118 lines
6.2 KiB
Plaintext
118 lines
6.2 KiB
Plaintext
from Green Left Weekly #135/Mar 16, 1994
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Scaring hell out of the ruling class
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The Wobblies at War: A History of the IWW and the Great War in Australia
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by Frank Cain
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Spectrum Publications, 1993. 300 pp., $19.95 (pb)
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Reviewed by Phil Shannon
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Every radical lefty's heart has a soft spot for the Wobblies (the Industrial
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Workers of the World) if only for Joe Hill's songs, which, like their
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martyred author, never really died. The Wobblies scared hell out of the rich
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folk early in this century with their militant unionism and their outspoken
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opposition to the 1914-18 blood-fest.
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Frank Cain's book traces the rise and repression of the IWW in this country.
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Following the depression of the 1890s and the defeats of union struggles at
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that time, much of the labour movement had taken the parliamentary turning,
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pinning their hopes on the ALP and arbitration. However, the ``pragmatism
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and compromise'' of the trade union officials, the failure of arbitration to
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maintain wages, and the disillusioning experience of Labor in government,
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which ``had been tried and found wanting'', spurred some workers to revive
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the strategy of direct action by unions against the employer.
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The Wobblies were the foremost proponents of heating up the class war by
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organising workers into One Big Union which would destroy capitalism by
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revolutionary industrial struggle. Their ``idealism and militancy''
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challenged the milk-and-water reformists of their day. Their famous creed
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would cause apoplexy, derision or bemusement in the Keltys and Keatings of
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our day:
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``The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There
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can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of
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working people, and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the
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good things in life.''
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The IWW established a real presence in Sydney in 1913, peaking by 1917 to
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around, in Cain's view, 2000 members (others estimate 4000) and having ``an
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impact far in excess of what its numbers and limited resources would
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indicate''.
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Their paper, Direct Action, was extremely popular, with its ``fresh and
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biting radicalism'' both measuring and raising the pulse of growing layers
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of workers who were disgusted by timid trade union leaders, dismayed by ALP
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politicians who ditched promises and principles as fast as their backsides
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subsided into ``the soft leather of parliamentary benches'', and who were
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revolted by the hideous human slaughter and gross profiteering during the
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war.
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The Wobblies' internationalism was pitted against the Germanophobia of the
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war and the racism of the unions (the AWU, for example, refused to recruit
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Aboriginal or Chinese workers). They played a leading role in defeating two
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government conscription referendums, and they helped turn opinion against
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the war, which provided them with excellent propaganda for showing the rich
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to be sacrificing workers to die in uniform for their profit-ledgers.
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``Make class before country your motto'', they wrote to their working-class
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readers. ``When the Empire is in danger, let those who own and control it,
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fight for it'', they said as they pointed out that whilst 20% of AWU members
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enlisted in the army, only 2% of NSW parliamentarians and the Sydney Chamber
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of Commerce were prepared to die for the alleged principles they expected
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others to be killed for.
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The IWW supported equal pay for women and had a number of women organisers.
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The Wobblies had significant industrial influence in such major centres of
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Australian working-class militancy as ``the shearing sheds of Queensland or
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in the Broken Hill mines'', where workers won major struggles for increased
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wages and shorter hours in 1916.
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by 1917, the Wobblies had graduated from being a tolerated ``small radical
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fringe group'' to a dangerous organisation threatening the government's war
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policy. They were crushed by legislation outlawing membership of the IWW in
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1917. The IWW never recovered from the raids, arrests, deportations and the
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frame-up of their leaders (the ``IWW Twelve'') on charges of conspiring to
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burn down Sydney.
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Cain's book succeeds in recapturing the revolutionary vitality of the IWW
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(``they showed a vision of what could be'', he writes approvingly) and the
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calculated lengths to which governments of whatever stripe under capitalism
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will go to preserve that system of institutionalised robbery and, at times
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of war, mass murder of the working class.
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Cain does, however, examine in rather excessive detail the legislation used
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to ban the IWW and the holes in the frame-up of the IWW Twelve rather than
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analysing the underlying political reasons which contributed to the relative
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ease with which the IWW was destroyed. Only 103 Wobblies were sentenced to
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jail in the 1917 crackdown (and then for only six months) and only 29 were
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deported, yet this was sufficient to remove the IWW from the political
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field. by the time of the great labour unrest in the postwar years, the
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young Communist Party had filled the vacuum.
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Unlike the CPA, the Wobblies were syndicalists, believing in ``victory in
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class war by industrial unionism not revolution''. They did not have the
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answers for working-class militants about the need for political struggle as
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well as economic struggle, nor how to counter the capitalist state in the
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transition to socialism that the Marxists in the early CPA were able to
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provide. Nor did they have the solid organisation capable of surviving state
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repression as the CPA or the Bolsheviks in Russia were able to do.
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But these failings should not detract from the positive legacy of the IWW.
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Their emphasis on trade unions as fighting organisations could well be
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revived in the face of the current orthodoxy about unions being the partners
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in running capitalism under the lovey-dovey, employer-employee, win-win
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world of workplace productivity and enterprise bargaining. Their exposure of
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parliament and the ALP as the graveyard of socialist hopes, and their
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internationalism are also badges worth polishing. Trotsky, despite
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criticising the IWW's syndicalist ideology, praised the Wobblies for
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``really wanting to tear the head off the bourgeoisie''. That is not a bad
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epitaph.
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-30-
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Six-month airmail subscriptions (22 issues) to Green Left Weekly
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