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Some Syndicalist Ethics.— The Syndicalist is characterized by the harmony that exists between his theories and his tactics. He realizes that the capitalist class is his mortal enemy, that it must be overthrown, the wages system abolished and the new society he has outlined established, if he is to live; and he is proceeding to the accomplishment of these tasks with unparalleled directness. He allows nothing to swerve him from his course and lead him in an indirection.
The Syndicalist knows that capitalism is organized robbery and he consistently considers and treats capitalists as thieves plying in their trade. He knows they have no more “right” to the wealth they have amassed than a burglar has to his loot, and the idea of expropriating them without remuneration seems as natural to him as for the footpad’s victim to take back his stolen property without paying the footpad for it. From long experience he has learned that the so-called legal and inalienable “rights” of man are but pretenses with which to deceive workingmen; that in reality “rights” are only enjoyed by those capable of enforcing them. He knows that in modern society, as in all ages, might is right, and that the capitalists hold the industries they have stolen and daily perpetrate the robbery of the wages system simply because they have the economic power to do so. He has fathomed the current systems of ethics and morals, and knows them to be just so many auxiliaries to the capitalist class. Consequently, he has cast them aside and has placed his relations with the capitalists upon a basis of naked power.
In his choice of weapons to fight his capitalist enemies, the Syndicalist is no more careful to select those that are “fair,” “just” or “civilized” than is a householder attacked in the night by a burglar. He knows he is engaged in a life and death struggle with an absolutely lawless and unscrupulous enemy, and considers his tactics only from the standpoint of their effectiveness. With him the end justifies the means. Whether his tactics be “legal” and “moral,” or not, does not concern him, so long as they are effective. He knows that the laws, as well as the current code of morals, are made by his mortal enemies, and considers himself about as much bound by them as a householder would himself by regulations regarding burglary adopted by an association of housebreakers. Consequently, he ignores them insofar as he is able and it suits his purposes. He proposes to develop, regardless of capitalist conceptions of “legality,” “fairness,” “right,” etc., a greater power than his capitalist enemies have; and then to wrest from them by force the industries they have stolen from him by force and duplicity, and to put an end forever to the wages system. He proposes to bring about the revolution by the general strike.
The General Strike Theory.— By the term “general strike,” used in a revolutionary sense, is meant the period of more or less general cessation of labor by the workers, during which period, the workers, by disorganizing the mechanism of capitalist society, will expose its weakness and their own strength; whereupon, perceiving themselves possessed of the power to do so, they will seize control of the social means of production and proceed to operate them in their own interest, instead of in the interest of a handful of parasites, as heretofore. The general strike is the first stage of the revolution proper.
There is nothing strained or abnormal in the general strike theory, neither in the supposition that the workers can so disorganize capitalist society as to be able to seize the industries, nor in the supposition that they will do so once they realize they have the power. Both conclusions flow naturally from the everyday experiences of the workers.
The power of the workers to disorganize and paralyze the delicately adjusted capitalist society and the inability of the capitalists to cope with this power are shown by every large strike conducted by modern methods. This has been even more clearly demonstrated than usual by the recent great strikes in England. The two-day strike of the railroaders paralyzed England and the frantic capitalist class hastily brought it to a close. The recent strike of the coal miners was even more effective — the capitalists frankly acknowledging that England faced the most desperate situation in its whole career. If the English capitalist class was in such desperate straits during these strikes of single categories of servative workers, what condition would it be in before a strike of a revolutionary working class? It would be helpless and would have to accept any conditions the worker saw fit to impose upon it.
The everyday tactics of the workers strongly indicate the truth of the conclusion that they will expropriate the capitalists as soon as they learn they have the power to do so. In their daily strikes they pit their strength against that of their employers and wring from them whatever concessions they can. They don’t remain long content with these concessions, and as soon as they are able they proceed to win more. They are insatiable, and, when the general strike proves their ability to do so, they will have no scruples against expropriating the capitalists. This expropriation will seem the more natural to them then, as they will be fortified by the syndicalist conception that the capitalists are thieves and have no “right” to their property.
The partial strike of today, in which a comparatively few workers disorganize an industry and force concessions from their employers, is but a miniature of the general strike of the future, in which the whole working class will disorganize all the industries and force the whole capitalist class to give up its ownership of them.
The General Strike and the Armed Forces.— Once the general strike is an active operation, the greatest obstacle to its success will be the armed forces of capitalism — soldiers, police, detectives etc. This formidable force will be used energetically by the capitalists to break the general strike. The Syndicalists have given much study to the problem presented by this force and have found the solution for it. Their proposed tactics are very different from those used by rebels in former revolutions. They are not going to mass themselves and allow themselves to be slaughtered by capitalism’s trained murderers in the orthodox way. Theirs is a safer, more effective and more modern method. They are going to defeat the armed forces by disorganizing and demoralizing them.
A fruitful source of this disorganization will be the extreme difficulty the armed forces will experience in securing supplies and transportation. Modern armies, to be effective, must have immense arsenals, powder works and other industrial establishments behind them to furnish them their supplies of ammunition, arms, food and clothing. They also must have the railroads constantly at their disposal for transportation. When the general strike has hailed these industries the army will be stricken with paralysis. Another source of disorganization will be the division of the armed forces into minute detachments to guard the many beleaguered gates of capitalism. The strikers, or revolutionists, will be everywhere, and will everywhere seize or disable whatever capitalist property they can lay their hands on. To protect this property the armed forces will have to be divided into a myriad of guards and scattered along the thousands of miles of railroads and around the many public buildings, bridges, factories, etc. The wealthy capitalists themselves will also need generous guards. The most important industries, such as transportation, mining, etc., will have to be operated in some manner. To do this will require many thousands more of soldiers and police.
