The I. W. W.: A Study of American SyndicalismBrissenden, Paul F. (Paul Frederick)
History
The I. W. W.: A Study of American Syndicalism
Brissenden, Paul F. (Paul Frederick)
Industrial Workers of the World; Syndicalism
DeLeon's name was synonymous with revolutionary socialism--that
socialism which rejects compromise, recognizes the social
value of reform but refuses to deal in reform, and considers
revolutionary industrial unionism as the indispensable basis
of socialist political action and the revolutionary movement
as a whole. DeLeon saw clearly the impending menace of State
Socialism, particularly within the Socialist movement: and his
whole program was an answer to that menace.... Nearly every
American expression of revolutionary theory and action bears
the impress of his personality and activity; and revolutionary
unionism hails him as its philosopher and foremost American
pioneer.[468] ... DeLeon's espousal of Industrial Unionism and
the I. W. W. and his development of an industrial philosophy
of action, constitute his crowning contribution to American
socialism.[469]
DeLeon's personal character and intellectual leanings were curiously
reflected in the party to which he so unselfishly gave the best years
of his life. The Socialist Labor party is doctrinaire, unyielding,
Jesuitical as was its leader. It has always seemed to be suspended
after a fashion in an atmosphere charged with a kind of a pedantic
essence of the Marxian dialectic. It is so impressed with the
importance of its own "mutterings in the Marxian law," that when, for
example, one of Fellow Worker Walsh's "blanket stiffs" asks what the
western lumberjack is to do when he is "fleeced" for a three-day job,
the party, metaphorically speaking, simply loses its temper and rails
at him and all the rest of the "Overalls Brigade." The Socialist Labor
party has been pretty accurately summed up by Fraina:
The S. L. P. ignored the psychology of struggling workers [he
says]. Its propaganda was couched in abstract formulas; just as
its sectarian spirit developed a sort of subconscious idea that
revolutionary activity consisted in enunciating formulas. This
sectarian spirit produced dogmas, intemperate assertions, and a
general tendency toward caricature ideas and caricature action;
and discouraged men of ability from joining the S. L. P.[470]
Since the first edition of this book was published some references
to DeLeon have appeared in the dispatches from Russia. Robert Minor,
in an interview with Nikolai Lenin, quotes him as declaring that
"the American Daniel DeLeon, first formulated the idea of a soviet
government, which grew up in Russia on his, DeLeon's idea." In the
same interview Lenin is further quoted as saying: "Future society will
be organized along soviet lines. There will be soviet [occupational]
rather than geographical boundaries for nations. Industrial unionism is
the basic state...."[471]
Additional light on the relation between Bolshevism and I.W.W-ism as
conceived by Lenin appears from the following account given by Arthur
Ransome:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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