Strike-anywhere match

“ For the building of a strong strike morale we must base our strike strategy on the theory of fighting upon the offensive. We must attack always, or at the worst be preparing to attack. This theory applies as well to the class war in industry as to military war on the battlefield. The workers, like soldiers, (and they are the same human beings and subject to the same psychological laws) fight best on the offensive. They are then fired with a sense of power and victory; defensive fighting demoralizes them and fills them with defeatism. ”

“ Especially must the strike strategist understand ho to apply the theory of the offensive in the early stages of a struggle that has the earmarks of becoming far-reaching and bitter. We must learn how to start strikes successfully. In strikes, as in many other things, "Well begun is half done." In all kinds of fights an effective first blow is often decisive. Hence, an initial shattering attack must be fundamental part of our strike strategy.
When workers are about to strike in a plant, a sort of strike fever runs among them from department to department. ”

“ The workers, however, when aroused to struggle in strikes, often take little account of capitalist-made legal "rights," and American labor history is filled with instances of militant action of strikers. More than in any other country, perhaps, has sabotage been used by American strikers in their bitter battles with the employers.
↑ Strikes of related groups of unions present many difficult problems which must be studied and borne in mind in our strike strategy. ”

“ The workers are always confronted with the practical question, "Are we in a position to strike successfully, or must we settle?" This vital question can be answered correctly only if they penetrate the employers' elaborate system of bluff, get a line on their real position, and thus base their policy upon actualities. A correct grasp of the forces at play is the foundation of strategy, no less at the conference table than in actual strikes. ”

“ A far more intelligent course is to call off the strike officially when it is manifestly lost, and let the fragments of the defeated army go back to work with honor. This was the course pursued at the end of the 1919 Steel Strike. It facilitates greatly the reorganization of the workers. ”

“ A comprehensive strike strategy must include not only effective means for carrying on strikes, but also for settling them. Fundamental it is for the left wing to learn when and how to settle, no less than when and how to strike. ”

“ Our problem is to know just how to combine the two, spontaneity and organization; to learn to strike the blow when the workers' spirits are at their highest and when they have enough organization to effectively mobilize them into the strike. ”

“ The essence of good leadership in strike situations is to conduct a successful fight to establish and maintain the unity of the strikers in the face of innumerable splitting and disintegrating tendencies. The fighting policy of the employers aganst the workers is well-expressed by the time-honored axiom of all strategists, "Divide and Conquer." And their ways to divide and weaken the workers are many, devious, and difficult to defeat. ”

“ In warfare much use is made of flanking movements, which aim at cutting the enemy's communication with his base of supply. Frontal attacks are dangerous. It is equally true in economic warfare. The strike is a frontal attack, and those they fight are entrenched deeply with all the artillery of the State, the press, science, and wealth on their side. ”

“ If it is a building trades strike, it means dynamited structures. And always, everywhere, all the time, fights between strike-breakers and scabs against strikers and strike-sympathizers, between People and Police. ”

“ Likewise, in great strikes of workers in basic and key industries, such as the railroads, coal mining, etc., partial settlements are usually unwise and often disastrous. They destroy the political effect of such strikes. They are a confession of weakness, of failure to achieve the original aim of the strike, which was to defeat the government, or, the whole body of employers. ”

“ These reformists, who are opposed on principle to directly attacking capitalism, have always rejected such a drastic weapon as the general strike and are only too eager to seize the slightest pretext to discredit it. In reality, the general strike is one of the most powerful of the workers’ weapons. ”

“ Even as they waited and a curious crowd began to gather, numbers of strike sym [Pg 200] pathizers among them, down the broad steps from the street above came the tramp, tramp of martial feet, and in solid column of fours, in full marching order, every man a walking arsenal of ball cartridges, a battalion of infantry filed sturdily into the grimy train-shed, formed line, facing the murmuring crowd, and then stood there in composed silence "at ease." ”

“ Strike strategy must deal with the question of arbitration. Arbitration in strikes is almost always a weapon of the employers against the workers. Only in rare cases can the workers make effective use of it. ”

“ This policy of concessions, duplicity, and terrorism, coupled with the fact that the industries in general have been active for the past few years and have provided at least a modicum of work for the workers, weakens the factor of spontaneity. Determined, organized effort becomes increasingly more necessary, altho an occasional spontaneous strike still occurs. ”

“ Less and less can the strike strategist depend upon the spontaneity of the masses to bring them into revolt against their exploiters, more and more he has to figure on substantial preliminary organization, conceived planfully and carried through almost like a military strategy. Within the past 15 years American employers have become very able and skillful in checking spontaneous mass revolts amongst their workers. ”

“ It was a strike aimed at the Master Masons' association. It was not for any great benefit that Saturday pay-day should confer. It was a strike to show the power of the striker. It was an exhibition of strength from those whose strength has not been resisted or questioned for four years; a power which knew no resistance, but which must be periodically exhibited to make its presence felt. It is that same power which is still so strong that it makes your mechanics blind to all your heaven-born principles and deaf to all your promises. ”

“ When partial settlements serve the general strategical aim of splitting the ranks of the employers and enable the workers to play off one section of them against the others they are tactically advisable. Then it is a case of making one group of capitalists scab on the rest. But when these settlements weaken or divide the workers' ranks, or compromise the political purposes of a great strike they must be rigidly avoided. ”

“ The employers are more and more giving a political character to strikes, especially those in key industries and during crises by using all branches of their state power against the workers. Thus an imperative phase of our strike strategy must be to develop a political consciousness and activity among the workers in their struggles. ”

