Page:The Social General Strike - Arnold Roller (1912).djvu/25

 In Germany the first article which treated of the General Strike idea appeared in the Anarchistic press of 1890 (Socialist and Neues Leben) However, first in the years 1902 and 1903, and again through the publication in Anarchistic papers, there was a regular propaganda for the General Strike, and also through a pamphlet published in London.

The Social Democratic Party tried to kill this propaganda, partly through misrepresentation, partly through non-recognition. When, however, in 1903 Dr. Friedberg carried this idea into their own ranks, and numerous Labour Union meetings accepted it, it had to be discussed in earnest, and an effort was made to dispose of it in a scientific manner in articles written by the most luminous Socialists in the Neue Zeit and the Socialistic monthlies. In spite of this we find in all papers, at the end of 1903 and the beginning of 1904, discussions of the General Strike. Pamphlets and papers in all languages spring up everywhere which have the sole purpose of propagating the General Strike idea and explaining and making clear its invincibility.

Hundreds of songs in the languages of the Latin countries, which praise the General Strike as the coming liberation, go from mouth to mouth, inspiring new enthusiasm and confidence in victory.

Like every grand idea, the General Strike was baptised in blood, and has already had its first skirmishes, of which it need not be ashamed. The first General Strike fought in modern times started in Alcoy (Province of Alicante, Spain), July 8, 1874, and was conducted by the Spanish branch of the International. Its object was not an increase in wages, but the social reconstruction; the construction of the free society, preliminary in this free community. It was an easy task for the minority of the members of the International (about 3,000) to make all working men, more than 10,000, go on strike and in this manner to produce a general tie-up. In the struggle with the police and armed bourgeoisie the working men were victorious; they took possession of the archives and civil registers containing the titles of property. The accomplishment of the reconstruction, however, was prevented by the troops, which were sent by the Government to reconquer the city.

When the American working men in the year 1886 prepared to gain an eight-hour work day, they did not think of gaining it through the roundabout way of Parliamentarism, but they decided to gain it directly through the General Strike, which was calculated to start on May 1 all over the United States. Over 250,000 men throughout the whole United States, 40,000 of whom were in Chicago, laid down their tools.

However, after the brutal and murderous attack of the Chicago police upon a peaceful procession of working men on May 4, and later, upon a meeting of the working men on the Haymaket, where a bomb was the answer to the pistol shots of the police, the signal was given for the arrest of several speakers and propagandists of the