Recent Lessons in Strike Strategy OPEN FORUM For a United Front on the Unemployed The isolated position of the British Con munist Party and the Minority movement reflects its internal life. There is not yet an organized Left Opposition. However, serious study of recent events in the with great struggles looming on the horizon By ARNE SWABECK a head on collison with the capitalist labor and thereby, the growth of the real proEuropean labor and revolutionary moveparty; with the social fascist trade unblems of the revolutionary movement, the ment would afford many valuable lessons. dispatch of January 28th, partly as follows: ions and into the building of new revolu experiences of the failures are bound to To bring some of these events out in their Premier MacDonald was forced by tionary unions could, of course, not pre become expressed in the development of momentous importance shoud be well worth the organized labor elements of his party vent the collapse.
such an Opposition.
while. Add to them a few home experiences to put the bill on his Parliamentary pro However, of more fatal consequence yet and we may approach the moot question of gram this session against his better judgBut to return to the question of the exproblems of strike strategy.
became the rank opportunist policy of the ent. He has fought hard for it, so thereby periences in the workers struggles and the What is a correct strike strategy? Ask united front with the liberal labor politic seriously risking the life of his government problems of strike strategy, we intend, in ians in the Anglo Russian Unity Committee.
the theoreticians of the Stalin school and and his own political fortunes. If it comes the next issue, to bring some further exThe British revolutionary movement still you will receive the most complex and de out of the committee in such an altered amples from France, Germany and the suffers from its effects. This effort to leap tailed descriptions of the mechanics of con form that the trade unions are unable to United States and to draw some concluover the stages of the slowly developing ducting strikes. Whie this is necessary it sions.
recognize it Mr. MacDonald will be able Communist party, which may have seemed does not really begin to touch the problem to drop it without taking another chance of strategy. Yet reams upon reams have revolutionary, could have no other results.
for defeat on the third reading. sic. been written in this manner in the official It was false eren prior to the general strike.
Communist International press, the sum What Has Become of Minority Movement?
It was designed by the Stalin régime total of which, considering its object, is One may ask, what has become of the to become the means of rallying the British hardly worth a brass farthing.
Minority Movement once counting the sup workers to prevent intervention in the SovWe are ungestionably moving toward pont of over a million workers? Is it en iet Union. The Left Opposition replied ala period of rising working class and revolu tirely wiped out, or does present objec ready then: The more acute the internationary activities in the United States. With tive situation offer no opportunity for actional situation becomes, the more the Anit yet greater problems will call for solu tivity and growth? The latter could hardly glo Russian Committee will be transformed tion. It will be a test of the correctness It would rhaps be more cor into a weapon of English and international Feb. 21: THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE of our theory and only that will stand up rect to say that it is still suffering the imperialism.
SOVIET UNION which is based upon the experience of life. consequences of the miserable Stalinist We have seen since that the committee Hence it is well to proceed to a close ex policies pursued by the British Communist By Max Shachtman itself in reality became a means of shieldamination of these events mentioned in an party leadership during the last few years. ing the reactionary designs of the Trade Feb. 28: DIALECTIC MATERIALISM: endeavor to learn from them.
The general trade union officialdom is Union Council by making the progressive REVOLUTIONARY SCIENCE Recent Strikes in England today making little or no pretense at shieldfront appear more real. The impact of the ing its reactionary views. The former The declining British capitalist impermillions on strike threw these progressive By Arne Swabeck. progressive front is entirely absent. At ialism is now conducting an offensive fully back into the camp of the bourgeoisie.
against the working class all along the line.
the Nottingham Trade Union Congress last March 7: THE SITUATION IN THE They became the most effective betrayers At the moment of this summer a majority in reality favored the writing 250, 000 of the strike. But any criticism the Com NEEDLE TRADES Empire Economic Unity of Lord Benverweavers in the Burnley, Lancashire and munists at the time attempted to direct brook. And from the Inprecorr we are inBy James Cannon Yorkshire districts are on the streets against them was in advance negated by formed that only two militant delegates through an employers lockout. An equal the prestige they enjoyed in being partners number of spinners are affected and pracspoke in opposition to these views.
at the in the unity committee with the repretically idle. The weavers refused to accept No doubt the Communist leadership in senatives of the revoluionary Russian workLABOR TEMPLE the famous American stretch out system the Minority Movement committed the card ers. Ever since, the British Communist of handling elght looms per operative in inal mistake of building around the fake party, together with the Minority Movement 14th Street and Second Avenue stead of four as formerly prevailed. The progressives of the Robert Williams, George has experienced a constant decline both in lockout began January 19th.
Hicks, Purcell and Arthur Cook stripe. numbers and influence upon the course of Open at P.
In the railroad industry the employers When they had the opportunity to reveal the working masses. It could not be otherdemand a 10 percent wage cut. In the themselves in their truelight and take their wise. Simultaneously, and to almost preAdmission: 25c building industry as well as in the boot stand with the other reactionaries, the move cisely that degree, the influence of the Trade and shoe industry similarly wage cuts are ment collapsed. Since the advent of the Union Council and of the capitalist lieutAuspices: New York branch, Communist demanded by the bosses. On July first, the Stalin leadership in the Communist Inter enants in the leadership of the labor party legal maximum workday of seven hour in national this has been the record elsewhere has grown. And grown to a point where League of America (Opposition. the mining fields is supposed to go into ef also. The plunges into Left adventurism they are yet able to divide and defeat the fect. But with the experience of recent of the British revolutionists entering into British workers.
events in these fields the coal miners may look forward with littl probability of its becoming a reality. That is, unless they can pull themseves together better than be fore.
