Tiananmen and the Question of Democracy, Part 1

We talk about the Tiananmen Square massacre and the movement for democracy in the workplace that the workers there were fighting for.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to pick it up and here a podcast about
something that did happen that sucked enormously. Um. I'm Christopher
Wall I'm the host. Also with me is Garrison and Sophie. Hello.
We just in the morning, just really starting off positive there.
It's look, it's it's this episode in the next episode.

(00:30):
I mean, I guess this episode kind of ends in
a high note. But that's great to hear. I'm so happy.
I totally believe you. It kind of does, all right. Yeah,
Sharene is also here. Hello, Hi, Sorry my fault, keep going,
no worries. So this is this is the thirty third

(00:50):
anniversary of the Caamon Square massacre. UM. Tomorrow's episode. I
think we'll actually be going out on I guess the
day that it started kind of starts like the it
of like June three. Um, and okay, I'm curious what
you choose, Like I don't know, like received like cultural

(01:10):
memory of Channaman is because I don't know. I think
I got a kind of weird one, like being from
a Chinese family, but as a white Canadian, I have
zero amount of my knowledge about the tam Tannaman Square massacre.
Not really about Tanneman. Uh, it's just Yeah, that is
something I never never have really learned about. Yeah, I

(01:34):
know that it happened in That's that's the American lesson
we got on the history of that massacre, that it
happened in nineteen really mediocre. Yeah, Okay, Well today and

(01:55):
tomorrow we're gonna we're gonna go, well, we're gonna talk
I think less about what happens there specifically and more
about the sort of broader history that's in. But I
guess let's start out so in sometimes there's there's really
three tenements. Um, there's there's the student protests that's inside
Tanement Square itself. There's this part of Beijing like around

(02:18):
the squares, like a bunch of blocks are taken over
by workers. And then there's a bunch of protests in
other cities. And unfortunately, we're not gonna be talking about
the Protestant the other cities because like basically nothing is
known about them other than that like they happened, but
the people who would know aren't talking so for some

(02:38):
somewhat obvious reasons. Um, yeah, and the students themselves, I
think like the normal version of tianement is like these
there's the students and they're like protomocracy protesters, right, but
they're way weirder than that. There's there's like this weird
ideological grab bag thing going on. Um, they're they're they're

(03:02):
basically what they're piste off about is that this thing
is called the reform and opening, like isn't going fast
enough and we should talk about what that sort of
is so perform and opening is. It's this period in
China and sort of the eighties and songs of the nineties. Um.
And on the one hand, you have these sort of
steps to like ease restrictions on speech and like rehability

(03:24):
to intellectuals and like allow for broader public discourse. But
the other half of it is that like they're they're
being they're basically they're bringing markets back in China, right,
And this this is a ship show in a lot
of ways. If you want to hear about like the
CCP reinventing debt p and age in about five years, Um,
go listen to my Baschard's episode and the poison Milk scandal.

(03:45):
It's a it's a trip. But on the other hand,
you have you know, so you have kind of like
opening up, right, you have just more discourse. You're they're
not pursue intellectuals again, sort of that there, they're they're
they're persecuting the intellectuals that they had persecuted. Um. But
on the other hand, you get this absolutely draconian sort
of like a set of crackdowns in the social sphere.

(04:07):
You have the one child policy, you have this like
really powerful tightening of one man rule in the factory,
and you have the sort of the destruction of these
for what we'll get into this more later, but like
the the sort of limited decision making capacity that workers
have had in the factories, um, just this sort of dismantled.

(04:27):
And so you see these sort of gaps beginning to
form here, right Like, on the one hand, you have
these students who want market reforms to go faster, and
they want more freedom of speech, They like kind of
want democracy, but like mostly what they want is to
be in charge of the party so they can crush
the sort of like bureaucracy they see as holding market
reforms back. And it's worth noting that like a lot
of these students are involved in what becomes known as

(04:49):
neo authoritarianism, which is the sort of ideology that holds
that like the strong central party should take full control
of society and destroying the factions in the bureaucracy and
so you know, and that that's how you can lead
to element and this stuff like that stuff like ne
authoritarianism survives the protests and goes on to become like
a pretty major faction in the CCP itself, and then
I us in two thousand's and you know, this is

(05:12):
this is where things just get weird, right, Um, the
student movement itself is very hierarchical, and it gets to
the point where like but by by by the end
of the student movement, there these the student leaders are
like kidnapping each other over like who has control of
the microphones, and like the stages in the square it is.

