Crossing the Color Lines, Crossing the Continents: Comparing the Racial Politics of the IWW in South Africa and the United States, 1905–1925

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Notes

¹ Syndicalism, or anarcho-syndicalism, is a left tradition that also has been referred to as left libertarianism, and emerged as part of anarchism in the 1860s. Generally, syndicalists believe in socialism and oppose capitalism; however, as with other anarchists, syndicalists are highly suspicious of the state and political parties. Rather, they believe that the working classes, effectively organized in labor unions, should take the lead in ushering in a “new society from within the shell of the old.” A useful discussion of syndicalism can be found in Montgomery, “The ‘New Unionism’ and the Transformation of Workers’ Consciousness.” For a survey of the relationship between anarchism and syndicalism, see van der Walt and Schmidt, Black Flame, 7, 133–42, 149–159.

² Many others have devoted their energies to defining the term “transnational.” We refer readers to Bonner et al., “Rethinking Worlds of Labour,” esp. 144–8. The term “comparative” is far more easily understood as looking at several examples of the same phenomenon, generally two different societies, to see similarities and differences and, more broadly, better understand what has occurred and why; see ibid., 142–4.

³ See van der Linden, “Transnationalizing American Labor History,” 1080–1.

⁴ The official history of the (US) IWW, for example, follows such an approach: Thompson with Murfin, The IWW.

⁵ “[I]n 1905–1914, the marxist [sic] left had in most countries been on the fringe of the revolutionary movement, the main body of marxists [sic] had been identified with a de facto non-revolutionary social democracy, while the bulk of the revolutionary left was anarcho-syndicalist, or at least much closer to the ideas and the mood of anarcho-syndicalism than to that of classical marxism”: Hobsbawm, Revolutionaries, 72–3. Also see Thorpe, “The Workers Themselves”; van der Linden and Thorpe, Revolutionary Syndicalism.

⁶ Anderson, Under Three Flags, 2, 54.

⁷ A pioneering attempt was De Shazo and Halstead, “Los Wobblies Del Sur.” The recent interest is evidenced by Shor, “Wobblies Against War”; Shor, “Virile Syndicalism in Comparative Perspective; Burgmann, “Antipodean Peculiarities.”

⁸ On anarchist influences, see inter alia, Epstein, “Anarchism and the Anti-Globalisation Movement”; Graeber, “The New Anarchists.”

⁹ In addition to sources cited above, see Salerno, Red November, Black November, and van der Walt and Schmidt, Black Flame, 142–3, 159–64.

¹⁰ Van der Linden, “On the Importance of Crossing Boundaries,” 364.

¹¹ MTW branches could be found in ports from Adelaide, Buenos Aires, Hamburg, and Peurta de Tierra, to Stockholm, Tampico, and Valparaiso. On the MTW, see Bekken, “Marine Transport Workers IU 510 (IWW)”; Rübner, “Occupational Culture, Conflict Patterns and Organizational Behavior,” esp. 13–17; van der Linden, “Second Thoughts on Revolutionary Syndicalism.”

¹² Organizations formally part of the IWW emerged, inter alia, in Argentina, Australia, Britain, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, Mexico, and the US. Organizations modeled on the IWW, or which adopted the IWW platform without taking its name, existed in places such as Canada, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, and South Africa. IWW influences, blended with other political traditions, were to be found inter alia in India, Japan, Nicaragua, and elsewhere.

¹³ Crump, The Origins of Socialist Thought in Japan, 193–8; Puri, Ghadar Movement, ch. 2.

¹⁴ On Singh, see Gona, “Towards a Concrete East African Trade Union Federation.”

¹⁵ Burgmann, Revolutionary Industrial Unionism, 88; Dirlik, The Origins of Chinese Communism, 214–15; Dirlik, Anarchism in the Chinese Revolution, 15, 27, 128, 170, 290.

¹⁶ An incomplete and not altogether reliable international survey of the IWW is Renshaw, The Wobblies.

¹⁷ Van der Linden, “Transnationalizing American Labor History,” 1080–1.

¹⁸ Foner, The Industrial Workers of the World, 123–5.

¹⁹ Preamble, IWW, The Founding Constitution; Dubofsky, “Big Bill” Haywood, appendix 2, 159–60.

