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From Socialist Appeal, February 5,12, and 19, 1938Source: Microfilm, NYU Tamiment Libraries Transcribed & marked up by Andrew Pollack for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL)
The most important single field of activity of the revolutionary proletarian party is the trade unions. Unless the party is deeply rooted in the basic economic organizations of the working class, and is inseparably associated with them in their daily struggles, it can be, at best, a literary propagandist group but not a living revolutionary political party of the proletariat, able to lead the latter in the decisive struggle for power. The party that is divorced from the trade union movement and its daily work, is doomed to sterility and disintegration. This is especially true in the United States at the present time.
The outstanding characteristics of the working-class movement in the United States in the recent period are the enormous growth of trade union movements, which now embrace millions of workers never organized in the past; the development of the CIO as the movement of the workers in the basic key and mass-production industries, organized in industrial unions, as contrasted with the classic AFL form of craft unions; the violent conflict between the AFL and the CIO, and the recent trend towards the unification of the two bodies; and the expansion of the powers and role of the federal government as “mediator” in the conflict between the workers and the employers.
Most significant and promising of all recent phenomena in the working class is the speedy growth of the CIO movement among the hitherto unorganized workers.
Essentially the AFL always was, and today especially is, the organization of the skilled worker or the aristocracy of labor. With the exception of a few of its affiliates or of certain periods. in its history, it pursued a deliberate policy of ignoring the great mass of the unorganized proletarians in the basic industries of the country. So far as organizing the mass-production industries was concerned, the craft union structure of the AFL made the achievement of that task practically impossible.
The CIO movement represents a radical break with this reactionary tradition. Under the banner of this movement hundreds of thousands of hitherto unorganized workers have swelled the ranks of organized labor, demonstrating the practicability, and even the ease, of organizing the masses of unorganized once the doors of unionism are thrown open to them. Moreover, the CIO movement has grown on the basis of the organization of the key and mass-production industries of the country controlled by the most powerful financial oligarchs (rubber, auto, steel, packinghouses, etc.). Still more, it has shown that the only possible and feasible means of organizing big industry and of preserving the unions is the industrial, or vertical structural form.
Contrary to the obsolete craft union structure of the AFL, which is thoroughly reactionary and divisive, the industrial union corresponds entirely to the modern organization of industrial life, made possible by the tremendous technological progress and consequent leveling of skilled workers to the plane of semiskilled or unskilled. Finally, the organization by the CIO of the unskilled mass-production industrial workers, the most poorly paid and the least subject to petty-bourgeois influences, produced a decisive change in the social composition of the organized labor movement.
Up to that time, the latter was dominated overwhelmingly by the labor aristocracy, closely interwoven with the bourgeois political parties, and presided over by a reactionary bureaucracy which never encountered any really perilous proletarian opposition in the ranks. Now, the organization of several million truly proletarian elements into unions drastically alters the relationship of forces in the organized labor movement. The unskilled, truly proletarian forces are the predominant element in the union movement for the first time, and thus constitute a formidable power not only against the conservative labor bureaucracy but also against capitalism itself.
This is already indicated by the fact that, immediately upon their organization into unions, and despite the fact that their employers represented the most powerful groups of the bourgeoisie (or rather, precisely because of that fact), these masses in the basic industries adopted the most advanced fighting tactics, encroaching directly upon the “sacred” property rights of the bourgeoisie (sit-in strikes), and conducted their struggles in the most militant and aggressive manner, often in disregard of the restraining hand of the CIO bureaucracy.
It is indicated also by the fact that, scarcely having entered the field of economic organization, they already showed their inclination to arm themselves with independent political organizations as well, to break with the traditional bourgeois parties (which are also the traditional alternatives of the AFL political policy), and to create their own party. This highly significant political tendency is weakened or checked-but its existence is not disproved-by the attempts of the CIO leadership to direct it back into old party channels or to distort it in the form of petty-bourgeois labor and farmer-labor parties.
All these considerations underline the fact that, on the whole, the CIO has been and remains the more progressive force in the organized labor movement.