(05:35):
It is extremely bizarre. And you know, and in terms
of like the protests actually like if the what their
torches are trying to do is you're trying to influence
this factional fight inside the CCP over like the speed
at which reformers are going to go, and this it
doesn't work. It's like stunningly ineffectual. The guy they're trying

(05:56):
to defend like winds up getting outed and put in
her house to rest of the rest of his life
if so. Okay, so those are the student protesters. But
the part and that that the student protesters are the
part of this that like everyone knows, partly because some
of those people escaped to Hong Kong and you know,
they're they're very influential sort of shaping the memory there.
But there's also the workers that I mentioned earlier, and

(06:19):
the students basically hate the workers, um for for for
most of the time this protest is going on, and
this is the this is months, right, they literally will
they will not let any of the workers go into
the into tenement square like that they have. They have
this whole system and like in order to get into
like increasing like like closer to the center of the square,
you have to be a student, and then you need
to get to the center of the squere you have

(06:40):
to be like a member of the leadership. It's very weird,
and you know, and like one of the things that
workers are trying to do is they want to carry
out a general strike, and the students are like, no,
absolutely not, do not do a general strike because largely
because okay, so if these people start doing a general strike,
like that's not something that's not under our control. And
you know, okay, So this raises the question like if
the relate between the students who are at tenement and

(07:01):
the workers at chenemen are this bad, like why are
the workers even there? Um? And And there's a few
answers to this question that the sort of the simplest
and most immediate one is that like the workers are
initially they come out because they're pissed. They see how
badly like the cops in sort of like the party
is is treating the students in the square, so they

(07:21):
get mad. But but but there's there's other stuff going
on to the late eighties is the ladies in China
is sort of a mess economically that there's rampant inflation
and the sort of rapid increase in prices is a
threat to you know, the sort of like cheap supply grain,
which is like the sort of main subsidy that if

(07:42):
you're an urban worker that you get. And meanwhile, you know,
you have marketization happening, so at the same time that
every the prices are increasing for everyone and they can't
get access the stuff that they need. You have just
like CCP princelings like racing down the street and imputed
sports cars and like these are like the only these
are the only cars, right like people people I don't know,
like like people are starting to get bicycles and mass

(08:02):
sort of in this period. But then you know, I
was like, hey, here's here's this like party boss guy
who was a sports car. They're like spending years salaries
like gambling at race tracks, and people just get piste off.
So they they start organizing. And I'm going to read
from a section of a piece by Rhans Jong about
what what they were doing. Um during the struggle to

(08:25):
obstruct the military, workers started to realize the power of
their spontaneous organization and action. This was self liberation on
an unprecedented level. A huge wave of self organization and
suit the Beijing Works Autonomous Federations. Membership grew exponentially in
other workers organizations both within and across workplaces mushrooms. The
development of organizations led to a radicalization of action. Workers

(08:48):
started organizing self armed quasi militias such as picket cores
and Dared or Die brigades to monitor and broadcast the
military's whereabouts. These quasi militias were also responsible for maintaining
public order, so as not to provide any pretext for
military intervention. In a sense, Beijing became a city was
self managed by workers. It was reminiscent of petrograds self
farm workers organized in the Soviets in the months between

(09:10):
Russia's February and October revolutions. At the same time, Beijing
workers built many more barricades and fortifications and on the
street in many factories that organized strikes and slowdowns. A
possible general strike was put on the table as well.
Many workers started to build connections between factories prepare for
a general strike. And yeah, like this is the part

(09:30):
of it that like people don't talk about because it
wasn't in the square. And I mean the other part,
the other faction, like the fact that that's going on
here is that like so the press Corps is like
sitting in the square, and this is why Kianna ministers
this sort is like this is massive spectacle, right because
all of this, everything that's happening here inside the square
was happening like in front of the entire Western Press
Court and like people are like, you know, like people
are just like pointing cameras at their window, right, and

(09:55):
you know, but on the other hand, the people out
side of the square, the workers outside of the square
are the workers are getting more organized, and this is
like this is absolutely unacceptable to the party, and so yeah,
on on on the night of June three, the army
just starts killing them. Um. They there have been a

