“A good soldier never looks behind him,” is an old saying. However it might not be amiss to throw a glance backwards over the life of the I. W. W. in the year of 1919.

The year of 1919 has for the I. W. W. been a year of open class warfare from the beginning to the end. The life of the I. W. W. has been a continuous battle from its very inception for that matter. We have never been allowed to sit down and rest for the last 14 years, but in the year of 1919 are crowded more of startling and important events than during any previous year of its existence.

As the ability to give battle to an enemy is a sign of strong life, we are justified in concluding that the I. W. W. never was stronger than in this year.

“The I. W. W. is dead,” “the I. W. W. is crushed,” is the howl that our enemies have raised time and again. They are raising the same howl now, but with the knowledge we have of the foundations upon which the I. W. W. is built, we can assure our enemies, that at the end of next year we shall have a story of much fiercer struggle and of much stronger life to tell.

The concrete signs of the activities of the I. W. W. during the past year may be divided in internal organization work, educational work, the economic struggles, the judicial defense work, all of it carried on under the most severe persecution, official and unofficial.

The Internal Organization Work

One sure sign of vigorous life is the necessity of holding conventions and the ability to hold them. The I. W. W. has held many conventions this year. There was the general convention that met on May 5 in Chicago, lasting for 11 days, and resulting in an immense lot of work being done. In addition there was a convention of Lumber Workers in Tacoma March 2 and in St. Regis, Mont., in the fall; a convention of Agricultural Workers in Sioux City, April 21; a convention of Metal and Machinery Workers in Cleveland, April 15-16; a convention of Construction Workers in Chicago April 24; a convention of Marine Transport Workers in Philadelphia May 24-29; a convention of Agricultural Workers in Sioux City, Nov. 3, and several other conferences.

The I. W. W. emerges out of the battle of 1919 with 21 Industrial Unions, three new ones having been added during the year, namely No. 1200, 1300 and 1500.

Its present structure is as follows:

Marine Transport Workers’ Industrial Union No. 8.
Bakery Workers’ Industrial Union No. 46.
Metal and Machinery Workers’ Industrial Union No. 300.
Shipbuilders’ Industrial Union No. 325.
Agricultural Workers’ Industrial Union No. 400.
Fishermens’ Industrial Union No. 448.
Oil Workers’ Industrial Union No. 450.
Rubber Workers’ Industrial Union No. 470.
Furniture Workers’ Industrial Union No. 480.
Lumber Workers’ Industrial Union No. 500.
Construction Workers’ Industrial Union No. 5738.
Railroad Workers’ Industrial Union No. 600.
Shoe Workers’ Industrial Union No. 620.
Metal Mine Workers’ Industrial Union No. 800.
Coal Miners’ Industrial Union No. 900.
The Textile Workers’ Industrial Union No. 1000.
Hotel, Restaurant and Domestic Workers’ Industrial Union No. 1100.
Printing and Publishing Workers’ Industrial Union No. 1200.
General Distribution Workers’ Industrial Union No. 1300.
Foodstuff Workers’ Industrial Union No. 1500.

In round numbers 50,000 new membership cards have been issued, but, due to the severe persecution, the growth in membership has not been startlingly large. In this connection may be added that our organization spontaneously is spreading to other countries, making it necessary to maintain offices in foreign ports or leading to direct co-operation with workers in foreign countries.

Our international connections during the year have assumed very promising proportions. Our ideas and our program are being to a greater or less extent endorsed and adopted by the workers of Russia, England, Italy, Spain, Scandinavia, Mexico, South America, etc., not to speak of Canada and Australia, where the One Big Union movement has got considerable headway. The I. W. W. is at present better buttressed up internationally than ever before.

One of the most important tasks of the coming year will be to further develop international co-operation and organization.

The General Executive Board of the I. W. W. has adopted a recommendation for the joining of the “Third International.” This has, however, never been acted upon by the convention, and as the third international is largely a political one, more or less sincerely endorsing industrial unionism, the probabilities are that a purely industrial international will develop out of these international connections in the near future.

The I. W. W. is neither asleep nor dead. It is right now about to engulf the whole world. In fact, the world is just beginning to discover that its only salvation from economic destruction lies in the I. W. W. program, which calls for the turning over of production and distribution to the people, organized industrially. These are facts. Do not be deceived by false reports or obituary notices in the kept press.

The Educational Work.

The educational work of the I. W. W. during 1919 is to a large extent depicted on the last two pages of the One Big Union Monthly, in the advertisements of its publications. From these it appears that the I. W. W. publications now number 22 as against 7 at the beginning of the year. Not the least important of these additions is The One Big Union Monthly.

Considering the rough treatment usually accorded to I. W. W. editors, which treatment tends to keep all but “rough-necks” away from us, it is undeniable that the I. W. W. has done very well in this line during 1919.

The list of books and pamphlets is long enough, but it is not what we wish it to be. For lack of financial resources we are at present holding back the publication of “The I. W. W. Handbook,” by Justus Ebert, a very important book, designed as an introduction to a series of handbooks for all industries under the comprehensive name of an “Industrial Encyclopedia.” The Agricultural Workers donated $500 for the latter work at their last convention, and as time goes on the General Office will be able to take it up.

The educational work of the I. W. W. is bearing fruit, as witness the endorsement of our principles by workers all over the world.

As for the results of this work inside the borders of the U. S. we have every reason to be gratified, considering the obstacles we meet. During the year the political socialist movement has gone to pieces, resulting in 3 factions, all of which embrace industrial unionism more or less devoutly, or rather adding it to their arsenal of weapons for capturing political power. As a result of our activities the One Big Union idea has been adopted by the advanced elements among the Negro workers of the country in the course of this year, and as for the A. F. of L., it is cracking all over as a result of the educational work carried on through our press and our books and through the spoken word of our orators, delegates and individual members.

Has there been progress during the year? We should smile! For corroboration of this statement we refer to the “patriotic” leagues and the “American Legion.”

In this connection let us call attention to another feature of our educational propaganda. We have to acknowledge the great assistance given us by the kept press. Through the most lurid misstatements about us they have called the attention of millions to our existence. It is from these deceived, and later undeceived, readers of the kept press that our ranks are recruited, and it is among them that the number of our friends and sympathizers is increasing by the millions.

The Battles of 1919.

During the past year the I. W. W. has conducted several strikes and taken part in several others.

The great general strike in Seattle, which began Jan. 21, was in the capitalist press called an I. W. W. affair, and 31 of our members were later arrested for “criminal anarchy” in connection therewith. But the strike was essentially an A. F. of L. affair with I. W. W. co-operation.

Then there was the great strike in Butte and other Montana cities. This strike was conducted by the I. W. W.

Both of these strikes were of sufficient size and importance to deserve a permanent place in the records of labor’s struggles together with the almost contemporaneous general strikes in Belfast and Winnipeg. All of them were “lost,” if it may be said that a strike is ever lost. Strikes are really the Chautauqua courses of the workers.

Next the Textile Workers were engaged in a big strike for the 44-hour week. The strike was a long one and a bitter one. Through A. F. of L. treason the workers lost, but what they gained in knowledge was worth much more than any concessions would have been.

The Furniture Workers next went on strike, on April 1. They wanted the 8-hour day and increased pay, and staid out for over two months, but did not get it. Still they gained some concessions. The importance of this strike is, that it has aroused a group of workers that seemed almost lost to the cause of the workers.

The I. W. W. Lumber Workers won a strike in the Fortine District in the Northwest in short order. It was a strike for 8 hours and $5 a day. In the fall they have practiced the intermittent strike in the Northwest against an increase in charges, etc., with varying success.

To us the strike is an educational asset, which acts as an auxiliary to our propaganda by word of mouth and writing, much as an excursion to the meadows is an auxiliary to the teacher of botany.

What with the other tremendous strikes of the year, the stockyards’ strike, the railwaymen’s strike, the steel strike and the coal strike and the printers’ strike, this has been a prosperous year for those who rejoice in the awakening of the masses. All these workers have learnt much themselves that they did not understand before, and all other workers have learnt an immense lot by merely observing the strikes.

All hail those strikers, whether I. W. W. or not! They are breaking ground for a complete industrial organization.

The Business Affairs of the I. W. W.

The financial condition of the I. W. W. at the end of 1919 is far from good. The general office has about half a million dollars to its credit with the industrial unions, but not a cent in the treasury. On the contrary, the general office has a deficit of nearly $10,000. This deficit is partly due to the purchase of a new printing press for $5,000 and of a new linotype machine for about $4,000, as well as a large stock of printing paper; also to the printing of a large stock of literature. But this unfortunate state of affairs is mostly due to the slowness of the industrial unions in paying for supplies and stamps, the money having been used for the purposes of organization expenses instead of for payment of bills. Unless this matter is quickly attended to by the unions through immediate payment of all bills and a forced sale of the organization stamp of $1.00, there is apt to be a real obituary notice in the kept press one of these days, stating: “I. W. W. is dead. General office is bankrupt. Doors closed. Rats are leaving the sinking ship.”

As a matter of fact we know that it is enough to call the membership’s attention to this matter in order to have it remedied. For the future great care should be taken that the experience is not repeated. By crippling the general office members stop the educational work of the organization and bring organization to a standstill.

We are confident that the coming year will see these shortcomings corrected. They are partly due to the numerous raids and arrests which have a tendency to upset the work as well as the inexperience of the members. In the future we are better prepared for such experiences.

So much for the positive and constructive work carried on by the I. W. W. during the year of 1919.

We now come to another chapter of our activity, which does not properly belong to the domain of an organization which proposes to organize the workers into industrial unions, but which has been forced upon us, and at the present moment is assuming tremendous proportions, namely the persecution and all that is connected with it. The Persecution Against the I. W. W. and the Legal Defense Work

The persecution against the I. W. W. has reached enormous’ proportions during 1919, and is at an unprecedented height at the closing of the year.

This persecution can all be traced to a common source, i.e., the machinations of the capitalist class for a plutocratic dictatorship, but in its exterior manifestation it has a two-fold character: the “‘legal”’ persecution and the extra-legal persecution. We will take up the extra legal persecution first, the one that is not camouflaged with the insignia of law and order.

The Extra Legal Prosecution

The extra legal persecution has been in the making for years past, but it is only during the last year that it has sprung into full bloom and dared to claim for itself a semblance of moral justification.

It is manifold in its nature, but the forces participating in it are Wall street, general director and provocateur and secret government of U. S.

The kept press.
The “high tone” clubs.
The “patriotic” societies.
The American Legion.
“Citizens” leagues.
Chambers of commerce and other profiteers.
Priests and ministers.
Politicians.
“Detective agencies,” gunmen.
“The under world.”
Labor fakirs.
Knights of Columbus.
Stools, finks, and ignorant and deluded people generally.

It is a tremendous apparatus of iniquity, always operating under the cover of the stars and stripes. Its chief weapon is lies and misinformation about the I. W. W. This side of the campaign of persecution is attended to by the kept press, partly through warped news items, partly through venomous and “inspired” editorials, partly by flaring advertisements, which of late are to be found in all big capitalistic sheets. This feature alone must cost the promoters millions of dollars, but it is necessary in order to turn the masses of the people against us, and besides, there is more money where these millions come from, for more wealth is constantly created by the workers. Contemporaneously the promoters carry on an “educational” campaign through the patriotic societies, who approach the people with tens of millions of letters and pamphlets and support same with the hell-slush of blood thirsty orators or hired liars, sometimes with the additional aid of framed up films.

