IWW stance on World War I

FnBrill should post something, as he is extremely knowledgeable about this.

Resolution passed by the IWW at it's 1916 convention.

The IWW Position on War

Actually, this might be a bit more perfunctory then what your looking for but as I was aware of it I thought that I'd post in just in case.

Haven't read it but this might be interesting - The IWW and Oppositional Politics in World War I: Pushing the System Beyond its Limits, Radical History Review Winter 1996 1996(64): 74-94;
http://rhr.dukejournals.org/content/1996/64/74.full.pdf+html

Interesting thread. Not sure about the US, but in Australia the IWW was heavily involved in the anti-conscription movement: https://libcom.org/library/memoirs-i-w-w-australia-bill-beattie

It was the same in New Zealand: https://libcom.org/history/reds-wobblies-working-class-radicalism-state-new-zealand-1915-1925

… and the UK: https://libcom.org/history/north-london-iww-1st-world-war-ken-weller

I thought this piece was pretty informative. While the IWW took a "principled" anti-war position in 1916, when the US entered the war the practical implementation of any anti-war activities was avoided on the important Philly docks, as it was throughout the union. https://libcom.org/history/war-waterfront-chapter-4-wobblies-waterfront-–-interracial-unionism-progressive-era-phil

Of course one can take many things away from this Cole quote and I often wonder how much is academic and how much fact:

"Nevertheless, Local 8 maintained job control and the Wobblies performed their work admirably. Not a single work stoppage occurred after May 15, 1917. This policy even extended to their annual birthday strike. At one April 1918 meeting, the members voted “that we postpone the Celebration of the 15th of May which is our legal holiday ever since our Organization is in existence so as not to hamper the war work of the Government.” Clearly, the membership supported the war effort, shocking given the IWW's politics and the government's wartime repression — or perhaps not. Local 8's action combined one part patriotism (white hot by 1918), one part fear (of further arrests and raids), and one part pragmatism (almost all work was war-related). Rationales aside, when literally millions of tons of explosives and munitions were loaded and unloaded in the port, not a single explosion, accident, or shifting of cargo occurred in Philadelphia. In contrast, there were numerous explosions, fires, and accidents at other Atlantic ports, where ILA men worked. Incredibly, given the federal government's anti-IWW stance, the Navy did not allow any explosives to be loaded aboard a vessel in Philadelphia unless done so by Wobblies. Moreover, when a fire or explosion occurred on a ship loaded in New York (as when the Henderson caught fire at sea), it was sent to Philadelphia to be reloaded. Gompers claimed, without evidence, that such “accidents” on New York's Chelsea piers were sabotage conducted by pro-German Wobblies. Local 8 members were proud of their unblemished record and quick to point out that less efficient longshoremen were not Wobblies.37"

I wonder to what degree race did or didn't play a role in Philly though.There's some tradition in the US of black workers taking the opening that a war provides to gain a stronghold in industry, and try to defend it. There's also some tradition of the government/employers/racist unions looking for any excuse to try to push them back out.

^^^^. Philly is prolly an interesting study of many things
I was trying to narrow it down to the question of the IWW anti war viewpoints and the practice of a strategically place IWW local with job control

Obviously not the same union or traditions, but the ilwu during viet nam war never stopped loading the ships heading towards the conflict zone of Southeast Asia

In part, a look at union organizational history is what was the concrete
practice measured up to the resolutions passed at conventions and do forth
So I'm using that outlook here relative to the IWW and WWI

That's very interesting. I mean it's terrible, but interesting.

I don't know about the numbers of the Australia and New Zealand IWWs, but I wonder how much of the different approach was driven by the fact that the US IWW was probably a lot bigger, and so probably included a large number of non-internationalist, non-revolutionaries, whereas the Australian and New Zealand ones may have been "purer"?

Steven #14

I take your point regarding the size of the Australian and New Zealand IWW. Perhaps also it could have been easier for them to adopt an anti-war position as the Central Powers had not attacked or killed any of their nationals, so why should they get mixed up a far-away European war. Later, when the USA got involved, the war had spread and American nationals had been killed.

