Industrial Workers of the World (IWW)

Originally published as SABOTAGE, THE CONSCIOUS WITHDRAWAL OF THE WORKERS' INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY, in October, 1916, by the IWW publishing bureau, in Cleveland, Ohio. It was later withdrawn from the IWW's official litearture. The pampahlet originally sold for 10 cents.

Elizabeth Gurley-Flynn's Introduction:

The interest in sabotage in the United States has developed lately on account of the case of Frederick Sumner Boyd in the state of New Jersey as an aftermath of the Paterson strike. Before his arrest and conviction for advocating sabotage, little or nothing was known of this particular form of labor tactic in the United States. Now there has developed a two-fold necessity to advocate it: not only to explain what it means to the worker in his fight for better conditions, but also to justify our fellow-worker Boyd in everything that he said. So I am desirous primarily to explain sabotage, to explain it in this two-fold significance, first as to its utility and second as to its legality.

Voice of the People was the new name of the Lumberjack the Wobbly Weekly covering New Orleans and the surrounding area.

By Paul Dupres - The Voice of the People, October 30, 1913; republished on libcom.org by Scott Nappalos, March 30, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

From the series The Question of Decentralization [part 6 out of 7]

This article was published by the newspaper of the Southern District of the IWW's IU 120 the industrial union of timber workers. It was part of a series on decentralization in the early 1910s that featured back and forth around questions of the vision of the union, structure, and capitalism of its day.

The centralists, when beaten at all other points, make what they consider conclusive argument in the following: The IWW is building up the structure of the new society, and as modern industry is highly centralized the IWW must be highly centralized also.

This argument is sound save for two details, 1st, the IWW is not building up the structure of the new society (as this is generally understood), 2nd, modern industry is not centralized (as centralists understand and use this term). Let us consider the first of the shocking propositions in this altogether shocking rejoinder.

Summed up, the current theory is that the labor unions will in the new society, take charge of and oversee production. As our noted theoretician WE Trautmann says; they will "legislate the industries". How unnecessary will be the interference of the labor unions is readily apparent when one considers the existing producing, or shop organization of modern industry. The shop organizations are the totality of workers of all kinds in the various industries. They have been called into being solely for the purpose of carrying on production. They are the social producing organism. They are the embodiment of the best thought and experience that humanity has been able to apply to production. These shop organizations are not capitalistic in nature, but economic. They will not perish with the fall of capitalism. On the contrary, the revolution will give a strong stimulus to their still higher development. They will not need the assistance, as producing organizations, from any government, be it political or labor union in character.

Compared to the shop organizations the labor unions would be ridiculous as producing organizations. The labor unions are only fighting organizations; they know nothing about carrying on production. Their chief function is to overthrow capitalism. If they have any function to perform in the new society it will doubtless be to serve as employment agencies. It is worthy of note that even under capitalism the labor unions so strongly sees the need for a distributive shop organization for the workers that they are universally trying to serve as employment agencies. This is equally true of both the reddest and yellowest unions. Though unions may have nothing else in common, not even the strike, they will all be found functioning as employment agencies as best they can.

By Walker C Smith - IWW, 1913

This little work is the essence of all available material collected on the subject of Sabotage for a period of more than two years. Thanks are due to the many rebels who gave assistance, and especially to Albin Braida, who made for me what I think to be the first English translation of Pouget's work on Sabotage. From this last pamphlet extracts have been taken and adaptations made to suit American conditions.

The object of this work is to awaken the producers to a consciousness of their industrial power. It is dedicated, not to those who advocate but to those who use sabotage.

No theory, no philosophy, no line of action is so good as claimed by its advocates nor so bad as painted by its critics. Sabotage is no exception to this rule. Sabotage, according to the capitalists and the political socialists, is synonymous with murder, rapine, arson, theft; is illogical, vile, unethical, reactionary, destructive of society itself. To many anarchist theorists it is the main weapon of industrial warfare, overshadowing mass solidarity, industrial formation and disciplined action. Some even go so far as to claim that sabotage can usher in the new social order. Somewhere between these two extreme views can he found the truth about sabotage.

