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In a country which is in the throes of the most remarkable revolution ever witnessed, they tried to apply non-revolutionary methods and drew on themselves the suspicion of the masses of being counter-revolutionists.
The vigorous secession movements in the South at once after Lincoln's election, raised a question of the first magnitude, which few people at the North had reflected upon since 1833, viz., whether or not non-revolutionary secession was possible. Almost unanimously the North denied such possibility, the South affirmed it.
The stress to which it is being subjected has also not so much changed its character as become easier of analysis. At least, I seem to myself to see it differently. In the earlier days it seemed quite simply the struggle between a revolutionary and non-revolutionary countries.
Together with the economists they helped to break down the prejudice against labor unionism in so far as the latter was non-revolutionary. And though their influence was large, they understood that their maximum usefulness would be realized by remaining sympathetic outsiders and not by seeking to control the course of the labor movement.
In the recent pamphlet, "Industrial Socialism," Mr. Haywood and Mr. Frank Bonn develop the new unionism at greater length. Their conclusions as to politics are directed, not against the Socialist Party, but against its non-revolutionary elements: "The Socialist Party stands not merely for the POLITICAL supremacy of labor. It stands for the INDUSTRIAL supremacy of labor.
Poor Lizzie, with her three babies at home, and her plain, ordinary, non-revolutionary psychology, which made going to jail a humiliation instead of a test of manhood, a badge of distinction! Jimmie felt a clutch in his own throat, and an impulse to tear down the beastly wire mesh and clasp the dear motherly soul in his arms. But all he could do was to screw his face into a dubious smile.
I now think that that struggle is a foolish, unnecessary, lunatic incident which disguised from us the existence of a far more serious struggle, in which the revolutionary and non-revolutionary governments are fighting on the same side. They fight without cooperation, and throw insults and bullets at each other in the middle of the struggle, but they are fighting for the same thing.
And not merely would Comrade Meissner not admit that, but he became excited and vehement, trying to convince Jimmie that the other capitalist governments of the world were the cause of the war Germany was only defending herself against them! So there they were, involved in a controversy, just like any two non-revolutionary people!
Petersburg, which had for its program such innocent and non-revolutionary objects as "sober and reasonable pastimes, aimed at physical, intellectual, and moral improvement; strengthening of Russian national ideas; development of sensible views concerning the rights and duties of working-men and improvement of labor conditions and mutual assistance."
Far from being displeased with the moderate and non-revolutionary character of the Socialist Party, Labriola, himself a revolutionist, is so indifferent to the party as a direct means to revolution, as to hope that it will drop its revolutionary claims altogether and become a humble and modest but more useful tool of the unions.
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