Syndicalism

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SYNDICALISM

"The labor movement, owing to its peculiar nature, is especially fertile in and responsive to the efforts of militant minorities of various sorts, such as Syndicalists, Anarchists, Socialists, Craft Unionists, Clericals, etc., who are each striving to control it for their own· ends. All over the world it will be found following the lead of one or more of these militant minorities. The most potent of all the militant minorities in the labor movement are the Syndicalists, whose vigorous philosophy, ethics and tactics-which are those par excel­ lence of the labor movement-coupled with their unflagging energy and courage, born of the revolution, make them invincible in the struggle between the various militant minori­ ties for the control of the labor movement. Scattered through conserv~J.tive unions, they simply compel the great mass of workers into action and to become revolutionary, in spite of the contrary efforts of other militant minor­ ities. It was for the Syndicalist militants that the term 'militant minority' was coined, and it is ordinarily applied only to them... ,"

CHARLES H. KERR

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LABOR CLASSICS

Earl C. Ford .&

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William Z. Foster

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SYNDICALISM

A Reprint of the Original 1912 Edition with a New Introduction by

James R. Barrett

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Labor Classics CHICAGO

Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company

1990

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INTRODUCTION TO THE 1990 EDITION

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This book is a reproduction of the original edition of Syrulicalism, published by William Z. Foster in Chicago, 1912. The type has been slightly enlarged. to make for easier reading.

Reproduced on the cover is an ink drawing by Harvey Breitmeyer. It originally appeared on the cover of the November 1925 issue of Ihe Pro­ letarian, official organ of the Proletarian Party.

© Copyright 1990

Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company

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In your hands you hold a little piece of dynamite, an explosive political pamphlet with a good deal of significance for the history of labor and radicalism in the United States. Syndicalism, first published in 1912, offers probably the most developed theory of pure syndicalism produced in the United States. The pamphlet is important fur a number of reasons. It shows us a self­ educated worker trying to come to terms with the system he faces every day of his life. In this way, the pamphlet brings theory down out of the clouds and suggests its relationship to the experience of workers under capitalism. Syndicalism also provides an unusually clear picture of the ideas and" the mentality associated with the movement that took its name. In the United States, the pamphlet represented the theoretical position of the Syndicalist League of North America, a small but important organization that pioneered methods and trained a cadre of organizers that shaped the twentieth-century radical labor movement. To understand this pamphlet in a broader context, we need to look at William Z. Foster, its primary author, the period in which the pamphlet was created, the Syndicalist League of North America, and finally at the legacy of the man, the organization and the ideas. Syndicalism was shaped in part by Foster's own ~xperiences. Born in 1881 into an immigrant family of twenty-three, he was reared in the slums of Philadelphia. His father, an amateur athlete, street brawler, and carriage washer, was also an ardent Irish republican who passed his politics on to his son. Foster's mother waS" a devout Catholic and hoped that William, the brightest of her brood, would enter the priesthood. Instead, the family's poverty forced Foster to abandon school after the third grade. He left home as a teenager, and wandered around the country and around the world, work­ ing at a wide range of jobs from deep-water sailor and metal-miner to locomotive fireman. His family's poverty and the misery he saw around him in his youth inspired in Foster a deep but inchoate resentment and frustra­ tion. Capitalism was a system he hated deeply without really understanding it. Foster encountered socialism on a Philadelphia street corner and later , the Socialist Party in 1904, soon after its foundation. In 1909 he became a member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), a revolu­ tionary labor union advocating industrial unionism and organization of the unorganized. His intellectual development throughout the early. twentieth v

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century was shaped by a series of dangerous and unhealthy jobs, and by a frustration with the bourgeois character of the Socialist Party and its reform program. He rejected electoral politics as a dead end and inclined more and more toward an exclusively industrial strategy. Foster taught himself to read French and German, devoured the ciassic works of Marxism, and in 1910-11 traveled around Europe in order to study the ideas and strategies of workers' movements there. The frequent allu­ sions in the pamphlet to labor organizations and particular strikes in France, Italy, England, Germany and elsewhere reflect the enduring influence of his European experiences. He was most impressed with the French syn­ dicalists, and this influence can be seen throughout Syndicalism. Above all, he became convinced that the strategy of dual unionism, the notion that radicals must establish separate revolutionary unions to compete with those of the American Federation of Labor, was a disaster. Insteao, he embraced the French notion of a "militant minority" of syndicalists "boring from within" the mainstream labor unions in order to win them over to a revolu­ tionary program. This dedication to boring from within caused Foster to break with the IWW, with its structure of separate revolutionary industrial and to formulate his own theory of syndicalism, a far more direct reflection of the international movement than the IWW. Given this international influence and the blistering rhetoric of Syn­ prames dicalism, the pamphlet was written in a most unlikely and mrm communities of central Illinois and Indiana. Working as a can­ vasman for a traveling theatrical show during the summer of 1912, Foster erected and stowed the group's tents. But in the mornings and afternoons he was free to do his writing in an empty tent or out in the fields. Working with Earl C. Ford, an old friend from the IWW, Foster hammered out what became the theoretical statement for a new syndicalist organization. (Ford's role in producing the pamphlet seems to have involved providing the funds and discussing the ideas with Foster, who was the main author.) To Some degree Syndicalism is simply part of a very old and rich tradi­ tion of workingclass social theory, an example of the kind of thinking generated by self-educated workers throughout the history of capitalism and workers' resistance to that system. It begins with the basics: What is the nature of labor's problem under capitalism and how can it be solved? "Something is radically wrong," Foster writes, "in a society that produces such extremes of poverty and wealth, and toil and idleness." Next, Foster considers "Some Fake Causes and Quack Remedies." Rejecting very popular bourgeois arguments like Social Darwinism that explained the worker's status as a natural product of immutable social and biological laws or of her/his own depravity, Foster locates the source of the problem in the wage system, "the most brazen and gigantic robbery ever perpetrated since the world began." "The wages system," he concludes, "must be abolished." To this point Foster is in good company. Both his questions and his answers at the very heart of the nineteenth-century labor reform imDulse. His analvsis