The growth of the CIO movement has not, however, eliminated the AFL as a factor in the labor movement. Quite the contrary. The AFL has not only succeeded in maintaining virtually intact all the forces it had after the departure of such CIO organizations as the United Mine Workers and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers, but has even registered an increase in membership, in vitality, and even in strike activity. The unionization of the American working class in the recent period has not, by and large, taken place in one section at the expense of the other, but has proceeded along parallel lines, both in the CIO, which has recorded the greatest and most significant gains, and in the AFL.
The preservation and even growth of the AFL is accounted for by a number of important factors. In the first place, it still remains the organization primarily of the skilled workers, the aristocracy of labor. The AFL, furthermore, is the “traditional” organization of union labor, with strong craft traditions. In many industries and trades, its solidity is based upon the fact that it has regular contracts with the employers. Moreover, its main basis is constituted by more or less stable unions of long standing, having a strong apparatus, regular dues systems, and ample treasuries, a firm bureaucracy, regulated local and national organizations, with their own regular meetings, conventions, constitutions, elected officialdom, etc., etc.
In addition, under the irresistible influence of the patent successes of the industrial form of organization, certain sections of the AFL and its bureaucracy have relented from their stiff insistence on the craft union form of organization, and organized new unions on an industrial basis. Finally, the fact that the once apparently unhalting sweep of the CIO has been checked, and even driven back by the employers, has served to strengthen the feeling among certain sections of the working class that the AFL is not outlived and can be utilized as well as or even better than the CIO for the defense of labor interests. The flagrantly undemocratic system of leadership instituted by the CIO in the new unions organized by it has also been skillfully exploited by the AFL bureaucracy to its own advantage.
A whole series of circumstances has now brought prominently to the fore the question of the unification of the AFL and the CIO. The main responsibility for the split two years ago unquestionably lies on the shoulders of the AFL bureaucracy. By its reactionary control of the labor movement, the Executive Council of the AFL sought to stifle every attempt to modify the obsolete craft union structure upon which it is based, and actively sabotaged all efforts to organize the unorganized, especially in the mass-production industries, on an industrial, that is, on the only conceivable basis.
The formation of the CIO, its fight against the Green-Woll-Frey machine, its decisive plunge into the work of organizing the masses of the unskilled in the key industries, were progressive steps and more than warranted the active support given by the revolutionists to the CIO as the progressive section of the labor movement. In its fight against the CIO, the leadership of the AFL played a disloyal and reactionary role. Instead of facilitating the work of organizing the big industries of the country, it stood in the way at every turn, joining in the union-breaking chorus of the employers and their apologists. In many cases, the AFL leadership even resorted to downright strike-breaking in an effort to stem the sensational advances made by the CIO.
However, notwithstanding the wide rift that developed between the two sections of the labor movement, there are now strong forces at work for their unification. The setbacks suffered by the various sectors of the union movement in most recent times have strengthened the feeling that one united organization, instead of two antagonistic ones, would make it easier to win labor’s battles against the employers. The defeat registered by the workers in the “Little Steel” and similar strikes has only served to emphasize the need for putting an end to the division in labor’s camp.
On top of this is the ominous deepening of the new crisis, which weakens labor’s hold on industry and foreshadows an employers’ offensive to reduce the workers’ standard of living, annul all the gains made in the past period, and wipe out whatever union control has been established. The dangers of the crisis are reflected in the mounting sentiment among the organized workers throughout the country for a speedy unification of the AFL and the CIO so that labor may be able to present a sorely needed common front against the capitalist class.
Contributing to this inexorable trend are a number of subsidiary factors. The Roosevelt regime is not antagonistic to unity, but rather favorable. In its systematic work of preparing the country for war and extending the militarization of all institutions, it understands that the trade unions can be more smoothly coordinated into a war machine if friction in their ranks is eliminated and if they are a single unit led and controlled by a single reactionary leadership.
In addition, a certain section of the employers is exerting pressure in the direction of unification because it finds the “raids” conducted by the CIO on the AFL, and vice versa, with their consequent effects on industrial production, to be more unprofitable to the employers than dealing with a single, conservatively led union would be. The financial drain upon both CIO and AFL in the violent struggles against each other is also a factor of some influence in bringing unity closer to realization.