There is some material in Frank Cain's 1993 book 'The Wobblies At War - a history of the IWW and the Great war in Australia' I have a copy picked up in Australia but second hand copies might still be available?

Passive anti-militarism would have to also be the opinion of many editors and contributors to IWW papers and magazines, as well as leadership in locals and IU's across the country, as indicated by your own earlier quote:

A minority [of members in the IWW] felt the IWW should concentrate on open opposition to the war.. . . The majority felt this would sidetrack the class struggle into futile channels and be playing the very game that the war profiteers would want the IWW to play. They contended that the monstrous stupidity by which the governments of different lands could put their workers into uniforms and make them go forth and shoot each other was something that could be stopped only if the workers of the world were organized together; then they could put a stop to this being used against themselves; and that consequently the thing to be done under the actual circumstances was to proceed with organizing workers to fight their steady enemy, the employing class. . .keeping in mind the ultimate ideal of world labor solidarity. There was no opportunity for referendum, but the more active locals took this attitude, instructing speakers to confine their remarks to industrial union issues, circulating only those pamphlets that made a constructive case for the IWW, and avoiding alliance with the Peoples Council and similar anti-war movements.

I suspect there would have to be a more detailed and in depth study of a number of factors to determine not just who held the ambivalent attitudes toward war opposition (Haywood said that the incumbent war required no more special treatment than their normal anti-militarist stance, in Foner). On the other hand, Eugene Debs, socialist party presidential candidate was pretty unwavering in his opposition to the war, though he had departed at this point from the official membership in the I.W.W. Perhaps it was something in Haywood's own brand of syndicalism, or as Foner argues, a sort of short-sightedness about what would provide organizational breathing room.

But individuals were not barred from expressing anti-war aims and Foner quotes people writing into Solidarity I think to disagree with the oppositional patience tactics. Could they have organized anti-conscription efforts? What was the mood among workers? How effective would they have been? What route for possible outcome? Many Anti-war activists, those in the socialist party, those wobblies who took aggressive action (and even those who didn't) soon wound up in jail. Would they have benefited from going out on day one in direct and forceful opposition? However we feel, answering these questions demands a determined investigation how many members and leaders across the organization felt and acted. What was it in the debates and histories of the U.S. workers movement that would pre-dispose many of it's members toward this attitude? Was it a result of the 'anti-political' attitude of many in the IWW?

From what I gather, the going silent seems to have been a defensive reaction.

Eric Chester's book discusses the debate & decision-making that took place, and the stances of Haywood & Little. My impression is that Haywood may have been afraid of giving the government a reason to act in a repressive manner....as it did towards SP. So the stance Haywood took was that the class struggle would continue & they would not go along with the AFL no strike pledge during the war. So the IWW's stance was not as conservative as AFL which was officially pro-war.

It's true that overall policy decision-making was rather centralized in the IWW. It didn't embrace the kind of federalism characteristic of other syndicalist unions.

Sorry for coming to the conversation late. There's a lot to catch up on.

Just some brainstorming.
First its a problem to telescope back what we would do and know what should be done now.
Second: So my question would be what were the conditions that led the IWW to this sort of odd neutral stand.
Third: There had been no conscription before WW1. While there was conscription in the Civil War only 2-7% of union troops had been drafted.
Four: "In 1917 the administration of Woodrow Wilson decided to rely primarily on conscription, rather than voluntary enlistment, to raise military manpower for World War I when only 73,000 volunteers enlisted out of the initial 1 million target in the first six weeks of the war." - wikipedia
Five: So in the past experience, Americans fought against war by not participating. My surmise is the unprecedented conscription (24 million + registered through 1918) caught them off guard.
Six: If #Five is accurate-ish, the Class War - fight them in the workplace strategy of the IWW would have been logical and adiquate.

Steven: The IWW was larger (per capita) and more influential in Australia than in the US. The organizing there was hidden more because of the various dominion labor laws which mandated arbitration and limited union options.

