Note 110 — CHAPTER 15 THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT AND TRADE UNIONISM

Though writers and public speakers of either extreme have often overlooked the fundamental consideration of where the preponderance of social power lies in their prognostications of revolutions, this has not escaped the leaders of the American labor movement. The vehemence with which the leaders of the American Federation of Labor have denounced Sovietism and Bolshevism, and which has of late been brought to a high pitch by a fear lest a shift to radicalism should break up the organization, is doubtless sincere. But one cannot help feeling that in part at least it aimed to reassure the great American middle class on the score of labor's intentions. The great majority of organized labor realize that, though at times they may risk engaging in unpopular strikes, it will never do to permit their enemies to tar them with the pitch of subversionism in the eyes of the great American majority—a majority which remains wedded to the régime of private property and individual enterprise despite the many recognized shortcomings of the institution.