²⁰ Cole, Ben Fletcher.

²¹ Fletcher, “The Negro and Organized Labor,” 759.

²² “The Wrath to Come.”

²³ Jameson, All that Glitters, 158.

²⁴ Notably Brown, “The IWW and the Negro Worker”; Foner, “The IWW and the Black Worker.”

²⁵ For example, Berland, “The Emergence of the Communist Perspective.” Also see Foner, “The IWW and the Black Worker.”

²⁶ Arnesen, The Black Worker; Korstad, Civil Rights Unionism; Gilmore, Defying Dixie.

²⁷ Zieger, For Jobs and Freedom, 67–8, 115; Kelley and Lewis, To Make Our World Anew.

²⁸ It is worth highlighting to those less familiar with contemporary South Africa that the SACP was—and still is—an important part of the ruling coalition, the “Tripartite Alliance,” of the African National Congress (ANC) and the largest labor federation, COSATU.

²⁹ Key works include Bunting, Moses Kotane; Forman, “Chapters in the History of the March for Freedom”; Roux, S.P. Bunting; Simons and Simons, Class and Color.

³⁰ Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 609.

³¹ Van der Walt, “‘The Industrial Union Is the Embryo of the Socialist Commonwealth’”; van der Walt, “Bakunin’s Heirs in South Africa”; van der Walt, “The First Globalisation.”

³² For instance, Drew, South Africa’s Radical Tradition, 16; Johanningsmeier, “Communists and Black Freedom Movements,” esp. 156–9; Katz, A Trade Union Aristocracy; van der Linden, “Second Thoughts on Revolutionary Syndicalism,” 14–15.

³³ Van der Linden, “Transnationalizing American Labor History,” 1081; van der Linden, “On the Importance of Crossing Boundaries,” 362, 365.

³⁴ Notably, George M. Fredrickson’s path-breaking Black Liberation pays a substantial amount of attention to the communist role but almost entirely ignores earlier left currents. Similarly, syndicalism is mentioned, but its influence and ideas underrated and quickly passed over, by Johanningsmeier, “Communists and Black Freedom Movements,” 156–62.

³⁵ The best recent survey is Litwack, Trouble in Mind. Also see Logan, The Negro in American Life and Thought for the origination of the term “the nadir” in US race relations.

³⁶ On AFL racism there are many sources, for instance: Washington, “The Negro and the Labor Unions”; Hill, “The Racial Practices of Organized Labor”; Nelson, Divided We Stand, xxxi–xxxii.

³⁷ Zieger, For Jobs and Freedom, 61–2.

³⁸ IWW, The Founding Convention, 1.

³⁹ Ibid.; Foner “The IWW and the Black Worker,” 45–6.

⁴⁰ IWW, Founding Convention, as quoted in Foner, The Industrial Workers of the World, 37.

⁴¹ Brundage, The Making of Western Radicalism, 26, 138, 154–7, 163; Jameson, All that Glitters, 151, 158.

⁴² Cited in Rosenberg, “The IWW and Organization of Asian Workers,” 78. For a thoughtful counter to the standard critique of the “Debsian view” of race relations, see Jones, “‘Nothing Special to Offer the Negro’.” Jones argues that Debs did not simplistically believe that racial discrimination would disappear after a socialist revolution, though Jones agrees that most white Socialists of that time were racist or tolerant of white supremacy. Debs disagreed, even though not part of the SPA's anti-racist syndicalist wing.

⁴³ Crump, The Origins of Socialist Thought in Japan, 188–9.

⁴⁴ Mellinger, Race and Labor in Western Copper, 6, 140–3.

⁴⁵ Montgomery, “What More to be Done?”; Caulfield, Mexican Workers and the State, 4–5, 11–15, 23, 32–36; De Shazo and Halstead, “Los Wobblies Del Sur,” 23–37; Ronning, “I Belong in this World,” 125–55 (quote from 153).

⁴⁶ DeShazo, Urban Workers and Labor Unions in Chile, 154–7, 198.

⁴⁷ Caulfield, Mexican Workers and the State, 23.

⁴⁸ Parker, The Casual Laborer, 173.

⁴⁹ Hall, Harvest Wobblies, 48.

