The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 12, 1934, Page 4

Page Four St Major Class Battles ImpendinSteel;Party Faces Severe Tests in Spite of Resolutions About “Entrenching Our- selves im Basic Industrie Party Appears In Practice Searcely to Have Reacted STURGEON developments in the ateel ry with the increased production, without corresponding increase in employment, can only be explained by the terrific speed-up system that has been developed as a result of the highly mechanized improvements in thi: dustry Overtime Wo National limited the hours of ers to 40 hours, but wherever the mills are very busy, the Company (as at Sparrows Point) forces them to punch the cards out on time, but makes the men come back to fini their work (often this in- clud the men on day rate, who are therefore made to work over- time without additional pay In other cases, where the men are only given 10 howrs work a week, out of the code specified 40 hours, the company carefully records that so and so owes the company 30 hours work, so that in the futwre when there would be a emendous pick-up (a6 for in- ce during a rush of war orders) PETE st the company would have the legal right to have the men work peraaps 50 and 60 hours a we2k to make up for past lost hoa: Actual records prove that in the las; year many 300 snd 400 hours are lisied on the he workers as a result the ‘only one phase of the in the mills. In addition N, to this, inflation played havoc with the workers real wages, giving them R.A indirect wage reductions. Today, as a result of the complete mec! ation of the Steel Indus- try (as in the Gary, Ind. American Sheet and Tin Plate Co. where the Four High Mis have been in- troduced) thousands of workers are being fired out of the mills. In Sparrows Point, Md. Plant of the Bethlehem Steel Company, the installation. of the continuous Fur- naces, the 3 High, the Streine Shears, all of which have increased production four to five times, have thrown many workers out of a job and forced those remaining to ad- just themselves to the new speed in production. That the mechanization of the steel industry is part of the plan of the Government and the Sveel Trust to (effectively mobilize this industry fbr war, must also be un- derstood. {The many strikes ‘n the recent period (especially against the N. R. A. codes) that have been openly smashed by murder and violence‘ under government orders Tt is important to not2 the effect of the present conditions of the slashing stee! industry on the sklil:d work- ers. The fact is, that tne new machinery is slowly but surely eliminating them from their posi- tion as the “aristocracy of labor,” and condemns them in some cases to jobs on a par with a common laborer. The following example illustrates this. A group of workers who pre- viously used to rate $20 to $80 a day, but since the new machinery are hardly able to average $7 and $8, went to the General Manager of the Sparrows Point Plant and asked for an imcrease. The Man- ager told them he’d “sooner get the farmers of Va. who can do the job as well” to dc their job than to give them an increase. What is the significance of this fact to us? It means that the skilled labor, whom the American Federation of Labor had trained, through their policy of craft unions, to act as a block against industrial unionism, are today forced by their new economic position to unite with | the rest of the workers. Role of A. F. L. The reduced wages of small fore- men heave forced them into a similar position. Our approach to these workers must therefore also change. We must make efforts to win them into our class struggle unions, or at least to neutralize them. All these facts must serve to convince our comrades that the steel workers are willing to fight « .. More than that, they WILL fight whether we are a factor or not. Our task is to learn, through the closest daily contact with these workers to react to their moods, to organize them rapidly into our in- dustrial unions, and be PREPARED to lead them in organized actions which orly our unions can develop along revolutionary and correct dines. The Resolution of the 13th Plenum of the Communist Inter- national places most sharply and clearly the role of the American Federation of Labor and emphas- izes our tasks in dealing with this openly Fascist controlled organiza- tion. It is necessary to see, there- fore, what position the American Federation of Labor takes in con- nection with the new drive against the living standards of the Steel workers. While their open approval and vigorous support of the N. R. A. and all its slave codes is gener- ally known, it is interesting to note their maneuvers when confronted with concrete situations of resent- ment against present conditions by the workers, For instance, the officials of the Amaigamated Association of Iron, Tin and Steel workers affiliated to the American Federation of Labor, Proposed to solve the question of introduction