Guy A. Aldred Archive
Written: 1913.
Source: PDF's from Marxists.org and OCR/Editing from RevoltLib.com
Transcription/Markup: Andy Carloff
Online Source: RevoltLib.com; 2021
Industrial Unionism is one of the most important propagandas of our time, and no such pamphlet as the present would be complete without a statement of the writer's attitude towards it. I came in contact with its literature towards the end of my membership of the S.D.F., and have remained a keen student of it ever since. My mind was quickly made up, and, for all practical purposes, remains unchanged on the subject. I am not an Industrial Unionist, although sympathetic towards many of the latter's contentions.
The original constitution of the I.W.W. asserted that the workers must come together on the industrial and political fields. I do not think there can be any doubt about the soundness of this contention only it does not necessarily involve Parliamentary action, as so many think. Finally, Anarchists, non-class war Unionists, and Socialists having been brought into this unripe organization, a split occurred. The Chicago section with Vincent St. John at its head, took possession of the offices and erased the reference to “political unity" from the preamble. A minority opened new offices at Detroit and remained loyal to the original preamble. Neither section is quite sound, in my opinion, but both may be said to be the I.W.W., in different senses, One section was quite entitled to alter the preamble; the other unquestionably stands by it. But it must not be supposed that the Chicago I.W.W. is anti-Parliamentarian. It is not—although it inclines that way. On the other hand, “political unity" should mean a definite attitude towards Parliament and the capitalist state—whether anti, palliative, or pro. But the Detroit I.W.W. does not adopt a definite attitude for it tries to unite S.P.ers and S.L.P.ers in its ranks Hence the conflict and confusion. To my mind, it arises from this divorcement of industrial and political action. There can be no such dual action. Working-class action, wen class action, is political in aim, viz., the overthrow of the present capitalist system. But it will be industrial direct action in method—viz., the insurrectional seizure of the workshops. Actually, not I.W.W.'s, with little limitations of sound theory and palliative strikes—which tend to increase as the organization grows—but the propaganda of insurrectional— i.e., real socialism is wanted. Nothing less, nothing more. From a tendency to ignore this fact arises all this confusion.