(10:17):
couple of attempts earlier to clear to to to clear
the sort of fortifications, and it hadn't really worked. But
this time, like they they're they're able to bring in
builtering units that aren't from Beijing or like aren't from
around the area, and they kill an enormous number of people.
Um yeah, and and I think it's I think it's
important to note that, like both in terms of the

(10:38):
killings that happened immediately and the political persecution after that,
it's it's mostly the workers bearing this. Especially in the
initial massacre. Most of the killing happens as the armies
like fighting its way into the square. And you know,
I mean they kill people in the square too, but
you know, and eventually they into the square, and this

(11:00):
is where you get like tank man and like the
sort of the famous accounts of the massacre. But like,
but that blade is basically over right, because one of
the other things has happened is that over the course
of this protest, a lot of the students have left
because they sort of they sort of gave up after
the like factional conflict like stopped. But so so most
of the people like who are there are are are

(11:21):
on the outs, are like other workers on the outside
of this trying to defend it. And when those people
get killed and the art the army gets to build
the square, it's it's the whole thing is already over.
And you know, these protests get crushed and you know,
but before the last bullet has been fired, everyone everyone
left standing is trying to create their own narratives. But

(11:42):
what just happened? Um, The most common one is that
Chinaman is this like clash between democracy and authoritarianism, and like, okay,
to some extent, that's not wrong, although I mean, you know,
we've already mentioned that there are a lot of neo
authoritarian students there, but like, you know, okay, this is

(12:02):
this is kind of a fair interpretation of what's going on.
Like there's a lot of other protomocracy movements in this period,
like the region, most famously there's tagwan So Korea. UM.
But the actual question of what's happening here is is
really a question of what kind of democracy there's You

(12:23):
know that that these people are fighting for the students
at Tianaments, you know, to the extent that their democratic
principles are sincere and not a cover for a sort
of like deeply authoritarian version of liberalism that's you know,
demanded by like in the sort of new class of
intellectual servercy market reforms. To the extent that they like,
they actually believe in this right, they believe in a

(12:43):
very narrow conception of political democracy. And you know this
this democracy is sort of political democracy operates as the
level of the state. Right, It's based on free citizens
who are equal before the law, participating in elections. The
chief representatives, you like, past laws and you know, oversee
and manages state bureaucracy. But you know, this model of
political democracy, which is this is the one that we

(13:04):
live under, right, It really gets the workplace to a
separate economic sphere into which democracy doesn't extend. The capitalist
firm or its state owned equivalent remains the absolute dictatorship
of capitalists and advantagial flunkeys, and even even the sort
of progressive wings of the pro democracy movement in like
Taiwan and South Korea, like maintain this private, this private didctatorships.

(13:27):
You know, if if, if, if you're a work in
one of these states, right, you get rights, you get
you know, you get the ability to form unions, you
get access to the welfare state, you get these sort
of limited protections from the worst like physical and psychological
abuses that your bosses can inflict. But no, no matter
how progressive, the pro democracy movements actually are the legitimate
Jesus sorry, the legitimacy of the dictatorship of the bosses,

(13:53):
which was not up for dispute, you know, to to
to to these sort of protmocracy movements, right, like democracy
means a democra state and not a democratic workplace. And
this is this is the huge divide between what's happening
at Tianeman and what's happening like everywhere else in the world.
The workers that Tianeman are the only people left in

(14:16):
this entire sort of like run of protomocracy movements that disagree.
They are standing against not only that, like every they're
standing not only against their own governments, against a lot
of the students who are who are also like at
these protests. They are standing against literally the entire type
of history itself, bye bye bye, you know, by applying

(14:38):
the principles of protomocracy movements like their own concerns, right,
which is skyrocketing inflation, mounting debts like rampant corruption to
government officials like spy, rocketing and spiraling inequality and petty
bureaucratic oppression. Beijing's working class had reinvented a old and
now like largely forgotten tradition of democracy and the factory
that I'm gonna I'm calling it democratic your self management

(15:00):
because there's no good name for it, and they're all
kind of clunky. Fair, I mean, this is based on
who these people were at the time. That makes sense
that all of their names for things were pretty clunky. Yeah. Well,
the thing is that they don't name like like this.
And this is one of the things about Okay. One
of the real problems with studying chairman, right, is it like, okay,
so we have really good accounts from the students, right,

