Page:William Ernst Trautmann - Industrial Unionism (1908).djvu/26

max of which is reached in a general suspension of work by all workers in a given district or land. General Strikes, if carried on for the attaining of a given, stated object, have usually been successful; not so much was the mass demonstration as such so feared by the capitalists, but the manner and method with which such general suspensions had been conducted. After the general strike of railroaders and other workers in Italy in 1904, a general strike inaugurated for the purpose of forcing the government to prevent the interference of armed gendarmes in the conflicts between the workers and capitalists, it was Premier Minister Giolitti voicing in all capitalist newspapers the opinions of the oppressors, who expressed their amazement in the words that "not so much the spontaneous action of hundred-thousands in ceasing work was menacing and appalling, but the order and promptness with which an organized return to work was arranged and carried out." It was the organization alone and its methods that commanded respect; once demonstrated, the effects are felt and make themselves manifest long thereafter; and repetitions disastrous to capitalist rulership are feared in proportion as the workers profit by experience and keep their organizations intact as fighting bodies.

But a general suspension of work for any indefinite time by the proletariat as the final action in the struggle against capitalist control