Chapter V: Syndicalism; Socialism Through Direct Action of Labor Unions (1)

In America, France, Italy, and England, as well as in Germany (in a modified form) a new and more radical labor-union policy has been rapidly gaining the upper hand. This new movement--in its purely economic, as well as its political, bearings--is of far greater moment to Socialists than the political tendencies of those unions that continue to follow the old tactics in their direct relations with employers.

In America and in England, unfortunately, the name given to this new movement, "industrial unionism," is somewhat ambiguous. A more correct term would be "labor" unionism as distinct from "trade" unionism, or "class unionism" against "sectional unionism." By "industrial unionism" the promoters of the new movement means that all the employees of a given industry are to be solidly bound together in a single union instead of being divided into many separate organizations as so often happens to-day, and so as to act as a unit against the employer, as, for example, the steel workers, machinists, longshoremen, structural iron workers, etc., are all to be united against the Steel Trust. The essential idea is not any particular form of united action, but united action. Certainly the united action of all the trades at work under a single employer or employers' association is of the first importance, but it is equally important that "industrial" unions so composed should aid one another, that the united railway organizations, for example, should be ready to strike with seamen, dockers, etc., as was done in the recent British strike. An interview with Mr. Vernon Hartshorn, who recently headed the poll in the election for the executive committee of the important South Wales Mining Federation, indicates the tendency in Great Britain at the present moment--when both coal and railway strikes are threatened on a national scale--not merely towards industrial unionism, but towards the far more important _union of industrial unions_, which is really the underlying idea in the minds of most, though not all, of the propagandists of "industrial unionism."

"I think it a very silly business," exclaimed Mr. Hartshorn
emphatically, "for the workers in different industries to be
proceeding with national movements independently of each other. A
short time ago we had a national stoppage on the railways; that, as
a matter of course, rendered the miners idle. Before that we had
something in the nature of a national stoppage in the case of the
seamen's dispute; that, also, in many districts paralysed the
mining industry and rendered idle the workmen. Now it appears
likely that the miners will be taking part in a national stoppage
which, in turn, will render the railway men and seamen idle.

"The idea is gradually dawning upon all sections of organized labor
that the right thing to do would be for these three unions, through
their executives, to establish a working alliance by means of which
united action should be taken to secure reforms which would result
in the raising of the standard of living of the whole of the
workmen employed in these undertakings. Of course the grievances in
different trades differ considerably in points of detail, but they
all have a common basis in that they relate to wages and conditions
of work. If the three organizations could be got to act together
with a view of establishing a guaranteed minimum wage for all
workmen employed, then not all the forces of the Crown, nor all the
powers of government, could prevent them from emancipating
themselves from their present deplorable position."[253]

It is equally necessary for the unions in order to obtain maximum results that a special relation should be established between the members of such trades as are to be found in more than one industry. Teamsters, stationary engineers, machinists, and blacksmiths, for example, whether employed by mines, railways, or otherwise, can aid one another in obvious ways--as by securing positions for blacklisted men and preventing non-unionists from obtaining employment--by means of a special "trade" organization or federation that cuts across the various "industrial" unions or federations. All this, indeed, is provided for in the plans of the "industrial unionists," in the idea of gradually reorganizing the present loose Federation of Labor into "a union of unions," or, as they express it, "One Big Union." This last term also is not very fortunate, for it is by no means proposed to form one absolutely centralized organization, like the former Knights of Labor, but to preserve a considerable measure of autonomy for the constituent industrial unions. Neither does the new unionism require, as some of its exponents allege, the abolition of the older _trade_ unions, either local or national, but only that all unions shall be democratically organized and open to unskilled labor, and that the general organization, of which they are all a part, shall be the first consideration, and the local groupings whether by trade or industry only secondary.

The principle of the new union policy is exactly the same translated into terms of economic action, as the principle of revolutionary Socialism as conceived by Marx, and hitherto applied by Socialists chiefly on the political field. In the Communist Manifesto Marx says that the chief thing that distinguishes the Socialists from the other working-class parties is that the former "always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole." So while the older unions represented the economic struggle of certain more or less extensive parts of the working class, the industrial unionists aim at a unionism that represents the whole of the working class, and, since the ranks of labor are always open, all non-capitalist humanity. A closely organized federation of all the unions will rely very strongly upon numbers and embrace a large proportion of unskilled workers. It will, therefore, be forced to fight the cause of the common man. But this can only be done by fighting against every form of oppression and privilege--all of which bear on the men at the bottom.

The industrial policy idea has received its most remarkable indorsement in the great British railway strike of 1911. Before showing what lay behind this epoch-making movement, let me refer to the great change in the British Union world that preceded it.

In 1910 there occurred an unprecedented series of strikes in the four larges industries of the country, the railroads, shipbuilding, cotton, and coal-mining--all within a few months of one another, _and all against the advice of the officials of the unions_. The full and exact significance of this movement was seen when the hitherto conservative Trade Union Congress, after a very vigorous debate, decided, on the motion of Ben Tillett, to take a referendum of the unions on the question of the "practicability of a confederation of all trades" and on the "_possibility of terminating all trade agreements on a given date after each year_."

In the same year a great agitation began, led by the most prominent advocate of industrial unionism in Great Britain, the Socialist, Tom Mann, who with John Burns had been one of the organizers of the great dockers' strike in 1886, and who had returned, in 1910, from many years of successful agitation in Australia to preach the new unionism in his home country. That this agitation was one of the causes of the great seamen's, dockers', and railway strikes that followed is indicated by the fact that Mr. Mann was at once given the chief position in this movement.

His first principle is that the unions should include _all_ the workers, in their respective industries:--

"Skilled workers, in many instances doing but little work, receive
from two to seven or eight pounds a week, whilst the laborer,
having the same responsibilities as regards family and citizenship,
is compelled to accept one third of it or less.

"This must not be. We must not preach social equality and utterly
fail to practice it; and for those receiving the higher pay to try
and satisfy the demands of the lower-paid man for better conditions
by telling him it will be put right under Socialism, is on a par
with the parson pretending to assuage the sufferings of the
poverty-stricken by saying, 'It will be better in the next world.'
It must be put right in _this_ world, and we must see to it _now_."

Unions composed exclusively of skilled workers, as many of the present ones, operate against the interests of the less skilled--often without actually intending to do so. Mr. Mitchell, for instance, concedes that the trade unions bring about "the elimination of men who are below a certain fixed standard of efficiency." This argument will appeal strongly to employers and believers in the survival of the fittest doctrine. But it will scarcely appeal to the numerous unskilled workers eliminated, or the still more numerous workers whose employment is thus lessened at every slack season. Mr. Edmond Kelly shows how the principle acts--"Where there is a minimum wage of $4 a day the workman can no longer choose to do only $3 worth of work and be paid accordingly, but he must earn $4 or else cease from work, at least in that particular trade, locality, or establishment."[254] The result is that the highest skilled workmen obtain steady employment through the union, while the less skilled are penalized by underemployment. The unions have equalized daily wages, but the employer has replied by making employment and therefore annual wages all the more unequal, and many of the workers may have lost more than they gained. Whereas if each man could secure an equal share of work, he might be paid according to his efficiency and yet be far better off than now. But the only way to secure an equal amount of work for all is through a union where all have an equal voice and where the union is strong enough to have a say as to who is to be employed.

It is this tendency either automatically or intentionally actually to injure unskilled labor, that has led men like Mann and Debs and Haywood to their severe criticism of the present policies of the unions, and even affords some ground for Tolstoi's classification of well-paid artisans, electricians, and mechanics among the exploiters of unskilled labor. In the days of serfdom, the great writer said, "Only one class were slave owners; all classes, except the most numerous one--consisting of peasants who have too little land, laborers, and workingmen--are slave-owners now." The master class, Tolstoi says, to-day includes, not only "nobles, merchants, officials, manufacturers, professors, teachers, authors, musicians, painters, rich peasants, and the rich men's servants," but also "well-paid artisans, electricians, mechanics," etc.

Mr. Mann thus defines the attitude of this new unionism to the old:--

"It is well known that in Britain, as elsewhere, there is only a
minority of the workers organized; of the ten millions of men
eligible for industrial organization only one fourth are members of
trade unions; naturally these are, in the main, the skilled
workers, who have associated together with a view to maintaining
for themselves the advantage accruing to skilled workers, when
definite restrictions are placed upon the numbers able to enter and
remain in the trades.

"We have had experience enough to know that the difficulties of
maintaining a ring fence around an occupation, which secures to
those inside the fence special advantages, are rapidly increasing,
and in a growing number of instances, the fence has been entirely
broken down by changes in the methods of production. We know,
further, that ... the majority of trade unionists still remain
_sectionally isolated_, powerless to act except in single'
sectional bodies, and incapable of approaching each other and
merging and amalgamating forces for common action. _This it is that
is responsible for the modern practice of entering into lengthy
agreements between employers and workers. Sectional trade unions
being incapable of offensive action, and gradually giving way
before the persistent power of the better organized capitalist
class, they fall back upon agreements for periods of from two to
five years, during which time they undertake that no demands shall
be made._" (My italics.)

The industrialists, therefore, advocate the termination of all wage agreements simultaneously and at short intervals or even at will (like tenancies at will, or call loans). They claim that employers are practically free to terminate _existing agreements_ whenever they please, as they can always find grounds for dismissing individuals or for temporarily shutting down their works or for otherwise discriminating against active unionists or varying the terms of a contract before its expiration. But it is in America that the policy of no agreements, or agreements at will is most advanced. In Great Britain it is thought that agreements for one year and all ending on the same day may lead to the same results. If there is a central organization with power to call strikes on the part of any combination of unions, and the large majority of the workers are organized, it is held that the new unionism will soon prove irresistible, even if agreements in this form are retained.

