‘When you see a labor union with a punch in it, look behind the punch and you will find a bunch of militants.’ Legendary revolutionary working class activist Jay Fox, who participated in the Haymarket riots as a teen, answers the question, ‘What is a Militant?’

‘What is a Militant’? by Jay Fox from The Labor Herald. Vol. 2 No. 2. April, 1923.

A MAN away back in the wilds of New York City writes me to as what I know about the Trade Union Educational League and its “Militants.” “What in hell,” he asks, “is a militant?” I referred him to these pages for the answer.

A militant in the labor movement is a fighter for the freedom of his class, a soldier in the army of industrial progress. Does this soldier of labor carry arms? He certainly does. He packs around a pocket full of redhot pamphlets and a head full of high explosive arguments designed to prove to you and me why we should be even as he.

The militant worker is not merely a man dissatisfied with things as they are. He is not just a grumbler. The world is full of grumblers who growl at the boss and the wages and the hours, but never do anything to remedy the evils of which they complain. The militant is not of that ilk. He sees clearly the wrongs inflicted upon his class by the robber system of industry under which we are compelled to live. He examines the machinery of capitalism carefully to see where the defect is, for he generally has no other thought than that a few changes in the system will insure justice to labor. But after a thorough examination of capitalism he is forced to the conclusion that no amount of alteration would insure labor a square deal. He finds that the capitalist system was originally designed as a means of exploiting labor, of robbing the workers of the product of their toil, and therefore cannot be altered to serve the ends of justice. Then he looks around for plans of a new system of labor and a way to get it into operation arid having found it, gets busy at once telling you and me all about it through the Trade Union Educational League. When you see a labor union with a punch in it, look behind the punch and you will find a bunch of militants.

League Against Secession

The League is not a movement separate and distinct from the unions. It is not a secession movement- it denounces secession. It is the instrument of the militant unionists, who have devised this means to arouse the indifferent workers to a sense of their duty to themselves, their families and their fellow-workers. The sleeping workers need to be awakened. They need to be shown that their condition is not a hopeless one; that there is a way out if they will but bestir themselves and make a united and intelligent effort.

If the workers were keen, active and alert to their rights and possibilities; if they knew why they are out of work, or in danger of being out of work; if they knew why they are separated from the earth (which no man made-which was here before man-which is the birthright of all men) they would get active in their own behalf. If the rank and file of labor were alive to their vital interests they would want to know just why the men who claim ownership of the earth and everything thereon stand between them and the source of life and say: “No work, men! We can’t let you make shoes for your feet, nor clothes to keep you warm, nor food to keep you alive, because there are hard times!” If the workers were even curious about the cause of their uncertain economic conditions they would tap themselves on the, noodles and get inquisitive. They would want to know the reason curiosity would lead them? But the mass never does get very inquisitive about anything. It has the bad habit of accepting things as they are and making the best of what is often the very worst.

Militants Born Kickers

Only a few in every generation are born kickers. To these human question-marks the initiation of all progress must be credited. They begin by questioning existing institutions; and finding them seeping with injustice and tyranny start the agitation that ends, finally, in their overthrow and the establishment of forms of society more in keeping with advanced thought. Today they are promoting industrial unionism and organizing educational leagues with the object of bringing about the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of a workers’ republic. They don’t want to destroy civilization, as has been charged. They merely wish to tear down the rotten old shack she is living in and erect a modern residence for the lady. With the exception of a few rooms on the top floor the present structure is not a fit habitation for a civilized being. Of course, the occupants of the rooms up above don’t wish to be disturbed. They are enjoying the sunshine and pure air, and most cordially hate the militants who are fighting among the millions on the lower floors. But the militants are not distressed by the yelps that come from above. On the contrary, the more noise that comes from above the harder they work down below.

Militants Demand Industrialism

These militants question everything, even their own unions; and there they have made a great discovery. They have found that the unions in their present form are incapable of coping with the industrially organized capitalists. They find that the unions are not only whipped to a standstill but are actually retreating before the onslaughts of the bosses. They are not out to organize new unions. That, they maintain, has been the great blunder of the militants of the past. Their big idea k to bring about the amalgamation of the present unions into industrial units, each industry having one powerful union instead of a dozen weak ones. Upon these industrial unions will devolve the work of managing the industries after the present management has been discharged, according to these militants. Thus they are exceedingly anxious to see that the industries are well organized and the workers trained in the art of taking care of their own business, so there will not be confusion and general disorder when the present directors receive their “blue envelopes.”

These militants assert that our society of today is suffering under the sway of a band of industrial robber barons who plunder and exploit the masses in a thousand ways. And, what is more, they have the proof. Society, they say, is organized in every department, from the kindergarten to the college, so to make it appear that the exploitation of the weak, the robbery of labor, the sweating of children, the shooting of strikers, the imprisonment of labor organizers all and every brutality that is practiced upon the workers is perfectly proper and necessary to the life of society; that it has the sanction of the Christian church no less than that of the Chamber of Commerce. Indeed, the church will defend the present order as vigorously as any hireling lawyer of capitalism.

Fleas on Back of Labor

It would be more than human for men to condemn what is generally termed a “good thing.” The church is supported by the capitalists; the lawyers are paid by the capitalists; the colleges are endowed by the capitalists; the public schools are controlled by the capitalists. Thus they all sing the same sweet capitalist song of submission: “Do what the boss says and you are a five hundred per cent American. Do what justice tells you and you are a lowbrow, criminal alien.”

All the present institutions of society with their hordes of hangers-on live, move, and have their being on the back of Labor, in the same manner that fleas live on a dog. No, even worse, the human fleas order labor about; the dog fleas never attempt to boss the dogs.

The militants have a strong disinfectant they want Labor to use in order to rid itself of the pest of capitalism. The name of the stuff is “Knowledge, truth about the habits of fleas, sand the way to rout them”; and the Trade Union Educational League and THE LABOR HERALD are the vehicles through which the stuff is distributed. END.

Jay Fox (1870-1961) was a legendary trade unionist, syndicalist, anarchist, and Communist activist. As a teen he participated in the Haymarket riot, but it was his work in the Pacific Northwest he is most known for. There he joined the anarchist Mutual Home Colony Association, and began his labor organizing work. He would be associated with the pioneering West Coast journal Firebrand, and would himself become editor of The Agitator, and his life-long personal and political relationship William Z. Foster, following his trajectory, though largely confining his work after World War One to his relatively isolated community of Home, Washington in the Puget Sound. With the large exception of his role in the 1919 Seattle General Strike.

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.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/laborherald/v2n02-apr-1923.pdf