In the second part of my book Socialism Made Easy, I have endeavoured to establish two principles in the minds of my readers as being vitally necessary to the upbuilding of a strong revolutionary socialist movement. Those two principles are: First, that the working class as a class cannot become permeated with a belief in the unity of their class interests unless they have first been trained to a realisation of the need of industrial unity; second, that the revolutionary actthe act of taking over the means of production and establishing a social order based upon the principles of the working class (labour) cannot be achieved by a disorganised, defeated and humiliated working class, but must be the work of that class after it has attained to a commanding position on the field of economic struggle. It has been a pleasure to me to note the progress of socialist thought towards acceptance of these principles, and to believe that the publication of that little work helped to a not inconsiderable degree in shaping that socialist thought and in accelerating its progress. In the following article I wish to present one side of the discussion which inevitably arises in our socialist party branches upon the mooting of this question. But as a preliminary to this presentation I would like to decry, and ask my comrades to decry and dissociate themselves from, the somewhat acrid and intolerant manner in which this discussion is often carried on. Believing that the socialist party is part and parcel of the labour movement of the United States, and that in the growth of that movement to true revolutionary clearness and consciousness it, the socialist party, is bound to attract to itself and become mentor and teacher of elements most unclear and lacking in class consciousness, we should recognize that it is as much our duty to be patient and
There, then, we have found something upon which we agree, a ground common to both, the first desideratum of any serious discussion. The point upon which we disagree is: Can the present form of American trade unions provide the socialist movement with the economic force upon which to rest? Or can the American
Let it be remembered that we are not, as some good comrades imagine, debating whether it is possible for a member of the American Federation of Labour to become an industrialist, or for all its members, but we are to debate whether the organization of the American Federation of Labour is such as to permit of a modification of its structural formation to keep pace with the progress of industrialist ideas amongst its members. Whether the conversion of the membership of the American Federation of Labour to industrialism would mean the disruption of the Federation and the throwing of it aside as the up-to-date capitalist throws aside a machine, be it ever so costly, when a more perfectly functioning machine has been devised.
At this point it is necessary for the complete understanding of our subject that we step aside for a moment to consider the genesis and organisation of the American Federation of Labour and the trade unions patterned after it, and this involves a glance at the history of the labour movement in America. Perhaps of all the subjects properly pertaining to Socialist activity this subject has been the most neglected, the least analysed. And yet it is the most vital. Studies of Marx and popularising (sic) of Marx, studies of science and popularising of science, studies of religion and application of same with socialist interpretations, all these we have without limit. But of attempts to apply the methods of Marx and of science to an analysis of the laws of growth and incidents of development of the organisations of labour upon the economic field the literature of the movement is almost, if not quite, absolutely barren. Our socialist writers seem in some strange and, to me, incomprehensible manner to have detached themselves from the everyday struggles of the toilers and to imagine they are
Perhaps some day there
will arise in America a socialist writer who in his writing will live up
to the spirit of the Communist Manifesto that the socialists are not
apart from the labour movement, are not a sect, but are simply that part
of the working class which pushes on all others, which most clearly
understands the line of march. Awaiting the advent of that writer permit
me to remind our readers that the Knights of Labour preceded the
American Federation of Labour, that the structural formation of the
Knights was that of a mass organisation, that they aimed to organise all
toilers into one union and made no distinction of craft, nor of
industry, and that they cherished revolutionary aims. When the
American Federation of Labour was organised it was organised as a dual
organisation, and although at first it professed a desire to organise
none but those then unorganised, it soon developed opposition to the
Knights and proceeded to organise wherever it could find members, and
particularly to seek after the enrolment of those who were already in
the Knights of Labour. In this it was assisted by the good will of the
master class, who naturally preferred its profession of conservatism and
identity of interest between capital and labour to the revolutionary
aims and methods of the Knights. But even this assistance on the part of
the master class would not have assured its victory were it not for the
fact that its method of organisation, into separate
crafts recognised a certain need of the industrial development of
the time which the Knights of Labour had failed up to that moment to
appraise at its proper significance.
The Knights of Labour as I have pointed out, organised all workers into one union, an excellent idea for teaching the toilers their ultimate class interests, but with the defect that it made no provision for the treating of special immediate craft interests by men and women with the requisite technical knowledge. The scheme was the scheme of an idealist, too large-hearted and noble-minded himself to appreciate the hold small interests can have upon men and women. It gave rise to jealousies. The printer grumbled at the jurisdiction of a body comprising tailors and shoemakers over his shop struggles, and the tailors and shoemakers fretted at the attempts of carpenters and brick-layers to understand the technicalities of their disputes with the bosses.
