Policy on internal education in the WSM. Last updated Oct 2009.

a Workers Solidarity Movement
policy statement

Internal Education and Training’

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Internal Education and Training’

A coherent internal education policy is essential for the WSM, as for
other groups. The purpose of this education, however, is not to
ensure that everyone knows the 'correct line' on an issue, since
policy is not passed down from above but decided by all members
equally. Rather, internal education is necessary for ensuring that
knowledge about different areas spreads through the organisation and
for giving every member experience in researching and presenting
information.

The list of topics for talks will be decided at a quarterly
meeting. Those with the most support should then be undertaken by
members with the time and ability to give an introductory talk.
However, we must be able to react to what is going on around us and
be prepared to drop what is on the educational discussion agenda for
a discussion on a current event. It shall be the responsibility of
the branch secretary to ensure that each member gives a talk at least
twice per year. This is to ensure that everyone develops the
necessary skills and confidence.

Talks will be presented at branch meetings, and subsequently
published in the IB. Periodically, instead of the talk being given by
one member, four members will be delegated to research an agreed
topic, and each will deliver a short lead-off from their own
view-point (rather than an agreed view between the four). If there
are more than twelve present, the meeting will consider breaking into
two or more groups for discussion, to ensure a greater flow of ideas
and debate.

The internal discussions shall be collated together, and Education
folders, containing articles on specific folders should be developed
and maintained. This would be a resource which WSM members could draw
on and add to as time goes by. At least we should have folders on
Imperialism, Women's Oppression, Economics, and Racism. A 'Further
Reading' List should be drawn up. This should list books that are
both a good read and useful in developing our political education.

We need to develop a coherent internal education programme. This
breaks down into a number of areas as follows

1) Basic stuff we all need to know to argue positions. We should
be aiming for the situation where all members can write an article
for WS or present a basic talk on any policy area.

2) A knowledge of the arguments and theories of both conservative
parties and the left so that we can demonstrate our differenced with
them and the superiority of Anarchist communism. This includes
Leninism, reformism, left republicanism etc.

3) A knowledge of the arguments surrounding various "single issue"
or minority campaigns. For example what the different strands of
feminism represent, their good and bad points etc.

4) A historical knowledge of periods of major international
struggle. Particularly Spain 1936 and Russia 1917-21. These need to
be developed to considerable depth.

5) A good enough economic understanding to be able to discuss and
analyse economic theories like imperialism, state capitalism,
downturn etc.

6) A knowledge of past industrial and community struggle in
Ireland and England so we can argue tactics in the light of past
experience in campaigns.

Most of this we have to a certain extent already. We need to adopt
a planned approach overall and to make sure all the members are
taking part in the debate, not just some of us.

For this there are a number of things we can do. These include

1.There are areas where we are very weak on e.g. economics. These
need to be identified and tackled as an organisation one by one. I
would suggest we start with economics and the issues surrounding it,
aim to have one branch meeting/month in connection with this and
after a number of months have a dayschool to consolidate what we have
learnt. Obviously this can be combined with 1) above.

2. There are areas where little anarchist work has been done which
puts forward a useful anarchist perspective. One such area is womens
oppression/liberation. These should be tacked by a couple of members
who would co-ordinated reading/branch meetings with the aim of adding
to the anarchist theory through pamphlets/articles in WS. The
importance here is in co-ordinating this work within the organisation
rather then going off and doing it as individuals.

3. The areas where we all need knowledge on can be dealt with be
getting individuals to research an area and report back through the
IB and branch meetings.

4. From time to time we should select one other current of left
though, present material on it in the IB and do a branch meeting on
it. These arguments need not even have anything we might agree with
in them eg degenerate workers state analysis. The purpose is to equip
each member with the necessary confidence and knowledge to argue
against other left ideas and groups. This is no academic exercise,
but vital to our ability to argue our ideas.

5. There should be two educationals a year which look at gender issues.

7. We will post useful articles to the internal website and use that for discussion.

8. People who are close and have expressed an interest in joining
can be asked along to all branch meetings except those in week 3.

