Batprday, March 1, 1930 THE MILITANT Page The Mining Situation and the Tasks of the Left Wing Statement of the National Committee of the Communist League of America (Opposition)
union Three recent events have made it nec. the distrust and antagonism among the mentarism, it is also one of the ways in bureaucracy and class collaboration.
essary to consider the situation in the miners. Instead of consolidating and ex which workers frequently repay the work is a refutation of the schematic (not Marx mining industry and the tasks of the Left tending the front of the in pre ers political party for mismanagement and ist) conception held by the Party (partio wing. They are: the heavy defeat suf paration for the strike, the Party leader for dominating the trade union with the ularly by Foster) of the fatalistic defered by the Left wing National Miners ship created a situation which narrowed rigidity, bureaucratic arbitrariness, me cline of the A, of the theoretical Union in the Illinois strike the call for the union basis down to the smallest min chanical and formalistic transference of foundation upon which have been erected an international anti Lewis United Mine imum. The whole campaign of the the party into the union which is typical the ruinous policies in the trade union Workers convention, a call signed by the in Illinois at that time was conducted of Stalinism. We warned about such an movement now pursued by the official heads of the Illinois district together with under the banner of the slogan that the eventuality months ago in our comments Party machine.
John Brophy, Alexander Howat, August principal enemies of the miners against on the Belleville Conference. The sudden There is power behind the new moveDorchy. Dougherty, eto, etc. and the whom the strike was to be directed were spread of erroneous syndicalist concep ment. Fishwick Farrington have a base call for a national convention of the Na. not the coal operators but. the Trotskytions among the Illinois miners may be in control of the Illinois district of the tional Miners Union itself.
ists, the the Socialist Farty put entirely at the door of the Party which is one of the two reNone of the large trade unions in the and the bureaucrats. To re consolidate the pres maining districts of the old union still country has been so heavily hit in the Irresponsibility, bombast and claims tige and strength of the Left wing and containing a hold on the workers in the past five years as the United Mine Work. based solely on wishes, predominance of Communist movements that have been dis industry. More than that, it has assoclers, The once powerful proletarion or narrow factional interest, playing with the credited by the methods of the official ated with it men like Brophy and Howat ganization has been rent from stem to interests of the class these were the out Party leaders, it will be necessary to who have been associated with the prostern. One district after another has been standing characteristics of the Party lead approach these syndicalist workers as gressive and Left wing movement for mercilessly crushed by the Lewis ma ership of the strike. The sub district fighters with whom the closest collabora years, and have a great prestige among chine controlling the union. Every pro conferences held a week before the strike tion must be established. The Party me the miners throughout the country. The gressive and Left wing member of the call was issued by the District Board, did thod of calumniation and name caling, notion prevalent in the minds of the Party union has been subjected to the most bru not have the strike on the agenda. The instead of seeking to unite with them and leaders that their denunciation of these tal regime of expulsion and persecution, leaders did not even take the discuss the problems and tasks of the men for departing from the Left wing 50 that the backbone of the militant re trouble of circulating a strike vote among movement with the aim of establishing movement hag discredited them among sistance to the ruinous course of the labor the miners which would have helped to clarity, must be repudiated as entirely the masses of the miners is entirely false false.
bureaucrats was broken. The vigorous draw broad masses into the struggle. The and a replacement of reality by desire.
offensive of the coal operators was coun essential basis of the strike forces was The progressive and Left wing sentitered by retreats all along the line, led among the unemployed miners and not The Fishwick Howat Brophy ment remaining in the of by Lewis and Co. The extension of the among those at work. No serious attempt Convention will therefore incline strongly towards Industry into the non union South en was made to agitate among the members supporting and pushing forward this movetirely unorganized to this day was not of the United Mine Workers to join the The call for an international conven ment as a legal expression of the fight followed at all by organizational action struggle, and everything was done to make tion of the directed against against reaction in the union. More than by the The union standards qollaboration with the members of the Lewis and Co. and signed by the Fish that, the miners who have dropped out of the workers have been beaten down in the coal fields impossible. In wick machine men plus Bropby, Howat, of the union, without joining the steadily by the operators who have had fact, every element in the situation that and others, yesterday allies of the Left or became passive and indifferent, will the scarcely concealed collaboration of the did not declare in advance its entire agree wing and the Party, creates a new get of tend to see in this movement the hope for union officialdom; and aggravating this ment with the political line of the Com circumstances in the mining industry reconstituting the organization to its fordecline in living standards has been the munist Party was deliberately repulsed. which can have far reaching consequences mer strength and to a new progressivism.