The recent strikes have not only been stimulated by this gospel and led by its chief representatives, Tom Mann, Ben Tillett, and others, but from the very first they have been an actual application of the new idea and have marked a long step towards the complete reorganization of the British unions. They were started with the seamen's strike in June, when the dockers in many places struck in sympathy, at the same time adding demands of their own. When the seamen won their strike, they refused to go back to work at several points, against the advice of their conservative officials, until the dockers received what they were striking for. With the dockers were involved teamsters, and these from the first had agreed to support one another, for _they were both connected with Mr. Mann's "National Transport Workers' Federation_." And the railway strike was largely due to the fact that the railway unions decided at least _to coöperate_ with this federation. The dockers had remained on strike at Liverpool in sympathy with the railway porters who had struck in the first instance to aid the dockers, and at the first strike conference of the railway union officials, forty-one being present, it was voted unanimously "that the union was determined not to settle the dispute with the companies unless the lockout imposed upon their co-workers because of their support of the railroad men at Liverpool and elsewhere is removed and all the men reinstated."

There can be little doubt that the railway strike would neither have taken place at the critical time it did, nor have gone as far as it went, except for this new and concerted action which embraced even the least skilled and least organized classes of labor.

Accompanying this movement toward common action, "solidarity" of labor, and more and more general strikes, was the closely related reaction against existing agreements--on the ground that they cripple the unions' power of effective industrial warfare. For several years there had been a simultaneous movement on the part of the "State Socialist" government towards compulsory arbitration, and among the unions against any interference on the part of a government over which they have little or no control--the railway strike being directed, according to the unionists, as much against the government as against the railways. For many years the government, represented by Mr. Lloyd George or Mr. Winston Churchill, had acted as arbitrator in every great industrial conflict, and had secured many minor concessions for the unions. As long as no critical conflict occurred that might materially weaken either the government or the capitalist or employing classes as a whole, this policy worked well. It was only by a railway strike, or perhaps by a seamen's or miners' strike that it could be put to a real test. By the settlement of the threatened railway strike of 1907 the employees had gained very little, and had _voluntarily_ left the final power to decide disputes in the hands of government arbitrators. A conservative Labourite, Mr. J. R. MacDonald, writing late in 1910, said:--

"We held at the time that the agreement which Mr. Bell accepted on
behalf of the Railway Servants would not work. It was a surrender.
The railway directors were consulted for days; they were allowed to
alter the terms of agreement at their own sweet will, and when they
agreed, the men's representatives were asked to go to the Board of
Trade and were told that they could not alter a comma, could not
sleep over the proposal, could not confer with any one about it,
had to accept it there and then. In a moment of weakness they
accepted. An agreement come to in such a way was not likely to be
of any use to the men."[255]

Nevertheless, this extremely important settlement was accepted by the union. Mr. Churchill did not know how to restrain his enthusiasm for unions that were so good as to fall in so obediently with his political plans. "They are not mere visionaries or dreamers," says Churchill, "weaving airy Utopias out of tobacco smoke. They are not political adventurers who are eager to remodel the world by rule of thumb, who are proposing to make the infinite complexities of scientific civilization and the multitudinous phenomena of great cities conform to a few barbarous formulas which any moderately intelligent parrot could repeat in a fortnight. The fortunes of trade unions are interwoven with the industries they serve. The more highly organized trade unions are, the more clearly they recognize their responsibilities."[256]

By 1911 the whole situation was completely reversed. Over less important bodies of capitalists and employers than the railways, the government had power and a will to exercise its power. The railways, however, are practically a function of government--absolutely indispensable if it is to retain its other powers _undiminished_. It was for this reason that little if any governmental force was used against them, and the agreement of 1907 came to be of even less value to the men than agreements made in other industries. When the chorus of union complaints continued to swell, and the men asked the government to bring pressure on the railways, at least to meet their committee, it acknowledged itself either unable or unwilling to take any effective action unless to renew the offer to appoint another royal commission, essentially of the same character as that of 1907 except that it should be smaller and should act more speedily. This still meant that the third member of the board was to be appointed by a government, in which experience had taught the workers they could have no confidence--_at least in its dealings with the powerful railways_.

In view of this inherent weakness of the government, or its hostility to the new and aggressive unionism, or perhaps a combination of both, the unions had no recourse other than a direct agreement or a strike. But the refusal of the railways to meet the men left no alternative other than the strike, and at the same time showed that they did not much fear that the unions could strike with success. It was no longer a question of the justice or injustice, truth or untruth, of the unions' claims. The railways, in a perfectly practical and businesslike spirit, questioned the power of the unions, by means of a strike, to cause them sufficient damage to make it profitable even to meet their representatives--without the presence of a government representative, who, they had learned by experience, would in all probability take a position with which they would be satisfied. Mr. Asquith's offer, then, to submit the "correctness" of the unions' statements and the "soundness" of their contentions to a tribunal, was entirely beside the point. The representatives of the railways were sure to give such a tribunal to understand, however diplomatically and insidiously, that the unions were without that power, which alone, in the minds of "practical" men, can justify any considerable demand, such as the settlement of all questions through the representatives of the men (the recognition of the union).

