The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-08-02

/ Tt3k IRON HEEL, by Jack London
In new, special edition for Work
ers Library Publishers, 50 E. 18th
St., New York. Price IS cents.
Reviewed by
s. SHERMAN
IN these DAYS of bestial fury used
by crumbling German fascism
against any opposition; when work
ers' quarters are being savagely de-
molished by the Vigilantes, those
professional thugs Of a capitalist So
eiety whose putrescence is becoming
daily more offensive to ever wider
numbers Of the working-class, one is
startled in reading Jack London's
The Iron Heel, written in 1907 and
yet today contemporaneous.
Like BelIamy's Looking Backward,
London's book uses the familiar lit
erary device of dating his work
seven centuries in the future when
what he calls the Brotherhood of
Man has been achieved for four
centuries. But while the former
book is frankly utopian and makes
no pretense at being MARKHAM, Lon
don's well-known work is obviously
the product of man who in his
day was a militant Socialist and
considered himself disciple of
Marx.
It is idle to speculate whether
London, were he alive today, would
have recognized the inconsistency
Of his petty-bourgeois brand of So
cialism and probably developed into
a thorough-going Marxist, we can
comprehend some of his mistakes
as the natural confusion almost in
evitable in one who calls the iron
heel Of fascism The great curiosity
of history-a whim, a fantasy, an
apparition, a thing unexpected and
undreamed; and 1t should serve as
warning to those rash political
theorists OF to-day who speak with
gertrude of social processes" Yet
he had enough political insight to
recognize that Capitalism, rotten
ripe, sent forth that monstrous off,
shoot, the Oligarchy" a system
bearing remarkable resemblance to
fascism.
The book itself purports to be a
manuscript found in the heart of an
old oak tree in the year 419 bonn.
brotherhood Of Nam, hidden there
seven centuries earlier by Avis
Everhard, on the eve of period of
terror accompanying the Second
Revolt.
The manuscript is supposed to de-
scribe the period between 1912 and
1882. Since, however, the Iron Heel
was written in 1907, we realize that
London wrote the book as bit of
political forecasting. Avis Is the
daughter of professor of physics
in the State University at Berkeley,
California, whose interest in the
revolutionary movement has been
created by meeting Ernest Everhard,
"a working class philosopher, who
is identified with London himself
and expounds the latter's views.
I ONDON showed an almost I'M
u canny ability to forsee some poll
tical events, along with an extremely
pessimistie viewpoint of others. An
especially interesting illustration at
present, with the general strike on
the Western coast just smashed by
the betrayal Of the A. F. of L. lead
ers, is the war between Germany
and the United States which is
stopped by general strike in both
countries, The ruling classes of both
countries then realized the strength
of organized labor and formed an
alliance for the purpose of defeating
their common foe, the revolutionary
proletaTiat of both countries. 1t
was now January, 1918 and once
again London saw correctly that
American imperialism would control
more and more Of the world market
so that scores of countries were flung
out of that market with unconsum-
able and unstable SURPRISES on
their hands. They could not con-
tinue their method of producing sur
pluses. The capitalist system, so
far as they were concerned, had
hopelessly broken down.
The confusion of London's poll
tical theology gives rise to some as
founding conclusions. In spite of
the fact that the workers of score
European countries revolt and form
cooperative commemorative" Amer
lean capitalism seems all-powerful.
With these countries presumably
self-suf1cient Though not word is
said about them from this point on)