# The Social General Strike/Chapter 3

III.
HISTORIC SYNOPSIS OF THE GENERAL STRIKE IDEA.
1.—THE EARLY IDEA OF THE GENERAL STRIKE.
As in other great ideas, so in the General Strike we find analogies in history, the unconscious forebodings of great poets and thinkers.
Already in old Rome, 494 years before Christ, there took place ("Secessio in montem sacrum") the marching-out of the Plebeians to the holy mountains, when they demanded equalisation from the Patricians. This first General Strike in history, the strike of the Plebeians, was crowned with complete victory. However, let us return to the present. As one of the first, undoubtedly unconscious, apostles of the General Strike, we can consider Mirabeau, when he in 1789, in the National Convention of the Privileged, thundered towards them: "Look out! Do not enrage the common people who produce everything; who only need to fold their arms to terrify you!"
Fifty years later Max Stirner wrote in his book "Der Einzige und sein Eigentum" ("The Ego and His Own") the words: "The working men have the most terrible power in their hands; and if once they would be aware of it and use it, nothing could resist them; all they would need to do would be to quit work and consider what they produced to be their own, and enjoy the benefit of it." This is the sense of the strikes and riots uprising here and there.
The well-known stanza of George Herwegh says:—
Man of work, alight And know you might. All wheels stand still, If your strong arm it will!"
Could not this serve as an issue for the General Strike? William Morris, in his beautiful dream of a happy and free society, "News from Nowhere," tells us how the old society broke down through the shocks of several successive revolutionary General Strikes and made room for the new free society.
2.—THE HISTORY OF THE IDEA.
Already in the congress of the International in Geneva in the year 1866 the thought was expressed that sectional strikes never could produce lasting effects, therefore it would be necessary to organise large international strikes, which would be conducted by the International. Principally, however, this idea was considered as a means to prevent war—to refuse service in case of war also as a military strike, and the discontinuance of production of munitions of war. This idea was proposed by the Frenchman Charles Longuet and the Belgian Caesar de Paepe, and adopted in the following congress of the International in 1868. Later on, this conception of the ​General Strike, in fact the completion of the General Strike by the military strike, was defended by the Dutch delegate Domela Nieuwenhuis.
In all international working men's congresses held since the congress in Paris in 1889, also in Brussels in 1891, Zurich in 1893, London in 1896, Paris in 1900, and Amsterdam in 1904, the General Strike idea was proposed as a weapon for the emancipation of the proletariat by different revolutionary parties, previously by the Dutch through Domela Nieuwenhuis, and later by Frenchmen and by the Allemanists through Allemane and Aristide Briand, recently French Premier; but was always defeated by the German Social Democrats and their followers; as can thus be seen, by the countries with the most insignificant Labour movement.
A great debate took place in the congress of Brussels in 1891, regarding a resolution against war. Nieuwenhuis proposed a resolution, supported by the Dutch, English and French, which contained at the end of it a declaration, that the Socialists of all countries should answer a declaration of war with a general call upon the people to strike.
In the latter congress the German Social Democrats contented themselves with sneering at the long speeches of the French agitators for the General Strike, with a few flat expressions like "General Nonsense!" But in the congress of Amsterdam, 1904, they could not prevent a debate on the General Strike, since amongst their own ranks voices were heard (Dr. Friedberg for one) in favour of the General Strike idea. The resolution which was adopted at last was a striking evidence of the duplicity of the Social Democratic leaders, who evidently fear the idea of the Social General Strike, and only justified eventual mass strikes for the purpose of gaining political rights.
In France this idea was proposed for the first time in the congress of the National Federation of Trade Unions and co-operative groups in Bordeaux, 1888. It was adopted by an overwhelming majority in the Trade Union congress of Marseilles, 1892, Paris, 1893. Nantes, 1894, Limoges, 1895, Tours, 1896, Toulouse, 1897, Rennes, 1898, Paris, 1900, Lyous, 1901, Montpellier, 1902, and Bourges, 1904.
This idea was discussed in the political congresses in France in Bordeaux, 1888, Tours, 1891, Saint Quintin, 1892, Dijon, 1894, Paris, 1896 snd 1897, and accepted in Paris in the Congress in the Gymnasium, January, 1899.