Doubtless the railways had refused to meet the union representatives until they felt assured that the government's position would on the whole be satisfactory to them. The government's real attitude was made plain when, after the refusal of the unions practically to leave their whole livelihood and future in its hands, as in 1907, it used this as a pretext for taking sides against them--not by prohibiting the strike, but by limiting more and more narrowly the scope it was to be allowed to take.

The government loudly protested its impartiality, and gave very powerful and plausible arguments for interference. But the laborers feel that the right not to work is as essential as life itself, and all that distinguishes them essentially from slaves, and that no argument whatever is valid against it. Let us look at a few of the government statements:--

The government, said the Premier, was perfectly impartial in regard to the merits of the various points of dispute. The government had regard exclusively for _the interests of the public_, and having regard for those interests they could not allow the paralysis of the railway systems throughout the country, and would have to take the necessary steps to prevent such paralysis.

The representatives of the unions replied by a public statement, in which they declared that this was an "unwarrantable threat" and an attempt to put the responsibility for the suspension of work on the unions:--

"We consider the statement made in behalf of his Majesty's
government, _an unwarrantable threat_ uttered against the railroad
workers who for years have made repeated applications to the Board
of Trade and also to Parliament to consider the advisability of
amending the conciliation board scheme of 1907.... And further it
shows a failure of the Board of Trade to amend its own scheme, and
also of the railroad companies to give an impartial and fair
interpretation of such schemes.... And inasmuch as this joint
meeting has already urged the employers to meet us with a view to
discussing the whole position and which, if agreed to by them,
would in our opinion have settled the matter, _we therefore refuse
to accept the responsibility the government has attempted to throw
upon us_, and further respectfully but firmly ask his Majesty's
government whether the responsibility of the railroad companies is
in any degree less than that of other employers of labor."

In other words, there is and can be no law compelling men to labor, and no matter what the consequences of their refusal to work, it is a matter that concerns the workers themselves more than all other persons.

Mr. Winston Churchill made a more detailed statement. He said that "the government was taking all necessary steps to make sure that the _food supply as well as fuel and other essentials_ should not be interrupted on the railways or at the ports."

"All services vital to the community should be maintained, and the
government would see to that, not because they were on the side
either of the employers or the workmen, but because they were bound
to protect the public from the danger that a general arrest of
industry would entail." He continued:--

"The means whereby the people of this land live are highly
artificial, and a serious breakdown would lead to starvation among
a great number of poorer people. Not the well-to-do would suffer,
but the poor of the great cities and those dependent upon them, who
would be quite helpless if the machinery by which they are fed--_on
which they are dependent for wages_--was thrown out of gear.

"The government believes that the arrangements made for working the
lines of communication, and for the maintenance of order, will
prove effective; but, if not, other measures of even larger scope
will be taken promptly. It must be clearly understood that there is
no escape from these facts, and, as they affect the supply of food
for the people, and _the safety of the country, they are far more
important than anything else_."

To this the railway workers answered that it is to protect their own food that they strike, and that food is as important to them as to others, that practically all those who are dependent on wages are willing to undergo the last degree of suffering to preserve the right to strike, that the means of livelihood of this majority are no whit less important than the "safety" of the rest of the country. Moreover, if the government is allowed to use military or other means to aid the railways to transport food, fuel, and other things, more or less essential, it prevents that very "paralysis" which is the necessary object of every strike. Industrial warfare of this critical kind must indeed be costly to the whole community, often endangering health and even life itself, but the workers are almost unanimous in believing that a few days or weeks of this, repeated only after years of interval, costs far less in life and health than the low wages paid to labor year after year and generation after generation. _They demand the right to strike unhampered by any government in which capitalistic or other than wage-earning classes predominate._ Only when the government falls into the hands of a group of wholly non-capitalist classes--of which wage earners form the majority--will they expect it to grant such rights and conditions as are sufficient to compensate them for parting with any element of the right to strike.

The great British strike, then, had a double significance. It showed the tremendously increased strength of labor when every class of workers is organized and all are united together, and it showed an increasing unwillingness to allow separate agreements to stand in the way of general strikes.

The strength of the strikers in the British upheaval of 1911,
however, has been grossly exaggerated on both sides. There is no
doubt that the aggressive action came from the masses of the
workers, as their leaders held them back in nearly every instance.
There is no question that the various unions coöperated more than
usual, that vast masses of the unskilled were for the first time
organized, and that these features won the strikes. The advance was
remarkable--but we can only measure the level reached if we realize
the point from which the start was made. As a matter of fact, the
unskilled labor of Great Britain until 1911 was probably worse paid
and less organized than that of any great manufacturing
country--and the advance made by no means brings it to the level of
the United States.

