THE COMMUNIST December 20th, 1919.
Communist Party and AVY inquiries have been received by the It is from this viewpoint that we value industrial editor about the relation between the Com unionism as against craft unionism, though it is munist Party and The questions undoubtedly true that craft unionism has had its submitted may be summarized as follows: advantages for particular groups of workers, ad.
vantages now decidedly on the decline because 1) What is the difference between the Com of capitalist concentration. But the objective of munist Party and the Communism is the proletarian revolution, and its concern with all immediate actions of the work2) Is the the ideal organization on ing class, in the economic as in the political field, the economic field, or should the Commu is their tendency and potency with regard to the nist Party strive to create another economie ultimate revolutionary aspects of the class struggle.
industrial union?
The Communist Party is an organization for 3) Is the Communist Party in favor of sa revolutionary propaganda. Its immediate busibotage ness and its ultimate business are one and the same thing always the propaganda of the 4) Is the Communist Party in favor of direct proletarian revolution and of the Communist reaction construction The special mission of the Communist Party is to analyze the class struggle as 51 How do you define direct action: it develops from day to day, and to put this anal.
6) What is the relation between the ysis at the service of the working class for whatever guidance it may give in the immediato and anarchism?
struggles. The Communist Party, by its work 7) Is mass action a direct action?
of education and agitation, trains and inspires for revolutionary leadership and for critical Question No.
understanding on the part of a considerable group of workers, so that the immediate actions are, The accurate scientific way to answer this quesperhaps imperceptibly, made to acquire a contion is to consider what historical circumstances scious revolutionary Communist character. What account for the existence of each of these organthe Communist Party organizes, within itself, is izations and what life purposes they have to fulproletarian revolutionary consciousness and unfil. Some phrases or sentences appearing in the derstanding. Outside itself, the Communist Party literature of either organization cannot answer aims to give emphasis to those tendencies in the the question labor movement which appear to lead most directThe is a labor union. It is a special ly and surely to the proletarian conquest of the kind of labor union. It came into existence in political power, this being the necessary first 1905 in opposition to the dominant trade unionism achievement for the Communist social reconrepresented by the of It sought an instruction.
dustrial and class basis for unionism, as opposed There could be no possible confusion between to the narrow craft basis. It accepted the class struggle as its guiding principle of action, not the any kind of a labor union and an organization purely for revolutionary propaganda, except that capitalist contract system which was fundamental the by reason of many circumstances in the action of the of the trade unionists regarding their craftsmanship as a species which cannot here be reviewed, has been hitherto thwarted in becoming an actual union except in a of capitalistic property. Above all, the very limited way in certain particular fields: meant the bringing into the unions of the un especially among timbermen, longshoremen, metal skilleci, of groups of workers heretofore ignored miners, and other groups of semi skilled heavy in the domain of union organization It is this laborers. The has itself become primarlatter item which has made the so unique ily propaganda organization, and has unin character and of revolutionary spirit.
doubtedly had a profound influence upon the labor Industrial unionism, simply as a distinct form movement in this country and elsewhere through of uniorism, using the United Mine Workers as its propaganda and through the character of its an example, is not necessarily either revolution fighting in the important strikes in which it has ary nor in opposition to the of It is a played a part. Indeed, the propaganda challenge to craft unionism as to greater effec has gone outside the union field, in a sense, into tiveness, and certainly there is no question about the political field, by its free speech fights in the effectiveness of an industrial strike such as the West and by its class challenge as made we have just witnessed on the part of the United through the courts.
Mine Workers.
The propaganda of the outside the The is of revolutionary significance advocacy of industrial unionism itself, has been of because it identifies industrial unionism with the variegated pattern, and the only reason for any class struggle. This is not settled by quoting the friction between the and the Communist world famous preamble of the but by Party is the fact that some of the recognizing that the unionism of the unskilled propagandla has been anti Communist.
and semi skilled necessarily brings to the front the class issue. We have seen how the unionism There is nothing about the which the class issue to the front, when they strike as should make its general properanda anything other than the program of the Communist Party; of the steel workers and miners inevitably brings but even with absolute agreement on propaganda an industrial mass, instead of as craft groups. principles the two organizations would go on sicle At the present stage of economic concentration, by side. The. is still a union, in form of any stirring of the anderlying mass of workers is Organization and in practical purposes. Its propa.
bound to take on momentum toward the proletarian revolution. There is no possible basis for ganda, after all, is meant to attract workers to the as a union. Indeed there are men in the compromise between capitalism and the mass of unskilled labor. Capitalism depends upon having who do not take the propaganda any more seriously than for its advertising value in at its absolute merey a large body of unskilled.
unorganized laborers. It will accept the unionism getting members into the union. But most of the members of the are imbued with the of one tenth of the workers, welding this group spirit of the class struggle as a revolutionary into an anti revolutionary labor aristocracy?
and using this group against the general mass struggle for working class domination of the social System We might say that these members are of the unorganized workers. But when of is itself invaded by the unskilled and semiCommunists who are in a favorable position for skilled, as in the basic steel industry, then Judge carrying on revolutionary propaganda within the Gary takes a stand even against collective barunion fiell, and this is of the highest value.
gaining, e, against making contracts with his But there is always the need for an organization workers cnforceable by a strike of the whole steel which concentrates entirely on the revolutionary industry. From this viewpoint it is apparent propaganda, untrammelled by any purposes of imwhy the coal strike was of such fundamental immediate gains, economic or legislative. Such an portance to the capitalist system that the governorganization alone can maintain the perspective ment intervened to break the strike, and to take of the labor movement in its entirety. Such an care that whatever gains came to the miners organization alone is safe from being diverted to would appear to be voluntary grants, by aid of its own immediate organization advantages, which the government, rather than concessions won is not the case with unions, co operatives, or directly on the strike field, thereby impressing political organizations built on participation in upon the miners their class power.
capitalist democracy for the winning of legislative reforms.
