Why do Communists and Republicans hate unions?

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

"The worldwide modern union movement was started in America by Americans. Unions are based on the American ideal of democracy, one person one vote, and economic democracy.

The first thing the Communists did when they took over a country was to make all independent unions illegal. Republicans, like Communists, hate unions, and try to destroy them whevener they can. That's why Republicans love Communist China so much, and want to send our jobs there. In fact, Lenin and Stalin, like Republicans, constantly attacked strikers and warned of 'leftists' and 'liberals' that were 'destroying the country.'"

A post from another forum ... what do you think?

[Mairead]

1. Funny, then, how many commies got beaten, maimed, and killed

fighting for the American worker's right to organise.

Quite a lot -I'd guess a large majority- of American commies were like Italian commies: real commies. I.e., on the side of the people. That stands in contrast to the Bolsheviki and similar, who were common-or-garden-variety psychopathic totalitarians exploiting the people under an attractive rubric.

[Caution]

2. Leninists and Maoists are *not* communists

Communism is a state-less form that society can take, that has absolutely nothing to do with the totalitarian regimes of these countries. They are more accurately described as totalitarian socialist states.

For more information go right to the source, the Communist Manifesto.

Marx and Engels described a situation where there was a worker revolt against ownership and government. The natural evolution of this was a utopian state where government was not needed and where all production was held by the public at large and the spoils of labor was shared equally.

(Obviously a pipe-dream that assumes that the "worker" is by nature unselfish and that the owner is by nature "selfish").

Under a totalitarian state any form of organized resistance to the status-quo (which is pretty much the definition of a union :) is something to be feared and suppressed.

[IndianaGreen]

3. I think you need to get your facts right in the first place

the unions in America were gutted from within by anti-socialist reactionaries during the 1940s and 1950s. Taft-Hartley was the other nail in the coffin of the labor movement.

American unions have been in a straight-jacket for decades!

[kodi]

4. because they can't control them

pretty simple, eh?

[FDRrocks]

5. Huh?

The soviets under Lenin did have a big say in things. My little toe has more socialism in it than Stalin could ever claim. Examples from this guy? I dunno.

Heres a pertinent quote from a man named 'Pen'

"The American workers are very combative -- as we have seen during the strikes. They have had the most rebellious strikes in the world. What the American worker misses is a spirit of generalization, or analysis, of his class position in society as a whole. This lack of social thinking has its origin in the country's whole history"

[WhoCountsTheVotes]

8. Lenin was the first to fire on strikers

Lenin called the dock workers "counter-revolutionary" and ordered the army to fire on them - at the same time he was ending democracy in the Red Army. Lenin constantly railed against "liberals" and "left communism" - by which he meant direct worker control of factories, independent labor unions, and civil rights.

Lenin could have been a Rockefeller Republican, instead of corporations he favored centralized "ministries". The Communists became huge fans of US-style Taylorism, which dehumanized workers and co-opted their skills.

While Marx's analysis of class was useful, his cure was worse than the disease. The beauracracy became the new ruling class and the beauracrats became the new rulers.

[JVS]

6. The idea of a soviet, or workers council is an furtherance of a union

it is what happens when the union gets rid of the management across the table.

[Scott Lee]

7. they hate them for different reasons

Republicans hate them because they think they stand in the way of unfettered capitalism and the "free" market. Read that "social darwinism". Remember that hard rightists are social darwinists at the core and see nothing wrong with "worker exploitation" as it is the natural order of things for the weaker to be exploited by the stronger.

Communists don't like unions because, in an idealistic communist society, they wouldn't be needed. Communism preaches the ultimate "dictatorship of the proletariat", making unions unnecessary.

In reality, unions are a part of a capitalist society, a working check on the excesses of capitalism. A very american thing, if you ask me.