(15:23):
because some of the students flee and they're able to
make it out. We have like jack shit basically from
the workers. We have. But what we do have is
we have some of the We have some of the
documents they produced, and we have a lot of interviews
that we're done with with people there, and they I
don't know that they have very very idiosyncratic ways of

(15:46):
expressing what they believe, and so you know, you'll get
things where like Okay, they're like, okay, wake, we we
believe in the rule of law, right, and then the
next sentence will be like we we we have calculated
the exact amount of surplus value that has been distracted
from us according to marks. And it's like what, because Yeah,
the thing that they're doing is like that they're they're
they're synchronizing this new they're synchronizing sort of like a

(16:08):
political tendency that's trying to address the sort of duel
to kaderships are dealing with, right like, because they're they're
dealing at the same time with like this political dictatorshi
at the party has and also the fact that their
bosses now like completely control everything that they do. And
because of this, they you know, they they wind up

(16:30):
being like the last or I guess technically second to
last because Argentina happens, although that that's sort of convoluted
method itself, but they're they're in the twentieth century, like
they are the last people who are fighting for democracy
in the factory. And this, like to a large extent,
is what schandem is actually about. It's it's the culmination
of a century and a half long war between the

(16:53):
democratic wing of the classical workers jument and like every
single other ideology that exists, and these guys over that
century and a half long span, they're going to fight Communists,
are going to fight capitalists, are going to fight liberals
and fascists and monarchies and republics and social democracies and theocracies,
and at Tieneman, they're gonna lose one more time. And
that defeat, the fact that they lose here, and the

(17:15):
fact that these people get slaughtered, the fact that like
their crushed so effectively that no one even remembers what
they were, don't even remembers they exist or like much
less like what they were fighting for. This defeat is
the origin of the modern world. That one man ruling
the factory, like the the individual, single boss who has
total control and power over you is in in its
sort of thousand forms, is the author of the hell

(17:36):
that is the twenty one century and when we come
back from this commercial break, we are going to look
at the international part of the struggle that Tianneman is
sort of like the conclusion of. So here's some ads
maybe the job working at their distribution center, heying gig,

(18:04):
and we're back to look at y You two also
must live in the the the absolutely one man dictatorship
in the factory. So it's it's not not not not
not not as much one man. It's the one algorithm
you have to you have to listen to what your
iPad tells you when you're walking through the Amazon distribution center.

(18:27):
That's true. Yeah, they have. It is funny because it's
like that they they've somehow made a worse version of
it. It It was like, okay, yeah, it's like it's it's yeah,
it's like, okay, now now now you were ruled by
a computer whose whose job it is to make one
person an extremely large amount of money. It's even for
further like depersonalized and further disjointed from actually being a human. Yeah,

(18:50):
it's it's I don't know that there's there's there's some
metaphor here which if I wasn't like sick out of
my mind out how like power depersonalizes, the dehumanizes you
until the point where you're replaced with the machine that
you can make here, but I I don't know one
in one in every two days, the rumor randomly starts

(19:11):
binding on me. So yeah, I can't. I can't do that.
The lesson here, The lesson here is is that when
you're thinking about factories and how bosses suck and how
it's not great to work at a factory, just have
a boss that tells you what to do. The lesson
is that it can always get worse because it could
always be a computer. Yeah, anyway, continue, So okay, So

(19:37):
to get a sense of like what this fight is
and like how how we got to Tiana, men, we
need to go back to the Revolutions of which is
at first glance not like not an incredibly obvious place
to start. Um. Okay, if if you want like a
really detailed, like blow for blow account of the Revolutions

(19:59):
of eighteen forty eight, go listen to the Revolutions podcast.
It it's good. I am not gonna do it here
because oh my god, there's so much stuff. But the
very short version is that so in h forty eight
across Europe. There's a bunch of revolutions that are collectively
known while sometimes known as like the Springtime of the
People's and this is this is the first revoluence. This

(20:22):
is the first wave of revolutions where socialists are like
a real thing. Um like Frederick Angles like that angles
like the marks and angles. Angles is like on a
barricade with a rifle fighting in Prussia. There's like, yeah,
I'm not gonna sadly, I can't get into Augustva willage here,
but like go go, go, go google Augustva Village is
He's wild. There's a huge revolution in France where they