Finally, the original point in dispute, namely, the question of organizing the mass-production industries on an industrial (vertical) basis, has already been settled by the realities of the auto, rubber, steel, and electrical unions now in existence and functioning. Not even the most hardened Bourbon of craft unionism in the AFL leadership would seriously propose today to dissolve the United Automobile Workers, for example, into the twenty-two craft unions which existed under the Green dispensation prior to the CIO’s advances.
Apart from face-saving considerations, the principle of industrial unionism, at least as applied to the mass-production industries, may be considered generally acknowledged throughout the organized labor movement, and reluctantly accepted even by the Green-Woll machine. What stands chiefly in the way of the successful conclusions of the unity negotiations now under way is the struggle for power in the united organization between the old AFL and the new CIO bureaucracies. The main point in dispute is not the right of industrial unionism, but such a form of reunification as will give the one or the other bureaucratic machine the greatest number of supporters and the upper hand in the united organization.
Our party, together with every revolutionary and class-conscious worker, takes a clear-cut position in favor of the earliest and completest possible unification of the AFL and the CIO, and also the hitherto unaffiliated railroad brotherhoods. The only condition, practically speaking, under which such a unity would be a step backward would be one binding the former CIO unions to abandon the industrial form of organization and to divide themselves into scores of impotent craft unions. Unification on such a basis is, however, scarcely conceivable.
Unity would be a tremendous step forward for a number of reasons. The united trade union membership in the United States today is the largest ever reached in all its history, far larger than at the postwar peak. Unity of all the unions into one would mean a common, organized union front of approximately eight million workers, with a tremendous attractive power for the still unorganized, with almost inexhaustible forces capable of withstanding the offensive of the employers and of advancing aggressively the demands of the workers on all fronts. The unification would overcome the present, thoroughly reactionary division between the unskilled, proletarian elements in the unions, on the one side, and the skilled labor aristocracy on the other. Finally, a united union organization is, in general, a better field for the work of the revolutionary vanguard than a union movement divided against itself.
The reactionary role which the AFL leadership has played is clearly established in the minds of the class-conscious workers. From this it should not follow that the revolutionary vanguard makes a fetish of the CIO and worships unquestioningly at its shrine. Prior to the establishment of the unity of the two organizations, which the revolutionists must advocate as their general line, they work in either organization, according to specific local circumstances.
The revolutionist does not withdraw from a union just because it may be conservative in policy or leadership; on the contrary, such a condition is usually all the greater reason for revolutionary activity in the union, always provided, of course, that the union embraces the decisive sections of the workers (employed or unemployed, as the case may be) in its particular field. But even where concrete circumstances dictate working in an AFL or craft union, the revolutionary militant must always bear in mind the need of stressing the obsoleteness and ineffectualness of the craft union form and the demonstrated superiority of the industrial form of organization, be it achieved by direct organizing of the unorganized, or by the amalgamation of craft unions already in existence in a given industry.
Although it is impossible for us at the present time to influence decisively the course of events, or to determine the pace and method of trade union unity, we are nevertheless bound to concentrate our propaganda and agitational activity among the workers in favor of the most desirable basis for unity, that is, democratic organization and a wide measure of autonomy for the affiliated unions, especially such a measure as would facilitate the organization of the basic industries into industrial unions and preserve the integrity of those already in existence. Every attempt to carve up the industrial unions into craft formations must be stubbornly resisted as thoroughly reactionary.
While the general line of all militants in the labor movement must be based upon the speediest consummation of unity, it does not follow that each and every single concrete question can be solved by the abstract consideration of unity at all costs. Prior to the complete unification of the two main bodies of labor, a number of cases have already appeared where the bald slogan of unity would actually set back the militant and progressive movement. While the tactical line in each particular case must be subordinated to the general line of complete unification of the trade union movement, it does not follow that the two coincide in every instance or at every given moment.
