The Red Conspiracy Part 18

"Of course, the I. W. W. wants unity. But we will have no unity with any who are not willing to accept the proletarian conception of Socialism. We will have no unity with any who do not belong to our cla.s.s. And we will have no unity with any who flinch at the 'radicalism' of our program....

"The I. W. W. is not anti-political. Its members are free to be members of the Socialist Party and thousands of us, the writer included, do carry Socialist cards....

"The social revolution is not a thing of theories. It is merely the final act of working-cla.s.s organization. It is the historic mission of the working cla.s.s to mount to supreme power. They do this, not by debating nor by marching in the street; they do this by the slow process of organization. In their union halls, the workers learn cla.s.s consciousness. In their union halls, the workers learn self-government. In their union halls, the workers are disciplined and solidified for the 'final conflict.' Every strike is a revolution in miniature. Every gain which organized workers make, by a conscious act of their own, weakens capitalism and is revolutionary. In short, the union movement is the schoolhouse of the new society....

"Mr. Ferguson is not correct in a.s.serting that the I. W. W. does not have 'the sole aim of revolution.' In our Preamble, he will find the boldest revolutionary utterance which has ever been penned.... Even were we silent in revolutionary words, our very form of organization and mode of action stamp us as revolutionists.

We are organized against capital. We are an army that is ever battling....

"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 a.s.sault, 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 sh.e.l.l of the old.' The fundamental difference between the two is that the syndicalist naively strives to build the new society while the capitalist cla.s.s 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 cla.s.s, join hands with the Left Wing....

"The I. W. W. represents the revolutionary section of the working cla.s.s in opposition to the opportunism of Gompers et al. Therefore we must, in order to make working cla.s.s organizations revolutionary, join hands with the I. W. W.

"The resolutions and the manifestoes of the Left Wing are revolutionary expressions. But action counts for more than words.

If all Left Wingers are sincere they will join in the I. W. W. and endeavor to make the I. W. W. the dominant working-cla.s.s organization throughout the country. The times demand that we must make ready to enforce our demands. No pious resolutions will bring us freedom. Only POWER through organization on the job will bring us freedom. True it is that we have to resort to ma.s.s action. But the basis of our ma.s.s action must be organization on the job. The I. W. W. represents the highest form of industrial organization and therefore merits our support. So we trust that ALL Left Wingers will join with the I. W. W. This is not the time to indulge in hair-splitting. If you are enraptured by what has taken place in Russia, do your share here in America."

This appeared in May, 1919. Six months later we open the December, 1919, "One Big Union Monthly" and read:

"We need hardly repeat the now well known facts that the workers of western Canada and of Australia have in ma.s.s adopted our principles in the course of this year. Close upon these significant events came the news that the three fragments into which the Socialist Party was split endorsed industrial unionism, while two of them rather outspokenly favored the I. W. W.

"Later we were able to state that the increase in our own membership in the course of the 12 months, September 1, 1918, to September 1, 1919, was about 50,000. Now we are able to inform our readers that the growth of the last three months has been unprecedented. Lumber workers, miners, construction workers, marine transport workers and many other unions report many thousands of new members. We are getting a footing in fields that we have never been able to touch before, such as the printing industry and building construction. Carpenters and painters are joining us by the thousand. On November 9th delegates of eight independent unions in different industries, representing something like 250,000 workers, met in New York City and took the first steps for an affiliation with the I. W. W.--in spite of jails and persecution.

And let us not forget that the Negro workers of the U. S. are organizing on the basis of our program.

"But the influence of our principles is not limited to the English-speaking people in America and Australia. Other races and countries are enthusiastically taking up our program and proudly announcing that they are with the I. W. W. Thus in Mexico our movement has taken form and been laid out on a national basis. In South America, where the labor movement always has been in sympathy with us, the workers are going one step further and have started organizing as an I. W. W. In Buenos Ayres there is already an organization of 2,800 marine transport workers in such an organization.

