Against the Mass Strike

The fact that the political situation in Germany is worsening is clearly illustrated by the latest attempt to bring charges against Comrade Luxemburg and a number of Berlin comrades because of the Berlin mass strike resolution. As hare-brained as the argumentation is, so that at first one might believe it to be a joke, the attempt itself is to be taken quite seriously as a political phenomenon. Such things are not measured by logic, but by political need; logically, the assassinations of 1878 had nothing to do with Social Democracy, but Bismarck's policy needed an exceptional law. The fact that action is being taken against the mass strike from above proves that the idea of the mass strike is now beginning to seriously worry the ruling powers.

Nevertheless, it cannot be said that the attitude of the proletariat is the cause of this unrest. Since 1905, the first Jena Party Congress, the German workers have repeatedly declared that they regard the mass strike as a necessary and indispensable weapon in the coming great struggles; no other need than that expressed in the resolutions of Jena I and Magdeburg can be heard in the Berlin resolution. Why does the ruling caste now suddenly feel so worried? It makes them feel guilty. It knows that the robbery of the right to organize and strike, which it has prepared and initiated, must rouse the working class to desperate resistance. It feels strong enough to smother any attempt at violent resistance in blood by means of the state's enormous power. But then the word mass strike suddenly rings in her ear like a sinister threat: When she thinks of the tremendous effects of the mass strike in neighbouring countries and of the huge organization of the German workers, which must make a mass strike here an even greater shock to society – then she feels that the proletariat still possesses a weapon whose power she cannot clearly recognize, but which therefore seems all the more sinister, and against which she is powerless. But is it really powerless? Does it not have police and courts? Hence the paltry efforts to lock up the spokesmen of the mass strike.

The proletariat will take the attempt to ban the revolution by the police in its stride. Even if some kind of law were to be hatched against the mass strike – whatever such a thing might be – it could not change the existing state of affairs. It would only emphasize a little more sharply our knowledge of the forms and conditions which are decisive for the outbreak of such struggles in Germany.

It has often been pointed out that the highly developed organization of the German proletariat will give the mass strike its special form and character. From this it is often concluded that a political strike here is only possible as a decision of the party and trade union bodies, which weigh up all the circumstances properly in advance, calculate the available funds and take their decisions accordingly. As comrade Leinert put it at the Magdeburg Party Congress: “When the mass strike is to begin is determined by the leaders of the organizations, the party executive committee and the general commission [...]” It is also all too natural that in some trade union leaders, whose entire practice is concerned with organization and organizational decisions, the view must live that great struggles can only be waged as soberly and intelligently considered campaigns by experienced leaders who direct the masses according to some higher strategy. If this view were correct, then it would indeed be a clever move on the part of the government if it tried to prevent the whole mass strike by making such preparation punishable. A closer look at the preconditions for a mass strike shows that such a law would in reality be of no help.

A mass strike, calmly prepared, carried out by the workers with unanimous discipline, taking full account of and using all the tools of trade union methods of struggle, is certainly conceivable and has already taken place repeatedly in other countries. But this has shown the limits of its power. That the mass strike is not a simple mechanical means of bringing the bourgeoisie and the government to their knees was shown above all by the great struggle in Sweden in 1908. Despite the fact that the workers went on strike energetically and unitedly, bourgeois society held out calmly; the newspapers appeared, the streetcars and cabs ran, the gas supply was not interrupted, all because enough volunteers offered themselves from the propertied class itself, from the petty bourgeoisie and white-collar workers; only freight traffic and industry came to a standstill, which of itself restricted rail traffic. The bourgeoisie stood united on the side of the employers, and after five difficult weeks the workers had to break off the struggle without success, without the government having to intervene with military force. It was purely a trade union struggle – to fend off the lockout tactics of the employers – in a country that was only weakly developed economically; because there was no revolutionary situation that could arouse strong passions in the whole population, the other classes received the strike merely as an outrageous nuisance.

A gun is also a weapon and governments have been overthrown and revolutions made with guns. But not with them alone; the gun in the hands of the people is not enough, it is a dead mechanism and has often been powerless. What gives it power is the increased will, the feeling of power of the masses and their revolutionary energy. It is the same with the weapon of mass strikes. What gives it success at the right moment is the mood and the strength of the people who lead the masses - the fury, the exalted courage that fears no dangers, the enthusiasm and the determination that are ready for any sacrifice, the tense electric atmosphere that multiplies the spiritual and mental powers of the individual a hundredfold, lifts him above the pettiness of everyday life and carries away the indifferent, the feeling that great things will happen. This is what is collectively called a “revolutionary situation”. If such a situation has arisen through previous events or actions, and if a mass strike then breaks out, only then can the question arise that the authority of the ruling power is shaken to such an extent that yielding on the point of contention which was the cause of the struggle appears to it to be the best or only way out.

In Germany, because of the sharp sharpening of class antagonisms, the same political strike which in other countries was waged as a simple struggle for reform would quickly lead to a revolutionary situation - that is the meaning of the sentence that in Germany the mass strike means revolution, the sentence which is so often misunderstood in the sense of a great future clap-trap. That is why the ruling class would immediately oppose it with the greatest vehemence; that is why it is not possible here in the calm way it is in Belgium and Sweden - even without a special law, the government would not be at a loss for means to intervene. And that is precisely why the mass strike here is only possible as the highest escalation of an action that has already set the masses in motion. Whether it is then brought about by a decision of congresses or leading bodies, which then simply act under the pressure of the mass movement, or whether the masses, for example, whipped up by a bloody act of repression by the government, decide spontaneously in groups and break out, will depend on the circumstances. But in any case, any new laws will not have the slightest influence on this. For even now everyone knows that the ruling class will use any means of violence it deems appropriate against the leaders and participants of the movement. And as little as the existing penal provisions can do against the great outbreaks of revolutionary class struggle, so little will new laws be able to stop this course of development.