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Title: The general strike Author: Ralph Chaplin Date: 1933 Language: en Topics: IWW, general strike, syndicalism, strikes, introductory Source: https://archive.iww.org/history/library/Chaplin/TheGeneralStrike/ Notes: Classic IWW pamphlet outlining the philosophy and practical activity of the IWW and their belief in the greatest weapon of the working class, the general strike.
Thousands of thoughtful and class-conscious workers in years past have
looked to the General Strike for deliverance from wage slavery. Today
their hopes are stronger than ever. Their number has been increased with
additional thousands who are confident that the General Strike, and the
General Strike alone, can save Humanity from the torture and degradation
of the continuation of capitalism and the misery and privation of its
recurrent wars and depressions.
The General Strike is the child of the Labor Movement. It is Laborâs
natural reaction to a system of society based upon the private ownership
of the machinery of production. It is Laborâs ultimate attitude in the
class struggle. It is Laborâs answer to the problem of economic
disorganization.
Logically enough the General Strike has become the rallying-cry of
millions of persons the world over who favor it simply because they do
not wish to see the highly industrialized modern world sink into chaos,
and human society sink to the level of savage survival.
The idea of the General Strike is here to stay. It came into being with
the perfection of the machine process and the centralization of control
which made it possible. And it will remain as a constant challenge to
capitalism as long as the machinery of production is operated for profit
instead of for use.
When Ralph Chaplin wrote this pamphlet in 1933, fascism was on the march
in Europe and America. He saw the general strike not just as a broad
work stoppage, but rather as the occupation of industry by the workers
themselves. It was his belief then that only worker control of industry
could combat fascist repression and insure world peace.
This conception of the general strike influenced the stay-in strikes of
the â30s here and was modified by Japanese workers after World War II
when they occupied the industries to make sure they were kept running.
More recently, in the 1980s, workers in Bolivia, the Phillipines, Poland
and South Africa have militantly taken up the tactic. It remains to be
applied on a mass level once and for all to do away with the dangerous
foolishness of private or State ownership of production. It is an idea
both revolutionary and constructive, with a tremendous future.
Current IWW literature urges that workers the world over need to reach
an understanding among ourselves as to what we will make, where we will
ship it, and how we will distribute it in order to make optimal use of
our skills and Earthâs productive resources without either raping the
Earth or making slaves of her people.
Every intelligent person now realizes that there is something radically
wrong with the social system under which we are living. Everyone,
excepting the beneficiaries of this system, agrees that something ought
to be done about it. The trouble is that people at present seem unable
to agree on any common program of action. Some accept their unhappy lot
with a patience and fortitude worthy of a better cause, others theorize
ineffectually and do little, while still others complain bitterly and
strike out blindly. Nearly everyone rushes hither and tither seeking
escape but without having any clear-cut objective in view. Considering
the control of the press and all media of misinformation and propaganda
by the present ruling class this situation is not to be wondered at.
Let us examine briefly the things people in general are saying and doing
about the desperate situation now confronting society: One group says:
âLet us be patient until pressure of public opinion brings about a
change or at least a betterment of conditions.â Another group says: âAs
long as we have the ballot let us use political action to bring about
whatever changes are necessary.â Still another group states: âWe cannot
wait any longer. Only a violent upheaval ... armed insurrection!â
These groups, regardless of their differences of opinion, are composed
of men and women who have given some thought and study to the subject.
They deserve credit for trying to find a solution for the baffling
problem confronting them. No matter how mistaken they may be their
efforts are at least directed toward making the world a fit place to
live in. Unfortunately a majority of the population have not gone this
far. The majority still lives and suffers in a condition of unthinking
bewilderment. They simply do not know what it is all about. Just as they
have done, for ages past, they are content to work like robots or starve
like dumb beasts without daring to organize to put a stop to the system
which is crushing them. And, what is worse they are actually misled into
supporting this system.
But there is still another and far more significant group. This group
represents the viewpoint of the awakened and class-conscious working
class. Its opposition to the present order is unalterable and its
methods and objective distinctly those of the worldâs revolutionary
proletariat. This group takes the position that, in the face of the
present disintegration of the profit or wage system, public opinion,
political action and armed insurrection are too unweildly, too uncertain
and too unscientific to serve in so great an emergency. This group
advocates a General Strike of the worldâs army of production and its
managerial staff as the means of putting an end to capitalism, and
inaugurating in its place an era of scientific industrialism and
industrial democracy.
The argument for the General Strike is based on the persistent and very
logical working class conviction that the ruling class will refuse to
permit itself to be dispossessed by any power weaker than its own and
that public opinion, political action and insurrection therefore will
not be permitted to be developed or used to any appreciable extent. It
is further based on the firm belief that Labor alone can save the world
from chaos during and following the period of transition. As long as the
production of goods under any system depends on the disciplined
solidarity of the producing class it is evident that this solidarity
alone is capable of stopping the operations of the old order or of
starting and continuing those of the new.
In this sense the General Strike is not only the hope of Labor; it is
the hope of the human race. It is the one method which will be found
trust-worthy when all other methods fail. If it is true, as many
believe, that the economic maladjustments of modern society can be
remedied only be economic measures, then the General Strike will become
increasingly important with every passing day. The necessity of the
collective ownership and democratic operation of socially necessary
machinery is now conceded by technician, economist, student and
class-conscious worker alike. There is diversity of opinion as to how
the change is to be made, but there is no lack of unanimity as to the
advisability of the change. In this regard the program of the General
Strike is too important not to be seriously considered.
As a matter of fact any power less potent than that of a General Strike
is bound to be of doubtful efficacy. Public opinion in America at its
best is merely a means of registering the disapproval or indignation of
an intelligent minority. At its worst it is all that the Powers that Be
could expect of it â mass hysteria and mob violence to be directed at
will by those affluent enough to buy it on the market like any other
commodity. Any public opinion which ignores the basic fact of the class
struggle is bound to be a hypocritical gesture. In this regard the
liberals are among the worst offenders. The weak cry of the conventional
liberal for peace in a peaceless world is one of the most convincing
evidences of the innate sterility of the liberal attitude. Due to their
hopelessly restricted outlook these middle class muddlers are unable to
see the inevitability of struggle and strife as long as society is
divided into two classes with irreconcilable interests.
Unless the class struggle is used as a key, human history will remain a
matter of guesswork. Unless the evolution of society is studied in the
light of social science, social changes will remain inexplicable. How
much clearer and less confusing is the position of the Industrial
Workers of the World as expressed in its Preamble,
âThe working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There
can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among the millions
of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class have
all the good things in life.â
This is submitted as a clear-cut statement of undeniable fact.
Reformers of all types are and must be primarily concerned with the
patching up of the decayed and historically unjustifiable capitalist
system. They are unable to see society as a process of change under
economic pressure â a continuous evolution from one stage of development
to another, based on the iron law of economic determinism. Under chattel
slavery or serfdom these myopic gentlemen would have believed as they do
now under capitalism that the existing system was permanent, preordained
and historically unassailable. To them riches and poverty are not the
result of definable and remediable social maladjustments but the normal
condition of human life. The invention of labor-saving, profit
increasing machinery, as they see it, was not a part of an evolutionary
process; they prefer to believe it was merely a convenient and very
profitable accident. They are childishly amazed that their right to to
monopolize the earth and her resources should ever be contested. There
are even authors, editors and professors who support them in this
fantastic illusion. On this point the position of the I.W.W. is as
startling as it is scientifically sound:
âBetween these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers
organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of
production, and abolish the wage system.â
If any liberal is capable of seeing that far he is already cured of his
liberalism.
