What did Lenin mean when he talked of trade union contiousness and social democratic contiousness ?

As marxists we are constantly asking ourselves which state of the class struggle are we passing through. As dialectic thinkers we do not see a situation as a stationary one something has happened for us to get to where we are and something is currently happening that will impact on where we go next. We are constantly looking at the working class movements and seeing where if anywhere they are heading.

Lenin was no different in the early part of the 20th centruy when he posed in his excelent pamphlett "what is to be done ?" Lenin formulated that the spontinaity of workers when struggle arises can be bracketed into diffeernt contious and non contious thinking. Lenin explains to us that trade union contiousness is simply workers using the collective power of the trade unions to fight for better pay, conditions and a shorter working day etc. These struggles which are limited to fighting within the existing system of capitalism are key as they do raise contiousness as we well know. But lenin clearly pointed out these struggles are not social democratic as they do not look to challenge the system as yet.
In this piece below from Lenin's what is to be done he makes a excellent point taht on their own the working class cannot draw the conclusions that to fully imancipate themselves as the marxist term goes that the system of explitation and greed needs to be over thrown. Only by the intelligencia and more academic thinkers who understand marxism who can be workers too of course can influence the mass's to convince them that a change of the system is needed. As socialists we have already drawn these conclusions but convincing other workers that there is the need to change the system is our daily task. Showing the inequalities and exposing the capitalist system for what it is is a daily task of a revolutionary.

"A. The Beginning of the Spontaneous Upsurge
In the previous chapter we pointed out how universally absorbed the educated youth of Russia was in the theories of Marxism in the middle of the nineties. In the same period the strikes that followed the famous St. Petersburg industrial war of 1896 assumed a similar general character. Their spread over the whole of Russia clearly showed the depth of the newly awakening popular movement, and if we are to speak of the “spontaneous element” then, of course, it is this strike movement which, first and foremost, must be regarded as spontaneous. But there is spontaneity and spontaneity. Strikes occurred in Russia in the seventies and sixties (and even in the first half of the nineteenth century), and they were accompanied by the “spontaneous” destruction of machinery, etc. Compared with these “revolts”, the strikes of the nineties might even be described as “conscious”, to such an extent do they mark the progress which the working-class movement made in that period. This shows that the “spontaneous element”, in essence, represents nothing more nor less than. consciousness in an embryonic form. Even the primitive revolts expressed the awakening of consciousness to a certain extent. The workers were losing their age-long faith in the permanence of the system which oppressed them and began... I shall not say to understand, but to sense the necessity for collective resistance, definitely abandoning their slavish submission to the authorities. But this was, nevertheless, more in the nature of outbursts of desperation and vengeance than of struggle. The strikes of the nineties revealed far greater flashes of consciousness; definite demands were advanced, the strike was carefully timed, known cases and instances in other places were discussed, etc. The revolts were simply the resistance of the oppressed, whereas the systematic strikes represented the class struggle in embryo, but only in embryo. Taken by themselves, these strikes were simply trade union struggles, not yet Social Democratic struggles. They marked the awakening antagonisms between workers and employers; but the workers, were not, and could not be, conscious of the irreconcilable antagonism of their interests to the whole of the modern political and social system, i.e., theirs was not yet Social-Democratic consciousness. In this sense, the strikes of the nineties, despite the enormous progress they represented as compared with the “revolts”, remained a purely spontaneous movement.

We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc.[2] The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals. By their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia. In the very same way, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy arose altogether independently of the spontaneous growth of the working-class movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of thought among the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia. In the period under discussion, the middle nineties, this doctrine not only represented the completely formulated programme of the Emancipation of Labour group, but had already won over to its side the majority of the revolutionary youth in Russia.

Hence, we had both the spontaneous awakening of the working masses, their awakening to conscious life and conscious struggle, and a revolutionary youth, armed with Social-Democratic theory and straining towards the workers. In this connection it is particularly important to state the oft-forgotten (and comparatively little-known) fact that, although the early Social-Democrats of that period zealously carried on economic agitation (being guided in this activity by the truly useful indications contained in the pamphlet On Agitation,"


So what i myself draw from all this is that the role of a revolutionary party involved in the day to day struggles of the workers and inside the unions fighting day to day against the boss's who look to push down their living standards to increase their own profits. We must be alongside workers to explain that that this doesnt have to be this way. There is an alternative and we can achieve this through agitation first and foremost awaking the workers to the task in hand.

What effect could a collapse or shrinking of the EU have ?

We hear it all the time. the collapse of the Soviet Union and the stalinist states and the falling of the berlin wall was the defeat and the last nail in the coffin for socialism . Despite this not agreeing with how we see socialism did have a major impact on the working class and contiousness around the EU.

WIth the invention of the EU and teh common market with us being up to 25 member states now and one of the biggest if not the biggest threat to the European Union on the horizon could a similar thing occur to capitalist ideas.

Well we'd like to hope so. With the possible defaulting of Greece likely to be the fire starter for this burning flame which will start to lick at the rich nations Germany, France and the Uk no doubt this will make the ruling class tremble with fear that their system may be on the brink.

I do not ultimatly think the EU will break up totally i do think it will have to shrink to survive though. I think there are two sets of countries, The stronger ones like Germany, France and the UK but there are several nations which havent been stable for some time such as Portugal, Spain, Ireland and Greece.

This is the biggest worry if Greece defaults and i do ultimatly think it will even with this new austerity package forced on them it will not be able to keep up the repayment on the debt.

So i feel Greece will have to leave the EU to stablalise itself and allow itself to control its inflation and defalation of their own currency.

But would a break up or a partial break up lead to a defeat for the contiousness of the ruling class. I would suggest not as such powerful capitalist nations are still there and still growing like China and the US to some extent.

We as socialists oppose the EU as we do not feel it is democratic at all with it being run in teh interests of the capitalists and teh ruling class that they represent.

Capitalism will find anyway of surviving in a way that is its greatest feature to survivie even if that be at the expense of the working class they do not mind that.

Thi is what we are seeing now the taking back of all the gains we have made over the last 75 years to refinance their system to go again.

One of the most worrying parts for me is that when the working class has been crushed and any workers contiousness has been destroyed and this has happened before then the capitalists can play workers of different nations off against eachother. This is how dictators and world wars come about. But i wont go there but just to say one of the ways capitlaists have got themselves out of a hole is by the building and creation of something. As we all know wars cost money but can also make money. The destruction of towns and cities will all need rebuilding so what a coincidence that would be that there is money to be made there.

This is a extreme example but a example all the same of the lengths the ruling class will go to protect their system.

After the second world war there was a huge growth in GDP due to us rebuilding much of our country. This did not ultimatly serve in the workers benifit but the money makers, the boss's as per usual.

Ok the working class may have recieved concessions at the time such as the NHS but these are only given out as and when the c apitalists can afford them and are worthwhile and can be profited from.

So a interesting time is upon us many factors at play but i'd sadly never underestimate how far the ruling class will go to protect its system.

The workers contiousness which was battered down after the fall of the soviet union that people like Margret Thatcher made out socialism was dead and a workers state cannot be achieved had a desired affect. But as we feel the pinch of austerity measures many workers will be wondering does it have to be like this ?

They will be lead to the writings of such great thinkers and socialists like Karl Marx and Leon Trotsky and feel inspired by their ideas.

From this we hope to gain a new generation of revolutionary thinkers which c an lead the prolitariat forward and beyond.