"Furthermore it is to be noted that practically all the old trade unions on this continent prove to be honey-combed with friends of the I. W. W.

"Over in Europe it is the same story. The rebuilding of production and distribution in Russia is said to be largely based on our principles. At last report there were about 3,500,000 industrial workers organized in industrial unions for the carrying on of production and distribution. The Russian people are taking possession of the industries through their industrial unions.

"In Italy 'The Italian Syndicalist Union,' 300,000 strong, is forging ahead along the same lines as the I. W. W. In Spain our adherents are to be numbered by the hundreds of thousands. In France the proposition has recently been made in the organ of the Communist Party, 'L'Internationale Communiste,' to start reorganizing the French working cla.s.s on our program, in opposition to the C. G. T. [Confederation Generale du Travail, or French Confederation of Labor]. In England there is a separate organization of the I. W. W. that is advancing rapidly, while the influence on the old trade unions is very noticeable in their changed att.i.tude of late toward 'direct action.' ...

"But the biggest surprise of the year we received from Germany. At least two separate calls have been issued by the German workers to organize exactly as the I. W. W. The recently formed 'Freie Arbeiter Union' is also a federation of industrial unions that endorse our principles. And, finally, from distant, unknown Greece we are receiving news that the One Big Union is the aim of all the organized workers of that country."

Several very important facts have been proven in this and the preceding chapter: first, that the Industrial Workers of the World is a revolutionary organization in the strictest sense and has for its object the overthrow of the United States Government; secondly, that, like the Socialist Party, it is constantly seeking to stir up trouble whenever it can do so; thirdly, that it respects neither morality nor the law and appeals to the basest pa.s.sions in man; and, finally, that all sections of the Socialist Party are on the strictest terms of friendship with it and are giving it full support.

CHAPTER X

BOLSHEVIST RULE IN RUSSIA

Shortly after the Lenine-Trotzky government came into power in Russia, in the latter part of the year 1917, Bolshevism became very popular in America among the radicals, especially the Socialists. Among those who helped most to bring it into such high esteem was Albert Rhys Williams, who had spent but one year of his life in Russia, hardly spoke the Russian language, and while staying in that country was in the pay of the Bolsheviki, as he testified before the Senate Committee.

The Bolsheviki came into power by violence and have sustained themselves in power by violence and terrorism. Their main support, the so-called Red Army, in which the Chinese and Letts have played a prominent part, is an army of mercenaries who are well paid and well fed, while thousands of civilians are dying from starvation in the cities and towns of Russia.

The first success of the Bolsheviki was the dissolution by bayonets of the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, which for forty years had been the goal of all Russians--even of the Bolsheviki up to the time when they found it overwhelmingly against them. Then they invented a new double name for their anti-democratic government: Soviets, or dictatorship of the proletariat. Next they dissolved all the democratic Munic.i.p.al Councils and Zemstvos and proceeded to take away the various liberties won in the revolution against the regime of the Czar.

The dictatorship of the proletariat led rapidly to an almost complete stoppage of industry. Governmental expenditures increased by leaps and bounds with the growing pauperization of the people; for the growing staffs of Bolshevist officials were utterly incompetent, a large army of mercenaries was required in order to keep down the ever-increasing number of insurrections and the ceaseless attacks from many foreign foes, enormous subsidies had to be paid to Bolshevist workingmen, regardless of the fact that the factories were producing sometimes little and sometimes nothing, and, finally, the Lenine government spent great sums in revolutionary propaganda in the different countries of the world. Political and economic slavery, moral corruption and the starvation of millions of people, are a few of the "blessings" bestowed upon Russia by Bolshevism.

