Our Policy

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 1, 1 February 1913, Page 2

Our Policy

In making our appearance as the first I. W. W. organ to be published in Australasia, we desire to intimate that we are not to b© merely a medium for the expression of the opinions of any small group existing in any partic ular locality; but rather a local national mouthpiece of an inov^mfm i—-an advocate ot clean < vxt Industrial Unionism, mi eon tam united- with politic,.

Though only starting as a nthly, we expect to be a biweekly soon, and every effort will be made to establish as a weekly

within a few months. Our col-

iimns will be mostly occupied by contributions from wage-wor-kers. We will have no room for capitalist advertisements. Our policy will be to expound the doctrine of revolutionary class-fiction. Realising that no journal can be too militant, we will express the fighting spirit of the proletariat; and we shall have justified our existence if we help to shake the deadly apathy affecting a portion of our class, and :,o point out their historic class-mis-sion.

The policy or program of , the I. W. W. is dealt with elsewhere, but it may be here stated, that neither we nor the organisation controlling us, will be in the least deterred by the attacks of capital’s hirelings on the one side, or by the mendacious bluster of pseudo-revolutionaries, and the dismal predictions of wet-blan-kets on the other. To cower before these attacks and deny certain tactics —especially to go out of one’s way to do so —is to deny being revolutionary.

As a method of advocating the industrial form of class-organi-sation coupled with militant tartics, we purpose to show the r necessity by exposing the weakness of craft unionism and craft conglomeration, of Arbitration Cz out of date methods.

This can be done by showing that the industrial grouping T the workers by capitalism, has rendered imperative a similar grouping in their fighting organ isation; and that the efforts of the employing class to misdirect working class activity, and their use of repression, call for a clear understanding of the aim of the labour movement, and for the developement of the militant spirit.

in dealing with those things which may be termed effects, we opine that persistent pointing out of certain economic truths, and of the lessons of history —the memory of the race; and insisting on the natural and inevitab r decay of capitalism by calling attention to every-day facts of life —the rapid deveiopement of mac-

hine production, elimination of skill and of competition etc.— will most effectively combat all side-tracking tactics or issues, whether in the iorm *u pav-uamen-tarianism, or whab not, This need boww'w* prevc ..Tv- aom politicians. , Neither the habit of exaggeration, nor the “great man theory commend themselves to us; the former, is misleading and harmful and the latter begets hero-wor-ship, and carries the idea of dependence on leaders, which in itself is dangerous to the working class. In view of the growing intelligence of the workers these things are a hindrance; and we deem it wise to recognise, to foster as far as w© are a ble, and to depend on, that intelligence.

Our attitude to existing organisations must, of course, be uncompromising as far as fundamentals are concerned; out during any active industrial struggles, whatever assistance W 3 may be able to render will always -must always- —-be thrown on he side of the workers involved; tor, like the communists ofA Man ties to fame we have no interests apart from the working class as a whole; with that class we sink or swim, because we are of, and still in, the working class.

Compulsory education, or universal literacy —-not a generous gift from the dominant, class, nor a concession wrung from it by the workers, but a necessary concomitant to the evolution of capitalism—is furnishing the workers with one of the instruments for the destruction of class-rule and class-tyranny. If those workers who do not see eye-to-eye with us make full use of that instrument, and if we adhe: 3 to the policy outlined above, good will surely result.