is simple, straightforward, but also compelling, even today. The system has changed enormously since 1912, but the system of wage labor continues to produce both enormous wealth and widespread poverty and suffering. It is Foster's solutions to the problem of wage labor that distinguish Syn­ dicalism from earlier theories and make it a prime example of early twentieth­ century labor radicalism. His emphasis on the primacy of industrial over political organization and action; his faith in the militancy of industrial workers; his forthright advocacy of restriction of output, machine-breaking, and other forms of sabotage; his cataclysmic description of the general strike; and his anti-statist vision of the future syndicalist society are all characteristic of a distinctive brand of labor radicalism. Workers created the movement in the. face of a new sort of political economy which wedded monopoly capitalism to the centralized, bureaucratic and servile state. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, large syndicalist movements emerged in France, Spain, Italy and elsewhere; and even in England and the United States, where .the movements were much smaller, syndicalist ideas and strategies were pervasive. The ideas in Syndicalism are important. They represent one worker's efforts to understand the capitalist system and devise a means of destroying it, but they also represent the theory behind a social movement which swept the world in the era of early monopoly capitalism. Foster's strong faith that science, technology and a systematic organiza­ tion of industry and society could solve the problems of the world was characteristic not only of syndicalists but also of many of the era's intellec­ tuals and reformers. The anarchist influence is also unmistakable. Indeed, Foster's vision of a new society owes a great deal more to anarchism than to Marxian socialism. The sections on "Syndicalism and Political Action" the syndic.alists' strong antipathy for the Socialist Party, its reliance on the state and its reformism. Yet in other respects Foster's syndicalism seems to foreshadow ideas and strategies that were later embodied in the early Communist Party. Both the concept of a militant minority of activists who will lead the movement to victory, and the profound distaste for bourgeois notions of democracy probably made it easier for many to embrace Leninism during the revolutionary period at the end of the First World War. But to understand the appeal of syndicalism, the experience and the flavor of the movement as well as its theory, we also need to look closely at the pamphlet's language and tone. A bitter edge here suggests the mentality of some of the most advanced elements in the workingclass movement, those whom the syndicalists called the "militant minority." Foster himself was repulsed by the capitalist system quite early, and the bitter quality .of his rhetoric and ideas stayed with him throughout his life. The scab is "so much vermin to be ruthlessly exterminated." Natural rights do not exist. Rights go to those with power, and the central task is to develop and direct work~ ingclass power against the "parasites" who now control the system. Laws, morals and ethics do not concern him when he turns to the problem of

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strategy, only the efficacy of the measures adopted. If Foster's projections about a revolutionary movement based on the labor unions seem overly optimistic, this owes something to the. context in which they were shaped. Between 1909 and 1922 the United States experienced a gigantic strike wave, with more than a million workers striking in every year between 1916 and 1922. It was not simply the size of the movement, however, that caught the imagination of labor activists, but also its industrial and social breadth. Many of these were "mass strikes," organized and car­ ried out by unskilled immigrants, including young women-people whom labor leaders had considered unorganizable. Far from resisting organiza­ tion, the immigrant laborers and factory operatives responded with a remarkable enthusiasm and fought their strikes with a spirit and ingenuity often missing in those of the skilled and native born. The Lawrence strike to which Foster alludes WdS one of these mass strikes. In the spring of 1912 a small group of Polish women spontaneously walked out of their textile mill over a wage dIspute and sparked a strike of more than 20,000 workers drawn from a score of ethnic communities. Here and in many other such strikes, radical minorities (in this case, the IWW) played an important role. At Lawrence, the immigrant workers scored a smashing success which fueled and provided an example for struggles in many other industries. In the decade between 1909 and 1919 similar strikes wracked the auto, steel, meat-packing, garment, petrochemical, mining, rubber and other . industries as immigrant workers fashioned new forms of labor organization and strike strategy. Although many of these movements were eventually destroyed during the political reaction and employers' offensive in the 1919-1922 period, Foster wrote Syndicalism just as this strike wave was begin­ ning to rise. If he thought he saw the roots for a new, more militant labor movement being sown in the years before World War One, he was not wrong. The Syndicalist League of North America (SLNA), which Foster organized with a number of other former Wobblies and workingclass anar­ chists early in 1912, was a small but significant part of this movement, and Foster himself was very much at its center. He published.Syndicalism private­ ly when he returned to his home base of Chicago in September 1912. The League remained a very loose, decentralized organization, never maintain­ ing more than a dozen branches with a total membership of perhaps 2,000, most of these workers in western and midwestern cities. While eSP9using the radical theory outlined in Syndicalism, League activists conce~rated their daily agitation on bread-and-butter issues and played important roles in union organizing and strike action in Kansas City, St. Louis and Chicago. By "boring from within," the League's militant minority sank deep roots in these local labor movements and created alliances with progressive trade unionists that the IWW never achieved because of its adherence to the strategy of dual unionism. Long after the decline of the SLNA in 1914, its former activists played important roles in several local labor movements. They provided leadership

