From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 2 No. 90, 17 October 1922, pp. 687–688.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2020). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Two-fold aspect of the capitalist offensive: political and economic – The reformist treason – The struggle of the metal workers of Bilboa and the miners of Asturia – What do the parties |
In comparison with the wages received before the war, the wages paid in Spain today show an increase of 100%; but the cost of living has gone up 130%, as a minimum figure. With few exceptions almost all categories of workers are seeing their conditions constantly made worse, as a result of the continuous rise in the cost of living. And the capitalist offensive has begun by reductions in wages.
The employer, to gain his end better, has proceeded by a double manoeuvre both in the political and economic spheres.
First he turned his apparatus of repression and coercion, the State, against the trade union organization it was necessary to destroy. For two whole years the White Terror has been raging. The best militants have been assassinated or forced to flee to foreign countries. The payment of trade union dues has been declared a crime. Locals have been shut down, the organizations dissolved. This task achieved, it became a simple matter to attack wages
Where the trade-union organizations have been destroyed, the employer hardly met with any resistance, and wages “fell” automatically ...
Where trade union organizations existed, the struggle was desperate; and the employer won his first success only through the treason of the reformists.
The metal workers of Bilboa and the miners of Asturia withstood the pressure of the employers for more than three months. In the regions embraced by these great economic struggles, the Communists and the Syndicalist members of the R.I.L.U. had effected a united front despite the opposition of the Socialists and Anarchists. And had it not been for the reformist betrayal, the united front would have won for the working class a brilliant victory.
The metal workers of Bilboa stood their ground for many weeks without yielding. But contrary to the will of the masses, contrary to the tactics of the Communists and Red Syndicalists, the “Socialist” leaders negotiated with the operators through the Minister of Labor, and accepted a wage reduction of 8%. The effect of this betrayal would be difficult to describe. When the day came for the official return to work, the majority of the strikers still refused to enter the factories. The movement, however, was broken, defeated. Divided, the strikers were vanquished.
The miners of Asturia had to submit for the third time to a decrease in wages. A short time after the war, their wages had been lowered 3.50 pesetas (more than 25%). Then, thanks to the reformist activity in the trade unions – a new reduction of 15% followed. The real object is to bring their wages down below the pre-war level.
For three months the miners held out against their bosses. But the Amsterdam International and the English reformist trade unions did not allow bourgeois Spain to remain without coal. Thanks to Frank Hodges, English labor leader, the Spanish coal baron was sure of victory.
As at Bilboa, so here, the reformists negotiated, accepting an immediate decrease in wages of 5%, and promising to raise production 10% within two months. As this is not possible without lengthening the hours of labor, the victory of the mine lord was complete.
Of course, the miners are exhausted after these vain struggles and their attendant misery. What solutions do the parties offer?
Those of the reformist Socialists we have just seen applied. Those of the Anarchists do not concern themselves with the class struggle. Do they not desire to oppose capitalist brutality by education, as the only means of emancipating the workers? Their scheme of enlightenment is only a new form of the liberal theory of evolution preached some time ago.
Those of the Communists and the Red trade unionists (R.I.L.U.) can be summed up in three words: the class struggle.
And daily experience impresses upon the worker that he can not separate himself from the class struggle, as Socialists and Anarchists urge, without immediately falling into the basest economic slavery.
Last updated on 29 April 2023