festering sore of unemployment The Party (i. e. the National Miners for the Left wing if it proves capable of The movement, therefore, will tend to beThe coul operators have been gaining Union) organizers, and their press (the viewing the situation objectively and act come a rallying ground for the dispersed all along the line. They have not been met Daily Worker, etc. devoted more time ing accordingly. This has also not yet and discourage progressive and Left wing with any effective resistance. Working and energy to com Hatting Trotskyism been done by the Party or by the official workers in the old union, the former mer hand in hand with his capitalist employers, than to organizing the combat against the Left wing which it controls. On the con bers in the disrupted districts, and even using the vilgst methods of corruption coul operators and their trade trary, it has limited itself to substituting in the ranks of the National Miners Union autocracy, black jack rule. Il expul agents.
mere denunciation for analysis. In seit.
sions and the like, Lewis and bis machine In the face of such a course, it is of separating and distinguishing between it is entirely true that any hopes or have bled the organization white.
The natural that the strike should have had so the various factors in the situation, the faith whatsoever placed in men like FishU. of today has been stripped calamitous and pitiful a conclusion, The Party has resorted to the vulgar method wick, Farrington, John Walker, etc. is to the point where it exists as a subwretched and cowardly attempts of the of identifying all groups outside itself and quite groundless and must end in bitter stantial organization. in only two dis Party leadership now to unload the re throwing them into one common pot of disappointment. These people have retricts: Illinois and the anthracite field.
sponsibility for their own criminal misindistinguishable reaction. Such interp cord which is not one whit different from Under its present leadership it does not management on to the shoulders of the retations of events, which make any seri that of Lewis. Like him, they ruled by the even make a pretense at fighting for the local leaders of the whom they ous analysis unnecessary. is guaranteed blackjack, gunmen and terror. Like hini, miners interests. It keeps what is left in directed at every step with the lash of in advance to make the Left wing a nar they have expelled militants and broken the union divided by sectional agreements; ruthless discipline, is both revolting and row, ingrown, self satisfied and uninflu up progressive local unions. Like him, throttles all initiative: drives members characteristic Stalinist self criticism. ential sect.
they worked hand in hand with the oper out of the union with the poison gas of The warning of the Communist Opposition, The ol struggle between the Fish ators against the elementary interests of corruption and terrorism, Indeed, there the indications that preparations were wick Farrington and the Lewis machines the miners. Their arch type is Farrington, is hardly another trade union in the lacking, the demand made upon the Party has been going on for years, interrupted the paid employee of the Peabody Coal country in which the complete bankruptto organize the campaign against the op at periods only by the necessity of making Company during his incumbency in the cy and criminality of the leadership and erators instead of against Watt, Angelo common cause against the Left wing.
office of Illinois district union president.
collaborationist policies bes been so con.
and others all these were unheeded. In That struggle was undoubtedly a fight for That is precisely why the Left wing must clusively demonstrated, the same way, the need for a considered loot and position, and falled to move any exercise its influence upon the workers in In the face of this utter bankruptcy analysis of the strike results is entirely substantial mass of the miners; it interthis movement, drive a wedge between the of Lewisism and the repeatedly expressed neglected even prohibited by the Party. ested primarily the big and petty union union nisleaders operators agents, and opposition of the bulk of the miners to it What is outstanding is the fact that officialdom and the operators.
