The Communist International to the IWW¶
Core Argument¶
Chapter Digest: The Communist International to the IWW
This chapter presents the formal appeal of the Executive Committee of the Communist International to the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), urging the syndicalist union to align with the Third International at a moment of world-historical crisis. The core argument is that capitalism is in its death throes, the social revolution has begun, and the IWW must abandon its principled opposition to the state and politics if it is to play its part in the revolutionary transformation.
The text opens by rebuking the IWW’s official organ for misrepresenting the Bolshevik Revolution, which, far from merely granting the vote, transferred factories, mines, land and financial institutions to the entire working class. American capitalism is depicted as imposing industrial slavery through anti-strike laws, criminal syndicalist legislation, and state violence. The only alternative to this slave state is the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Communist International insists that while both Communists and the IWW aim to abolish the state, this cannot be achieved immediately. A temporary workers’ state is necessary to crush capitalist resistance, confiscate property, and suppress counter-revolution; it will wither away once classes are abolished. The Russian Soviet Republic is held up as the model: a centralised yet democratic structure based on soviets, with industrial unions running nationalised industry.
The chapter then challenges the IWW’s anti-political stance, arguing that it rests on a narrow definition of politics. Following Marx, every class struggle is a political struggle for state power. Communists and the IWW agree that the capitalist state cannot be captured via its own electoral machinery; it must be attacked by direct action, including the general strike. However, Communists insist the general strike must escalate into armed insurrection, as capitalists control arms and food supplies. Communist participation in elections is purely propagandistic—to expose the state’s class character and call workers to revolt. The IWW has itself used state institutions for propaganda, as during the Lawrence Strike and the 1918 Chicago trial.
Finally, the text rejects the IWW’s aim of building the new society within the shell of the old as utopian under conditions of capitalist breakdown. The social revolution is already upon us. The Communist International extends the hand of brotherhood, calling on the IWW to unite all revolutionary unions and accept Communist cooperation.