A workers' council is a council, or deliberative body, composed of working class or proletarian members. While the term may include instances where employers negotiate with workers, or workers deliberate without power, the most common use of the term is to describe self-governing workers without bosses. A Council is a group of people who usually possess some powers of governance. ... The term working class is used to denote a social class. ... The proletariat (from Latin proles, offspring) is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is called a proletarian. ...

Workers' councils have arisen repeatedly through modern history with a variety of names. Notable instances include the Soviet Union during 1917, where the councils were called "soviets", Spain during 1936, Hungary during 1956, France during 1968, Chile in 1973 ("cordones"), Iran during 78-79 ("shoras") and Venezuela since shortly after 1998. Modern can simply mean something that is up-to-date, trendy, new, or from the present time. ... History is a term for information about the past. ... Soviet Union - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... 1917 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... In Spanish history, there have been several revolutions. ... 1936 was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will take you to calendar). ... Hungarians investigate a disabled Soviet tank in Budapest The 1956 Hungarian Revolution, also known as the Hungarian Uprising, was a popular revolt against Soviet influence and control in Hungary. ... 1956 is a leap year starting on Sunday. ... The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela (Spanish: República Bolivariana de Venezuela)1 is a country in northern South America. ...

The key features of a workers' council include the phenomenon that a single place of work (factory, school, farm) is controlled collectively by the workers of that workplace. There is no manager, or the manager is direcly under the control of the workers' council, and the composition of the workers council is determined by the workers who comprise it.

Workers' councils have also affiliated and formed higher bodies for coordinating between one another. These bodies usually operate on the principle of recallable delegates; that is, elected delegates may be recalled at any time through a vote.

Many Marxists believe that workers' councils embody the fundamental principles of socialism, such as workers' control over production and workers' control of the state. Indeed, some have argued against the "socialism from above" in recent history - that is, a centralized state run by a bureaucratic apparatus in the interests of this apparatus. They counterpose this with the notion of "socialism from below", which holds that socialism can only be achieved through the self-administration and self-rule of the working class. Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century German philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ...

Some notable advocates of a society based on workers' councils are the council communist movement, various anarcho-syndicalist and anarcho-communist groups, and some Trotskyist groups (such as the International Socialist Organization). A modern proposal for a democratically organised economy, participatory economics, is also based on workers' (and consumers') councils. Council communism was a radical Left movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s. ... Anarcho-syndicalist flag. ... Anarcho-Communism, or Libertarian Communism, is a political ideology related to Libertarian socialism. ... Trotskyism is the theory of Marxism as advocated by Leon Trotsky. ... This article is about the International Socialist Organization in the United States. ... Participatory economics, or parecon, a participatory economics system proposed as an alternative to other systems such as capitalism and coordinatorism, emerged from the work of the radical theorist Michael Albert and of the radical economist Robin Hahnel, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s. ...

See also: soviet A soviet ( Russian: сове́т) originally was a workers local council in late Imperial Russia. ...

Related articles

• Council Communism
• Anton Pannekoek
• Paul Mattick
• Rosa Luxemburg
• International Socialist Organization
• Leon Trotsky
• Trotskyism
• Solidarity (Polish workers union)
• Solidarity (UK) (British revolutionary organisation)
• Anarcho-Communism
• Syndicalism