of new machinery and consequent damaging effect on workers in the Gary, Ind. Plant, by asking the Government to buy and destroy the new machines. certainly exposes the reaction- ary nature of this orggnization. Armed with these facts and a cases as high as} WORK IN THE TRADE UNIONS Every Communist to carry on Bolshevik work must establish and maintain contact with non-Party work- ers. The Eighth Con- gress obliges every Party member to be- come organized in a Trade Union and im- poses upon the C. C. the task of checking up on the fulfillment of this decision within three months. | —From the Draft Resolu- | tion for the Eighth Con- | vention of the C.P.U.S.A. |! | ———$—$<—$———— correct knowledge of the danger of this open enemy of the workers | within the ranks of the working class, we must consider the task lof building powerful opposition | \groups within the A. F. of L. of | |key importance in the winning of | the majority of the workers. Our best and most developed forces | must be made responsible for this work, both in the question of send- ing in forces into the A. F. of L locals, and with regard to our poli- | tically developed cadres «n the out- side whose task must be to person- aiiy guide and direct’ this activity. | In spite of the resolutions, | plenums and conferences, all of which haye verbally emphasized the one task of ENTRENCHING OUR- | | SELVES IN THE BASIC INDUS- TRIES, it appears to me, that in practice our Party has scarcely re- acted. The Section leadership consists mostly of Party members NOT FROM THE BASIC INDUSTRIES, who have little or no understand- ing of the meaning of concenire- ton or how to app!y it. The Sec- | ticn Organizers in muny places cc- | fect a dangerous tendency whic: has been developed ihat “I am here | to give political guidance,” without | assisting in the practical organiza- tional work. What does Comrade Stalin have to say on this important matter? In his report to the 17th Congress of the C. P. S. U., Stalin made it clear that: “When the correct political line is given, organizational work de- cides all, including the fate of | the political line itself, its fullfill- | ment or its failure.” |_ The Central Committee of our | Party in my opinion reflects aj) |similar weakness. Otherwise how can it be explained that Plants | |which are made National points of | |concentration are never even per- | sonally visited by membre of the | Central Committee. For instance, it is my belief, that it wotid be | most correct for a member of the Central Committee to personally come to Baltimore, meet with the members of the Sparrows Point Nuclei, plan and help them carry through certain tasks. | For over five years Sparrows | Point Steel Mills have been a point | of concentration for Our Party. In all that period, at no time was any jline worked out by the Central ;Committee with the local com- |rades for this activity. As a re- sult of this, we find the inexperi- jenced local forces sincerely and bravely plugging away in an at- tempt to organize this gigantic fort- Tess, with methods which were ac- tually defeating their purpose. A super system of conspiracy and red tape was erected in order to “safe- guard” the workers, so much s0, that every worker was looked upon |as a stoolpigeon, and only the best | “Marxists” were eligible for union membership. The popular opinion | |was created that the “Steel and Metal” is an illegal, an outlaw junion. Our activity actually in- | jected in every recruit an unnatural | suspicion and fear. I believe tha‘, a basic reason for | this condition is due to the present distribution of Forces in the coun- i It is a fact that at the present | time the best, most politicaly devel- oped forces are assigned as Dis- trict Organizers and Section Or- ganizers, etc. In other words, they are to be found in secluded direct Party Activity. On the other hand, at the head of our mass trade Unions, we find a secondary corp of leaders, younger, and less experienced poli- tically and organizationally. This is glaringly true of the present con- dition in the “Steel and Metal Workers Industrial Union,” which is responsible for the organization of the millions of workers em- ployed in this industry. The present Central Committee it appears to me is not sufficiently directly con- nected with the broad masses of workers in the key indusiries. The solution to this is to place more of these members in direct eharge of the major trade unions, and thus place full responsibility upon them for the development of new, fresh ¢adres directly from the | basic industries in the leadership | of our Party. \the Party are to be directed first |ford are the concentration districts | Leaders of the Vietorious Soviet Proletariat and The World Proletarian Revolution at the 17th ( kidze, S. Kirov,.L. Kaganevich. | ATLY WORKER, NEW YORK, MONDAY, MARCH 12, 1934 Y. Kuibyshev, V. Molotov, M. Chudoy. Carry Out Task of Rooting Party in Songress of the Communist Party, U 25. Sekt. (From left to right, sitting): N. Shvernik, V. Chubar, A. Andrey ev, M. Kalinin, P. Postyshev, Joseph Stalin, K. Voroshilov, G. Ordjoni- (From left to right, standing): G. Petro vski, D. Sulimo, N. Khrutchev, N. Ghikalo, A. Yenukidze, L. Beriya, Big Mills; Concentration in Textile Industry The most important problem facing our Party today, on the eve of the 8th Convention, is the prob- lem of entrenching ourselves among the industrial workers in the big | mills and factories; to build up and | stabilize our existing revolutionary | trade unions; to draw into our daily struggles the many independ- ent unions and the masses of rank and file members of the American Federation of Labor. The Open Letter of our Party states that, “The entire work of the Party and the best forces of of all to building up and consoli- da the Party and Revolution- ary Trade Union movement in the most important industrial centers of the country, to effectively and systematically win the decisive sec- tions of the American workers, free them from the influence of the re- formist and bourgeois parties, mobi- lize for the struggle against the bourgeoisie, and get our influence solidly established in these centers.” Have we systematically carried out this important task, which has been brought to our attention so forcibly by the Open Letter and again by the 13th Plenum Resolu- tion of the C. 1.? Concentration In our recent struggles we cer- tainly learned the need and thej advantage of applying concentra- tion. If our Union in Paterson had not applied such determined con- centration on the Weidman Dye Plant, and built up a strong Union, we would not have been able to} start and lead the dye strike, which | was of such decisive importance to the entire national silk strike. Although this experience -should | have made us more determined than ever to continue applying this concentration in our work after the strike, it has been again neglected because of the pile of all kinds of other work. But no task can be| more important than the task of | concentrating our best forces and | energies on one particular big factory, which will be of strategic importance in moving the chain of factories in a given territory. Although Lawrence and New Bed- of our textile union in the wool! and cotton section of the industry, our concentration has been applied | in such a haphazard way, that our Union is still weak and has little | effect in these two centers. This | is especially significant because | Lawrence and New Bedford are | both centers where our Union led and won tremendous strikes. It is} important that precisely at this | time, on the eve of the 8th con- vention of our Party, not only our Union, but also the Boston District leadership of our Party carry through a detailed examination of the entire work carried on in Law- rence and New Bedford so as to successfully help solve the difficul- ties in both of these important centers. We must not lose sight of this} extremely important passage in the | Open Letter: “Unless we tena- ciously concentrate our work on the most, important industrial centers, we cannot build up a stable Party and a Revolutionary Trade Union Movement.” During the last year, there has been a tremendous growth of In- dependent Unions in all industries. One of the reasons for this growth is the fact that the workers are tired of the numerous treacherous betrayals of the A. F. L. burocrats, and are shying free of them. The second reason is that we are not on the job in some important tex- tile centers. Our Party District Organizers in the textile regions know the strength of the National Textile Workers Union, and know of the lack of leading forces within this important organization. Still some of them do not attempt to build the textile union through their available forces, but takeethe at- titude that “if the N. T. W. U. cannot send in an organizer to build the union, we cannot take that responsibility.” This attitude is contrary to the entire line of the 13th Plenum Resolution and the Open Letter to our Party. The 8th Convention of our Party must make a deter- mined effort to change this atti- tude in our trade union work. In some Districts our Party com- rades developed the theory that it was futile to build the T. U. U. L. Unions, and thus necessary to butid |Lehigh Valley. By ANN It is not wrong to build In-{ dependent Unions under particular circumstances that require the building of an independent union, but it is absolutely wrong to apply | this as a general rule. This policy was followed by a comrade in the Tt was not wrong | to build the Allentown Silk Work- ers Union, but when this comrade came to Easton, where a small local of the National Textile Workers | Union was functioning, and tried to | force the local comrade to also build an Independent Union, this was decidedly wrong. The correct- ness of our struggle to build the N. T. W. U. in Baston is proved | by the faet that