Public opinion being largely at the mercy of the predatory interests
through their control fo the press, radio, etc., is therefore largely
out of the question as a means of effecting fundamental social change.
Even the unusual program and personality of Ghandi would be helpless in
the face of the private control of public opinion which exists in the
U.S.A. Within a fortnight the mild-mannered Mahatma would be heaved into
the hoosegow charged with planting a bomb or engineering a pay-roll
robbery. Such things have happened before with the public being far from
unconvinced.
And so the capitalist control of the machinery of publicity coupled with
the economic ignorance of the much divided and long misled masses makes
public opinion as the sole method of ending the nightmare of capitalism
somewhat remote. Unless crystallized into definite and determined action
of some sort or other, about all we can expect from public opinion is
the registering of belated and somewhat pathetic disapproval.
Political action as a method of obtaining control of the machinery of
production seems also peculiarly unconvincing. Only the most naive of
politically-minded revolutionists believes that the ballot or
constitutional amendments will induce the Vested Interests to give over
control and title to the privately owned machinery of production. It is
manifestly absurd to expect the class which has stained the pages of
history red in countless labor struggles to give over complete control
because the electorate (whom they despise) have seen fit to demand it.
The parasite class of the U.S.A. can be relied upon not to relinquish
their sacrosanct rights to âpropertyâ until they are confronted with a
power greater than that which they have at their command. Anything less
will be scoffed at.
What is more probable, in the light of past experience, than their
capitulation is that the right of sufferage will be revoked or curtailed
the moment it threatens to be used for any purpose other than the
customary horse-swapping. Even with the menace of the ever-present
potential fascist dictatorship removed, there is little reason to
believe that the rich will ever hand over their property to the poor
just because the poor have decided to vote for it.
The program of armed insurrection is open to as many angles of criticism
as that of political action. First of all the workers as a whole are not
only unarmed, but they are untrained in the use of arms. Twelve
airplanes can destroy a city and it is quite unlikely that a city of
armed workers could control even so small a force of capitalist
mercenaries. The technique of modern warfare has made the rifle and the
side-arm, and even grenades and machine guns obsolete in the face of
tanks, poison gas, planes and heavy artillery. The advocacy of armed
insurrection is fatally misleading because it induces workers to believe
that what was done in a backward country can be duplicated in a
thoroughly modern one. In America the chances of mobs defeating highly
trained troops are anything but even. Then there is the danger of
premature revolution precipitated by fanatics or stool pigeons.
The advocacy of armed insurrection is misleading also because most of
its protagonists, being politically minded and politically-trained, are
more determined to capture State power than to capture the industries.
The politician is utterly incapable of thinking in terms of industry. He
is incompetent either to control or direct industrial processes. In a
country like the U.S.A. with 48 state and hundreds of municipal and
county capitals in addition to the federal capital in Washington â all
adequately guarded â the problem is almost hopelessly complicated. At
the worst an attempt at armed uprising would result in a series of
unprecedented massacres, at best in an overtowering and very stupid
bureaucracy or an equally stupid and far more cruel dictatorship of
politicians.
It is far more probable that neither the ballots of the politicos nor
the bullets of the insurrectos will ever have an opportunity to âget to
first base.â With the final struggle impending it is very probable that
all weapons save that of economic action will have been taken out of
their hands. For this reason it is more necessary for Labor to study and
prepare itself for the General Strike than to trust its fortunes to
either ballots or bullets as a sole means of effecting its deliverance
from the toils of wage slavery.
The General Strike has allied in its service thinkers and men of action
of many different schools of thought. For over a quarter of a century
the Industrial Workers of the World have consistently advocated the
General Strike as Laborâs mightiest weapon in the class struggle.
At the present time there is scarcely a Socialist, or Communist Party or
Libertarian group anywhere in the world which does not contain
minorities, at least that are frank in admitting that the class struggle
is largely an industrial struggle and that the final victory must be won
by industrial instead of political methods. The many defeats of
politically powerful Socialist movements in Europe in the face of war
and dictatorship have convinced them of the inadequacy of political
action, the futility of violence and of the irresistable logic and power
of the General Strike.
It looks like a far cry from Bill Haywood to Thorsten Veblen, yet the
non-conformist labor leader and suave and erudite professor meet on
common ground in advocating the General Strike.
Not only is it true that Professor Veblen is in perfect accord with the
industrial philosophy, program and methods of the I.W.W. in regard to
the General Strike, but the preponderance of competent technological
opinion of America favors that viewpoint also. The advanced technician
has learned from experience to look upon the General Strike with favor.
He sees in it the quickest and most dependable method of keeping the
vital processes of production and transportation unimpaired during the
impending breakdown of the system of production for profit.
The General Strike, compared with the transient ameliorative slogans and
platforms of political parties is as firm and unshakeable as the Rocky
Mountains. It is as basic as the instinct to live and as fundamental as
industry. All the panaceas and nostrums of the politician and labor
union reformer sound shallow and meaningless when considered side by
side with industrial action of such magnitude and possibilities.
The politician who seeks to pervert the General Strike into a mere
adjunct to a political party is like the tail trying to wag the dog. The
logical and legitimate objective of the General Strike is the abolition
of capitalism â not reform or political trading of any sort. The General
Strike is not the toy of ambitious politicians. It is the red rainbow
across the sky of industrial desperation. It is a permanent warning to
politicians to keep their promises, to Authority to be careful and to
dictators to disappear. The General Strike is Laborâs life insurance
against betrayal.
Nothing can be more logical than that the General Strike offers a
program which is excellent neutral common meeting ground for the two and
seventy warring sects of the Labor movement.
If the time ever comes when the organized working class is capable of
outgrowing or putting aside the ancient prejudices of political thought,
the General Strike will be welcomed for what it is â Laborâs supreme
weapon for Laborâs supreme struggle.
There has never been a major labor struggle anywhere in the world in
which the General Strike was not discussed and there has never been a
labor union anywhere which has not at one time or another ardently
desired to use it in the never-ending struggle against corporate greed
and economic injustice.
The interests of the workers and employers are diametrically opposed and
each side uses such weapons in the class struggle as are suitable for
their purposes. The absentee owners of the industry, unlike the middle
class, are too smart to take the politician seriously. And in this
respect they are far wiser than many of the workers.
The real capitalists have a contempt for the politician and use him
merely as a tool. Being rooted in industry by reason of ownership and
deriving their incomes from the surplus value sweated from the hides of
their wage slaves they tolerate no intermediaries in the struggle
between the workers and themselves. If, for instance, they wish to cut
wages, lengthen the hours of the work day or employ women and children
in the place of men, they just go ahead and do it. They do not call upon
a politician to help them. They do not have to. Every time they
discipline, discharge or lay off a bunch of workers the employers are
using direct action. Every time the black-list or spy system is used on
the job, every time scabs, strike-breakers or gun-thugs are used, every
time the speed-up system, poor conditions, long hours and low wages are
enforced the employers are using industrial action against their slaves.
