The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 24, 1924, Page 10

A NEGLECTED FIELD HE Workers Party is today en- gaged in a campaign to form a class Farmer-Labor Party in the United States, an effort worthy of the full energies of every Party member. In noting the excellent development of our Party, it is well to state that the Workers Party really began to grow and assume influence when it started seriously and earnestly to work within the unions, and when it, at the same time, freed itself from the separatist or dual notions held by some members. It is imperative that we always call upon our membership to get more and more into the general work of the trade unions in order to carry on the work of transforming the existing trade unions into organ- izations of the class struggle and into revolutionary unions. Because of old dual union conceptions, not by any means yet entirely removed; because of strong opposition against those car- rying out the T. U. E. L. program by the reactionary union leaders, lending false strength to dual union thought; and because of Party activity in other fields, we are always in danger of losing sight of or neglecting trade union work. UR. Labor Party campaign is the Party’s biggest campaign today. We are “in politics” with a vengeance. Anti-parliamentary notions are ob- viously removed as a whole from Party thought. One form of Leftism is evi- dently corrected. It cannot by any means be said that there is too much emphasis on parliamentary activity or general political activity, such as the Labor Party campaign. Yet it may be said that there is neglect on the part of many of our members in trade union fields. If our members are not opposed to. trade union activity in theory, and we do not believe they are, they are opposed, some of them, in practice. They either do not attend their union meetings, or, when they do attend, they do nothing there. A Labor Party, unless made and supported by the trade unions, would have no per- manent basis. It would be no real Labor Party. It would not be able to withstaml the organizational or propagandistic opposition of the capi- talist parties. N reference to the Labor Party ques- tion, Comrade Foster in his Party convention industrial report declared, “Inasmuch as the Labor Party, in so far as it represents the industrial workers, rests directly upon the trade unions and draws its conventions and other legislative bodies out of their ranks, the extent to which we will have power and influence in the grow: ing Labor Party movement will de- pend entirely upon the strength and grip we have in the trade unions.” As in the case of the Labor Party, so in the rest of the trade union work. Hence, in our campaign for a class Farmer-Labor Party, to insure its suc- cess, our members must take a far greater part in union work than even before. HE econdmic problems, trade union agreements, strengthening of the unions, amalgamation, all these and more, must be taken up actively by the militant unionist and Party members, and explained in the unions. If we would win the leadership of the masses in the trade unions from the fake labor leaders, and those labelling in words; they must not sit within the trade unions in theory, and outside of them in practice. If trade union activ- ity means anything at all, it means, first, being present at all meetings. It means being alive to all wage and strike issues. It means combatting class collaboration policies being put over very cleverly by shyster labor leaders. Leadership in the trade unions is not only won by political agftation; it is won by centesting every issue be- fore the unions with the reactionary leadership. Trade union agreements are presented which are wrong and bad for the unionists. We must be in a position to expose the fakers propos- ing them. In his article on the 5th Congress of the Communist Interna- tional, Comrade Zinoviev says: ““T“"HE question of the Trade Unions once again occupies an important place in the work of the 5th Congress. The more thé influence of the Com- munists in the Trade Union movement grows, the more furious do the leaders of the Social Democracy become in their effort to hasten the split in the Trade Unions. The provocative tactics of the Social Democratic leaders in certain places are very successful. Among the German Left Wing, there is developing a wrong and extremely dangerous attitude towards the ques- in the trade unions.” * T is as if this were being written especially for the American mil- itants and Communists, so aptly does it fit the neqags for our Party members and militants continuing and increas- ing trade union work and carrying on the battle against Gompers, Sigman, Lewis and the rest of the degenerate crew. ESULTS more than justify the Party and T.U.E.L. industrial policy in the unions. In the recent Pullman strike, great strides were made by the Party because of the in- tense activity of the Party and the DAILY WORKER in the immediate issues of the strike. The Party estab- lished itself among the Pullman work- ers and strikers. At that, the Pullman Party members were far from taking full advantage of the situation. 'HRU the activity of the militants in the trade unions, limited even as it was, there are now in many unions being waged struggles for a better leadership, especially so in the needle trades.~ TRUGGLE agafnst the reactionary opposition brings its frnits, how- ever slow. Expulsions, etc., are the proof of the effectiveness of militant and revolutionary work within the unions. The future holds no doubt Membership of the Leningrad Unions. B hood increase in the number of employed union members in the city of Leningrad, during 1922-23, is one of the best indicators of the economic regeneration of that city. Owing to the concentration of industry and drastic reduc- tion of the staffs by the Soviet institutions, the trade unions had lived thru some perturbations in 1922. By October 1922 the total number of employed union members decreased by 14.6 per cent as compared with January. 299,531 union members in January and 255,832 in October 1922, due chiefly to the great cut (29.8 per cent) in the membership of the unions catering for the government and public institutions (the unions of Soviet Employes, of Educational Workers, of Art, and of Medical and Public Health Workers). The drop in membership of the industrial unions amounted only to 2.4 per cent. On October ist, 1923, the working membership of the Leningrad unions amounted to 315,571. This figure repre- sents an increase of 5.5 per cent against January 1922, the industrial unions having raised their mambership by fully 32 per cent. The growth of the membership of i trial workers is the more significant since the; ernment and public employes lost 11.2 pe membership during the same tion of the future work in the reaction- ary Trade Unions, The 5th Congress will have to speak with all tts author- ity and determination against the po- licy of leaving the Social Democratic unions, and at the time it will have to find a practical solution of how to or- ganize those workers whom the Social Democratic leaders have succeeded in expelling from the Trade