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The Western Soviets: Workers' Councils Versus Parliament 1915-1920
270 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1985
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About the author
Donny Gluckstein
20 books15 followersDonny Gluckstein is a lecturer in history in Edinburgh and is a member of the Socialist Workers' Party (UK).
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 2, 2025
Mandatory reading for all western socialists. Soviets were relatively simple in Russia (key word being relatively). Unions were illegal and virtually non-existent and the open interconnection between politics and economics within Russian society made the need for workers’ organisations to combine the two obvious. As such it was possible for Soviets to emerge more or less spontaneously and for the battle between reform or revolution to be fought out within them in a matter of only a few months.
In the west we won’t be so lucky. The existence of union bureaucracies and parliament, alongside the reformist political parties that those institutions almost inevitably create, poses enormous difficulties for potential Soviets to overcome. Hence why Germany is the only western country to ever come close to the level Soviet organisation that emerged within the first few days of the February revolution, let alone the level of organisation they had reached by October.
Gluckstein’s study into the attempt by western revolutionaries to overcome these difficulties is absolutely invaluable. He uses the examples of Britain, Germany, and Italy to show that it was entirely possible and necessary to create Soviets in the west but it required a far greater level of consciousness to do so. The creation of workplace committees in Britain and Italy were led by revolutionaries on the shop floor of the most militant workplaces in the country and they were prevented from generalising into Soviets by the weakness of these revolutionaries even on a local level.
In Germany things went further, the revolutionary left was strong in the industrial centres, particularly Berlin, and as such they were able to link up all of the local workplace committees into citywide Soviets, however, the weakness of the revolutionaries on a national level and their incorrect understanding of the synthesis between politics and economics meant that they were outmanoeuvred by the SPD who won an overwhelming majority at the first national convention and wrapped up the council movement into a parliamentary election.
In all three of these places the workers committees emerged from rank and file union activists who had been schooled in a politics of hostility to the officials. Much of our own analysis of the union officialdom is taken from the Clyde workers committee for instance. This hostility to the officials was the first necessary step towards transcending the limitations of trade union organisation entirely and it’s no coincidence that in all three instances it was the revolutionaries that led it. But to carry this process all the way through to the convention of a nationwide system of Soviets and the eventual seizure of power would require a level of mass implantation and clarity of purpose by the revolutionaries that not only matched that of the Bolsheviks but exceeded it. Such implantation and clarity was tragically missing in action. Our task as revolutionaries in Australia today is to work, in whatever ways we can, towards the creation of just such a party.
In the west we won’t be so lucky. The existence of union bureaucracies and parliament, alongside the reformist political parties that those institutions almost inevitably create, poses enormous difficulties for potential Soviets to overcome. Hence why Germany is the only western country to ever come close to the level Soviet organisation that emerged within the first few days of the February revolution, let alone the level of organisation they had reached by October.
Gluckstein’s study into the attempt by western revolutionaries to overcome these difficulties is absolutely invaluable. He uses the examples of Britain, Germany, and Italy to show that it was entirely possible and necessary to create Soviets in the west but it required a far greater level of consciousness to do so. The creation of workplace committees in Britain and Italy were led by revolutionaries on the shop floor of the most militant workplaces in the country and they were prevented from generalising into Soviets by the weakness of these revolutionaries even on a local level.
In Germany things went further, the revolutionary left was strong in the industrial centres, particularly Berlin, and as such they were able to link up all of the local workplace committees into citywide Soviets, however, the weakness of the revolutionaries on a national level and their incorrect understanding of the synthesis between politics and economics meant that they were outmanoeuvred by the SPD who won an overwhelming majority at the first national convention and wrapped up the council movement into a parliamentary election.
In all three of these places the workers committees emerged from rank and file union activists who had been schooled in a politics of hostility to the officials. Much of our own analysis of the union officialdom is taken from the Clyde workers committee for instance. This hostility to the officials was the first necessary step towards transcending the limitations of trade union organisation entirely and it’s no coincidence that in all three instances it was the revolutionaries that led it. But to carry this process all the way through to the convention of a nationwide system of Soviets and the eventual seizure of power would require a level of mass implantation and clarity of purpose by the revolutionaries that not only matched that of the Bolsheviks but exceeded it. Such implantation and clarity was tragically missing in action. Our task as revolutionaries in Australia today is to work, in whatever ways we can, towards the creation of just such a party.
November 26, 2019
Honestly one of the best books I've ever read. No other book has come close in terms of elucidating the relationships between class, party, factory committee and workers' council. Gluckstein draws important lessons of organisation and strategy from the successful Russian example, as well as from the heroic but ultimately unsuccessful examples of Glasgow, Germany and Turin.
April 10, 2025
This is a hidden gem rich in detail for anyone wanting to dive deep into the Niche history of workers councils in Western europe before the advent of Keynesian economics. We learn of their successes and ultimately why they failed which are crucial lessons for future workers movement in the modern age.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews