The community spirit has always been the principal, necessary force for the progress of the revolution. This progress is embodied in the development of solidarity, of mutual relations between workers, of unity. Their organisation and their growing power are the new characteristics which are forged in the struggle (...) The virtues of solidarity and zeal, the impulsion to act as a solid unity engendered by the social struggle, are the very basis of the new social system which will rest on work in common.
Pannekoek, The Workersβ Councils, 1941
Pannekoek, The Workersβ Councils, 1941
π1
I also want to reject both the naive proposition that we are prisoners of our pasts and the pernicious suggestion that history is whatever we make of it. History is the fruit of power, but power itself is never so transparent that its analysis becomes superfluous. The ultimate mark of power may be its invisibility; the ultimate challenge, the exposition of its roots.
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History
π1