FOUR THE COMMUNIST program of immediate action, both in domestic the revolutionary movement and political life. on a continual propaganda to win the trade and foreign policy only then will the acquisi This work in the parliaments must be fully un! ons over to the side of the proletarian revo.
tion of political power cease to be a casual subordinated to the objects and tasks of the lution, and developing the leadership of the episode, but will serve as a starting point for mass struggle outside of the parliaments. trade and industrial unions by the Communist the gradual realization of the Communist So The bourgeois parliaments, which constitute Party of America.
ciety, one of the most important Instruments of the The reactionary unions containing chiefly the The class struggle likewise demands that the bourgeois state machinery, cannot be won over skilled workers, the better paid, limited by general guidance of the various forms of the by the proletariat any more than can the bour their craft narrowness, fettered by their bureauproletarian movement (such as labor unions, geois order in general. The task of the pro cratic machinery which isolates them from the cooperative associations, cultural educational so letariat consists in destroying the entire machi masses, demoralized by their opportunist leadcieties, election campaigns, etc. be centered nery of the bourgeois state, including all tho ers; these trade unions betrayed not only the in one organization. Only a political party can parliamentary institutions.
cause of the social revolution, but even their be such unifying and guiding centre. The class The parliamenatry system of the bourgeois own every day struggle for the improvement srtuggle of the proletariat demands a concen. government of the United States, being based of wages and conditions for the workers within rated propaganda, throwing light upon the upon a rigid constitution and the division of their own organizations, foregoing the pure and various stages of the fight, a unified point of authority among forty eight states, each with simple trade union struggle agaist their em.
view, directing the attention of the proletariat its apparatus of independent legislatures, gov ployers and substituting the program of colat each given moment to the definite tasks to ernors, courts, etc. makes the capitalist dicta lective bargaining and industrial peace, thus working class as a be accomplished by the torship, which is screened behind the bourgeois bulwarks of making the trade unions actual whole.
democracy, a formidable power in the hands capitalism.
Notwithstanding this sad state of The Communist Party of America, section of of the capitalists for the crushing of working affairs, and bearing in mind the recent influx the Third Communist International, is part of class aspiration. Large masses of the prole of large masses into the unlong, and the obthe working class, namely, its most advanced tariat, such as the negroes, migratory workers, jectively revolutionary character of the struggle and intelligenet, its most self sacrificing and foreign born workers, etc. are disfranchised. that these masses are carrying on in spite of class conscious, and therefore its most revolu The working class of the United States now the trade union bureaucracy, the Communist tionary part. The Communist Party has no faces the naked dictatorsh! of the bourgeoisie. Party of America makes it obligatory for its interests other than those of the work ng class. While the Communist Party of America makes members to participate in the activities of such It differs from the general mass of the workers its major campaigns and activities among the unions in order to make of them effective organs in that it takes a general view of the whole working class in their mass struggles, outsid in the struggle against capital sm and for Com historical march of the working class, and at of the parliaments, it will participate in elec munism. All voluntary withrawals from the every turn of the road it endeavors to defend tions and election canıpaigns for revolutionary trade unions, every artificial attempt to organize the interests, not of separate groups or pro propaganda and agitation only.
special unions, unless compelled to do so by fessions, but of the working class as a whole.
The American bourgeois democratic state exceptional acts of violence on the part of the The Communist Party is the organized political early recognized in the Communist Party of trade union bureaucracy (such as expulsion of and lever by means of which the more advanced America its historic and deadly enemy, separate revolutionary branches by reactionary part of the working class leads all the prole used all its power in an onslaught against it. officials, their narrow, aristocratic policy, proBeing outlawed, the Communst Party re organtarian and semi proletarian mass.
from hibiting unskilled workers joining the The Communist Party, during the period of ized its units into an underground illegal party. unions, etc. represents a grave danger to the the dictatorship. will systematically and con This fact for the present prevents the Commun. Communist movement.