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during the massive organizing drives of the World War One years, and many of them eventually abandoned syndicalism and helped to build the Com­ munist Party in the decade following the war. During the conservative 19208, former syndicalists provided the party with much of its industrial base through the organization of the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL), an im­ portant radical opposition group within the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Foster won a national reputation directing successful organizing drives in the meat-packing and steel industries during the war, and leading the great 1919 steel strike. Each of these experiences confirmed his faith in the tactic of "boring from within." His greatest successes came when he muted his syndicalist rhetoric and entered the AFL as a paid organizer. In this capaci­ ty he showed a real brilliance in organizing and strike strategy, but his syn­ dicalist past often returned to haunt him. During the steel strike, the com­ panies reprinted thousands of copies of Syndicalism and distributed them throughout the steel mill towns in order to discredit him in the eyes of the conservative AFL leadership and his own rank and file. Subpoenaed to ap­ pear before a special Senate committee investigating the strike, he was grilled at great length regarding his views and confronted with some of the most extreme language and ideas in the pamphlet. While Foster weathered the storm and actually received public endorsements from conservative AFL leaders, the situation underscores the dilemma faced by syndicalists who held to a revolutionary program while working in mainstream unions. Foster repudiated his syndicalism in testimony before the Senate com­ mittee, but there is little doubt that he remained a revolutionary throughout his time with the AFL. He was won over to Communism on a visit to Soviet Russia in 1921 and joined the Communist Party later that year. During the early twenties he built and led the TUEL and retained many of his contacts in the mainstream labor movement, especially in Chicago. In the course of the twenties, however, Foster became increasingly involved in party fac­ tional conflicts and more and more isolated from non-Communist activists. His reluctant support in late 1928 for the Trade Union Unity League, a dual labor federation of revolutionary unions, represented a decisive break with his earlier theories and career, and increased this isolation. A severe heart attack and breakdown in late 1932 slowed Foster considerably, though he remained active in the leadership of the party, serving as its national chair­ man between 1932 and 1957 and representing an increasingly sectarian posi­ tion, even in the era of the Popular Front. He organized the expUlsion of Earl Browder, the architect of the party's Popular Front policies and Foster's comrade in SLNA days. Foster also led. the party's reversion to a more or­ thodox Stalinist position and fought all efforts to reform and democratize the organization following its decline during the McCarthy era. He died in Moscow in 1961 after a long illness, and was buried in Waldheim Cemetety in Chicago. . ix

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If we looked only at individual biography and organizational history, it might be easy to conclude that the point of view represented in Syndicalism passed from the scene rather quickly and that it has little relevance for the situation of workers today. And indeed, Foster's detailed blueprint for a decentralized syndicalist society may sound strange in an era when the state plays such an important role in labor relations and in the lives of workers more generally. No major labor organization in the U.S. today adheres ex­ plicitly to a syndicalist program. But this would be a simplistic notion of where workers' ideas come from, why some decline and others become more popular. As a pervasive, if dif­ fuse influence, syndicalist sentiments and strategies persist in labor movements around the world. Even in the United States we fmd such tenden­ cies. Restrictions of output and various fonns of sabotage are not unusual in American factories. Workers, along with many other Americans, harbor deep suspicions about the motives and abilities of government officials and the role of government in their lives. Abstention from voting, which is generally high in the United States, is particularly high among poor and workingclass people, who have generally shown more inclination toward what Foster tenned "direct action" in the workplace and the streets than toward political militancy. If we define syndicalism as the official theory of a particular organiza­ tion, a fonnal body of thought, then, indeed, it would be difficult to find its influence among workers today. However, if we see syndicalism as a tendency arising naturally from one's experiences at work; a set of strategies developed by workers themselves to deal with their problems in large-scale, bureaucratic, mass-production industry; an inclination to rely on industria) rather than political organization and struggle-if this is how we understand the term, then syndicalism continues to be an influence.

Foner, History ofthe Labor Movement in the United States, Vol. 4 (New York, 1965) and Edward Johanningsrrieier, "William Z. Foster and theSyndica1ist League of North America," Labor History 30 (Summer 1989): 329-353. Foster's own story is told in Working Class Giant: The Life of William Z. Foster (New York, 1981) by Arthur Zipser, who served as his private secretary during his final years. Foster's two autobiographical volumes, From Bryan to Stalin (New York, 1937) and Pages from a Workers' Life (New York, 1939) help to place Syndicalism in the context of his intellectual and political evolution from socialism through syndicalism to communism. Edward Johanningsmeier's doctoral dissertation, "William Z. Foster: Labor Organizer and Communist" (University of Pennsylvania, 1988) develops this theme for the period from the late nineteenth century through the mid-1920s, but it remains unpublished. During the 1919 steel strike, a special Senate Committee grilled Foster at great length about the ideas in Syndicalism."See U.S. Senate, Committee on Education and Welfare, Investigation ofStrike in the Steel Industry, 66th Congess, 1st Session, 1919. For contemporary reactions to Syndicalism, suggesting divergent perspec­ tives in the socialist movement of the early twentieth century, see William English Walling, "Industrialism vs. Syndicalism," International Socialist Review 13 (March 1913): 666-67, and Louis Fraina, "Syndicalism and Industrial Union­ ism," International Socialist Review 14 (July 1913): 25-28.

