Page:The Social General Strike - Arnold Roller (1912).djvu/26

 General Strike, who were delivered to the gallows after a miserable comedy of justice.

In this manner the Chicago martyrs, Parsons, Spies and their comrades, suffered death on the gallows for the propagation of the General Strike idea. The bourgeoisie at once recognised the powerful portent of the General Strike, and used all means of corruption and intimidation to defeat it.

What is the international demonstration of the First of May? Is it not the daughter of the great General Strike, which broke out on May 1, 1886, in order to gain an eight-hour work day? In regard to it the proposition was accepted with enthusiasm at the international Socialist Congress at Paris, 1889, to let work rest in all countries on May 1, in order to demonstrate for the eight-hour work day. Was not this resolution a symbolisation of the General Strike? Did not the Belgian working men gain the right to vote, even if it was a limited one, under the call and through the aid of the General Strike in the year 1893?

When in the year 1897 an attempt was made to gain the right to vote in Austria, was it not then that all the working men shouted in the streets: "Let us do what they did in Belgium"?

In February, 1902, the proletariat of Barcelona rose under the call of the General Strike, and was able to resist for a whole week the police and the army. Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the Spanish Social Democrats, requested his followers everywhere to act as strike breakers and denunciators of the propagators of the General Strike. In some districts the Social Democrats even went so far during the General Strike struggle as to send deputations to the Government to announce their loyalty, and to assure them that they, as law-abiding citizens, had nothing to do with the "revolt."

After the severe attacks which followed upon this conduct in the whole Socialistic Press of the foreign countries against Iglesias, he answered through a proclamation in a proud manner that "the General Strike would have been victorious if the Social Democrats had also participated in it, but that he prevented them because the people were not ripe for emancipation." The comrades of Barcelona finally were defeated; nevertheless, they proved the invincibility of the General Strike. As Barcelona struck alone, the troops from the whole of Spain could be sent there, because the other parts of the country were quiet.

Nevertheless, it was decided to call out the reserves, and all papers spoke of that "strike in Barcelona." Would it have been possible to defeat the General Strike if it had started all over Spain? In April of the same year again 350,000 workers laid down their tools in Belgium in order to follow the call of the General Strike to fight for the universal right to vote. The struggle which had such a promising beginning was lost, but only thanks to the treachery of the Social Democratic leaders. The party organ, Le Peuple, gave as premiums revolvers costing six francs, expressly mentioned in the advertisement as "for the General Strike." When, however, the situation became dangerous, when there were dead and wounded, the leaders Vandervelde, Anseele, etc., at once gave the signal for retreat, because they were afraid of being made responsible if something serious should