LITTLE OF BOLSHEVISM FOUND IN I. W. W., MOST RADICAL OF AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENTS

By Arno Dosch-Fleurot.

The most radical labor movement in the United States, the one that makes the most to-do over its revolutionary programme, is the I. W. W. Whatever there may be of revolutionary tendency in America is in the I. W. W., or closely affiliated. But looking at America from the point of view of Europe, if that is all we have produced in the way of revolutionary material we are certainly in no immediate danger of becoming a “Soviet republic.”

The I. W. W. is popularly considered Bolshevik, and has thus been advertised by the attacks the police have made upon it. There have also been “criminal Syndicalist” laws passed against it which have enhanced its importance. But an examination of what it is does not give cause for serious alarm.

The I. W. W. has never been able to boast of much of a membership, and it has barely enough members now to keep it alive. During the past few weeks I have taken a fairly close look at the I. W. W., or what I could find of it, and I should say it is more of a purpose, more of a labor philosophy, than a movement. It is out for One Big Union, but it has not even one small union that stays put.

Provided Organization of Labor Where No Other Union Could

It has provided a chance for organization when there was no other union to do it. It went into the woods and the harvest fields and organized the migratory workers. It had a free and easy way of organizing, and they were free and easy men. In the woods it acquired some permanency. The loggers of Oregon, Washington and Idaho are about the only active members it has. The important consideration is how much revolution did it instil into them? According to my observations, very little.

The loggers were told about the preamble of the I. W. W., the theme of which lies in its first words: “The working class and the employing class have nothing in common.” With those sentiments the loggers were in hearty accord. They knew better than the I. W. W. organizers how true it was in the woods. They wanted better camp conditions. The I. W. W. gave them a chance for organized protest, so they joined. They are frontiersmen with the virtues of the frontier; they stand by their friends. So they stand by the I. W. W. But to say they become class-conscious revolutionists is absurd.

The leadership at the I. W. W. has syndicalist purpose, but its membership is merely looking for better working conditions. The average man who joins the I. W. W. would as willingly join a union that had less to say about revolution if it were there. The I. W. W., like the Salvation Army, works where more bourgeois organizations fail. At the I. W. W. headquarters in Chicago is turned out a varied supply of I. W. W. reading matter, but you do not see workers pouring over it. They glance at occasional pamphlets, but they do not bother themselves with the anarcho-syndicalist theories. Some few harvest workers have tried sabotage, and that is about the most serious charge against the I. W. W.

No Consistent Idea.

Out of the scores of leaflets and pamphlets they can get no consistent revolutionary idea. They are a confusion of syndicalism, anarchy, Socialism, Communism and Bolshevism. That is inevitable, as the writers, not always very thoroughly informed, have tried to adapt their individual conceptions of the various social revolutionary movements in Europe to American conditions. The I. W. W., being the one outstanding revolutionary movement, has drawn to it so many different types of revolutionists they have mutually destroyed each other’s theories.

The Bolshevists in the I. W. W. have recently had a serious jolt. They tried, without success, to induce the loggers to support the Third Internationale, the propaganda body of the Bolshevik Government in Moscow. They told the loggers that, as part of the proletariat, they should give their indorsement to the dictatorship of the proletariat and the organization of the world revolution from Moscow.

The loggers are not very long on political ideas, but they wanted to know about it first. So the editor of the Northwest Industrial Worker, one of the I. W. W.’s most important publications, explained it. He is himself a syndicalist and no Bolshevist. Moreover, he lives in Seattle and knows the loggers are not to be turned into rubber stamp revolutionists by the propaganda of the Lenine-Zinovieff school. So in the Northwest Industrial Worker for Oct. 20 he printed the following editorial:

‘What about the Russian Workers:’

“A vote for the indorsement of the Third Internationale by the members of the Industrial Workers of the World means a vote indorsing the actions of the small political group which now holds Russia under its rule, the Communist Party. There should be no doubt in the minds of members as to that fact. If the vote for indorsement carries, members should realize that we shall have indorsed a political state that is not only upheld by bayonets but which has sent conquering armies to invade other countries.

“It is unfortunate that members of the I. W. W. have never received any accurate information as to the actual condition of the workers of Russia. We have heard many generalizations as to the conditions of the Russian people, singing the praises of the Soviet Government. But have members of the I. W. W. ever heard a report made by industrial unionists or by syndicalists containing reliable information upon the following matter?”

Questions Are Asked.

“Are the workers of Russia permitted by the Government to organize upon their own lines without interference?

“Are the workers of Russia permitted to freely travel through the interior looking for employment?

“What percentage of the workers in the large industrial sections are organized, and upon what basis?

“Are workers permitted to maintain their own press without governmental interference?

“Until the members of the I. W. W. have information upon these and many other matters they are voting in the dark upon something of which they know nothing. They have a right to know whether Soviet Russia is a ‘working-class government.’ Communist Party propaganda will not afford satisfactory answers to these queries.

“We are endeavoring to get enlightenment upon such matters at first hand, and have already secured some information, but we realize that we have no right to influence, or attempt to influence, the vote upon a referendum which is pending. We want the truth about affairs in Russia. We are interested in the Russian workers more than we are interested in anything pertaining to that country.”