The militant vanguard must constantly stress the fact that neither industrial unionism nor unity, by themselves, solve the problems of the working class and its struggle. In its way, each is a step forward for labor which facilitates its further progress. Unification is always desirable because it enables labor to present a more solid and effective front. Industrial unionism aids in the development of rank-and-file democratic control and in militant mass action, and promotes the best functioning of the organized workers in the modern big machine industries.
But unless the industrial unions, or the union movement in general, function as class-struggle organizations, they present to the working class no decisive and lasting advantages. Class collaboration under whatever form or structure finally yields only defeat for the working class. The correct basis for the union movement can be found only in the theory and practice of the class struggle, in the widest inner-union democracy, in rank-and-file control, and in a leadership and policy based upon the class struggle and workers’ democracy.
Class-struggle policies and leadership, and union democracy, are at a minimum in the AFL and in the CIO. The bulk of the leadership of both sections of the union movement have in common the fact that they both serve as the labor lieutenants of the capitalist class and are the defenders, basically, of the capitalist system. All the difference between the two movements notwithstanding, this common fundamental feature of the leaderships can be ignored only at the greatest peril to the proper orientation of the militant vanguard. The AFL bureaucracy is the classic representative of class-collaboration policies in the labor movement, with its theory of the “harmony of interests” of employer and employee, and the acceptance of capitalism implied in the slogan of a “fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work.” The same bureaucracy has, consequently, not recoiled from the most arbitrary and repressive measures against every militant and revolutionary minority that has threatened its rule and its policies.
Fundamentally, the role of the CIO leadership has been no less reactionary. It has performed the function of steering the spontaneous and independent class action of the workers organized under its banner back onto the road of class collaboration, of employer-employee “harmony,” of reliance upon the Roosevelt, i.e., the capitalist government, its institutions and its “impartial mediation.” The failure of the “Little Steel” strike only emphasized the ruinous results of this course. The most elementary requirements of strike organization were ignored. No real strike committees or mass picket lines were organized. The workers were not given to understand that the strike was to be a real and vigorous class action and that victory depended upon their own might, their own militancy, their own organization.
Aided and abetted by the Stalinists, who follow their line, Lewis and Murray repressed the militant forces in favor of an appeal to and dependence on official action by the president and the governors involved. The idea that Roosevelt, and not the workers, would win the victory for the union proved fatal, as was to be expected. Class collaboration was carried to the limit of welcoming the Ohio National Guard in Youngstown. The leaders and their subordinates poisoned the minds of the workers with assurances that the governor had sent the guard to keep the plants closed, and thereby help the workers defeat the employers.
The bureaucratic management of the new CIO unions is notorious. The Lewis-Hillman-Murray clique, aware of the danger to their leadership and policies represented by the mass unionization of the aggressive unskilled workers in the large-scale industries, sought to paralyze rank-and-file control in advance by establishing a bureaucratic guardianship over all the unions they organized. Neither the leadership nor the policies were voted by the union membership. No regular organization has been set up in most cases. Officials are appointed in the worst traditions of the United Mine Workers of America.
The CIO itself is a self-appointed committee of leaders which has never been ratified by the rank and file. The-inability of the latter to determine their leadership or decide upon the policies of the various “organizing committees” has already produced a bad reaction in the organizations, manifesting itself in a decline of interest, falling into indifference, reduced attendance at meetings, etc. The CIO can be restored to its full strength and effectiveness, and put in a position to exploit all the possibilities of growth before it, only in a relentless struggle against the poison of class collaborationism and bureaucratism, and against the leadership that represents them.
If neither industrial unionism, nor unity, as such, are a solution of the problem, they are nevertheless steps in that direction. The problem itself may be summed up as follows: the triumph of a militant leadership in the unions, basing itself on class-struggle policies, union democracy, and rank-and-file control.
Of all the labor political groups in the trade unions today, which one is indicated to promote a solution of this key problem?
The Communist Party was once the organizer of the progressive and left-wing movement in the trade unions. It has completely abandoned this role today. In the period of its reactionary degeneration, it has been reduced to the position of an agency in the American trade unions representing the interests and responding exclusively to the commands of the anti-Soviet bureaucracy of the Kremlin.