To save the Knights of Labour and to save the American working class a pilgrimage in the desert of reaction, it but required the advent of some practical student of industry to propose that, instead of massing all workers together irrespective of occupation, they should, keeping their organisation intact and remaining bound in obedience to one supreme head, for administrative purposes only, group all workers together according to their industries, and subdivide their industries again according to crafts. That the allied crafts should select the ruling body for the industry to which they belonged, and that the allied industries again should elect the ruling body for the whole organisation. This could have been done without the slightest jar to the framework of the organisation; it would have recognized all technical differences and specialisation of function in actual industry; it would have kept the organisation of labour in line with the actual progress of industrial development; and would still have kept intact the idea of the unity of the working class by its common bond of brotherhood, a universal
Tentative steps in such a direction were already being taken when the American Federation of Labour came upon the scene. The promoters of this organisation seizing upon this one plank in the Knights of Labour organisation, specialised its work along that line, and, instead of hastening to save the unity of the working class on the lines above indicated, they made the growing realisation of the need of representation of craft differences the entering wedge for disrupting and destroying the earlier organisation of that class.
Each craft was organised as a distinct body having no obligation to strike or fight beside any other craft, and making its own contracts with the bosses heedless of what was happening between these bosses and their fellow-labourers of another craft in the same industry, building, shop or room. The craft was organised on a national basis, to be governed by the vote of its members throughout the nation, and with a membership card good only in that craft and of no use to a member who desired to leave one craft in order to follow another. The fiction of national unity was and is still paid homage to, as vice always pays homage to virtue, by annual congresses in which many resolutions are gravely debated, to be forgotten as soon as congress adjourns. But the unifying (?) qualities of this form of organisation are best revealed by the fact that the main function of the congress seems to be to provide the cynical master class with the, to them, pleasing spectacle of allied organisations fiercely fighting over questions of jurisdiction.
This policy of the American Federation of Labour coupled with the unfortunate bomb incident of Chicago,11 for which the Knights of Labour received much of the blame, completed the ruin of the latter organisation and destroyed the growing unity of the working class for the time being. The industrial
But, I fancy I hear some one say, granting that all that is true, may we not condemn the methods by which the American Federation of Labour destroyed, or helped to destroy, the Knights of Labour, and still believe that out of the American Federation of Labour we may now build up an industrial organisation such as we need, such as the Industrial Workers of the World aims to be?
This we can only answer by clearly focussing in our mind the American Federation of Labour system of organisation in actual practice. A carpenter is at work in a city. He has a dispute with the bosses, or all his fellow carpenters have. They will hold meetings to discuss the question of a strike, and finding the problem too big for them they will pass it on to the headquarters, and the headquarters pass it on to the general membership. The general membership, from San Francisco to Rhode Island, and from Podunk to Kalamazoo will have a vote and say upon the question of the terms upon which the Chicago carpenters work, and if said carpenters are called out
The craft card is good to-day in all of them, but if any of them chose to form industrial unions, and called upon him to join, he could only do so on penalty of losing his craft card and his right to strike benefits from his old organisation. And if he did join, his card of membership in the one he joined would be of no value when he drifted to any of the others. How can
If in addition to this organic difficulty, and it is the most insuperable, we take into consideration the system of making contracts or trade agreements on a craft basis pursued by old style unions we will see that our unfortunate brothers in the American Federation of Labour are tied hand and foot, handcuffed and hobbled, to prevent their advance into industrialism. During the recent shirt-waist makers' strike in New York when the question was mooted of a similar strike in Philadelphia our comrade Rose Pastor Stokes, according to our socialist press, was continually urging upon the shirt-waist makers of Philadelphia the wisdom of striking before Christmas, and during the busy season. No more sensible advice could have been given. It was of the very essence of industrialist philosophy. Industrialism is more than a method of organisationit is a science of fighting. It says to the worker: fight only at the time you select, never when the boss wants a fight. Fight at the height of the busy season, and in the slack season when the workers are in thousands upon the sidewalk, absolutely refuse to be drawn into battle. Even if the boss insults and vilifies your union and refuses to recognise it, take it lying down in the slack season but mark it up in your little note book. And when work is again rushing and master capitalist is pressed for orders squeeze him, and squeeze him till the most sensitive portion of his anatomy, his pocket-book, yells with pain. That is the industrialist idea of the present phase of the class
The foregoing will, I hope, give the reader some food for consideration upon the problem under review. That problem is intimately allied with the future of the socialist party in America. Our party must become the political expression of the fight in the workshop, and draw its inspiration therefrom. Everything which tends to strengthen and discipline the hosts of labour tends irresistibly to swell the ranks of the revolutionary movement, and everything which tends to divide and disorganise the hosts of labour tends also to strengthen the forces of capitalism. The most dispersive and isolating force at work in the labour movement to-day is craft unionism, the most cohesive and unifying force, industrial unionism. In view of that fact all objections which my comrades make to industrial unionism on the grounds of the supposedly, or truly anti-political, bias of many members of the Industrial Workers of the World is quite beside the mark. That question at the present stage of the game is purely doctrinaire. The use or non-use of political action will not be settled by the doctrinaires who may make it their hobby to day,
As the economic struggle is the preparatory school and training ground for socialists it is our duty to help guide along right lines the effort of the workers to choose the correct kind of organisation to fight their battles in that conflict. According as they choose aright or wrongly, so will the development of class consciousness in their minds be hastened or retarded by their everyday experience in class struggles.