The Social General Strike/Chapter 1
The Social General Strike.
I.
THE GENERAL STRIKE AS A WEAPON IN THE
SOCIAL WAR.
1.—WHAT IS THE GENERAL STRIKE?
A new idea, a new weapon of the struggling proletariat, has pushed itself vehemently to the front, and stands to-day on the bulletin of all discussions in the Labour movement. This idea, which forces itself everywhere upon the international proletariat, is that of the "General Strike." Until of late the general belief in the success of Parliamentarism has been unshaken amongst the working men.
The events and the results of the political condition of late years, however, soon made it clear to the international proletariat that nothing could be gained in this way, and it was obliged to look around for a new fighting method. Even where Parliamentarian Socialism had developed most, and where with every election victory and numerical increase—in Germany—its powerlessness was manifested, we hear, even in the reactionary camps of the Social Democratic Party, voices calling for a new tactic.
The idea of the General Strike, which so far has largely been ridiculed, and its propagators treated with slander and insult, has to be recognised now, and is being discussed in all national and international Labour Congresses; and a member of the German Social Democratic Party, Dr. Friedeberg, propagated this idea openly in the party.
The attitude of Social Democracy towards this idea, if it is not directly hostile, is in general, however, still very ambiguous; and all resolutions passed in its party congresses in regard to it, if they have not been directly hostile towards it, after long debates about the definition of the word, called only for a political "Mass Strike" for the purpose of gaining certain single demands, but always refused to deal with the General Strike as a means and way to a social revolution.
The name "General Strike," of course, admits of misunderstandings, because it is applied to different general acts. It is often used to designate the strike of all branches in one trade; for instance, the General Strike of the miners, when helpers and hoisting engineers, etc., are all out. Then it is used as General Strike of a city, i.e., "General Strike in Florence," or a General Strike in a whole country or province, for the purpose of gaining political rights, i.e., the right to vote, as in Belgium, or in Sweden.
The profoundest conception of the General Strike, however, the one pointing to a thorough change of the present system, a social revolution of the world, an entire new reorganisation, a demolition of the entire old system of all governments—is the one existing amongst the proletarians of the Latin race (Spain and Italy). For them the General Strike is nothing less than an introduction to the social revolution. Therefore we call this General Strike, to distinguish it from General Strikes for higher wages, or for political privileges (political mass strikes), "The Social General Strike." This conception of the General Strike will be dealt with in this treatise.
The General Strike idea has been opposed by the German working man until now with the same idiotic phrases as the big-bellied bourgeois have used heretofore, by everlastingly re-chewing the tale of dividing all property, thus thinking to have made clear the nonsense of Socialism, and at the same time proving only their own ignorance. "The General Strike is general nonsense." With this phrase the Social Democrats thought they could kill the General Strike idea.
When a discussion about the General Strike was permitted, the following ideas were always maintained: "The General Strike is a Utopia. It will never be possible to so thoroughly organise the proletariat that all working men will go on strike like one man; and if it were so well educated, and imbued with solidarity, and so well organised as to be able to declare a General Strike, then it would not need any General Strike; then it is the power in the country; then it may do anything it sees fit."
The conduct and the result of the General Strike do not depend upon all workers laying down their tools. It would certainly be worth while to endeavour to educate all classes of working men so well that, on the day on which the General Strike began, the proletariat of all countries would leave its factories and mines like one man, and through the expression of its united will throw off the chains of slavery. This ideal of propaganda will, however, in spite of its beauty, always be a dream.
It was always the energetic and enthusiastic minority only that revolted against tyranny and oppression, thereby giving the initiative to the large, indolent masses, who were dissatisfied and complained of their fate, but did not have the courage to revolt. It is quite a distance between dissatisfaction and open rebellion. In every revolution it was the force of the energetic minority that aroused the courage of the timid masses.
The same is observed in a strike. Although the Labour Unions as a rule represent only a minority of the working men, they always cause, organise, and lead the strikes of the unorganised masses. Often in this way a small minority goes on strike, and during the strike the rest of the masses follow.
Often it happens that during the strike the related industries and branches join in, spreading the strike over ever-increasing territories and amongst ever-growing masses of labourers. The example of the strike is, in fact, suggestive and contagious to the masses.
It is, therefore, not of such great importance for the propagandists and followers of the General Strike theory (as the Spanish and French workers understand it) to get all the workers to lay down their tools at the same time, as it is to completely interrupt production in the whole country, and stop communication and consumption for the ruling class, and that for a time long enough to totally disorganise capitalistic society, so that after the complete annihilation of the old system, the working people, through its Labour Unions, can take possession of all the means of production, mines, houses, the land; in short, of all the economic factors.
2.—THE COURSE OF THE GENERAL STRIKE.
By considering the reports and observations made from General Strikes which have broken out heretofore, we can draw a picture of the course of a SOCIAL GENERAL STRIKE.
After the necessary time of propaganda, after the masses and organisations have been made familiar with the idea, as soon as the circumstances are favourable, all Labour Unions (which are certainly the best fitted for propagating this idea) declare the General Strike in their branches. The non-organised workers are soon carried along; the movement broadens and quickly spreads over the whole country, generalising itself, and becomes the General Strike of the proletariat. We saw this in Belgium in April, 1902, when 350,000 men laid down their tools upon the request of the Labour Unions.
Modern industry, with its extremely specialised labour division and complications, is but poorly adapted to oppose a General Strike caused by a minority, for the strike will completely wreck the whole system necessary for the management of production, and vital to the life of modern society.
The most necessary products are often made in such a manner that they not only go through twenty or thirty hands in the same factory, but often pass from one factory to another in order to be completed. The raw material for the manufacture of these articles often comes from distant places, and railroads, mails, and telegraphs are vital to production. Now, if it happens that one wheel of this enormous mechanism of society stops, the whole of this particular industry is laid idle.
If all the coal miners would go on strike, in a few days all coal yards would be empty, and all railroad transportation would be interrupted. All smelteries and foundries, all steam engines, all factories and electrical works would be forced to lie idle. The gas works, which would be without coal, would have to close down, and with them hundreds of gas motors, and those machines and machine tools operated by them. After sunset an entire city would be in darkness, because no electric light and no gas would be obtainable.
This great success could readily be gained in a few days, or a few weeks at the most, by a strike of the coal miners, who by experience are familiar with mass strikes, and certainly would have to be dealt with in the future struggle. The railroad employees are also an important factor in the Labour movement. They would certainly not wait to strike until all the coal was gone, but would join in at the beginning, if it were a matter of importance. In all plants work is interrupted through the strike of a minority, which forces the rest to lie idle, partly by its hostile attitude towards them, and partly by open threats to injure them.
As soon as the bakers and butchers quit working, the General Strike will be felt much more intensely, and it will probably be the first time that the ruling classes will understand and feel what it means to be hungry.
This is the beginning—the introduction. According to the opinion of the Latin comrades, as well as according to the experience gained in previous strikes, the General Strike will not have such a peaceful conclusion as the beginning indicated. We saw in Spain that the movement entered a period of conflict as soon as they put before the working class the question how to satisfy its hunger, and saw no other way to do so but to take food where it could be found, and of course that was in the warehouses where it was piled up.
The proletarians can stop production, but they cannot stop consumption. In this way they would during the transition do the same thing as the ruling classes have done uninterruptedly for thousands of years—that is, "consume without producing." This action of the ruling classes the working class calls "exploitation"; and if the proletarians do it, the possessing classes call it "plundering," and Socialists call it "expropriation."
Hunger forces even the most timid ones to take bread wherever it is. So it has been evident in all revolutions and rebellions that the women, who were politically the most reactionary, were now, as it was necessary to satisfy the hunger of their little ones, the most revolutionary and desperate in the plundering of bakeries and butchers shops.
The battle would become still more intense as soon as the workers tried to gain possession of the means of production. In this way the General Strike is not only the introduction of the revolution, but is the social revolution itself.
It is, however, not the revolution in the traditional form, such as the bourgeoisie of 1789 and 1848 fought for. The heroic times of the battle on the barricades have gone by. In place of the narrow, winding lanes in which a barricade could be erected quickly and defended easily, we now have in all large cities broad, long streets, in which the columns of an army can easily operate and take the barricades. Lastly, it is impossible to build barricades in a large city, because the material for them is not on hand. Wooden blocks and asphalt have taken the place of paving stones in the main streets, and such material is not fit for building barricades. Therefore it would be foolish for the people to begin a revolution, relying upon such insufficient means of defence.
