Such is the new situation facing workers. But from it springs an actual weakness. Since the old method of struggle by means of elections and limited trade union activity has become quite futile, a new method, it is true, has instinctively developed, but that method has not yet been conscientiously, and therefore not effectively, applied. Where their parties and unions are impotent, the masses already begin to express their militancy through wildcat strikes. In America, England, France, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Poland – wildcat strikes develop, and through them the masses present ample proof that their old organizations are no longer fit for struggle. The wildcat strikes are not, however, disorganized, as the name implies. They are denounced as such by union bureaucrats, because they are strikes formed outside the official organizations. The strikers themselves organize the strike, for it is an old truth that only as an organized mass can workers struggle and conquer. They form picket lines, provide for the repulsion of strike-breakers, organize strike relief, create relations with other factories. – In a word, they themselves assume the leadership of their own strike, and they organize it on a factory basis.
It is in these very movements that the strikers find their unity of struggle. It is then that they take their destiny into their own hands and unite “the legislative and executive power” by eliminating unions and parties, as illustrated by several strikes in Belgium and Holland.
But independent class action is still weak. That the strikers, instead of continuing their independent action toward widening their movement, call upon the unions to join them, is an indication that under existing conditions their movement cannot grow larger, and for that reason cannot yet become a political force capable of fighting concentrated capital. But it is a beginning.
Occasionally though, the independent struggle takes a big leap forward, as with the Asturian miners’ strikes in 1934, the Belgium miners in 1935, the strikes in France, Belgium and America in 1936, and the Catalonian revolution in 1936. These outbreaks are evidence that a new social force is surging among the workers, is finding workers’ leadership, is subjecting social institutions to the masses, and is already on the march.
Strikes are no longer mere interruptions in profit-making or simple economic disturbances. The independent strike derives its significance from the action of workers as an organized class. With a system of factory committees and workers’ councils extending over wide areas the proletariat creates the organs which regulate production, distribution, and all the other functions of social life. In other words, the civil administrative apparatus is deprived of all power, and the proletarian dictatorship establishes itself. Thus, class organization in the very struggle for power is at the same time organization, control, and management of the productive forces of the entire society. It is the basis of the association of free and equal producers, and consumers. This, then, is the danger that the independent class movement presents to the capitalist society. Wildcat strikes, though apparently of little importance whether on a small or large scale, are embryonic communism. A small wildcat strike, directed as it is by workers and in the interest of workers, illustrates on a small scale the character of the future proletarian power.
