公司之城?(下)
Company Town?(Part 2)
编者引:
本文选自《新左翼评论》(New Left Review) 112期 (2018年7-8月刊),原题为 Company Town? (公司之城?),作者为 UC Berkeley 的 Cal Winslow 。
本段选自文章第四节,题为 “Fêting The Shilka” (迎接苏联货船Shilka)。
本段主要讲述了俄国十月革命对西雅图在20世纪初的工人运动的影响。
In this extraordinarily tense atmosphere, the Revolution came to Seattle on the Friday before Christmas, 1917. The Russian cargo vessel Shilka, red flags flying, steamed into Elliott Bay. Seattle’s socialists, its Wobblies[1], its dockers, metal workers, waitresses and shingle weavers, scrambled to the docks to greet the newcomers, as did naval officers and city police wary that the ship might contain Bolshevik gold, perhaps even munitions. In fact the Shilka carried only beans and peas in its hold, and simply needed to refuel. But the arrival of a soviet of Russian sailors was momentous in itself. For the workers, its arrival greatly added to the festive mood. The sailors were fêted. There were testimonials, speeches and spontaneous singing—the ‘Marseillaise’[2], also the ‘Red Flag’[3]. Hundreds of Seattleites jammed into the IWW Hall on Second Avenue where they greeted a young sailor, Danil Teraninoff, on stage with rapturous applause. ‘Never in Seattle has there been such a demonstration of revolutionary sentiment as at the moment the Russian fellow worker ascended the platform,’ reported the socialist Daily Call.
在这异常紧张的气氛下,革命于1917年圣诞前的最后一个周五降临西雅图。苏俄货船Shilka驶入艾略特湾,船顶红旗翻飞,西雅图的社会主义者,世界产业工会成员、码头工人、金属工人、服务员和木瓦工,争先恐后地涌向码头迎接新成员。除他们之外,当地的海军军官和市区警察怀疑船上可能有布尔什维克地黄金,甚至是军火。事实上,船上仅有黄豆和豌豆,其停泊以补充燃油。但苏俄水手的到来本身则是重大事件——对于工人来说,Shilka的到来大大增加了节日气氛——水手们受到了盛情款待。人们自发举办了表彰宴、演讲和合唱活动(曲目包括“马赛曲”还有“红旗”)。上百名西雅图人涌入IWW在第二大道的大楼,在那里他们以热烈的掌声向台上的一位年轻的水手Danil Teraninoff致敬。社会主义派报社(Daily Call)报道说:“俄国工友登上讲台那一刻,西雅图迸发出前所未有的革命情绪。”
The visit of the Shilka sealed the extraordinary romance of Seattle’s working people with the October days, their passionate sympathy and solidarity with the Revolution unparalleled in an American context. According to the late Philip Foner, ‘no labour body was a more consistent defender of the Russian revolution than the Seattle Central Labor Council’. Seattle delegates to AFL[1] national conventions pressed for official recognition of the ‘fledgling workers’ state, to no avail. The longshoremen intercepted railroad cars with loads labeled ‘sewing machines’, unearthing rifles and ammunition bound for Admiral Kolchak’s[2] White armies[3] on the Siberian front. The IWW resolved that they would ‘rather starve than receive wages for loading ships on a mission of murder.’ The authorities, alarmed when not hysterical, ‘discovered’, among other things, Bolshevik conspiracies which trade unionists had every practical reason to deny. Until recently historians tended to accept these denials at face value, in so doing diminishing these remarkable events.