Entirely different, however, is the condition in the General Strike. The immense advantage of the General Strike is that it begins entirely lawfully and without any danger for the workers, and for this reason thousands will take part who never would have thought of taking part in a revolution, but would have stayed at home beside the stove, and by that would have weakened the revolution, or even made it impossible.
Those who stay at home to-day for reasons of cowardice, or for fear of the deeds of the strikers, or partly for fear of being involved in the revolts on the streets in any way, support in the best manner the General Strike by their doing so.
Other masses of the working people, who never paid any attention to this matter, who never have been aroused by the ballot, and who would never have followed the call of the revolution, because their life never was anything else but a uniform vegetating between obtuse slumber and enervating labour, are now at once put on the street, facing the question "for or against," and they would instinctively feel themselves forced to take part in the movement.
It is an undisputed fact that a brave deed, be it one of a single individual or of an energetic, enthusiastic minority, arouses thousands from their slumber, and with one thrilling shock makes them desperate fighters for the good cause, while tens of years of theoretic agitation could not tear them away from their apathetic condition.
During the General Strikes in Barcelona in February, and in Belgium in April, 1903, furthermore in Bilbao in October, 1903, which were in reality only tests of strength and skirmishes of the real great General Strike of the future—like those 300 former revolts preceding the great French Revolution—there were various collisions between the people and the armed powers. But the picture of these struggles was entirely different from that of all earlier known revolts of the proletarians in the cities.
In spite of the gravity of the situation, the collisions were proportionately insignificant, because the working men did not endeavour so much to apply the useless and dangerous mode of fighting in vogue heretofore, to attack the soldiers themselves and the well-defended buildings, but applied their whole energy to stopping all production and communication, which the ruling classes, on the other hand, were determined to maintain by all possible means.
They applied the most unscrupulous measures: threatening, and hiring strike-breakers; and as all that was in vain, they put the soldiers in the workshops, mines, bakeries, etc. The working people now found themselves forced to give up their waiting position, and apply more energetically their strenuous will to prevent absolutely all production and communication.
Therefore, the first thought of the Belgian working men in the year 1893 was to cut off all means of communication and transportation, to prevent the passing of information between military and police authorities, as well as their concentration, and the supply of the troops with provisions. In this way it often happened that during the night telephone and telegraph wires were cut in all parts. It often happened that in desolate places the rails were torn away, and the switching apparatus demolished or set so that accidents would happen. The glass in switch lights was demolished, so that the conductors were unable to get their signals. In this manner communication was often made impossible for whole days.
During the street car strike in Nuremberg, 1902, the strikers drove pieces of iron into the frogs of the rails, and in this way obstructed the line.
In Barcelona and Belgium a few sympathisers of the General Strike forced all workers in factories to give up work by injuring the machinery, secretly throwing emery into the oil boxes of the machines, or by loosening or tightening a screw, thus causing the largest machinery to get out of order, or even to break. In machine shops pieces of iron were thrown in the cog-wheels, which were thus broken.
During the miners' General Strike in the United States, and in October, 1903, in Bilbao in Spain, the working men destroyed the beam supports in the mines, which practically closed them.
The Spanish and American miners accomplished much by the application of fire and dynamite, the latter of which they could easily get, as they used it in their daily work. During the General Strike in Holland it often happened that the strikers sunk a ship crosswise in the river, before a bridge, and stopped all traffic by water.
The strike of the dock workers, who refused to unload the vessels, caused in this way great famines in articles bought in foreign countries. The recent reports from Barcelona show us how the bourgeois increased the number of strikers by closing their stores and laying off their employees, and how the proletarians, forced by hunger, stormed the provision stores, so that the soldiers had to defend them. Universally known is the following amusing detail from Barcelona. As long as the soldiers protected the provision stores the rich bourgeois could still send their servants to the bakeries and butchers' shops to buy provisions. In all the side streets and at the entrance of the houses these girls were stopped and their food stuffs taken away from them, and brought to the hungry families of the strikers.
The idea of providing the strikers with food and clothing during the strike by the organisation of a working men's Production and Communication Brotherhood has been abandoned, because it was evident that in such a struggle the ruling classes would pay no sentimental regard to law, and simply seize the provisions of the proletariat for themselves and their army.
3.—THE GENERAL STRIKE AND THE ARMY.
From the above it can readily be seen that the military forces could not very easily rehabilitate order in the beginning of the General Strike, as was done in the street revolts heretofore, as in the year 1848, where the soldiers only needed to be drawn together in the centre of the large cities, and simply shoot into the masses, which were crowded before the muzzles of their guns. No—the General Strike, as it has been pictured here, entirely changes the situation.