⁵⁰ Rosenberg, “The IWW and Organization of Asian Workers,” 77–8, 82.

⁵¹ Walsh, “Japanese and Chinese Exclusion.”

⁵² Rosenberg, “The IWW and Organization of Asian Workers,” 77–8, 82; Hall, Harvest Wobblies, 51, 53, 57–8, 121.

⁵³ Crump, The Origins of Socialist Thought in Japan, 193–8; Puri, Ghadar Movement, ch. 2.

⁵⁴ Zieger, For Jobs and Freedom, 2–3.

⁵⁵ Quoted in Whatley, “African-American Strikebreaking,” 527.

⁵⁶ Washington, “The Negro and the Labor Unions,” 756–9, 764.

⁵⁷ Justice for the Negro: How He Can Get It, box 166, and To Colored Working Men and Women: Why You Should Join the IWW, box 158, both in IWW Collection, Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA.

⁵⁸ Justice for the Negro.

⁵⁹ Industrial Worker, 1 August 1914; Roediger, “Gaining a Hearing for Black-White Unity.”

⁶⁰ Green, “The Brotherhood of Timber Workers,” 176, 185; Roediger, “Gaining a Hearing for Black-White Unity,” 143.

⁶¹ Hall, Dreams and Dynamite.

⁶² Green, “The Brotherhood of Timber Workers,” 177, 186–7; Haywood, Bill Haywood's Book, 242; Hall, Labor Struggles in the Deep South, 127–9.

⁶³ John Quinn, shooting script, 7, Labor on the Delaware Oral History Project, Independence Seaport Museum, Philadelphia, PA.

⁶⁴ Thirteenth Census of the United States, 589; Bill “Willy” Krupsky, 29 June 1980, tape 1, Labor on the Delaware Oral History Project; Thomas Dabney, “Questionnaire for ILA Local 1116,” Labor Union Survey, Pennsylvania, 1925–8, Box 89, Series 6E, National Urban League Collection, Manuscripts Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC; The Messenger (July 1921), 214–15; Du Bois, The Philadelphia Negro, 135, 330–3; Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront, 21–2, 57, 97.

⁶⁵ Solidarity, 22 July 1912, 4; Industrial Worker, February 1929; Fletcher, “The Negro and Organized Labor”; One Big Union Monthly, July 1920, 7; E.F. Doree and Walter Nef, The Philadelphia Controversy, 16–17, Box 170, IWW Collection, Reuther Library; Norwood, Strikebreaking and Intimidation; Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront, 43–5, 96–8, 149–50.

⁶⁶ Franklin, “The Philadelphia Race Riot of 1918”; Hardy, “Race and Opportunity,” 208–10; Cole, Wobblies on the Waterfront, chs 4 and 8.

⁶⁷ Hall, Harvest Wobblies, 243.

⁶⁸ Foner, Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 111, 119.

⁶⁹ Spero and Harris, The Black Worker, 391–2.

⁷⁰ McKay, “Socialism and the Negro.”

⁷¹ Du Bois, “I.W.W.,” 60.

⁷² For foundational texts and perspectives, see Johnstone, Class, Race and Gold; David Yudelman, The Emergence of Modern South Africa.

⁷³ See, for example, Harries, Work, Culture and Identity, 121–4.

⁷⁴ Alexander, “Race, Class Loyalty and the Structure of Capitalism.”

⁷⁵ This discussion of syndicalism in South Africa draws upon arguments developed in van der Walt, “‘The Industrial Union Is the Embryo’,” van der Walt, “Bakunin’s Heirs in South Africa,” and van der Walt, “Anarchism and Syndicalism in South Africa.”

⁷⁶ Montgomery, “What More to be Done?,” 361.

⁷⁷ Mann, “Latest News from South Africa”; Mann, Tom Mann’s Memoirs, 245–7.

⁷⁸ The split centered on the tactic of standing in elections. By 1908 Haywood had adopted the orthodox syndicalist position of boycotting all elections, while De Leon, also an IWW founder, insisted that elections could be used to make propaganda for the “one big union” and to disrupt the state. De Leon did not believe in parliamentary socialism (a “gigantic Utopia”), and insisted that “the Industrial Union is at once the battering ram with which to pound down the fortress of Capitalism, and the successor of the capitalist social structure itself.” However, this was too much for Haywood et al., and the union split. Quotes from Socialist Labor Party, The Socialist Labor Party and De Leon, “Industrial Unionism.”

