Mr. Dosch-Fleurot needs no introduction to the American public. He may
be called an expert on Bolshevism, as he was the only American
correspondent in Petrograd when the revolution broke out in March, 1917,
against the Imperial Government. He remained throughout the
Lenine-Trotzky revolution until the dictatorship of the proletariat was
firmly established in the fall of 1918. In addition to this remarkable
experience, he reported for The World the first vital six months of the
German revolution, when the Spartacists attempted repeatedly to upset
the Ebert-Noske Government. His careful and faithful studies of social
conditions abroad during the period of the war, travelling in Russia,
Germany, Austria, Hungary, Roumania, Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, Greece,
the Scandinavian countries, Belgium, France and Great Britain, have been
features of The World’s news for the past two years.
Mr. Dosch-Fleurot recently has been appointed The World’s chief
correspondent for Germany and Central Europe, with headquarters in
Berlin. His despatches will be regular features of The World.
❧
AMERICA’S WAR-BORN WEALTH INSURANCE AGAINST SPREAD OF BOLSHEVIST TAINT
HERE
Study of Conditions in Various Sections of the United States, From the
Point of View of Europe, Convinces Arno Dosch-Fleurot That Same
Problems of Unrest Do Not Affect Our Workmen and Ground Is Not
Fertile for Insurrection—Prosperity of Workingmen Cause for
Thanksgiving Rather Than Complaint.
_The biggest questions in industrial, social, political and economic
life in America are_:
=Is Bolshevism finding root here?=
=Is America facing a political revolution?=
=Are we tainted by the vast social unrest now so characteristic of
England, of all Europe, as well as Asia?=
=What impulses common to those countries are to be found in our labor
structure?=
_In an effort to throw light an these vital matters, The World brought
Arno Dosch-Fleurot back from Europe, where he has been the last four
years, to make an investigation. The results of his extensive inquiry,
covering the past three months, during which he has visited those
centres of activity from which he could best obtain first hand
information, are set forth in five articles._
_By Arno Dosch-Fleurot._
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).
For the past three years I have been living in the midst of the social
revolution in Europe. A great deal of it has been active revolution,
with the machine guns in the streets. During this time I have often
wondered how much of this unrest was being communicated to America or
how much we were developing here on our own account.
Looking at America from the point of view of Europe, particularly
Eastern Europe, I have wanted to know—
=First—How the Bolshevik revolution in Russia affected America.=
=Second—Whether the class war into which the World War developed had
hit America too.=
=Third—How the United States was readjusting itself to the inevitable
social changes.=
At the time the Bolsheviki seized the power in Russia, we Americans who
were there used to say to one another as we discussed the industrial and
social problems that faced the world, “At home we are going to work this
thing out another way.”
Are We Working Out the Problems in Another Way?
For several weeks I have been able to search for the answers to my own
questions. I have been going about the United States studying the social
and industrial unrest. To some of my questions I have answers which are
satisfactory, at least to myself. Behind others I must still leave
interrogation points. In addition I have seen things I had not thought
of, some of them tranquilizing, others disquieting.
In this and the succeeding articles I shall give my impressions of the
unrest in America and its significance from my point of view.
=In the first place, I am overwhelmed by our wealth. I had been away
long enough to forget how rich we were, and we have in the mean while
grown much richer. That fact is of prime importance. Being rich, there
is not the gruelling struggle for existence that makes the problems of
unrest in Europe dangerous. It eases off enormously on whatever strain
there might otherwise be.=
Everywhere I turn, in every city, every street, every shop, every home,
there is so much wealth it is hard to believe. After Europe one would be
inclined to say we are disgustingly rich, if the new-wealth, in spite of
the war fortunes, were not so widely distributed. I hear people complain
that workmen have been making so much money they have been buying
themselves $10 silk shirts and their wives are wearing $50 hats.
It does not seem to me a cause for complaint. Rather it would appear to
be cause for thanksgiving that such things can be. =I have myself seen
factory workmen, men who make their living with their hands, men who
belong to unions, going to work in their own automobiles. I should like
to tell that to some workmen of my acquaintance in Moscow.=
Wealth Obscures Depression.
Even though the country is going through an industrial depression there
is so much money about that a casual traveller would not know it.
