The way forward in barbaric times
A similar dissatisfaction with union bureaucracy, the role of the communist parties and the development of the Soviet Union, featured in the analysis carried out by a small number of labour activists in Europe, in particular in France and Italy, but also in Great Britain and the
Netherlands, where the Americans were in contact with critics of Trotskyism such as Tony Cliff (in the UK) and the septuagenarian Dutch Council communist, Anton Pannekoek. In 1949 in Paris, two former Trotskyites, Cornelius Castoriadis and Claude Lefort, founded Socialisme ou Barbarie, the name both of a group and of a journal that argued for the importance of the workers’ struggle at the point of production, unhindered by official unions or party organizations. Working in parallel with the Americans, the French group had developed arguments similar to those debated by James and others in Correspondence.
In this article Daniel Mothé, a member of Socialism ou Barbarie whose work was translated by political activists in several languages, explains the political importance of workers' journals as an instrument of politicization, but also to counteract the dominant forces at seemingly opposite end of the spectrum, the "bosses" and the unions.