Workers' Councils in Poland
Workers' Councils in Poland or councils of workers' delegates were representative organs of workers and peasants, set up at various times in Poland throughout the 20th century, but in greatest numbers towards the end of the First World War on Polish territories.
Polish soldiers and workers assembling to elect a council in Poznań, 10 November 1918
Drawing of the 1905 revolution from a 1908 issue of Robotnik
Poznań protests of 1956, workers hold a sign saying: "We demand bread!"
A workers' council, or labor council, is a type of council in a workplace or a locality made up of workers or of temporary and instantly revocable delegates elected by the workers in a locality's workplaces. In such a system of political and economic organization, the workers themselves are able to exercise decision-making power. Furthermore, the workers within each council decide on what their agenda is and what their needs are. The council communist Antonie Pannekoek describes shop-committees and sectional assemblies as the basis for workers' management of the industrial system. A variation is a soldiers' council, where soldiers direct a mutiny. Workers and soldiers have also operated councils in conjunction. Workers' councils may in turn elect delegates to central committees, such as the Congress of Soviets.
The Soviet of Workers' Deputies of St. Petersburg in 1905: Leon Trotsky in the center.