The Allemanists always propagated the General Strike, the Guesdists always were against it; a few of the Jauresists are for it, and the Blanquists are also for it. In the congress of the Blanquists and Guesdists at Lille in 1904 the idea of the General Strike had to be adopted, because they declared that they would otherwise lose the support of the working men completely.
In Madrid in October, 1900, there was a congress held in which 213 delegates of the Trade Unions and working men's groups participated, representing 52,000 working men. Here they unanimously adopted the General Strike idea as the aim of the Labour Unions, and the means of freeing the proletariat.
​In Germany the first article which treated of the General Strike idea appeared in the Anarchistic press of 1890 (Socialist and Neues Leben) However, first in the years 1902 and 1903, and again through the publication in Anarchistic papers, there was a regular propaganda for the General Strike, and also through a pamphlet published in London.
The Social Democratic Party tried to kill this propaganda, partly through misrepresentation, partly through non-recognition. When, however, in 1903 Dr. Friedberg carried this idea into their own ranks, and numerous Labour Union meetings accepted it, it had to be discussed in earnest, and an effort was made to dispose of it in a scientific manner in articles written by the most luminous Socialists in the Neue Zeit and the Socialistic monthlies. In spite of this we find in all papers, at the end of 1903 and the beginning of 1904, discussions of the General Strike. Pamphlets and papers in all languages spring up everywhere which have the sole purpose of propagating the General Strike idea and explaining and making clear its invincibility.
Hundreds of songs in the languages of the Latin countries, which praise the General Strike as the coming liberation, go from mouth to mouth, inspiring new enthusiasm and confidence in victory.
3.—THE GENERAL STRIKES OF LATE YEARS.
Like every grand idea, the General Strike was baptised in blood, and has already had its first skirmishes, of which it need not be ashamed. The first General Strike fought in modern times started in Alcoy (Province of Alicante, Spain), July 8, 1874, and was conducted by the Spanish branch of the International. Its object was not an increase in wages, but the social reconstruction; the construction of the free society, preliminary in this free community. It was an easy task for the minority of the members of the International (about 3,000) to make all working men, more than 10,000, go on strike and in this manner to produce a general tie-up. In the struggle with the police and armed bourgeoisie the working men were victorious; they took possession of the archives and civil registers containing the titles of property. The accomplishment of the reconstruction, however, was prevented by the troops, which were sent by the Government to reconquer the city.
When the American working men in the year 1886 prepared to gain an eight-hour work day, they did not think of gaining it through the roundabout way of Parliamentarism, but they decided to gain it directly through the General Strike, which was calculated to start on May 1 all over the United States. Over 250,000 men throughout the whole United States, 40,000 of whom were in Chicago, laid down their tools.
However, after the brutal and murderous attack of the Chicago police upon a peaceful procession of working men on May 4, and later, upon a meeting of the working men on the Haymaket, where a bomb was the answer to the pistol shots of the police, the signal was given for the arrest of several speakers and propagandists of the ​General Strike, who were delivered to the gallows after a miserable comedy of justice.
In this manner the Chicago martyrs, Parsons, Spies and their comrades, suffered death on the gallows for the propagation of the General Strike idea. The bourgeoisie at once recognised the powerful portent of the General Strike, and used all means of corruption and intimidation to defeat it.
What is the international demonstration of the First of May? Is it not the daughter of the great General Strike, which broke out on May 1, 1886, in order to gain an eight-hour work day? In regard to it the proposition was accepted with enthusiasm at the international Socialist Congress at Paris, 1889, to let work rest in all countries on May 1, in order to demonstrate for the eight-hour work day. Was not this resolution a symbolisation of the General Strike? Did not the Belgian working men gain the right to vote, even if it was a limited one, under the call and through the aid of the General Strike in the year 1893?
When in the year 1897 an attempt was made to gain the right to vote in Austria, was it not then that all the working men shouted in the streets: "Let us do what they did in Belgium"?
In February, 1902, the proletariat of Barcelona rose under the call of the General Strike, and was able to resist for a whole week the police and the army. Pablo Iglesias, the leader of the Spanish Social Democrats, requested his followers everywhere to act as strike breakers and denunciators of the propagators of the General Strike. In some districts the Social Democrats even went so far during the General Strike struggle as to send deputations to the Government to announce their loyalty, and to assure them that they, as law-abiding citizens, had nothing to do with the "revolt."
