A Brief History of Popular Assemblies
and Worker Councils
The phenomenon of popular assemblies and workers' councils has appeared many
times throughout history. These organs of self-managment usually spring
up spontaneiously during a crisis or revolution when ordinary people begin
to organize their own lives. Popular assemblies are meetings of ordinary
people which organize against the dominant hierarchical institutions (states,
corporations, etc). Assemblies are non-hierarchical, with everyone
having a equal power instead of dividing the group into order takers and
order givers. Direct democracy is usually used to make decisions in
the assemblies. These assemblies can be formed in the neighborhoods,
factories, schools, villages and elsewhere. They typically use mandated
& recallable delegates to coordinate their activities. Mandated
delegates simply implement the decisions of their assemblies, where decision
making power stays, unlike representatives who can implement any decision
they want. The most famous systems of mandated & recallable delegates
are the workers councils, which are confederations of worker assemblies.
This system of decentralized direct democracy is the embryo of an anarchist
society. An anarchist society would be organized by voluntary non-hierarchical
associations, such as these assemblies & councils, rather than thorugh
authoritarian institutions like corporations and the state. Most of
the time these organizations have appeared the majority of participants were
not anarchists and did not see this organizations as the embryo of the future
society. As a result they are usually short lived and disband within
a few years. However, they provide a glimpse of how a free society
could organize itself and are obviously important to anyone seeking to change
society in an anarchistic direction, which is why I've put together this
index. This index of periods when these assemblies & councils have
appeared focuses mainly on the 20th century and is most certainly not comprehensive.
Only those times when these assemblies have challenged the dominant
institutions have been included; these types of organizations are often present
in many societies but do not challenge the status quo. I have provided
links to information on each instance which go into much more depth than
my summary paragraphs.
French Revolution, 1790-93 During the French Revolution
poor people called sans-culottes formed neighborhood assemblies called
sections. They used a system of mandated and recallable delegates
to coordinate their activities and were partly responsible for overthrowing
the King. The Jacobins, advocates of representative government,
shut down the sections and launched a reign of terror to eliminate their
enemies. Read More: 1 2 3
Russia, 1905 At the end of the Russo-Japanesse war Russian
workers, peasants and capitalists rebelled against the Tsar. Peasants
took over land from the landlords; village assemblies started to run the villages.
Workers went on strike and began taking over the factories, where
they formed worker assemblies. They used mandated and recallable
delegates, who met in meetings called Soviets, to coordinate their actions.
The Tsar granted concessions, including the creation of an elected
parliament, the Duma, and repressed those who continued to rebel.
Mexican Revolution, 1910-19 During the Mexican Revolution
there were numerous peasant rebellions in favor of land redistribution.
Peasant-based armies and partisans were formed to fight in the civil
war, such as the army lead by Emiliano Zapata. In many villages where
government forces had been driven out land was expropriated from the landlords
and decentralized direct democracy practiced. Village assemblies and
councils were formed to run the villages. In the process of the revolution
and civil war Mexican nationalists came to power. They successfully
played the workers and the peasants against each other, eventually defeating
the peasant armies and shutting down the popular assemblies. Read More
Russian Revolution, 1917-21 In February 1917 a spontaneous
rebellion overthrew the Tsar and created a Republican government. Afterwords,
worker assemblies and the Soviets reappeared. Peasant assemblies
began taking over the land and workers the factories. In October
1917 the Bolshevik party led an insurrection which overthrew the government
and established a one party dictatorship. By mid-1918 the Soviets
had gone from being directly democratic forms of coordination to reprentative
institutions to finally simply rubber-stamping the decisions of the Bolshevik
party with no real power at all. The Bolsheviks attempted to forcibly
dispersed the popular assemblies and were eventually successfull. There
were numerous rebellions against their rule through 1921 which sought to
reestablish the popular assemblies and directly democratic soviets. The
Russian Revolution was the start of a wave of unrest that would spread
across the globe over the next several years. Read More: 1 2 3 4 5
6 7
Ukrainian Revolution, 1918-21 In the Spring of 1918 the
new Bolshevik government made peace with Germany and agreed to allow them
to take over Ukraine and other areas formerly part of the Russian Empire.
