Socialism As It Is

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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 role 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 Herve 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.

Mr. Debs admits the need of revolutionary tactics as well as
revolutionary principles and even says: "We could better succeed with
reactionary principles and revolutionary tactics than with revolutionary
principles and reactionary tactics." He admits also that Socialists and
revolutionary unionists are inspired with an entirely new attitude
towards society and government and indorses as _entirely sound_ certain
expressions from Haywood and Bohn's pamphlet which had been violently
attacked by reformist Socialists and conservative unionists. Mr. Debs
agrees with the former writers in their definition of the attitude of
the Socialist revolutionist's attitude towards property: "He retains
absolutely no respect for the property 'rights' of the profit takers. He
will use any weapon which will win his fight. He knows that the present
laws of property are made by and for the capitalists. Therefore he does
not hesitate to break them." But he does not agree that this new spirit
offers any positive contribution to Socialist tactics at the present
time. Just as Herve has recently admitted that the superior political
and economic organization of the Germans were more important than all
the "sabotage" (violence) and "direct action" of the French though he
still favors the latter policies, so the foremost American revolutionary
opposes "direct action" and "sabotage" altogether under present
conditions. Both deny that revolutionary economic action under
capitalism is any more promising than revolutionary political action.
Even Herve defends his more or less friendly attitude to "direct action"
wholly on the ground that it is good _practice_ for revolution, not on
Lagardelle's syndicalist ground that it means the beginning of
revolution itself (see below).

By much of their language Haywood and several industrial unionists of
this country would seem to class themselves rather with Lagardelle and
Labriola (see below) than with Herve, Debs, and Mann. Haywood, for
example, has said that no Socialist can be a law-abiding citizen.
Haywood's very effective and law-abiding leadership in strikes at
Lawrence (1912) and elsewhere would suggest that he meant that
Socialists cannot be law-abiding by principle and under all
circumstances. But this statement as it was made, together with many
others, justifies the above classification. Debs, on the contrary,
claims that the American workers are law-abiding and must remain so, on
the whole, until the time of the revolution approaches. "As a
revolutionist," he writes, "I can have no respect for capitalist
property laws, nor the least scruple about violating them," but Debs
does not believe there can be any occasion to put this principle into
effect until the workers have been politically and economically
organized and educated, and then only if they are opposed by violence
(see the _International Socialist Review_, February, 1912).