today we have) some of the best functioning locals ot the National Textile Workers Union in thts city. Secondly, when we do build In- dependent unions, these unions must be built on the class strug- | gle principal. The danger lies in | building independent unions that lose their class struggle character, amd become completely divorced and even hostile to the rest of the revolutionary and trade union | movement. Im Allentown the comrades fol- lowed such an opportunist line. ‘They tended towards making their BURLAK Independent union a semi-class struggle, semi-class collaboration outfit. They wanted to build a Union that stands between the radical N. T. W. U. and the reac- tionary U. T. W. There is no such middle ground, and the comrades almost completely wrecked the splendid large organization they built up. Where we help to build Independ- ent Unions, we must be careful to build them along our principles of class struggle. Where workers spontaneously build an independent union, we must get into such a union and help guide it along class struggle lines as in Pawtucket, R. 1 United Front | With the growth of the numerous Independent Unions and the growth of the discontent among the A. F. L, membership, we have to daily apply our united front policy in developing struggles. Every worker in the industry realizes the need for unity among the textile workers as a means of resisting the intensified attacks on the workers living standards. Every worker will fight for this unity if we will only show him how. If we consistently apply our united front policy, at the same time boldly ex- Non-Party Worker Discusses Union Tasks Among Jobless Shows That Majority of Are Unemployed, and Trade Union Members Emphasizes Necessity Of Unity of Action of Jobless and Employed March 8th 1934 Editor Daily Worker 50 East 13th Street New York City Dear Comrade Editor: I am enclosing an article that I have written on the question of the unions and unemployed work. This is a subject which interests me very much because I am the organizer of the Needle Trades Unemployment Cuncil. Although in the Needle Trades the Council is functioning to some extent and relief is being obtained for hun- dreds of workers, we have many shortcomings which we are trying to eliminate. This article may not be written with the style of a Mike Gold but it is what I feel on the question. Should you consider this article worthy of being printed in the Daily you may use my name. Hoping to hear your criticism on my efforts, Comradely yours, MORRIS J. ANGEL P. S. I am also a non-partyite. . The Roosevelt and LaGuardia ad-| ministrations are carrying through | @ consistent policy of lowering the living standards of the workers and slashing the already meagre relief to starvation level. On the C.W.A. projects all over! the country workers are being laid off without any provisions being made for taking care of them. Here in New York, the administration is following a more cautious policy | of lay-offs and transferring of) militant workers to other jobs. This, because of the better organi- zation and more militant actions carried on by the workers on the job. In speaking of the mass unem- ployment and of the measures to be taken in carrying on the fight for the continuation and extension of the C.W.A. jobs, for increased | relief, and for the Workers Unem- ployment Insurance Bill (H. R. 7598) the role of the Trade Union and) mass organizations must be taken into consideration and clarified. The Militant Union and the Organization of the Unemployed Today, the majority of the work- ers who are members of the trade unions and mass organizations are unemployed. These workers must be organized into Unemployment Councils, which will carry on mili- tant action around the grievances of the workers and for relief. In our every day work we can see very serious shortcomings on the part of the unions—with the/ exception of one or two, which are, Independent Unions. | statement ployed work—and which have a re- flection of the entire work of the revolutionary organizations. Without exception, the attitude of all the militant unions, is that the organization of the unemployed workers, who are members of their organization, is purely the concern | of the Unemployment Councils of Greater New York. This attitude is one that is retarding, not only the growth of the unemployed movement, but also the unions themselves. This can best be seen when we look at the strong unem- ployed movement out of town, and where locals of the steel union have been built because of the cor- rect work carried on among the unemployed steel workers. The A. F. of L. never concerned itself with the welfare of the un- employed, and thousands of .unem-! - ployed workers have been sus- pended from their locals for not paying dues. It is therefore the task of the rank and file opposi- tion to mobilize and organize the unemployed in their locals and to carry on a campaign for the rein- of dropped members. They must also mobilize these yorkers for a struggle for relief and ior the Workers Unemployment In- surance Bill (H. R. 7598). sufficient to on!