As before, it would be the duty of the military forces to-day to protect the Government buildings and the palaces of the wealthy from the hatred of the masses, because all the central stations of government, such as police stations, court houses, prisons, national banks and ministeries of finances might be threatened by the masses. Also single persons, prominently hated by the masses, might run the risk of suffering injury to life or limb. Above all, the army would try to protect them.
But it would also have to try and keep the railroads running, and for that it would be necessary to not only man the railway stations with soldiers, not only to make drivers, firemen, guards, and signalmen of soldiers, but also to protect every train with the proper amount of soldiers; and very likely it would be necessary to station guards all along the line to protect the signals, to keep the track from being torn up and to save the signal-boxes and water-tanks from destruction; and this again would require a large number of soldiers, as the lines are hundreds of miles long.
It would also be necessary to use soldiers to watch the telegraph and telephone lines, and to keep up the postal service. Soldiers would be put in factories, workshops, gas works, and bakeries to produce the necessary provisions. Soldiers would also be needed to protect the blacklegs from the fury of the masses. Before every factory, every warehouse, threatened by the mob, they would have to station military guards.
This, of course, would not only be in large cities; necessarily it would have to be expected that the same thing was going on in the centres of industry in the country, in the mines, smelteries, woollen mills, etc. The Socialistic agitation has carried the idea of expropriation to the remotest centres of industry, and the working men there, having mastered this theory, might begin expropriation of the bourgeois, by taking possession of the warehouses and means of production without the sanction of the dictators of the Labour movement. In the country districts the success of the General Strike would not be merely a Utopia, because the immense expansion of large farming enterprises, as many cases in Hungary, Galicia, Russia, Italy, and Spain have shown, makes it possible to-day to inaugurate immense strikes of farm workers.
Nothing is so contagious and suggestive as rebellion. The farm workers and the poor farmers might imitate the workers of the cities and seize the possessions of great landowners. In recent years it has happened quite frequently that the striking working men marched out into the country, in the villages near the cities, enlightened the farmers and won them by saying to them: "You don't need to pay any more taxes to the State, nor more rent to the landlord, nor more interest to the loan sharks or to the owners of your mortgages—we just burn up all those papers. Your sons do not need to join the army; they can stay at home and help you in the fields; those fields, which are the fruits of your labour, belong to you. Do not fear the soldiers; they have all they can do in the cities, at the railways; they have no time to help the landlords; they can't harm you." In this way order and the safety of property could also be threatened in the country.
It would be an immense task for the army to prevent all this and to protect not only the political, but what is far more difficult, the economic power of the ruling classes.
In this way it would be impossible to centralise the soldiers of the whole country, and send 100,000 well-armed men against a few thousand rebels, because the soldiers would have to maintain order all over the whole country—in the most remote villages as well as in the centres of industry and along all the railway lines.
Probably the idea would then strike the rulers to issue a call for the reserve troops. But they would soon find out that they were faced with a terrible dilemma, because calling in the reserves would be nothing else but calling the striking working men from their comrades to give them guns in their hands?
The Governments at least would fear that these reserves, newly called in, would carry dissatisfaction into the ranks of the old soldiers. If, however, they did not issue this call, they would thus acknowledge their impotence, and the number of soldiers on hand would soon prove to be insufficient.
The best equipped, the largest and most disciplined army cannot protect everything. Only small groups of soldiers can be everywhere, isolated amongst the large masses of the people, the numberless proletarians. The army would be split up and dispersed, and immobilised in all directions; and would therefore be incapable of suppressing the revolt of the proletariat conducted in this form.
Last but not least, there are psychological points to be recognised. The most elementary experience in mass psychology teaches us that the single person in big masses will allow himself to be pushed to perform deeds of heroism, or let a few, especially such as have an influence over him, lead him to do deeds which would otherwise be repulsive to him. This is what they mostly reckon on in militarism.
The soldier amongst a large body of troops, excited by the military music, in fear of the officers, whom he thinks to be superior beings, loses his clear senses, his individuality, and obeys, as if hypnotised, the most inhuman, the most barbaric orders. He is then even ready to shoot upon his own father and mother.
Direct contact with the people is made impossible for the soldiers as long as they are under continued discipline and in fear of court-martial and of the revolvers of the officers, especially when they march in large bodies against the people.
