Reed: A New Appeal [January 1919] 1

A New Appeal. by John Reed

Published in The Revolutionary Age [Boston], v. 1, no. 14 (Jan. 18, 1919), pg. 8. Elipses in original.

It is time for American Socialists to do a little ing to reduce the working class to the condition painful thinking. For my own satisfaction I should of peonage. Above all, men who work with their like to set down here what I think about the Ameri- hands are practical, and the American Federation can Socialist Movement. of Labor offers a practi- From my observations in differ- cal program. ent parts of the country, I should say By reason of the that, roughly, the American Socialist history of this country, its Party is composed of two main ele- boundless lands and ments: natural resources, the stu- 1) American petty bourgeois pendous growth of its cit- (clerks, shopkeepers, administrative ies, the immeasurable op- officers of small business, a few farm- portunities presented for ers); and American intellectuals (jour- energetic individuals in nalists, mainly). the immense demand for 2) Foreign-born workers; for- food, manufactured eign-born intellectuals. goods, and means of The most significant facts in the transportation, and the American Labor Movement are the fluidity of social bound- American Federation of Labor and the aries, the American IWW. These two organizations prove worker has always be- that political Socialism has very little lieved, consciously or un- attraction for the American working- consciously, that he can man; in fact, they prove that the become a millionaire or American workman is opposed to So- an eminent statesman. cialism. This is expressed in the Why? saying, once heard often but now less frequently Let us consider first the American Federa- that “any American boy can be President.” ... tion of Labor. This is a purely economic organi- The American worker knows that this coun- zation, whose power consists in the fact that it try is owned and controlled by “the Trusts.” But defends certain workers against the assaults of the he does not realize that the day of universal op- capitalist class, which by raising the cost of living portunity has passed. He believes, consciously or and depressive relative wages, is always attempt- unconsciously, that he can still rise above the work- 1 2 Reed: A New Appeal [January 1919] ing class, and above his fellows. And because many just as much “throwing away his vote” as voting thousands believe this, their unanimous sentiment the Socialist ticket. is opposed to any system, like Socialism, which Sometimes, however, the candidate does per- wishes to destroy their imagined opportunity.... form his promises; sometimes the popular discon- Moreover, although the American worker is tent does force a legislative body to pass some profoundly disgusted with the dominant Demo- needed social measures. The worker is satisfied; cratic or Republican Parties, and if you ask him he does not follow the law to its most important what he thinks of such-and-such a political can- stage — its operation. He does not watch the didate, will say, “Oh, he’s just a dirty politician. Courts which interpret the law. For example, take They’re all alike — they make promises, but they the various Anti-Injunction bills which have never do anything when they get elected;” al- passed Congress, hailed by the American Federa- though the American workers knows that Con- tion of Labor as “a new Magna Carta.” And yet gress, the State Legislatures and the City Coun- injunctions are still used as weapons against the cils are used by business interests for their own workers in industrial disputes.... Consider the selfish purposes — still he does not know how to Child Labor Law, declared unconstitutional by the answer when he is told, “Well, if you don’t like Supreme Court. The list of cleverly drawn and your officials, vote for somebody you do like. You inefficient labor laws in the statute books is end- are the boss. This is a free country.” less.... And if the laws, as sometimes happens, are The American worker still thinks politically effective, the employers simply refuse to obey instead of economically. No one has ever been able them, and drag out litigation in the courts until to tell him, in a way which he understands, that the whole matter is quietly forgotten. in our state of society the vote is almost power- The American worker does not see to the less. As I have said, he knows that the men he heart of the society in which he lives. When the elects to political office are dominated by Big truth becomes too obvious, he is easily persuaded Business after they get elected; but he doesn’t re- that all abuses can be corrected by agitation, by alize that unless he, the worker, takes away the power the law, by the ballot box. He does not see that of Big Business before he elects his representatives, the whole complex structure of our civilization is those representatives will always be bought — or corrupt from top to bottom, because the capitalist if they are honest, they will always be powerless. class controls the sources of wealth. Why doesn’t the American worker vote the And yet there is one important truth which Socialist ticket? In the first place, he probably he has learned. He knows that the immediate doesn’t like Socialism, which means to him only a problems of his daily life in industry cannot be system worked out in foreign countries, not born solved by politics. For this is necessary a kind of of his own particular needs and opposed to “de- insurrection — direct action — the strike. His mocracy” and “fair play,” which is the way he has craft union, however, is only vaguely interested in been taught to characterize the institutions of this the problems of other unions, and this vague in- country. In the second place, if he has become terest is manifested by the organization of the conscious of his class interests, voting for the So- American Federation of Labor. One union will cialist Party seems to him impractical. “They won’t handle the scab products of a factory in which win,” he says, “it will just be ‘throwing away my another union has called a strike. What business vote.’” is it of the teamster, or the railroad man, who Of course he does not see that voting for a makes the material he transports? candidate who promises and does not perform is And then, also, a defensive organization such Reed: A New Appeal [January 1919] 3 as the American Federation of Labor is necessar- tem of society in the most practical, the quickest ily composed of limited and exclusive kinds of way. He sees that the workers must control, first workers, because half their power lies in the fact of all, the sources of wealth. He sees that the bal- that they are the skilled men, and therefore must lot does no good. Industrial action works; he protect their privileges, not only from the employ- knows that. He realizes the utter failure of the craft ers, but also from the great mass of the untrained unions as organs of a working class bent on con- workers who might lower the level of their posi- trolling industry. He is disgusted with politics. tion. Half the victories of American Organized Why should he bother the vote at all? Revolu- Labor are at the expense of the unorganized and tionary direct mass action is the only weapon he the unskilled.... needs.... The machine character of modern industry, If anything were needed to demonstrate the however, is itself operating a change in labor or- value of political action, the Russian Revolution ganization. The day of the skilled man is passing. ought to do it. No true Socialist denies that the Any man can run a machine. In Bridgeport, for parliament of the future Socialist State will be an example, all the trouble arose from the fact that Industrial parliament; but the transformation from the employers took untrained men and trained the political to the industrial system must be ex- each man to do part of the work of a skilled ma- pressed by political action, whose value in the class chinist — at wages less than the machinist was struggle lies in the fact that it creates opportunities doing it. Three machinists cost a good deal in for the education of the workers, and for indus- wages; but three men, each trained to perform one- trial direct action, and protects these two essential third of a machinist’s function, could do the work methods of the struggle of the working class for of three machinists, and do it for much less money; power. and at the same time the Machinists’ Union was If the immediate program of the Socialist smashed. Party in this country is inadequate, that is because In various sections of American industry it is not influenced by the needs and power of the there is appearing now a new tendency. Political American workers, who above all others, are com- parties are being organized; the American Labor petent to formulate the Socialist program in this Party is a symptom of this new movement. But country. If the Socialist Party is politically impo- why an American Labor Party? Why not the So- tent, however, it is because there is behind it no cialist Party? The reason is that the Labor Party is economic force from the American working class. a practical organization, designed to carry out po- The dominant theory of Socialists about So- litically the work done economically by the unions; cialist propaganda to American workers seems to while all the Socialist Party has to offer is the elec- be the “Menshevik appeal”: to give an impression tion of candidates to office, where they are uni- that Socialism is really Jeffersonian democracy, to formly impotent, on a platform which is too broad intimate that all we want are reasonable reforms, to appeal to the craft union training of the Ameri- labor legislation, the full dinner-pail. The idea can worker. seems to be, “First make a Liberal, and then con- The IWW presents another phase of the vert him to Socialism.” This is my interpretation same question. Here again is an organization of Socialist campaign literature and Socialist speak- which is practical, and appeals to the man who ers at election time. Fully a third of the Socialist does things with his hands. If an American worker votes in normal times are, I think, cast by middle becomes conscious of his class interests, and sees class persons who think that Karl Marx wrote a the truth, he naturally wants to change the sys- good Anti-Trust Law.... 4 Reed: A New Appeal [January 1919]