The people in the Ukraine had no say in this and revolted against
the Germans. After the February revolution in Russia peasant village
assemblies had begun taking over the land. They formed Free Soviets
which, unlike the Russian versions subordinated to the Bolsheviks, were
free of political parties and were controlled by the peasants & workers.
In some places rescources were pooled and communes formed. They
formed decentralized democratic militias that fought against reactionaries
and foreign invaders. Anarchists played an important role in organizing
all of this, especially the Anarcho-Communist Nestor Makhno. These
partisan groups were able to defeat the Germans, Austrians, Ukrainian
Nationalists and two white armies (the whites were Russian reactionaries).
In 1921 the Bolsheviks invaded Ukraine and used their superior rescources
to conquer it, violently supressing the communes, free Soviets and popular
assemblies. Read More: 1 2 3 4
German Revolution, 1918-23 In the later part of 1918
mass mutinies and strikes overthrew the German Monarchy, forced the government
to end it's participation in the first world war and eventually lead
to the creation of the Weimar Republic. The German Social Democratic
Party (SPD) came to power as workers began forming workers' councils.
In the following years Germany underwent a series of revolutions and
counter-revolutions as far left parties attempted to immitate the Russian
Revolution. Most of the workers continued to have faith in the SPD
and other political parties, which made it easy for them to take charge of
revolt and them disarm it. By 1923 the SPD had managed to defeat the
far left parties and destroy the workers' councils. Read More
Hungary, 1918-19 In the later part of 1918 a popular revolution
overthrew the Hungarian government and brought to power a Republic. As
in the German, Russian and Ukrainian revolution workers' councils, soviets,
were created. In 1919 the Hungarian republic was overthrown and a
Soviet Republic, led by the Hungarian Communist party, was declared. Like
the "Soviet" Republic in Russia this "dictatorship of the proletariat" quickly
developed into a new bureaucratic ruling class that oppressed and exploited
the workers & peasants, complete with its own red terror. This
new ruling class did not have as much time to develop as the one in Russia,
however. Romania, Czechoslovakia and Serbia, supported by the United
States and Western Europe, invaded and deposed the "Soviet" government.
The new government was a right-wing oligarchy which launched its
own white terrror that destroyed what was left of the revolution and workers'
councils that had not already been destroyed by the red terror. Read
More: 1
2
3 4
Italy, 1920 In 1920 workers in Italy began taking over
their factories on a mass scale. Peasants also began taking over
the land. The leaders of the Italian Socialist Party, who wanted
to gain power for themselves by working within the system, effectively
sabotaged the movement. They negotiated with the capitalists &
state to gain a few reforms and then helped get the workers to give up
control of the factories and go back to obeying the bosses. Because
the Socialist Party commanded the loyalty of many workers they were effective
at ending the occupations. Once the Socialist Party helped the capitalists
end the occupation, the capitalists decided to put Mussolini in power and
implement Fascism in order to maintain their rule. Read More: 1
2
Shinmin Autonomous Province,
1929-31 In the later 20s and early 30s anarchists and other groups
waged guerilla war against the Japanese empire in Manchuria. During
this parts of Manchuria, including Shinmin province, were liberated from
Japanese rule and semi-anarchic systems based on village councils & assemblies
set up. The anarchists also had to deal with the attempts of Marxists
(who were also fighting a guerilla war against Japanese rule) to assasinate
rival activists and destroy the assemblies & councils. The Japanese
eventually defeated all of the various guerilla groups. Read
More
Spanish Revolution, 1936-37 On July 19th, 1936 Fascists launched
a coup against the Spanish Republic. In response the National Confederation
of Labor (CNT), an anarcho-syndicalist union, and the General Union of
Workers, a union affiliated with the Spanish Socialist Party, called a
general strike. The Republic refused to release arms to the workers
so they broke into the barracks and distributed arms to the people. After
this happened the Republic decided to distribute arms to the workers.