Since the great dock strike of 1886, led by John Burns and Tom
Mann, unskilled labor has tried in vain to organize effectively
unions like those of the seamen and railway servants, the majority
of whose members were neither of the least skilled nor of the most
skilled classes, had an uphill fight, and were only able to
organize a part of the workers. Five dollars a week was considered
such a high and satisfactory wage by the wholly unskilled (dockers,
etc.) that it was often made the basis of their demands. The Board
of Trade Report shows that 400,000 railwaymen, including the most
skilled, had from 1899 to 1909 an average weekly wage varying from
$6.35 to $6.60 per week. The railway union found that of a quarter
of a million men 39 per cent got less than $5 a week, and 89 per
cent less than $7.50. Seamen at Liverpool received from $20 to
$32.50 a month.

If then the Liverpool sailors received an increase of $2.50 a
month, while the wages of other strikers were raised on the average
about 20 per cent, what must we conclude? Undoubtedly the gain was
worth all the labor and sacrifice it cost. But it must be
remembered, first, that these wages are still markedly inferior to
those of this country in spite of its hordes of foreign labor; and
second, that the increase is little if any above the rise in the
cost of living in recent years, and will undoubtedly soon be
overtaken by a further rise. The great steamship lines increased
their rates on account of the strike almost the same week that it
was concluded, and the railway companies gave in only when the
government consented that they should raise their rates. But the
larger part of the consumers are workingmen, and their cost of
living is thus rising more rapidly than ever _on account of the
strikes_. Finally, the unions of the unskilled are as a rule not
yet recognized by their employers, while the railway union is
probably as completely at the mercy of the government as ever.

In a word, _the point reached_ is by no means very advanced; on the
other hand, _the material gain made_ in view of the former
backwardness of the railwaymen, seamen, and dockers is highly
important for England, while the methods employed, the movement
having originated from below, and having been sustained against
conservative leaders (only a few radicals like Tom Mann and Ben
Tillett being trusted), is of world-wide significance. The unions
as well as their common organizations, the Trade Union Congress,
the Labour Party, and the General Federation of Trade Unions are
drawing closer together, while the Socialists and revolutionary
unionists are everywhere taking the lead--as evidenced, for
example, by the election of the most radical Socialist member of
Parliament, Mr. Will Thorne, to be President of the 1912 Trade
Union Congress.

The success of the new movement as against the older Labour Party
and trade union tactics may also be seen from the disturbed state
of mind of the older leaders. Take, for example, the attack of the
Chairman of the Labour Party, Mr. J. R. MacDonald:--

"The new revolution which Syndicalism and its advocates of the
Industrial Workers of the World contemplate has avoided none of the
errors or the pitfalls of the old, but it has added to them a whole
series of its own. It has never considered the problems which it
has to meet. It is, as expressed in the _Outlook_ of this month, a
mere escapade of the nursery mind. It is the product of the
creative intelligence of the man who is impatient because it takes
the earth twenty-four hours to wheel around the sun (sic).... The
hospitality which the Socialist movement has offered so generously
to all kinds of cranks and scoundrels because they professed to be
in revolt against the existing order has already done our movement
much harm. Let it not add Syndicalism to the already too numerous
vipers which, in the kindness of its heart, it is warming on its
hearthstones."[257] [258]

The new revolutionary unionism takes different forms in Great Britain, France, and America. In France it has expressed itself through agitation for the general strike and against the army, the only thing that a general strike movement has to fear. The agitation has completely captured the national federation of unions, has a well-developed literature, a daily paper (_La Bataille Syndicaliste_--The Union Battle,--established in 1911), and has put its principles into effect in many ways, especially by more numerous and widespread strikes and by attacks on military discipline. But there has been no strike so nearly general as the recent British one, and both the efforts in this direction and those directed against the army have a future rather than a present importance and will be considered in succeeding chapters (Part III, Chapters VI and VII).

In America the new movement first appeared several years ago in the very radical proposal indorsed at the time by Debs, Haywood, and many prominent Socialists, to replace the older unions by a new set built on entirely different principles, including organizations of the least skilled, and the solid union of all unions for fighting purposes. This movement took concrete form in a new organization, the Industrial Workers of the World, which was launched with some promise, but soon divided into factions and was abandoned by Debs and others of its organizers. It has grown in strength in some localities, having conducted the remarkable struggles at McKees Rocks (Pa.) and Lawrence (Mass.), but is not at present a national factor--which is in part due, perhaps, to the fact that the older unions are tending, though gradually, towards somewhat similar principles.

Not only is Socialism spreading rapidly in all the unions, but along with it is spreading this new unionism. For many years the Western Federation of Miners, famous as the central figure in all the labor wars in the Rocky Mountain States, was the most powerful union in this country that was representative both of revolutionary Socialism and of revolutionary unionism. But it was not a part of the American Federation of Labor. When it became closely united with the Coal Miners, and the latter union forced its admission into the American Federation of Labor (in 1911), it at once began a campaign for its principles inside this organization. It now stands for two proposals, the first of which would solidly unite all the unions, and the second of which would cut all bonds between labor and capital. Neither is likely to be adopted this year, but both seem sure of a growing popularity and will in all probability result in some radical and effective action within a very few years.

