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Title: Workers’ Organizations
Author: Luigi Galleani
Date: 1925
Language: en
Topics: anti-syndicalist, insurrectionist, syndicalism
Source: Retrieved on November 24, 2010 from http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/v41pv9
Notes: From The End of Anarchism?, 1925. Translated by: Robert D’Attilio and Raffaele Schiavina.

Luigi Galleani

Workers’ Organizations

The anarchist movement and the labor movement follow two parallel lines,

and it has been geometrically proven that parallel lines never meet.

And since our good burghers, even those who pretend philanthropy redeems

usury, will never stop being exploiters or give back what they have

unjustly taken; the anarchists, including those who abhor violence and

bloodshed, are compelled to conclude that the expropriation of the

ruling class will have to be accomplished by the violent social

revolution. And they dedicate themselves to this, seeking to prepare the

proletariat with every means of education, propaganda and action at

their disposal.

Do not forget and do not delude yourselves! The proletariat is still a

mass, not a class. If it were a class, if it had a clear, full

consciousness of its rights, of its function, of its strength, the

egalitarian revolution would be a thing of the past, freeing us of these

melancholy and bitter musings.

The great mass is bourgeois non natione sed moribus (not by birth but by

custom) — not by origin, for nothing was found in its cradle, but by

habit, superstition, prejudice and by interest, too, because it feels

its own interests are tied to and dependent upon the masters’, who

therefore, become providence itself, providing jobs, wages, bread, life

for father and children. And for job, life and security, the great mass

is grateful to the master who has always existed and will exist forever:

blessed be he — and blessed be the institutions, the laws, the policeman

who defend and protect him.

In other words, while the anarchist makes a sharp, severe positive

diagnosis, and sinks the scalpel deep to remove the main source of the

malaise at its root... the great mass remains empirical. It does not

contest property, let alone reject it; it wishes only that it were less

greedy. It does not repudiate the master; it only desires that he be

better. It does not reject the State, law, tribunals and the police, it

only wants a fatherly State, just laws and honest courts, police that

are more humane.

We do not argue about whether property is greedy or not, if masters are

good or bad, if the State is paternal or despotic, if laws are just or

unjust, if courts are fair or unfair, if the police are merciful or

brutal. When we talk about property, State, masters, government, laws,

courts and police, we say only we don’t want any of them. And we pursue

with passion, patience and faith, a society incompatible with these

monstrosities. And meanwhile, with all the means we can muster, we

contest and oppose their arbitrary and atrocious functions, quite often

sacrificing our freedom, our well being, even our loved ones for many

long years, sometimes forever. As you can see we follow different roads,

and it is unlikely we will ever meet.

However labor organizations are a fact, they exist. And even if their

rusty and blind conservatism is an obstacle and oftentimes a danger,

they deserve our consideration and our careful attention.

If we find ourselves, facing an ignorant child, a devout woman or a

blockhead who doesn’t see, or doesn’t want to see, we do not react with

derision or contempt to the immaturity of one, the ingenuousness of the

other, nor to the blindness of most.

We treat them with the same kindness and assist them all with care,

because we are proud to uncover the shinning metal hidden beneath the

rude and rash exterior, to transform a primitive being into a person who

has value, individually and socially, because we know above all we have

chosen is too important to neglect any energy that might contribute to

the success of our ideal, and finally, because we know that our freedom,

security and individual well being would be precarious and ephemeral —

even in an egalitarian society — if they did not find their basis and

protection in the freedom and welfare of those around us. If freedom is

knowledge, if well being is solidarity; then the educational work to be

performed among proletarians, organized or not appears only as a

pressing need, but one which cannot be delayed.

“Well then, would you be willing to join any organizations? To remain

outside them prevents you from exerting any influence or action.”

Certainly! We should enroll in labor organizations whenever we find it

useful to our struggle and whenever it is possible to do so under well

defined pledges and reservations.

Pledge number one! As we are anarchists outside the organization, so we

shall remain anarchists inside it. First reservation! We shall never be

a part of the leadership; we shall always be in the opposition and never

assume any responsibility in running the union. This is for us an

elementary position of coherence.

