The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-08-02

sides OF our activity at the last one.
One of the main errors made by
our comrades there, was the failure
to realize fully that the brazen
scheme Of class collaboration pre-
scented to the convention in the re-
port of Frank Harrington, revealed
the political and theological basis of
all the corruption and betrayal of the
whole bureaucracy Of the United
Mine Workers of America, from
Lewis to harrington. Our comrades
should have attacked this report in
the most militant fashion. They
should have shot it to shreds on the
ground that it represented the theory
Of the mutual interests of the coal
diggers and the parasites who ex-
plot them and fatten on their toll
and misery. Against it they should
have set up the principle of the class
struggle, the theory of the salvation
Of the workers thru uncompromising
struggle against their exploiters.
Such fight would haye been a
dagger aimed at the very heart of the
corrupt and treacherous trade I'M
ion bureaucracy, because it would
have been aimed at the false system
of ideas with which they poison the
labor movement. Such fight should
have been seized upon as the best
means of opening the eyes of the
miners, and making them see their
Ierno1 he -.
the convention, the fight over the APP
pointive power, the fight for better
Legislation in union affairs, for the
Reinstatement of Howat, etc., should
have been regarded by our comrades,
and explained to the delegates, as re-
Hated to the basic fight for the prin-
ciple of the class struggle, and sub
ordinate to it. This would have been
the best means of awakening the
honest rank and file delegates, and of
binding them more closely to us.
Another error at the convention oc-
CURED in the handling of the resolu-
ton on the recognition of Soviet Rus :
STA. Here again the principle Of the
class struggle was involved. The
harrington machine played clever
game with the delegates on this reso-
luton, by calling for the recognition
of Soviet Russia in one paragraph
and then multiplying the whole effect
OF the resolution by adding the quail
fication that Soviet Russia should rec
ognize certain obligations-th very
obligations which the capitalist gov
ernments of the world have been
vainly trying for six years to impose
upon her. Our comrades made the
mistake of thinking that the question
of formal recognition of Soviet Rus
STA was the real issue, and of consid-
ering such resolution a victory for
u.s.
This was entirely too Statesman
like" We are for the recognition of
Soviet Russia, because it is a work
ing class state, and because we recog-
nize that the interests of the work
ing class all over the world are bound
up with it. The recognition of So
Wet Russia is for us an issue of the
class struggle, and we should have
made the fight purely on that basis,
and hammered home again to the
delegates the idea that the solidarity
Of labor, the worldwide union of the
working class in the fight for the
overthrow of capitalism, must be ac-
cepted as the guiding principle of
the labor movement. We might have
failed to get majority Of the con-
vention If we had put the fight on
this basis, just as we might have
failed to get a majority in a clear-cut>
class struggle fight against Earring
TONS scheme of class collaboration.
but that is secondary matter. We
would have brought the principle to
the front. We would have clarified
the minds Of many of the delegates,
and tied them more closely to us. II
is not the formal victory but the fight