For Workers' Power: The Selected Writings

by Maurice Brinton, David Goodway

Maurice Brinton was the most influential member of the British Solidarity Group (1961–1992), which sought to inspire a mass movement infused with libertarian socialist politics. Disavowing the political orthodoxy of the times, Brinton sought to use the past as a guide, but not an anchor, in his visionary writings. Solidarity’s influence on the ’60s New Left, and today’s libertarian Global Justice Movement is a testament to their salience. Tactfully edited by David Goodway, For Workers’ Power includes articles, essays and pamphlets as well as Brinton’s classic works The Bolsheviks and Workers’ Control , May ’68 and The Irrational in Politics . Maurice Brinton lives in London with his wife. Editor David Goodway is a professor of social history in Leeds.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Labor

320 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2004

About the author

Christopher Agamemnon Pallis (2 December 1923, Bombay – 10 March 2005, London) was an Anglo-Greek neurologist and libertarian socialist intellectual. Under the pen-names Martin Grainger and Maurice Brinton, he wrote and translated for the British group Solidarity from 1960 until the early 1980s. As a neurologist, he produced the accepted criteria for brainstem death, and wrote the entry on death for Encyclopædia Britannica.[1]

1. Goodaway, David; Lewis, Paul (24 March 2005). "Obituary: Christopher Pallis (Maurice Brinton): An irreverent critic of the Bolshevik revolution". The Guardian. London, England: Guardian Media Group.

Reviews

[Daithi Coombes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely a must read for anybody that's stuck between communist, socialist and anarchist parties.

Clear, very easy language, passionate, writings and letters from a revolutionary that gave the Trotsky movement in England the middle finger and moves to unite scientific socialism with anarchism. He repeatedly claims he is not an anarchist but a libertarian socialist. I can't see the difference between anarchism and libertarian socialism.

[Andy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some of the most coherent arguments for libertarian socialism and insightful critiques I've yet come across. Brinton was a strong advocate for workers self-management as opposed to a more nebulous 'workers control.' Includes his classic 'Bolsheviks and Workers Control, 1917-1921' which I believe should be read by everyone on the left.

[Brian Bean · Rating 4.25 out of 5]

“Socialism is not just common ownership and control of the means of production and distribution. It means equality, real freedom, reciprocal recognition and a radical transformation in all human relations. This is a fascinating, expansive collection of the writings of libertarian socialist Maurice Brinton. A part of a small British left socialist group—Solidarity—in the 1960’s, Brinton’s writing is an electric. He is one of a rare breed of left thinkers who maintain a clear and plain-spoken articulation of political ideas. His essays in this volume sear with a blazing sword of polemic and barbed retort through the obfuscation and fog of a crusty version of socialism common on the left. Brinton’s contribution is a to hold as a beacon the core of the socialist project as being worker self-management and the point of production—Worker Control. In that he champions a liberatory socialism-from-below. The volumes mixes his journalistic accounts of struggles he witnessed and took part in from the General Strike in Belgium of 1960, to the revolutionary rehearsal of France, 1968 and the Portuguese Revolution. This injects blood into his arguments about the importance of self-activity and self-emancipation as being foundational. In these points he deftly destroys Stalinism with principled derision. “The Communist world is not communist and the ‘Free’ world is not free.” he wrote in 1967. There is an element of his thought in which his unwavering principles bend into a more rigid terrritory. For example, in many of the essays he attacks Leninism with an argument that its primary sin is in What Is To Be Done that Lenin believes that workers can “only achieve trade union consciousness” and not socialist consciousness. His argument is a crude assertion that distortingly simplifies Lenin’s thought on this. (See for example the work of Paul Le Blanc or even Mandel’s piece on Lenin and organization). This brings out sectarian feeling vibes in some of Brinton’s work that cheapens it—which is a shame because of otherwise how incandescent many of his insights seem. This also creates what seems like are contradictions in the organizational conclusions he comes to. He argues that revolutionary organization is needed which is good. Part of its utility is to “aid and support” working class movements which is all well and good. However he also—correctly imo—highlights the role of revolutionary organization to “give proletarian consciousness an explicitly socialist content.” That does not seem far off from that of Lenin’s conception but the distinction is not delineated by Brinton. However for these drawbacks of his thought, overall his contributions and articulation of a revolutionary socialism from below, that conceives of socialism as being much much more than just state ownership is still relevant more than ever.

[Dimitrii Ivanov · Rating 4 out of 5]

A series of essays on various themes of interest to 1960s and 1970s far-left, of which eyewitness reports (from Belgian general strike, from revolutionary Portugal, and from '68 Paris) are perhaps the best part. Texts on the history of the 1917 Russian revolution, despite the handicap of limited if any grasp of Russian, are quite fact-based interpretations of then-state-of-the-art research.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

See http://libcom.org/tags/maurice-brinton