¢ carry on activity among the employed and | standing members of the local. The militant trade unions and the rank and file oppositions with- in all reformist organizations must be the leaders in the building up of powerful Unemploymeat Coun- cils. They must take the initiative and establish in their own locals Unemployment Committees of Ac- tion, that will take responsibility for mobilizing all of the unem- ployed workers who are in need of relief, ete. The campaign for the Workers Unemployment Bill must be broad- ened and the workers in the shops and factories must be won for its support. It is of the greatest im- portance that United Action shall be initiated into all of the localities for relief and around the specific grievances that, may arise. At this period, it is necessary that the unity of all workers employed and unemployed shall be welded in struggle, The attempts of the bosses and government to use the unemployed as a club against the employed, and lower the trade union scales of wages—won through years of militant action—must be taken back. It is the task of all militant organizations to be in the forefront in cementing the unity of all workers in the struggle for ade- quate cash relief and for the Workers Unemployment Insurance making some attempt to do unem- Bill (H. R, 7598), It is not} pose every splitting move of the reformists, we will win over the mass of textile workers to our class struggle program. This was proven time and again during the na- tional silk strike, when the strug- gle policy of the N. T, W. U. was accepted and carried out by the masses of silk and dye workers in the Independent Unions and in the A. FOL. | In some instances this was car- ried through so effectively that the A. F. L. leaders, who wanted to split the ranks of the strikers, were forced to accept unity at the de- termincl insistence of their rank and 4. In the Paterson dye strike, the A. F. L. rank and file members forced their leaders to come to the headquarters of the National Textile Workers Union and ask for speakers for their (A. F. L.) strike meeting. In Easton and Allentown the A. F. L. rank and} file brought their leaders to our| |strike meetings and forced them| to accept the proposals for a “united strike committee, and united picket lines.” | Work in A. F. L. Tt is precisely because we did not organize a solid opposition group within the A. F. L. to fight for the united front from the inside while the N. T. W., U. hammered away for it from the outside, that we failed to crystallize this senti- ment into definite organized action accomp united front of all wi in the National Silk strike, the strikers could have won a major victory. For this stri | greatest tie-up of the silk industry | that ever took place in the United | States. | However the united front cannot be a conciliatory measure. It must be a measure of uniting the work- | ers on- a broadest scale in a com- |mon struggle for their daily de- mands. If it was necessary to apply the united front tactics during the na- tional silk strike, it is doubly nece: sary to do so now after the strike. | The N. R. A. is intensifying its at- | tacks on the living standards of the textile workers. It is increas- | ing the stretch-out in the mills to an unprecendented degree, above all it is desperately trying to smash any of the workers’ at- |tempts to strike against their grievances. This unity of action is on the! order of the day in the shops in Paterson. However the united front in struggle will not be estab- | lished in Paterson unless we con- ously build a functioning opposi- 1 movement within the A, F. L., d thus lead the workers in stru: gle over the heads of the mislead- \ers (Schweitzer, Keller), and despite the “no strike” agreement. There is yet another phase of our work in which we must develop our united front, and that is in the unemployed struggles of the textile workers. The reformist | leaders are not concerned with the | mass ley-offs of dye workers in the Jersey dye plants, or in the cotton mills in New Bedford. Our Union must become the vanguerd in the struerie for jobs or relief for these textile workers, and thus. win over the rank and file of the A. F. L.