In its Convention of July, 1911, the Western Federation of Miners decided to demand of the Federation of Labor the free exchange of membership cards among all its constituent unions. Thus the unions would preserve their autonomy, but every member would be free, when he changed his employer, to pass from one to the other without cost. The result would be that quarrels between the unions over members would lessen automatically, and also admission fees, dues, and benefits would tend towards a level. Thus all the things that keep the unions apart and prevent common action against the employer would be gradually removed, and the tendency of certain unions to ignore the interests of others reduced to a minimum. The plan is practical, because it has already been in successful operation for many years in France.

Another new policy--which should be regarded as a supplementary means for bringing about the same result--would be to so strengthen and democratize the general Federation as to allow great power to be placed in the hands of the executive, and at the same time subject it to the direct control of the combined rank and file of all the unions. If, for example, national Federation officials were elected, instructed, and recalled by a vote of all the unionists in the country, the latter would probably be willing to place in the hands of such an executive power to call out the unions in strike in such combinations as would make the resistance of employers most difficult, and power to control national strike funds collected from all the unions for these contests. Unions with a specially strong strategic situation in industry and a favored situation in the Federation are not yet ready to forego their privileges for this form of direct democracy, but the tendency is in this direction. (Since these lines were first written the Federation has taken steps towards the adoption of this plan of direct election of its officials by national referendum.)

Indeed, when the Western Miners' second proposal, the refusal to sign agreements for any fixed period, is adopted, this simultaneous centralization and democratization of the Federation may proceed apace. As long as the various unions are bound to the employers by an entirely separate and independent agreement terminable at different dates, it is impossible to arrange strikes in common, especially when the more fortunate unions adopt an entirely different plan of organization and an entirely different policy from the rest. The Western Miners now propose that all agreements be done away with, a practice they had followed long and successfully themselves--with the single tacit exception of the employees of the Smelter Trust (Guggenheim's). This exception they have now done away with. Their fundamental idea is that as long as the capitalist reserves his right to close down his works whenever he believes his interests or those of capital require it, every union should reserve its right to stop work at any moment when the interests of the union or of labor require it. Temporary arrangements are entered into which are binding as to all other matters except the cessation of work. That this cessation would not occur in any well-organized union over trifles goes without saying--strikes are tremendously costly to labor. The agreement binds in a way perfectly familiar to the business world in the call loan or the tenancy at will.

President Moyer of the Western Federation (one of those Mr. Roosevelt called an "undesirable citizen" at the time when he was on trial in Idaho, accused of being an accomplice in the murder of Governor Steunenburg) explained that his union knew that agreements might bring certain momentary advantages which it would otherwise lose, that it had often been in a position to win higher wages through an agreement, and in three cases even to gain a seven-hour day. But by such action, he declared the union would have surrendered its freedom. It would have been tied hand and foot, whereas now it was free to fight whenever it wanted to. If working people want to be united and effective, he concluded, they must have the fullest freedom of action. This would always pay in the end.

In view of the great advance in the organization and fighting spirit of labor secured by this new kind of industrial warfare, some revolutionary unionists even expect it to do more to bring about Socialism than the Socialist parties themselves. Indeed, a few have gone so far as to regard these parties as almost superfluous. Many of the new revolutionary unionists, though Socialists by conviction, attach so little importance to political action that they have formed no connection with the Socialist parties, and do not propose to do so. Others feel the necessity of some political support, and contend that any kind of an exclusively labor union party, even if it represents anti-revolutionary unions like most of those of the Federation of Labor, would serve this purpose better than the Socialist Party, which belongs less exclusively to the unionists.

An American revolutionary unionist and Socialist, the late Louis Duchez, like many of his school, not only placed his faith chiefly in the unskilled workers, either excluding the skilled manual laborers and the brain workers, or relegating them to a secondary position, but wanted the new organizations to rely almost entirely on their economic efforts and entirely to subordinate political action. The hours of labor are to be reduced, child labor is to be abolished, and everything is to be done that will tend to diminish competition between one workingman and another, he argued, with the idea of securing early control of the labor market. Through labor's restriction of output, production is to be cut down and the unemployed are to be absorbed. Thus, he declared, "_a partial expropriation of capital is taking place_" and "_this constructive program is followed until the workers get all they produce_."[259]

Here is an invaluable insight into the underlying standpoint of some of these anti-political "syndicalists," to use a term that has come to us from France. Nothing could possibly be more alien to the whole spirit of revolutionary Socialism than these conclusions. The very reason for the existence of Socialism is that Socialists believe that the unions cannot control the labor market in present society. The Socialists' chief hope, moreover, is that economic evolution will make possible and almost inevitable the transformation of a capitalist into a Socialist society; it is then to their interest not to retard the development of industry by the restriction of output, but to advance it. Indeed, Mr. Duchez's philosophy is not that of Socialist labor unionism, but of anarchist labor unionism, and there have been strong tendencies in many countries, not only in France and Italy, but also in the United States, especially among the more conservative unions, to be guided by such a policy. It is the essence of Mr. Gompers's program, as I have shown, to claim that "a partial expropriation of capital" is taking place through the unions, and that by this means, _without any government action_, and _without any revolutionary general strike_ the workers will gradually "get all they produce." According to the Socialist view, such a gradual expropriation can only _begin_ after a _political and economic_ revolution, or when, on its near approach, capitalists prefer to make vital concessions rather than to engage in such a conflict.

The leading Socialist monthly in America, the _International Socialist Review_, which has indorsed the new unionism, has even found it necessary recently to remind its readers that the Socialist Party does after all play a certain rôle and a more or less important one, in the revolutionary movement. "Representative revolutionary unionists, like Lagardelle of France and Tom Mann of Australia," said the _Review_, "point out the immense value of a political party _as an auxiliary_ to the unions. A revolutionary union without the backing of a revolutionary party will be tied up by injunctions. Its officers will be kidnapped. Its members, if they defy the courts, will be corralled in bull pens or mowed down by Gatling guns.

"A revolutionary party, on the other hand, if it pins its hopes mainly to the passing of laws, tends always to degenerate into a reform party. Its 'leaders' become hungry for office and eager for votes, even if the votes must be secured by concessions to the middle class. In the pursuit of such votes it wastes its propaganda on immediate demands."

The _Review_ adds, however, that a non-political menace of revolution does ten times as much for reforms as any political activity; which can only mean that in its estimation revolutionary strikes, boycotts, demonstrations, etc., are of ten times higher present value than the ballot.

Mr. Tom Mann seems also to subordinate political to labor union action: "Experience in all countries shows most conclusively that industrial organization, intelligently conducted, is of much more moment than political action, for, entirely irrespective as to which school of politicians is in power, capable and courageous industrial activity forces from the politicians proportionate concessions.... Indeed, it is obvious that a growing proportion of the intelligent pioneers of economic changes are expressing more and more dissatisfaction with Parliament and all its works, and look forward to the time when Parliaments, as we know them, will be superseded by the people managing their own affairs by means of the Initiative and the Referendum."[260] The last sentence shows that Mr. Mann had somewhat modified his aversion to politics, for the Initiative and Referendum is a political and not an economic device. His objection to politics in the form of parliamentarism (that is, trusting everything to elected persons, or _representatives_) as distinguished from direct democracy, would probably meet the views of the majority of Socialists everywhere (except in Great Britain).

A later declaration of Mr. Mann after his return from Australia to England shows that he now occupies the same ground as Debs and Haywood in America--favoring a revolutionary party as well as revolutionary unions:--

"The present-day degradation of so large a percentage of the
workers is directly due to their economic enslavement; and it is
economic freedom that is demanded.

"Now Parliamentary action is at all times useful, in proportion as
it makes for economic emancipation of the workers. But Socialists
and Labour men in Parliament can only do effective work there in
proportion to the intelligence and economic organization of the
rank and file....

"Certainly nothing very striking in the way of constructive work
could reasonably be expected from the minorities of the Socialists
and Labour men hitherto elected. But the most moderate and
fair-minded are compelled to declare that, not in one country but
in all, a proportion of those comrades who, prior to being
returned, were unquestionably revolutionary, are no longer so after
a few years in Parliament. They are revolutionary neither in their
attitude towards existing society nor in respect of present-day
institutions. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that many seem
to have constituted themselves apologists for existing society,
showing a degree of studied respect for bourgeois conditions, and a
toleration of bourgeois methods, that destroys the probability of
their doing any real work of a revolutionary character.

"I shall not here attempt to juggle with the quibble of 'Revolution
or Evolution,'--or to meet the contention of some of those under
consideration that it is not Revolution that is wanted. 'You cannot
change the world and yet not change the world.' _Revolution is the
means of, not the alternative to, Evolution._ I simply state that a
working-class movement that is not revolutionary in character, is
not of the slightest use to the working class."[261]

If Mr. Mann later resigned from the British Social Democratic Party, this was in part due to the special conditions in Great Britain, as he said at the time, and partly to his Australian experience of the demoralizing effects of office seeking on the Labour Party there. Mann stands with Hervé in the French Party and Debs and Haywood in the American. The reasons given for his withdrawal from the British Party embody the universal complaint of revolutionary unionists against what is everywhere a strong tendency of Socialist parties to become demoralized like other political organizations. Mr. Mann, in his letter of resignation, said:--

"After the most careful reflection I am driven to the belief that
the real reason why the trade unionist movement of this country is
in such a deplorable state of inefficiency is to be found in the
fictitious importance which the workers have been encouraged to
attach to parliamentary action.

"I find nearly all the serious-minded young men in the Labour and
Socialist movement have their minds centered upon obtaining some
position in public life, such as local, municipal, or county
councilorship, or filling some governmental office, or aspiring to
become a member of Parliament.

"I am driven to the belief that this is entirely wrong, and that
economic liberty will never be realized by such means. So I declare
in favor of Direct Industrial Organization, not as _a_ means but as
_the_ means whereby the workers can ultimately overthrow the
capitalist system and become the actual controllers of their own
industrial and social destiny."