(20:45):
like that they finally deposed the king and you know this,
there's this question here and as these revolutions look like
they're winning, there's this question of how far democracy is
going to go and what it's going to mean. Um,
and you have a large thing. You have this. This
is in a lot of ways very similar to what
you're dealing with with in in China. In the nine

(21:07):
Inside of France, you have the split, right, you have
the split between you know, like the people who are
like who are like French radicals, but in the sense
of like the original French Revolution. Who are you know, Okay,
they want like they want an elected democracy. They absolutely
do not want to like deal with the fact that
that the workplace is not a democracy. And then you know,

(21:30):
and you have you have a bunch of socialists, and
the socialists are like, hey, can we do something about
like property relations and like the fact that there's a
bunch of poor people with no jobs, and you know,
and the socialists gets slaughtered, but you know, they don't die.
I mean, okay, you just said, okay, So a lot

(21:55):
of these people get horribly slaughtered, but a lot of
them escape and lives on, and so a lot of
the lead well, I mean, there's interesting story here, Like
a lot of the leaders like live on. A lot
of these people, like for example, but a bunch of
people flee to the US and they wind up being
like the like a lot of the officer core of
the Union army and in the Civil War is made
up by these by these socialists who like had to

(22:15):
flee after the revolutions failed and like Prussia and stuff.
But yeah, so but many of them do in fact die. Yeah,
it doesn't go great for them, and and you know,
and you get to see one of the other things
that's going to happen a lot, which is that. Okay,
so like the the sort of like the French like

(22:37):
like the French radicals who are like pro capitalism but
also pro democracy like ally with the conservative factions, and
then they also all get killed when Napoleon, Napoleon the
Third takes power. But man, it's really it's really it's
really hard to root for someone here and that yeah,
I know, it's those It's like this is really like
like the revolution produces his own grave digger ship, Like, oh, hey,

(23:01):
what what did you expect was going to happen when
you allied with like the landlords and I Napoleon Third.
This good thing, this mistake will never be made again.
No good good thing. Yeah, yeah, pay no mind to
the rest of this episode anyway. Continue. So, yeah, you

(23:23):
have the split between people who want electoral democracy but
you know, to catorships in the workplace and these people
who want like democracy in the workplace. And this also
prefigures a split inside of socialism itself. Um for you know,
for for for the and this isn't even I like
in my script, I say like for for for the
most radical factions of socialism, you know, like in control

(23:45):
over the means of production, which is like the thing
that you want means that like production is controlled either
by like free associations and workers like you know you
direct democratic unions, is later called syndicalism or like workers councils,
and that that's you know, I say, it's the most
radicollection like that that's a very popular conception of like
what this is going to be. Like if you read marks,
like marks is like, oh yeah, free associations a workers sure.

(24:07):
But you know, as as the sort of like eighteen
forties roll into the eighteen citties and the eighteen seventies,
there's this faction of the movement that becomes just like
obsessed with with the bureaucratic technologies of the states, and
you know, like they they they they watch the state
really get involved in the economy in a way that
it like kind of hasn't before. Then they they in

(24:29):
over the course of sort of industrialization, they watch with
like incredible envy as they see like these incredibly elaborate
like planning schemes. They see the state building roads and
canals and railroads and then entire cities with these like
complex electrical grids and like gas lions and plumbing systems
and especially trains, like specifically trains. This drives them all
completely insane, and they become they begin to believe that

(24:52):
like a single centralized planning body, like non amercratic association
of workers, like a single centralized state planning body can
like you know, bring about the long saw after like
cooperative commonwealth of socialism and all all these people get
they get obsessed with like such a planning right, and
this becomes this starts to sort of like consume more
and more of the left um in Germany, which is

(25:14):
home to like the powerful German Social Democratic Party, which
is like probably the most powerful socialist party in the world.
At this point, the socialists become divided into two camps.
There there's the revisionists led by Edward Bernstein, who like
he like renounces Marxism and revolution and like entirely in
favor of performing capitalism in the state from like within.
And then you know, you have these orthodox Marxists that
are like led by Kolakotski, whose whole thing is that

(25:36):
he hates Bernstein, and like the only thing that these
two people that these two groups agree on is that
I the only thing they agree on is the bureacratic
state planning is the thing you're supposed to be fighting
for and not like democratic workplaces. And this leads the
SDP to like they they do a lot of things
that are like disastrous. Um. One of the things that

