Page:Eleven Blind Leaders (1910?).pdf/33

SYNDICALISM AND SOCIALISM

guillotine and later, under pressure of the same threat, was released from custody altogether. It was the ORGANIZED C. G. T., with power to stop the flow of profits by paralyzing industry, that saved Durand's neck from the knife. Far from pinning their faith to the strike alone, the French syndicalists have been steadily perfecting their organization through all the years, until today the C. G. T. is justly regarded as a menace to the industrial and political masters of France.

Desmond says the syndicalist "goes all out for the bullet." Where did he get that? What syndicalist literature has Desmond discovered where its author advocates "going all out for the bullet?" Where has he seen such "exclusively bullet" tactics made use of by syndicalists? Surely not in France or Italy, or even in miserably oppressed Spain, which some German and English and American "intellectuals" are in the habit of referring to as the "rawer" countries, possibly because these Latin workers resent oppression more quickly and violently than do the "civilized planers" of the North? In all these Latin countries, however, the syndicalists have shown that they are essentially peaceful, orderly and long suffering; and only under great provocation have any number of them resorted to retaliation in kind against their brutal masters. Here again the syndicalist's instinct for organization---One Big Union and the responsibility of each member thereto---has asserted itself over mere "mob" action. Mr. Desmond should pursue this phenomenon a little farther. He might, from the mists of his mountain view, discover a fact, namely, that syndicalists are the greatest sticklers for organization in the world; that while they may believe in and practice local autonomy and freedom of action of the individual units, in order to vitalize the capillaries as well as the arteries of the economic organism---they also believe in and practice an ever broader unity and solidarity of their one big union in order to generalize their struggles and enable the workers to meet the capitalists at one and the same time and at all points of the compass.

Mr. Desmond may also discover, if he pursues his investigations far enough, that this syndicalist process denotes the logical evolution of the new social system---from below---out of the depths---building upon the firm foundation of working class initiative and constructive genius, and leaving behind the old spirit of dependence upon "authority" and the "saving grace" of outside classes. In other words, it denotes the practical fruits of working class awakening, of working class consciousness, of working class action---terms which have been bandied about the lips of socialists for more than half a century.

If socialists are now ready to abandon the fundamentals of their own philosophy and as Desmond suggests, become "the policemen of the syndicalists," so much the worse for such socialists. SYNDICALISM CANNOT BE POLICED. It will force recognition against a conspiracy of silence; it will thrive and wax fatter under persecution and misrepresentation. Its all-conquering program may be summed up in one sentence: Individual, local, national, and international working class initiative, unity and solidarity, in order to take and hold the world and all therein for the workers. Let the capitalists and their socialist "intellectual" allies beat it if they can.B. H. W.