| to our struggle program. Build the Party All this work cannot be accom- lished unless we involve the en- tire Perty from top to bottom, in every district, in active trad2 uinon work. At the same time our com- rades, and especially these party members who are ‘trade union or- ganizers must understand that un- less they consistently and con- ciously build the Party in every struggle, the trade union movement will be without a backbone. There will be a constant danger of the reformists taking the leadership of the workers away from us. Comrede Browder in his speech at the 18th Plenum of the Central Committee of our Party dealt with this subject very thoroughly. He said, “In that mass union where we did not recruit into the Party, we had no struggles for the Party line, and that means that our lead- ership in that union is very weak and precarious and we may lose it at any moment.” That statement. of Comrade Browder’s has been proven in our practical work time and again. Let us study it thoroughly, and apply it daily in our mass work, thus Struggle Aga e ® e e e e e 7 ress Trade Union Work, Strikes in Pre-Convention Discussion | inst All j J Reformists in Mines * Of Southern [llinoid |Suecesses Made In Exposing Musteites, eS ae | And Other Fakers Among Coal By RALPH SHAW, | Organizer C. P, Southern Illinois | The experiences in the Illinois coal fields in the struggle against re- formism, particularly the “left” re- |formist of the Muste type are of | value especially. at this time when these reformists are embarking upon | a large scale “business” (A. W. P. | Labor Party, American Miners Edu- jcational League, etc.) to stem the growing upsurge in the ranks of the workingclass and to put up new |barriers to keep the workers from the Communist ranks. | The Ilinois coal fields have been | fertile ground for all sorts of mis- leaders, various shades of reform- | ists, Musteites, socialists, “left” alli- ance with reactionary leaders and | petty. politicians to mislead the |miners and to carry on the most | vicious and insidious attacks upon |the Communist Party must be | known to every active Party mem- | ber, so that we may be able to | fight these elements better and more effectively elsewhere and in the future. To us Communists in the Hlinois coal fields it is more clear than ever before, that the miners cannot be united and freed from the yoke of the PMA and UMWA misleaders without defeating these reformists in all their shading and varieties, nor can the Communist Party obtain Tasks of Mass Work of The Communist Party The fulfilment of (these) fun- damental tasks demands the genuine reorganization of the whole of the mass work of the Communist Parties, especially the work in the factories and trade unions, which still rep- resents their weakest sector. In the situation when the toilers are in a@ state of great ferment, the Communists, while taking into account the moods of the masses, must formulate slogans and de- Mands in such a way as to make them arise from the present level of the movement; at the same time thy must show the workers the revolutionary way out. This means: \ a) That the content and lan- guage of agitation and the press must henceforth be addressed to the broadest strata of the pro- letariat and the toilers, showing the face of the Communist Parties in both agitation and in mass actions (demonstrations, strikes and other mass actions). b) Securing within the shortest time possible a decisive turn to the work in the factories, con- centrating the forces of the Party organization in the de- cisive enterprises and raising the political level of the leadership given by the factory nuclei to the dally class struggle. ¢) Putting an end to the op- portunist, defeatist negiect of trade union work and in par- ticular work inside the reformist trade unions and the mass fas- cist and Christian trade unions, in accordance with the directives given by the Twelfth Plenum of the E, C. C. I. on the work inside the trade unions, qd) Really developing mass work among the unemployed, carrying on an untiring fight for social insurance, for all kinds of municipal relief, e) Intensifying work in the rural districts, opposing the landlord - kulak slogan of a “united countryside” by the class slogans of the toilers and by the agrarian program of the Soviet revolution; at the same ti! deevloping the fight for all the partial demands of the peasantry, at the same time opposing the kulak demands which conflict with the interests of the proletariat and the village poor; obtaining a foothold (trade unions of agricultural workers, peasant committees) among the farm laborers, poor peasants and the semi-proletarian elements of the villages; to wih over the basic masses of the small and middle peasants, + f) Increasing the mass work among women, at the same time promoting and training even now, a body of active Party women, who, during the war, could in a number of cases replace mobilized comrades, g) Putting an end to the narrowness of the Young Com- munist League and really turn- ing it towards the masses of working youth, struggling against the compulsory government sys- tem of fascization and militari- zation, The Communist Parties must give every possible help to the Y. C. L. in developing the work inside the mass bourgeois and reformist youth organiza- tions (cultural, sporting, ete.) and in the formation of Y. C. L. cells in the factories. * revolutionary FROM THE RESOLUTION OF THE 13TH PLENUM OF building a mass solid textile Union and a stable active unist THE E.C.C.1. Diggers In