The miners in Park City, in Coeur d’Alene, in Tonopah and a dozen other places have also been striking, sometimes with winning, sometimes “losing.’’ But no matter what the outcome, the I. W. W. always is the winner, for the workers think and learn while they strike and rest. And when the worker begins to think he becomes an I. W. W.

The last strike of the year in which I. W. W. has taken part with any considerable numbers is the strike of the Marine Transport Workers of New York. The strike was “‘lost,’”’ but, as usually, the I. W. W. won, coming out with its membership trebled.

The moving picture theatres offer these campaigners a great possibility, that is taken advantage of to its full extent.

Ministers and politicians and thousands of other mental prostitutes repeat the slander and the lies and the provocatory rantings, each one to his little crowd, out of cowardice, greed or general cussedness.

Thus the people of the country are being incited against us by these “‘respectables,” and the fruit of it is now ripening and is being harvested. By patient work along this line they have brought it to the point where the public is about ready to condone any outrage against us, even if it is the most dastardly infraction of the law and the constitution of the country. Taking advantage of this artificial public opinion, created by the secret government, these spurious patriots don the U. S. uniform and raid our halls, wreck our pianos and_ typewriting machines, destroy our records and burn our literature, and finally club or murder our members and turn them over to the waiting police to be arrested for “trying to overthrow the U.S. government”. Thus is being gradually built up a dictatorship of the plutocracy and a reign of terror by its servants, designed to crush forever whatever democracy has hitherto existed in this country.

We have before us a list of the I. W. W. halls raided during the year of 1919 with particulars, but it would take up too much space to enumerate them. Be it enough to state that this extra-legal persecution is country-wide, and in some parts, as in the Northwest, it embraces every important city and town, and some that are not so important.

The Centralia affair, where 4 “American Legion” men were killed while in the process of raiding the I. W. W. hall, is a typical example. Here these “‘patriotic’ raiders, inspired by Wall street and more particularly by the lumber trust, lynched one I. W. W. member, an ex-soldier from overseas, Wesley Everest, and completely destroyed the hall, and afterwards established a complete reign of terror which still continues in full force.

Through the expenditure of millions of dollars for sinister purposes there has been created an artificial and hysteric public opinion which gives absolution in advance to brutal and rowdy elements who are being manipulated by the hired tools of the secret government for the purpose of extinguishing liberty and making all the people willing and submissive servants to the secret government. It has gone so far that people no longer dare speak their mind on any question for fear of being blackmailed, bullied, clubbed and persecuted by the crazy or malevolent ruffians, who, like the black hundreds of Russia, drape themselves in the flag of the country, in order to disguise their foul deeds against the workers.

It will take years for the American people to free themselves spiritually and socially from this extra-legal reign of terror and regain their balance of mind and freedom of thought, speech and action.

The Legal Persecution

The legal persecution may be traced to all the three branches of the government, the legislative, the judiciary and the executive, which all three are under the iron heel of the secret government. As far as the legislative branch is concerned, it has busied itself in a great number of states with the framing of “Anti-syndicalist” laws which on the surface are directed against certain acts of violence or conspiracy against the U. S. government. These laws are framed with the secret understanding that they are to serve against the I. W. W., the courts and the police being depended upon to conspire to bring us within that law. At the present time the congress has under consideration, it is said, 52 federal bills, all aiming at our extermination. It is in order to get a semblance of justification for such laws that all the rioting is being staged, all the perjury suborned, and all the lies in the press manufactured against us. The secret government is thus preparing to turn a dastardly trick on the American people, designed to throw them in the chains of brutal tyranny for generations.

The part of the judiciary in this legal persecution is to do the bidding of the secret government. The trials given our members are outrageous, scandalous and farcical, the judges in nearly every case being unreservedly partial to the prosecution, and, finally, imposing sentences which are plainly acts of oppression and not acts of justice,

The executive part of the persecution is openly in defiance of the law. Arrests, raids and seizures, are in most cases being done without a warrant, the raids generally being more like acts of warfare than peaceful acts of law and order. We call attention to the photo herewith of the raid of the I. W. W. hall in New York by a department of the police.

Another feature of this activity is the brutal treatment invariably accorded our members when they happen to come in the road of these executives of both the secret and the legal governments. Clubs and other weapons are used without provocation or cause, and thousands of our fellow workers have been seriously injured by these clubbings and large numbers have been taken to hospitals and have been seriously injured for life.

The latest instance is that of Fellow Workers Kohler, manager of our printing plant, and Cascaden, a newspaper man, who both were present at the recent trial in Kansas City, Kohler as a witness and Cascaden as our press correspondent. Both were foully dealt with. Kohler was taken by court officials to one side, right in the court house, and terribly beaten up. As for Cascaden, a city detective came up to his room and beat him up, breaking his leg, in the brutal assault. The latter assault is admitted by the police, but they falsely state in the papers that the detective ‘acted in self-defense.” Lies are used to bolster up a deed over which they and the other tools of tyranny are openly gloating.

These two instances could be multiplied by the thousands.

As a result of the co-operation between the legal and extra-legal persecution there are now about 2,000 I. W. W. men in jail, of whom several hundreds already are sentenced to terms of up to 20 years. The rest are being held as long as possible without trial, and all our prisoners are in most cases being tormented in a fiendish manner.