A depression is nothing but a lockout against labor. The owners of the
industries simply close up shop and cease operations because they can no
longer get their customary profits. And all the laws and politicians in
the world, or all the armies in the world, could not force them to start
up again unless it would pay them to do so. Business is business. The
employing class knows full well what industrial power means. They use it
all the time in the form of merciless lockouts, strikes and sabotage
against labor. But, they are decidedly unwilling to have labor retaliate
in kind.
Their defense is wide open only at one point: they get their profits out
of the hides of the workers and no place else. And if the workers by a
âconscientious withdrawal of efficiencyâ refuse to be exploited beyond a
certain point or refuse to be exploited at all, the exploiters can do
little. Their machinery will produce neither profits nor anything else
until it is oiled with the sweat of human labor. They fear the General
Strike more than anything on earth because they know that the General
Strike would in reality be a general lockout â the end of the present
dominating class. Against this mighty industrial force they have neither
cunning nor power to defend themselves.
But they do have the cunning and the power to fool and mislead the
workers and to keep the workersâ forces divided so that united action is
difficult of attainment. Due to capitalist control of the press, radio
and avenues of publicity and education, the workers are effectively
denied the right to call their minds their own. In fact the scissorbill
workers have but little in their heads which they can call their own.
Their minds belong to the last editor, speaker or politician who filled
the aching void with insidious poison or anti-proletarian
misinformation. Such workers not only play the sucker end in the shell
game of capitalism, but they also are too dumb and blind to figure out
what has happened when things go wrong. That is why they are called
âscissorbills.â
But, no matter how they suffer from insecurity and privation under
capitalism this kind of worker can do nothing for their own interests
until they learn to think for themselves. If you are a wage-slave with a
capitalist mind, or a decaying middle class mind you will no doubt
scratch your head and wonder what the General Strike can possibly mean
to you. At first you will not like the idea. You will probably figure
that it means turning upside down all the things you had respect for and
had confidence in.
But the class conscious worker is different. He has discarded the
capitalist prejudices and submissiveness to exploitation and lies. He
has shed his middle class faith in both politicians and the efficacy of
political action. He knows what is wrong with the world and knows just
what ought to be done to put an end to that wrong. He is no longer
apathetic or indifferent to his class interests. He can no longer be
fooled. He realizes that he, as a member of the working class, is rooted
in industry and must unite and make common cause with all other workers
in industry, and become an eager active fighter in the struggle to free
the world from the age-long curse of social parasitism. He knows what
the word strike means and does not have to be told that it is his
strongest and surest weapon.
Rebel workers who have been drilled, disciplined and hardened in the
class struggle recognize instinctively that the strike is laborâs
natural weapon. They know what industrial power is and know how to use
it. They have been forced to use it all their lives in little things and
are willing to use it for bigger things â for everything. They have
learned from experience that delegating their power into the hands of
politicians is more likely to result in disappointment and betrayal than
it is in profit to themselves. They have learned that even in their
unions they must have real democracy in order to keep their officials
straight. In the class war they are convinced that the strike is the
thing.
The logic is simple. If wages are too low to meet the needs of life, if
the hours of labor are too long or working conditions intolerable, the
thing to do is not call some witch-doctor of a politician, but simply
quit work in sufficient numbers and with sufficient solidarity to force
a shut-down of operations until the evils are remedied.
Every workingman and woman knows these things to be true. They do not
have to read about a strike in books or have it explained to them by a
professor. When the time comes to strike they strike. And no one can
convince them that there is anything else left to do but strike.Workers
as a rule do not take politics very seriously unless they are paid to
vote, which is often the case, or unless they are intimidated and herded
to the polls by racketeering ward-heelers in the interests of a corrupt
political machine.
As a rule they vote just as they would bet on a prize fight â to see if
they can pick a winner. But they do take striking seriously. And when it
becomes plain to the workers that they can put an end to the
interminable misery and uncertainty of capitalism by means of a big
strike just as easily as they defeated a wage-cut with a small one they
will strike with the same vigor and the same determination.
And this is the very type of mind which the advanced development of
capitalism is forcing upon them. Strikes have a way of becoming bigger
with each passing year. The workersâ very association with productive
industry suggests and controls the methods they must use in industrial
struggle. Like their employers they are forced by their surroundings to
think in terms of direct action. The strike grows in power and scope.
The strike is Laborâs natural weapon and the centralization of control
in industry makes the prospect of a General Strike more than a mere
possibility.
Webster defines the word âweaponâ as, âany instrument of offense or
defense.â Surely the machinery of production is capable of being used
for offense and defense both by the employing and the working class.
Every strike, every lockout proves that the control and operation of
modern machinery has developed a new technique of warfare as well as the
most powerful weapons the world has ever known. We are trying to show
that control of this machinery is the weapon which gives the employing
class dominion over all the world, and that use of this machinery gives
the working class ultimate power over the so-called owners.
The invention of gunpowder altered the course of human history and so
did the steam engine, airplane and radio. Military science concedes that
the factory behind the lines is as important as the human cannon-fodder
in the trenches for the winning of a war. God is no longer on the side
of of the strongest batallions, as Napoleon said. He is now on the side
of the most perfectly organized industries. Workers should keep in mind
that the real weapons of the machine age are the machines themselves.
It has frequently been stated that in the next war there will be no
non-combatants. This is but another way of saying that the machine is as
potent a weapon as the cannon. Military forces are worse than useless
unless they are supplied with food, supplies and transportation. Both in
warfare and industry the individual counts less and the mass more.
Individual power is nothing, collective power, everything. An army in
battle that is not organized is merely a mob. Workers in industry who
are not organized are in the same category. They must be organized by
their technical directors and foremen in order to produce efficiently.
They must organize themselves into industrial unions, just as they are
grouped in the industries, if they ever hope to use the weapon of
economic power in their own behalf.
The day of the small war or the small strike is gone forever. Labor,
without organization and disciplined solidarity, without unity and
singleness of purpose must of necessity remain in its traditional rut.
Labor cannot emancipate itself until it learns to use the mighty weapons
which contact with the machinery of production has placed in its hands.
The onward march of the machine process has not only changed the method
and tactics of warfare, it has also changed our concept of the methods
and tactics of revolution. It has done this by making old weapons
obsolete and by making new weapons available. Warfare used to be an art;
now it is an industry. The ancient art of arms is now practiced chiefly
for sport. Nowadays a nation does not settle down to the grim business
of war until the wheels of industry start turning.
The onward march of the machine process has completely changed our
concept of the methods and tactics of revolution. Modern airplanes,
poison and incendiary gas, artillery and machine guns in the hands of
highly trained specialists have put the unarmed and practically
untrained worker at a decided disadvantage in the matter of military
combat. But even if the odds were equal it would be an act of folly for
workers in any highly industrialized country to take as their models the
classical revolutions of 1848, the French Revolution, the Paris Commune,
or, even Russia. Laborâs power has been transferred from the street to
the industry. Job action has displaced the outpouring of the people and
the picket line the barricades. The supreme act of the present
revolution will not be the raising of the red flag over the old town
hall, but rather the continued and orderly operation of the machinery of
production, transportation and exchange by the industrial workers
functioning just as they function now; only involving a complete lockout
of the parasite class and its upholders. The General Strike to break the
final hold of the Parasites in Industry!
This is the modern alignment in the world-wide struggle of the working
class to free itself from the curse of wage slavery and exploitation.
The revolution of our day will be an industrial struggle and the
weapons, to be effective, must be industrial weapons.