There is little disagreement among Socialists that "Direct Industrial Organization" is likely to prove the most important means by which "the workers can ultimately overthrow the capitalist system." This, the "industrial unionism" of Debs and Haywood and Mann, is to be sharply distinguished from French "syndicalism" which undermines all Socialist political action and all revolutionary economic action as well, by teaching that even to-day by direct industrial organization--without a political program or political support, and without a revolution--"a partial expropriation of capital is taking place."

The advocates of revolutionary labor unionism in America for the most part are not allowing the new idea to draw away their energies from the Socialist Party; it merely serves to emphasize their hostility to the present unaggressive policy of the Executive American Federation of Labor and some of the unions that compose it.

Mr. Haywood (another of Mr. Roosevelt's "undesirable citizens") urges the working class to "become so organized on the economic field that they can take and hold the industries in which they are employed." This view might seem to obviate the need of a political party, but Mr. Haywood does not regard it in that light. He says:--

"There is justification for political action, and that is, to
control the forces of the capitalists that they use against us; to
be in a position to control the power of government so as to make
the work of the army ineffective.... That is the reason that you
want the power of government. That is the reason that you should
fully understand the power of the ballot.

"Now, there isn't any one, Socialist, S.L.P., Industrial Worker, or
any other working man or woman, no matter what society you belong
to, but what believes in the ballot. There are those--and I am one
of them--who refuse to have the ballot interpreted for them. I know
or think I know the power of it, and I know that the industrial
organization, as I have stated in the beginning, is its broadest
interpretation. I know, too, that when the workers are brought
together in a great organization they are not going to cease to
vote. That is when the workers will _begin_ to vote, to vote for
directors to operate the industries in which they are all
employed."

In the recent pamphlet, "Industrial Socialism," Mr. Haywood and Mr. Frank Bonn develop the new unionism at greater length. Their conclusions as to politics are directed, not against the Socialist Party, but against its non-revolutionary elements:--

"The Socialist Party stands not merely for the POLITICAL supremacy
of labor. It stands for the INDUSTRIAL supremacy of labor. Its
purpose is not to secure old age pensions and free meals for school
children. Its mission is to help overthrow capitalism and establish
Socialism.

"The great purpose of the Socialist Party is to seize the powers of
government and thus prevent them from being used by the capitalists
against the workers. With Socialists in political offices the
workers can strike and not be shot. They can picket shops and not
be arrested and imprisoned.... To win the demands made on the
industrial field it is absolutely necessary to control the
government, as experience shows strikes to have been lost through
the interference of courts and militia. The same functions of
government, controlled by a class conscious working class, will be
used to inspire confidence and compel the wheels of industry to
move in spite of the devices and stumblingblocks of the
capitalists....

"Socialist government will concern itself entirely with the shop.
Socialism can demand nothing of the individual outside the shop....
It has no concern with the numberless social reforms which the
capitalists are now preaching in order to save their miserable
profit system.

"Old age pensions are not Socialism. The workers had much better
fight for higher wages and shorter hours. Old age pensions under
the present government are either charity doled out to paupers, or
bribes given to voters by politicians. Self-respecting workers
despise such means of support. Free meals or cent meals for
poverty-stricken school children are not Socialism. Industrial
freedom will enable parents to give their children solid food at
home. Free food to the workers cuts wages and kills the fighting
spirit."

The American "syndicalists" are not opposed to political action, but they want to use it _exclusively_ for the purposes of industrial democracy.

While Messrs. Haywood and Bohn by no means take an anarchistic position, they show no enthusiasm for the capitalist-collectivist proposals that _present governments_ should take control of industry. They are not hostile to all government, but they think that democracy applied directly to industry would be all the government required:--

"In the shop there must be government. In the school there must be
government. In the conduct of the great public services there must
be government. We have shown that Socialism will make government
democratic throughout. The basis of this freedom will be the
freedom of the individual to develop his powers. People will be
educated in freedom. They will work in freedom. They will live in
freedom....

"Socialism will establish democracy in the shop. Democracy in the
shop will free the working class. The working class, through
securing freedom for itself, will liberate the race."

Even the American "syndicalists," however, attach more importance to economic than to political action. Hitherto revolutionary Socialists have agreed that the only constructive work possible _under capitalism_ was that of education and organization. The "syndicalists" also agree that nothing peculiarly socialistic can be done to-day by _political_ action, but they are reformists as to the immediate possibilities of _economic_ action. Here they believe revolutionary principles can be applied even under capitalism. Even the conservative and purely businesslike effort to secure a little more wages by organized action, they believe, can be converted here and now into a class struggle of working class _vs._ capitalists. What is needed is only organization of all the unions and a revolutionary policy. With the possibilities of a revolutionary union policy when capitalism has largely exhausted its program of political reforms and economic betterment and when Socialism has become the political Opposition, I deal in following chapters. But syndicalists, even in America, say revolutionary tactics can be applied now--Mr. Haywood, for instance, feels that the only thing necessary for a successful revolutionary and Socialistic general strike in France or America to-day, is sufficient economic organization.