Page:Proletarian and Petit-Bourgeois (1912?).pdf/16

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PROLETARIAN AND PETIT-BOURGEOIS

another direction and to turn their eyes towards industrial unionism as a remedy. Louder and louder the demand arises that the only way in which the working class can expect to achieve progress in face of the odds which confront it is by organization in terms of the capitalist industry, and that means the practical elimination of the crafts, as protectors of special property interests.

That this question is becoming one of first class importance even in the Socialist Party is to be seen from the following extract from a recent article by Eugene V. Debs. The tone of impatience with the present attitude of the Socialist Party will be readily noted:

"Voting for Socialism is not Socialism any more than a menu is a meal.

"Socialism must be organized, drilled, equipped, and the place to begin is in the industries where the workers are employed. Their economic power has got to be developed through efficient organization, or their political power, even if it could be developed, would but react upon them, thwart their plans, and all but destroy them.

"Such organization to be effective must be expressed in terms of industrial unionism. Each industry must be organized in its entirety, embracing all the workers, and all working together in the interest of all, in the true spirit of solidarity, thus laying the foundation and developing the superstructure of the new system within the old, from which it is evolving, and systematically fitting the workers, step by step, to assume entire control of the productive forces when the hour strikes for the impending organic change.

"Without such economic organization and the economic power with which it is clothed, and without the industrial co-operation, training, discipline and efficiency, which are its corollaries, the fruit of any political victories the workers may achieve will turn to ashes on their lips."—International Socialist Review, January, 1910.

That the period when trade unionism, by which of course is meant craft unionism, could be considered a