However, when dispersed in small groups before factories, the soldiers easily come in contact with the working men, who talk to them, slip manifestoes secretly into their hands, and tell them that in their home village, may be at that very hour, soldiers of other regiments are ordered to shoot their parents, their brothers and sisters. In small bodies the soldier has time to think; he is torn away from the brutal, sanguinary intoxication of large masses of troops, armed to the teeth. He is no more in contagious contact with the school of murder, he hears no more the exciting war music and war songs of brutalised soldiers. All around him he will hear the songs of revolt against the oppressors and exploiters, which will remind him that he belongs to the people, from whom he was torn by force, and not to the side of tyranny.
Because the General Strike is the most clear and unveiled expression of the revolution of the working people against their exploiters, the proletarians in soldiers' clothes will now quickly see that they are not fighting for God, emperor and fatherland, their high ideals, but simply for the continuance of the exploitation of their brothers and themselves as soon as they have exchanged uniforms for overalls.
Thus, standing guard before a factory the soldier will soon realise that he is used as his own watch-dog, and many a one will be led by his reflection to return to the people. The rest of the scattered small groups of soldiers could easily be disarmed, so that they could not shoot upon the masses. Many of the soldiers who would not have the courage to desert, would let the people disarm them, with inner joy and false show of resistance.
The position of the working people in the Latin countries would be much more favourable, because the Labour Unions have been for years conducting a very lively anti-militarist propaganda amongst the recruits and reservists, and even in the army itself.
To obtain such a result, of course, it would be necessary to bring forward an indefatigable anti-militarist propaganda, like the French Labour Unions present. The nature of their anti-militarist propaganda has been explained in their report, "Anti-militarism and General Strike," to the Trade Unions in Dublin. This report also appeared in the German language in the Freiheit, of New York, and in other papers. It is of the utmost importance that this especially should be pointed out. For the revolutionising of the present order of society, anti-militarism and its propaganda is an absolutely necessary supplement to the General Strike.
This is the overwhelming superiority of the social revolution, which started as a peaceful General Strike, and carried the revolution over the whole country. As the spread of the revolution is a vital necessity to its victory, so is the dispersion of the military forces the cause of the army's destruction. In a short time it will become undisciplined, disarmed, and completely broken up, and by that the whole system, which rests upon the power of the army, be gone. Would it be possible that foreign Powers might intervene? No danger! It is not at all Utopian that the General Strike will be international, that it will take place in all countries at the same time.
History shows that nearly all European countries were shaken up by the revolutionary movement of 1848, although these revolutions were all of an entirely national character and often even hostile against the revolutionists of other countries.
Did not the Middle Ages, at the time of the peasant wars, see the revolts of the peasants in Germany, the Jacqueries in France, and the revolt of the "Commeros de Castilla " in Spain, all at the same time? And yet the peasants of the one country had no idea that in far distant countries their comrades were fighting for similar ideals.
To-day, however, the working people of all countries are organised and international, and fraternally shake hands over the borders of the different countries; they mutually support each other in their struggle against capitalism, and regularly consider their methods of battle in their numerous Trade Unions and party congresses.
Can we not apprehend in these circumstances that the revolution of the proletariat, the social revolution, that is, the General Strike, will be an international one? Or at least that in the most important countries revolutionary eruptions will take place at the same time? The apprehensive foreign Powers will, according to this, have enough to do at home, and will hardly think of coming to the rescue of other Powers.
4.—WHAT RISK DOES THE PROLETARIAT RUN?
The professional hypnotisers and lullers at the head of the Labour movement understood very well at all times, at least in Germany and Austria, how to suffocate the revolutionary spirit by terrible visions of the bloodshed which they say would be caused amongst the proletarians. With this same ghost they try to scare away the idea of the General Strike.
Although the risk which the proletariat runs during a General Strike represents only a small fraction of what it has run in earlier revolutions, candour demands that we do not deceive ourselves about it; that yet in the various small but nevertheless unavoidable skirmishes, caused by the military forces, there will necessarily be sacrifices on the side of the workers. However, should this be reason enough for the proletariat to be discouraged and wait until the year 4000 after Millerand's or Marx's birth, when the order of the capitalistic system collapses of its own accord and makes room for Socialism?