I have no quarrel with that kind of propa- beyond them, and our appeal must be first of all ganda — except that it does not make Socialists. to those whom they do not touch — the unorga- My idea is to make Socialists, and there is only nized, the unskilled, the landless, the property- one way of doing that — by teaching Socialism, less.... straight Socialism, revolutionary Socialism, inter- That all workers belong to the working class national Socialism. This is what the Russian Bol- and must be conscious of it; that all the sources of sheviki did; this is what the German Spartacus wealth belong to the capitalist class — who are group did. They approached no Socialists, but conscious of it; that this wealth must become the people: workers, peasants, soldiers, who did not property of the workers before they can control know what Socialism was. First, they found out their own lives; that the civilization we live in, from the working people what they wanted most. and out Government, are controlled by Force — Then they made those wants into an immediate Economic Force — and that it can only be op- program and explained how they were related to posed by Economic Force. the other demands of the complete Social Revo- And finally, the workers must be told that lution. And they explained, explained, eternally they have the force, if they will only organize it and explained. express it; that if together they are able to stop Revolutionary Socialism is not a refined work, no power in the universe can prevent them theory adapted to cultivated minds. There is no from doing what they want to do — if only they value in inventing new Socialist tactics merely so know what they want to do! that intellectuals can discuss what Karl Marx And it is our business to formulate what they would have thought about it. Revolutionary So- want to do. cialism, above all other kinds, must be practical Said Nikolai Lenin at the Peasants’ Congress — it must work — it must make Socialists out of in Petrograd, “If Socialism can only be realized workers and make them quick. when the intellectual development of all the people Comrades who call themselves “members of permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at the Left Wing” have an immediate job to do. They least 500 years.... The Socialist political party — must find out from American workers what they this is the vanguard of the working class; it must want most, and they must explain this in terms of not allow itself to be halted by the lack of educa- the whole Labor Movement, and they must make tion of the mass average, but it must lead the the workers want more — make them want the masses, relying upon the Labor Organizations for whole Revolution. revolutionary initiative....” They must do this in words which can be And again, at the Third Congress of Soviets, understood immediately by the workers, in terms “You accuse us of using force... We admit it. All of their own lives. In this lies the secret of success Government is legalized force, controlled by one of the Non-Partisan League. In this lies the secret class and used against another. For the first time of success of the baby American Labor Party — in history, we in this hall are creating a legalized or will lie if it is successful. We, however, have a force controlled by the working class, the vast bigger job than the organization of either of those majority of the people, and directed against those movements, for we must include them and go who have exploited us and enslaved us....”

Edited by Tim Davenport. Photo of John Reed stock image from the New York Call, 1919. Published by 1000 Flowers Publishing, Corvallis, OR, 2005. • Free reproduction permitted.

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