Thanks, fnb, that was a really interesting post with some really good points, particularly five and six.

Juan -- "The American Socialist Movement " by Ira Kipnis is a good period book
on the American socialist movements, including the 1912 SP, Haywood bruha.

I should be clearer: I don't see what centralism' has to do with it. I mean, I know the IWW did not have the same 'secede-if-you-please' approach to the subordinate bodies in the organization, and I suspect this was to mitigate against the problems of amalgamation and unity that the WFM/ALU, ARU, etc. had seen with the AFL vs. ARU or AFL vs. WFM or for example the hard work that Debs did, prior to the ARU forming, of trying to piece by piece unite the existing railroad brotherhoods. But I'm curious what exactly the charge of centralism is applied to in this period - What body had outsized control/influence which stymied the initiative or activities of subordinate bodies? If anything, the IWW was exceedingly *decentralized* - Locals and halls often charted their own organizing strategy and policies. (Who determined, and when and how, that Free Speech fights were handy? Then who determined that they were useless?). Local 8 in Philly became notorious for charging high assessments as a a part of it's plan for job control (and it is in this respect that the GEB had a pretext for disciplining them iirc).

How did this play into the war policy? What I was getting at was that the IWW's policy seems to have meshed quite well with the sentiments of it's membership and even it's core of leaders (editors, local leaders, etc.) . That doesn't mean the policies or decisions weren't wrong. It just means they weren't wrong as a result of the failure of a few great men to lead, but perhaps for more complex reasons. FnBrill highlights some important aspects, which I hadn't thought of. The Radical America piece makes a good point - The draft was set to have people register by June 5th of 1917. By September IWW halls were raided and by November the mass arrests of IWW leaders had occurred. The author (can't find the name) also points out that during 1916-1917 the IWW had an important trial going on in Seattle that it did not want to lose,(Everett Massacre) and that two places where there HAD been anti-conscription efforts on a large scale, wobblies were involved (they cite the refusal of Miners from Mesabi area of Minnesota to register for the draft, arrests, and then subsequent protests of hundreds of supporters, with a similar incident in Rockford, Illinois).

Haven't got a chance to check out the chester yet, but I will.

Philadelphia Local 8 had its charter suspended ostensibly for loading war materials for intervention in Russia. Later that was shown to be a lie fostered by secret CP members on the GEB.

Chester also thoroughly discusses the whole affair of the accusations against Local 8 for allegely loading munitions. It was complicated because the MTWIU national board in New York was chaired by a secret communist. They demanded *immediate* cessation of loading the ship when showed up in Philly. Local 8 business agent and other officers, when contacted on piers where they were working, said couldn't have a representative meeting immediately, would take some time to do that. So the communists demanded immediate suspension of local 8 by GEB. Once local 8 was able to have a representative meeting, they decided to pull the loading of the ship. But what wasn't clear to me was what was CP lying about? were they lying in claiming that ship was carrying munitiions for Wrangel? From Chester's account, it seems to me the CPers were just messing with a local where CP didn't have any support. after all why not wait a day or two till a representative meeting could be arranged?

Steven: The IWW was larger (per capita) and more influential in Australia than in the US. The organizing there was hidden more because of the various dominion labor laws which mandated arbitration and limited union options.

I would concur with this. 'Direct Action' had a circulation in 1914 of about 20,000, significant given that the population of Australia was about 4 million. The the Australian IWW was openly against the war is clear from the content. Original copies are kept at the State Library of New South Wales for those of you who live in Sydney.

Another key difference when comparing the US and Australia was that there was never any conscription although the Hughes government tried twice unsuccessfully to introduce conscription by referendum. When the war began, the Commonwealth government had no shortage of volunteers many informed by Imperial sentiment but not a few motivated by a desire for adventure and travel.

