Forces making for Revolution

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 1, 1 February 1913, Page 4

Forces making for Revolution

Science, during the last two centuries, has made wonderful progress. One thing it has elucidated is the “ Law of Change ” in Nature. We find in all animal and plant life that the various species are constantly undergoing change, conditioned according to their surroundings. The science of astronomy tells us that the stars and planets are subject to the same law —they have their periods of birth, youth, maturity, old age. and decay. And so it is with social systems. In place of the idea once prevailing that society was of a fixed or stationary nature, we have come to see society as a chain of different epochs, or transitionary periods; each succeeding epoch springing into life from the womb of the society immediately preceding it. As the new society became more vigorous, the old decayed. Back in the mediaeval ages, when the feudal society seemed at its strongest, when the King, with his barons at his back, held the people in subjection with a despotic rule, a new class, very small at first, came into being as the result of certain changes in the mode of production of the necessaries of life.

This small class, made up of small traders, small manufacturers, etc., was destined to become more powerful, until, finally, it burst forth from the shell of the feudal society, and inaugurated a new order. This class was the bourgeoisie. often referred to as the “ capitalist” class. Passing from the embryo form, this class became stronger. Beginning with the manufacture of woollen goods, etc., it gradually opened up other lines of industry. Then came the finding of new sea routes and the discovery of the “ New World ”in the West, All this gave facilities for the piling up of wealth and the acquisition of power.

As the new class gained economic power it expressed itself politically; it began to acquire the “reins of Government.” For this purpose a committee was formed which has come to be known as Parliament. It was inevitable that this could not: go on without conflict taking

place; a conflict of interests which would eventually terminate in a revolution; a* revolution or a series of revolutions, out of which the new class would emerge victorious. In some countries the old society was swept away by one blow. In other countries it passed away with scarcely any violence.

During the nineteenth century Capitalism made great strides; but, even as it flourished, it developed within itself yet another class, a class which will eventually abolish the present capitalist society, just as the latter had brought about the end of the old feudal society. This new class is the modern working class.

But this class, although engaged in a “ class war” with the dominant capitalist class, will, in its final victory over capitalism, end class rule forever. Being a working class it will not become an exploiting class; as such, its aim is the abolition of class rule altogether.

The elements necessary for the development of the working class into a compact, disciplined army, which will overthrow capitalism, are furnished by capitalism itself. Modern industry is mostly carried on by large syndicates and trusts; large masses of workers are grouped together, irrespective of 1 hentrade or calling, and as the trust develops, as centralisation of industry goes on, the identity of interest between the workers becomes more marked, and the antagonism between them and the trust shareholders —the employing class—becomes more acute.

Until comparatively recent times no widespread effort had been made to organise the workers as a class on an economic basis. The workers have had their “ trade unions” half.a century and more, but these never aimed higher than protecting their callings—their craft interests —against the encroachments of the employers on one hand and the competition of the workers outside their particulartrade on the other. Their ideal was “ a fail* day’s work for a fair day’s pay,” outside of which the members were to work in harmony with their employers. But within recent years there has been a strong tendency to push craft interests to the rear, and towards closer organisation as a class, not merely for protection to-day, but to abolish wage-slavery to-mor-row. In the older countries the labour movement is rapidly making in this direction, recognising that power lies in the efficiency of industrial organisation.

In America and several British colonies the revolutionary industrial organisation is called the “ Industrial Workers of the World.” Its object is to bring about “ One Big Union” of the whole working class. When this is accomplished the new society will have sprung into life. W.F.

An I.W.W. speaker, who happens to be a New Zealander by birth, was holding forth from the soap-box in Newton recently, when a pedestrian stopped, looked up, turned round to his partner, sniffed, and said: “Another foreigner.” How accurately some men’s minds reflect the daily Press !