[Kon]

They seem extremly similar could someone please outline the differences for me.
For the record my understanding of the idealogies is:
Anarcho-Syndicalism: the belief in which believes in self managment and workers solidarity in the industry with no goverment.
Council Communism: electing leaders in the industry, democracy in the work force.
I've been taught that both teach about abolition of the class and wage systems.

The only difference that I see is that anarcho syndicalists believe in self management (which may or may not include workplace democracy) and council communists are strong proponents of work place democracy.

[Crazyvichistan]

I've recently been talking to some Communist on another forum, and I've learned that my vision of Anarchist society (Eco-Anarchist) is very similar to final stage Communism or Council Communism, and that Anarcho-syndicalism is even closer. The main disagreement is on how to get to that point.

From Wikipedia

Council communism is a Radical Left movement originating in Germany and the Netherlands in the 1920s. Its primary organisation was the Communist Workers Party of Germany (KAPD). Council communism continues today as a theoretical and activist position within Marxism, within Libertarian Socialism, and within Anarchism. The central argument of Council Communism, in contrast to those of Social democracy and Leninist communism, is that workers' councils arising in the factories and municipalities are the natural form of working class organisation and state power. This view is opposed to the Reformist and Bolshevik stress on vanguard parties, parliaments or governments.

The core principle of council communism is that the State and the economy should be managed by workers' councils composed of delegates elected at workplaces and recallable at any moment. As such, council communists oppose state-run "bureaucratic socialism". They also oppose the idea of a "revolutionary party", since council communists believe that a revolution led by a party will necessarily produce a party dictatorship. Council communists support a workers' democracy, which they want to produce through a federation of workers' councils.

Council Communists support workers' revolutions, but oppose one-party dictatorships. This has much in common with libertarian communism and most strains of anarchism, although the latter usually uphold individual liberty as paramount over all else. Council Communists also believe in diminishing the role of the party to one of agitation and propaganda, reject all participation in elections or parliament, and argue that workers should leave the reactionary trade unions and form one big revolutionary union. (It is debated whether the Industrial Workers of the World is a fulfillment of council communist wishes.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_communists
I would have to say that pretty much describes my point of view, and as its says there is minor disagreement over elections and councils. I would personally tend towards irregular, open and consensus based meetings rather then direct elections as they are advocating.

Moreover, anarcho-syndicalists believe that workers’ organizations — the organizations that struggle against the wage system, and which, in anarcho-syndicalist theory, will eventually form the basis of a new society — should be self-managing. They should not have bosses or “business agents”; rather, the workers should be able to make all the decisions that affect them themselves.

Rudolf Rocker was one of the most popular voices in the anarcho-syndicalist movement. He outlined a view of the origins of the movement, what it sought, and why it was important to the future of labor in his 1938 pamphlet Anarcho-Syndicalism.

Hubert Lagardelle wrote that Pierre-Joseph Proudhon laid out the fundamental theories of anarcho-syndicalism, through his repudiation of both capitalism and the state, his flouting of political government, his idea of free, autonomous economic groups, and his view of struggle, not pacifism, as the core of humanity.

The International Workers Association is an international anarcho-syndicalist federation of various labor unions from different countries. The Spanish Confederación Nacional del Trabajo played and still plays a major role in the Spanish labor movement. It was also an important force in the Spanish Civil War. Another Spanish anarcho-syndicalist union, the Confederacion General del Trabajo de España, is now the third largest union in Spain and the largest anarchist union with tens of thousands of members.

The anarcho-syndicalist orientation of many early American labor unions played an important role in the formation of the American political spectrum, most significantly of the Industrial Workers of the World. The United States is the only industrialized ("first world") country that does not have a major labor-based political party. See It Didn’t Happen Here: Why Socialism Failed in the United States, Seymour Martin Lipset and Gary Marks, ISBN 0-39-332254-8.

Rudolf Rocker wrote in Anarcho-Syndicalism:

“Political rights do not originate in parliaments; they are rather forced upon them from without. And even their enactment into law has for a long time been no guarantee of their security. They do not exist because they have been legally set down on a piece of paper, but only when they have become the ingrown habit of a people, and when any attempt to impair them will meet with the violent resistance of the populace”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism
I would see the main difference to be the Council Commies want elections into decentralised councils, whereas the Syndicalists advocate the structure to work through worker's unions.
In all, I do not totally agree with both because they center so much on the industrial working, which is only one facet and problem. There are so many others, and a true revolution has to account and solve for them all.

[Kon]

Thanks for yout help, judging from what I've read I've figured out that council communist believe in a single large union (a communist party) and anarcho syndicalists aren't as organized, plus the anarcho syndicalist care more about workers self management and less about electing leaders as one would do in a council.

[Crazyvichistan]

Basically, though there is some gray areas when you get into groups like the IWW (Internation Workers of the World) that believe in one big union but are often cited as anarcho-syndicalist. They believe in a single union, but once capitalism is overthrown they advocate a decentralised system similar to the syndicalists.

(100th Post!)

[Kon]

The way trade works in the syndicalist system is very interesting, its called anarchist federalism and it advocates autonomous unions working together, I believe the way to stop this from degrading into capitalism is a system of mutual self reliance (all the workers rely on each other) the way this would be done is that the unions would provide eachother with the goods they produced in a cooperative way rather than a competitive one and the goods would go to each according to their need, and with the abolishing of the wage system workers such as barbers would merely cooperate with others so that they could recieve food, this is where I believe the unions come in to help the barbers and other non physical product creating workers recieve the food that they need. In other words the people cooperate to create things, and the unions the people directly run cooperate to distribute goods amongst themselves (as I said mutual self reliance)

[Mikolaj]

I'm more receptive to council-communism and anarcho-syndicalism myself. My kind of socialism is more along these lines. I don't like to get caught up in semantics, so "socialism" works just fine. These two definatley have workable elements there.

[Crazyvichistan]

The whole thing that I oppose about anarcho-syndicalism is the continued fixation on industrial/capitalist labor. I believe that this industrialisation, and the centralisation of power that goes hand in hand with it needs to be abolished in a post-capitalist society. I agree with the policy of inter-reliance, but I don't agree with the need for organization, governmental, union or otherwise, to direct this movement of goods. The principle that full-fledged organisation is needed for goods to pass between people is the basis of capitalism, and quite simply wrong. People are smart enough to know what they want, and in an atmosphere of freedom they can barter the goods they have for what they need.
Theres nothing wrong with cooperation, just it doesn't have to come in the form of an all encomposing body( the Communist Party of Crazyvichistan, The Republic of Crazyvichistan, the Crazyvichistan Worker's Union) and it doesn't have to impose its authority on anybody.
Having unions as the sole arbitors of power raises the potential of a new ruling class developing and going into warring tribe mode (an anarchist's nightmare)

[bayano]

i think that the above mentioned difference between the worker councils versus organization into union(s) is an important disctinction between the two, tho there is much crossover. (and of course they both crossover with many other sub-ideologies: anarcho communism, autonomism)

but council communists differ from leninism in that they do not require the existance of a party, and even when they do they do not trust it as the ultimate revolutionary force.

also, it is important to note that revolutionary syndicalism is not exclusively anarchist, as it is often claimed to be. there are leninist syndicalists, council commie and other syndicalists as well.