(25:57):
they wind up doing a lot is like actively working
with the bosses to like destroy the like workplace autonomy
for their own unions. So like they'll there'll be things
where it's like like there's like there's a famous examples,
Like there's like a like a I think they're like
an they're on metal workers and I think they make
knives or something. And they have a lot of control
of the production process, right, they can control like how
much stuff gets produced, the process, like how it works,

(26:18):
like what they're actually doing. And the STP is like, no,
this is bad because it's inefficient, and so they like
basically crush their own union and this this goes in
really disastrous directions. But we're still the single person who
becomes like the most obsessed with like the potential of
bureacutic state planning is uh, one very very very obscure

(26:39):
guy named Vladimir Elias lenin, who I don't expect anyone
to have heard of Front of the Pod like front
I just had len Oh that's funny. Yeah. So, as
David Greavord points out, Lennon's obsession with like the German
postal Service is such STI like, Okay, So he writes

(27:02):
a very famous book about like what a future social
state is going to be, called State and Revolution, and
like almost all of it is a lie. But he
also says this in it Um. A witty German social
democrat of the eighteen seventies called the postal service an
example of the socialist economic system. This is very true
at present. The postal service is a business organized along
the lines of a state capital of monopoly. Bab the

(27:24):
imperially is the whole thing about imperialism is making everything
off of this. But so to organize the whole national
economy on the lines of the postal service, so that
the technicians, foreim and bookkeepers, as well as all officials
that received no salaries higher than a workman's wage, all
under the control and leadership of the armed proletariat. This

(27:45):
is our immediate aim. And if you think about what
this means for about five seconds, right, what he's saying
is that socialism is the entire economy being planned by
a bureaucratic state. And and you know this this like
this sits off this like massive series of confrontations with

(28:07):
the part of the workers movement who you know, like
what to control the work that they do, and you know,
like make like you know, the people who like who
think that like the revolution means that they're actually going
to be able to make decisions over their work and
not you know, just like work for like a slightly
different set of bureaucrats. And this struggle between you know
this the sort of like new socialist bureaucrats and like

(28:29):
democracy and the workers movement is you know, it's it's
it's an enormous part of the struggle that happens here.
And there's there's like another version of it happening between
the workers movement itself and the capitalist state, like in
the eighteen eighties, um, the workers movements in like in
Italy and Germany and like Frances and that's the extent
that they have. These they form these parties that are

(28:51):
called like states within a state, and you know, these
things are these massive networks of these workers institutions. They
have like free schools, they have workers associations, they have
like friendly society is. They have libraries, they have theaters,
they have like unions if co ops, they have like
neighborhood associations, they have tenant unions in mutual aid societies
and you know, and these things are all run democratically

(29:12):
by like by by the workers who formed the associations,
and you know, and like the people who are doing
this are like you know, the hope is that like
this is going to be the basis for the new
social society. Right. It's like, okay, we we can just
come together and like do this stuff. We can do
it democratically, and we can administer this stuff ourselves and
the and these things are enormously popular. Um, and you know,

(29:35):
and this like terrifies the sort of old ruling class. Um.
And Otto von Bismarck, who's the guy basically running the
German state in this period, like his solution to this
is to create like bureacratic state run versions of like
all of these things. And so he creates like state
run library, state run theaters, like state run welfare services,
and he's using these as as like a replacement to

(29:58):
the sort of workers institutions. And he has this great
line retells an American observer quote, My idea was to
bribe the working classes, or shall I say, to win
them over, to regard the state as a social institution
existing for their own sake and invested and interested in
their welfare. And like this works. This is this is
an enormous success. This is one of the greatest propagandic

(30:18):
ures ever because like it's it's so successful in convincing
people that the thing that they're fighting for is like
the state bureaucratic version of this thing and not the
version where they do it themselves. That like when when
the socialists like take power, that they confuse Bismarcks, like
literally the welfare state bribe thing that he liked made
to buy off the movements, Like they confused that with
socialism itself. And like to this day everyone believes this.

