Communism; Industrial Workers of the World; Socialism
"The real I. W. W. is not to be read in books of the intellectuals.
It does not flash in phrases. It is written in the hearts of strong
silent men. It can be read in the ineffable tales of anguish which
ring from the prisons of the land. It can be read in the tragic
sacrifices of the Littles, the Joe Hills, the Barans, the Looneys,
the Jonsons, the Rabinowitzes, the Gerlots, the Jack Whytes whom
destiny has claimed from among us. Its chapters have been penned,
not with words, but with the living dramas of Spokane and San
Diego, Lawrence and Paterson, McKee's Rocks, Everett and Mesaba
Range."
This is indeed the spirit of the most dangerous organization of devoted
fanatics in the world today, and if our present order of society hopes
to survive its steady, unrelenting assault, it must take into its hands
the weapons of truth and justice.
We have given these quotations to show clearly both the difference and
the bond of union between the I. W. W.'s and the other brands of
Socialists. A Left Winger sums it up concisely ("The Communist," August
23, 1919): "The syndicalist and the Socialist have this in common: That
they both strive for the reduction of the state to zero and the
'building of a new society within the shell of the old.' The fundamental
difference between the two is that the syndicalist naively strives to
build the new society while the capitalist class controls the coercive
power, and the Socialist aims to destroy that power first and then begin
the 'building' process."
But I. W. W.'ism is the more logical, and, in conditions like those in
the United States, much the more dangerous, because it is _revolution
going on_ every day of the year, holding what it gets, be it much or
little. Moreover, since I. W. W.'ism will not give up its position,
Socialism in America has adopted the industrial unionism creed. This now
is the backbone of all the recent Socialist platforms, including that of
the Socialist Party of America. Even with the Left Winger's buoyant
faith in a speedy overturn of the United States, he now sees that the
One Big Union is the necessary steam-roller to accomplish it, and for
months he has been at work, "boring from within," to get the forces of
American labor industrially organized for revolutionary action. In
short, there has been a general following of the advice which "Truth,"
Left Wing organ in the Northwest, gave in its issue of May 23, 1919, as
its answer to the above-quoted challenge of Varney to Ferguson:
"The Left Wing represents the revolutionary portion of the
Socialist Party in opposition to the opportunism of the Right Wing.
Therefore we must, in order to make the Socialist Party a
revolutionary expression of the working class, join hands with the
Left Wing....
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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