What is Direct Action?

Maoriland Worker, Volume 2, Issue 75, 16 August 1912, Page 4

What is Direct Action?

Louis Levine's Much-quoted View.

"Direct action" is action by tho workingmen themselves without the help of intermediaries; it is not necessarily violent action, though it may assume violent forms; it is tho manifestation of the consciousness and: the will of the workers themselves, without tho intervention of an external agent; it consists in pressure exerted directly by those interested for the sake of obtain* ing the ends in view.

"Direct action" may assume various forms, but the principal ones in the struggle against employers are: tflie strike, the boycott, the label, and sabot* ago.

The strike, in the view of the syndicalist, is a manifestation of tho class struggle par excellence. The strike brings the working-men face to face with the employers in a clash of interests. A strike clears up, as if by a flash of lightning, tho deep antagonism which exists between those who employ and those who work for employers. It further deepens tho chasm between tlit l i/i, coiisojjdai'iiijj; Mie fiiiplovois on the uiks liaud find tlit , working-imyi on tho other, over against one another. It is thus a revolutionary fact of great value.