In Detroit, where 150,000 factory workmen have been laid off, it is
interesting to see how little difference it has made in the daily life
of this city of a million. Half the families in the city are affected,
but they have money and go on spending it. I could not believe so many
people could be out of work without evident sign of suffering somewhere,
but I spent half a day unsuccessfully trying to find a soup kitchen or a
bread line in Detroit.
Yes, we are rich, and that has spared us much. But with wealth have come
pride and intolerance. I was in a measure prepared for this, but I did
not expect to find it generally accepted as right and proper.
George Russell, the Irish writer, said to me just before I came home:
“War is an exchange of characteristics. You have been fighting
Prussians. You may find America full of Prussianism.”
I should have thought our sense of liberty were proof against
contamination, but apparently not. As the first sign of Prussianism we
seem to have curtailed free speech. In a dozen cities where I have been
a man need only get on a soap-box and he will land in jail. The corner
orators who used to act as safety valves for over-heated brains don’t
dare show themselves. Men have gone to jail for reading sections from
the Declaration of Independence. I admit they did it with mocking or
malicious intent, but what of it? Since when, has the democracy of
America grown so weak it needs policemen to protect it? In the West a
man need only carry an I. W. W. card in his pocket to get arrested. They
say in Seattle, “The Red Squad has driven the cards into the shoes.”
There are 3,000 “Reds” in jail for various causes. The most important
ones are serving long prison sentences.
There seems to be a common impression that the Imprisonment of “Reds” is
suppressing Bolshevism in the United States. =My observations lead me to
the belief the only chance of revolution, and that not immediate, might
come from continuing to keep these men in prison.= Those who are under
prison sentence were convicted under the extraordinary conditions
developed by war. These extraordinary conditions no longer exist, but
these men are still under sentence. =The longer they stay in prison the
stronger grows the resentment at their imprisonment. I find an
undercurrent of bitterness, not very wide but deep, that can breed
trouble.= The small minority that is thinking about revolution is
thinking about it hard. If these so-called revolutionists were turned
loose without further ado, under a general amnesty, it would ease off on
that hard thinking and would be helpful to the liberal movement in
industry that is trying to “work this thing out another way.”
The same spirit in the country which is backing the red squads of the
police seems to be actuating a Nation-wide, open-shop campaign. Men with
any liberalism at all—and there are liberals managing great
industries—are not in favor of either. They do not want the closed shop,
but the ruthless way many employers’ associations and groups of
associated industries are trying to use the present reaction as well as
the existing depression to “break the back of labor” is regarded by them
as the madness of power and wealth.
I find only two groups of rebels against democracy who view with favor
this knock-down-and-drag-out fight for the open shop. I might call them
roughly Bolshevik employers and Bolshevik employees.
As I travelled about the country I found that the active advocates of
the open shop frequently referred to it as “the American plan.” The
employers’ association which is pushing it also has a way of
ostentatiously flying the Stars and Stripes. This is particularly
noticeable in the mining communities where there are large bodies of
foreign laborers. At first I could not understand how one group of
Americans came to have the temerity to arrogate to themselves the word
“American.” Then I discovered it was a survival of the war period. In
fighting the Prussian we have adopted some of the Prussian’s
disagreeable characteristics. The war is over, but we have licked
militarist blood. What surprises me most is how few people recognize the
danger of it. The phrase “American plan” has been allowed to stand
without protest, though it practically says to union men who are just as
good Americans as the members of employers’ associations that they are
not Americans if they persist in their union ideas. It is not difficult
to imagine how this is misused in the daily contact between workman and
boss. It cannot help but do harm.
In Butte I was walking along the street with some labor leaders, bound
for their headquarters. Thinking we had reached it, I started to turn
into a building over which the Stars and Stripes were flying. “That’s
not it,” said one of them. “Don’t you see the flag of the American
plan?”
No Serious Bolshevism Here.
=And yet there is no serious Bolshevism in the United States, I have
been looking for it, and I have not been able to trace a consistent
effort at a Bolshevik movement. There are no doubt enough people who
believe in Bolshevism who would like to start a Bolshevik movement—but
they have not been able to do it. At least they have not succeeded in
starting it among wage-paid workmen, and there is no other place to
start it.=
There is, however, something which is called Bolshevism, and, as it is
also rebellious against the existing order of society, it has been
labelled Bolshevik, but it is really something different. I refer to the
rather crude and unscientific but active, anarcho-syndicalism of the
Industrial Workers of the World.
