Marxism and Class Consciousness‪.‬

THE ARTICLE BY TOM LANGFORD, "Strikes and Class Consciousness," in Labour/Le Travail, 34 (Fall 1994), provides a needed opportunity to discuss Marxist methodology and its relation to class consciousness. Langford attempted to study the "ebb and flow of class consciousness during a strike struggle." (108) The empirical part of his study was based on interviews with inside postal workers in Hamilton, ON, during and after a strike in September and October of 1987. Theoretically, he proposes to use a Marxist model. "In my estimation, the most useful model of consciousness change incorporates generalizations about how strikes have affected workers with a theoretical vision of what workers' political consciousness could become. Marxist writing on strikes combines these elements. I have derived a model from Lenin's classic analysis of strikes as a `school of war,' but believe the model can stand up as a generic Marxist typology." (111) Unfortunately he does not do justice to either Lenin or Marx. Langford indicates two relevant sources from Lenin. The first is the article, "On Strikes." (1) This is an interesting article, but it needs to be used with care. It was written in 1899. It was intended as the first of three parts. The two remaining parts were never written and the article was not published at the time it was written. It was first published in 1924, the year of Lenin's death, and had, basically, archival or historical interest since it dealt with strikes in a capitalist society but was published in the seventh year of Soviet power. In 1899 the Russian working class was newly formed, was in significant numbers illiterate, and had no legal trade union movement. Lenin says, for example, that "strikes can only be successful where workers are sufficiently class-conscious, where they are able to select an opportune moment for striking, where they know how to put forward their demands, and where they have connections with socialists and are able to procure leaflets and pamphlets through them." (2) Even in 1899, it is not likely that Lenin would have written the same thing for the German working class, which had a powerful union movement, was literate, and could write its own leaflets. For that matter, he could not have written those words for the Canadian or American working class of 1899. How much of a model is it for the Canadian working class of 1987?