James R. Barrett Chicago, May 1990

Thanks to Vernon Burton, Diane Konker and Dave Roediger for reading this Introduction. A NarE ON SOURCES A number of excellent works provide a social and political context for Syn­ dicalism, but the most provocative is David Montgomery, The Fall ofthe Housel ofLabor: The Workplace, the State and American Labor Activism (Cambridge, 1987). The literature on the Industrial Workers Qf the World is enonnous; Melvyh Shall Be All: A History of the IWW (Chicago, 1969), remains Dubofsky, the standard account, and Joyce Kombluh, ed., Rebel J-bices: An IWWAnthology (revised edition, Chicago, 1988) is also exceptionally valuable. Material on the Syndicalist League of North America is rather sparse. I have relied on Philip

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Syndicalism

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By Earl C. Ford & Wm. Z. Foster

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WILLIAM

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Title-page of the original edition (1912)

CONTENTS Intr'oduction ...............................••.••.............

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The Goal of Syndicalism.. . . . • . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The General Strike... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The Daily Warfare of Syndicalism............................. 14

Syndicalism and Political Action...... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 19

Syndicalism and Political Action (continued) .............•.... 23

The Relations of Syndicalism to Anarchism, Socialism and

Industrial Unionism........................................ 30

History of Syndicalism........................................ 33

Syndicalism and the American Labor Movement .......... , .. " 36

Syndicalism and the American Labor Movement (continued) .. 43

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INTRODUCTION

THE SITUATION-ITS CAUSE AND CURE. The American workingman w1W arouses himself from the customary state of indifference characterizing workingmen and gazes about him in a critical mood, must be struck by the great inequalities in the conditions of the beings surrounding him. On the one hand, he sees vast masses of workers working long hours. often at most dangerous and nnhealthy occupations. and getting in return hardly the scantiest of the necessities of life. He sees this starving, slaving mass of workers afHicted with the terrible social scourges of unemployment, crime, prostitution, lnnacy, consumption, and all the other forms of social, mental and physical degeneracy which are the inseparable companions of poverty. On the other hand, he sees a comparatively small number of idle rich revelling in all the luxuries that modem society can pro­ duce. Though they do nothing useful for society, society pours its vast treasures into their laps, and they squander this wealth in every way that their depraved and sated appetites can suggest. The monkey dinners. dog suppers, pig luncheons. hiring of noble­ men for servants, buying of princes for husbands and cartloads of valuable art treasures for notoriety, and the thousand and one other insane methods of the American aristocracy to flannt its wealth are too well known to n.eed recapitulation here. Our ob­ semng worker must indeed conclude that something is radically wrong in a society that produces such extremes of poverty and wealth, and toil and idleness.

SOME FAKE CAUSES AND QUACK REMEDIES. His inquiries as to the cause of these inequalities are met by a shower of answers from retainers of the rich. He is told that they are due to the trusts, the tariff, to the fact that the workers don't "save," that they "drink," that they are uufit to survive in the great social stmggle for the survival of the fittest from which the rich have emerged the victors, etc., etc. But even the slightest examinatiou of these answers will show their superficiality and in­ ability to explain the great inequalities in modem society.

Poverty with its terrible co-evils and wealth with its luxuries are not caused by the trusts or the tariff. They are to be found in all industrial countries alike, whether they have trusts and tariffs or not. N either are they caused by the workers "squandering" their wages in "drink" and the rich "saving up." A few years ago it was shown that the yearly wages of the anthracite coal miners amounted to $40.00 less than the cost of the actual necessities of life. It has been recently calcula.ted that the street railway workers of Chicago receive wages enough to buy only two-thirds of the necessities of life. The same is true, more or less, of every category of workers. Even if the workers spent not a cent for drink they couldn't "save," as they would still waut for prime uecessities. And even if a worker expended uothing of· the two dollars per day average wages he received, and "saved" it all for 2,000 years, his savings at the end 01 that time would amount to but a fraction of the fabulous sums amassed by American multi-millionaires in a few years while revelling in luxury. To say that the workers are poor because they "drink" and don't "save" is a~urd. The argument that the rich are rich because they are capable and the poor are poor because they are incapable is be ied every­ where. Thousands of wealthy stockholders are drawing dividends from industries they have never even seen-let alone to know any­ thing of them or their operation. A goodly share of this interest­ drawing aristocracy-if not the majority-is composed of perverts and mental degenerates of various types, such as the Thaw and McCormick heirs of malodorous renown. To say that these de­ generates and the mediocre balance of the aristocracy occupy their present positions of affluence because of their superior capacities is to insult common intelligence.

States four-fifths) of the abundant products the highly developed machinery enables them to produce. The owners of the industries take advantage of their strategic position and steal the greater portion of the workers' product, giving them, in the shape of wages, barely enough to live on. The wages system of robbery is responsible for the great ex­ tremes of poverty and wealth to be found in modern society. It has existed ever since the very beginning of industriaJism and its effects grow worse daily. Every invention of a labor-saving device, by increasing the army of the unemployed and making the com­ petition for jobs keener, enables the owners of the industries to more thoroughly exploit their slaves. Thus the wages system has the effect of making inventions of labor-saving devices curses to the bulk of society, instead of blessings as they should be. The Revolution.-The wages system is the most brazen and gigantic robbery ever perpetrated since the world began. So dis­ astrous are its consequences on the vast armies of slaves within its toils that it is threatening the very existence of society. If society is even to be perpetuated-to say nothing of being organ­ ized upon an equitable basis-the wages system must be abolished. The thieves at present in control of the industries must be stripped of their booty, and society so reorganized that every individual shall have free access to the social means of production. This social reorganization will be a revolution. Only after such a revo­ lution will the great inequalities of modern society disappear.

THE MEANS TO THE REVOLUTION.

