Lenin and workers’ control
Didier-L. LIMON
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Published: Paris, December 1967, Autogestion: études, débats, documents, cahier no. 4, pp. 65-111.
Translated and Edited: Keith Rosenthal, December 2010
Translated and Edited: Keith Rosenthal, December 2010
Editor’s Note: This phenomenal, historical and analytical study has, until now, not been translated into English. This is a shame on many levels for it stands nearly peerless in its meticulous treatment of the specific subject it takes up. That is, the debates and discussions surrounding the implementation of workers’ control of production within the first months after the October revolution of 1917 in Russia.
Didier Limon’s study goes in-depth to flesh out the various political tendencies, forces, and organizations at play during this pivotal moment in the revolution’s history. There’s little doubt as to where Limon’s political inclinations lay in all of this, namely, with the Bolsheviks, and more specifically, with Lenin’s approach to the question. Nonetheless, one cannot claim that he has failed to present the first-hand views of the various actors in this drama, and thus provides the reader with a clear, multi-dimensional picture of this centrally-important question to any socialist revolution, as it played out in the days when Russia was controlled by its working class.
One final note on this translation; I do not pretend in any way to be an expert in French-English translations. Indeed, I hope that such an expert will one day be inspired to give this article a much more professional touch. To this end, I am supplying the original French version of this article, which can be accessed at the following link, https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B2Zdv5hwi_o6Vmw1bGoyVHRUU3lSTzRUdGxRa2lOQQ. The only reason I tried my hand at this task was because, first of all, I was so delighted upon recently discovering this article that I wanted to share it with a broader audience, and second, given that the article was not available in English, I thought it better for there to be at least a less-than-perfect translated version of this article rather than no translated version at all.
In any event, while I cannot guarantee the reader that the following is a flawless translation, I can most definitely guarantee that in all its essentials, the following is an accurate representation of the arguments, facts, and details as penned by Limon some forty years ago.
All citations and footnotes are those of the original author, unless otherwise noted.
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