General Strike

GENERAL STRIKE. When all the workers in a given industry, region, or nation strike simultaneously with the same demands, a general strike is said to have occurred. As far as leftists are concerned, the general strike may be regarded as a tactical or a strategic weapon. If tactical, the general strike, like other strikes, has limited objectives. General strikes of this nature have occurred in various American cities, most notably in Seattle (1919) and San Francisco (1934). In movements influenced by anarcho-syndicalist theories, the general strike is viewed as a revolutionary weapon capable of ending capitalism. This view is distinct from the parliamentary strategy associated with the Socialist Party or the vanguard party concept of Marxist-Leninists.

Anarcho-syndicalists reject the parliamentary road on the grounds that worker power is maximal at the point of production, not at the ballot box. Elections are seen as based on relatively meaningless geographic divisions and conducted in a manner that favors middle- and ruling-class interests. At the turn of the century, when anarcho-syndicalism was strongest in the United States, the electoral road appeared particularly unappealing and essentially undemocratic. Women, workers under the age of twenty-one, and most new immigrants could not vote. Millions of migratory workers did not have a stable address to use for registration purposes, and minorities such as blacks were prevented from voting in the very venues where they were a majority or a significant percent of the population.

Leninism was rejected on the grounds that a genuine transvaluation of old values could not be accomplished by a group of highly trained and professional revolutionaries, however well intentioned. Change must flow from the direct action of millions of workers satisfying their needs and honing their skills through democratically operated unions. Each strike would serve as a training ground in self-management in an every-expanding movement that would culminate in the national general strike. The last strike, the ultimate revolutionary moment, would succeed only if each individual union had already developed a constellation of leaders from its own ranks. Common sense and direct-action experience—not abstract ideology, organizational discipline, or parliamentary guile—would distinguish these leaders.

The strategy of the general strike was most aggressively put forth in the United States by the Industrial Workers of the World during its peak period of 1905–1923. The “Preamble” stated that the solution to economic and social injustice lay in the creation of a worker-controlled system called industrial democracy. The primary task of revolutionaries was to create industrial unions that would fight for gains within the system until strong enough to call a general strike able to bring all economic life to a halt. The conditions for returning to work would be the substitution of industrial unions for all business enterprises and governmental activity. The means of production would then be run by unions to satisfy social needs rather than private profit. What had been done in one nation would be duplicated throughout the globe.

Chaplin, Ralph. The General Strike. New ed. Chicago: Industrial Workers of the World, 1982.

Krimerman, Leonard I., and Lewis Perry, eds. Patterns of Anarchy. New York: Anchor-Doubleday, 1966.