(BY FRANK STONEMAN).
(1) THE CHALLENGE TO THE CONSTITUTIONALISTS.
In 1910 the British Socialist leaders were perturbed by a new strange thing called Syndicalism. The placid waters of Trade Unionism and Parliamentary Socialism began to be troubled. A monthly publication, "The Industrial Syndicalist," conducted by Mr. Tom Mann, sounded the old call familiar to every progressive movement, "To your Tent, O Israel." The Transport Workers' Federation was formed on the principles of Industrial Unionism. The Welsh and Scottish miners became mutinous, talked of sabotage, and displayed signs of preparing to "bolt." The old and trusted leaders of the Labor Party, Ramsay Macdonald and Philip Snowden, looked round with an expression of hurt and surprise, wrote books to demonstrate that the thing was naught, and showed by their concern that it was really a matter of some moment. The constitutional methods of the Parliamentary Labor Party and the time-honored tactics of Trade Unionism were alike challenged by the new Industrial Syndicalism, which aimed at "the capture of the Industrial System, and its management by the workers themselves for the benefit of the whole community." Whence came this trouble of the Socialist camp.
(2) TOM MANN
Mr Tom Mann had just returned from the "storm centre of Australian Industrialism"—Broken Hill, and the energy he infused into the English movement had been largely generated in his battles with the silver lords. But the ideas which began to permeate the left wing of Labor in 1910 came chiefly from America and France.
(3) THE I.W.W.
The I.W.W. was the outcome of the peculiar political and economic conditions of the United States. The selfish policy of the American Federation of Labor, organised on a craft basis, seeking special privileges for skilled labor, and making no attempt to raise the status of working men generally; the power wielded by concentrated Capital over corrupt legislatures; and the successful breaking of strikes by the use of blacklegs and "Pinkertons" (bands of private-controlled mercenaries); all these had combined to produce the revolutionary organisation known as the I.W.W. It avowed that the State was the instrument of the Master-class, that Democracy was a sham, and that the road to emancipation lay along the lines of the class war. It took its tone from the Trust Magnate, who told a Congressional committee that he did not "care a fig for their ethics." Its outlook was almost a precise counterpart of the real politics of the German junkers. The world could not be saved by "softness." Instead let us have hardness of head and hardness of heart, bitter reprisals for bitter repression, war in the workshop and war in the street, in short the overcoming of force by force.
"Might was Right when Gracchus bled upon the Stones of Rome.
Might was Right when Christ was hanged beside the Jordan's foam,"
chanted the Industrialist. Whether we agree with his doctrines or shudder at them we must concede that they were the outcome of grinding industrial tyranny and that he sought not to initiate a new era of oppression but to end an old one. He was acting in the spirit of John Brown, who held that blood could only be wiped out by blood, and who strove to emancipate the slave of the old South by means of a slave revolt I.W.W. propaganda got no hold on the British workers until the Parliamentary Party began to show signs of sinking into impotence and the method of collective bargaining by Trade Unions failed to keep wages abreast of the cost of living. The British workers would have no truck with Sabotage and Direct Action while they could look forward to "a Revolution by due process of law." But in 1910 the hope of ever converting the "damned compact majority" died in many hearts; Socialism, made respectable, seemed to be Socialism emasculated; they were tired of leaders who could achieve nothing; and the militant section among the rank and file decided to wage pitiless, unrelenting war after the fashion of the Industrial Workers of the World.
(4) FRENCH SYNDICALISM.
While the tactics of British and Australian Syndicalism are mainly derived from America, it is to France that we must look for the ideas. The word Syndicalism is derived from Syndicat, which means an association, and has become the ordinary appellation for Syndicat Ouvrier (Trade Union). Until 1902, the Trade Union movement in France was faction-rent like its comrade Parliamentary movement. In that year the Federation des Bourses du Travail (Federation of Labor Exhanges) which under the leadership of Pelloutier had become the backbone of Unionism, coalesced with the Confederation Generale du Travail (General Confederation of Labor), a sort of standing Trade Union Congress organised for industrial strife. Since then the C.G.T. has dominated French Labor. and the militant left wing has dominated the C.G.T. Thus Syndicalism has come to mean not merely Trade Unionism but Trade Unionism organised for Revolution. If we would know what message Syndicalism has for the Labor movement generally, we must turn to its theorists (though they would scorn the title) Lagardelle and Sorel and other refined and cultured dreamers. Werner Sombart thus described them: "They are good-natured, gentlemanly, cultured people; people with spotless linen, good manners, and fashionably dressed wives; people with whom one holds social intercourse as with one's equals; people who would at first sight hardly be taken as the representatives of a new movement whose object it is to prevent Socialism from becoming a middle-class belief." (Sombart's "Socialism, and the Socialism Movement," p. 99.) They have produced a fine crop of ideas which may help to revitalise the Labor movement. Syndicalists are too anarchic in their thought and their methods to gain the whole world, but they have saved their souls. They may help to save the soul of Labor.
