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Title: Socialism and Strikes Author: Frank Kitz Date: October 12, 1889 Language: en Topics: socialism, strike, Commonweal, United Kingdom Source: Retrieved on 30th August 2021 from https://www.marxists.org/archive/kitz/strikes.htm Notes: Published in Commonweal.
Comrades, — It has been thought advisable at this period of agitation
amongst the workers, to say a few words as to the attitude which we of
the International Revolutionary Socialist Party should assume towards
Strikes and the Labour Struggle generally. Some amongst us would seize
every opportunity afforded by labour troubles to organise the hitherto
unorganised portion of the workers, to wring even partial concessions in
the hope of shorter hours and better pay from their masters, and justify
this line of action on the ground that organisation in itself is good
and raises the mass; also that it will tend to lead to higher results
after the first demands have been won. On the other hand, a number of
our comrades are opposed to joining in a demand for palliatives, and
assert that such a line of agitation is liable, to obscure the higher
ideal, viz., the complete overthrow of the wage system, and to cause our
speakers to temporise and form questionable alliances for the sake of
gaining minor points. And if we review the situation as we find it
to-day, after one of the most singular strikes of modern times, there is
some ground for the fears of the last-mentioned section.
We have seen a replication of the proletariat and aristocrat even in the
proletarian upheaval. The men who did the pioneer propagandist work
amongst the masses at the East-end and other parts of the metropolis,
did it at a time when, the word Socialist meant to subject him to whom
it was applied to hatred and execration, and not plaudits. They laid,
under the folds of the red flag the foundation for that change of ideas
and conversion, the first fruits of which was the revolt of labour in
East London.
Now we have seen a strange spectacle. A bishop, endowed with thousands
per annum, as the exponent of the doctrines of the Nazarene who knew not
where to lay his head, a prince of the church of another sect, a chief
magistrate of at once the richest and poorest city on earth, suddenly
develope an interest in the docker, and the Conflict between him and his
oppressors is brought to an end. The docker is said to.have won, and
perhaps he believes it. And still stranger spectacle, a commissioner of
police, under whose orders numbers of workmen have been bludgeoned,
suddenly withholds his aid to capital and stands on one side ; the
capitalist press, choking with suppressed rage, half curses the
principal figures in the strike for the terrible shock the strike has
given them, and the force with which the truth of the axiom, “that
labour and not money is the source of all wealth,” has been driven home.
Their utter impotency in face of this stupendous movement on the part of
an hitherto despised class has exasperated them, and yet they can find
breath to praise the “moderation”, tact, and generalship of the leaders,
and strangely enough the police commissioner shares this praise with the
“leaders.” It is related of a traveller in a strange land, ignorant of
both its language and currency, that he detected when he was being
robbed by the smiles of those with whom he had to deal. It has been
said, that the revolutionary Socialists of London, when [illegible] the
presence of disappointed middle-class parliamentary candidates and
would-be candidates, who [illegible] rending the air, — that these men,
gathering their inspiration from pure enthusiasm and honest conviction,
went into the byways and highways of this huge city and spoke their
gospel without fear, established their presses and scattered their
literature broadcast; that subsequently, when from a handful they grew
into a power, these men, obscure and without ostentation, still
exercised a potent influence in the revolutionary movement. Time has
wrought many changes in the movement, but a few of the pioneers remain ;
and I appeal to the young men of our party when I ask : Will they help
to push forward by steady and persistent agitation the principles of
international revolutionary Socialism, symbolised by the red flag, and
by self-education and sacrifice spread them ? If so, then I ask them not
to allow the results of revolutionary agitation to be turned to account
by designing men for the purpose of defeating the revolution. We have
seen during the late labour agitation the red flag rigorously excluded
from having a place in the processions, and speakers who were likely to
draw a moral from the strike in favour of the overthrow of the whole
cursed system which breeds the misery of the workers were bidden to
stand aside. Why ? What is the price of the compact which has caused
this exclusion? When and where was it agreed upon, and what are its’
main purpose and results?