What is self seekers on the one hand and the gen(at conventions, in union elections)
the has been practically elimin new in the situation is the fact that mon uinely progressive elements in the ranks etc. and the excellent opportunities for ated from the Illinois field as a decisive (and the groups they represent) like Bro and the leadership on the other.
progress thereby afforded the left wing factor at the present time. Its opportunity phy, Howat and Dorchy have joined with to deal with this movement by fronmovement, the latter has succeeded in for expansion particularly in face of the Fish wick in an anti Lewis fight; that the tal attack and simple denunciation alone making but little appreciable headway in scandalous Fishwick Lewis fight for the socialist party has given virtual endorseas is the Party method today, to neglect the industry as a decisive organized force. spoils was shamefully bungled. For this ment, and the Muste group)
to influence it from within, means only On the contrary. The course it has purthe responsibility rests exclusively and outright endorsement to the new combin one thing: The Left wing, willy nilly, will gued under the direction of the present four square on the shoulders of the Com ation. The Lewis faction has no progres be aiding Fishwick and Co, to establish Communist Party leadership has dealt It munist Party leaders. The present at sives in its ranks and does not make the virtually unhindered domination over tens severe blows which, combined with the tempt to retrieve the heavy losses in faintest pretend at a progressive pro of thousands of progressive minded worknew developments in Iluation, can curred in bungling a big situation by the gram What distinguishes the Fishwick ers who will lean to the new movement, prove fatal for its immediate future. To organization of sporadic small local strikes faction now is precisely the fact that the The Left wing must bear in mind that the prevent such a development, the Left wing in camps here and there is only adven progressives have joined with it and given present policy is only the other side must soberly and objectively observe the turist desperation that must be condemned it a different coloring, which will vitally of a counterfeit coin: Yesterday, the Sta.
newest events, absorb their significance leat the is completely wiped out affect the attitude of the progressive linists united in a most intimate bloc with and draw the proper conclusions. This and the Left wing is retarded for a long miners.
the most reactionary reformist leadere has not yet been done.
period.
The new combination and its conven(Purcell, Chiang Kai Shek, etn. without The Communist League reaffirms its tion call is at bottom a sign of vitality in any regard for the masses; today, they The Strike in Mlinois position contrary to that of the the of It will in the first again see only the leaders tbis time conThe National Miners Union strike in of urging the Illlinois miners to join in place, have a strong tendency to recondemning them out of hand. and again Illinois bore most of the characteristic the strike. Whatever the errors of the stitute the old union. In other words, forget that there is such a thing as work leadership, however false the policies they It is as much the reflection of the desire features of the present ruinous and aders in the ranks who follow them. Neither pursue, it is the duty of the militant and in the ranks of the miners for the estab.
polley has any articular virtue. The venturist course of the Party leadership which has been fastened to the new unions class conscious workers and workers or lishment of a strong union on a progressecond is only a despairing effort to cover with a strangling grip. The strike was ganizations to give wholehearted support sive basis as it is the expression of the up the traces of yesterday disappointto every struggle of the workers, to seek Fishwick machine intention to capitalize ments.
called with virtually no preparations made The to carry it through successfully.
to broaden and deepen its ranks, to clar. this desire for its own purpose.
The Left wing cannot regard the forBelleville District conference, four weeks ify it in action and purpose.
The development of this progressive mation of the as the end of the before the strike call war issued, was As a final consequence of the Illinois and semi progressive movement among the problem of the old union which still has devoted mainly to a thoroughly framed up strike is the foothold gained there for the miners in the old union is, furthermore, the bulli of the organized miners, or as polemic against the then national presi first time in years by the Even of significance for the labor movement as having solved the problemg of the Left dent of the union, John Watt, who dis as a passing phenomenon, it has an om whole, particularly for the of wing once and for all. It is rather a stage agreed with the Party policy of rigid, inous and instructive significance. If ayn It belles again the theory of the comin a long struggle to reconstitute the mimechanical control, The strike was not dicalism (that is, anti political party; anti plete bankruptcy of the of and is ners organization on a national scale on political action; bellet in the labor union The post conference proof positive that there are still at hand militant basis.
mentioned there.
In this struggle the attempts to discredit Watt among the min as the allsufficing instrument of the work powerful forces already in movement and Left wing organized in the National Miners ers, with the Party utilizing all the con ing class) is the punishment meted out to potential in the ranks of the old unions Union must retain its ability to maneuver.
tenintible methods 80 common to the re the revolutionary movement for the sins that offer a strong basis for the Left wing With only a few thousand members it its Alionary labor bureaucracy, only deepened of party opportunism and vulgar parlia and for a struggle against the labor union (Continued on Page 8)