(5) SYNDICALIST IDEAS.
The theory of Syndicalism is to have no theory. Its central idea is that ideas are all but valueless. It is as anarchic as the seeming chaos out of which Energy fashioned the Universe. But like that chaos it ferments with creative power. The apostles of Syndicalism start from the assumption, for which the philosophy of Bergson and the psychology of Ribot give them warrant, that action is determined not by conscious thought but by the unconscious striving of human nature. The intellect is but a mechanism evolved by the process of adaptation to environment, in order that man may accomplish what his ineradicable instincts desire. Given the environment which fosters the "good life" a man will live nobly. By the unalterably law of his being he must strive to secure those conditions. Therefore, the workers must be bound neither by the theories they have constructed for their own emancipation, nor by the moral ideas which Bourgeois ideologists foist on them. Their historic mission is to destroy exploitation and to create a Communist Society and no theories or moral scruples are to be allowed to hinder them in the performance of their work. This single idea, apparently, the Syndicalists adhere to. But no other idea must be allowed to baulk the free activity upon which its realisation depends. Let the workers act freely in whatever way appears to them at the moment to be right. The Great Babel will fall and the kingdom of the righteous exist on earth. This insistence on action rather than thought and on spontaneity rather than discipline springs from and tends to perpetuate the local autonomy of the Bourses. The C.G.T. is an advisory body, and the initiative in all industrial struggles is taken by the several districts. This also is in accordance with the belief that conscious thought is the servant of man's needs not the regulator of his life. If the eternal energy demands a certain line of conduct then let each man make his poor little mind obey its bidding. No Syndicalist would state the matter precisely in that way, yet such seems to be the tenor of their arguments. Syndicalism is nearer to philosophic anarchism than to collectivism. Certain ultimate aims and certain lines of policy seem to meet with the general approval of Syndicalists despite their anti-intellectualism.
(6) ULTIMATE AIMS.
They aim at the complete destruction of the State and the substitution therefore of a purely economic organisation of producers. To them authority does not exist to enable "good men to live among bad," but "to enable rich men to live among poor." When exploitation has ceased there is no need for coercive authority. Parliaments, Courts of Justice, prisons and policemen will go the way of the Inquisition, the axe, and the gibbet. Associations of workmen will control mines, factories and workshops. These associations will be none other than the existing Trade Unions transformed into Producers' Syndicates. In effect, then, their ultimate aim is to replace the present governmental bodies, elected on a geographical basis and representing the whole body of consumers, by a new set of governmental bodies, elected on an occupational basis and representing the whole body of producers.
(7) METHODS.
The method by which this is to be attained is "Direct Action." They assert that political action has not only been a failure but is forever doomed to be a failure because Parliaments are Bourgeois institutions which respond always to the economic pressure of the financiers. The argument is inconclusive, but syndicalists support it by the argument "ad hominem." Millerand and Briand were Socialists until they began to administer the affairs of the Bourgeois State. Then they became first opportunists and finally reactionaries. The really sound argument in favor of industrial as opposed to political action is that working men understand the mechanism of the Trade Unionism, whereas they are inferior to the lawyer in the art of manipulating the legislative machine. Many a good Union official has been spoiled to make a poor deputy. Therefore there is a grain of sound sense in the theory that the Proletariats should leave the machinery of government alone and concentrate all their efforts on building up a new economic and social structure to replace the old. The direct pressure by which the Unions are to shatter the dominance of capital may express itself in a strike, in sabotage or in a boycott, but all these are theoretically ubordinate to a plan of campaign which is to culminate in a general strike (greve generale). When that day of wrath arrives all the wheels of industry are to stand still. The great heart of France, Paris, will be threatened with starvation, the bourgeoisie will capitulate, and industry will resume under the direction of the Syndicats. Sabotage is the most distinctly syndicalist method of warfare. It is derived' from the French word "sabot." One explanation that when the factory system was supplanting the domestic system of industry, early in the last century, the workers used their wooden shoes to break windows and put machinery out of gear. Another is that a man shod with sabots is likely to tread slowly. The word therefore would seem to cover the policy the policy of violence and "go slow." Generally it means any method of working which will reduce the employer's profits. Thus the refusal to use bad material at the command of a jerry-builder is sabotage no less than the refusal to speed up. Further detailed description of Syndicalist methods is unnecessary. All ore the outcome of the belief that the class war is the ultimate fact in present day human relationships and that the exploited class should have regard to no principle or code that would hinder their free activity.
