Summary
Sergei Eisenstein's "Strike" argues that strikes must be waged as conscious political struggles, not merely economic disputes, and that left-wing strategy must prioritize offensive action, morale-building, and dramatization to advance working-class interests under U.S. capitalism. The book critiques right-wing union leaders who keep strikes on a "purely economic basis," disarming workers, and warns against arbitration as a tool of class collaboration that "kills the spirit of struggle." Eisenstein emphasizes that strike settlements are danger spots where employers and right-wing leaders split workers' ranks, so left-wing strategy must include knowing "when and how to settle, no less than when and how to strike." A reader takes away specific tactical principles: fighting on the offensive to build morale, using strike dramatization to rally support and expose class character, and rejecting arbitration as inherently pro-employer. The book grounds these strategies in the U.S. context of strong but passing capitalism, where skilled workers are temporarily contented.
Key concepts
- Strike dramatization — A tactic of making strikes publicly visible and class-conscious to boost striker morale, rally mass support, and pressure employers who "shrink back from the blaze of publicity."
- Fighting on the offensive — A strategy of always attacking or preparing to attack, based on the principle that workers, like soldiers, "fight best on the offensive."
- Settlement policy — The left-wing approach to strike settlements that clashes with right-wing "class peace" agreements, requiring leaders to navigate employer efforts to split workers' ranks.
- Arbitration — A weapon of employers that "kills the spirit of struggle" and saves them from concessions they would otherwise make in open strikes, based on "anti-working class principles of class peace."
- Strike morale — The fighting spirit of strikers, created not just by propaganda but by "a generally successful strike direction" and offensive tactics.
From the book
Title: Strike by Sergei Eisenstein← Strike Strategy ( 1926 ) by William Z. Foster Foreword → No 18. in the Labor Herald Library 4279082 Strike Strategy 1926 William Z. Foster 290 page Organize Your Struggles! Left Wingers and Progressive trade unionists who know what they want and how to get it are organized in the Trade Union Educational League, a non-partisan organization of informal committees covering the entire trade union movement, whose purpose is to infuse the mass with spirit and understanding for struggle against the employing class. The Trade Union Educational League asks all workers, regardless of political belief, to join it to realize the following program: 1. Organization of the Unorganized. 2. Amalgamation of craft unions. 3. Class struggle against class collaboration.…
Popular questions readers ask
- How would you explain the Trade Union Educational League's unique strategy for labor reform, particularly its distinction from "dual unions," to a peer who has no prior knowledge of early 20th-century labor movements?
- The text claims strikes are "living refutations" of shared capital-labor interests. How do specific points in the TUEL's 11-point program, such as "Class struggle against class collaboration" and "Recognition of the Soviet Union," actively embody and escalate this fundamental assertion?
- Given the TUEL's goal to "infuse the mass with spirit and understanding for struggle," what are the potential advantages and disadvantages of their "transform from within" approach compared to forming entirely new, ideologically pure unions?
- Beyond simply listing them, explain the interconnectedness and logical progression of the TUEL's 11 programmatic goals. How do they build upon each other to achieve the overarching purpose of "struggle against the employing class"?
- If Foster's "Strike Strategy" argues for "breaks of the workers with capitalism," what foundational assumptions about economic systems and power dynamics must be true for such a strategy to be considered both necessary and effective?