Cannons, airplanes, submarines, mines and machine guns are designed for
the use of capitalist class mercenaries. Such weapons are hardly
suitable for the modern economic struggle to determine whether the
workers or the parasites shall control industry. Here the fight takes
place at the point of production and the workers have this one big
advantage in the struggle: they are the producing army of industry. The
machines are utterly valueless without the brawn and brain of the men
who tend them.
The workers are stationed strategically in industry. Unlike the
profit-grabbing âownersâ they are an indispensable part of the
industrial process. Workers are at the machines because they are needed
to keep those machines in operation. By sheer force of numbers they
already have possession of the industries. They are trained in the use
of the machinery of production, transportation and exchange, upon which
all the devices of warfare are dependent. In addition to this the
workersâ cause, having for its objective the extension of human
happiness, has the approval of all right thinking people as compared
with the cause of the Kept Class which of necessity can have no other
objective save that of the continuation of social parasitism. The
workersâ power is greater therefore than the power of the capitalist
class and its war-like mercenaries.
Capitalism can continue only so long as the working class ignorantly
gives its consent and approval. The exploitation of the many by the few
can continue only so long as the many do not know any better than to
submit to exploitation. This approval or disapproval can nowhere be
expressed so forcibly as in industry where the exploitation takes place.
The General Strike will therefore be Laborâs economic rejection of its
economic enslavement.
Individually under capitalism the wage worker is weaponless. If he has a
job and doesnât like it he can quit. If he doesnât have a job he can
crawl into an alley and die of starvation. Also he is free to drink
himself to death or to take poison or end it all with a bullet, thus
doing the master class a favor. Any other private war or revolt of his
own against the system is generally classified somewhere between the
meaning of the two words, âmisdemeanorâ and âfelony.â
The hope of the modern wage slave is in numbers. In class warfare only
collective weapons count. He can have strength himself only by combining
his individual strength with the massed strength of his fellow workers
in industry. The class struggle demands class weapons. Fortunately his
position in class society has forced the wage slave to think in terms of
âweâ instead of terms of âI.â
The modern wage-slave has been trained to think of power in terms of
numbers. In contrast to the craftsmen of old times, whose outlook was of
necessity limited to that of the individual or the craft, the industrial
worker of today is forced to view his troubles from the standpoint of
the industry in which he is employed. If he has intelligence at all he
can see at once that his personal problem in industry is identically the
same as the thousands of workers who are employed in the same plant.
Instinctively, when confronted with the greed and ferocity of the
exploiting class he thinks not in terms of voting, shooting, bombing and
bayoneting (as his masters do), but in terms of striking.
This was true in the beginning when industry was small and it is true
today. The only difference is that it is more difficult and takes longer
to communicate the impulse of motion to a large object than to a small
object. A small strike in the early days of capitalism was a
comparatively simple thing. Any strike today under super-capitalism is
bound to be bigger and more complicated. The strike impulse, instead of
being communicated to dozens or hundreds of men, is comminicated to
thousands or hundreds of thousands. This impulse, due to the checks and
controls encouraged by the employers, may not always succeed in putting
the large mass into action. But the impulse is always there and, in the
end, large strikes are as inevitable as small strikes ever were.
From job consciousness to class consciousness, from job action to
industrial action, from the job strike to the General Strike is only a
matter of degree. Every strike under modern industrial condition, is a
General Strike in embryo. Even the proposed decentralization of industry
will merely alter the tactics and strategy of the General Strike. It
will in no sense do away with the will of the workers to use the strike
as a weapon of ever increasing importance in the class struggle. On the
other hand it will weaken the position of the master class by giving
them perhaps a dozen heavily picketed scab plants, where they now have
but one, to be guarded by their limited army of mercenaries when the
great struggle is finally under way.
Regardless of how much political dissatisfaction may exist at any given
time the workerâs bed-rock complaint against capitalism will continue to
be economic. He is robbed at the point of production and at the point of
production he must fight against continued exploitation. If it can be
shown that anything at all can be done by means of political action to
make the workersâ struggle easier so much the better. But workers must
not delude themselves about the efficacy of political action. No matter
how red they vote on election day or whom they elect to office they will
discover that their power struggle is but the shadow of their struggle
in industry.
The danger of overstressing the importance of political action lies in
the fact that the workers are thereby led to trust someone else (usually
not a member of the working class) to do something for them which, with
a little understanding and determination, they could have done a whole
lot easier by themselves â and without the danger of betrayal.
Confidence in political action not only robs the worker of the
initiative for independent action, it also leads him into that state of
mind where he is willing to exchange one kind of dictatorship for
another. The ultimate aim of the General Strike is not to substitute for
the yoke of capitalism, the yoke of the red republican [i.e. state
communist. â editor], the fascist, the militarist â or any other yoke.
The General Strike can just as well be used by the workers to institute
real industrial freedom and democracy and to do away with all yokes save
that of necessary social labor which is in the common obligation of
everybody born into the world.
In the beginning of the capitalist era the craftsmen were hired either
individually or in small groups by the individual employer or
partnership. At that time there was no vast and highly specialized
industries such as exist today. Neither were there centralized ownership
and control of entire industries by a handful of plutocrats operating
through interlocking directorates such as we know at present. The plant
was a small plant, the boss a small boss and the strike, of necessity, a
small strike.
But the small plants did not stay small. With the growth of population
and the ripening of the capitalist system they became bigger and bigger.
They were merged and consolidated under pressure of economic necessity.
They became vast industries. The small shop became a factory, the
weaving room a textile mill, the village smithy a foundry. Pittsburgh,
Chicago and Detroit arose in all their dismal might and the tentacles of
Wall Street reached to the remotest corners of the land. All the while
there were fewer and fewer employers and vaster aggregations of
wage-slaves. The actual direction and management of industry passed from
the absentee owner to the hired technician and both technician and
worker toiled to satisfy the insatiable greed for profits of the
entrepeneur and the absentee parasite class.
Of course, it was not as simple as it appears but, in a general way,
strikes became larger and the industrial power of the working class
proportionately greater. The line-up in the class struggle was no longer
between the small employer and the small group of workers but between
workers in entire industrial areas and numerically smaller but
infinitely more powerful corporations. The mines, mills and factories
spread like a plague of vast prisons over the land. And the day of the
small strike or small union was gone forever.
All this would have been well if the conscious power of the working
class had grown in proportion to the growth of industry. Machinery did
not perceptibly lift the burden of toil from the shoulders of the
working class; it simply increased the profits of the parasite owners.
The grievances of the wage-slaves became greater and their strikes
bigger and ever more bitterly contested.
In capitalist society the acceleration of the machine process not only
changes the way men are grouped together in ordetr to work, it also
changes the way they group themselves in order to fight. In each country
workers react to the class struggle according to the maturity or
immaturity of the machine process in that country. This accounts for the
fact that combative proletarian tactics suitable for instance to a
comparatively backward land like Russia, are of little value to workers
under a highly advanced industrial system like the one prevailing in
North America. This also explains why the I.W.W. â the worldâs
outstanding exponent of revolutionary industrial unionism â originated
in the U.S.A. where capitalism had reached its most mature and perfect
form.
The puropse of industrial unionism is to give the working class the
greatest possible organized power in industry. Unquestionably the
General Strike, either on or off the job, is the most perfect
manifestation of this power. If the craft unions of today are examined
in regard to their adaptability to this end it will put the
revolutionary industrial union movement in an entirely new light. Also
it will reveal clearly the shortcomings of conventional unionism in
general and the craft union movement in particular. After all, the full
measure of power is the acid test of any labor organization.
