Hacker News Reader

Comment by NeverFade | Hacker News Reader

In what form of government is a vocal minority of activist workers allowed to take over their employer's place of business?

Please don't say "communism" as they would be sent to the gulag or worse in every communist regime that has ever existed.

View on HN

When that happened in Poland in 1980, the activist workers won.[1] That's one of the places where the downfall of the USSR began.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_%28Polish_trade_uni...

Oh please. USSR broke to pieces because of internal problems not because some Polish workers locked themselves up in a shipyard.

Animats did not claim otherwise AFAICT. The forming of a union in Poland in 1980 is something I’ve been taught was one of the earliest public signs that Kremlin was losing its grasp over the east bloc. That’s not at all incompatible with Soviet falling apart due to internal problems.

Well I read Animats’ comment in the context of activism producing change - not in the context of activism being a symptom of change…

The Czechoslovak velvet revolution in 1989 also comes to mind.

These are called sit-ins or "sitdown strike", and are not particularly uncommon. They happen in many democracies around the world (not at google though).

This comment is confusing. It makes me think that you believe their endgame is actually become the owners of the office they occupied or otherwise gain something. Their goal was to make themselves be heard. Us talking about it right now means it’s working.

We’re discussing about a group of google employees. Not about the issue they were protesting.

The actual acts performed in the protest may very well be the goal for some of the protesters. The stated goals are in that case only rationalizations.

Communist countries absolutely used “vocal minorities” as a way to control people. The vocal minority might be organized crime, the Red Guard, or anonymous denunciation.

It wasn’t a coincidence that communist countries had massive police forces and widespread crime. They are both parts of the same function.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com