The workers fought and defeated the Fascist coup in two-thirds of Spain,
in the process launching an anarcho-syndicalist revolution. As a
result the state was effectively destroyed; the military was in rebellion
and the police forces had dissolved during the fighting. The workers
and peasants took over the land and factories, forming collectives throughout
anti-fascist Spain. In some villages money was abolished and anarcho-communism
implemented. Worker & village assemblies, and federations of assemblies,
took over the running of the economy. Democratic militias were formed
to fight against the Fascists. The anarcho-syndicalists, however,
chose not to complete the revolution by forming neighborhood assemblies and
completely abolishing money. Instead they chose to allow the state
to be restored in order to form an alliance with other anti-fascist groups,
including the Republicans and Marxists. In September 1936 Anarchists
from the CNT were made ministers in the Republic and the state began to restore
its' power. This was done in order to form an alliance with other groups
against the Fascists. It was also hoped that putting the revolution
on hold would increase the likelyhood that the western "democracies" would
help the anti-fascist cause but they never did. A minority of Spanish
anarchists denounced this and advocated a policy of 'revolutionary war' to
both wage revolution and defeat the fascists. Over the next year the
state gradually restored it's power, recreating traditional hierarchical
military and police forces. In May of 1937 the anarchists were kicked
out of the government and an offensive against the collectives launched;
the Spanish Communist party played a major role in this. The collectives
were eventually destroyed; land and industries were either nationalized or
turned into private property. As a result of the destruction of the
revolution by the Republic & Communist Party the population was demoralized
and the Fascists won the civil war. The mistake of restoring the state
destroyed the revolution. Read More: 1 2 3
4 5
6 7 8
9 10 11 12
Korea, 1945 After Japan was defeated in the second World
War they withdrew their troops from Korea, which had previously been part
of their empire, and allowed anarchy to engulf the peninsula. Workers
took over the factories and peasants the land as they set up popular assemblies
and self-managed communes. In Seoul a weak provisional government
was set up, but its power was extremely limited and existed mainly in the
capitol. The United States and Stalinist Russia agreed to divide
Korea between each other, with the US setting up a client state in the
southern half and the Russians a client state in the northern half. Both
client states were extremely brutal dictatorships that violently shut down
the popular assemblies.
Hungary, 1956 After World War Two stalinist Russia took
over Eastern Europe and installed a series of client states. In the
1950s rebellions erupted against these client states throughout the region.
The client state in Hungary was overthrown by worker, peasant and
student rebellions and the defection of many police and soliders who were
supposed to repress the rebellion. Peasant and worker councils and
assemblies were set up. The Russians invaded and brutally crushed the
rebellion, putting a stalinist client state back in power. Read
More
France, 1968 In March of 1968 students began to rebell
against the French state. Over the next several months they engaged
in civil disobediance and eventually street fighting with the police. The
police often attacked radical students without any provocation. In
universities student assemblies were formed based on non-hierarchical directly
democratic principles and began challenging the state and university administrations.
This acted as a catalyst to cause a massive rebellion. Non-students
joined the rebellion and a general strike was called against police brutality.
Workers started taking over their workplaces. The leaders of
the Communist party and the reformist trade unions attempted to separate
the workers and the students so as to maintain their power over substantial
parts of the workering class. They attemtpted to act as mediators between
the masses and the ruling class so as to gain more power for themselves
and in doing so helped end the potential revolution. By June, after
gaining a few reforms, they had suceeded in scuttling the revolution and
returning France to 'normalcy.' Read More: 1 2
Portuguese Revolution, 1974-75 On April 25th, 1974 a rebellion
by the military overthrew the Fascist dictatorship which had ruled Portugal
for several decades and a multi-party republic was created. In the
period following this class struggle in Portugal intensified. Worker
assemblies & committees were formed to fight for improved conditions
for workers and in some cases took over workplaces. They also struggled
against corrupt trade unions. Neighborhood assemblies & committees
were also formed to fight for better housing. In some cases they took
over unused buildings; bringing homes to the homeless and improving the position
of slum dwellers. At one point there were 380 self-managed factories
and 500 co-ops. Most of the participants in this retained a reformist
persepctive; they weren't out to overthrow the system but wanted to improve
their lot within it. This helped assist the decline of the revolution,
since all the ruling class had to do was grant a few concessions and they
were assured of staying in power. The decline was also due to the
actions of the "revolutionary" authoritarian leftist parties (mostly leninist
groups) who wanted to seize power for themselves. They attempted to
take over the assemblies & committees in order to catapult themselves
to power and were sometimes successfull. In addition to distrupting
the ability of the assemblies to operate, when they succeeeded in taking them
over attendence would usually plummet since most people did not want to
be tools of the party. Read More
Iranian Revolution, 1978-79 In 1978 a wave of worker unrest
began which would unseat the Shah, a US puppet-Monarchy installed by a CIA
coup in 1953, in early 1979. Workers councils, called Shoras, were
set up and many factories, offices, hospitals and universities taken over.