“ Our strike strategy must aim at the elimination of these misleaders and the creation of a body of militant, fighting leaders. These must be able to sway the masses, to develop their fighting spirit. They must be honest, courageous, resourceful. Especially they must be honest and courageous. Nothing inspires the workers so much as loyal and brave leaders. ”

“ They must avoid fighting at the inopportune time. In this they cannot always succeed. Often the employers, in spite of all, will force the workers into untimely struggles, when, of course, the challenge of battle must be accepted and the fight waged aggressively. ”

“ The official explanation that the rivalries of a few leaders give us all the answer we need is pitiable. Of the strike movement as a whole, it does not contain even a paltry half-truth. I have a fairly close personal record of eighteen strikes. Of two of them, conceivably three, the cause may be attributed to conscienceless or imperilled leadership. But in the majority of strikes the world over the leaders are forced to the fighting line by the workers behind them. ”

“ Strike strategy varies widely from country to country and period to period. Its specific character depends upon the degree of economic development and of the sharpness of the class struggle in a given situation. ”

“ More and more this reactionary leadership is proving its incapacity to lead the workers' struggle. It cannot organize the unorganized, it cannot conduct strikes successfully. It betrays and sells out every real fight made against the bosses. Under its control the trade union movement loses strike after strike, its membership falls, its morale declines, and the workers are in retreat before the attacks of the militant employers.
A real strike strategy must succeed in defeating this treacherous and incompetent leadership and in replacing it by a militant, fighting left leadership. ”

“ A FIRST consideration in strike strategy is the development of unity and solidarity among the workers involved in a given action against the employers. Potentially the workers constitute a tremendous force. The 26,000,000 or more organizable workers, when once united, will be irresistible. ”

“ A FUNDAMENTAL necessity to a successful strike strategy is the building and functioning of an effective trade union leadership. The workers' necessity for a firm, courageous leadership is a burning one. ”

“ IN THE STRIKE STRUGGLE.
UNDER present conditions in the United States strikes are the very heart of the class struggle. They are brutal and open fights between exploiters and exploited. It is in strikes that the conflicting interests of the two classes are most manifest. The employer in his limitless greed and desire to exploit the workers even more intensely than the present unexampled rate, seeks to break their spirit and to force them to work upon his terms. ”

“ It is merely the fact that Strikers are not doing something: they are doing nothing. If you mean that they should be made to do something, say so, and establish slavery. But do not be muddled by the mere word "strike" into mixing it up with breaking a window or hitting a policeman on the nose. Do not be stunned by a metaphor; there are no metaphors in fairy-tales. ”

“ The nature of the offensive will change with the varying conditions in the strike. An offensive by the workers in Passaic now, after nine months of bitter struggle and when they are so much weakened, is a very different thing than it was in the opening months of the historic struggle when they had their full resources in hand. ”

“ American employers make more extensive use of under-cover men than any capitalists in the world. They plant large numbers of detectives and stool pigeons among the workers to betray and defeat them. These under-cover men constitute a real problem in all important organizing campaigns and strikes. Strike strategy must include ways and means to uncover these traitors and to defeat their treacherous activities. ”

“ The young militiamen immediately began pervading South Harvey, Foley and Magnus, and when the strikers lined up before the gates and doors of their former working places at seven o’clock that morning they met a brown line of youths–devil-may-care young fellows out for a lark, who liked to prod the workmen with their bayonets and who laughingly ordered the strikers to stop trying to keep the strike-breakers from going to work. The strikers were bound by their pledges to the Trades Council not to touch the strike-breakers under any circumstances. ”

“ The co-operatives must also be considered and utilized as strike reserves. In European countries the co-operatives are many and large and powerful. They are often important depots of supplies for strikers. In this country, however, the co-operative movement is very weak and conservative. ”

“ In strikes they always form, in point of actual weight, an insignificant part of the armed forces arrayed against the strikers. For instance, in a steel town, during the strike, there would usually be a dozen or so State Police and from 3,000 to 4,000 deputy sheriffs, company police, etc. The latter classes of gunmen make up the body of the real repressive force; the State Police are merely raiders. It is their particularly dirty job to harass the enemy ”

“ An effective strike strategy demands not only strong individual leaders, but especially a firm and well-organized group leadership. Whether the left wing is actually in control of a given strike, or whether it is a minority force seeking to influence the general course of the strike, it must pursue a policy of combining in the Trade Union Educational League and the various other types of left wing organizations, for relief, defense, etc., and knitting together in an effective group leadership, all those militant elements willing to conduct a real struggle. ”

“ In the first case the workers tend to look more to the organization than to individual leaders to conduct the struggle (although the recent spectacular rise of Ben Gold among the New York fur workers illustrates again the power of the militant, dynamic leader even in hide-bound trade unions) . But when the unorganized go on strike, untrained and inexperienced, they look especially for inspiration and guidance not so much to their weak union nucleus as to the personalities at the head of their movement. ”

“ The whole strike organization must be shot through with a spirit of determination and seriousness. Bosses, strikers, scabs, and all others connected with the strike directly or indirectly must be given to understand unequivocally that they have to deal with a body of real fighters. Then the vital, necessary discipline will prevail among the strikers. The workers will respect their leaders and follow their directions in the battle. ”

“ The question of morale is, therefore, a fundamental one in strike strategy. Our problem is how to create and maintain it. This determines the whole character of our strike strategy. Propaganda is not enough. True, it is a very vital means to give the workers hope, inspiration, and understanding. But more is necessary. The whole strike strategy must be so calculated as to infuse the strikers with courage and an indomitable fighting spirit. Everything that tends to make the strike effective tends also to raise the spirits of the strikers. A good morale is not a thing by itself ”