The fallacies of the various other orthodox explanations for the social inequalities and their terrible effects will at once be apparent to the intelligent ipquiring worker. He must seek deeper for the true explanation. He will find it in the wages system. which is the foundation institution of modern society. The Wages System.-The means whereby society gains its livelihood: the shops, mills, mines, railroads, etc., are owned by the comparatively few individuals. The rest of society, in order to work in the industries and procure a living, must secure the permission of these individuals. As the number of applicants for jobs is far greater than the needs of the industries, there is such competition for the available positions that those who secure them are, in return for the privilege to earn a living, forced to give up .to the owners of the industries the lion's share (in the United

The Class Struggle.-For years progressive workers have real­ ized the necessity for this revolution. They have also realized that it must be brought about by the workers themselves. The wages system has divided the immense bulk of society into two classes-the capitalist class and the working class. The in­ terests of these two classes are radically opposed to each other. It is the interest of the capitalist class to rob the workers of as much of their product as possible and the interest of the workers to prevent this robbery as far as they can. A guerrilla warfare-­ known as the class struggle and evidenced by the many strikes, working class political eruptions and the many acts of oppression committed by capitalists upon their workers-constantly goes on between these opposing classes. The capitalists, who are heart­ lessness and cupidity personified, being the dominant class of society and the shapers of its institutions, have organized the whole fabric of society with a view to keeping the working class in slavery. 1t is, therefore, evident that if the workers· are to become free it must be through their own efforts and directly against those of the capitalists. Hence the revolutionary slogan,

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THE TRUE CAUSE AND ITS CURE.

"The emancipation of the workers must be wrought by the work­ ers themselves." Rejection of Political Action and Acceptance of Direct Action.­ It goes without saying, that for the workers to overthrow capital­ ism they must be thoroughly organized to exert their combined might. Ever since the inception' of the revolutionary idea the necessity for this organization has been realized by progressive workingmen and they have expended untold efforts to bring it about. These efforts have been almost eutirely directed into the build­ ing of working class political parties to capture the State--it being believed that with such a party in control of the' State, the latter could be used to expropriate the capitalists. The Socialist parties in the various countries have been laboriously built with th.is idea in view. But of late years, among revolutionists, there has been a pronounced revolution against this program. Working class po­ iitical action is rapidly coming to be recognized as even worse than useless. It is being superseded by the direct action* of the labor unions. \ This rejection of political action and acceptance of direct action has been caused by the failure of the fonner and thel success of the latter. Working class political parties, in spite of the great efforts spent upon them, have been distinct failures, while, on the other hand, labor uuions, though often despised and considered as interlopers by revolutionists, have been pronounced successes. For a long time, practically unnoticed, they went on all over the world winning the most substantial victories for the working class. It was only the continued failure of political action that led revolu­ tionists to study them and to make a dispassionate comparison of their achievements, possibilities, structure, etc., with those of the working class political party. The result of this study is the grow­ ing rejection of political action and the rapid development of the revolutionary labor unions, or Syndicalist movement, which is attracting the attention of the whole world. In the following pages the various phases of this new move­ ment, designed to free the working class, will be discussed. ·ThJs much-maJ1gned term means simply the direct warfar__peace­ luI Dr vIolent, as the ca..s6 may be--of the workers upon their employers, to the exclusion of all third parties, such as pOliticians, etc.

SYNDICALISM

I THE GOAL OF SYNDICALISM.· The Syndicalist movement is a labor union movement, which, in addition to fighting the every-day battles of the working class, intends to overthrow capitalism and reorganize society in such a manner that exploitation of man by man through the wages sys­ tem shaH cease. The latter phase of this triple task-the establish­ ment of a society worthy of the human rac~is the real goal of Syndicalism and the end for which all its efforts are finally spent. Consequently, an understanding of the manner in which the new society shall be organized is a matter of first importance to Syn­ dicalists and they have given it much thought.

THE OPERATION OF THE INDUSTRIES. Anti-Statism.-At this early date, though many of the minor details of the organization plan of the new society can only be guessed at, many of its larger outlines are fairly clear. One of these is that there will be no State. The Syndicalist sees in the State only an instrument of oppression and a bungling administra­ tor of industry, and proposes to exclude it from the future society. He sees no need for any general supervising governmental body, and intends that the workers in each industry shall manage the affairs of their particular industry; the miners shall manage the mines; the railroaders manage the railroads, and so on through aU the Jines of human activity. Current Syndicalist Theory.-Just how the workers shall be organized to manage their industries has been a matter of much speculation. The current Syndicalist theory is that the labor unions in the various industries will each take over the manage­ ment of their particular industry; that "the fighting groups of today will be the producing and distributing groups of tomorrow."t This theory, while based on the correct principles, that the State is incompetent to administer industry, and that the most competent ho.dies possib1e to do so are the workers actually en­ gaged in the industries, is in all probability incorrect in itself. • "Syndicallsm" Is the French term for labor unionism. It 18 derived from the word "syndicat," or local labor union. To distinguish them­ selves from conservative unionists. French rebel unionists call them­ selves revolutionary Syndicalists. The former are known as conserva­ tive Syndicalists. In foreign usage the French meaning of the term SyndlcaUsm has been modified. It Is applied solely to the re~..olutlona.TY labor union movement. te. G. T. convention, Amiens. 1906.