No! The working people will cast off these cowardly speculations and prove that they have not lost all courage, and will risk everything for freedom. Death or the loss of limbs in the revolution, with which they always scare the proletarians, is it not hourly around them in this present system of capitalistic exploitation? French statistics show the terrible number of 174,000 killed yearly on an average by accidents and diseases due to social conditions; not counting the innumerable daily injuries and maimings in the workshops and factories, to which little attention is paid.
In this way capitalism kills more proletarians in one year in order to save the expense of proper arrangements to protect working men, than all previous revolutions. Death surrounds the workers all day, at every hour. While he works the worker runs the risk of falling from a scaffold any moment, of being buried in a mine, poisoned in a chemical factory, killed by electric current, or torn to pieces by boiler explosions.
Death in the most terrible form haunts him, however, when he is without work; in starvation or suicide, he is driven to it by despair. On the other hand, too, workers have to think that at any time they may be called in and mustered to go to war, and kill their innocent brothers; to fight for the interest of their enemies, their oppressors, and be a thousand times surer of death than in any revolution.
In one single battle often more people are killed than in all revolutions put together. In the battle of Leipzig 143,000 were killed, at Waterloo 46,000, at Koenigsgraetz 40,000. During the Napoleonic wars over three million people lost their lives. Also think of the Russo-Japanese war in Manchuria!
The most minute step of progress, the least scientific advancement costs thousands of lives. How many chemists have died, poisoned by the gases evolved in their newly invented chemical processes, or blown to pieces by the explosion of such gases? How many physicians have died from the bacilli which they were combatting for the benefit of humanity? What numbers of martyrs did every new truth cost! How many of the greatest men, of the apostles of truth, have met death at the stake, on the gallows, on the wheel, on the guillotine, in the underground prisons, or in the snows of Siberia?
What oceans of blood! What a minute drop of blood is the blood shed in revolutions compared with this? Remarkable! One does not dissuade the people from the courage to go to war, but from the courage to fight for their own freedom and future; one always tries to advise against it!
In the revolutions for national independence or for political rights the people stake their lives ever readily and do not fear death.
Is not the social revolution, which will final free all humanity from chains and social misery, an infinitely higher ideal, far more worthy of man, that one should put at stake his whole personality, and, if need be, even his life? Thus the revolution, conducted as a General Strike, threatens less danger for the proletariat; prevents quick concentration of large military forces; makes many collisions with troops unnecessary, even impossible; and thus presents the most chances for success, for a final victory, bought with the least possible sacrifices.
5.—ECONOMIC MOVEMENTS: WAGE STRIKES AND THE
GENERAL STRIKE.
Each historical epoch has its particular mode of struggle, its particular economic conditions and technical forms of revolution. The knights fought clad in steel armour, with sword and spear; the citizens of the communes of the Middle Ages fought organised in their complots; the peasants in the Peasants War, whose banner was the "Bundschuh," had their particular war tactics; another form of revolution was the "Jacquerie" of the revolutionary peasants at the time of the great French Revolution, and the tactic in the epoch of the revolutionary petit citizens was the battle on the barricades.
The proletariat can no more apply the tactics of bygone epochs; but it creates, as a necessary result of the economic development and the enlargement of its economic organisation, the particular conditions and new forms of tactics of its own. At present all incidents point to the General Strike, and so the working class necessarily finds itself forced to seize this weapon everywhere, in spite of the opposition of its leaders, as soon as an important struggle impends. With the continually growing feeling of solidarity in the proletariat, with those labour organisations ever growing in might and number, and particularly, as a logical result, the strikes ever growing more numerous and larger, the idea of the General Strike is spontaneously created.
In order to be successful the strikes had to continually acquire a tendency of growing larger—that is, to always draw larger masses of the same branch into the strike.
Labour Unions frequently inaugurate General Strikes of the whole branch of industry.
Even more frequently, during a large strike, workers of other industries quit work to support the demands of the strikers.
These are sympathetic strikes (solidary strikes). The employers themselves partly show the way to the workers by their ever more frequently operated general lockouts.
In order to defeat the workers of a branch or a factory, the united employers do not hesitate to lock out innocent working men, in order to force the strikers to go back to work, and in this manner destroy their organisation.
Ever more frequently we see that the employers' organisations support each other in order to resist the working men. If the Labour Unions now reply supporting the strikers through mutual understanding and aid, we then have no more a struggle of a particular working men's Union against a particular number of capitalists, but the struggle of the whole working class against all the capitalists. In this way, forced by the continually growing feeling of solidarity among the working people, we have the largest and strongest type of strike, and that is the strike in which the whole class of workers finally refuse to work for the whole class of capitalists—that is, the Social General Strike.