After the severe attacks which followed upon this conduct in the whole Socialistic Press of the foreign countries against Iglesias, he answered through a proclamation in a proud manner that "the General Strike would have been victorious if the Social Democrats had also participated in it, but that he prevented them because the people were not ripe for emancipation." The comrades of Barcelona finally were defeated; nevertheless, they proved the invincibility of the General Strike. As Barcelona struck alone, the troops from the whole of Spain could be sent there, because the other parts of the country were quiet.
Nevertheless, it was decided to call out the reserves, and all papers spoke of that "strike in Barcelona." Would it have been possible to defeat the General Strike if it had started all over Spain? In April of the same year again 350,000 workers laid down their tools in Belgium in order to follow the call of the General Strike to fight for the universal right to vote. The struggle which had such a promising beginning was lost, but only thanks to the treachery of the Social Democratic leaders. The party organ, Le Peuple, gave as premiums revolvers costing six francs, expressly mentioned in the advertisement as "for the General Strike." When, however, the situation became dangerous, when there were dead and wounded, the leaders Vandervelde, Anseele, etc., at once gave the signal for retreat, because they were afraid of being made responsible if something serious should ​occur, and because they did not want to lose the votes of Liberals, who demanded that the strike be ended, and who controlled quite a number of Social Democratic credentials.
The same people who gave out the revolvers, who declared that they wanted to fight to the finish if all peaceable means were of no avail, these same people called afterwards those to whom they gave revolvers "loafers and agent provocateurs," and even advised the working men to arrest them.
Vandervelde declared in a mass meeting: "We Socialists must respect the commandment, Thou shalt not kill." At least it is peculiar that these gentlemen cry to those who are fired upon, "Thou shalt not kill," and in this way stab in the back those who defend themselves.
In the same year (1902) there took place a General Strike in Geneva, which was declared in sympathy with the striking street car employees, and directed by the Anarchistic leaders. Here it also came to conflicts with the militia, which was sent against the strikers by the Socialistic Minister, Thiebaut, who at that time took the place of the Minister of War in his absence. At the end of the strike several comrades who conducted the strike were sentenced to terms in prison, amongst others Bertoni for one year.
In the month of May, 1902, the working men of Sweden came out, when they supported the request for a general right to vote with a General Strike.
Also Holland stood in the first part of the year 1903 entirely in favour of the General Strike. When in January of the same year the dock workers of the city of Amsterdam went on strike, soon after all the railroad employees of that country stopped work, in order to support the demands of their brethren. A brilliant victory, the granting of all demands, was the result of this act of solidarity. Frightened by this success, the Government proposed in Parliament a hang-dog law against the railway employees, according to which the mere act of striking should be punished with six months' imprisonment and the instigators should get four years. It can be plainly seen that the working men could not stand that, and after a short consideration all Trade Unions of the country declared the General Strike. The Social Democrats stuck to them in the beginning (at least, to keep up the pretence of being working mens' friends; their leader, Troelstra, said later on in the Social Democratic Party congress, word for word: "Our existence as a Labour Party was at stake"), but when the struggle began in earnest Het Volk warned all against "the Anarchistic adventures." On the day when the struggle had to begin along the whole line the attitude of the Social Democrats changed into one of open treachery; they posted proclamations which declared the strike off, and circulated falsified reports with unfavourable news from the inner part of the country, and in this way caused great confusion amongst the working men. Through this the strike was really prevented from spreading over the whole country and becoming general, and consequently was lost.
The intention which governed the Social Democrats in this shameful behaviour was evidently to prove to the working men, by the failure of this General Strike, that it was not the proper medium, and ​that all hope lay in the election of the candidates of their party. They even stated so quite openly and cynically in an article in the Neue Zeit in which they first blamed the Anarchists for the failure of the strike, and further on declared that the defeat also had one good side to be looked upon: "that it had weakened the belief in the General Strike" and ruined confidence in the "Anarchistic trouble-makers." Think of it, the grand old man Nieuwenhuis, the father of the Labour movement in Holland, "a trouble-maker"!
Lastly, there is no reason for being surprised about this, because all those for whom the Labour movement is nothing but a means to become prominent in politics, to gain wealth and power (a fitting name for them is "social parasites"), always were against revolutionary movements by which their political position was put in danger, or by which they could be personally injured.