Internal Training

One of the primary goals of the revolutionary organisation is to assist the tendencies of self-organisation within the working class. We aim to do this through concrete involvement in struggles both on individual or organisational bases. To this end, the organisation will ensure that its members have the basic skills and knowledge necessary to actively support such struggle. Further, to become fully active in the organisation and ensure that no informal hierarchy can emerge, all members should be capable of being active in internal activity and debate.

1. The organisation will aim to ensure that all members are capable of becoming involved in the areas of social struggle that are viewed as important, i.e. workplace organising, community organising and social movement and campaign organising. Competence in each of these areas will include:

a. An understanding of the basic framework (rules, rights, definitions etc.)

b. An overview of the history of WSM involvement in each area

c. Specific analysis of case studies in each area, focusing on methods and models of intervention and responses to common situations.

2. The organisation will aim to ensure that all members are fully capable of participating in the internal functioning of the organisation and contributing to its internal work. This includes:

a. Internal Processes and Procedures

b. Internal Structure and Official Bodies/Positions

c. The skills necessary to contribute to the organisation’s propaganda, including writing skills, research skills, knowledge of the editorial process, submitting feedback to the official bodies etc.

d. Intervention in organisational policy, i.e. how to create and intervene in debate, policy formation etc. and how to gain resources/support for specific projects.

3. The Education Secretary will be responsible (in cooperation with the education/branch secretaries of local branches) for organising a series of day-schools to develop these skills and knowledge across the organisation. These will be held on a regional basis (i.e. Dublin, Belfast & Cork) and should aim to be concluded within a year of the National Conference passing this motion. One day-school will be devoted to the WSM itself, and one to each of the three areas of struggle, workplace community and social movements/campaigns. Following on from that, further such day-schools can be organised as necessary for new members.

4. The Education Secretary will coordinate the production of a specific document on each of these areas, which will summarise the information of the day-school. These will be given to each participant and will be made available throughout the organisation. In the case of the day-school on the WSM itself, the existing WSM Administration Pamphlet will be used and expanded as necessary.

5. People politically close to the organisation who we would look to cooperate with can be invited to attend.

6. Direction for the content of future day-schools will be taken from the closing session of each, to both improve the content of these Core Skills day-schools and to indicate future areas of training.

Technical training


1. Delegate council will supervise the construction of a goal driven step by step training program for all areas where the WSM requires technical skill. These include public speaking, web editing, desk top publishing, article writing, article editing, photography and photo editing, audio recording and editing, video recording and editing,



2. As a first step Education Sec will get an existing member with expertise in each area to draw up a multi-step training program designed to give a novice a set of achievable goals from the most basic to the most advanced skills in their area.



3. This chart will be finalised by Delegate Council and then branch delegates will get each member of their branch to mark their current position on each chart.



4. Each member will volunteer for at least one and no more than two of the technical training programs. DC will balance these applications against the skill needs of each branch of the WSM and of the organisation in general.



5. Branch secretaries will keep a copy of the chart for each training program in which each branch member is engaged in and record their progress. When a job of work comes up in a branch any member for whom this job would be the next goal will be encouraged to take it on with the support of someone who has already completed this goal.



6. The May & November DC's will review the records of progress along the chart and where necessary initiate formal training sessions.



7. The member will keep track of their progress on a copy of the chart that includes the points on the chart at which other members consider themselves at along with contact details for each of those members so that support can be requested from them.



8. Training will happen in the following ways
- self achievement of the next step where members have the resources to do so

- periodic formal training sessions given by more expert members

- one on one training where more novice members complete specific tasks with the aid of more expert members



9. New members are invited to sign up for one of these programs by their second meeting as a full member. Anyone attending regular branch meetings with the intention of joining can sign up before this point if they wish.



10. All members are invited to sign up for at least one program.

Short Term Perspectives

Strategic Planning



Learning Process

1. Each Branch contribute a report to an IB to be produced in December.


2. The structure of the report follow the Strategic Thinking Framework below.


3. All the reports in the IB to be discussed at branch meetings in January. A vote be taken on each report on whether they agreed or disagreed with the report (this be an individual vote, not a branch vote). The branch compiles a statement from each member explaining their decision on each report. In addition each branch should report on whether they think the framework for strategic planning works, and any changes or additions they would like to make to it.