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There are other organizations of workers, overlooked by the formulators of the above theory, that are far more competent to carry on indnstry than are the labor nnions. These are the shop organizations oi modern industry. Shop OrganizatiODS:-By the shop organization of an industry is meant the producing organization of workers in that industry. It includes every worker in that industry, whatever bis fnnction may be. All industries, including the professions, etc:.. bave sucb sbop organizations more or less well developed. To carry on pro­ duction of any kind without a shop organization is impossible The superiority of these shop organizations to the labor unious for the administration of industry is manifest. They have been especially constructed to carry on production in all its phases, and are daily doing so; while labor uDions are simply fighting organ­ izations of workers, knowing, as snch, nothing about the operation of industry. These shop organizations will not perish with the fall of capitalism, but. barring some initial confusion, due to the revo­ lution, will continne on in much their present shape into the fnture society. To try to replace these highly developed and especially constructed prodneing organizations by the labor unions-which have been built for an entirely different pnrpose--wonId be as foolish as unnecessary. There will be no need to change the "fight­ ing groups of today into the producing and distribnting groups of tomorrow." These producing and distributing organizations al­ ready exist. The labor unions will serve a very different purpose in the fnture society, as will be shown later. \ Autonomy of ShoD Organizatioua.-In the future \~ocjety the shop organizations will be perfectly autonomous-.-eac.h automatic­ ally regulating its own affaU"s and requiring no interference from without. The prodncing force of society will be composed of autonomous units--each industry constitnting a unit. The begin­ nings of this industrial autonomy are seen in the more highly monopofized indnstries of today. These industries are becoming antomatic in their operation. Chance and arbitrary indnstrial dic­ tatorship are being eliminated from them. The whole industrial process is becoming a matter of obeying facts and figures. In a monopoli%ed industry the uational demand for its prodnct flows inevitably to it and it regulates its production automaticaHy to con­ form to this demand. In the future society all industries will be monopolized and each will regulate its production accordinlf to the demands placed upon it by the rest of society. The relatIons between the various industries will be simply the filling of each other's orders for commodities.· This principle· of antonomy will extend to the component parts of the various industries, as arbitrariness in an industry is as detri­ mental as between industries. This principle is· also being more and more recognized and accepted in modern industry. The recent breaking np of the Harriman railroad system into. five autonomous sub-systems is proof of this. As the activities of the autonomons shop organizations will ex­ tend over all social production, including education, medicine, criminology, etc., there will be no need for a general supervising body to administer industry-be it the State or the labor unions. And as there will be no slave class in society and no ownership

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-For tbe flmdamental Idea of this paragrapb-the _tomatlc opera­ . lion of IndUB try-the authors are indebted to J. A.. Jones of New York.

in the social means of livelihood, the State will have lost the only other reasons for its existence-the keeping of the working class in snbjection and the regulation of the quarrels between the owners of the industries. Initiative.-The statist, while admitting, perhaps, that a certain amount of autonomy is necessary between the industries and also between their component parts, and that, to a certain extent. they will automatically regulate themselves, will, nevertheless, insist that very many instances occur in which these autonomous bodies are incapable of carrying on the multiple functions of society, and that they must submit to legislative bodies. He will pose the question of initiative: "Who, in the new society, will decide on the adoption of far-reaching measures, such as the creation of new industries, reorganizing of old ones, adoption of new industrial processes, etc.,. which will affect all society?" And he himself will quickly answer: "The majority of the representatives of all society in the governmeut." But this conclnsion is entirely fallacious and at variance with the laws of modern production, as the following typical example, taken from modern industry, will show: Suppose steel costs $10.00 per ton to produce and a new process is invented, by which steel can be produced for $8.00 per ton. The question of the adoption of this new process-surely one affecting aU society-is merely a question of whether or not it will pay interest on the cost of its installation. IT IS PURELY A MATTER OF FIGURES AND IS SETTLED IN THE STEEL INDUSTRY ALONE. SO­ CIETY AS A WHOLE IS NOT CONSULTED. THE STEEL INDUSTRY DICTATES TO THE REST OF SOCIETY IN MATTERS PERTAINING TO THE STEEL INDUSTRY. And this is perfectly logical, even from an idealist standpoint. as it is manifest that the workers in the steel industry are the most com­ petent of all society to decide on matters relating to the steel indnstry. There is nothing democratic in this procedure; but it is that of modern industry. And it has been so succes!;ful in the develop­ ment of the industries under capitalism that it is very unlikely it will be changed in the future society. And why should it be? Suppose, for instance, the scientifically organized medical fra­ ternity, from experience and figures at hand, decided that a certain hygenic measure, such, for example, as vaccination, to be necessary for society's welfare, would it be logical for a rational society to submit such a proposition to a referenduin vote of a lot of shoe­ makers, steel workers, farmers, etc., who know nothing about it, or to a government of their representatives equally ignorant? ?uch a procedure would be ridiculous. Even under capitalism the Incompetence of governments to decide such questions is being re~ognized, and the decisions of specialists of various kinds are be1n~ more and more taken as the basis of laws regulating their part!cular social functions. In the future society these decisions, commg from thoroughly organized specialists-doctors, educators, etc.-who then will have no interest to bilk their fellow beings, as they now have--will be the social laws themselves governing these matters, even as the decision of the steel industry is now social law in matters pertaining to the production of steel This undemocratic principle will be applied to all the industries. The fear that one industry might impose arbitrary measures upon the rest of society is groundless, as the same impulses for the

