Oh God, oh shit, I said I wasn't going to do it. I said I wasn't going to start a China struggle session. Already getting flashbacks to the Discord.
But something just doesn't sit right with me and wanted to get some clarification here...
My question is this: why does China ban labor organizing/unions?
Is this yikes/intentional/actually a good thing?
(Yeah, I do know that labor unions are not always unequivocally good and sometimes they act more like middle management than as representatives of the workers... but democratizing the workplace seems like a no-brainer for any socialist project.)
Thoughts?
ask Poland
Succinct and under appreciated answer
Can you expand? I am not familiar with the reference.
Solidarity was a Polish trade union
It was funded by the Cia and mi6 as well as both providing arms, weaponry and intelligence to Solidarity.
https://www.iwp.edu/articles/2019/03/17/the-cia-and-solidarity/
Solidarity attacked Polish socialism from the left promising "Socialism with a human face" and were instrumental in destroying socialism
After Solidarity destroyed socialism in Poland: Lech Walesea, the leader of Solidarity and now the president, said "a gang of jews had gotten hold of Poland."
When asked to clarify later on on this appalling antisemitism he followed up with "i didnt mean all jews just the greedy jews".
Poland, right now, is essentislly a fascist country who is repressing Communists and is trying to ban the Communist party again
The history of Solidarity should be a good enough answer as to why independent trade unions cannot be tolerated whilst capitalist-imperialism is as strong as it is
The union movement in Poland in the 80s was co-opted by right wingers and foreign intelligence. Because of this failure, some alleged socialists think all unions are bad. I don't agree with everything here, but it's a decent summary.
Ctrl + f'd for "cia" in that article
0 hits
Oh you Jacobin and your state-dept-socialism, never change
Yeah the legit Socialists in it were basically forced out due to the martial law declaration, and it got coopted after that. The CIA AFAIK only funded some people in it after this had already happened, support tricked in starting in 1983, and nearly all funds were only dispersed starting in 1988, years after the ban and left factions had been forced out. In fact the CIA tried to hasten this by funding moderates in solidarity, excluding the far left factions.
Exaaaactly. Don't tell Joey, but any serious analysis of the failure of Solidarity is pretty much done before the CIA seriously engaged. The issues involved relate a lot more to internal politics and democracy. You're more likely to find an explanation for why Solidarity went bad in Union Democracy: The Inside Politics of the International Typographical Union or the trials and travails of the CIO than you are in the CIA archives.