The result will be that the armed forces will be minutely subdivided, and through the loss of the solidarity and discipline, from whence they derive their strength, they will cease to be a fighting organization. They will degenerate into a mass of armed individuals scattered far and wide over the country.[6] These individuals can be easily overwhelmed and disarmed, or what is more likely, as they will be mostly workingmen and in sympathy with the general strike, induced to join the ranks of their striking fellow workers. Once the disorganization of the armed forces is complete the revolutionists will seize the unprotected industries and proceed to reorganize society.
Syndicalists in every country are already actively preparing this disorganization of the armed forces by carrying on a double educational campaign amongst the workers. On the one hand, they are destroying their illusions about the sacredness of capitalist property and encouraging them to seize this property wherever they have the opportunity. On the other, they are teaching working class soldiers not to shoot their brothers and sisters who are in revolt, but, if need be, to shoot their own officers and to desert the army when the crucial moment arrives. This double propaganda of contempt for capitalist property “rights,” and anti-militarism, are inseparable from the propagation of the general strike.[7]
Preliminary Organization.— A favorite objection of the opponents of the general strike theory (mostly Socialists) is that the success of the general strike implies such a degree of preliminary organisation and discipline on the part of the workers that, were they possessed of it, they wouldn’t need to strike in order to enforce their demands.
Preliminary organization unquestionably aids very materially to the success of strikes, but all great strikes — which differ only in degree from the general strike — prove to us that this preliminary organization by no means has to be as thorough as the objectors insist. They show us that vast masses of unorganized workers can be readily provoked into revolt by the contagious example of a few, and, also, that these workers, once on strike, are in a few days easily and effectively organized — though for years previous untold efforts have been expended to organize them. They prove that, to a very large extent, great strikes break out spontaneously and, also, that they spontaneously produce the organization so essential to their success. The Lawrence strike of textile workers is a typical instance of a successful strike without preliminary organization. The 24,000 strikers, of twenty nationalities, at the opening of the strike had hardly a fragment of organization; a couple of weeks later they were thoroughly organized.
In all probability, the general strike, at least in its incipient stages, will follow the course that any number of modern great strikes have taken. Only a small part of the workers will be organized; this organized fraction, under some strong stimulus, will provoke a great strike; vast masses of unorganized workers, seeing an opportunity to better their conditions and caught in the general contagion of revolt, will join the strike, organizing themselves meanwhile; the strike will spread; society will be paralyzed, and the revolutionary workers, perceiving their power, will proceed to put an end to capitalism.
The success of the general strike does not necessitate the voluntary striking of every worker. Modern industry is so delicately adjusted, and the division of labor so complete, that if the bulk of the workers in a few of the so-called strategic industries — transportation, coal mining, steel making, etc. — quit work, the rest of the workers would be forced to do likewise through lack of materials and markets for their products. No doubt, the workers forced to quit thus, who would be mostly unorganized, unskilled and the oppressed of the oppressed, would readily fall in with the program of the revolutionists once the general strike was well under way.
The objection that universal preliminary organization is necessary to the success of the general strike is a shallow one. It serves as a convenient excuse for designing politicians and labor leaders to keep labor unions from striking.
Starvation.— The general strike will not be broken by the workers being starved into submission, as is often objected. The general strike will be so devastating in its effects that it can last only a few days, during which period, if need be, the workers, accustomed as they are to starvation, and sustained by the enthusiasm of the revolution, could live on the most meager rations. To get these rations, the Syndicalists intend to confiscate, as far as possible, all provisions found in the cities. They will also encourage the numerous poor farmers, tenants and agricultural wage workers to cast their fortunes with them, to revolt against the State, their landlords and employers, and to seize the land they occupy. Until production is normally resumed, the Syndicalists will trade to these farmers the amassed wealth of the cities for their food stuffs. More than one revolution has been starved out by the farmers refusing to part with their products in exchange for worthless paper money. The Syndicalists have learned this lesson well and intend to give the farmers the substantial commodities they desire in exchange for their products. The army will be so busy protecting capitalist property, and so permeated with rebellion that it will be at once incapable and unwilling to prevent this method of provisioning the revolution.
Bloodshed.— Another favorite objection of ultra legal and peaceful Socialists is that the general strike would cause bloodshed.
This is probably true, as every great strike is accompanied by violence. Every forward pace humanity has taken has been gained at the cost of untold suffering and loss of life, and the accomplishment of the revolution will probably be no exception. But the prospect of bloodshed does not frighten the Syndicalist worker, as it does the parlor Socialist. He is too much accustomed to risking himself in the murderous industries and on the hellish battlefields in the niggardly service of his masters, to set much value on his life. He will gladly risk it once, if necessary, in his own behalf. He has no sentimental regards for what may happen to his enemies during the general strike. He leaves them to worry over that detail.
The Syndicalist knows that the general strike will be a success, and the timid fears of its opponents will never turn him from it, any more than will their arguments that it is an “illegal,” “unfair” and “uncivilized” weapon.
[6] This is no far-fetched theory. It is justified by every modern great strike. The big French railroad strike of 1910 is typical. Thousands of soldiers were used as strike breakers, and thousands more scattered along the railroads to guard them. Many more were used, in ones and twos, to guard the bridges, public buildings, etc., in Paris and other cities.
[7] The student is recommended to read Arnold Roller’s excellent 10-cent pamphlet, “The Social General Strike.” procurable from George Bauer, P. O. Box 1719, New York City.
Last updated on 20 March 2023