Throughout the trade unions, but above all in the CIO, the Stalinists are the most servile and venomous assistants of the reactionary bureaucracy. They outshout the most vehement in their advocacy of class collaboration, of reliance on the Roosevelt regime, of subservience to the union officialdom. At the same time, it must be emphasized that they nevertheless have a different basis than that of the CIO or AFL bureaucracy. The latter, though they act as the labor lieutenants of the bourgeoisie, and base themselves on bourgeois democracy—whose left, reformist wing they constitute—cannot preserve their own power as a bureaucracy without, to one extent or another, preserving the source and foundation of that power, namely the trade unions. Their policies, in the long run, do, it is true, help destroy the very trade unions upon which they rest; but in doing so, as shown by the German, Italian, and Austrian experiences, they are themselves destroyed.
The Stalinist bureaucracy, even in the trade unions, is, however, primarily an instrument of the counterrevolutionary Stalin bureaucracy in Russia, and serves its interests first of all. The preservation and advancement of the interests of the trade unions, and the working class in general, are entirely secondary considerations, subordinated to the Stalinists’ main function. For them, the trade unions are primarily institutions to be converted into instruments for the People’s Front, for the successful propagation of the war of the “democratic” imperialists against the “reactionary” imperialists in the defense of the Stalin regime. The most consistent class collaborationists and social patriots in the working class, and in the trade union movement, are the Stalinists. Hence, they are the most violent and bureaucratic enemy of all revolutionary and truly progressive forces in the unions. Hence, their chief slogan: “Drive the Trotskyists out of the labor movement,” which means, drive out of the labor movement all those who stand for the class struggle, who oppose imperialist war and the reactionary bureaucracy which is already part of the capitalist government machine today and the war machine tomorrow.
The idea that the Communist Party represents a progressive factor in the trade union movement is based upon outworn memories of the past. The CP today is a reactionary force in the labor movement and must be dealt with as such. It is a pernicious influence which the vanguard elements and militants in general must fight tooth and nail to eliminate from the working-class movement.
Blocs with the Communist Party in the trade unions are, as a rule, entirely inconceivable for the revolutionary Marxists, and are permissible only under the most extraordinary and exceptional circumstances, and provided only that the utmost vigilance is maintained towards them and the most rigid political independence is insisted upon. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, collaboration with the CP forces will prove permissible only under exceptional circumstances where they are part of a much more broadly organized general progressive or left-wing movement of which we may also form a part.
In those unions which are under the control of the Stalinists, and in which left-wing minority work is particularly difficult, it is the special duty of the revolutionists to remain doggedly at their task, to avoid and fight against expulsion, and not to leave the rank and file under the uncontested leadership of the CP cliques.
The Thomas-Tyler-Altman Socialist Party cannot be counted as a decisive progressive force in the trade unions. The SP is a right-wing propaganda sect without direct influence of its own in the labor movement. Wherever individual members of that party occupy official or leading posts, they were gained, as a rule, not by the advancement of a militant socialist position, but as a result of adaptation to the policies and rule of the conservative union bureaucracy. This has, in fact, been the traditional method of “rooting themselves in the unions” pursued by the SP reformists.
Even over these officials, the SP has no control, nor does it seek to exercise any. Party discipline is employed only against those few rank-and-file militants who do seek to conduct a militant struggle against class collaborationism and bureaucratic leadership in the unions. However, because of the number of rank-and-file SP members who are ready to go part of the distance in a consistent struggle for left-wing policies, it is permissible and necessary for the revolutionists to form blocs with them in specific instances and for specific ends.
With insignificant changes, what has been said about the SP applies to the Lovestone group. The positions occupied by some of its members in the trade unions have been acquired or maintained, generally speaking, by the surrender of working-class principles and adaptation to the conservative bureaucracy and its policies. Examples of this are to be found in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, the shoe workers’ union, and the auto workers’ union. As with the SP, blocs are permissible under certain conditions with the Lovestone group.
To the extent that the Lovestoneites also come into conflict with the Stalinists and their murderous red-baiting drive against all militants, the Lovestoneites will be compelled to seek a common front at least on such elementary questions as the rights of minorities in the unions. Actuated though they are by the interest of self-defense and self-preservation, temporary blocs with clearly limited aims are quite conceivable between the revolutionary Marxists and the Lovestoneites.