Coal Miners in Struggle (Continued from page 1)
further success of the great industrialization progress of Some 140, 000 South Wales miners have cific stage of development our tactics must lay the basis the Soviet Union, is bound up with facilitation of an injust returned to work after a strike to for correct preparation and direction of the next one. crease of supply of machinery for the immediate future enforce the seren and a half hour work Correct tactics lead toward the revolutionary goal. Wrong from the capitalist countries. For this the Soviet Union day act. The operators were willing to contactics lead away from it and strengthens the enemy. needs credits. The orders which such credits will enable cede recognition of this act only on the basis of a demanded percent wage cut.
correct approach to the problem of ameliorating the work the Soviet Union to place in America will provide more The miners terminated their strike on the ing class needs of today, and now so acutely pressing, pre work for the unemployed here. The great importance of promise of arbitration which has since re pares for the battles of the rising labor movement tomor this demand, for which we must arouse the workers to fight, sulted in the signing of a new three year row. Agitation slogans and immediate demands can pre consists in the fact that it unites the struggle of the Ameragreement. It provides for a conciliation sent no solution in themselves and should not be so de ican workers for their most pressing immediate needs with board to settle all disputes. The agreement signed. They are, by the very nature of the class strugfailed, however, to decide the important the industrialization program of the Soviet Union. Therequestion of a subsistence wage which is re gle, strictly limited in their character. That is, they can by it cements the bonds of American workers with the ferred to an independent conciliator for offer means of temporary amelioration. And they must Soviet Union and makes them real participants in its strugadjustment.
be a help to unite the workers on the basis of their gle toward socialism.
Shortly prior to the South Wales walk common interests and to set them into motion against their To actually provide the broadest possible basis out the Scottish miners struck also to en.
class enemy. They cannot solve the problem. Only the for the movement, Unemployment Councils should be orforce the seven and a half hour workday proletarian revolution can do that.
ganized as genuine united front bodies. Such councils when act. They returned to work on a somewhat similar basis as the former. While the We propose unity of action of the Communist forces growing out of the movement struggling unitedly for the Scottish miners struck those of South Wales and, in advancing the following concrete program, we offer needs of the unemployed and against the capitalist offenwere kept on the job and only after the our fraternal co operation with the official Communist sive can become genuinely representative of the masses.
defeat had been administered to the forParty in the struggle for the unemployed.
The official Communist Party must revive and apply the mer were the latter called out. Thus do Common recognition of the capitalist offensive united front as Lenin taught them. This means, in the the union bureaucrats, among them Arthur Cook and others who were once hailed as and of the defensive character of the general working class present situation, to make direct proposals to the trade the great leaders of the Left wing. divide movement as the outstanding feature of the present mom unions, the socialist party and the workers organizations and defeat the rank and file workers. ent. This requires a line of tactics which take this fea for a common struggle for the above demands. On the At the present moment the officially ture of the situation into account. Proceeding from this basis of such proposals a strong agitation should commence registered unemployed workers in Great our tactics must naturally grow in boldness in preparation among the workers in the ranks of these organizations. The Britain number over two and a half million.
for the next stage when workers struggles can pass over The bosses now have no need of what fact that the reactionary leaders of the trade unions will to the offensive.
was called Mondism, e. the British form reject our proposals, or refuse even to discuss them, is no of class collaboration. They are directly The central immediate demand must be the Sir reason to refrain from making them. Such an attitude on on the offensive. Obviously in such a situa hour day without reduction in pay. More than any other the part of the leaders will only deepen the contradictions tion the lock out, not yet well known in demand this has the quality both of offering real and tangi between the bureaucracy and the workers and widen the this country, becomes an extremely danger ble improvement of the workers condition and become a basis for Communist influence. An energetic application ous weapon against the workers. It cannot means to unite the working masses and set them into mo of these tactics, on the basis of a realistic and correct probe defeated by the tactics pursued by the reactionary trade union heads.
tion against their enemy. The Communist forces must gram, will create the conditions for a real movement on MacDonald Again For Labor take upon themselves particularly the duty of arousing the the issue of unemployment. This is the need of the hour.
After a considerable period of compariexisting labor unions and workers organizations and weld Up to now the struggle has been a demonstration of the tive tranquility. so much worshipped by ing them together into a powerful movement for the short vanguard. It must be transformed into a mass movement the bureaucratie officials, the British work er workday.
under the leadership of the Communist vanguard. corers are beginning to resist the attacks. The It is essential for the working class also fight rect evaluation of the situation, a correct program and labor party, having reached its pinnacle in against the murderous capitalist rationalization and speed the tactics of the united front are the ways to this transbeing his majesty government, has had up of the workers. Similarly to fight for immediate unem formation.
another opportunity to demonstrate its faithployment relief, and for a system of unemployment insur The main duty the mun in the unemful service to capitalism. MacDonald advised the coal miners to forget the seven ance at the expense of the capitalists and their govern ployment situation is, as always, to become the leading and a half hour workday law enacted by ments. In this connection we must always emphasize that force of ever broader working masses, proceeding from the his government and to accept the stretch the workers can obtain even the smallest measures of relief immediate needs toward the final working class goal. There out over eight hours. One of the great and reforms only through direct pressures of their mass is no solution to the unemployment problem except through pledges of this government wag to repeal numbers.
the proletarian revolution. In our agitation and struggles the Tory trade union limitation bill. What It is essential that the unemployment movement will happen to this pledge is with usual we must always make this clear.
cynicism of bourgeois scribblers indicated adopt the slogan and fight for extension of large scale National Committee by Charles Selden in his New York Times credits from capitalism to the Soviet Union. The Communist League of America (Opposition)