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improvement of the industries. though in a different form, will exist then, as now. In the unlikely event of such a'rbitrariness on the part of one -industry, the nse of direct action tactics on the part of the other industries would soon make it reasonable again. Selection of Foremen,. Superintendents,. Etc.-In the future Syndicalist society the ordinarily unscientific custom of majority rule will be just about eliminated. I t will be superseded by the rule of facts and figures. Not only will the industries be operated in the undemocratic manner above ontlined; but, the responsible positions in them will be fi.I1ed in a manner all at variance with democratic principles. The foremen, superintendents, etc.., will be chosen on the score of their fitness; by examination. instead of on the score of their ability to secure the support of an ignorant majority, through their oratorical powers, good looks, inflnenCe, or what not, as is the ordinary democratic procedure. Syndicalism and democracy based on suffrage do not mix;, DIVISION OF THE SOCIAL PRODUCT. The question of the system for the division of the social pro­ duct in the new society has not been the subject of much dis­ cussion by Syndicalists. However, they very generally accept the Anarchist formula: "From each accordin~ to his ability; to each according to his needs." They will. abohsh all ownership in the social means of livelihood and make them free for each to take what he needs. They believe that when alI ar.e free to help the selves from the all-sufficing products of society they will no m re misuse their opportunity than people now misuse the many enterprises under capitalism-streets, roads, bridges, libraries, par)cs, etc..-which are managed according to the Anarchistic principle of each taking what he needs. The prevailing code of ethics will prevent would-be idlers from taking advantage of this system. Syndicalists generally repudiate the Socialist formula: "To each the full social value of his .labor" and its accompanying wages sys­ tem of labor checks. They assert, with justice, that it is impos­ sible to determine the full value that individual workers give to society, and that if this is tried it will mean the perpetuation of social aristocracies. *

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·For fuller and very interesting details on a probable system of division of the social product, as well as that of the division of labor. in the future society. the student Is I"(!commended to read Kropotkln's "The Conquest of Bread," procurable from Mother Earth Publishing Company. 65 West Twenty-eighth street. New York City. Price. $1.00.

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THE GENERAL STRIKE. . Some Syndicalist EthiC1il.-The Syndicalist is characterized by the harmony that exists between his theories and his tactics. He realizes that the capitalist class is his mortal enemy, that it must be overthrown, the wages system abolished and the new society he has outlined established, if he is to live; and he is proceeding to the accomplishment of these tasks with unparalleled directness. He allows nothing to swerve'him from his course and lead him in an indirection. The Syndicalist knows that capitalism is organized robbery and he consistently considers and treats capitalists as thieves plying their trade. He knows they have no more "right" to the wealth they have amassed than a burglar has to his loot, and the idea of expropriating them without remuneration seems as natural to him as for the footpad's victim to take back his stolen property with­ out paying the footpad for it. From long experience he has learned that the so-called legal and inalienable "rights" of man are but pretenses with which to deceive workingmen; that in reality "rights" are only enjoyed by those capable of enforcin~ them. He knows that in modern society, as in all ages. might 1S right, and that the capitalists hold the industries they have stolen and daily perpetrate the robbery of the wages system simply because they have the economic power to do so. He has fathomed the current systems of ethics and morals, and knows them to be just so many auxiliaries to the capitalist class. Consequently, he has cast them aside and has placed his relations with the capitalists upon a basis of naked power. In his choice of weapons to fight his capitalist enemies, the Syndicalist is no more careful to select those that are "fair," "just" or "civilized" than is a householder attacked in the night by a burglar. He knows he is engaged in a life and death struggle with an absolutely lawless and unscrupulous enemy, and considers his tactics only from the standpoint of their effectiveness. With him the end justifies the means. Whether his tactics be "legal" and "moral," or not, does not concern him. so long as they are effective. He knows that the laws, as well as the current code of morals, are made by his mortal enemies, and considers himself about as much bound by them as a householder would himself by regulations regarding burglary adopted by an association of housebreakers. Consequently, he ignores them insofar as he is able and it suits his purposes. He proposes to develop, regardless of capitalist conceptions of "legality," "fairness," "right," etc., a greater power than his capitalist enemies have; and then to wrest from them by force the industries they have stolen from him by force and duplicity, and to put an end forever to the wages system. He proposes to bring about the revolution by the general strike. .. The General Strike Theory.-By the term "geneI.'al strike," used In a revolutionary sense, is meant the period of more or less gen­ eral cessation of labor by the workers, during which period, the workers. by disorganizing the mechanism of capitalist society, will expose its weakness and their own strength; whereupon, perceiving -9­

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themselves possessed of the power to do so, they will seize control of the social means of production and proceed to operate them in their own interest, instead of in the interest of a handful of para­ sites, as heretofore. The general strike is the first stage of the revolution proper. There is nothing strained or abnormal in the general strike theory, neither in the supposition that the workers can so dis­ organize capitalist society as to be able to seize the industries, nOr in the supposition that they will do so once they realize they have the power. Both conclusions flow naturally from the everyday experiences of the workers. The power of the workers to 'disorganize and paralyze the deli­ cately adjusted capitalist society and the inability of the capitalists to cope with this power are shown by every large strike conducted by modern methods. This has been even more clearly demon­ stratedthan usual by the recent great strikes in England. The two-day strike of the railroaders paralyzed England, and the frantic capitalist class hastily brought it to a close. The recent strike of the coal miners was even more effective-the capitalists frankly acknowledging that England faced the most desperate situation in its whole career. If the English capitalist class was in such desperate straits during these strikes of single categories of con­ servative workers, what condition would it be in before a general strike of a revolutionary working class? It would be helpless and would have to accept any condltions the workers saw fit to impose upon it. The everyday tactics of the workers str gly indicate the truth of the conclusion that they will expropria e the capitalists as soon as they learn they have the power to do so. In their daily strikes they pit their strength against that of their employers and wring from them whatever concessions they can. They don't remain long content with these concessions, and as soon as they are able they proceed to win more. They are insatiable, and, when the general strike proves their ability to do so, they will have no scruples against expropriating the capitalists. This expropriation will seem the more natural to them then, as they will be fortified by the Syndicalist conception that the capitalists are thieves and have no "ri~ht" to their property. The parual strike of today, in which a comparatively few work­ ers disorganize an industry and force concessions from their em­ ployers, is but a miniature of the general strike of the futur!'!, in which the whole working class will disorganize all the industries and force the whole capitalist class to give up its ownership of them. The General Strike and the Armed Forces.-Once the general strike is in active operation, the greatest obstacle to its success will be the armed forces of capitalism-soldiers, police, detectives, etc. This formidable force will be used energetically by the cap­ italists to break the general strike. The Syndicalists have given much study to the problem presented by this force and have found the solution for it. Their proposed tactics are very different from those used by rebels in former revolutions. They are not going to mass themselves and allow themselves to be slaughtered by capitalism's trained murderers in the orthodox way. Theirs is a safer, more effective and more modern method. They are going to defeat the armed forces by disorganizing and demoralizing them. A fruitful source of this disorganization will be the extreme