Unions.” F the Communist International speaks so strongly in the case of the German Trade unions, it can speak a thousand times more strongly in the case of America and demonstrate the need of greater trade union activity and against dual union ideas, “Great masses have turned their backs on the trade unions. In the opinion of the Communist Party of. themselves progressives, our members |Cermany, neither abandoning the trade must be in the trade unions fighting on every issue affecting trade union work and development and thus prov- ing our right to leadership of the trade union movement. In Minneapolis, for instance, the trade union movement is progressive of perhaps even radical. The normal leadership of the trade unions is regarded as progressive and radical. It is doubly necessary that there our Party members shall be active in the trade unions to make clear our stand and differences be- tween the Communist and the pro- gressive unionists. Yet the T, U. E. L. has no organization, unless perhaps it be a very small one and in this city the T, U. E. L. logically be strong. unions nor hastily founding new unions is the right way to overcome the yellow trade union bureaucracy,” says the thesis of the Center Group in the German Party, “or to Create a broad revolutionary trade union move- ment. Such modes of procedure only have the effect of aiding the yellow trade union bureaucracy in their pur- pose of converting the trade unions into blackleg (scab) organizations in the service of Capital. In spite of the treachery of their leaders, the trade unions still contain great masses who would be delivered over defenseless into the hands of the yellow bureau- ecrats if the Communists left the unions...... The Communists must organize from below the resistance UR members must not only be for|against the mass expulsion of the T. U. E. L. and Party union policy | whole opposition on the broadest basis of the unions of indus- ms of gov- nt of their period. even worse than individual expulsions —perhaps whole union locals and In- ternational expulsions and yet the Party policy is proved thereby still proper. We are winning the masses in the unions. N his pamphlet, “Bankruptcy of the American Labor Movement,” Com- rade Foster declares, “A disastrous ef- fect of the systematic demoralization and drawing away of the militants is that it has thrown the trade unions al- most entirely into the control of the organized reactionaires. In all labor movements the unions can prosper and grow only if the progressive ele- ments within them organize closely and wage avigorous battle ali along the line against the conservative bureaucracy. Militants must build ma- chines to fight those of the reaction- aries.” UR Party must enforce the rule of every member joining a union. Union comrades shall be active in the Trade Union Educational League or they cannot be said to be fulfilling the Party requirements. Thru actual and continued systematic work in the trade unions, we can win over the majority of the trade unionists to Communism. Without doing that we cannot succeed to the revolution. The thesis of the 3rd C. I. Congress states: i ps real test of the strength of every Communist Party is the actual influence it has on the workers in the labor unions. The Party must learn how to influence the unions with- out attempting to keep them in lead- ing strings. If the Communist frac- tions perserve, if the activity ‘is de- By MARTIN ABERN voted and intelligent, the Party will reach a position where its advice will be accepted gladly and readily by the unions.” EACTION in the labor union move- ment is not something which can be overcome over night and without the most difficult of work and opposi- tion and hard knocks. The whole thing must be considered practicaNy and historically. In his book “Leftism, an Infantile Disease,” Comrade Lenin states: “But the development of the prole- tariat did not and could not anywhere in the world proceed by any other road than that of trade unions with their mutual activity with the working class Party.” Further’on, referring to the Left German Communists he says: “They refuse to work in them! They invent new workingmen’s unions! This is an unpardonable blunder, one by which the Communists render the greatest services to the bourgeoisie. hla ack Not to work within the reac- tionary Trade Unions means to leave the insufficiently developed or back- ward working masses to the influence ef reactionary leadcrs, agents of the bourgeoisle, labor aristocrats—bour- geoisfied workers.” UILD the Party by working as Communists should in thé trade union movement. In the metal trades, needle trades, building trades, every- where, get into the work of the T. U. E.L. which is the work of the Party. Our Party has got on the right basis by declaring for trade union work and we must not and can not tolerate for a@ moment any inactivity in industrial and trade union work. Not out of the unions, but into the unions; don’t just accept the program of the T. U. E.L., but get into the unions, get ffito the work. T is to be seen that the problems of the Communist in the trade unions are fundamentally the same all over the world. To become the vanguard of the proletariat, the Communists must attain the leadership of the trade union movement. Despite expulsions and splits, whether engineered by Amsterdam, Gompers, Sigman, or any- body else, our task is to fight for unity in the trade union movement. If our comrades have not been as active as they ought to be in the unions in Chi- cago, New York, Minneapolis and the hundreds of other cities, let them get moré firmly into the work. By fight- ing all along the line on every issue before the union from wage cuts, strikes, amalgamation, Fascism, Ku Klux Klan, shop delegate system, the Labor Party, to Communism, we can win the fight against the yellow union leadership. In Southern Illinois, for instance, we know that we have the problem of the Ku Klux Klan in the unions and the only way To meet it is for our comrades to be inside of the unions fighting the Klan on all issues. F the Revolution is to be conquered, we must conquer the organized La- bor movement for this will be the basis of the future*économic and so- cial order. Comrade Losovsky says in his book, “The International Labor Movement”: “But one thing is clear: the stronger, the more united, the more elastic and aggressive the revolution- ary wing of the Labor movement will be, the more objectively we, the Com- munists, estimate the relation of forces outside and inside the working class—the more correct will be our conduct, the sooner will humanity ar- tive at the developed form of a Com- munist Society.” Unemployed tn Detroit, _ DETROIT.—Reduction in employ- ment in Detroit was general during the week ended May 10. The num- ber employed by members of the em- ployers’ association dropped for the first time this year below last year’s peak of 229,971 which was reached May 26. The reduction during the week amounted to 4,054, bringing the total number laid off since Feb. 2, 1924, to 17,005. It is reported that the Ford Motor Co. may drop one night shift or rearrange working hours to reduce output. rete,