"No One Knows Where This Will Lead"

The Seattle General Strike in Historical Context

by Dr. John Ruhland, Free Press Contributor

Part Two: International socialism and discontent in Seattle

here were many historically important events elsewhere in the country during the time period of the 1919 Seattle General Strike. Between 1917-1919, there were several massacres of blacks in cities such as Chicago, where they were struggling for democratic rights. In 1918, the Chicago Federation of Labor called for a National Labor Party. Their platform included nationalizing the banks, transport, and other industries, as well as equal rights for blacks. Also, in 1912, Eugene V. Debs received six percent of the popular vote in his fourth consecutive race for president on the Socialist ticket. In 1918 he was indicted under the Espionage Act for opposing US entry into the World War. In 1920, he ran for president for a fifth time.

The Espionage Act of 1918 was an attempt on the part of the ruling class to prevent people from opposing the lucrative war. Many anti-war activists were indicted under this act. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote an opinion entitled "Dissenting Opinion in Abrams v. US, 1919," pointing out that the Espionage Act was unconstitutional. To internationally concerned people, French, German and Amercian soldiers are all workers. It is the millionaires sending them to war who are the problem. Strikes and protests are important in preventing foreign workers from being killed. By striking, workers withhold their profitable labor power from the millionaires, causing the rich to make concessions in order to keep earning profits from the workers labor power.

In October, 1905, a general strike in Russia was a big part of the chain of events which allowed a successful socialist revolution to occur there. The strike provided important training that was to make the revolution possible. While the US ruling class sent troops over to overthrow the Bolsheviks, the IWW sponsored mass meetings and a demonstration on January 22, 1906 throughout the US to support Russian workers and raise funds for them. It is telling to compare how quickly the US recognized the powerless provisional government--one month--contrasting with the 16 years it took before they recognized the Communist government--16 years. The provisional government was a puppet of the Russian ruling class, and the Communist government began with active participation of the people. The US also advanced $200,000,000 in loans to the provisional government, but extended no credits to the Bolshevik government. This clearly demonstrates the hostility shown a true popular government. It is little wonder that the Soviet Union was quickly corrupted and bureaucratized under such intense adversity. Imagine raising a child when every person who the child comes into contact with tries to kill it.

The Russian Revolution did establish the importance of industrial unionism in the popular struggle. Craft unionism, which was favored by the AFL, allows and even encourages one group of workers to feel they are superior to and can do without the aid of lower paid and less skilled workers. Thus the AFL excluded African and Asian Americans, as well as most women. The Wobblies called the AFL "The American Separation of Labor." Compare this with industrial unionism, which stresses the importance of uniting the entire working class.

The ruling class was rightfully fearful of a general strike. The October, 1917 Russian Revolution took place little more than one year earlier than the Seattle General Strike. On January 12, in an attempt to prevent a general strike, Mayor Ole Hanson ordered the police to raid an open air mass meeting of shipyard workers. Workers were brutally beaten. The economic situation workers were in was very difficult. There had been a fifty percent increase in the cost of living during the last three years of WWI. Seattle had a higher cost of living than elsewhere in the US because of its remote location. There were increased costs for transportation, and according to O'Connor, the colonial atmosphere in the Western US encouraged prices charged by Eastern US captains of industry to be high. There was then, as now, a housing shortage due to people moving to the area. Profits soared but wages were held down throughout the nation by government control.

The shipyard workers went on strike January 21 to fight reductions in wages and for a 44 hour work week. According to O'Connor, $4.16 was the top wages for shipyard laborers at that time. The wages they were asking for were $8 for skilled workers and $5.50 for unskilled workers. These requests were rejected.

Look for part three: "The strike and lessons learned from it" in the next issue of the Free Press.