However, by 1915 when the huge scale of casualties became apparent, volunteers were as rare as hen's teeth. Opposition to the war was great and widespread. The issue of conscription was the most divisive in Australian political history and informed the attitude of the ALP which had broader ramifications during the Second World War. The opposition of 'the Irish Church in Australia' under the tutelage of the Archbishop of Melbourne, Daniel Mannix, fuelled sectarian hatred particularly after April 1916. Catholic opposition was the deciding factor.

The issue split the ALP and the Prime Minister was expelled and went on to form the Nationalist Party. One vocal opponent was John Curtin, at the time a member of the Victorian Socialist Party, who was to become Prime Minister in 1941. Consequently, there was no conscription during WW2 with the exception of the Australian Militia which was used in New Guinea on the basis it was part of Australia (former German colony awarded to Australia as part of the settlement of the Versaille Treaty).

Most unionists and certainly the CPA opposed WW2 as an imperialist war. But this changed after 22 June 1941 whereupon large numbers of workers particularly from Melbourne and Sydney volunteered and from which the 9th Division was largely created.

Juan:

In no way was I criticizing your post. I had been thinking for several days about how the GEB then would have looked at their problem. Was mainly rambling/brainstorming after a long day, outlining my thoughts - so I was saying to myself not to telescope backwards.

I agree critique is important to animate what we do today.

Apologies for any misunderstandings.

Yes, the conscription idea is just an educated conjecture - there's lots of history of the US wars and draft dodging, desertion, rioting, etc.

Compare the US to Imperial Russia where conscription was implemented in 1699 and was quite long term: "The term of service in 18th century was for life. In 1793 it was reduced to 25 years. In 1834 it was reduced to 20 years plus 5 years in reserve and in 1855 to 12 years plus 3 years of reserve."

And had been re-enforced after the Crimean War: "After the Russian defeat in the Crimean War during the reign of Alexander II, the Minister of War Dmitry Milyutin introduced a military reform, with its draft presented in 1862. As part of the reform, on January 1, 1874 , the statute about conscription was approved by tsar by which the military service was made compulsory to all males of age 20 and the term was reduced for land army to 6 years plus 9 years in reserve. This conscription created a large pool of military reserve ready to be mobilized in the case of war, while permitting a smaller active army during the peace time."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_Russian_Empire

another surmise as to why the Russians mutinied in great numbers.

France was the first country to adopt universal conscription under Napoleon. The Prussians introduced the conscription of Peasants in the 1700s based on an earlier Swedish model.

UK and its affiliated countries only first introduced conscription for WW2.

There was conscription in WW1 from 1916 in Britain.

fingers malone

There was conscription in WW1 from 1916 in Britain.

Yes and there was the decree that all English boys be trained as archers in the middle ages which is still technically the law of the land.

"the Archery Law in 1363 which commanded the obligatory practice of archery on Sundays and holidays! The Archery Law "forbade, on pain of death, all sport that took up time better spent on war training especially archery practise". Henry I later proclaimed that an archer would be absolved of murder, if he killed a man during archery practise!

Parents were to provide every boy from seven to seventeen years of age with a bow and two arrows, and after seventeen he was to provide himself with a bow and four arrows; and butts for the practice of archery were to be erected in every town."

And both the British Army and Navy were used to pressing men into service when they had a shortages of volunteers. There were also requirements that several Imperial territories levy a certain number of troops for the Empire which required varying degrees of coercion. And I'm pretty certain military service was offered as an alternative to prison terms up to the 20th century.

I just want to say I find this discussion fascinating, one thing always puzzled me about the official history of WWI was the claim that everyone was enthusiastic to serve (complete with anecdotes about teenage boys lying about heir ages to sign up) and yet every nation that took part had to rely on conscription to keep up the madness.

Just got a copy of Dubofsky's book and jumped ahead to the wartime section.

Specific anti-war protests and agitation was curbed. This might have been the best policy. But all seemed agreed that strikes and organization were to proceed without much change. And they did. That the I.W.W. was making gains in major war industries (This is Dubofsky's general argument) seems to be the, ironic, direct cause of repression. Bitter fights in metals and copper in Arizona and Montana, and Lumber and Wheat in the Midwest, Washington, and California, found the businessmen and governors of those states pressuring the Justice Department and the president to repress the IWW. Dubofsky paints the picture well with speeches by Congressmen denouncing the IWW 'menace' to war-time production, drumming up plots of German Funding, while detailing the Bisbee deportations, Vigilante justice in other parts of Arizona, and of course Little's fate.

