Between Self-Management and Statism: The Role of Trade Union Leadership in Socialist Algeria (1965-1968)

The contribution is thematically and methodologically connected to the candidate's doctoral research, which has a historical and sociological focus on trade union elites and senior officials in the public sector of Algeria’s socialist economy in the 1960s and 1970s. Specifically, the contribution aims to clarify the link between the political-ideological formation of the leadership of the UGTA (Union Générale des Travailleurs Algériens, al-Ittiḥād al-ʿĀm lil-ʿUmmāl al-Ǧazāʾiriyyīn), elected during the second congress of the organization (held from March 23-28, 1965, in Algiers), and the political positions taken by the trade union center regarding social conflict and government policies during the period from June 1965 (the coup by Colonel Houari Boumedienne against Ahmed Ben Bella) to 1968. This latter period was marked by a severe state-repression against the Algerian leftwing radicals, following the failed coup of Colonel Ṭāhir Zibīrī in December 1967, which was considered linked to the progressive factions within Algerina society. Many trade union militants were persecuted in this period, and the UGTA itself was completely co-opted by the regime by 1969. Above all, I believe that such a contribution may represent a creative application of a historical and materialistic method, according to which specific material conditions (the imperatives of the anticolonial struggle) led to a specific set of trade union ideologies and political practices.