⁷⁹ Boydell, “Foreword,” xii; “Heard and Said,” Voice of Labour, 14 June 1912; Glynn, “Recognition”; Dunbar, “IWW Propaganda Notes”; “The ‘Sherman’ Agitation.”

⁸⁰  “The Break up of Capitalism”; “Branch Notes.”

⁸¹ Harrison, Memoirs of a Socialist, 64; “What WE Stand For.”

⁸² See, for example, letter from Glasse, Voice of Labour, 26 January 1912.

⁸³ Voice of Labour, 22 July 1910.

⁸⁴ Voice of Labour, 25 November 1910.

⁸⁵ “League Conference”; “The First Conference of the League.”

⁸⁶ “Socialism and the Colored Folk.”

⁸⁷ Lopes, “Socialism and the Labour Party.”

⁸⁸ “Industrial Unionism in South Africa.”

⁸⁹ Cope, Comrade Bill, 93.

⁹⁰ “The Parting of the Ways.”

⁹¹ “International Socialism and the Native.”

⁹² “Workers of the World Unite.”

⁹³ Ibid.

⁹⁴ Forman, “Chapters in the History,” 54.

⁹⁵ “Workers of the World Uniting.”

⁹⁶ Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 198; also see Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 71.

⁹⁷ “International Socialism and the Native.”

⁹⁸ “Call to the Native Workers.”

⁹⁹ “The Pass Laws: Organise for their Abolition.”

¹⁰⁰ Ibid.

¹⁰¹ Proletarian, “The Problem of Colored Labour.”

¹⁰² “Beware of Labour Cranks.”

¹⁰³ Proletarian, “The Problem of Colored Labour.”

¹⁰⁴ “Those 32 Votes,” The International, 2 February 1917.

¹⁰⁵ Johns, Raising the Red Flag, 64–9. Also see van der Walt, “Bakunin’s Heirs in South Africa,” 81–2.

¹⁰⁶ “A Forward Move in Durban.” Also see Mantzaris, “The Indian Tobacco Workers Strike” for a brief discussion.

¹⁰⁷ Lee, “Indian Workers Waking Up.”

¹⁰⁸ Mantzaris, “The Indian Tobacco Workers Strike,” 117.

¹⁰⁹ Musson, Johnny Gomas, 17–18; “Kimberley Tailors’ Strike”; The International, 19 December 1919; The International, 27 June 1919; The International, 4 July 1919; “Kimberley Strikes: More White Scabbing.” Also minutes of City Council, Kimberley: 9 December 1919, 501, 23 December 1919, 511–12, and 1 January 1920, 550–1, 3/KIM 1/1/1/16, Cape Archives.

¹¹⁰ Musson, Johnny Gomas, 18.

¹¹¹ Detective R. Moroosi, report on meeting of 11 October 1917, Department of Justice, “The ISL and Coloured Workers,” JD 3/527/17, National Archives, Pretoria, hereafter Department of Justice.

¹¹² Detective Wilfrid Jali, report on meeting of 19 July 1917, Department of Justice.

¹¹³ Jali, report on meeting of 26 July 1917, in Department of Justice.

¹¹⁴ D.D.T. Jabavu, [July 1920] “Native Unrest,” in Karis and Carter, From Protest to Challenge, 124.

¹¹⁵ Unlabelled report, May 1918 (full date illegible), in Department of Justice.

¹¹⁶ Hirson, The Delegate for Africa, 173; Johnstone, “The IWA on the Rand,” 258–60.

¹¹⁷ Attached to report on meeting of 1 November 1917, Department of Justice.

¹¹⁸ “The Geweld Case.” Also see Forman, “Chapters in the History,” 68.

¹¹⁹ Emphasized by Bonner, “The Transvaal Native Congress.”

¹²⁰ Skota, The African Yearly Register, 171. There were nineteenth-century precedents, such as the 1808 revolt against slavery in the Cape: Ulrich, “Abolition from Below.”