One feature of this persecution is the deportation of hundreds of our members. But as deportation alone has little terror, the members are wantonly and illegally being held in jails for months and years before deportation, in order to inflict punishment outside the pale of the law. In fact, the secret government is not anxious to deport the workers in mass. They want to keep them here, if possible, and crush them into willing slaves.

The Defense Work of the I. W. W.

Under these circumstances it is easy to understand that the defense work for the organization has assumed large proportions. The General Defense Committee was about to collapse under the burden of its tremendous task, when William D. Haywood was finally released on bail and put to work as secretary and later as treasurer of the General Defense Committee in Chicago. Special defense committees have been active in the Northwest and California. It has been the task of these committees to secure legal aid wherever possible, but we must admit that many fellow workers have been victimized by our fiendish enemies for lack of proper legal defense. However, many hundreds of thousands of dollars have been raised for bail, and a number of the imprisoned fellow workers have thus regained liberty, pending the appeal of their case. Tens of thousands of dollars have been raised for defense purposes, partly through subscription lists, partly through collections at meetings and partly through the sale of stamps to members. We have been put to the utmost to secure funds, and at the present time the means on hand are entirely inadequate, while many of our resources are being exhausted. Help is beginning to come from the workers in foreign countries, systematic agitation and collection being now carried on in Sweden and Norway and perhaps in some other countries, showing that international solidarity is something more than an empty phrase.

Protests from labor organizations are also pouring in from England and Holland and other countries.

However, in order to keep the defense work from breaking down entirely, the buying of defense stamps by members will have to be made our special order of business for a long time to come, not forgetting the organization stamp for the upkeep of the organization in these trying times.

Unless the defense funds are kept up our fellow workers will have to resort to the dismal tactics of “silent defense” used by our 50 fellow workers in Sacramento with disastrous results.

Such is the terrible, almost incredible story of the I. W. W. in 1919. Never in the history of the labor movement have the efforts of the workers to organize been met with such sufferings.

Freedom is dead in the United States at present and raw-boned tyrants rule.

But it is easy to understand that a society that can maintain itself only through such moral degradation cannot have many days to live. Some day the sufferings of the people will have reached a limit over which they cannot go. Then comes the dissolution like a cataclysm. We foresee this day and in order to save ourselves, our class, mankind generally and whatever is worth saving of our “‘civilization,’” we are against tremendous odds going ahead with the work of organizing the workers industrially, so that we may be able to continue production and distribution and keep society going.

That responsibility now rests on the shoulders of the working class.

Watch the I. W. W. in 1920! Our principles are immortal, and no human agency can destroy them, whatever they may try to do to our organization and our members.

Transcribed by Revolution's Newsstand

The great massacre that broke out in August 1914 on the European continent swept away all pretense and hypocrisy from the revolutionary labor movement. It produced the high treason of German Social Democracy and the connivance of French Syndicalism, as represented by its officialdom, to the shameful “union sacrée,” the emasculation of the working class for the benefit of its age-long enemy—the exploiters.

The war was a stunning blow to all revolutionary groups and only very few of the militants of the labor movement were immune to this scourge that raged and still rages in the ranks of the working class. The honor of revolutionary stability belongs to the Russian Bolsheviki and the Bulgarian revolutionary Socialists, “the narrow,” who as bodies can claim it. In Italy a more or less anomalous situation produced the “intransigency” of the “official socialists,” of whom only a small minority is revolutionary and class conscious. “The Italian Syndicalist Union,” a small body of insurgents from the conservative Confederazione del Lavoro, who separated themselves from it before the war, was also demoralized by the treason of its most able and prominent militants, Rossoni, De Ambris, Corridoni, Massoti, Maia, Bacchi and their followers.

This cleavage demonstrated clearly on whom the proletariat can rely in its arduous struggle; and the war, with all its monstrous consequences, has rendered us a great service, taught us a unique lesson: THAT WARS CANNOT BE PREVENTED UNTIL CAPITALISM IS DONE AWAY WITH and that the old slogan—the emancipation of the working class must be the work of the workers themselves, must literally be carried out.

In the Confédération Générale du Travail confusion reigned supreme after the declaration of war. Its officials had attempted to secure a promise and definite engagement from Legien and the other leaders of the German Trade Unions for a general strike in case of war and were bitterly disappointed with the openly imperialistic attitude of those “Marxians.” To recite the story of Jouhaux’ speech on the grave of the assassinated Jaurés, the trip to Bordeaux in the ministerial train and the acceptance of the governmental office by him and his cohorts, will only add to the revolting memory of the past and our disillusionment.

However, there was one man, who formed a nucleus of tempered and tried militants, who held the torch of revolutionary syndicalism high above the foul breath of jingoism; who kept the red banner of the working class undefiled by the hands of Judas. And if France holds the record with Germany for having produced many Judases, it has the honor of having given birth to the first Liebknecht of the world, Pierre MONATTE. To him, Lenin and the Zimmerwald Conference paid tribute as the true son of the working class, who remained faithful to it and its traditions.

His bi-weekly little review “La Vie Ouvriére,” published for many years before the war, had in its folds the names, brains and hearts of the most brilliant fighters in the C. G. T. In its annals you will find the classic blow to the Taylor system, written by a powerful intellect of a simple working man, Albert MERRHEIM; the story of the life and work of the coal miners, brilliantly written, illustrated and full of statistics, by the pen of another working man, Georges DUMOULIN; the history, illustrated, of the heroic battle of the Cheminots (the railroad workers) in 1910; the famous accusation, which turned to be prophetic, against the German Social Democracy, by Andler, the thorough and scientific analysis of the “Imperialistic Tendencies in German Socialism,” which brought a shower of denunciations against Monatte, from the pen of Kautsky, Bebel and the now infamous Grumbach, “Homo,” who used to write for L’Humanité from Switzerland 1 ; the elaborate studies of syndicalist economics by Francis DELAISI.