A cursory glance at the craft union movement will reveal the fact that
it is constructed in such a way as to divide rather than to unify the
forces of labor. The craft union is not designed to enable labor to use
its full power. This type of union came into existence during the period
of industrial evolution known as small production when the tools of the
craft and the skill of the craftsman were important things. In those
days the organized power of the tradesman consisted in his having
monopoly on the skill necessary to make the tools of his trade
industrially productive. The withdrawal of this skill during periods of
strikes was all that was necessary to force the old-time employer of
labor to terms. Thus it happened that the craft union was organized
around the, then important, tools of the tradesmen.
But all this has been changed. The onward march of the machine process
has to a large extent made both tools and skill unnecessary. This great
advance in technical development has made the old fashioned trades union
unable to cope with modern conditions. Craft unions still carry on as a
matter of habit, it is true, but they are anachronisms in this modern
world. Some of them merely serve as pie-cards for the tired business men
who are their officials and all such unions serve more or less as props
of the existing order. But they are not unions in the modern sense at
all. They are merely the shells of once useful unions operating to
secure advantages for a few favored groups of workers without regard to
the interests of the working class as a whole. They are organized within
the capitalist system which they have been taught to take for granted,
and they have no thought or program of anything beyond this system.
In relation to the manifest weakness of the trade union structure and
concept the I.W.W. Preamble points out with telling emphasis:
âWe find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer
and fewer hands makes the trades unions unable to cope with the ever
growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of
affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set
of workers in the same industry, thereby helping to defeat one another
in wage wars. Moreover the trade unions aid the employing class to
mislead the workers into the belief that the workers have interests in
common with their employers.â
Laborâs problem today is not a craft but an industrial problem. A labor
union at the present time, to be an effectual instrument of offense and
defense, must conform to the structure of modern industry. It must be
industrial rather than craft in form. But the craft unions have not kept
pace with the needs of a changing world. They have very largely remained
just where they were in the beginning. Far from being the helpful
fighting instruments they were in the old days, they have now become
merely a further means of effecting the enslavement of the class whose
interests they are supposed to serve.
A General Strike of craft unions is an unthinkable impossibility. Being
organized for the sole purpose of enabling a few groups of workers to
âget byâ under capitalism, they lack both the form and the spirit
necessary to make possible united action for a common objective against
a common foe. For this reason, as organized today, they would be of very
doubtful help to any unified effort of the working class to free itself
from wage slavery by industrial means. The modern industrial struggle
demands modern industrial weapons. And in this regard the craft union is
as obsolete as the dodo. Workers who conceive of the final struggle for
emancipation in terms of industrial power will have to look elsewhere
for an organizational form more suitable for this purpose.
The so-called independent industrial unions are in the same category. It
is true their rather loose industrial structure makes it possible for
them to think of their union in terms of a given industry. But, as in
the case of the U.M.W. of A. [United Mine Workers of America] and other
similar unions, they are divided into districts if not in crafts and are
tied down by contracts which make it impossible for them to act in
unison. In no case is there evidence of any attempt or desire on their
part to ally themselves for the purposes of solidarity with transport or
other workers on One Big Union lines. Organized railroad, clothing and
many other workers in the U.S.A. are similarly bound, similarly divided
and similarly unable to get together for united action of any sort.
As far as the interests of Labor are concerned these steps must be in
the right direction. They must not only be distinctly industrial, they
must also be unquestionably revolutionary.
âInstead of the conservative motto, âA fair dayâs wage for a fair dayâs
work,â we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword,
Abolition of the wage system.â
So states the I.W.W. Preamble. And in this historic slogan is found the
source of the strength and inspiration of the organized industrial
workers of all the world.
Working class political parties, while not unanimous in endorsing the
General Strike, are frank in admitting the need for economic power in
any program of revolutionary reconstruction. Socialists and Communists
alike seem to recognize the importance of industrial unionism but they
donât do much about it. They canât. Political parties are not organized
that way.
On more than one occasion however, particularly in Europe, both
Socialists and Communists have appealed to the workers for a General
Strike. This is a thing which is more than likely to happen again. The
trouble is that these organizations, being political parties and not
labor unions, lack the machinery to put a General Strike into effect.
After all other measures fail they issue frantic appeals for what they
should have thought about in the first place â industrial solidarity.
Usually they are forced to appeal to more or less unsympathetic
conservative unions with which their contact has been largely nominal.
Such unions, neither in structure nor spirit were designed to respond
effectively to such demand.
A planned and consciously modern structure is as necessary for the labor
union as is a planned economy for society as a whole. To expect class
action from a trades union is at least as foolish as to expect
revolutionary planks in a conservative party platform. This haphazard
and hit-or-miss method of making eleventh-hour appeals for a General
Strike does not indicate the strongest possible confidence in the
efficacy of political action. The efforts of the politically-minded
Socialists and Communists of Germany in 1932 to call a General Strike in
order to forestall Fascism is an example in point. After 1914 they
should have known better and should, long since, have prepared for such
an emergency by forgetting about the game of politics long enough to
build up a powerful industrial movement along One Big Union lines. Then
the story would have been vastly different from what it is today.
The I.W.W. from its inception has held before the workers the goal of
industrial democracy to be obtained by means of the General Strike. The
Preamble, of which hundreds of millions of copies have been circulated,
states in unmistakable terms:
âThese conditions can be changed and the interests of the working class
upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members
in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work
whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus
making an injury to one an injury to all.â
Has ever a statement appeared indicating more clearly the organic
interdependence, unity and potential power of the worldâs producers?
In spite of certain misleading surface similarities, which are unduly
stressed by shallow observers, the European anarcho-syndicalist movement
and the I.W.W. differ considerably in more than one particular. This was
made inevitable by reason of the fact that the I.W.W. was the result of
a later and more mature period of industrial development.
This accounts for the fact that European Syndicalism, unlike the I.W.W.,
is not organized into One Big Union on the basis of perfectly
co-ordinated, centralized industrial departments. It also accounts for
the fact that the form of the I.W.W. is designed to serve not only as a
powerful combative force in the everyday class struggle, but also as the
structure of the new society both as regards production and
administration. Incidentally the I.W.W. concept of the General Strike
differs almost as much from that of the anarcho-syndicalist as from that
of the political or craft unionist. In form, structure and objective,
the I.W.W. is more all-sufficient, more mature and more modern than any
of its anarcho-syndicalist predecessors.
It may be objected that the I.W.W. has not contacted and co-operated
with the technicians to the extent that the European Syndicalists have
done. If this is true at all it is due not to any lack of appreciation
of the importance of the technician in the industrial organism but
rather the fact that the I.W.W. has been embattled in the American class
struggle to an extent which has made sustained contact difficult.