In October, 1903, the revolutionary General Strike in Bilbao again commanded general attention; 25,000 miners were on strike in order to do away with the truck system and to gain sanitary improvements in the mines. When, after a period of two weeks, the prospects still seeming to be in favour of the strikers, the mine owners began to evict the strikers from their houses, 65,000 working men of other trades declared a sympathetic strike, and the General Strike with this attained a real revolutionary character. The working men took provisions from the warehouses and destroyed the railway tracks by the use of dynamite and gun cotton. Even the mines were greatly damaged. When, after the third day, other cities joined in the strike and the miners began to completely demolish the mines, the mine owners became frightened and quickly gave in and consented to all demands in question. This strike had a double value, because Bilbao was the only city in Spain where the Social Democrats had a strong influence, and where they so far had assured the miners that the truck system could be removed only by Parliament, and that for this reason they should elect as many Socialist candidates as possible, and they would attend to the matter for them.
In April, 1904, occurred a General Strike of the railway employees of Hungary, which surprised the world through its unexpected outbreak. Without any organisation whatever 50,000 employees quitted work at the same time. At 12 o'clock midnight prompt all trains stopped on the road, and all station masters, of whom a large number were officers of the reserve troops, took part like a man. The Government, however, could help itself by calling in the reserves, of whom 11,000 were amongst the strikers, and they succeeded in forcing them in this manner to perform their duties as soldiers. This again proves that the propaganda of the General Strike must be supplemented by anti-military propaganda.
In September, 1904, there occurred a General Strike in Italy. Inside of two days the General Strike broke out in a hundred cities as a protest against the use of soldiers and firearms in Labour troubles. Again, without any organisation, against the will of the Social Democratic leaders, propagated and managed by the Anarchists, the General Strike was declared in Milan, and later on all large cities and industrial centres joined in with unanimous enthusiasm.
​Everything was obtained they wished to gain, for on the third or fourth day of the strike Gioletti, the President of the Ministry, announced through all telegraph bureaus and newspapers, as well as in Parliament, that from now it would be forbidden for ever that the soldiers use firearms against the strikers in riots and street revolts during a strike. All these General Strikes really were only skirmishes, but they also furnish a schooling for the ultimate Social General Strike of the future; like the 300 smaller peasant revolts (Jacqueries) which preceded the great victorious French Revolution.
Thus we see how the proletariat everywhere instinctively seizes this weapon against the will of its leaders, even though it be at present only for the purpose of gaining political rights.
But the working people are beginning to recognise the unnecessary roundabout ways of Parliamentarism, when they can obtain their demands without the aid of political leaders, directly through the Social General Strike.
4.—FINAL REVIEW.
So far the General Strike idea was treated:—
    1. As a weapon.
    2. As a creative source for reorganisation.
    3. Historically.
Now a few more words about its philosophy.
Philosophy? Certainly. The General Strike has its philosophy as well as Marxism and Social Democracy. The philosophy of the General Strike—that is, the logical system of which this idea is built up—however, is very much more simple, much less complicated than the Marxian, and more easily comprehensible to every normal mind.
The Marxist teachings are based upon deductive logic and especially upon the dialectic method. The deductive logic, which concludes all the rest from single fundamental principles, which, starting from one principle carries it over all the other fields, though it is the method of poets, and creates fastasia, always was and always will be the logic of autocracy and theology. Modern science is inductive, from the sum of single views it concludes the principle, from experiences and events in practice it builds its theory.
The Marxist dialectic is a mode of deductive logic, and through its "ingenious" jumping back and forth and many turns it comes to nothing. It is characteristic of the dialectic system, this theory that the commonwealth will be born of its own accord from the completed misery of the people; that evil is the cause of good!
In order to destroy the existing State, according to the Marxian theory, it is necessary first to conquer the power of the State. It opposes the present State, but at the same time raves about State monopoly, a condition in which the working men would be still more oppressed and exploited than by private capitalism.
The struggle of the Marxists and the form of their politics entirely correspond with the deductive dialectic system of their theory. The incorporation of the means of production shall not come out of the people and be operated by the people; no, the power ​of the State must first be conquered! In their hands it shall be concentrated, and afterwards they want to rain prosperity down upon the common people like heavenly manna. The original idea of all political revolution has been deductive—that power should be seized by single individuals, that they might hand down from above liberty for all the people.