In “La Vie Ouvriére” appeared the story of the General Strike in Belgium and many others, with spicy editorials, by Monatte’s faithful co-worker Alfred ROSMER; there the burning questions of education, carried on by syndicalist teachers, were directed by George AIRELLE, women in industry and what not. La Vie Ouvriére was the workshop where the very best of the syndicalist movement was extracted. It was a school for the young and old alike. And in that school Monatte was the teacher, humble, modest, a man that cannot be replaced.

When the bloody thing came, Monatte and “La Vie Ouvriére” remained the only oasis in the jingoistic maelstrom where the ideals and traditions of the Syndicalist movement were faithfully adhered to. At 96 Quai Jemmapes, its headquarters, gathered the remains of the once formidable organism, and now dispersed, revolutionary battalion. Here came even the Marxian Socialists Ferdinand LORIOT, LOUZON, Louise SAUMONEAU, and Leon TROTSKY. This group sent MERKHEIM and BOURDERON to Zimmerwald and published the now famous documents, “The Open Letters to the Subscribers of La Vie Ouvriére,” the work of Rosmer, Rakowsky’s biting pamphlet, the resolutions and proceedings of Zimmerwald, etc. They were printed by the great Metal Workers’ Federation, whose secretary was Merrheim, and which as a body opposed the war and issued the famous manifesto for May Day, 1915, calling: “Let us sabotage the war.”

Monatte was silenced. He was taken to the trenches, in the hope that a German bullet would put an end to such an obnoxious enemy of the capitalist regime. In the meantime, others took up the battle and the revolutionary workers were again solidifying their ranks. After the Russian Revolution of March, a wave of strike epidemy sapped the rear of the French army. Revolutionary demonstrations took place in Paris, St. Etienne, Lyons and other industrial centers. The red flags of the many thousands of girl strikers in Paris could not fail to infect the soldiers on leave, who now understood that the strikes were not treason against them, but that they were trying to end the bloody slaughter.

Mutinies happened at the front, in which 75 regiments of infantry, 22 battalions of chasseurs, 12 regiments of artillery, 2 regiments of colonials and other military detachments took part. These are the figures furnished by M. Gaston Bruyant, director of the Moral Service of the army headquarters. Then America came to the rescue of the French bourgeoisie. The revolution was averted.

Next May, 1918, we witness a still greater strike, that of the metal workers, and munition workers, of which 200,000 in Paris were out demanding the end of the war. But this time the French bankers and financiers found an ally in the face of Merrheim, the Zimmerwaldian, or as Lenin called him in his paper after that conference, “the symbol of the class struggle in France.” Merrheim assumed upon himself the role of saving the imperialists and war gods. He practically consented to the wholesale arrests made by the military, which included our valiant Fellow Worker Raymond Péricat, once secretary of the Building Workers’ Federation.

The revolutionary syndicalists then represented a formidable minority in many powerful unions, especially the metal workers, railroad workers and excavators. But these savage jailings and expeditions to the trenches of “undesirables,” weakened their ranks, especially after the shameful desertion of Merrheim and Dumoulin, who wielded a tremendous influence over the workers, thanks to their revolutionary past, Dumoulin having been 13 months in jail during the war, and Merrheim’s pilgrimage to Zimmerwald.

A few months later Péricat was released and so were many others who were arrested with him. He started his brilliant weekly “L’Internationale,” and it played the role of a magneto. In a few weeks again the shattered forces of revolutionary syndicalism were getting together. We must not omit to mention the splendid work of “Le Libertaire,”’ the anarchist organ of the revolutionary railroad workers, metal workers and excavators, whose four contributors served sentences in prison for clandestine issues of the paper during the great mutinies. Many of its collaborators are still in prison. That paper is one of the most influential weeklies in the country.

Few months after the armistice, Monatte was demobilized and on May Day this year, he again published “La Vie Ouvriére,” this time as a weekly paper. Two weeks later, the railroad workers’ federation, counting 245,000 workers, had its first convention since the beginning of the war and the revolutionary syndicalists, led by Monmousseau, Sirolle, Dejonkére, Midol (the man who called the one minute strike in January on the Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway and was sentenced to one year in prison and immediately reprieved), scored a singular victory when 108,000 railroaders voted the revolutionary motion of Monmousseau, repudiating the officials and their collaboration with the government and masters, and calling for the abolition of the wage system.

Monmousseau is heart and soul with Monatte and contributes stirring articles to “La Vie Ouvriére.” Monatte and his nucleus of excellent organizers, orators and writers, started the big campaign for the coming conventions in September. The Metal Workers had their convention just before that of the Confederation of Labor, and here Monatte’s Fellow Workers Verdier, Coron, Vergeat, Andrieux scored a great success. One third of the unions completely repudiated Merrheim and Lenoir, their federal secretaries, and as Fellow Worker Coron says in “La Vie Ouvriére: “The vote of confidence to our officials was rather a vote of sympathy.” Sympathy and regret for their heroic past.

When the great confederal congress came in the middle of last September, the eyes of the French workers as well as capitalists were trained on Lyons, says “The Irish Statesman.” And it was true. Even Russia, struggling and bleeding for the world proletariat, was aware of this congress and sent its greetings to the assembled workers’ delegates, which was read by Fellow Worker Coron, and greeted lustily.

Over two thousand delegates, seated in the great hall of the Exposition in Lyons, were quite nervous and agitated over the plans and intentions of the formidable minority, which had called a whole day meeting of its ranks on the eve of the congress and decided on some method of procedure and systematic work.

