From “Militant Proletariat”

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 2, 1 March 1913, Page 3

From “Militant Proletariat”

By Austin Lewis

Tim same argument applies with equal toree to what is generally called direct action. Tlie anarchistic ('lenient in the labour movement

impatient against all governments detests and despises parliamentary action. It resents the slowness and the tortuousness of political methods and suspects every development; which has the flavour of parliamentarism. In this attitude it has the approval of a much larger

proportion of the working class of tlie country than is usually suspected, for there is in the ordinary American labouring man a distinct tendency to individualism developed from the history of the country itself. The political exposures and scandals which have attached themselves to administrations of all kinds; the shuffling, the doubling and the actual dishonesty of the professional politicians have filled the mind of the proletariat with detestation of the very name of politics. This attitude may not only be admitted but may frankly be confessed to be justified by events. But, even so, what steps are to be taken, other than the same slow and painful steps which have been heretofore followed ¥

The answer “ Direct Action” leads us nowhere, for it still places us face to face with the question "" hat is Direct Action ? IT it means the strike in the shop and all the other manifestations that go with the strike, they are with us now.

To try to subordinate the strike and boycott and to place them in an inferior position to the political action movement, is to fail to comprehend the very basis of the proletarian revolt. Political action is a by-product. The real essential fight is the one to be carried on in the shop and the political party with its parliamentary action cannot be other than the reflex of the actual political fight. “ Direct Action' ’ in the shape of the economic struggle is the very lifeblood of the revolutionary movement, but such direct action can no more escape being mirrored in the political manifestations of the time than a man can escape his shadow.