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difficulty the armed forces wiII experience in securing supplies and transportation. Modern armies, to be effective, must have immense arsenals, powder works and other industrial establish­ ments behind them to furnish them their supplies of ammunition, arms, food and clothing. They also must have the railroads .con­ stantly at their disposal for transportation. Wnen the general strike has halted these industries the army will be stricken with paralysis. Another source of disorganization will be the division of the armed forces into minute detachments to guard the man} beleaguered gates of capitalism. The strikers, or revolutionists, will be everywhere, and will everywhere seize or disable whatever capitalist property they can lay their h-ands on. To protect this property the armed forces will have to be divided into a myriad of guards and scattered along the thousands of miles of railroads and around the many public buildings, bridges, factories, etc, The wealthy capitalists themselves will also need generous guards. The most important industries, such as transportation, mining, etc., will have to be operated in some manner. To do this will require many thousands more of soldiers and police. The result will be that the armed forces will be minutely sub­ divided, and through the loss of the solidarity and discipline, from whence they derive their strength, they will cease to be a fighting organization. They will degenerate into a mass of armed indi­ viduals scattered far and wide over the country.* These individuals can be easily overwhelmed and disarmed, or what is more likely, as they will be mostly workingmen and in sympathy with the gen­ eral strike, induced to join the ranks of their striking fellow work­ ers. Once the disorganization of the armed forces is complete the revolutionists will seize the unprotected industries and proceed to reorganize society. Syndicalists in every country are already actively preparing this disorganization of the armed forces by carrying on a double educational campaign amongst the workers. On the one hand, they are destroying their illusions about the sacredness of cap­ italist property and encouraging them to seize this property wher­ ever they have the opportunity. On the other, they are teaching working class soldiers not to shoot their brothers and sisters who are in revolt, but, if need be, to shoot their Own officers and to desert the army when the crucial moment arrives. This double propaganda of contempt for capitalist property "rights," and anti­ militarism, are inseparable from the propagation of the general d~~ . OBJECTIONS. Preliminary Organization.-A favorite objection of the oPPP­ nents of the general strike theory (mostly Socialists) is that the' success of the general strike implies such a degree of preliminary organization and discipline on the part of the workers that, were ·This is no far-fetched theory. It Is jURtltled by every modern great strike. The big French railroad strike of 1910 Is typical. Thousands of soldiers were used as 8trike breakers. and thousand>! more scattered along the railroads to guard them. Many more were u"ed, in ones and tW?S, to guard the bridges, public buildings, etc., In Paris and other Cities. tThe student Is recommended to read Arnold Roller's excellent 10-cent pamphlet, "The Social General Strike," procurable from George Bauer, P. O. Box 1119, New York City.

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they possessed of it. they wouldn't need to strike in order to en­ force their demands. ( Preliminary organization unquestionably aids very materially 'to the success of strikes, but all great strikes-which differ only' in degree from the general strike-prove to us that this prelimi­ nary organization by no means has to be as thorough as the ob­ jets." (Pouget. Le Sabotage, p. 3.) s may be freely translated: "To work as one wearing wooden shoes;" that is. to work a little slower and more clumsy than one more favor­ ably shod. It was from this argot expression that Emile Pouget. a prominent Synd1cal1st, derived and eoined the word "sabotage" (literally wooden shoeage"), now In universal use amongst Syndicalists.

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charge. an extensive campaign of passive resistance on the railroads was started. The workers worked, but only for the purpose oi confusing the railroad system. In the freight sheds shipments of glass were laid fiat and heavy boxes piled npon them; .. this side up with care" shipments were turned wrong side up; fragile and ".luabJe articles were "accidentally" broken; perishable goods were buried and "Jost," or ruined by being placed close to other shipments. such as oils and acids. that spoiled them.. Also a complete confusion was caused by the deliberate mixture and missending of shipments. On the roads engines broke down or "died" unaccountably; wires were cut; engines "accidentally" dumped into turntable pits; passenger train schedules were given np. trains arriving and departing haphazard. Bnt the worst confUSIon came from the missending of cars. Thonsands of cars were hauled all over France in a haphazard manner. For instance, the billing of a car of I?erishable goods intended for the north of France would be so manJPul.ate~ tha~. the car woule! be sent. to the s~th of France and pro~ably lost. At a ,Flac~ Just outSIde of Pans there we:e. at