal, by a public body representing society, by government, state power or some other political body. The persons forming this body, the politicians, officials, leaders, secretaries, managers, are the direct masters of the production apparatus; they direct and regulate the process of production; they command the workers. Common ownership is the right of disposal by the workers themselves; the working class itself — taken in the widest sense of all that partake in really productive work, including employees, farmers, scientists — is direct master of the production apparatus, managing, directing, and regulating the process of production which is, indeed, their common work.

Under public ownership the workers are not masters of their work; they may be better treated and their wages may be higher than under private ownership; but they are still exploited. Exploitation does not mean simply that the workers do not receive the full produce of their labor; a considerable part must always be spent on the production apparatus and for unproductive though necessary departments of society. Exploitation consists in that others, forming another class, dispose of the produce and its distribution; that they decide what part shall be assigned to the workers as wages, what part they retain for themselves and for other purposes. Under public ownership this belongs to the regulation of the process of production, which is the function of the bureaucracy. Thus in Russia bureaucracy as the ruling class is master of production and produce, and the Russian workers are an exploited class.

In Western countries we know only of public ownership (in some branches) of the capitalist State. Here we may quote the well-known English “socialist” writer G. D. H. Cole, for whom socialism is identical with public ownership. He wrote

“The whole people would be no more able than the whole body of shareholders in a great modern enterprise to manage an industry . . . It would be necessary, under socialism as much under large scale capitalism, to entrust the actual management of industrial enterprise to salaried experts, chosen for their specialized knowledge and ability in particular branches of work” (p. 674).

“There is no reason to suppose that socialisation of any industry would mean a great change in its managerial personnel” (p. 676 in An Outline of Modern Knowledge ed. By Dr W. Rose, 1931).

In other words: the structure of productive work remains as it is under capitalism; workers subservient to commanding directors. It clearly does not occur to the “socialist” author that “the whole people” chiefly consists of workers, who were quite able, being producing personnels, to manage the industry, that consists of their own work.

As a correction to State-managed production, sometimes workers’ control is demanded. Now, to ask control, supervision, from a superior indicates the submissive mood of helpless objects of exploitation. And then you can control another man’s business; what is your own business you do not want controlled, you do it. Productive work, social production, is the genuine business of the working class. It is the content of their life, their own activity. They themselves can take care if there is no police or State power to keep them off. They have the tools, the machines in their hands, they use and manage them. They do not need masters to command them, nor finances to control the masters.

Public ownership is the program of “friends” of the workers who for the hard exploitation of private capitalism wish to substitute a milder modernized exploitation. Common ownership is the program of the working class itself, fighting for self liberation.

We do not speak here, of course, of a socialist or communist society in a later stage of development, when production will be organized so far as to be no problem any more, when out of the abundance of produce everybody takes according to his wishes, and the entire concept of “ownership” has disappeared. We speak of the time that the working class has conquered political and social power, and stands before the task of organizing production and distribution under most difficult conditions. The class fight of the workers in the present days and the near future will be strongly determined by their ideas on the immediate aims, whether public or common ownership, to be realized at that time.

If the working class rejects public ownership with its servitude and exploitation, and demands common ownership with its freedom and self-rule, it cannot do so without fulfilling conditions and shouldering duties. Common ownership of the workers implies, first, that the entirety of producers is master of the means of production and works them in a well planned system of social production. It implies secondly that in all shops, factories, enterprises the personnel regulate their own collective work as part of the whole. So they have to create the organs by means of which they direct their own work, as personnel, as well as social production at large. The institute of State and government cannot serve for this purpose because it is essentially an organ of domination, and concentrates the general affairs in the hands of a group of rulers. But under Socialism the general affairs consist in social production; so they are the concern of all, of each personnel, of every worker, to be discussed and decided at every moment by themselves. Their organs must consist of delegates sent out as the bearers of their opinion, and will be continually returning and reporting on the results arrived at in the assemblies of delegates. By means of such delegates that at any moment can be changed and called back the connection of the working masses into smaller and larger groups can be established and organization of production secured.

Such bodies of delegates, for which the name of workers’ councils has come into use, form what may be called the political organization appropriate to a working class liberating itself from exploitation. They cannot be devised beforehand, they must be shaped by the practical activity of the workers themselves when they are needed. Such delegates are no parliamentarians, no rulers, no leaders, but mediators, expert messengers, forming the connection between the separate personnel of the enterprises, combining their separate opinions into one common resolution. Common ownership demands common management of the work as well as common productive activity; it can only be realized if all the workers take part in this self-management of what is the basis and content of social life; and if they go to create the organs that unite their separate wills into one common action.

Since such workers’ councils doubtlessly are to play a considerable role in the future organization of the workers’ fights and aims, they deserve keen attention and study from all who stand for uncompromising fight and freedom for the working class.