Catherine Breshkovsky, the "Grandmother of the Russian Revolution,"

herself a Socialist, speaking of the Bolsheviki, said:

"In addition to the crimes in their foreign policy, which culminated in the treacherous Brest-Litovsk 'peace' with German militarists, the Bolsheviki have committed innumerable crimes in their internal policy. They have destroyed all civil liberties in Russia: freedom of speech, of the press, of a.s.semblage and of organization; they have filled prisons through the country with their political adversaries, proclaiming 'enemies of the people'

not only the Liberals, the Const.i.tutional-Democratic Party, but also the party of the Socialists-Revolutionists and the Social-Democrats Mensheviki, that is, the parties of the Russian peasantry and proletariat. They have inst.i.tuted a system of terror unequaled in cruelty, and while hundreds of innocent hostages would pay with their lives for the a.s.sa.s.sination or for the attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate a Bolshevist commissaire, they did not punish the Red Guards who a.s.sa.s.sinated the two Ministers of the Provisional Government, Kokoshkin and Shingariev, while the latter were under Bolshevist arrest, lying sick in a hospital."

The January, 1919, issue of "The Eye Opener," the official organ of the National Office, Socialist Party, publishes the full text of the Russian Bolshevist Const.i.tution under the caption, "Here's Const.i.tution of World's First Socialist Republic." Some quotations from the doc.u.ment will no doubt prove interesting as well as instructive:

"For the purpose of realizing the socialization of land, all private property in land is abolished, and the entire land is declared to be national property and is to be apportioned among husbandmen without any compensation to the former owners, in the measure of each one's ability to till it.

"All forests, treasures of the earth, and waters of general public utility, all implements whether animate or inanimate, model farms and agricultural enterprises are declared to be national property.

"As a first step toward complete transfer of ownership to the Soviet Republic of all factories, mills, mines, railways and other means of production or transportation, the Soviet law, for the control by workmen and the establishment of the Supreme Soviet of National Economy is hereby confirmed, so as to a.s.sure the power of the workers over their exploiters....

"Universal obligation to work is introduced for the purpose of eliminating the parasitic strata of society and organizing the economic life of the country.

"For the purpose of securing the working cla.s.s in the possession of the complete power, and in order to eliminate all possibility of restoring the power of the exploiters, it is decreed that all toilers be armed, and that a Socialist Red Army be organized and the propertied cla.s.s be disarmed....

"The Russian Republic is a free Socialist society of all the working people of Russia. The entire power, within the boundaries of the Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic, belongs to all the working people of Russia, united in urban and rural Soviets....

"The Russian Socialist Federated Soviet Republic considers work the duty of every citizen of the Republic, and proclaims as its motto: 'He shall not eat who does not work.'

"The following persons enjoy neither the right to vote nor the right to be voted for, even though they belong to one of the categories enumerated above, namely:

"Persons who employ hired labor in order to obtain from it an increase in profits.

"Persons who have an income without doing any work, such as interest from capital, receipts from property, etc.

"Private merchants, trade and commercial brokers.

"Monks and clergy of all denominations."

This Bolshevist Const.i.tution shows that the Lenine government has decreed the socialization of all the land, factories, mills, mines and other means of production, as well as the railways and the various means of transportation. This program has been carried out, though as yet probably not completely. Conditions in Russia were deplorable under the regime of the Czar, but the Socialist government has made them a thousand times worse. Industry has been reduced to an almost negligible minimum, property has been destroyed on every side and possession made a crime. The country has been reduced to chaos, for no one cares to sow where others will reap; and unemployment is widespread, for employers are outlawed, and the government has not enough satisfactory positions to offer. The right to hold property is one of the binding forces that holds civilization together and supplies incentive to labor. Some of the evil effects of the confiscation and socialization of property in Russia are shown from the following articles, published by the Socialists-Revolutionists, a faction of the Marxians opposed to the Bolsheviki. Their paper, "Vlast Naroda," declares:

"The village has taken away the land from the landlords, farmers, wealthy peasants and monasteries. It cannot, however, divide it peacefully, as was to be expected.