How much Bolshevism is there in America? : $b Also a series of articles entitled "Russia from the inside"Dosch-Fleurot, Arno
History
How much Bolshevism is there in America? : $b Also a series of articles entitled "Russia from the inside"
Dosch-Fleurot, Arno
Communism -- Soviet Union; Communism -- United States; Labor -- United States; Working class -- United States
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.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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