From the standpoint both of its membership and its sympathizers, the IWW plays only a limited role in the labor movement today. As an organization, it is a reactionary sect, dominated by a narrow-minded anarchist clique imbued with a deep hatred of the Marxists and the Russian revolution, and animated by the narrowest factional interests. On the other hand, as a general movement, in the sense of those former members of the IWW who are still influenced by its ideology, it has a distinct importance in certain fields, notably in the maritime industry. Most of these elements have splendid traditions behind them and are permeated by an irreconcilable spirit of class struggle and militance. In the maritime industry, the building of a broad progressive and militant movement requires a sincere cooperation with the best elements among the syndicalist-minded workers.
At the same time we must conduct a persistent and stubborn-though patient and comradely-struggle to break down the antipolitical, anti-Marxist prejudices inculcated into these militants and fostered by the corrupt parliamentarism and reformism of the Social Democracy and by the bureaucratism, deceit, fakery, and treachery to principles of the Stalinists.
The only consistent revolutionary and progressive force in the trade union movement is represented by our party, the party of the revolutionary class struggle. It can begin to accomplish its tasks only by understanding its present relationship to them. The party is woefully weak in general, and especially weak in the trade unions. Its influence and leadership is either local, episodic, or accidental. Very little systematic trade union work is done, and what is done is not properly organized or centralized. Our press only casually reflects the American class struggle. News of the trade union movement, of its struggles and internal life, is accidental in its columns, dependent largely upon chance contributions of isolated comrades.
A complete reorientation of our party, from the membership up to the leadership and back again, is absolutely imperative and unpostponable. No less drastic a reorientation is required of our weekly press. The attention of the party must be focused primarily upon the American labor movement. The energies of the party must be devoted mainly to rooting itself in the trade unions, becoming an inseparable part of the trade unions and their struggles. The bulk of the party’s work must be directed to this vital field of the class struggle. Unless this slogan is translated speedily into life, the party is doomed to vegetate as an impotent sect which will be washed away by the waves of the first serious social crisis.
The party membership must be rooted deeply in the trade unions. The first demand for activity that the party must make on every member is that he join the union in which he is eligible for membership. The sweep of unionism, covering virtually every craft, trade, and industry, ensures the possibility of virtually every worker becoming a unionist today. It should be borne in mind that if our party is to be a genuinely proletarian party, both in its composition and its ideology, it must be composed, in its decisive majority, of proletarians and trade unionists. Above all, it should be borne in mind that if the party is to survive the coming war, with its certain persecution and hounding of the revolutionary movement, if the party is to fulfill its great tasks during the war, if it is not to be dispersed and its efforts rendered nugatory—the party membership must be solidly and inseparably connected with the organized working class. There is no better way of accomplishing this connection than by every member becoming an active, responsible, and influential trade unionist.
Precisely because of the intensely political and polemical environment in which our party has developed, it is necessary to emphasize a number of fundamental, elementary guiding lines for our trade union work.
The party is the leader and guide of all the work of its members in the trade unions. Without party leadership and guidance, all trade union work inevitably degenerates into opportunism and becomes a hindrance to revolutionary progress. In his mass work, the party member must not become a “mere trade unionist,” or forget the need of imbuing the trade union movement with a revolutionary political class consciousness. However, in order effectively to pursue his work in the trade union movement the revolutionist must understand keenly the importance of approaching his fellow unionists and their problems not so much on the basis of his own consciousness and experience but rather on the basis of the level of consciousness and the degree of experience of the average trade unionist.
To approach the trade unionist, trade union problems, or even the trade union leadership in exactly the same manner in which one political organization deals with a rival political organization would result in self-isolation. The revolutionist must be conscious of his political role, but at the same time also of the fact that he is dealing, in the first place, with trade union problems and with workers who have not as yet developed beyond a trade union consciousness.
The excellent work which our comrades have already done in various unions shows the vast, untapped possibilities for participation in the class struggle and recruitment to the revolutionary party which are opened up before us by a serious and systematic work in the trade unions.