The I.W.W. has always held the technician as a vitally necessary member
of the producing class. He is indispensable to any program of
fundamental economic reconstruction. His place, in the One Big Union
Chart, corresponds to his place and his importance in industry. The
I.W.W. conceives of Industrial Democracy as the technological managerial
forces cooperating with the working productive forces of the army of
industry under the General Administration of the One Big Union in the
interests of the entire human race. Practically from its inception the
I.W.W. has welcomed the engineer into its councils. Some of its
outstanding educators have been technically trained men. The
non-political, anti-entrepeneur, industrially-minded engineer has always
been recognized by the I.W.W. as a blood brother. In 1921 an attempt was
made by the I.W.W. to build up a Bureau of Industrial Research under the
direction of a clear-thinking group of capable engineers with both
social vision and a sense of social responsibility. This ambitious
project the I.W.W. was forced to abandon because so many of its active
officials had at that time been sent to prison. Prior to that time and
since, the I.W.W. has preached and practiced that type of disciplined
solidarity which, according to the technician, is so vitally necessary
to any plan of carrying on production exclusive of the profit-grabbing
Captains of Finance.
The I.W.W. is in full agreement with and committed, by a policy of
nearly a half of a century, to the idea that workers and engineers are
the only indispensable elements in modern productive processes. The
technician is in every sense of the word a fellow worker. He is the
âother selfâ of the man at the machine â the managerial technological
force in industry which counterpoints the productive working forces in
the army of production. Both are equally necessary to any plan of
carrying on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. Both
are equally necessary to any plan of putting an end to the profit system
by means other than those of bloodshed and destruction. This point looms
big in the I.W.W. doctrine of the General Strike. It is well for
technicians, I.W.W. menbers, and students generally to keep it in mind.
Nothing could be more natural than this bond of fellowship between the
I.W.W. and other industrially minded groups in the army of production or
among working class movements. It has been shown that craft and
independent industrial unions make the attainment and use of Laborâs
full economic power impossible or difficult of attainment. It has also
been shown that revolutionary political parties, apart from educational
and defensive activities, complicate rather than simplify the situation
as far as the General Strike is concerned. Therefore the I.W.W. appeals
to the workers in the worldâs industries to put aside prejudices and
differences of opinion as to race, color, religion or politics and unite
their economic power into One Big Union regardless of national boundary
lines in order to put a final end to the hideous monster of world
Imperialism which has enslaved and degraded the workers of every nation.
The General Strike is ONE program on which all wage workers should
agree.
There has been a great deal of confusion as to just what was meant by
the term, General Strike. In the past any strike of considerable
proportions has usually been referred to as a âGeneral Strike.â But many
times this definition was not really applicable. Much of the
misconception results from an erroneous or limited conception as to what
a General Strike is and what it is supposed to do. The General Strike,
as its name implies, must be a revolutionary or class strike instead of
a strike for amelioration of conditions. It must be designed to abolish
private ownership of the means of life and to supplant it with social
ownership. It must be a strike, not of a few local, industrial or
national groupings of workers but of the industrial workers of the world
as an entity. If we keep in mind that there are four phases of the
General Strike it will help to understand clearly what we mean by using
the term:
A General Strike in a community.
A General Strike in an Industry.
A national General Strike.
A revolutionary or class strike â THE General Strike.
It will be seen from the above that, while the first three are General
Strikes in the limited and commonly accpeted meaning of the term, only
the last, or revolutionary class strike, is a General Strike in the full
meaning of the term. The first three have been attempted at times with
varying degrees of success, but the last has yet to be organized and
made effective.
Thus, for instance, the display of industrial power by the workers of
Finland and Russia in 1905 or that in connection with the upheaval in
Moscow which resulted in the overthrow of the Kerensky government in
1917, or the strike of the French Railroad workers in 1909, the great
strike in Sweden in 1909, or the strike in Germany when the
administration of Von Kapp was embarrassed in the same manner. There
were also important General Strikes in Belgium in 1913, in Buenos Aries
in 1920 and again in Great Britain in 1926. All these have been referred
to as âGeneral Strikes.â And they are General Strikes in the limited
sense defined above.
The so-called General Strike in Denmark which was called by the
Socialists to block the forming of an unpopular cabinet by the King is
an example in point, as is the now famous attempt of the Italian workers
to take over the industries in 1920.
The I.W.W. strikes of 100,000 lumber jacks or 40,000 copper miners in
1917 are fair examples of the industrial General Strike, while those
affecting Seattle and Winnipeg are examples of the community General
Strike. Volumes might be written about each of the instances cited. But
in the end it would be plain that in each case the strikes did not cover
sufficient area and were not supported by a sufficient number of workers
in the various industries. Nor was the abolition of wage-slavery the
objective of these strikes. In other words they were merely the
foreshadowing of what Labor could do for itself under greater
provocation, inspired by a greater sense of solidarity and with a more
perfected organization at its disposal.
The conditions necessary for the successful operation of any of the four
kinds of General Strike enumerated above have never existed. But,
because it has not as yet been possible to use the economic power of
Labor to full advantage, is no sign that such conditions will never
exist. It has often been said, quite truthfully that, âone swallow does
not make the spring.â It is equally true that swallows never visit us in
the dead of winter. The fact that Labor has succeeded to a limited
extent indicates that it can use its economic power to a much greater
extent.
The General Strike, once clearly defined and understood, offers Labor a
weapon in the use of which Labor has shown great aptitude and
willingness â a weapon with which all other weapons in the class war are
puny in comparison. Just as gunpowder replaced the bow and arrow, so
economic action will displace Laborâs cruder and less potent weapons in
the final struggle for emancipation from wage slavery. Only the most
shallow-minded critics of working class tactics will seek to discourage
the use of Laborâs greatest power for the attainment of Laborâs highest
goal. And only the most superficial observers can fail to see that the
organizational plan of the I.W.W. is ideally constructed to enable Labor
to use that power.
The I.W.W. believes that the building of the new society, especially
during the period of crisis, is at least as important as the abolition
of the old. This is not merely a dogma; it is sound tactics. If the aim
of the social revolution is to achieve the socialization and democratic
control of industry, the time to make that achievement a fact is during
the revolutionary crisis, and with as little delay, red-tape or middle
class misdirection as possible. At all events it would be fatal to lose
track of the goal during the period of turmoil. It should be plain, even
to the most casual observer, that European tactics are not altogether
suitable for the needs of American labor. In the U.S.A. there is not
one, but three distinct types of culture â the industrial east and
middle west, the feudal south and the still poineering west coast. In
any of these it is apparent that it would be an easy thing, under
incitation, for the class war to degenerate into a religious, political
or race war. And it is even more apparent that the impact of mob
violence on the highly developed industrial organism would result in a
disaster which might result in universal destruction and ultimate chaos.
Sometimes one is forced to wonder at the temerity of the leadership of
the American Communist movement in thinking that they can control and
direct to constructive ends the sinister forces in the Pandora box of
civil war, which they seem eager to release upon a land whose language
they hardly know how to speak.
The I.W.W. has always taken the position that armed insurrection in a
technically advanced country like the U.S.A. would be quite a different
thing from an armed insurrection in a technically backward and largely
agricultural country like Russia â particularly under conditions which
prevailed in Moscow and Petrograd following the armistice in 1918. What
American conditions demand is a large scale operation in the nature of a
well-co-ordinated lockout of the Captains of Finance by both workers and
technicians which would put an end to the profit system but leave the
production and transportation of goods unimpaired. This, coupled with
the program of picketing the industries by the unemployed, is what the
I.W.W. has in mind in advocating the General Strike. Anything less than
this or more, is simply adding confusion unto confusion. The logic runs
like this: A perfect modern timepiece can be kicked apart as easily as a
tin toy; but it is much harder to put together again.
