English

November 1989: The Working Class Trapped Under the Velvet Tricolour

The present text was originally published in Czech in autumn 2009. We have kept the main text intact for this English edition. It was only extended by a few footnotes, as well as by notes of the Prague center of strike committees about the participation in the general strike in December 1989, which were not available when the text was originally published. We have pointed out some of the limits of this text in the foreword to the Czech edition. Three years later, we would like to once more emphasize those words. The present text is a mere introduction into the topic, it often resorts to shortcuts, and would benefit from more context. Nevertheless, we believe it fulfills its purpose – it sketches the events of November 1989 from the point of view of workers‘ autonomy. In the original foreword, we refer to a planned text on the economic nature of “really existing socialism”. Even though we have taken steps toward such a text, it has not seen the light of day yet. The question of crisis soon became more important to the working class, and our focus had to shift correspondingly. Kolektivně proti kapitálu (Collectively Against Capital), October 2012

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