Unionism is bound to adapt itself to the conditions of struggle under highly concentrated capQuestion No. italiem. It was the which first gave conscious expression to this new form and It is not the work of the Communist Party to temper of unionism in the United States. Not strictly first, because the itself was an build a new industrial union. Our work is to promote the revolutionary tendencies throughout amalgamation of several existing organizations the labor movement. Our fundamental underwhich had already anticipated its principles; but standing is that the forces of life, the pressure of the first to make a general propaganda of revolutionary industrial unionism and to lay down a imperialistic capitalism, compels the workers to Lasis for the entire te organization of the labor accept new tactics. In: primitive stage of the union mosement along new lines.
class struggle one might talk about creating a new kind of union as an example: but in the present advanced stage this would be about the same as the proposition of trying out Communism On the other hand, the Communist Party is the on a South Sea Island. We must deal with the immediate organizem expression in the United actual complications of the industrial world and States of the propaganda of the proletarian rev of the labor movement as it lives and struggles olution going back to the Communist Manifesto today. We cannot declare by fiat that it shall all of 1817. The Communist Party to presents no inbegin over again on correct logical principles. It terests of labor except the totality of interests must go on and on, and it is our task to bring to embraced in the proletarian revolution itself.
the front the tendencies in the actual living strug.
All of unionism is of interest to the Commun ule which appear to us most directly in line with ist Party as it develops the forces which lead to the goal of the social revolution.
the proletarian overthrow of capitalism and to The minute the Communist Party begins to build the establishment of Communist industrialism a union of its own it ceases to be a Communist Party, but becomes a union; that is, its chief busines becomes the demonstration of actual better union results with its own specially created union.
As to picking out the as the ideal organization on the economic field, that is of the same logic. No matter how highly the Communist Party may value the and its work, no matter how closely we may come to co operate in this work, it would still be a fatal error for the Communist Party to prefer the as actual union, to other unions which exist or which may come into existence in the same field.
Certainly there is no objection to every member of the Communist Party joining the But that cloes not mean that Communists should not also belong to other unions. Indeed many members of the either from necessity or by choice, are also members of other unions. So of the Communists. The question of joining a union is to be answered individually according to locality and possibilities of choice. Nor is it a question of ileal organizations, but a question of the highest individual effectiveness in promoting the Communist propaganda. It might be argued that anything which promotes the as an organization is of itself effective aid toward the social revolution, but this argument would have to be limited by time and circumstance. The Communist Party cannot create within itself an organization loyalty as against the labor movement in its totality it must be ready at every moment to adapt itself to changing circumstances and to work with all organizations, whether ideally.
started or not, which at a given crisis take up the revolutionary challenge of the class struggle. It must strive, above all, to attain a central unity of revolutionary proletarian action surmounting all the organization boundaries which exist in advance of the revolutionary crisis. The program of the Communist International points to the council, arising out of the revolutionary struggle itself.
as the centralizing organization unit.
The loyalty of a Communist cannot be to any form of organization but always to the social revolution. Menibership in a union, as a Communist, must constantly meet the test of the development of the class strugle. There is no question but that a strong case can be made for Communist membership in the W. at the pressent time.
and the case woull be far stronger if the made its general propaganda that of Communism.
Question No.
Sabotage is a very loose term, but without entering into any extensive definitions and analysis it is enough to say that the Communist Party believes in the highest practical adaption of tactics to the conditions of struggle. Comrade Katayama favored us quite recently with a description of the use of sabotage by the Japanese workers under conditions where the strike itself illegal, and where there is no chance for union organization with strike funds. But we would not consider that sabotage, in the broadest understanding of the term as representing a general mass action, would ever present a question of what is legitimate and what is not legitimate. The question is entirely one of the most effective generalship under a given set of circumstances.
The working class cannot, in the final analysis, choose its methods of combating the capitalist oppression. The Communists refuse, therefore, to lay down any principles by which any forms of action shall be held taboo. under any and all circumstances. It is up to the ruling class to get off the worker back if they want universal amiThe Socialist Party clause against sabotage, adopted by referendum in 1912, was a disgrace to the labor movement in the United States, in that it accepted the capitalist moral valuation of a form of working class action. The Communists have no such moral valuations. The question is one of effectiveness under actual circumstances: of what is actually proposed to be done and of its apparent suitability to get results.
Question No.
Yes.
Question No.
By direct action we understand the opposite to representative, indirect legislative action. The tem direct action arose as a demand for union action for political aims, contrary to dependence on parliamentarism.
Question No.
The has suffered from a degree of infusion of anarchist cloctrines in its general propaganda. This is the derivation of the antipolitical or non political theorizing of some of the writers. The demand for immediate, clirect abolition of the State, in favor of independent autonomous local associations of workers, industry by industry, is the modern theme of anarchism. Communism demands the Dictatorship of the Proletariat the special State of the proletariat as the central and all important means for the social reconstruction. The abolition of the State as an organ of class oppression is considered the inevitable result of the Communist suppression of bourgeois exploitation.
Question No.
Mass action has the same derivation as direct action, only the term mass action is broader, being all inclusive of working class action, whereas the term direct action is particularly a descristive of union action.
ability