The price of the compact is that the capitalist may be attacked in the
towns. Some concessions may be wrung from him, and urban life made
tolerable to a larger number than at present. Even Lord R. Churchill is
in favour of parish-built barracks, “suitable to the class who would
inhabit them” ; and why ? Because the capitalist, by his overreaching
greed, has jeopardised the whole position of privilege and power. He is
the hasty clumsy thief who betrays the whole gang, and the landlord
portion of the gang are willing that the capitalist shall lose a little
that they may not lose all. A section of advanced Tories — for the “old
order changeth “ — more prescient than the fossils who would still
pursue the methods of Castlereagh and Sidmouth, see in the condition of
East London and similar districts of our large towns the glimmering
light of a social revolution; and they would go the length of making a
Jonah of the capitalist to save the ship of State with its aristocratic
places and emoluments. And hence we see a group of men who once were
under the red flag, hastening to avow their severance from it and its
associations, and acting the part of saviours of society amid the
plaudits of a corrupt press and class. “To what base uses may we not
come, Horatio,” when we cheer the bludgeoners of Trafalgar Square !
I wish it to be clearly understood that I am not joining in or echoing
the pitiful complaints that have emanated from another quarter upon the
same matter. For whilst I have no quarrel with the rank and file of the
S.D.F., except for their subserviency and lack of independence, and the
ready manner in which they lend themselves to spread the slander of
their leader (having had some personal experience of the cowardly
unctuous methods by which the machinery, of the S.D.F. can be used to
spread slanderous tales, headed “Dear comrade” and finished “Yours
fraternally”), I do not wonder at the secession of robust men from a
circle whose methods of propaganda closely resemble the efforts made by
cheap-jacks or the vendors of the latest soap to draw attention to their
wares. In their hands the red flag has been associated with schemes of
the model dwelling and parish soup kitchen order.
Looking back over the past years, and knowing something of the origin of
the “only Socialist organisation in Great Britain,” and being fully
aware how time and outside educational influences has mellowed and
refined the undoubtedly strong Jingo-Tory flavour it once possessed, and
knowing also the close connection which existed between one at its head
now and another who is supposed to be behind the secessionists, one can
only come to the conclusion that a game has been played in which the
most astute has won.
Extremes meet, and after all there exists a close connection between the
phalansterie and the model industrial dwellings which certain Tory
Democrats would see established, in order to bolster the present system
and give it a renewed lease. But every lover of freedom must view with
apprehension the remotest possibility of their realisation, and — saying
to either “A plague upon both your houses!” — we will pass on to the
consideration of the position which, in my opinion, Leaguers should take
up in the future. I hold that by organising the disorganised workers,
and by strikes and combinations leading them to revolt against their
taskmasters, and still on to the Universal Strike that shall put an end
to the wage system itself, we are doing distinctly revolutionary work.
Passing from the crowded cities and towns out into the broad fields,
amidst the overworked and insufficiently fed agricultural labourers,
lays our sphere of action. The peasantry have been made the stepping
stones, upon which men like Arch have climbed to St. Stephens. The
Liberal and Tory would give a few small patches of land as a sop, the
one as an electioneering dodge, the other as a Conservative measure, and
basing his calculations upon the known selfishness of a small endowed
class, would make them a barrier to the fulfilment of the wider
aspirations of the landless, whether of town or country. Our provincial
comrades should sally, into the villages and fields with the cry of
“Back to the Land ! The Land for the People !” Our peasantry have sturdy
revolutionary traditions, and can be stirred anew to action by earnest,
hearty, and breezy watchwords ; a vigorous uncompromising agitation upon
the Irish pattern but with higher aims, the enfranchisement of all, and
not, as in Ireland, for a small farmer class, would bear speedy fruit.
The urban workman would be freed from the fear of competition on the
part of his agricultural comrade, and would be induced to assist him in
his efforts towards freedom. By education, agitation, and organisation,
we should then complete . the circle closing in upon both landlord and
capitalist, and effectually defeat any attempt to avert the Revolution.