(30:41):
It's like it's it's I don't know, I lose my
mind constantly over this because all of these things that
Bismarck developed, like specifically to destroy the socialist movement. Everyone
was like, oh my god, this is socialism. It's like no, no,
please stop, and you know, and this is really effective,
particularly on the leadership of the movement. But like the

(31:04):
actual like people in these parties, like India's movements, don't
forget it. And and as as the sort of like
twenty century drawst were closed and you get like the
so as as the nineteenth century draws were closed, and
you get like the twentieth century. The workers who are
like doing the uprisings are not sort of like like
the you know, the workers who are doing the uprisings

(31:27):
haven't like drinking the kool aid. And the thing that
they do immediately when they start doing uprisings is they
start building these democratic institutions, but particularly workers councils um
the most famous of these are like other workers councils
that form sort of spontaneously in the Russian revolutions of
nineteen seventeen, these are like this is actually like this
is what like the they're called soviets because soviet is
just like the word for council in Russian. And these

(31:49):
these things are originally these like ad hoc strike committees,
and then they eventually become these like formalized elect like
elected bodies of representatives from like the various factories who
are like coordinating a strike and okay, so let you know,
five they lose and they all die. But in seventeen, uh,
they do this again and they form the Soviets again,
and this time the councils start to take like a

(32:12):
larger role in coordinating production directly and you know, coordinating
between different factories and industries, and they turn into this
sort of like counterpower thing to the new government. And
this kicks off this open period of warfare that stretches
like literally from Italy to Argentina between the different socialist
factions who like people like the different factions of this

(32:34):
movement who want democracy in the factory, and this like
a lot newly formed like anti democratic alliance of like
social Democrats, Bolsheviks and capitalists who like you know, are
like okay, well some of them are in favor of
like you can have Okay, there's a whole range of
this thing, right, Like. The thing that unites all of
these movements, the social Democrats, the Bolsheviks, the capitalists and

(32:54):
later the fascist is that they like emphatically like do
not want democracy in the factor, and they're willing to
put aside their differences to make sure it doesn't happen.
But you know, there's still there's still a huge fight
that happens here between between nineteen nine twenty, you get
works councils in we get workers councils in Germany, Poland, Austria, Ukraine,
Ireland and Ireland. There's there's these like two giant revolts

(33:17):
by cynicalist workers unions in Brazil and Argentina, and these
all get crushed um in Italy. Italy has like one
of the most intense conflicts between these like a lot
of cynicalist in the Italian state, and they have this
this really famous like set of factory occupations where instead
of like so like before those people would go on strike,
right you go watch Rick and you leave your factory.

(33:38):
And in Italy they were like, okay, well what if
we just stayed in the factory and took it over
so that they couldn't like just like a restarted production
with scabs, and we now control the factory. And there's
this huge wave of it in in Italy in the
late nineteen writeen like teens and early twenties, and you
know it looks like for a little for like a bit,

(33:58):
it like it really looks they're going to bread down
the government, but the factory occupations get crushed. But they don't.
They don't get crushed by the government. They get crushed
by the Italian Socialist Party and like their union, the
General Confederation of Labor, and like this is how fascism
wins in Italy, like to a large extent. It's that
like when when like you know, and it happens in
Germany too, It's like when when when when the sort

(34:20):
of the social democrats and the capitalists are faced with
this possibility that like workers could take over the factories,
the social Democrats turn on them and just kill them all.
And the problem with that is that like okay, well
who who who who do you do the killing with
the answer is the fascists, and then the social Democrats
like themselves all get exterminated by the fascist It's it's
this like you know, it is it is a is

(34:42):
A is a terrible cycle that we're going to see
like literally over and over and over again. Um yeah
it's bad. Um that sounds not great? Yeah yeah do
do do you know who else will slaughter your your
factory council? Oh? Oh, I actually know this one. Mm alright, Carrison, go,

(35:05):
we have a few options here. There is are our
good friends at the Washington State Patrol. Um, if you're
trying to set up a highway business next to the
highway and run via workers, cancel State Patrol come up,
be like not on this highway, You're done. Um probably
also like Amazon or something who knows. Yeah, and we're

(35:34):
back to see you know, okay, okay, we are back
to see like the worst defeats that they're going to have,
that that like the people who want like a factory
council are going to have in this period, which for
once actually has nothing to do with Amazon or the
capitalists whatsoever, which is that like the worst balling they're

(35:56):
gonna get is from Lennon and the Bolsheviks, who I
don't know how many people sort of like know the
history of the Russian Revolution, but like the factory councils
are the people who like basically put the Bolsheviks in
power in the first place, like to a large extent,
like there there's a lot there are the people who
like were the shock troops of this and like literally
the moment Lendin takes power, she starts undermining the Soviets.