(8.) THE VALUE OF THE SYNDICALIST PROTEST.
As a constructive scheme for the regeneration of society, Syndicalism is defective. As a protest against certain tendencies in the Socialist movement, it has considerable value. It has placed a premium, on idealism, and has registered a healthy protest against time-serving and opportunism. It has emphasised the necessity for using the Industrial wing of the Socialist army as a fighting force, instead of regarding it is an appanage of the political party. It is an irritant which has roused the somnolent collectivist from his "masterly inactivity." And finally by stressing the truth that the value of a movement depends more on its incessant action than on the soundness of its theories, it has vitalised the forces of labor. Nevertheless, it fails as a programme of action. The substitution of industrial for political action would mean abandoning every weapon save passive resistance and force. It would mean surrendering to the Capitalist complete control of Army and Police, Customs. Finance, and Public Opinion. No one can doubt that a Government of class-conscious business men would, in desperation, use all these influences to destroy organised Labor. What would it profit the Trade Unions if they seized mines and factories, and left the command of the Customs and the Military with their opponents? How would the industrial movement fare if a rigorous press-censorship were established and unlicensed public meetings forbidden? And how is industry under a Communist Government to be conducted at all, if a sound system of communal credit has not been built up by political action? The very existence of Trade Unions, which make industrial action possible, depends on laws permitting free association and free speech. These laws can only be preserved in their integrity by the unremitting activity of parties which are not dependent on capitalist support. And the worker can never be sure that there is a party independent on the Money Power unless he maintains an independent Labor Party. The proposal to hand over all industry to groups of producers is equally inadequate. It is true we are all consumers and producers. But our interest as producer is opposed to our interest as consumer. It is the interest of a group of miners to get high prices (or more purchasing power) for metals. It is also their interest to get food cheap. The farmer's interest, on the other hand, is to get high prices for food while he buys his ploughs cheaply. Some single central representative body must therefore represent the whole community to provide machinery for reconciling conflicting claims. The Syndicalist policy is this respect is a reversion to the old theory of "Laissez-Faire." Instead of leaving individuals to settle supply and demand among themselves they propose to leave that task to corporate persons—to groups of producers. Moreover there are communal needs which are not economic. Education concerns the child and his parents more than it concerns the teacher. Could we leave it entirely in the hands of a Teachers' Union? Finally Syndicalism stands condemned for its neglect of the principle of organic growth. Metaphysical conceptions of the State and organic conceptions of society have given an exaggerated idea of the importance of the nation. Nevertheless there is value in the conception of the community as an entity which includes our fathers who begot us ourselves, and the unborn generation who will continue the glorious adventure of mankind on the earth. It Is well that national jealousies should cease and that individuals should not be sacrificed, on the altar of the Moloch of Nationalism. But it is not desirable that Frenchmen should forget their kinship with fellow French men nor that Australians should forget that they form a Commonwealth. Some body representative of the whole community must be retained even if we hand industry over to syndicates of producers. What better representative body could be found than those ready to our hands? Socialists of all shades agree with Syndicalists that the whole purpose of Democratic Government is defeated by the existence of an exploiting class. But when industry is conducted by little Commonwealths of workers will not the Great Commonwealth to which we all belong find its true purpose and fulfilment?
Truth (Perth, WA), 4 June 1921,http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article210048654
No comments:
Post a Comment