fuse and also refuse to enlist as soldiers, the unwieldy, creaking mechanism of the State grows silent.
The only trouble with the remedy is the "all-together." This has been the perplexity of the general strike: first, to get the ear of labor, and then—harder still—to get common and consenting action. For a third of a century what has been called by Mr. Ettor "the high tribunal of our comrades," "general strikes" have taken place. Especially in our American syndicalist literature, the European risings are given the glamor of "success" partly because they are so far away that almost any assertion may be made about them. For example, Mr. Haywood calls the French Commune of 1871 "the greatest general strike known in modern times." He says the proletariat would have won this "greatest general strike" if it had not been for France and Germany, which is like saying the South would have beaten in the Civil War if it had not been for the North. In the Province of Alicante, Spain, almost forty years ago, a branch of the "international" created a general strike with syndicalist intent, not of raising wages but expressly to "remake a society in which free men could live." This was rather ruthlessly put down by the troops, but Mr. Haywood says it "won" nevertheless.
The Swedish strike and the greater ones in Russia, he puts down among the "successes." In France, he watched the recent syndicalist strike on the railroads and thus describes it:[1] "This is the way it worked—and I tell it to you in hopes that you will spread the good news to your fellow-workers and apply it your-
- ↑ The General Strike, W. A. Haywood, p. 9.