The General Strike idea, however, is in its negative as well as positive part consistent all the way through it builds itself entirely upon the logic of modern science. The General Strike takes no dialectical roundabout ways, does not jump back and forth in logic-chopping, but leads to the goal organically and direct, without the aid of political agents.
For this reason this mode of struggle is opposed to the political mode, which tries to get there by roundabout ways, in conquering the political power; and is the direct action of the working people. The organisation of the Trade Unions and the preparation for the General Strike bear in themselves the vital elements of the future reorganisation without conquering political power.
In the same manner the General Strike in itself contains the demand for the direct seizure of the means of production by the Trade Unions, a common teaching, created by and born from the people; while the teachings of the conquering of political power are created by those who want to conquer this power for themselves, who strive personally for the dictatorship, which, by the way, they certainly exercised unlimitedly in the old International.
We see how the whole system of reorganisation developes from below upwards, out of the daily struggle of the Trade Unions, out of the organisations already in existence, in an inductive way. In this manner inductive logic speaks for the theory of the General Strike, the most modern and only scientific method of investigation and study. Every new political condition corresponds with a new economic phase. In just the same manner absolute monarchy corresponds with economic feudalism and serfdom, and Parliamentarism with capitalism and wage-slavery.
With a free society without class rule and exploitation, a society of free co-operation, we have that which corresponds with the absence of government, Anarchism.
Well known is the passage from Friedrich Engel's book: "Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State":—"They [the classes] will fall as inevitably as the State. The society which organises production on a free and equal base and equal association of the producers will transport the State machinery to a place where it belongs into the museum of antiquities next to the spinning wheel and the bronze axe." This condition of Socialism without the State is Anarchist Communism. In the same way is determined the form of every revolution from the existing economic conditions.
The economic conditions which dictated the form of the Jacobinic revolution are no longer in existence; it cannot be believed that Parliamentarism can be the result of the economic contrasts, and will give capitalism its death blow.
On the other hand, the General Strike is nothing else but the ​result of the economic contrasts and of social development; a form of revolution corresponding with the present tendencies and conditions; and it is the most modern, clearest and, finally, the most unveiled expression of the revolt of the proletariat.
The General Strike will be the result of the continually more frequent larger strikes, and therefore only the product of large industry itself; it is the weapon which capitalism forged against itself; and it will bring sure death to it.
Even after the most triumphant victory in a wage strike the working man still remains a wage slave. The modern worker, of course, is no longer the slave of an individual capitalist, but he stays his whole life long the slave of the whole capitalistic class, from whose hands he cannot free himself in the present society.
A much more definite result will the Trade Unions have made their object, when they no more are satisfied to reduce the oppression of capitalism, but will use their organisations as a weapon to do away with oppression entirely, when they write upon their banner the complete emancipation of the working people from wage-slavery. But it will also be the work of the Trade Unions in future to take production into their hands, and by this they are to be not only the element of education and the battle of the social future, but also the embryos of production and reorganisation after the death of capitalism. This great aim will undoubtedly lead thousands of new vigorous and enthusiastic workers to join the organisations in their good work.
The General Strike idea once taken up by the working people is, as even Jaures himself admitted, in itself already a power, because it is a continuous terrible dread. The threatening ghost of the General Strike alone could at times be sufficient to prevent the ruling classes from holding the reins too tight.
The absence of an answer, of a distinct answer, to the ever dark question: How?—(How in a reasonably short time can the authority of the nobility and the capitalists be extinguished?) This ever-unanswered question it is which gnaws at the confidence and the hopes of the people like a deadly consumption.
The General Strike idea puts an efficient and sure remedy in place of the craving for the "Mother of Freedom, Revolution"; in place of fruitless Social Democratic declamations about evolution in distant futures in which no one dares to believe, which seem to us like veiled ideals, suspended far distant, and which, at one time or another, after a long wait, we are told, will come to us "over the mountains"; a remedy which will remove capitalism and bring freedom and welfare for all.
Whilst the General Strike makes it impossible for the traitors and politicians who aim at dictatorship to carry out their plans, it also destroys all power once and for ever, instead of trusting it into the hands of a tyrant. It accomplishes expropriation and communalises the means of production radically from the root up, and in this way also makes counter-revolutions once and for ever impossible.
The Social General Strike is consequently the final emancipation of the workers.