It has been firmly established that the labor organizations, those that

are managed by somnolent conservatives, as well as the red ones led by

the so-called revolutionary syndicalists, recognize and consent to the

existing economic system in all its manifestations and relations. They

limit their demands to immediate and partial improvements, high

salaries, shorter hours, old age pensions, unemployment benefits, social

security, laws protecting women’s and children’s working conditions,

factory inspections, etc., etc... They are the main purpose for which

the organization was established, and it is clear that an anarchist

cannot assume the responsibility for sponsoring aspirations of this

kind. He knows that every conquest of such improvements is deceitful and

inconsistent, since in the increased cost of food, rent and clothes, the

worker as a consumer will pay more to live no matter how much he earns

as a producer. No comrade of ours, therefore can assume the management

of such an organization, nor any role implying any solidarity whatever

with its programme or action, without denying all his anarchist and

revolutionary convictions, without aligning himself with the reformist

crowds whose spearhead he pretends to be.

Our place is in opposition, continually demonstrating with all possible

vigilance and criticism the vanity of such aims, the futility of such

efforts, the disappointing results; relentlessly pointing out, in

contrast, the concrete and integral emancipation that could be achieved

quickly and easily different ways and other means.

The outcome of every agitation, of every union struggle would confirm

the foresight and the fairness of our criticism. Even if it is not easy

to hope that an organization might soon follow our suggestions, it is

nevertheless believable that the more intelligent and bold among its

members would be inclined to favor our point of view. They would form a

nucleus ready to fight with passion in the struggles of the future,

attracting their fellow workers to shake the authority of their union

leaders.

If you join an organization with ideas like this and mean to keep them,

you’ll be gagged and expelled as a provocateur at the first opportunity.

That is something you’ve had occasion to see not long ago.

That is why those of our comrades who undertake this task must posses

the qualities of seriousness, humility, coherence and great patience

that are required to gain, first the liking, then the esteem and finally

the trust of the best of their fellow workers. They must be in the front

line where there is danger, last in line always, where there is ambition

or personal gain; they must be bitter opponents when faced with deals

and compromises that are inconsistent with their faith and dignity as

workers and revolutionists.

And if they fail, if they have to pack up and go, there will be no

regrets. They will have sown the good seeds of independence, of

consciousness and of courage. Their work will be remembered and invoked

wherever leaders waver or manoeuvre, wherever the hard, fruitless

struggle is followed by renewed pain and disillusionment, wherever the

fortunes of battle end in disaster for want of boldness and self denial

they always practised.

The sympathy and the trust that go beyond the personal, into the action

and the ideal which inspired it; the sympathy and trust in revolutionary

action and in the anarchist ideal, the sympathy and trust which will end

by transforming themselves into passionate and persistent cooperation,

isn’t this all we can expect from our modest but earnest work of

propaganda, education and renovation?

We have no dogmatic pretence whatsoever. Modestly, we have said what we

think about a controversial question, conscious of the fact it has the

consent of a considerable number of comrades — and we expressed it in

all sincerity without hate or contempt.

Furthermore, hate and contempt would be misplaced, since action, either

within or without a labor organization, should imply neither merit nor

demerit. Everyone should choose the ways, means and field more suited to

his ability and preference. [1]

[1] Nowadays, it is impossible for workers of any trade to remain

independent from their union. In the United States, at least, those who

remain separate are considered “scab”, even if they are respected for

their ability and are already paid above the union scale. But above all

the employers claim that all their employees belong to a union, so they

can discharge those who cannot show a union card.

Employers have learned from their experience that it is easier to

bargain with the union committee, which is composed of intelligent

workers, generally well-placed and jealous of their privileged

positions, but after all, still pliant and corruptible, than it is to

quarrel with a rough, variable and restless crowd of individuals who

have no legal standing to establish a long term, comfortable agreement,

and are more easily blinded by their delegates’ stories than bought by a

shinning coin. It would take too much money to deal with them, and the

quarrel would have to be repeated every day.)