Shilka的造访给西雅图工人烙刻上对十月殷切的浪漫情怀、对革命的热诚和团结的精神(尽管与其身处的大环境格格不入)。已故的Philip Foner评价道:“没有比西雅图中央劳工委员会更坚定的俄国革命的捍卫者了。” 美国劳工联合会西雅图代表在联盟的全国代表大会上强烈推动对(西雅图)新生工人州身份的官方认可,但备受冷落。事后,(西雅图当地的)码头工人拦截了装载着标有“缝纫机”字样货物的火车厢列,却发现了用于支援西伯利亚前线的高尔查克白匪军的步枪和弹药。IWW的工人们决心宁愿饿死也不会接受助纣为虐得来的报酬。此外,西雅图当局在四面楚歌中,“发现”了布尔什维克的“阴谋”——然而工会会员有确凿证据否认这些无端的指责。直到近来,历史学家们倾向于从表面上认可工会的清白,以此消散对这些大事的关注。
On the contrary, the Russian Revolution was indeed a factor—a contradictory one, yes: inspiring the left while terrifying the upper classes—in Seattle’s General Strike. The political culture of Seattle in these years was shaped not only by its own tumultuous industrial-relations history but also by currents sweeping through working-class movements internationally. The Union Record[1] published letters from Lenin including his ‘Letter to American Workers’; the Industrial Worker[2] reported on a Labour-socialist conference in Leeds[3] where Ramsey MacDonald, flanked by Tom Mann, Sylvia Pankhurst[4]and Bertrand Russell[5], ‘hailed’ the Russian Revolution. The new spirit of industrial radicalism spread far beyond its natural home in the IWW. Even where issues with management were ‘pure and simple’, bitter conflicts ensued. The AFL also felt the heat, its collaboration with employers and strict insistence on the sanctity of contracts, jurisdictional division by craft and the authority of national officials rejected by growing numbers of workers.
同历史学家(对布尔什维克“阴谋”)的理解恰恰相反,俄国革命事实上是一个具有矛盾的导因:在西雅图总罢工中,它在助长左派的同时又震慑了上层阶级。这些年来,西雅图的政治文化不仅深受其自身动荡不安的劳资关系史的规束,也受到全球工人运动潮流的洗礼。《工会纪实》(Union Record)出版了列宁的信件,其中包括他的《给美国工人的信》;《产业工人报》(the Industrial Worker)报道了在利兹召开的一次社会主义劳工大会——在会上,拉姆齐·麦克唐纳,连同汤·曼、希薇娅·彭克赫斯特、伯特兰·罗素为俄国革命欢呼鼓舞。崭新的劳工激进主义精神敞开了世界产业工会(IWW)的大门,远播开来。即便在那些(劳资双方)管理问题“纯粹而简单”的地方,也接连爆发了激烈的冲突。“城门失火”的情况下,美国劳工联合会(AFL)也沦为“池鱼”,它与雇主的勾结、对契约精神僵化的坚持,对工人狡诈性的管辖分工,以及屈于权贵的种种恶行,为越来越多的工人所唾弃。
The celebrations of 1917 were the prelude, then, to the great strikes of 1919. Seattle workers saw in the October Revolution their own image, the embodiment of what they were fighting for at home. ‘No single event’, wrote Duncan, ‘throughout the whole world today can, from the standpoint of workers everywhere, compare in importance with the successful piloting of the Russian Soviet Republic past the treacherous rocks of international capitalist greed and the determination of these plunderers to ruin what they cannot rule.’ When 2,000 longshoremen, overflowing their hall, celebrated the second anniversary of the Revolution on 7 November 1919, they rose in ‘tremendous cheering’, as the IWW’s J.T. Doran walked from the vestibule to the rostrum and began to speak. Doran, free on bail from the federal penitentiary in Atlanta[1], delivered, according to Magden, a rousing speech in which he described the workers’ revolution in Russia as ‘the most stupendous event since the fall of feudalism’.
1917年的庆祝活动是其后1919年总罢工的序曲。西雅图工人在十月革命中瞥见了自己的光影——奋斗理想在俄国的实践。邓肯写道:“从全世界工人的角度来看,苏维埃共和国之舟避开了国际资本贪欲的暗礁,并在击溃这些资本主义海盗的负隅顽抗后成功驶向彼岸,如此成就简直无与伦比。” 1919年11月7日,2000名码头工人挤满了工会大堂,庆祝革命两周年纪念日。当世界产业工人组织(IWW)成员J.T.多兰从前厅走到主席台开始讲话时,全场响起了震耳欲聋的欢呼声。据马格登说,刚从亚特兰大的联邦监狱获得保释的多兰发表了一篇鼓舞人心的演讲——在演讲中,多兰将俄国十月革命描述为“封建主义倒台以来最为重大的事件”。
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