In this way amongst the Labour Unions was born, from the experience of the strike, the whole theory of the General Strike, this new modern tactic, which is best adapted to do away with the capitalistic system.
The General Strike for social reform—in short, Social General Strike—differs favourably from any strike in two vital points, even if it be a strike of a whole branch, which is after all nothing but a wage strike.
First: While in every wage strike the strikers necessarily need money to hold out, to-day in the Social General Strike no money is necessary, because nothing is produced and all the stores are closed.
Second: While every wage strike, even if it be a General Strike of a whole industrial branch, can only reckon on success during a favourable business conjunction, the Social General Strike has the most favourable prospects during a bad business crisis, which, as is very well known, is only the result of relative over-production—that is, the storing away of products which surpass the buying power of the consumers, the masses. Karl Marx taught that every revolution always followed an economic crisis, which increased the misery of the masses and aroused their revolutionary spirit.
During the Social General Strike the proletarians will very likely understand the economic needs and will know very well what they have to do when one says to them: "Do you know why you hunger more now than usually? Because the grain elevators are more full of corn and wheat than usually. Do you know why you go in rags, and why you and your wife and children are homeless and freezing? Because the warehouses are packed with clothes, because the building speculators build too many houses."
In this manner the crisis of over-production is the best guarantee for the success of the Social General Strike, because the products on hand permit the satisfaction of all needs before the complete reorganisation: namely, by a general "Help yourself" on the part of the workers.
Is it not the most natural and most radical form of revolt of the slaves, when on the day on which they throw off the yoke of oppression for good, they declare to their masters, loud and distinctly: "No longer will we obey you, no longer will we bear weapons for you, no longer will we work for you. Also, no longer will we respect your title of possession. At last we take possession of all you have robbed from us, of all those riches and treasures which we created, but never were permitted to enjoy."
It is the passive obedience, the submission of the working people, upon which the power of the ruling classes rests; just as the political power of the ruling classes depends upon the weapons which we forge, and which we carry to protect our exploiters against ourselves. Their whole splendour and their wealth depend upon our work. If our obedience be discontinued, their power will be broken. Let us stop working for them and they will starve in spite of their money; and they must yield.
What else can Percy Bysshe Shelley have thought when he wrote his splendid poem "To the Men of England"?—
Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?
Wherefore feed and clothe and save,
From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat—nay, drink your blood?
Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge,
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil?
Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm?
Or what is it ye buy so dear,
With your pain and with your fear?
The seed ye sow another reaps;
The wealth ye find another keeps;
The robes ye weave another wears;
The arms ye forge another bears.
Sow seed,—but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth,—let no impostor heap;
Weave robes,—let not the idle wear;
Forge arms, in your defence to bear.
6.—REVIEW.
The characteristic main periods of the General Strike idea can be reviewed as follows:
1. The General Strike is the only form of revolution possible under the present conditions, qualified and created by the economic position of capitalism.
2. The General Strike can disturb society most severely because it attacks its vitality, its main support: production and consumption.
3. The General Strike is the clearest, most direct and unveiled expression of revolt of the proletariat, and is the result of the development of its everyday means of battle, "The Strike."
4. Owing to the division of labour, it is sufficient that only a few wheels stop in the complicated mechanism of modern production, to bring whole series of machines, factories, even whole industries to a standstill.
5. The General Strike needs no money support and is more apt to succeed in an unfavourable business crisis than in a favourable one.
6. The General Strike can reckon on the largest masses and largest success, because it starts quite lawfully, does not require great heroism, does not expose any one to danger, and is even promoted by the cowardice of those who stay at home.
7. Through the interruption of all means of transportation and communication, it is no more possible to fetch produce and nourishment from districts which remain quiet. The political and military authorities lose the possibilities of quick communication and movement of troops.
8. Through the absolute necessity of protecting the large cities and centres of industry, the private property of the exploiters, to watch the numerous railroad tracks (not only to uphold law and order, but also to care for the provisions of their own army) and through the endeavour to continue the most necessary production by aid of soldiers, the dispersion and disorganisation of the military forces will soon be effected, and the consequence thereof will be their complete impotence and the "Victory of the proletariat."