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
As I travelled about the country I found that the active advocates of
the open shop frequently referred to it as “the American plan.” The
employers’ association which is pushing it also has a way of
ostentatiously flying the Stars and Stripes. This is particularly
noticeable in the mining communities where there are large bodies of
foreign laborers. At first I could not understand how one group of
Americans came to have the temerity to arrogate to themselves the word
“American.” Then I discovered it was a survival of the war period. In
fighting the Prussian we have adopted some of the Prussian’s
disagreeable characteristics. The war is over, but we have licked
militarist blood. What surprises me most is how few people recognize the
danger of it. The phrase “American plan” has been allowed to stand
without protest, though it practically says to union men who are just as
good Americans as the members of employers’ associations that they are
not Americans if they persist in their union ideas. It is not difficult
to imagine how this is misused in the daily contact between workman and
boss. It cannot help but do harm.
In Butte I was walking along the street with some labor leaders, bound
for their headquarters. Thinking we had reached it, I started to turn
into a building over which the Stars and Stripes were flying. “That’s
not it,” said one of them. “Don’t you see the flag of the American
plan?”
No Serious Bolshevism Here.
=And yet there is no serious Bolshevism in the United States, I have
been looking for it, and I have not been able to trace a consistent
effort at a Bolshevik movement. There are no doubt enough people who
believe in Bolshevism who would like to start a Bolshevik movement—but
they have not been able to do it. At least they have not succeeded in
starting it among wage-paid workmen, and there is no other place to
start it.=
There is, however, something which is called Bolshevism, and, as it is
also rebellious against the existing order of society, it has been
labelled Bolshevik, but it is really something different. I refer to the
rather crude and unscientific but active, anarcho-syndicalism of the
Industrial Workers of the World.
The two have been confused even by some of the leaders of the I. W. W.,
so it is not surprising that the general public, not to mention the Red
squads of the police, have not always been able to make the distinction;
but the difference is there and is of sufficient importance to prevent
the growth of Bolshevism.
Bolshevism, by which is ment the idea that lies behind the Bolshevik
Government in Moscow, is a long way from the One Big Union—the effective
idea behind the I. W. W. Bolshevism has proved to be state Socialism in
action. The I. W. W. is anarcho-syndicalism trying to make headway in
industry.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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