MILLION opens the congress with a short historic sketch of the growth of the C. G. T. “In 1901 we were only a handful of militants meeting again in Lyons, in the Labor Exchange. Now we represent two million organized workers.” Then he pays tribute to the memory of PELLOUTIER, “the most representative man of French Syndicalism.” He examines the task of the congress and predicts many passionate and violent battles but counsels calm judgment so that positive results should come out of these deliberations.

The congress sends greetings to all peoples in revolution, to the military and political prisoners, and demands amnesty for all.

In the afternoon session the battle starts over the moral report of the confederal bureau. TOMMASI, the revolutionary delegate of the Aviation and Vehicle Workers, starts the fire. He is a young and powerful orator. Even the bourgeois press pays tribute to his able discourse. He denounces the members of the administrative council for their insidious manoeuvres during the fateful July 21 deliberation and the shameful abandonment of the Russian and Hungarian struggling workers. He says that the officials did not desire the strike and they sabotaged the rank and file by sending it off.

Jouhaux then announces that the congress will discuss the whole confederal politics during the war. Monatte demands the reason for the absence of all the proceedings and official documents of the Confederal Committee.

Louis BOUET, the secretary of the Teachers’ Federation, declares that ever since the beginning of the war, his federation has joined the minority and has remained true to its attitude. He repudiates the actions of the confederal bureau. He shows the deplorable effects of the abandonment of the July 21st general strike. The organization is now completely disqualified to speak in the name of the proletariat.

When the Credentials Committee reported, they found only one contest: Perrot, the secretary of the Union des Syndicats of the Seine department, allowed only one vote to the 20 railroad workers’ unions. The reason was that they represented the revolutionary rank and file and would vote for the revolutionary minority. But Perrot’s pretenses were too paltry and the minority scored a victory by compelling the congress to accept the 20 unions.

The next morning the congress opens with a hot critique of the attitude of the C. G. T. during the war, by Meric. But the animation starts with the mounting of the tribune by Fellow Worker Gaston MONMOUSSEAU, the spokesman of the militant railroad workers. He said that he was one of those who in 1918 voted the resolution for unity. He had expected that the C. G. T., pushed by circumstances, would enter again the road of syndicalism. “I gave my confidence to Dumoulin. I thought things would change. But since then, nothing has changed. The same politics continue. Jouhaux we saw sitting next to Loucheur at the Peace Conference. The working class had other things to do: it ought to have exerted pressure on the peace conference from without. Syndicalism has nothing in common with the League of Nations.”

“But the revolutionary forces are growing. They are growing among the railroad workers and the metal workers. And the revolutionary spirit is a fact.” The congress is warmed up. One feels that the blows are falling on the right place and taking effect. The majoritaires are attentive; the minoritairies applaud warmly their orator.

Then he comes to July 21: “We thought,” says he, “that it will mark the beginning of syndicalist action. But once more we were deceived…When the C.G.T. had only 400,000 members it could liberate Rousset (a victim of military injustice in Africa) and now we count two millions and still the sailors of the Black Sea mutinies are in prison. As for the Russian revolution, whenever it was mentioned, it was to desolidarize yourselves from it. There was a conspiracy of silence everywhere. And we accuse the C. G. T. of having been, by its silence, an accomplice of the strangulation of the Hungarian revolution.

“Once Dumoulin ridiculed the yellow Internationa] and said that on that road to Damascus we shall meet Karl Legien, Sam Gompers and Ben Tillet, in company with the agents (men of affairs) of the international bourgeoisie. We shall go to the workers of all countries and rebuild the Workers’ International. But Dumoulin went to Amsterdam. And he met Gompers, Legien, Appleton. Together they rebuilt the International of collaboration of the classes. For us there is only one Internationale, THAT OF MOSCOW.”

This brings a thunder of applause. Monmousseau ends his speech with an exposition of the minoritaires’ conception of the revolution: “Yes, we are revolutionists, but not rioters…They tell us always that the masses are not ripe for a revolution. What have you done to enlighten it? Those who have lost faith and have become skeptical, let them get out from the movement. We repudiate the C. G. T. for its attitude during the war, for its new methods which sidetrack syndicalism from its historic mission. We denounce the C. G. T. for failing to pit the working class against our capitalist class and those of other countries, which are trying to strangle the Russian revolution, after the Hungarian, so that they could easier crush our own revolution.”

Monmousseau descends from the tribune amidst the cheers of a great part of the congress. After him Le Troquer defends feebly the officials. The majoritaires have a strong card in the person of BOURDERON, ex-Zimmerwaldian, a member of the Socialist Party. But he hardly touches the moral report of the bureau. He speaks of the different periods of the war. “I do not retract a word from what I have said in 1915 and 1916.” In 1918, he says, he thought it was his duty to make the two factions approach each other. He recognizes that the hopes he laid in Wilson have deceived him. “One must say whether he is for unity or separation. I do not know whether I.am a majoritaire or a minoritaire. Minoritaires, if you are men of action, I am with you.”

Fellow Worker VERDIER of the metal workers of Aveyron then takes up the battle against the renegades. “We must go further than Proudhon’s formula: “The workshop must displace the government.” The inside government of the shop must be assured by the union against the master.” Then he attacks the National Economic Council and says: “Not this we need, but the dictatorship of the workers’ organizations. And this dictatorship cannot be secured but through the general revolutionary strike.” Verdier had just come from the metal workers’ convention, where he fought the majority to exhaustion and his voice is very low.

Then JACQUEMIN, who by the way belongs to the confederal bureau, mounts the tribune and declares that he does not share the opinions of the majority. ‘I was an anarchist, and anarchist I remain. I have tried to find out why do men change, but I have not found the explanation yet.” He believes, however, that the differences are not so great and it suffices only to come again to the old methods of direct action and anti-militarism, in order to bring about revolutionary unity.