Three versions are given of the source of the word. The one best known is that a striking French weaver cast his wooden shoe—called a sabot—into the delicate mechanism of the loom upon leaving the mill. The confusion that resulted, acting to the workers' benefit, brought to the front a line of tactics that took the name of SABOTAGE. Slow work is also said to be at the basis of the word, the idea being that wooden shoes are clumsy and so prevent quick action on the part of the workers. The third idea is that Sabotage is coined from the slang term that means "putting the boots" to the employers by striking directly at their profits without leaving the job. The derivation, however, is unimportant. It is the thing itself that causes commotion among employers and politicians alike. What then is Sabotage?

Sabotage is the destruction of profits to gain a definite, revolutionary, economic end. It has many forms. It may mean the damaging of raw materials destined for a scab factory or shop. It may mean the spoiling of a finished product. It may mean the displacement of parts of machinery or the disarrangement of a whole machine where that machine is the one upon which the other machines are dependent for material. It may mean working slow. It may mean poor work. It may mean missending packages, giving overweight to customers, pointing out defects in goods, using the best of materials where the employer desires adulteration, and also the telling of trade secrets. In fact, it has as many variations as there are different lines of work.

Note this important point, however. Sabotage does not seek nor desire to take human life. Neither is it directed against the consumer except where wide publicity has been given to the fact that the sabotaged product is under the ban. A boycotted product is at all times a fit subject for sabotage. The aim is to hit the employer in his vital spot, his heart and soul, in other words, his pocketbook. The consumer is struck only when he interposes himself between the two combatants.

On the other hand, sabotage is simply one of the many weapons in labor's arsenal. It is by no means the greatest one. Solidaric action is mightier than the courageous acts of a few. Industrial class formation gives a strength not to be obtained by mere tactics. Self discipline and cooperative action are necessary if we are to build a new social order as well as destroy the old. Sabotage is merely a means to an end; a means that under certain conditions might be dispensed with and the end still be gained.

Sabotage will sometimes be misused, flagrantly so; the same is true of every one of the weapons of labor. The main concern to revolutionists is whether the use of sabotage destroy the power of the masters in such a manner as to give the workers a greater measure of industrial control. On that point depends its usefulness to the working class.

The Lumberjack was founded in January 1913 in the midst of a protracted labor strike by the Brotherhood of Timber Workers (B.T.W.) in Merryville, Louisiana. Published by the Southern District of the National Industrial Union of Forest and Lumber Workers, the weekly paper was edited by Covington Hall (1871-1952), a member of the radical wing of the Socialist Party in New Orleans.

By B. H. Williams - transcript of a speech given January 23, 1910 in New Castle, Pennsylvania; republished on libcom.org by S Nappalos, March 27, 2015

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

This is a pamphlet from the IWW's official publishing bureau in 1910 about elections, the state, cooperatives, and the IWW. It begins as a polemic against 11 socialist thinkers of the time in the US, and makes arguments against coops as a strategy, labor legislation, and the idea that the state can be used to create a socialist society in favor of revolution by industrial unions.

"INTELLECTUALS" AND WORKERS IN THE PARIS COMMUNE.

(From Lissagaray's "History of the Commune of 1871.")

Five deputies only signed the address for the election [for the Communal Council]. The rest of Louis Blanc's group had kept aloof from Paris for several days. These weaklings, having all their life sung the glories of the Revolution, when it rose up before them ran away appalled, like the Arab fisher at the apparition of the genie.

With these mandarins of the tribune of history and of journalism, mute and lifeless, contrast strangely the sons of the multitude — obscure, but rich in will, faith and eloquence. They could indeed "come down the steps of the Hotel-de-Ville head erect," these obscure men who had safely anchored the revolution of the 18th March. Named only to organize the National Guard; thrown at the head of a revolution without precedent and without guides, they had been able to resist the impatient, quell the riot, re-establish the public services, victual Paris, baffle intrigues, take advantage of all the blunders of Versailles and of the mayors, and, harassed on all sides, every moment in danger of civil war, known how to negotiate, to act at the right time and in the right place. They had embodied the tendency of the movement, limited their program to communal revindications, and conducted the entire population to the ballot box. They had inaugurated a precise, vigorous, and fraternal language unknown to all bourgeois powers. And yet they were obscure men, all with an imperfect education, some of them fanatics.

But the people thought with them. Where illustrious bourgeoise bad only accumulated folly upon defeat, these new comers found victory, because they listened to Paris.