In February 1979 fundamentalist Muslim clerics took advantage of the
fall of the Shah to seize power. Under the Shah they were repressed
less than other opposition factions and so were in a stronger position to
take advantage of the revolution. They established a theocratic republic
and suppressed all other factions as well as the Shoras. Read More:
1 2
Iraq, 1991 Shortly after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990
an Iraqi anti-war movement began organizing which would eventually become
very powerfull. After the war with the US-led coalition began Iraqi
troops mutinied and rebellions erupted throughout Iraq. In the north
workers councils, called Shoras, were formed. US forces massacred retreating
troops that had mutinied and suspended hostilities with the Iraqi state
so that Saddam Hussein could crush the workers' rebellion. Saddam then
crushed the rebellion, although it may have been able to defeat him had
US forces not massacred rebellious troops. Kurdish nationalists, who
opposed the Shoras, also played a role in defeating the rebellion. Read
More: 1 2 3
Chiapas, 1994-present On January 1, 1994 the Zapatista
National Liberation Army launched an offense against the Mexican government
in the state of Chiapas. Unlike many previous armed revolutionary
groups the Zapatistas chose not to seize state power but instead allowed
the people in the areas they liberated to organize themselves. Village
assemblies have been formed and in many cases land expropriated and collectivized.
These assemblies still exist today. At present neither the Zapatistas
nor the Mexican army have been able to destroy the other. Read More
Bolivia, 2000 Acting on IMF orders, the Bolivian government
privitized water in Bolivia, giving US-based Betchel corp. a monopoly on
water in Bolivia. Betchel immediately raised water rates by 35-300%
and the government made it illegal for ordinary people to collect rainwater
without buying a permit. A popular rebellion developed in response;
popular assemblies were formed to coordinate the movement. They suceeded
in forcing Betchel to back out of the deal, after which the assemblies declined.
Reformist leaders assisted the stifling of the assemblies after the
end of water privitization. Read More: 1 2
3 4
Algeria, 2001-present In April 2001, provoked by the police murder
of a high-school boy, an insurrection in the Kabylia region of Algeria erupted
against the military dictatorship. The movement soon organized itself
into what they called aarchs - village and neighborhood assemblies. They
created a system of mandated and recallable delegates to coordinate the
actions of different aarchs. The insurrection has continued through
the following years. Although it remains centered in Kabylia, rebellion
in other parts of Algeria has also erupted. Read More: 1 2 3 4
Argentina, 2001-03 On December 19th, 2001 President Fernando
de la Rua, in response to a collapsing economy and increasing unrest, declared
a state of seige - effectively turning Argentina into a dictatorship and
revoking all civil liberties. Tens of thousands of Argentines took
to the streets in a mass uprising against the state of seige. De la
Rua was forced to resign and the state of seige ended. Over the next
two weeks Argentina had five Presidents as insurrections rocked the country.
The government was forced to default on its' debt rather than implement
another round of IMF-imposed austerity programs that had impoverished most
of the population. In the wake of this worker and neighborhood assemblies
were formed; they used a system of mandated and recallable delegates to coordinate
the activities of different assemblies. Workers started taking over
their workplaces. These assemblies were more widespread and powerfull
than the assemblies formed in Bolivia earlier. In the first half of
2003 these assemblies declined due to the levelling off of the economic crisis
(things weren't getting any worse), attempts by authoritarian leftist groups
to take over the assemblies, government repression, and a Presidential election
which created the illusion that the government could solve their problems.
Read More: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7