¹²¹ Sol Plaatje, 3 August 1918, “Letter to the President, Kimberley Chamber of Commerce, 18 November 1918,” in Sol Plaatje: Selected Writings, 237.

¹²² Report on meeting of Transvaal Native Congress and Industrial Workers of Africa, 23 May 1918 by Wilfrid Jali, in JD 3/527/17.

¹²³ The story of the Cape Town radicals is covered in detail in Lucien van der Walt, “Anarchism and Syndicalism in an African Port City: the revolutionary traditions of Cape Town's multiracial working class, 1904–1924,” Labor History (forthcoming).

¹²⁴ Wickens, “The One Big Union Movement among Black Workers,” 393.

¹²⁵ The International, 25 July 1919; Hirson, Frank Glass, 20–1.

¹²⁶ Commissioner of Police, 29 July 1919, letter to Secretary of Justice, in Justice Department, 86

¹²⁷ Lopes, “Cape Notes,” 24 January 1919; Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 4.

¹²⁸ Lopes, untitled.

¹²⁹ No membership lists survive, but see Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 4.

¹³⁰ For example, Walt, “May Day in Cape Town”; Lopes, untitled.

¹³¹ Lopes, “Cape Notes,” 24 January 1919; Also see Philips, “South African Wobblies,” 127.

¹³² Lopes, “Cape Notes,” 27 September 1918; Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 13.

¹³³ Second meeting, 17 September 1918, in minutes of the first, second and third meetings of the Industrial Union of the Combined Sweet and Jam Workers, held in the Industrial Socialist League Hall, 1918, S.A. Rochlin Collection.

¹³⁴ “Trade Union Notes”; Mantzaris, Labour Struggles in South Africa, 12–13, 25, n.106.

¹³⁵ The Bolshevik, November 1919; The Bolshevik, December 1919.

¹³⁶ Kadalie, My Life and The ICU, ch. 2. Several accounts, including Kadalie’s self-aggrandizing autobiography, excise the IWA.

¹³⁷ Wickens, “The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa,” 30, 67.

¹³⁸ Fred Cetiwe, 21 December 1919, “To the Mayor of the City of Cape Town,” in “Strike of Natives in Docks,” 3/CT, 4/1/4/286, F31/4, Cape Archives.

¹³⁹ Kadalie, My Life and The ICU, 42; Wickens, “The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa,” 31, 69–74.

¹⁴⁰ Wickens, “The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa,” p. 109

¹⁴¹ Kadalie, My Life and The ICU, 13; Wickens, “The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa,” p. 108.

¹⁴² Quoted in Wickens, “The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa,” 145–146.

¹⁴³ Mann, “S. African Natives and Colored Men.”

¹⁴⁴ See Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union of Africa, Revised Constitution.

¹⁴⁵ Report of private informer on 1926 ANC congress, appended to report by A.J. du Plessis to Divisional Criminal Investigations Officer, Bloemfontein, in Department of Justice file, JUS 915 1/18/26 part 1, National Archives, Pretoria.

¹⁴⁶ There is, for instance, material from the late 1920s in the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union folder, in the main IWW Collection at the Archives of Labor and Urban Affairs, Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University, Detroit.

¹⁴⁷ Perry, A Hubert Harrison Reader.

¹⁴⁸ Divisional Criminal Investigations Officer, Witwatersrand Division, 1 May 1926, Confidential Report to Deputy Commissioner, South African Police, Witwatersrand Division, Johannesburg, in Department of Justice file, JUS 915 1/18/26 part 2, Pretoria: National Archives.

¹⁴⁹ For example, see Alfred Nzula, “The Struggles of the Negro Toilers in South Africa,” appendix to Nzula et al., Forced Labour in Colonial Africa, 206.

¹⁵⁰ Van der Walt, “The First Globalisation and Transnational Labour Activism,” 237–43.

¹⁵¹ Cronin, “Origins and ‘Native Republic’,” 11–12. Also see Bunting, Moses Kotane, 19; Simons and Simons, Class and Color, 191–2.

¹⁵² For a critique of the literature, see van der Walt, “Anarchism and Syndicalism in South Africa,” ch. 3.

¹⁵³ Quoted in “From South Africa.”

¹⁵⁴ Cited in The International, 9 November 1917.