Programme

This paper proposes to explore, through a transnational history approach, the circulation, reception, discussion and transformation of the Yugoslav “model” of self-management by the founders and members of the Institute for Workers’ Control (IWC), between the 1960s and 1980s. While recent research has shown that the British left took an early and constant interest in Yugoslavia following the Tito-Stalin split of 1948, and although the importance of the Yugoslav model of self-management to the British discussion of industrial democracy has often been noted in passing, there has never been systematic study of its influence, meaning and adaptation in the British context. This contribution therefore represents the first step to investigating the influence of the Yugoslav model of self-management on the British Left.
The paper is based on fresh research in the IWC’s archives and publications, the personal papers of one of its leading figures, Tony Topham, and of some trade union activists (Bob Purdie, Geoff Pugg), a corpus of printed sources from its members, and some archives of the Fonds Autogestion at the Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme in Paris.
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Following the end of World War II, the idea of workers’ self-management was contemplated or enacted throughout Europe. In Soviet-controlled Central European countries, it materialized in the form of works councils. The works councils are usually interpreted in two ways. First, as a result of spontaneous workers’ actions that took place in opposition to the communist party and are regarded as a fulfilment of the ideal of democratic socialism. Second, as a pre-planned communist plot. Using the Polish example, this paper presents a more nuanced picture of the relationship between the workers, the communist party, and the council movement that, on the one hand, does not ignore the from-below character of the movement and on the other, acknowledges the influence of the communist party. (Show less)

India’s independence in 1947 with the promise of a political democracy determined the national labour policies. With rising strikes and the task of rapid industrialization, labour concerns became central to nation-building. The government hoped to replicate democratic partnerships with citizens in labour relations. They introduced legislative interventions to reimagine conflict resolution in the new national economy to discourage worker strikes. The Industrial Disputes Act of 1947 was one such experiment that introduced compulsory adjudication and voluntary conciliation simultaneously to settle industrial disputes. It proposed setting up works committees to encourage peaceful negotiations between employers and employees. If the conciliatory talks failed, labour courts would adjudicate the disputes. The courts welcomed any dispute across establishments that made it all-encompassing of the labouring lives. The state-led machinery was undergirded with faith in industrial democracy to restore peace in labour relations. (Show less)

A commitment to social justice and the promise of social equality have been a permanent feature of both democratic and dictatorial regimes in 20th-century Europe. Scholars have discussed the nonviolent dimensions of governance in state-socialist dictatorships, including the social welfare and social policy practices of National Socialist rule in German and non-German territories (e.g. D. Peukert, T. Lindenberger, K. Jarausch). Similarly, research on western democracies has moved beyond traditional welfare state history to examine welfare institutions and welfare rights and entitlements as crucial means of constructing a democratic consensus (e.g. S. Moyn, M. Conway, S. Klein). The post-war formation of industrial and participatory democracy, as J. Van Graaf showed in his comparative analysis, could be explained only across Iron Curtain. This paper brings together two countries linked by a common Habsburg past but divided by different political development after 1945. It combines the time periods when political democracy collapsed and then was rebuilt again. (Show less)