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
A sober explanation of the DeLeonites' position as compared with the
American Federation of Labor and the "Bummery" was made by Rudolph Katz
to the Commission on Industrial Relation. He said that the Chicago I.
W.W.s look upon the ballot as a gift from the capitalist class. The
Detroit I. W. W.s consider the ballot "a conquest of civilization,
and," continued Katz,
we are going to use it. Now a body that repudiates the ballot
naturally has to take something else, such as sabotage and
direct action. Now the American Federation of Labor does not
preach sabotage, but it practices it; and the Chicago I. W. W.
preaches sabotage but does not practice it.... The position
that we take [he concluded] is that if we have the majority,
and the capitalists [and] officials who count the ballots ...
refuse to count us in, well,--then there will be a scrap. But
we are going to test the peaceful method first.[496]
The DeLeonites cite the recent strike of the clothing workers in
Baltimore in support of their strictures on the Federation and the
Chicago I. W. W. They call it "a desperate attempt" by the "Bummery" I.
W. W. and the American Federation of Labor to crush out the Amalgamated
Clothing Workers. The strike was directed, they say, by leaders of
the United Garment Workers, the American Federation of Labor, and the
Chicago I. W. W.[497]
The struggle that is raging in Baltimore between the
Amalgamated Clothing Workers, on the one side, and the American
Federation of Labor and the Bummery I. W. W. on the other
side, is a struggle of clean _versus_ corrupt unionism.... In
this Baltimore affair we have revealed the kinship between the
Bummery I. W. W. and the American Federation of Labor. These
are both nothing more than parasites upon workingmen....[498]
The Detroiters and the Socialist Labor party fight the
anarcho-syndicalist faction of the I. W. W., according to the report of
the party to the International Socialist Congress at Brussels in 1911,
because the direct-actionists "advocate physical force exclusively; at
the same time it [the Socialist Labor party] gives all possible support
to the workers who, even under the otherwise baneful leadership of
anarchy, are trying to throw off the yoke of the capitalist masters and
the reactionary trade-union lieutenants of those masters."[499]
The doctrinaires consider the Chicago I. W. W.s anarchists and
themselves socialists--but socialists of a simon-pure Marxian stripe
as opposed to the opportunist socialism of the Socialist party. In
one of their propaganda leaflets they declare that "the only labor
organization in the United States today which is wholly dominated by
anarchists is the so-called Industrial Workers of the World, with
headquarters, in Chicago, Ill."[500] A propaganda leaflet already
quoted sums up in very characteristic fashion the theoretical position
of the DeLeonites:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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