A serious approach to the trade unions and their problems, and not a hypercritical one, is the need; a responsible attitude toward the work of building the trade unions and our influence within them, and not a lightminded, “experimental” one; an attitude of methodical, patient enlightenment of the politically undeveloped worker on the basis of his day-to-day experiences in the unions and in the class struggle, and not a supercilious, “high political” approach to him.
The present period also calls for a highly responsible attitude in the key question of strikes in general, and particularly sitdown strikes. It is imperative to combat the defeatist, reformist propaganda that strikes are impossible in a period of economic crisis or decline. Strikes, and victorious ones, are possible even under such difficult circumstances; only it is more important than ever that they be carefully organized, the moment and the place deliberately chosen, and the struggle conducted in the most militant and determined manner. In this connection it is important to be aware of the danger of strikes or other actions confined to small minorities, harmful in general, and always tending to degenerate into adventuristic movements which only antagonize the bulk of the organized workers.
The sitdown strike is not a universal substitute for the classic form of strike action (quitting the plant, mass picket line, etc.), but it is indubitably a proven contribution to proletarian tactics and an effective weapon in their struggle. Its initiation and extension are a tribute to the resourcefulness of the proletariat in finding new and powerful methods of fighting its class oppressors. It has served, moreover, the important end of breaking down an awesome respect for bourgeois private property which the ruling class instills in the proletariat from its childhood onward. It is our duty to defend this weapon against all attempts to suppress, discredit, or outlaw it. This does not signify that we advocate the indiscriminate use of the sit-down at all times and in all cases. We judge its feasibility on the same general considerations which determine our tactics in strikes: general objective conditions, the state of the union, mood of the membership, position of the employers and the state, possibilities of achieving the objective, etc., etc.
The sit-down strike, has, however, an even more significant future before it than the ordinary strike. Precisely because it challenges the fundamental tenet of capitalism, the inviolable right of private property in the means of production, the sit-down strike seems to be one of the main indicated means of mass action—by virtue of the seizure of the plants and their temporary control by workers’ committees—for realizing in the coming period the slogan of “Workers’ control of production.” The deepening of the present crisis will push this slogan to the foreground and properly directed by the revolutionary party, it may become the decisive popular slogan with the masses of the workers and above all the militant trade unionists.
We reject contemptuously the arguments against the sit-down strikes advanced by the government authorities, the employers, and the trade union bureaucrats. On their lips, this opposition is simply one way of formulating their opposition to strikes in general, as well as to all militant mass action of the workers. At the same time, it is necessary to point out that, as a rule, any attempt by a small minority in a given plant or industry to impose a sit-down strike upon the big majority of the workers involved, without consulting them or obtaining their agreement, or at a time when the majority of the workers either have no acute grievances or are not as yet conscious of them—will lead inevitably to a reaction against sit-down strikes, ordinary strikes, and even unionism in general on the part of the more undeveloped workers.
A serious and responsible attitude in this question is absolutely imperative. While we do not join in the reactionary chorus of condemnation of so-called outlaw strikes—the responsibility for which usually reposes upon the bureaucracy, which cynically ignores the legitimate demands and grievances of the workers—and while we remain steadfastly on the side of any group of workers once they are engaged in a struggle with the capitalist class or any section of it, we are conscious of the responsibility that reposes upon us as a vanguard force, and therefore counsel against the indiscriminate or promiscuous use of the sit-down strike into which workers are often provoked by the brutal exploitation to which they are subjected by the employers.
The same general propositions hold true of so-called unauthorized strikes. The left wing strives to obtain the maximum amount of support both from the officialdom of its own union and from working-class organizations as a whole, for all the actions which it advocates, strikes included. We oppose the bureaucratic conception that the calling of strikes is the exclusive prerogative of the international officials of a given union, and we advocate the widest democratic control of the strike weapon by the rank and file, vested, in the first place, in the hands of the local and district unions and in the shop committees, which must be set up everywhere and which must have the most immediate charge of protecting the interests of the workers and enforcing the provisions of any agreement entered into between the employers and the employees.