(36:18):
Um he publishes this thing, like like like three or
four days after that Chrial revolution, he publishes his thing
on the draft to cree on workers control, which is like,
you know, he he basically is like he's he's trying
to like shift power from these councils to the Bolshet
party in the state. And this doesn't really work initially
because these groups are like pretty powerful. But in you know,

(36:43):
he publicly Lenin's like, no, we draw drive power from
the Soviets, like where where we're the people who support
these councils. But then like Lennon's, he's like shipping away
from them. And then in nineteen eighteen he writes this thing.
He writes this this this paragraph from the Immediate Task
the Soviet Government, which is like one of the wildest
things I've ever read in my life. I'm just saying

(37:05):
a lot. It's it's wild, it is She's okay. Unquestioning
submission to a single will is absolutely necessary for the
success of labor processes that are based on large scale
machine industry. Today, the revolution demands and the interests of
socialism that the masses, unquestioning lee obey the single will
of the leaders of the labor process, which is like

(37:30):
what what how how about you explain to our good
viewers why that is so bonkers? Like some of them
might just hear that and be like, oh leftist words cool,
moving on, even just the first two words unquestioning, Yeah,
makes me like that, but like a questioning submission. The
whole thing about like the masses must unquestionably obey the

(37:52):
will of the single leader. Like what this is like,
like what is happening? This is you know, the and
the thing that's happening here is that Lennon. Lennon is
being really candid about what it means for there to
be a boss, Like what it means for there to
be someone who's position is above you that can order

(38:13):
you to do literally whatever they want, and if you
don't obey them, like bad things happen and you start
or get shot. Yeah, she's she's she's incredibly candid about this,
right like this, this, this, this is what like having
a boss means. It means like question exhibition to the
single will of the leader, which is like this, this
is how I talked about Sophie all the time. Yeah, well,

(38:35):
shaking her head, I'm with you, Sophie campaign scare said, Yeah,
you're welcome. Whatever you say, Sophie, thanks scare God. I'm
thinking about this. There's this line. Um, it's sort of
sententially related to the story. I read this thing once

(38:56):
about so the workers who took over the Surban actually
think it was the students shore of the a bunch
of students like take over this, uh, like like the
like the like the big academy in in Paris, and
they send this like I think it's a telegram to
like the Chinese embassy, and like the end of it
is I think, if I'm remembering the exact words correctly,

(39:19):
it's uh, the revolution will not be complete until the
revolution will not be complete until the last capitalist is
hung with the entrails of the last bureaucrat. Ye was wild.
That's that's the thing this brought to mind for some reason.
But you know, I mean going back to sort of

(39:41):
Lenin and his like unquestioning like submission to the single well,
like he's more candid about what like one man rule
in the factory or like having a boss you have
to obey like means, but the system is describing like
isn't different than any other political system, like Bolshevik rule
in the factory like isn't really different than capital, social
democratic or fascist rule. And you know, the movement for

(40:02):
democracy and the factory as you know, as as as
these people are crossed, especially in across the nation twenty
one like it from for Democracy in the factory is
faced by four implacable enemies who are willing to put
aside all of their ideological differences to ensure that like
no one ever like gets to control their workplace. And
you know, and as as the twenties blend into early

(40:24):
nine thirties, like the movement seemed to have disappeared, but
they didn't. They absolutely didn't. Even though even though they
got murdered by the fascist, the communists, social democrats and
the capitalists, They're gonna be back next episode to do
like twelve more revolutions and yeah that that that's that
that that that that come come come back tomorrow for
us talking about like why these revolutions happens, what the

(40:46):
ruling class did to stop them. And then yeah, the
the lead up to Chianamen Square to see the sort
of like the final standard the Chinese working class, and yeah,
like get to what Tianeman actually was, what a Cliff
Sanker It could Happen here as a production of cool

(41:07):
Zone Media. Well more podcasts through cool zone Media. Visit
our website cool zone media dot com, or check us
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wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for
It could Happen Here, updated monthly at cool zone Media
dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,