Illinois Fields decisive leadership without isolating | these radical phrasemongers. | Mistakes in the Struggle Against Reformists There was hesitancy on the of the Party Teadership in the coal | fields to concretely expose the man- |euvers of the social-fascists.. This opportunism in practice led many | miners to be under the illusion that Agnes Burns Wieck was a real red and even contaminated some Party members to believe that “if we don’t attack her, she might come over to | For example, at the time of the | Springfield march last October, | when these elements (Allard, Wieck, |etc.) seized again upon our correct | slogans, but were unwilling to carry out the tasks of the united front with the Communists, the Party was |hesitant to criticize; then again, | after the Cleveland Trade Union | Conference when Musteites signed | the program for action in the min- | ing fields but did nothing to carry jit out. In fact, AHard broke it as | soon as he returned to Tiinois, sStéll the Party was slow in exposing these acts. Only after the Women’s aux- iliary Convention in November, did the Party in the coal fields take a firm hand—and since then it can register definite progress, ongemiza- | tionally and poli(*zally as a result of this firmness and clarity. Only after we opened fire against | the main danger, the Musteites and | other social fascists and reformists, | only by presenting to the miners clearly the difference between the Communist Party and afl these other elements, were we able to | make headway in building the Party on the one hand and in laying the base for the isolation of the Muste- ites from the decisive sections of the miners. In our daily work among the fol- lowers and members of the SP. and Musteites we found three main illusions keeping these workers away from us: (a) That both the Socialist and Communist Parties are work- ingelass parties and from this flows expectation that leaders must first unite, etc., ete. (b) That the work- ers must first go through the S.P. and then into the Communist Party because socialism comes before Com- munism. (c) That the Communis Party has a “rule or ruin” policy. 4 These illusions, in reality th poisonous propaganda of socialis leaders and renegades, is rampant among the miners. This has led for example, in Macoupin County, to a situation where sincere rank and file miners organized so- cialist branches which were to act as “the bridge to the Communist Party.” Even S.P. organizers down state, though they knew better, chime in to this policy, And when- ever S.P. members want to join the Communist Party, these organizers tell them: “Let us reform the 8. P. first, if it fails, then we'll join the Communist Party.” (Rasmussen, 8. P. organizer.) Amidst all these groupings and re- Sroupings how did we approach the miners to join the ranks of the Communist Party? 1) We concretely pointed to the experiences in P.M.A. and U.M.W.A., to show that no matter how radical |Tesolutions and talks, there can be |no militant class struggle union | without Communist leadership. We | showed concrete illustrations of rad- ical words and deeds to convince the miner that only strong Com- munist organization in every union can guarantee it representing the interests of the miners, by placing tried and tested workers into the leaderships. S. P, Members Joined Party 2) We dramatized the experiences in the unemployed struggles, suc- cesses and falures and the reasons for it, Example, Macoupin County, where a splendid mass movement of the unemployed was split and weak- encd by the reformists together with the sheriffs, because we failed to simultan2ously build the Party and substituted outside organizers for local leadership. 8) We proved by concrete in- stances (Continental Congress, | Mooney and Anti-war Congress, also | Borders Alliance) that only by building Communist Party units and taking intiative will we be able to force 8.P. into United Front. 4) That the revolutionary way out of the crisis cannot be achieved without having at least lower or- gans of the unions in the decisive sections in the hands of the revo- lutionary workers. This means that key positions, such as pit commit- tee, secretary, etc. must be won from the reactionaries and their lit- tle brothers, the social-fascists. In addition to this, giving atten- tion to qualitative strengthening of the Party in every unit, developing ‘one or two comrades to speak on the floor and be politically prepared to take independent action, without. waiting for organizers or direction in @ given event. This is of special importance in widely separated min- ing towns. Much improvement can be in our approach to rank and file S.P. members, that is, a most com- radely approach side by side with systematic exposure of the leaders, Wherever this was done (Nokomis, Taylor Springs, Hillsboro), a ma- jority of the S.P. members jet the Party. Today we have at 1 15 per cent our former members of the SR, ce RNR rd m 4