stantly direct the work of the Soviets as well ist Party from participating in the elections The Communist Party of America will develop as of the revolutionized industrial unions. The under the name of the Communist Party. from its ranks the most determined leaders in Communist Party, the organized vanguard of the economic struggle of the trade unions, and the working class, must direct the struggle of Trade and Industrial Unions and in this way take the lead in the trade union the entire class on the economic and political Factory Committees.
movement and make of it an organ of the It fields, and also in the field of education, Only revolutionary struggle for Communism.
must be the animating spirit in the Soviets, the Trade unionism had its origin in the craft in this manner can the disintegration of the in all other forms of industrial unions, and divisions of small industry of the handicraft Only by removing trade unions be prevented.
proletarian organization.
period, and consisted primarily of highly skilled the old bureaucratic machinery, now inacces.
workers. The concentration of industry and sible to the toiling magses, and replacing it Mass Action the development of indusrtial technique reduced by the system of shop delegates, leaving only the most routine work for the central executives, and made unnecessary the skill of large masses In those countries where the historical devethe can the old reactionary trade unions be reof workers, but the reactionary trade unions opportunity, lopment has furnished the still maintain the ideology of property, contract, replaced by industrial unions.
working class has utilized the regime of poliorganization and obsolete craft divisions. The concentration against tical democracy for its The members of the Communist Party will of Industry has produced the machine workers lead and participate in every effort on the part capitalism In all countries where the condi.
who are massed in the large basic industries of the unorganized workers in their attempts tions for a proletarian revolution are not yet But within and constitute the militant factor in the class ripe, the same process will go on.
to organize into unions initiating the organisrtuggle. In modern capitalist society the old, zation unions where these do not exist, and this process the workers must never lose sight The petty, isolated, craft strike is useless.
will lead them in the class struggle toward of the true character of bourgeois democracy.
development of machinery and the concentration the proletarian revolution The capitalist class shields its deeds of violence of industry created the necessity for industrial The Communist Farty will not hesitate before behind parliamentary votes, and in order to unions. The Communist Party recognizes that a split in the trade unions, if a refusal to split rain its ends it has at its command all the industrial unions are a more efficient weapon would mean the abandoning of revolutionary anilmart and attainments nt centuries of capi.
in tno struggle of the workers for higher wages work in the unions and giving up the attempt to takist class rule, multiplied by the wonders of and improved conditions under capitalism. But organize the most exploited part of the prothe present technical development, and employthe industrial unions alone cannot mobilize the letariat. If such a split should become necesing in addition, les demagogism, slander, briworking masses for the proletaran revolution sary, it must be carried into effe. only when bery persecution, torture, and murder.
and the overthrow of the bourgeois state. In the Communists, by incessant agitation against The revolutionary epoch upon which we have dustrial now entered, forces upon unionism (Syndicalism)
the proletariat the denies the the reactionary leaders and their opportunist application of militant methods, namely mass necessity for establishing the proletariau dicta tactics, and by their active participation in the torship and Soviet government during the tran.
economic struggle, have succeeded in persuading action, which leads to direct collision with the sition period from capitalist society to Comthe masses that the split is occuring not because armed bourgeois state, developing into insurSyndicalism rection and civil war.
munist society.
The centralized power advocates the of some remote and as yet incomprehensible Utopian plan of direct seizure of industrial aim of the revolution, but on account of the of the capitalist class is exercised through its plants when the majority of the workers are concrete, immediate interests of the working control of the state machinery, the army, navy, organized into industrial untons, entirely ignorclass in the development of its economic strug.
police, courts, bureaucracy, etc. by means of ing the power of the capitalist state, case gle. The Communist Party will (in which it imposes its will upon the workers the Only after the conquest of political power, Mass action is the proletarian revolt against necessity for a split arises) continuously and after the establishment of the proletarian diccarefully consider the question as to whether the power and oppression of the cap! talist class, such a split might not lead to isolation from tatorship, can the revolutionized industrial unions and develops as the spontaneous activity of the become the starting point for the Communist the working masses.
workers massed in the large industries; the reconstruction of society.
mass strike and mass demonstration being That the majority of the working class among its initial forms, In these strikes and can be organized into Factory Committees demonstrations large masses of workers industrial unions, and, under capitalism, leaving are Out of the economic chaos developing in Ame.
the bourgeois state intact, construct the comunified in the struggle. They develop new rica, the laboring masses will endeavor to create munist society. building the new society withtactics and a new ideology. As these strikes in the shell of the old. is as utopian and organizations which will be able to commence grow in number and intensity they acquire reactionary as the conception of the opportunist a struggle for the alleviation of the situation political character by coming into collision and socialists of the gradual growing into socialby means of workers control over production, open combat with the capitalst state, which ism.
through the medium of factory committees.
openly employs all its machinery to break the This aspiration to create factory committees strikes and to crush the workers organizations.
The historic experience of the socialist move takes its origin from the most varied causes, This culminates in armed insurrection and civil ment in America in its relation to the trade namely, struggle against the counter revoluunions, its early aim to maintain contact with war aimed directly at the destruction of the tionary bureaucracy, discouragement after a the organized working masses, capitalist state and the establishment of the and its later strike, or the defeat of the unions, or the desire proletarian dictatorship.
impatience with the slowness of the process to create an organization embracing all workRévolutionary mass action, which culminates of educating and leading the workers by workers, etc. but in the end it results in the struggle in civil war, cannot attain its objective, the ing within the reactionary trade unions, devefor control over industry, which is the special loped the attempt during the period of 1895 destruction of the bourgeois state machinery, historic task of the factory committees.
These unless the entire mags movement is under the to artificially stimulate the organization of factory committees should not be formed ex control and guidance of the Communist Party.
brand new, class conscious labor unions, clusively of working men such who already under as the Socialist Trade The Communist Party of America will syste. While on the other hand, the opportunist official and Labor Alliance. stand and are fighting for the proletarian matically and persistently propagate to the dictatorship, the Communist Party will organize working class the idea of the inevitability of, policy of the yellow reformist socialists of all workers on the basis of the economic crisis, and necessity for a violent revolution, and will catering to and supporting the reactionary leadand lead them toward the struggle for the prepare the working class for armed insurrection ers of the American Federation of Labor and dictatorship of the proletariat by developing similar organizations led to the abandonment as the only means for the destruction of the the concrete struggle for workers control over bourgeois state and the establishment of the of the struggle within the old unions by the industry, which they all understand.
proletarian dictatorship based upon Soviet power.
more advanced workers, and in 1905 of the and the rise of syndicalthe formation These factory committees cannot be substiism (industrial unionism) in the United States.
tuted for the trade unions. The trade unions Parliamentary Action are now central fighting organs, although they The Communist Party of America, in its The Communist Party of America recognizes cannot embrace such broad masses attitude toward the trade and industrial union that in the revolutionary struggle of the prole.
workers as the factory committees are capable movement, rejects the tactics of both the retarlat it must use all the means of propaganda and agitation to win the exploited masses over formist, opportunist socialists, and the pseudoof, since the factory committees are accessible The to all the workers of a given industry.
to its side.
revolutionary syndicalists, and rearms its po.
One of these means is the bourdivision of tasks between the factory sition as adopted at the Second Convention of geois parliament. This work within the parliamittees and the trade and Industrial unions the Communist Party of America, and as get mente consists in making revolutionary propais the result of the historic development of forth in the theses and decisions of the Second ganda from the parliamentary platform, the World Congress of the Communist International, the social revolution. The trade and Industrial denunciation of the enemies of the masses, the unions organize the working masses on a na viz: of participation within the trade unions Ideological unification of the masses who are tional scale for the struggle to increase wages in their every day struggles, maintaining constill looking up to the parliamentary platform, The factory and shorten the hours of labor.
tact at all times with the organized working captivated by democratic illusions, and to win committees are organized for workers control masses, while incessantly, systematioally and over those elements of the workers, such as over production, in the struggle to resist the mercilessly criticizing and exposing the social tenant farmers, the village proletariat and the economic crisis, and embrace all the workers patriotic and reactionary leaders, destroying the semi proletarlat, who have stood far away from official trade unions bureaucracy, and carrying in all the industries; but the movement can only gradually take on national scope, Only of the com