In America the I.W.W. is, and has been since its inception, the standard
bearer of revolutionary industrial unionism. From the very beginning the
I.W.W. has been industrially-minded. Largely as the result of its
constant insistence on the use of economic power, both Socialists and
Communists have been forced to admit that, in the revolutionary
movement, the labor union is the fighting vanguard. Both parties now
seek industrial contacts and both stand, theoretically at least, in
favor of industrial unionism. Both will admit, when pinned down to it,
that the future society will be organized on the basis of industrial
administration rather than poltical government. The trouble is both
parties, due no doubt, to the generous admixture of non-proletarian
elements in their ranks, are top-heavy with politics. They think in
terms of political campaigns (and even more foolish things) instead of
strikes, picket lines and unions which make the attainment of
substantial economic power possible. Political parties being organized
within specific national boundaries, must of necessity remain
nationalistic. In the very nature of things it is impossible for them to
conceive of international solidarity save in terms of the federation of
national units.
The I.W.W. on the other hand, ignores national boundary lines and views
the problem from the standpoint of the closely knit and organically
related, world-embracing interdependence of the producing class. The
I.W.W. contends that âhands across the seaâ must be the hands of
industrial workers and not politicians. Nothing more forcibly proves the
correctness of this position than the two world wars. Four and a half
millions of Socialist voters in Germany, and additional millions of
Socialist voters in France, England and Belgium, were unable to stop the
greed-inspired cataclysm which started in 1914 and which has been
progressing until the recent world holocaust. Labor gained nothing from
these wars. It lost heavily. It paid the cost in blood, misery and
substance and it will continue to pay for many years to come. And the
goal of Labor is even further now than it was at the start of World War
I. The I.W.W. claimed in 1914, and still claims, that, had the workers
of Europe been organized industrially, drilled, disciplined and educated
in the use of industrial power, not only would these imperialist
slaughterfests have been impossible, but the final victory of Labor
would long since have been achieved.
If the political saviors of the working class in the U.S.A. would only
profit from this fatal mistake and, even now, seek to build up a
powerful revolutionary industrial union movement instead of huge,
unweildy political machines, the prospects for a clean-cut victory for
Labor would be immeasurably brighter.
On the face of it the precise function of a political party with its
largely non-proletarian leadership in a labor union movement is
difficult to determine. The advantage to the rank and file in the union
of control by politicians is still harder to discover. To imply that the
industrial union, for instance, needs the leadership and domination of
the political party is to imply that union men are incapable of managing
their own affairs. To admit that the industrial union is and must be
merely the adjunct of the political party is to admit that economic
power is of less importance than political power and that the labor
union is designed to be merely the plaything of the ambitious politician
or the tool of the designing bourgeois leader. If this is to be the
attitude why is it necessary to have unions at all? Why not go back to
the pre-war âyellowâ Socialist who believed that unions were much more
of a hinderance than a help to the workers inasmuch as the union
distracted the mind of the worker from the ballot box? If the term
âIndustrial Democracyâ means anything at all it means that the
membership of the union â the actual workers in industry â are entitled
to and capable of controlling the affairs of their own organization
without interference from outsiders.
In teaching the working class the need for and benefits of revolutionary
industrial unionism political parties are doing necessary and valuable
work. But in seeking to dominate and control the industrial movement
from outside or inside political parties, knowingly or otherwise, they
are making a ghastly mistake. The I.W.W. still remembers the lesson of
1914.
It stands to reason that it does not and cannot come within the province
of a political party to organize or make effective either a General
Strike or any other kind of strike. They can advocate, encourage and
call for the full or partial use of Laborâs industrial power, but only
an organization functioning in industry can make such action possible.
The political party lacks the machinery either to call or carry on a
strike. If it had this machinery it would be a labor union and not a
political party. Only the workers organized into their own unions can
function either for purposes of combat or administration in this
capacity.
For this reason workers in all countries who wish to use their combined
industrial power to put an end to exploitation and wage slavery should
seek to build up an irresistable One Big Union movement along lines
advocated by the Industrial Workers of the World. And, unless they wish
to give up the principle of democracy for the principle of dictatorship,
they should refuse to give over the control of their organization to
politicians or non-proletarian leaders of any stripe or color.
It may be argued however that the General Strike might prove to be as
difficult to control and, due to the possible paralysis of transport,
equally productive of privation as civil war. If State power were not
captured by the workers would not the armed forces of the master class
crush the strike with military power? Would not the result in the long
run be the same as far as mass starvation and disorganization are
concerned?
The answer is that, as the I.W.W. conceives of the General Strike, it
would be so perfectly organized by workers and technicians and
effectually used that the feeding, supplying and transportation of armed
mercenaries would be practically impossible. The strikes at Seattle and
Winnipeg gave some indication of the ability of strikers to organize,
picket and police their strike and, at the same time arrange for the
adequate distribution of food stuffs to the population. As for machine
guns, tanks, airplanes and bombs of asphyxiating or incendiary
character, it is well to remember that such things are only available
when they are manufactured and transported by labor and would be more
difficult to use against workers stationed in and about the nationâs
widely spread industries than against mobs massed together in the labor
ghettoes of the great cities.
According to the modern idea of the General Strike it would not be at
all necessary, during a well organized class movement of this sort for
the employed workers to leave their assigned places in industry at all.
On the contrary, the effort would be made to get workers into the
industries instead of out of them in order to keep the wheels of
production going. The General Strike, in other words would be a means of
feeding rather than of starving the people.
This is in keeping with the I.W.W. program of STRIKING ON THE JOB. The
only difference would be that the factory doors, under the direction of
the technical managerial staff of the productive forces, would be thrown
wide open to absorb the millions of unemployed. The wheels of industry
would operate in their customary manner only for the purpose of
supplying human needs instead of the enrichment of a profit-greedy Kept
Class.
The General Strike therefore would simply mean that the army of
production under competent technical and managerial direction, would
continue to man and remain in the industries, producing and transporting
goods for consumption but refusing any longer to yeild up surplus value
to the parasite class. The General Strike would be a General Lockout
against these idle drones who now hold as their âprivate propertyâ the
machinery upon which the human race depends for life.
The General Strike is conditioned upon the WILL of the workers to make
it effective and their stubborn determination to put an end to
exploitation by producing goods for USE instead of PROFIT. Unlike the
small strike the General Strike does not necessarily depend on the
complete withdrawal of productive effort from machinery, but rather
their ability to withdraw or withhold only such effort as will put a
complete stop to the profits of the parasitic âownersâ.
The ultimate aim of the General Strike as regards wages is to give each
producer the full product of his labor. The demand for better wages
becomes revolutionary only when it is coupled with the demand that the
exploitation of labor must cease. Labor is exploited at the point of
production, and it is at the point of production alone that Labor can
stop the idle, absentee drones from receiving any more than they
produce. Only the complete disallowal of any share whatever to
nonproducers will guarantee economic justice to the working class.
Working conditions under capitalism have occasioned many bitter
controversies but even the most necessary demands for their betterment
could hardly be called revolutionary. Even under Industrial Democracy
such things will be matters of expediency and consistently sustained
improvement, in keeping with recognized needs.
The demand for shorter hours however is decidedly a revolutionary
demand. On the basis of an eight hour day less than three hours are all
that is necessary for the worker to earn his wage; the rest of the day
he is employed in producing surplus value for the boss. Each hour of the
shortened workday means for the employer one hourâs less profits from
every man employed â one hour less opportunity to exploit. This accounts
for the fact that the workerâs demands for shorter hours have always
been contested more vigorously than demands for better conditions or
even increased wages.