Why was anti-war protest curbed? I think that apolitical syndicalism plays a role. J. A. MacDonald, Industrial Worker Editor is quoted in Dubofsky and others as saying

My reason is that if we came out strong there are hundreds of the boys who would pull stunts that would do the movement no good and land them on the inside of a jail, when they could be doing effective work on the inside of industry.

And in correspondence he gave another reason

Attended a peace meeting at which one of the strongest advocate of anti-militarism was a pudgy parasite waving a hand with diamonds. I said to myself 'I am an anti-militarist because I am an internationalist, but, you, damn you, peace or no peace, I am against you!'

There is an irony to it - They mitigated the anti-war rhetoric, to some degree, and then pursued a practical policy that hurt the bosses a whole lot more than any protest. Certainly the anti-war stance lent the employers some anti-american ammunition, but it seems like it was not the central issue. The central issue was tying up copper, wheat, timber, and other key war industries.

On centralism. I see your point. The way centralism get's thrown about sometimes I think it evades the issue. Why did the majority view (on the GEB which opposed specific anti-conscription organizing and protest) win out? Did the decision go unchallenged among the leadership across regions and among the membership? It seems like Chaplin carried on his anti-war propaganda in Solidarity, and Little was murdered for being such an outspoken anti-war organizer. (which really got the goat of the employers the organizer or the anti-militarist role is likely impossible to determine). So it doesn't seem like this decision had to rely upon all that much to force the decision on the membership.

And honestly, the reality of the 1916 resolution, beyond as a general guide line seems strange. Lacking a real precedent for a nation wide *willed* general strike, it seems naive to take the resolution as concrete policy to be implemented. Perhaps this does derive in part from the structure of the organization, that in order to better debate the issue and determine a more specific and detailed course of action, they would have had to wait until another convention.

'Conscription: the First World War
Your Country Needs You

Within a year of Great Britain declaring war on Germany in August 1914, it had become obvious that it was not possible to continue fighting by relying on voluntary recruits.

Lord Kitchener’s campaign – promoted by his famous "Your Country Needs You" poster – had encouraged over one million men to enlist by January 1915. But this was not enough to keep pace with mounting casualties.

Conscription introduced

The government saw no alternative but to increase numbers by conscription – compulsory active service. Parliament was deeply divided but recognised that because of the imminent collapse of the morale of the French army, immediate action was essential.

In March 1916 the Military Service Act was passed. This imposed conscription on all single men aged between 18 and 41, but exempted the medically unfit, clergymen, teachers and certain classes of industrial worker.

Conscientious objectors – men who objected to fighting on moral grounds– were also exempted, and were in most cases given civilian jobs or non-fighting roles at the front.

A second Act passed in May 1916 extended conscription to married men.

Conscription was not applied to Ireland because of the 1916 Easter Rising, although in fact many Irishmen volunteered to fight.'

http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/private-lives/yourcountry/overview/conscription/

Conscription U.S.A.
'Early drafts
The United States first employed a form of conscription during the War of 1812 , though a draft Act was formulated in The First National Conscription Act in 1792. The imposition of a draft during the American Civil War touched off the New York Draft Riots in July 1863. The Confederate States instituted conscription in 1862, and resistance was both widespread and violent, with comparisons made between conscription and slavery. Both sides permitted conscripts to hire substitutes. In the Union, many states and cities offered bounties and bonuses for enlistment. They also arranged to take credit against their quota for freed slaves who enlisted.

The World Wars
Conscription was next used after the United States entered World War I in 1917. The first peacetime conscription came with the Selective Service Act of 1940, which established the Selective Service System as an independent agency. The duration of service was originally twelve months. It was expanded to eighteen months in 1941. When the United States entered World War II, service was required until six months after the end of the war. The first draft number ever picked for World War II was 158, picked by a blindfolded Henry L. Stimson out of a goldfish bowl.