Fellow Worker DEJONKERE, of the railroad workers, is one of those who last year voted against the unity resolution. Unfortunately, he says, I have nothing to regret on account of my vote. The same politics of class collaboration and abdication continue.

At this point, the congress decides to limit the number of orators on the moral report to five for each tendency, while in fact the majority had seven, for Jouhaux and Dumoulin concluded the deliberations.

Rougerie, a member of the Socialist Party, acts as the great conciliator. Last year at Clermont Ferrand he prepared the rapprochement of the two tendencies. It took him a long time, he says, to decide whether he was a minoritaire or a majoritaire, for he has taken in the Socialist Party a position that does not coincide with his position in the C. G. T.

After this manoeuvre of the astute politician Rougerie, comes the first orator of the minority, our valiant MONATTE. He reviews the attitude of the officials ever since the first day of discord, which was caused by the jingoistic speech Jouhaux delivered on the grave of Jaurés. Then he mentions the trip in the ministerial train to Bordeaux. On this point Gauthier, of St.-Nazaire, says that this is not true. “It is true,” says Bourderon. The congress is on its feet. Arguments are started. One feels that Monatte’s critique touches the essential, the sensitive points and he will be without mercy.

Monatte reminds the congress of his letter of resignation from the Confederal Committee and the reasons thereof: Jouhaux commissaire of the nation, his lecture tour on behalf of the government. He reads the letter he had received from Million, the secretary of the Union des Syndicats of the Rhone district, which admirably analyzes the effects of the traitorous attitude of Jouhaux and his clique. “In this period, we are looking at the sabotage of the ideas that were dearest to us and of the working class organism in which we had placed all our hopes and for which we have sacrificed our freedom and our lives. However, I believe that this is only a momentary departure and that the clarity of our international thought will dissipate all confusions brought about by the ‘revolutionary neo-nationalism.’

“This letter has its importance and shows that, in the first months of the war, the panic was not general.

“The war was the condemnation of the capitalist régime and its greatest crime. It has no more right to lead the world after it has brought it to the slaughter. What bitterness, in this moment, to see Jouhaux on the side of the governments and the co-responsibility charged to our central organism.” And Monatte cries: “The men that have done that are not worthy any more to interpret the thought of the French labor movement.” The congress applauds him warmly. This part of his speech produces a profound impression. He then goes into the reorganization of the administration of the C. G. T. He accuses the officials of having atrophied the function of the Bourses du Travail (Labor Exchanges), in order to secure them the hegemony over the central organization. He blames the officials of having transferred the direction of the movement from the rank and file into their own hands.

After a skillful blow at the confederal bureau, whose climax was the malicious statement of Marcel Laurent, a joint secretary of Jouhaux, the congress is again in turmoil. Laurent attempts to answer, but the delegates hoot him and he sits down.

“The confederal leaders have associated themselves with the government in its need of peace. We do not desire to help the bourgeoisie to save itself. It has condemned itself and we condemn it.”

Some one shouts: “Then this is disorder.”

Monatte replies: “Disorder, the capitalist regime is disorder. There is the abyss. We must jump over it. Some people, who like us, know that the bourgeoisie cannot save itself, still hesitate. This is the case of Merrheim.”

“We shall follow the wave and will try to be what true militants ought to be. Renan, in ‘The Life of Jesus,’ studying the psychology of Judas, writes: ‘In him, the administrator had killed the apostle.’ The administrator and the apostle ought to make one body. Too often does the administrator kill the apostle.”

The congress, which follows the discourse with great interest, applauds long. Monatte concludes with the following: “At present we have a great duty: it is the salvation of the revolution which is already in the world. Amongst you has been distributed the appeal of the Central Soviet of the Russian labor unions. The answer that we must give them ought to be the practical conclusion of this congress. For as Robert Smillie, the president of the miners federation of England, has said, at the present moment there is no greater labor question than the intervention in Russia.”

Monatte ends. Long applause resounds in the tremendous hall. And then, spontaneously, THE INTERNATIONALE rings out. All the delegates arise, the majoritaires follow reluctantly; only the confederal secretaries remain seated. Whatever the congress decides, says Rosmer in “La Vie Ouvriére,” we have scored a great victory.

The Socialist and Bourgeois press pays tribute to Monatte also. They say that no other delegate ever received such an ovation as Monatte. His career, his spotless past and his uncompromising attitude ever since his entrance in the labor movement contribute to the respect and confidence he inspires in the hearts of the workers. Even Dumoulin pays him homage by saying that he has felt the beauty of his discourse. “What you have suffered, I suffered also. What you just did now, I did in 1918.”

Marty-Rollan, a majoritaire, does not dare to speak right after Monatte, for his talk will be ineffective, so the congress adjourns for the next day, when he speaks and then Ferdinand LORIOT, of the teachers federation, Lenin’s friend and one of the few true Marxians who is a Bolshevik. After him Bidegaray, the conservative secretary of the railroad workers who makes a naive and humorous speech. Then Fellow Worker Raymond PERICAT mounts the tribune and delivers a philippic against the renegades, accusing them of abandoning him and his co-workers, when they were persecuted by the government.