4. The statements from branch members be then compiled and distributed by the Internal Secretary as a mini-IB in February. This IB be distributed by March.



Individuals are welcome and encouraged to contribute additional material to these IBs.



Note:

It is suggested that before producing the reports below each branch (or in Dublin, the All Dublin Meeting) have a brain storming session which in particular focuses on opportunities for struggle and/or organisational development and identifying which opportunity will be focused on.



Strategic Thinking Framework

Part A: Identifying a site of struggle



Identifies opportunities for struggle in Ireland



This could be a particular campaign such as Shell to Sea, or a particular sphere of society such as trade unions or it could be modified to be used for a particular WSM project, such as setting up an office.



Part B: Mapping the site [for one of the opportunities identified above]



Identify the key actors (people, agencies, organisations, classes eg local trade-unions, national trade-union, self appointed community leaders etc)
Identify the Influentials (those with most social networking power)

Identify who's on our side?

Identify who is not on our side?

Identify who is neutral?

Identify Who on our side can we work with?




Part B: Evaluating a site of struggle


Strengths and weakness of the site in terms of struggle/project

Strengths and weakness of the organisation in terms of this particular struggle/project.

What resources would be required to engage in this particular struggle/project (eg people hours, finance etc)

What resources are available within the WSM?

Do any of our allies have strengths that could compensate for our weaknesses?



Part C: Identify Possible Outcomes


First identify broad outcomes. Think about outcomes for the class and for the organisation.
Then attempt, as far as possible, to refine these so that it is possible to measure whether not they have been achieved.



For example
"Improve the status of workers in industry X" is NOT a measurable objective. "Win a 5% pay rise for wage grades A, B & C" IS a measurable objective



Further examples of outcomes (it is hoped that this list will be added to as we use this process):


Increasing awareness of anarchism by distributing 5,000 copies of the paper and obtaining a 1% feedback to a survey in Workers Solidarity)
Win some of our demands and using this victory to build further struggle doing x y z by creating a network of activists based on this struggle.

Win the most important demands

Win the least important demands




Increasing self activity of the class by building organisations that last beyond the present struggle

Increase self activity of the class by building lasting networks between different organisation

Increasing confidence of the class by recuiting more members into a union




Increasing awareness of anarchist politics.

Increasing awareness of a particular issue.



Increasing ability to organise around a particular issue
Building alliances in the medium-term

Learn from our allies.

Increasing confidence of the organisation

Increasing skills of the organisation.

Increasing membership of the organisation.




Part D: Assessing Outcomes


Outcomes can be measured in two dimensions - the tactical and the strategic. In each dimension there are three possible outcomes - victory, neutral or defeat. For the purposes of simplification we can reduce the 9 possible combinations to 6 + 1 by reducing the neutral or stalemate outcome for the tactical dimension. The results:



1. Strategic victory

Victory on both the tactical and strategic levels. [e.g. Poll Tax]



2. Tactical victory

Victory on the tactical level is neutral on the strategic level. [e.g. Nice I, Lisbon I]



3. Pyrrhic victory

Victory on the tactical level turns into a defeat on the strategic level. [e.g. Family wage - i.e. any gain by a section of the working class that increases class divisions, reinforces apathy, cynicism, complacency or dependency on representational agents or authority]



4. Strategic sacrifice

A tactical defeat nonetheless results in a strategic gain overall [e.g. Easter 1916]



5. Tactical defeat

A tactical defeat that is neutral on the strategic level. [e.g. some lost strikes in non-strategic industries]



6. Strategic defeat
A tactical defeat that is also a strategic defeat [e.g. Miners' Strike]


7. Stalemate

A tactical outcome that is not a clear victory for either side and is neutral on the strategic level. Tactical stalemates that result in strategic victories or defeats can be subsumed under those categories.



Tactical outcomes must be gauged by the measurable tactical objectives determined before the struggle for both sides. Strategic objectives should be gauged by their impact on class composition and political ecosystem.



Last updated Oct 2009