The two have been confused even by some of the leaders of the I. W. W.,
so it is not surprising that the general public, not to mention the Red
squads of the police, have not always been able to make the distinction;
but the difference is there and is of sufficient importance to prevent
the growth of Bolshevism.
Bolshevism, by which is ment the idea that lies behind the Bolshevik
Government in Moscow, is a long way from the One Big Union—the effective
idea behind the I. W. W. Bolshevism has proved to be state Socialism in
action. The I. W. W. is anarcho-syndicalism trying to make headway in
industry.
=But even the I. W. W. is not getting anywhere. It may some day, because
it has a broader philosophy than Bolshevism behind it and because it is
aiding in the movement toward industrial unionism, which is making some
headway. But as an immediate revolutionary movement the I. W. W. is
powerless before the powerful forces that oppose it.=
=Chief of these is the American Federation of Labor. The I. W. W. has
never even had a chance to play a serious role in the United States
because the A. F. of L. has fought it consistently since its inception
fifteen years ago.=
Industrial unionism, when revolutionary in purpose, even when developed
apart from the I. W. W., has met the same opposition. If there had been
no system of craft unionism in this country there might have been
industrial unionism in this country long ago. Certainly the I. W. W.
would have had a much freer hand. In that case the employers of the
United States would, like the employers of Europe, have been faced with
labor syndicates instead of labor unions, and that is a very different
story.
In Europe labor leaders look upon the American Federation of Labor as
almost a part of the capitalist system. Rumors that the big American
industrials were trying to break the power of the A. F. of L. had come
to Europe before I left and it could hardly be credited. The syndicalist
labor leaders could not understand why the American manufacturers were
fighting their ally.
Since I have been travelling about the United States I have also found
many employers of labor who can also not understand why there is this
vicious open-shop campaign. The industrial manager of one of the
greatest industries in the world said to me hotly:
“=If Judge Gary and Wall Street knew what they were leading to they
would stop this anti-union campaign. They are trying to break down the
conservative American Federation of Labor. If they succeed in destroying
the power of Gompers they will remove the only barrier that stands
between us and a real revolutionary labor movement, industrial
unionism.=”
Just how revolutionary industrial unionism is I shall examine later on,
but it is certainly much more revolutionary than the A. F. of L. And as
the craft unions of the A. F. of L. find it increasingly harder to
breathe under the smothering process that is going on under the
“American plan,” the industrial unions find a freer field to work in.
The revolutionists of America, such as they are, could ask nothing
better than the carrying of the open-shop campaign to its most ruthless
finish.
Right now the enemies of union labor of any kind can do about what they
please. There are plenty of men looking for work and they can break
almost any strike that might be declared. Union men and I. W. W. leaders
alike are sitting tight and are trying to save what they can to go on
with when the fight is over. They are not afraid of being done in
forever. They know this period of depression will pass, and, even if
meanwhile the open-shop campaign were carried to the point where every
union in the country were killed off, the union movement would spring up
again. Next time, however, they believe it might take the more
revolutionary form of industrial unionism.
LITTLE OF BOLSHEVISM FOUND IN I. W. W., MOST RADICAL OF AMERICAN LABOR
MOVEMENTS
_By Arno Dosch-Fleurot._
Copyright, 1921, by the Press Publishing Co. (The New York World).
The most radical labor movement in the United States, the one that makes
the most to-do over its revolutionary programme, is the I. W. W.
Whatever there may be of revolutionary tendency in America is in the I.
W. W., or closely affiliated. =But looking at America from the point of
view of Europe, if that is all we have produced in the way of
revolutionary material we are certainly in no immediate danger of
becoming a “Soviet republic.”=
The I. W. W. is popularly considered Bolshevik, and has thus been
advertised by the attacks the police have made upon it. There have also
been “criminal Syndicalist” laws passed against it which have enhanced
its importance. But an examination of what it is does not give cause for
serious alarm.
The I. W. W. has never been able to boast of much of a membership, and
it has barely enough members now to keep it alive. During the past few
weeks I have taken a fairly close look at the I. W. W., or what I could
find of it, and I should say it is more of a purpose, more of a labor
philosophy, than a movement. It is out for One Big Union, but it has not
even one small union that stays put.