This reactionary attitude of the trade union leaders did not cease at the end of the war: if anything it was intensified. Jouhaux, Merrheim, Dumoulin, et al, who a few years ago advocated the most extreme doctrines, now gave up the very principle of the class struggle and adopted that of class cooperation. They fought radicalism energetically and acted generally as the defenders of bourgeois society against the threatening wave of Bolshevism.
These tactics greatly embittered the revolutionists in the C. G. T. The latter came to look upon their officials as traitors to the cause, as agents of the capitalist class. Hence, they decided to oust them and to bring the organization back to its revolutionary basis. To this end they restarted their independent journal "La Vie Ouvriere" (suppressed during the war), and commenced to reorganize the famous militant minority which had done such good work in the trade unions during the Anarchist "raid" and the struggle against the Socialist politicians. The new war between the red and yellow Syndicalists was on.
The Big May Strike
It was in the midst of such an unfavorable atmosphere, with the red rank-and-filers warring against the yellow leaders, that the great strike of May, 1920, took place. The upheaval centered around the railroad industry. During the war and the period just following it, the Federation of Railroad Workers,[1] had jumped in membership enormously—the increase was from 23,000 in 1918, to 235,000 in 1920. Feeling its new power, the organization surged restlessly all during the war under the shameful tyranny of the horde of parasites, Government and otherwise, exploiting the railroad workers. And no sooner had the war finished than this discontent began to express itself in a series of strikes. Progressively these took on
- ↑ This is practically an industrial union, including as it does all categories of workers in the railroad industry. In 1917 it absorbed the last important craft union when it amalgamated with the railroad engineers.
