A major figure in Socialist and working class activism in Washington State for decades. Wells was among the best known Socialists in the region, running for Mayor of Seattle in 1912, elected President of of Seattle’s Central Labor Council in 1915, convicted of for sedition for opposing the War in 1917, imprisoned and tortured on McNeil Island and later Leavenworth. On his release from in 1920 he aligned himself with the new Communist movement and was elected delegate to the first congress of the Red International of Labor Unions from the Seattle Labor Council. His report on what the conference meant.

‘A Labor Program That Means Something’ by Hulet M. Wells from Labor Herald. Vol. 1 No. 5. July, 1922.

Representative of the Seattle Central Labor Council to the Red Trade Union International.

For American trade unionists to correctly appraise the work of the Red Trade Union International in its first World Congress at Moscow, it is necessary to remember that the atmosphere in which we met was quite different from here. In our country we are immersed in the humdrum details of our daily struggle, until the greater struggles of the whole human family toward a larger, freer life is oftentimes obscured. In Russia the goal of a great struggle has been reached; the working class has accomplished that which the faint-hearted say is impossible they have thrown off the chains of class oppression within Russia, and their destiny is in their own hands.

We found, tempering the exultation of victory, the agony of the Russian workers, enduring with fortitude all the sufferings that the hate of the capitalist world could inflict. Many of the delegates were from other countries where the conditions were ripening for revolution. No one knew what the day might bring. Seeming miracles occurred, like the veiled women of the East, who came bearing International greetings. There were crowds, cheers, and banners, and wreaths laid on graves. And over all there loomed a new terror–the black shadow of famine.

An emotional setting was created by all these things, which I realize the reader cannot feel. It was a memorable experience for those who lived it, but here in America it is hard to realize, because there is nothing like it in our life. What can be understood is, that we must look beneath the colorful environment and revolutionary phraseology to get at the real work of the Congress.

Unemployment

Some of the subject matter and considerable of the discussion has no application to the present status of the labor movement here, and it would sound startling and confusing to many because it concerns only people who are engaged in the actual, revolutionary transition from one state of society to another. But the main work of the Congress embodies a sound, adequate, coherent, practical program which the trade union movement of America must understand and adopt, if it is going to find itself and continue to serve the working people of this country.

Unemployment is the weakest spot in the capitalist system. It is a great, growing canker that the old methods of trades unionism are powerless to counteract. The end of the war brought unemployment in some countries where there had been a great destruction of capital goods, but in the United States it prevails for quite a different reason, labor being so productive that, at the scale of living permitted to the working class, the product of full time labor cannot be consumed.

The greatest prosperity that our workers ever enjoyed was during the period of our greatest waste. Unemployment is a disease inherent in the capitalist system, and it can only be dealt with by a labor movement that is not afraid to attack the system itself.

There can be no sane consideration of the unemployment evil until we lay bare its root and discover it to be the fact that all production is carried on solely for the purpose of making profit, and with no responsibility on the part of the profit takers for the lives of those that create the wealth. Heckert, of Germany touched this point when he said, “From the moment when the capitalist ceases to extract profits and begins to incur losses, he loses all interest in production. We are witnessing it in France, where a big French statesman and manufacturer was asked why he had put out his blast furnaces and thrown thousands of workmen into the streets. He answered: “I produce only while production is profitable, otherwise I am unable to produce any more.’

In its manifesto on world conditions the Congress drew the following picture of the economic situation in America:

“A very similar picture we find in the U.S.A. Five million unemployed. War profits have ceased. Factory after factory is being shut down. The workers in large masses now find themselves thrown out in the street. They may go now; they are not wanted any longer. The trunks are packed. ‘Democracy’ is celebrating its victory, and is beginning to introduce the “open shop,” simply employing unorganized labor. What are they doing who were supposed to give warning of this misery inflicted on the working class? The leaders of the trade unions do nothing. They consider it inevitable like the ocean tide, and, like obedient serfs they kiss the hands of their masters.”

Workers’ Control

What, then is to be done? This is considered in the tactics outlined under the heading of “Workers’ Control.” But the first thing of all things to be done–the essential prerequisite to the success of any tactic–is to begin to act like men, like men who have a small degree, at least, of courage and intelligence. And here I wish to quote again the apt words of the Congress:

“If the capitalist class dares to be aggressive at the present time and throw millions of workers upon the streets, it is because the working class feels itself inferior, and imagines that the gigantic capitalistic machinery is simply unconquerable. You continue to look up to the capitalist class. Many of you consider the established division of labor quite natural–the rule of one class and the subjection of another. Arise from your knees, and the capitalist class will not appear so strong to you as before.”

The subject of Workers’ Control was reported to the Congress by Tziperovich of Russia, but the idea ran thru every subject on the agenda, and may be said to be the keynote of the Congress. Especially is it related to the subject of unemployment. Heckert, in his discussion of factories and workshops said, “Comrade Ziperovich and myself have put great stress on the importance of the present unemployment in the working class movement. It is important for us to utilize these forces.”

The following are a few extracts from the report of Ziperovich, adopted by the Congress:

“There is no necessity for me to dwell upon the details of the crisis which all capitalist countries are now living thru. The crisis is the most characteristic expression of the fact that the capitalist class is unable to master the chaos in production, which it itself established as an organizer of production…There developed a crying contrast between the misery and despair of the working class and the luxury of the capitalist class. This gave birth to a new thought which suggested to the working masses that the capitalist regime is a regime of destruction and wholesale ruin, and that it is necessary to create some new forms of mutual relations between labor and capital–forms which would do away once and for all with the existing system of oppression–and the idea of workers’ control has rapidly developed.”

