CHAPTER VIII

REVOLUTIONARY GENERAL STRIKES, 1914

RUSSIA: THE GENERAL STRIKE OF JULY 17TH-27TH

OUR chief Russian documents of this period are an account of the revolutionary, though spontaneous, general strike movement, which came to an end only in the very days when the Russian army was being mobilized. We show an aspect of this strike that is not generally known, namely, that it was directed in part against the Russian militarist party.

The inception of the strike was not political. A laborunion strike for higher wages had been declared ended by the leaders, when a riot occurred and blood was shed by the Cossacks and police.

THE STRIKE IN ST. PETERSBURG

(From the New York Volkszeitung)

At the beginning of the movement, the workers, incited by the bloodshed at the Putiloff works, in which fifty were injured and four killed, entered upon a three-day protest strike at the call of the active organizations. But the masses were so bitterly provoked by the actions of the police and Cossacks that the decision of the executive councils of the leading parties to end the strike on the evening of July 20th-which, however, was kept from the general mass as a result of the confiscation of the two Social Democratic papers-secured no hearing. Until this time, the streets of St. Petersburg had been thronged with peacefully demonstrating workers who, when President Poincaré passed by, cried, "Long live the republic! Amnesty! Down with autocracy! Long live lib

erty!” Then, inflamed to the greatest fury by the attacks of the police and Cossacks, the strikers erected barricades on July 21st in various public places. For the first time since its founding, the Russian capital saw huge barricades spring up, behind which the workmen, armed with stones, sought shelter from the assaulting Cossacks.

The fiercest conflicts occurred on the nights and days of July 22d and 23d. Several thousand workmen took part in these fights. From most of the barricades—consisting for the most part of telephone and telegraph poles, overturned carts and stone piles-red flags were seen fluttering. Women and children helped with the building of the barricades. Broken up by the police, the masses of men reassembled at different points in order to take up the fight anew. The police and military volleyed fiercely upon the crowds until, after a time, it became impossible to count the dead and wounded.

During the week, according to the report of the factory inspection committee (which falls somewhat short of the true number), over 200,000 workmen took part in the strike in St. Petersburg alone. Even such concerns as the Neva yarn mills, the Neva cotton mills, and the Thornton factory, which had never stopped work since 1904, discontinued operations as soon as the street fights began in the capital in connection with the general strike- -a sign of how deeply inflamed even the less eager sections of the proletariat in St. Petersburg became as a result of recent occurrences. Even a portion of the street railway men and of the shop employees of several railroads ceased work. Only the presence of numerous troops and gendarmes prevented the most important roads from taking part in the strike. The extent and strength of the movement may be shown further by the fact that the marine barracks were watched by armed soldiers to prevent the sailors housed in them from going over to the strikers.

A leading feature of all the demonstrations after July 20th, according to this and all other reports, was that the workers tore down all decorations in celebration of the Franco-Russian alliance-French capitalism being generally known as the underlying cause of the failure of the last revolution and of all the misery and horrors of the last ten years.

A dispatch to The Daily Citizen of July 24th shows that Russia was then on the very verge of revolution:

The city to-day has the appearance of an armed camp, and is, in fact, in the throes of a civil war. Barricades have been built by the strikers in the Samson Prospect, and are held, despite assaults from police and military, by strong forces of armed men. The tramway traffic has been brought to a complete standstill. Tramway men declare that they are afraid to venture out with the cars. There is no doubt, however, that they are sympathetic to the strike.

At the moment there seems every probability that St. Petersburg may be cut off from the outside world, so far as railway traffic is concerned, for to-day the strikers, turning up suddenly and in great force, tore up the rails just outside the city. Women as well as men took part in these operations.

The object of those who are directing the strike is both to cut off supplies and to prevent the transport of troops into the capital. On the other hand, the tactics of the government are to draw cordons of police and military across the city and divide it into districts, so that the strikers in one may not be able to communicate with those in another. The evident plan is, by isolating each, to crush the uprising in district after district.

That the government are thoroughly alarmed was proved by the extraordinary meeting of the cabinet summoned to-day to consider what measures ought to be taken in the emergency. The government, however, seem to have lost their heads, for the orders to the police are given by the Minister of the Interior and countermanded several times a day, with the result of general bewilderment.

The situation is the more serious because during last night the police tried by a series of sudden descents to effect the arrest of supposed strike leaders. They met with resolute and armed resistance, and had to retire beaten.

All factories are now guarded by strong detachments of troops. A feeling of uncertainty prevails everywhere. The stock exchange is very depressed owing to the news of the heavy fall of Russian securities in Berlin. The position, in short, is exactly like that which prevailed before the great strike in 1905, and the whole question is, Will the railway men join? I am told there is a strike of post and telegraph employees in preparation.

News from Moscow and other towns is scarce, since the

telephone line was many times interrupted to-day, and then largely used by the government. It is feared that Moscow will witness the repetition of the scenes of 1905, and troops are being hastily rushed to that capital.

On July 26th, the day after the Austrian ultimatum to Servia, St. Petersburg was put under martial law and the strike was finally terminated. But even then it was only the most extreme measures of repression that succeeded in putting the strikers down. The city working classes of Russia, organized under Socialist leadership, were certainly in no loyal or militaristic mood at the outbreak of the present war.

ITALY: THE GENERAL STRIKE AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT

(JUNE, 1914)

There was another domestic political situation which had an equally important bearing on the war. We give documents showing the threat of general strike and insurrection on the part of the Italian Socialists in case Italy went to war as a part of the Triple-Alliance, that is, against France. This threat is widely held in Italy and elsewhere to have had a great deal of influence with the government. But it would have amounted to little or nothing, but for the successful general strike of the previous month (June, 1914), which resulted as a protest against governmental repression. This strike is recorded to have involved two million workingmen, and though it failed to satisfy the revolutionary aims of many of its participants, it undoubtedly served the purpose of the Socialist Party and the Federation of Labor, and it showed that they were able to call a general strike. We also give an account of the governmental reprisals, but they were not sufficient to take the heart out of the working people, as they have always accompanied Italian general-strike movements. In spite of reprisals the last move

ment was the most menacing Italy has ever witnessed.

The Russian and Italian strikes suggest the possibility of revolutionary action in these and other countries in connection with the war, either in the case of the bad defeat of any of the Powers or long continuance of the war or as a result of the economic and political crises likely to follow it. It will be recalled that the International Manifesto at the time of the Balkan War (the first document of this section), in seeking for methods of preventing the war, emphasizes neither the general strike nor the refusal to vote military supplies, but the danger to the ruling classes of revolutions resulting from the war.

THE STRIKE DESCRIBED BY MUSSOLINI

The general strike which occurred in Italy in June, less than two months before the outbreak in the war, was one of the most complete the world has ever seen. It has been estimated that there were nearly two million strikers. While not all of the railroad workers struck, a very large part did, so that the system was crippled in many parts of the country. After the strike was ended, hundreds of railway employees were punished by losing their rank in the government service, so that the Railway Union met and decided, at the proper time, to declare another strike. This was late in July. Besides, nearly 6,000 other workers are to be tried by the courts. It will be recalled that in many of the smaller towns of the Romagna the government was entirely overthrown, and that the republican agitation was immensely strengthened throughout Italy.

The following account of the revolutionary disturbances is from the pen of Mussolini, then editor of the Socialist daily, Avanti. We take it from the Belgian Socialist daily, Le Peuple: