THE REVOLUTIONARY AGE Saturday, March 15, 1919 Worker Control in America to workers, which rolling e mills, on and rail.
roadhe precede his the Coa which it is he value of being cooperate with The every large Soviet of Workers Deputies in RusBy John Reed However, the Industrial Union, although absolutely sia, in the Factory Shop. Committee of every imnecessary to the Industrial Commonwealth of the portant Russian industrial plant, there is usually leave the factory although not for long. These are future, does not solve the immediate problem of how some Russian who has worked in America, and who primarily scientists. they want to do their work and the workers in each factory shall be ready to take is valuable because of the knowledge, he has picked Workers Control caħ give them their same jobs, control of that factory and run with the greater freedom which the Industrial Com committee of Workers Control, they must have all in of However, nical efficiency of American industrial workers conMeanwhile, what about Workers Control? Worle the available information al out their own departments. ers control of industry would be very clifficult here. the workers. But in order to control a highly com departments fit in together in the general scheme of This is because the American skilled worker is so specialized and so driven, that as a rule he only knows the workers must know what it is they are vioing not immediately vote to reduce their hours from eight his business as a coz in the machine. This is parti. Delegates from each department will have to meet to four, while the furnace men demand a 50 per cent.
cularly true in such plants as the Ford Factory in immediately and form a committee to carry on pro increase in wages, and the machinists insist tipon the Detroit, where a man goes on operating a stamping duction, with a full understanding of the relation of abolition of piece work. Whatever changes are made press eight hours, day after day, week after week, their departments to each other in the factory must be based on the whole process of turning ort a moon shaped little piece of metal whose For instance, they must know the answers to ques manufacture, and with a knowledge of the needs and use he does not even know, and the relation of which tione like these. demands of other groups of workers in other lines.
the other manufactured parts is a mystery to him. How many men are necessary in each department He has, for example, no idea of the relation of his to carry on the present volume of production. It can readily be seen that what we propose is nofuncton in that of the axle maker, the thing less than to lay right now the broad foundations piston rod deHow many hours must each inan work?
partment (if there is such a department. the assembl What are the essential functions of the factory will be ruled, as Russia is now ruled, by a dictatorship of the Industrial Commonwealth, in which the world ing department. And naturally he has no conception How much and what kind of raw materials are used of the actua labor, and to pay profits to nobody. It of the varions preliminary processes of production Where do they come from, and how are they transdetermined to get the full prothe smelters, duct of their transportation, iron mines. pownich of the technically trained men are necessary is obvious that any organization with the avowed purkrow nothing of the cost of the article he is to production?
pose of seizing control of industry by force would And What are the relations of the factory to the rail formation of any such organization. It is unneceswe do not manufacturing, nor the cost of the whole article of advocate the part. He hasn the slightest idea of the roads, the mines?
volue of the plant and buildings, the amount of pro arise in the minds of workers, whose first and right)
works in the depreciation in of machinery. merely suggest the first burning questions which sary; for the Revolution will not come until the vast for it and until that time the seizure separado fits made by the owners, the capitalization of the instinct is to keep their industry running separate fusiness of the amount of dividends paid out.
out. If he Of course committees must be immediately elected factories by the workers would be futile.
class ornecious at all. he knows he he robbed to But there is a way to prepare for the day when and exploited on the job: but he hasn the slightest mining and train the organizations of control in the transportation fields, and to meet the reLabor takes over the factories. This is by organizing conrention how much. If you were to ask him how presentation men, to consider the problems of distri right now, in all factories, committees of workers much his labor actually produces, he couldn tell you.
bution of products.
composed of delegates from each shop, to make a deHe cannot calculate a fair wage for himself. And At the present time the American Trade Union tail study of the relations of one department to when he ones on strike for higher waves, he does not system intensifies the workers ignorance of the prohis remands on at the business can pay him cess of production, by dividing the different crafts into These committees must not only study the processes huit on what he needs to lite on which is the wrong water tight separate compartments, whose most in of roducing the article they manufacture, but must way to about it.
timate contact is when they squabble over jurisdic also find out how much it costs to produce each section financial aspect of the problem, however, is tion. These craft unions scab on one another, fight of the article, and the completed whole. how much secondary. What is immediately necessary is that one another, and all combine against the unorganized time it takes and the difference between the cost the workers loon their places in the vast machine of but essential day laborers at the bottom of the scal. industry. will explain why.
In an Industrial Union, the identity of all crafts transportation, labor, depreciation, and overhead In the highly complicated organization of modern employed in one branch of industry is emphasized. charges. and the price at which the article sells. Only American industry. as have pointed out the worker at an understanding of is in the nosition of a private soldier in an autocratic its rightful share all it he fills Our comrades in the industries have in this knowplace, does what he told to by his MASS MEETING stineriore and does not reason why. He has no access ledge the most formidable means of propaganda to demand sible. No worker who hears and understands how to the office where the books are handled. He doesn know what orders come in, or the orice paid for them.
Freedom for Political Prisoners fearfully he robbed at his job (figures which cannot When the factory is running full, he works overtime; Sunday, March 16, 1919, P.
the Labor Movement. And if, at the same time, the be disproven) can remain outside the Left Wing of when times are slack, or when, for some pol tical reaGRAND OPERA HOUSE son the hoss closes down the plant, he is simply fired. Washington and Dover Sts. Boston, Mass.
value of political action is explained to him, he must The boss tells him that without a high tariff the factSpeakers: 20 orv will close down and so he votes the Republican affiliate himself with the Left Wing.
FRED BIEDENKAPP ticket.
PATRICK MCCLELLAN American workers will not be so apt to make the Take it a little nearer to him. Over him is a foreLOUIS FRAINA mistake sometimes made by the Russian workers ir man, alnostas ignorant as he is, whose interest it is the first days of the Revolution the mistake of thinkADMISSION FREE keen the workers sneeded up: over the foreman, a ing that they can run industry without technicallysuperintendent for the same purpose, who undertrained men. However on the other hand, when stands the relation of the different branches of his they do take control of industry in America, they will Pamphlets and Books of Real Importance department. hut not very much about the relation of discover more technically trained men here who are will THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION IN GERMANY his denartment to the other departments. Over the to work with than they did in Russia.
superintendert, we ll sav. the factory superintendent, By Louis FRAINA Already in this country the lively interest of engineers, of the manager, whn inderstands the relation of the efficiency experts and other scientific men in the posA comprehensive study of the revolution, which is different elevartments to one another. Over the highest cqually a study in the purposes and policy of revol sibilities of Workers Control of Indlustry, is startling.
Sinerintendent the managing dire ror of the plant.
utionary Socialism.
Every honest industrial scientist knows perfectly well 108 pages; 250 copy who understands the relation of dove of the factory to the that the capitalist system, with its network of selfish market and cons over him the THE CRISIS IN THE GERMAN SOCIAL private interests, its corruption, its comniercial rivalPioard of Directors, who understand the relation of DEMOCRACY ries, hinders the development of science, and actually the BY KIR! LIEBKNECHT, FRANZ MEHRING obstructs production.
technical function is in and RosA LUXEMBURG From time to time in the Rerolietionary dye we trained technical man chemists, engin Written some months after the war, this pamphlet intend to publish detailed analyses of certain Ameers whose work cannot be understood by the workis a splendid analysis of Socialism and war.
rican industries, to show what waste, inefficiency and ers, because it a special education.
140 pages: 35C copy graft there is under the capitalist system, what useNow if the Revolution were to come tomorro CHAPTERS FROM MY DIARY less destruction of life and happiness, of human and the workers of America found themselves in conBY LEON TROTZKY strength and natural riches and then to show how all trol of industrial production, what would happen? description of events during two and a half years this can be eliminated under intelligent Workers ConThe Board of Directors would be ousted, and the of the war. Interesting information on Socialists at trol during the proletarian dictatorship which is comoffice fore clerks, book keepers, stenographers, statitude.
ins.
48 pages; 1oC a copy tisticians, etc. who consider themselves members of The workers must not make this mistake that in the capitalist class, and not workers at all, would go REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM custry under the Socialist Order will produce loss: away. This must be expected, and for the moment By Louis FRAINA it will, as a matter of fact, produce infinitely more.
it is not of great importance. It will not be to impro This look considers the fundamental problems of and distribute products communistically to the working vise a w system of distribution of products in the Imperialism and Revolutionary Socialism war, mod class with all the mininum of effort that scientific Indnistrial Commonwealth.
erate Socialism, the Socialist collapse, the nation, State Capitalism, uaionism and mass action, proletarian die management and new machinery make possible, and The important thing, however, is to keep industry tatorship, etc.
with all the results to the workers.
in each factors.
248 pages: 750 a copy It is not only necessary to plan the political downWhat will the technically trainsd engineers, chenSpecial prices to locals and agents fall of the capitalist class, but also to get into the ists. industrial organizers, efficiency experts, and so minds of the workers some conception of the industforth, do? It must be understood that these speciallyThe Revolutionary Age Book Dep rial frame work which will underlie the new Socialist trained men have been eclucated in capitalist schools, 885 Washington Street Boston, Mass.
political commonwealth which to rule during the that they depend entirely upon the capitalist class for dictatorship of the proletariat, and afterward 10 suctheir livelihood. The greater part of them will also ceed it.
produces army; he pos: In the financial systcharge of a specially Every 80