Now, it may be that you think that these words have reference to some time in the remote future, and that it is merely a repetition of the usual demand for social revolution couched in the formula of political socialism. Not at all. I am proposing and the International is proposing, a practical plan of action for the trade unions now, a plan to cope with unemployment, lockouts, jurisdictional disputes, and the breakdown of your organization due to the struggle for jobs.

It is not expected that in the present time in America we should mount any barricades or forcibly seize any factories. The first revolutionary step must be taken is to strike for the right to work.

What is the situation in which we are placed in America at the present time? The richest natural resources in the world, the most highly developed machinery for production, and millions of people in destitution because they are shut off from the opportunity to work. We have also the most powerful and arrogant capitalist class in the world, and a labor movement weak and inefficient because it does not know how to meet the situation. The leaders of the Red Trade Union International are telling you how to meet it. I commend you the words of Tom Mann:

“Every industry should carry its full complement of workers, and carry them constantly. If, as is sure to be the case, there are fluctuations in the amount of work to be done, such fluctuations must not be met by discharging a percentage of the workers, thus depriving them of the means of sustenance and precipitating their Such fluctuations families into social distress. must be met by the adjustment of working hours over as much of the industry as may be desirable; if need be, of course, over the whole industrial field.”

Unemployment insurance, he says, is “miserably inadequate, the full wage is what must be demanded, and it will be obtained, or abolish the wages system.” And here is his primary demand which, in my opinion, ought to be written into the strike demands of every important industry.

“Accept responsibility for all unemployment in the industry, and undertake to adjust working hours so that virtually there shall be no unemployment; and for all men to receive wages for every week in the year.”

That is what the miners, the building tradesmen, the printers and all the rest of us ought to agitate, organize and strike for, wages for the time being a secondary matter. The first step in workers’ control is control of the right to work.

The employing class will, of course, resort to any artifice in order to save their profits. But capitalistic profits are not as sacred as the right of men to work. Industries that cannot meet that obligation should be taken over by society as bankrupt institutions. The owners should receive no compensation until the claims of the creditors are adjusted; in other words no more than the capitalization of whatever income may remain, at prevailing prices for products, after ALL the workers are paid union wages for full time.

Industrial and Dual Unions

The report on workers’ control closed with the following reference to industrial unionism: “Workers’ Control may also be made use of as an argument for the speedier reconstruction of the unions upon an industrial basis, instead of by profession or trade. Workers’ control can be systematically carried out only when all the workmen within a definite concern are united in one body.”

Industrial unionism will also end the absurd jurisdictional disputes that disgrace our movement. Primarily, of course, such quarrels as those between the carpenters and sheet metal workers and between the steam engineers and electrical workers have their root in unemployment. It is one more evidence of the struggle for a chance to work.

The importance of building strong industrial unions to conform to the powerful combinations of capital in modern industry, has long been emphasized by the radical wing of American labor; but for twenty-seven years a most peculiar policy has been advocated, that we should completely destroy our unions, into which we have with such effort organized some millions of workers, and start to build again from the beginning.

Nearly all the Russian leaders, Lenin, Bucharin, Zinoviev, Radek, and many others have expressed their amazement at such childish tactics as those advocated by the I.W.W. Tomsky, the former president of the Russian unions has said, “The exit in itself is in its essence equivalent to flight from the field of battle, dictated by cowardice in the face of the complexities and difficulties of the struggle.”

Secretary Lozovsky, speaking at the Congress, said, “We want to clean house, not to pour kerosene over it and set it afire.” Writing on the aims of the International he says: “To leave the unions and set up small independent unions. is an evidence of weakness; it is a policy of despair and, more than that, it shows lack of faith in the working class.”

The four points covered here are closely related, and form an immediate trades union program so essential that I beg to remind you of them once more by summarizing them in four short sentences:

1. The trade union movement is becoming impotent under the curse of unemployment.

2. A progressive assumption of Workers’ Control is the only remedy.

3. Successful assertion of Workers’ Control requires industrial unions.

4. Those who believe in this program must stay within the existing unions to accomplish it.

The Labor Herald was the monthly publication of the Trade Union Educational League (TUEL), in immensely important link between the IWW of the 1910s and the CIO of the 1930s. It was begun by veteran labor organizer and Communist leader William Z. Foster in 1920 as an attempt to unite militants within various unions while continuing the industrial unionism tradition of the IWW, though it was opposed to “dual unionism” and favored the formation of a Labor Party. Although it would become financially supported by the Communist International and Communist Party of America, it remained autonomous, was a network and not a membership organization, and included many radicals outside the Communist Party. In 1924 Labor Herald was folded into Workers Monthly, an explicitly Party organ and in 1927 ‘Labor Unity’ became the organ of a now CP dominated TUEL. In 1929 and the turn towards Red Unions in the Third Period, TUEL was wound up and replaced by the Trade Union Unity League, a section of the Red International of Labor Unions (Profitern) and continued to publish Labor Unity until 1935. Labor Herald remains an important labor-orientated journal by revolutionaries in US left history and would be referenced by activists, along with TUEL, along after it’s heyday.

Link to PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/laborherald/v1n05-jul-1922.pdf