We publish this article based on a speech given by Rob Lyon at the international Marxist school in Barcelona last summer. Part One looks at the revolutionary principles of workers' control and management as opposed to the reformist idea of workers' participation, best realized in Germany in the 1970s.

There are many indicators that show that Venezuela is in the vanguard of the class struggle internationally, one of them is the phenomenon of occupied factories run under workers' control. Throughout history it has always been the case that workers' control has been raised as a demand during periods of intense class struggle, but workers' control under capitalism can either move forward towards the complete expropriation of the capitalists or it slips back and can be reabsorbed into less threatening forms of workers' “participation” and so on.

On the morning of January 19th, in the Ayacucho room of the Presidential Palace in Caracas, and with the presence of Venepal workers and trade union leaders, Chavez signed decree number 3438 which expropriates Venepal.

The smashing of the PATCO union in 1981 was the opening salvo in a decades-long assault by the bosses against the airline unions and the labor movement in general. Now the bosses and their government are trying to make an example of the flight attendants and machinists.

Originally published in 1974 in a period when there was a discussion on the question of workers’ control and what it meant. The right-wing leaders in the British labour movement (and internationally) interpreted it as “workers’ participation”, which meant the workers would be consulted on minor questions, but real control remained in the hands of the bosses. Today, thirty years later, this article maintains all its validity, in explaining the real Marxist approach to this question.

This document was written by Ted Grant together with Roger Silverman in 1967 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Russian revolution. The article explains how Stalinism arose and clearly shows how even at that time the Stalinist bureaucracy was facing a serious crisis and confidently predicted its inevitable downfall at some stage.

At the beginning of 1959 the National Coal Board decided to close 36 pits and throw 13,000 miners out of work in Wales and Scotland. Despite the wave of unrest amongst the miners, the reaction of the leaders of the Miners' Union was to "co-operate in minimising hardship caused by the closures". Ted Grant argued that the NUM should strike back and mobilise around the lines set out by the Miners' Charter and enforce workers' control on the Coal Board.

In the run-up to the 1959 General Election Ted Grant criticised the programme of the Labour Party highlighting that promises of reforms were just words, especially in the context of the economic slump, if the bosses' pockets had not to be touched. Unless the big 600 were taken over and production rationally organised according to a democratic plan, with the full participation of the workers and technicians themselves - Grant argued - the programme of reforms was unrealistic.

After nationalizing Coal, it became evident to workers that conditions were not improving. A number of unofficial strikes broke out in 1947 provoking the threat of retaliatory sackings by the capitalist led Coal Board. Ted Grant vibrantly protested against the lavish acceptance of this measure by the leaders of the Miners' Union and called on them to give voice to the legitimate demands and grievances of the workers and fight for workers' control over the Coal industry.

At the end of 1946 the post-war Labour government issued a Bill for the nationalization of transport provoking furious criticisms from the Tories. Ted Grant explained why Marxists opposed compensation to the transport company shareholders and demanded that workers should take control over the industry through the election of a Workers' Board.

Leon Trotsky with some general considerations about the slogan of workers’ control of production: "The first question that arises in this connection is: Can we picture workers’ control of production as a stable regime, not everlasting, of course, but of quite long duration? In order to reply to the question it is necessary to determine the class nature of this regime more clearly."

Are cooperatives an alternative to socialist revolution? Can we build a new society gradually through the cooperative movement? The central question is: who holds state power, the working class or the capitalists? Here Lenin deals with the question in the first period after the Russian Revolution.

The following article was written when Reed arrived in Sweden in February last, on his way fromRussia, in answer to false stories being circulated by the capitalist press about the management of Russian industries.

"Through all the chorus of abuse and misrepresentation directed against the Russian Soviets by the capitalist press there runs a voice shrill with a sort of panic, which cries: ‘There is no government in Russia! There is no organisation among the Russian workers! It will not work! It will not work!’ There is method in the slander." (John Reed)

A vivid description by John Reed on the functioning of the Soviets shortly after the revolution.