The reason is obvious: The difference between the six hour day and the
eight hour day is the difference between the three hours and five hours
given to the employer in which to sweat profits from the hides of his
help, each hour of reduction being made at the expense of the exploiter.
The difference between the six hour day and, say, the three hour day is
the difference between three hours of profit-sweating and none at all.
Therefore, if the employer wishes to continue to live off the labor of
his wage slaves he must (and does) guard jealously the length of the
toilerâs work day. Upon it depends not only the amount of his unearned
income but also the continuation of his privilege to live without
producing.
The chief demand of the General Strike would therefore logically be a
demand for an average workday of not longer than three hours or whatever
length of time is technologically necessary to carry on production on a
non-profit basis. This is the most revolutionary of all demands because
it dries up the possibility of class exploitation at its source. Under a
planned industrial system and with the perfected machinery of modern
production placed at the disposal of the human race even with the
present staff of competent directors there is no reason at all (apart
from the profit system) why anyone should be forced to work longer than
two and a half or three hours per day. Any workday longer than that
required to do the actual necessary work of the world simply serves to
fatten the already hog-fat parasites of industry. The General Strike for
the three hour day would not only put the millions of unemployed back to
work, but it would also put the Thieves of Big Business to work
alongside of them. In this regard it is well to remember that I.W.W.
loggers in the northwest won the eight hour day by the simple expedient
of blowing the whistle at the end of eight hours and then walking off
the job en masse.
The I.W.W. is credited with having introduced two outstanding tactics of
industrial warfare into the American labor movement â the strike on the
job and mass picketing by the unemployed. Both of these are of utmost
importance to the successful operation of the General Strike. In fact
the success of the move (apart from competent technological direction)
would depend upon the solidarity existing between employed and
unemployed workers. In a class strike this solidarity is indispensible,
because only by joint action and common understanding of this sort can
the hours of labor be shortened to permit all to return to work. The
effect on the capitalist system of millions of unemployed picketing the
factory gates for a shorter workday can easily be imagined. By so doing
the jobless would not only be hitting at the root cause of unemployment
(long hours) but they would also be hitting at the root cause of
exploitation (the private ownership of socially necessary machinery).
It may be objected that, admitting the General Strike to be a good
thing, there is still but slight possibility that it will ever be used.
The answer is affirmative. There is every reason to believe that a
victory by the General Strike is far more probable than a victory by
either ballots or bullets. It must be admitted however that its
possibility is impaired by the insistent promulgation by politicians,
insurrectos and reformers of non-industrial methods, just as it would be
helped by an aggressive educational campaign along revolutionary
industrial union lines. Unless a great effort is made to direct the
growing discontent of the working class along industrial lines for the
attainment of Industrial Democracy by means of the General Strike many
other things are likely to happen. The only other alternatives appear to
be mob disorders and dictatorship of one kind or another. Workers should
make every effort to get what they want, but they should be mighty sure
they want it.
The capitalist system, rotten as it is, has resources which cannot be
overlooked. The armed forces of the state are not nearly so formidable
as the venal press and other avenues of publicity and class
mis-education. The capitalist press and class-controlled radio are
perhaps the very strongest bulwarks for the established order. By means
of these, labor hatred and mob frenzy can be lashed to fever heat at any
time and against any individual or group which dares to challenge the
capitalist system. It will be recalled however that newspaper workers
have at times, notably in Seattle, refused to set-up or print slanderous
and inflammatory anti-labor editorial matter. So here as well as in the
manufacture and transportation of war material, the economic power of
the workers can be used to advantage.
The system of exploitation is still strongly entrenched and deeply
rooted in the economic ignorance as well as in the habits, customs and
imbecile individualism of the groove-minded electorate. But regardless
of these obvious advantages the upholders of the present order are
fighting a losing fight. Capitalism has outlived its usefulness as a
social system. It has become a curse to the entire human race. There is
no further historical justification for its existence. It has become an
obstacle to further social progress. It is doomed by the iron law of
inexorable change. Just as chattel slavery yeilded to serfdom and
serfdom to wage-slavery, so the latter is forced by evolutionary and
revolutionary pressure to make way for scientific industrialism â
Industrial Democracy. But even this is not inevitable, for the present
ruling class shows unmistakable willingness to plunge the entire world
into disorganization and chaos. They may succeed unless steps are soon
taken to stop them.
Already the world is a tumult of disorder and rebellion due to
starvation and misrule. No individial or organization can predict with
blue-print precision what course events may take in each of the
civilized countries, during the last days of the expiring social order.
All that we are able to see in the light of social science is that the
industries must be taken over by the ones who use them and need them and
be operated for use instead of profit. The socialization of the means of
production, transportation and exchange is now necessary for the
survival of the human race. Only the workers are in a position to do
this and it is their duty AT ALL COSTS to see that it is done. Properly
organized and disciplined no power on earth can stop the aroused working
class from coming into its own.
The scientifically sound and thoroughly constructive character of the
I.W.W. program has never been stressed more forcibly than in the
concluding paragraphs of its Preamble:
âIt is the historic mission of the working class to do away with
capitalism. The army of production must be organized not only for the
everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when
capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are
forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.â
âSeize the industries,â is at present a discredited slogan, for, by
inference, we are led to understand that this means to seize the
industries from the outside. But, frankly, is it necessary for workers
to âseizeâ something they already have?
Every day, on the job, workers are in possession of the industries. The
problem is not how to âseizeâ them, but how to keep from giving them up.
The scientific modern General Strike would have a much simpler slogan
and a much more sensible program: For the employed: âRetain the
industries, but refuse to produce for profit.â For the unemployed:
âPicket the industries and refuse to scab or to let anyone else scab.â
It is vitally necessary for the present âownersâ that machinery and
resources be manned by labor. It is equally necessary, during the
revolutionary transition, that labor refuse to relinquish its hold on
machinery either to âownersâ or to their scabs or mercenaries.
That labor will defend its own interests goes without saying. The I.W.W.
has taught and is teaching workers to fight, not to beg â to demand, not
to plead for what they want. And in this final struggle to free the
world from social parasitism, courage, clear-thinking and fearless
fighting spirit are needed as never before.
Realizing that the control of industry can only come into the hands of
the producing class when the producers have sufficient power to keep and
to hold this control, the I.W.W. advocates the General Strike on the job
reinforced by formidable, determined revolutionary picket lines of
unemployed. The change from private to social ownership being
inevitable, only thus can the danger of serious destruction and
bloodshed be minimized.
The working class should bend every effort to this end. The full current
of the revolutionary movement should be directed from the streets to the
industries. The revolutionary struggle should be thought out and fought
out in terms of industrial action â control, defense, operation. The
class struggle, in the last analysis, must be a struggle to control the
means of production, transportation and exchange. It will probably be a
bitter fight, but one that can have but one ending â complete victory
for the workers in the worldâs industries.
Let come what may, no worker should count the cost. Even at the worst a
General Strike could scarcely entail more privation and suffering than
one of capitalismâs many and all too frequent depressions. The General
Strike is saner than insurrection and surer than political action. And
beyond it â after the storm â is a scientifically planned and ordered
world based on peace, plenty and security for martyrized humanity. What
other thing is more worth striving for by courageous men and women than
the ideal of this classless Industrial Democracy for which the I.W.W.
has battled so valorously and for so many years?