While taking proper cognizance of the fact that the rules of many trade unions require official permission from the international officials before a strike may be called, and orienting ourselves accordingly, we cannot ignore the fact that the international officialdom of the various unions is not only opposed, generally speaking, to the use of the strike weapon, but sabotages it when it is employed. Situations are therefore quite conceivable in which the only way the rank and file can obtain legal permission for a strike at certain times is by forcing the hand of the officialdom by what the latter often start by condemning as an “outlaw” strike.
The party sets itself the following immediate tasks for its work in the trade unions:
The immediate registering of all party and YPSL members in order to have a complete record of the trade or profession of each member, union affiliation or eligibility, position in the trade union, etc., etc.
Every effort must be made immediately to have every eligible non-trade unionist in the party join the union of his trade or industry and take an active part in its life.
Wherever two or more members of the party and the YPSL belong to the same union, they are to constitute themselves a party trade union fraction, to work under the direction of the trade union department of the party.
Where no union exists for a given trade or industry, in a given locality, our comrades must take the initiative in organizing the unorganized.
The need of a nationally connected left wing in the American trade union movement is the most urgent problem in that field today. None exists at the present time, since the old left-wing movement organized by the Communist party has been completely liquidated and dissolved into the trade union bureaucracy. Without a left-wing movement standing on the militant platform of the class struggle, the trade union movement in this country is doomed to the demoralizing effects of class collaborationism and the dead-hand control of the reactionary union bureaucracy. Our party must take the leadership in organizing and integrating nationally the left-wing movement.
Where such groups do not yet exist, we must take the initiative in forming them on the widest possible basis compatible with the formation of a genuinely progressive movement having a basically class-struggle platform. Progressive groups should be conceived of not only as fields of recruitment for the revolutionary party, but as the means for setting in motion the largest number of workers at a given time for the advancement of a left-wing position and a left-wing leadership. It is not a precondition for our participation that from the outset we have the leadership of such groups, but it is an absolutely minimum condition that we have the right to advocate and defend our own position in the ranks of the general progressive group.
The left-wing movement should stand on the following general platform:
Against class collaboration and for a policy of class struggle.
For the fullest inner-union democracy for all members of the union and for all groups. Against the attempt to illegalize and suppress all minority groups in the unions, such as has been done in the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, and for the system of group rights in the union such as prevails, for example, in the International Typographical Union.
For the normal functioning of all unions and against bureaucratically appointed organizers and leaderships such as prevail in most of the “organizing committees” of the CIO. For immediate holding of conventions, adoption of constitution and policies, and democratic selection of the leadership.
For the shop steward and shop committee systems throughout the industries, integrated into the trade unions.
Against any attempt to “incorporate” the trade unions, against all “government regulation” of the trade unions, and in general, against all attempts to deprive the unions of their complete class independence by subordinating them to the apparatus of the government, which is only a machine for defending the interests of the capitalist class.
For the defense against the government, the employers, and the trade union bureaucracy of the vital weapon of the strike, including the sit-down strike.
For the amalgamation of all craft unions in a given industry into industrial unions.
Against high initiation fees and prohibitive dues systems, especially in the present period of unemployment and crisis. Against the dropping of unemployed members from the rolls for inability to pay the regular dues required.
For the defense by the trade unions of the interests of the unemployed. For the organization of the unemployed by the trade unions themselves. For the affiliation in a body of the unemployed workers of a given trade or industry to the corresponding union, and for full rights of voice and vote for those workers on all questions directly affecting them and their specific problems (the system employed by project workers associated with the Teamsters union in Minneapolis).
For special attention to the defense of the rights and interests of the young workers and apprentices, and for the annulment of the exceptional legislation against them now existing in the unions, which prevents them from participating in the trade union movement and its struggles with full rights.
In order that these tasks may be carried out in a systematic, efficient, and centralized manner, the convention instructs the incoming National Executive Committee of the Party to establish immediately a regular trade union department, with a responsible and functioning trade union secretary. The National Executive Committee of the YPSL shall appoint a representative to function in the party’s trade union department.
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