As manpower needs increased during World War II, draftees were inducted into the U.S. Marine Corps as well as the U.S. Army. During this time period the US lowered the draft age to 17.'

http://www.selectiveservice.us/

This appears to contradict some of the above posts:

'The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW, colloquially known as the ‘Wobblies’) was at the forefront of the anti-war movement in the United States, and to a lesser extent in Australia. An international union, the IWW was formed in America in 1906; by 1914 it had more than 10,000 members. As the chances of American involvement became more likely by late 1916, the IWW leadership became more vocal, arguing that the conflict was an ‘imperialist war’, fought to benefit land-hungry governments and profit-hungry industrialists. After the US formally entered the war in April 1917 the IWW and its members were targeted in government crackdowns, raids and arrests. Mobs occasionally enacted their own vigilante justice: in August 1917 IWW executive member Frank Little was lynched from a railroad bridge. In Australia the IWW had barely a few hundred members, yet IWW members were instrumental in forming the Anti-Conscription League which engineered the defeat of the 1916 plebiscite. The response from Australian prime minister Billy Hughes was to declare the IWW an ‘unlawful association’ and have more than a hundred of its members rounded up, arrested and sentenced to prison. - See more at: http://alphahistory.com/worldwar1/opposition-to-the-war/#sthash.kIDP7TsK.dpuf'

The year of the founding is wrong as are the estimates for the size of the organisation in 1914, the Working Class Union had twice that number and they were ex wobblies from Oklahoma. Also at the end it says the IWW was a socialist organisation which given its falling out with the American Socialist Party and Socialist Labor League is a bit odd. What it's saying is nice but I don't really trust its accuracy.

Yes thanks, I suspected it was a bit sloppy.

It does seem like more research is only way to tell @Juan.

Strikes: Dubofsky Details strikes in harvesting (wheat) timber, copper and other metals in the first half of 1917 or so, in over 8 states iirc all out west. He also details the collective response of the employers, as well as the speculated drags on output caused by interruptions. They seem a central fact, and Haywood, and lower level leaders (James Rowan, and organizer, and MacDonald to pick two) highlight the need for workers to focus their efforts not on special draft resistance, but on organizing for power at work.

Of course, a more thorough look at membership sentiment would come from looking at the papers. Feel free to up load them if you track them down! :P

Apolitical syndicalism - Yeah, I take that to be part of apolitical syndicalism's line though - 'don't unite with parasites on the political plane, who may agree with you in theory, unite with your fellow workers on the job who agree with you in necessity!' FWIW I think that the union ought to be multi-tendency - that if people believe or vote what they want they can. It's interesting because this is a fact of life, but Haywood and others paint it as a position.

Ok, I'll say it again. It was a calculated defensive move in the part of functioning unions and the general administration During the war, most workers were in the best bargaining situation then before. I think, if I recall correctly, David Montgomery (among others) has pointed this out. So I'm not convinced that this was something future closest CPers and the like dreamt up to harm the IWW down the road. Now, I can be totally wrong and if this is the case I'll retract what I think is a unionist hunch

Syndicalist are you referring to the general war policy? Because I think you're correct. I think it was actually not an awful policy. They were principally against the war and they did not, on the whole, chart a no-strike program. They suffered for it.

Yes, the actual practice during the war

Instead of working class political unity, they promote working class 'economic unity'. Now you can take this person at the letter of their comment, but it's pretty clear that their illustration is meant to convey a general attitude, and support a policy line they advocate - cessation of political agitation and organization around anti-militarism as useless, and organization of workers at work instead. Both are necessary, from the perspective of actually stopping the war, and the class seizing power. As history showed, toning down anti-militarism didn't win them any favor.

I think this partly stems from their worldview in general which argued that political unity and activity for the working class - lumped in with the reformist strategies of Berger and others - was useless or counter revolutionary.