Absurdity of Label.

I have reproduced this editorial in full partly to show the absurdity of simply labelling the I. W. W. movement Bolshevik and letting it go at that. Also, I have never seen an abler editorial against Bolshevism. And this, mind you, was published in the most important organ of the I. W. W.

There were people in the I. W. W. movement who did not like it, and they brought pressure to bear to remove the editor, J. C. Kane, from his editorial chair. But the loggers read the editorial and liked it. They would probably never have read it if there had not been a fuss raised; but, at any rate, they did read it, and approved. Then they heard that the editor had been fired and they got a little “mass action” into play and put him back. And they did not indorse the Third Internationale.

That is a long way from Bolshevism. Nothing like that could happen in Russia. As an incident it is symptomatic. It shows the members of the movement insist on running it according to their individual will. In other words it is not a Bolshevik movement directed by a highly centralized labor autocracy. It is rather an anarcho-syndicalist movement bossed from the “job.”

Is “Job-Controlled.”

The Bolshevik-minded within the I. W. W. do not really belong there. The I. W. W. happens to be the most radical band wagon and they have climbed on. Incidents such as I have just quoted show them where they get off. The men who understand better the I. W. W. movement know it must be based on “job control.” Every time it has ever done anything it has been a case of “job control”—in other words, the men on the job decided what they were going to do. Their successful strikes in the woods the summer of 1917 were, for instance, declared in the camps.

In the I. W. W. dogmatic concepts do not get far. Revolutionary phrases take on new meanings and disconcert their originators. The phrase “direct action,” for example, is well understood in the revolutionary patter to mean direct revolutionary action to put a workers’ dictatorship into governmental power. But it does not mean that in the logging camps. It means direct action by the camp crew and not action according to the decision of the I. W. W. headquarters.

Are Fundamental Democrats.

Fundamentally the I. W. W. members are democrats like the rest of us. They have no far political vision, and they wish to ameliorate the condition in life of workingmen, but they could be trusted in the final analysis not to follow any doctrinaire revolutionist who had thought it all out for them and told them to come along. Lenine could do that with the Russian workers. But no one could do it with American workers. And the membership of the I. W. W., particularly in the woods, is largely American.

The I. W. W. has its ups and downs, and just now it is down. But it will not go out of existence and disappear because it stands for an idea, industrial unionism. There are other labor organizations, such as the Automobile Workers, which also stand for industrial unionism, but the I. W. W. has proclaimed it loudest, though it has perhaps done less effective organizing than some of the others.

Industrial unionism is essentially inimical to the craft unionism upon which the American Federation of Labor is built. The individual unions in the A. F. of L. could unite along industrial lines, and some have, but the results have not been sufficiently striking to remove from the I. W. W. further excuse for existence.

Not Essentially Revolutionary.

There is nothing essentially revolutionary in industrial unionism, though the I. W. W. tries to make it so, concluding its well known preamble with the sentence: “By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.” But that is largely rhetoric. In the body of the preamble is written: “We find that the centring of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing class.” All industrial unionists are of this point of view. Their position was well described to me by William A. Logan, President of the Automobile Workers, who is not a member of the I. W. W.

“Industrial unionism is no one’s invention,” he said. “It naturally follows the combination of manufacturers in an industry. Manufacturers absorb industries which furnish them, so labor does the same thing. The combinations of industries in large plants has so highly specialized the work that no one workman need be a rounded mechanic. Men can also be shifted easily from one machine to another. Common and semi-skilled labor has almost entirely taken the place of skilled labor in industry. I used to be an auto-fitter. There is now no such job. The manufacture of even such a finished article as an automobile has been specialized to a point where one man need know very little. He may have merely to start a nut. So all the men in the industry are on the same footing. There is no longer point in splitting them into crafts. The logical way to organize them is industrially.”

Merely New to United States.

That is all there is to industrial unionism. It is comparatively new to America, but it is an old story in Europe. To organize industrially is just as democratic as to organize by crafts. It all depends upon what is done with the organization once it is formed. Industrial unionism only becomes revolutionarily syndicalistic when a union of industrial unions announces it is going to take over the Government in the name of its syndicalist workers.

The I. W. W. says, “The army of production must be organized not only for the everyday struggle with capitalists but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown.”

The less revolutionary automobile workers, whose correct title is United Automobile, Aircraft and Vehicle Workers of America, say more conservatively: “We know that the workers will never know how to manage the State if they should gain that responsibility through political action, until they learn how to act collectively in getting some of their immediate needs satisfied.”

Nothing to Fear.

The I. W. W. foresees the uniting of all the different industrial unions in one big union. It says, “One union—one label—one enemy.” The automobile workers say more modestly, “One union, one industry.”

So the industrial union may, or may not, be used with revolutionary intent. Of itself it is nothing to be afraid of.

Practically industrial unionism has between it and success what even the comparatively mild automobile workers refer to as the power of “Czar Gompers and his Grand Dukes.”

Theoretically the A. F. of L. is not opposed to industrial unionism. Any of the crafts may join forces. But practically the A. F. of L. machine prevents it.