Bartuel, the miner’s secretary, defends feebly the confederal politics. After him comes the young and fiery LePETIT, of the Parisian excavators’ union, who had served, until last April 10, a two years sentence in Clairvaux. He animates anew the debate. He says that he was one of those who, in the beginning of the war, answered the call of Merrheim and Bourderon. He had worked with Merrheim, who for a given moment incarnated French syndicalism. “I asked him, on my part, why he had repudiated his ideas, why did he repudiate Zimmerwald, and why he deserted his friends of the minority.” “Bourderon demands to know if we reproach him with having gone to salute the great democrat Wilson at Brest.” Yes, we accuse him of having saluted the man that Lenin calls “the greatest hypocrite.” Lepetit finishes his live speech as follows: “We refuse to bring our stone to the capitalist edifice. We desire to create the worst difficulties for the capitalist regime.”

The majoritaires have one great trump card in the face of MERRHEIM, whose past role and the beautiful traditions he had left in the C. G. T. make him quite an impregnable fortress. He is, or rather was, the most probable leader of the coming French revolution. Lenin, Trotsky and Tchicherin played him strong, but he proved to be a timid and calculating labor leader, who has no prototype in any other country. If he had remained with the minority, as well as Dumoulin and a host of other younger militants, Clemenceau might have sung his swan song a year and half ago, during the great strikes and mutinies. But Clemenceau was shrewd, and though he hates and fears Merrheim more than any other man and threatened to imprison him while still in opposition, he switched around and left him unmolested. A better policy could not be applied: a Merrheim in prison would have been worth 10,000 Merrheims out of prison.

His defense is remarkably sincere. After Zimmerwald, where he met Lenin and had an eight hour private talk with him, he says: “I did not betray the working class; the working class betrayed me, by following the jingoes and renegades.” He accuses the working class of having fallen in materialistic immorality, which is manifested by the demand for wages and more wages, instead of more fundamental principles.

Fellow Worker Henri SIROLLE, the much heralded one by the American yellow press, then, as the last of the minority orators, resumes the attack upon the officials’ citadel. He is a young and able orator, an incomparable organizer of the Left Bank railways of Paris, a man that has done a great deal for the mustering of the revolutionary forces of the railroad workers.

Dumulin and Jouhaux, almost in tears, apologize, equivocate and shrink under the leashing of the militants of the minority. The defense, however, is quite effective, because through a manoeuvre and a trick, they steal the program, a valuable portion of it, anyway, of the minority, and put it to a vote before putting to vote the moral report, so that the delegates will think that they have become revolutionary. The deception is quite successful, for few delegates, like Marchall of the railroad workers, though instructed to vote against it, approve it by a large vote.

The resolution of the majority recognizes the class struggle and is for the expropriation of the capitalist class and establishment of the communist order. These are pretentions but very effective for the time being. They defend the Russian revolution and engage themselves to stop all ammunitions and arms for Koltchak and Denikin and condemn in the strongest terms the imperialistic designs of the Entente.

Five hundred and eighty-eight of the largest unions of the most strategic industries vote against the moral report of Jouhaux. The vote stands 2 to 1.

Monatte, Rosmer, Monmousseau and Sirolle think it was a great victory for the minority. Numerically, their victory is much greater than it appears. Our syndicalist friends do not believe in the proportional representation system and thus their strength is not so evident. Judging from later developments, they can claim greater numbers,

Since then their ranks have been flooded with new recruits. Jouhaux and Dumoulin have lost the last vestige of confidence, because they betrayed the workers again by coming to Washington and not keeping their solemn engagements to save the Russian revolution.

The minority have 9 delegates in the Confederal Committee, which is composed of 30. Their delegates are: Marthe Bigot, a girl teacher, good rebel and brilliant writer, Bouyé, of the metal workers, Lepetit, of the excavators, Loriot, of the teachers, Monatte, Monmousseau, of the railroad workers, Roux of the postal, telegraph and telephone workers, and Tommasi, of the aviation and vehicle workers They have started a live agitation for a general strike to save the Russian revolution and demand complete amnesty (which was voted but did not include the sailors from the Black Sea mutinies).

Already the “Union des Syndicats of the Seine” (Paris) district has begun that agitation and compelled the whole C. G. T. to consult its members on the question.

The minority is doing a remarkable work and feverishly increasing its effectives.

We can rest assured that they will do their duty by the Russian revolution by, as Monatte says, making one at home.

Transcribed by Revolution's Newsstand

• 1In February and March 1913, Monatte publisheda lengthy article written by Charles Andler, the able historian and student of Marx, author of a “Commentary on the Communist Manifesto” and a volume on German Social Democracy, an article which most astonishingly predicted the shameful betrayal of the working class by the so-called Marxians of Germany. The article bore the title “Le Socialisme Imperialiste d’Allemagne Contemporaine” (Imperialist Socialism in Contemporary Germany). Jean Longuet, grandson of Marx, leader of the fenceriding center of the French Socialist party, a man who voted all the credits of the bankers war, indignantly asked Monatte to publish “the crushing reply” (la reponse ecrassante) of comrade Grumbach which appeared in Neue Zeit, together with some vile attack by Kautsky and Bebel.

  Grumbach’s “crushing reply” reads in part as follows: “German Social Democracy is done for! Bebel becomes chancellor of the Empire, Scheidemann minister of Foreign Affairs, Gerhard Hildebrand, perhaps anew received in grace by the party, to direct the administration of the Colonies, Noske in charge of the Ministry of War.

  The military, colonial and naval credits shall be voted by the socialist deputies without hesitation and with glad heart; Kautsky is charged to justify the necessity of it in theory, etc. All in sarcastic tone.

  This remarkable prophecy, made as reproach to Monatte and Andler, is now almost pathetically true. They went so far as to call Monatte’s “Vie Ouvriére” “a monarchist review.” Albert Thomas defended the German Social Democrats in the Chamber of Deputies. They all, Grumbach, Kautsky, Longuet, Thomas, went on the other side of the barricade, Monatte remained true to the working class.