The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-09-20


been and will be written concerning
the need for this change of the organ
national structure of the party. Every
one accepts the necessity for the
change; nearly everyone hesitates to
start making the change. Yet were
the start once made, there can be no
doubt, as experiences of the Young
Workers League in America and the
parties and leagues in other countries
show, all would be enthusiastic for.
actual and practical reorganization.
Let us concern ourselves here with
what our present territorial branches
do and what shop nuclei do and can
do.
Branch Efforts Are Scattered
What does a party branch activity
usually consist of? Reports are made
by branch officers. Reports are heard
of city central committee meetings.
Some comrades distribute or sell
literature. Every now and then the
branch listens TO a lecture, in nine
cases out of ten on some theoretical
subject, to which there can be no
objection of course, but which is
hardly ever taken up in relation to
some immediate work. Comrades
discuss the necessity of joining the
union and then go home to sleep on
the thought. Everybody gives the
other lots of advice, good and bad,
and generally act upon neither kind.
The members of the branch have
no real practical contact with one
another They usually see each other
only at monthly or semi-monthly
meetings or at general party affairs.
They exchange few words of greet
ing, express fond hopes and desires
for the revolution, curse or laugh at
the stupidity of the capitalist class.
1t amounts to, "Well, comrade, you
go your way, go mine"
At home they read The DAILY
WORKER and go to bed. Thus a
days work for the revolution has been
accomplished. We speak here of the
average activity of the party members.
We even assume that all of them pay
their dues regularly and are in good
standing.
There is, of course that small sect
ion of the party which is alive, virile
and active in the branch and outside
of it, in the union, etc.
We do not find among the members
thru their branch activities, real dis
cussions on vital problems of the day.
10 oil % %
the work among their fellow workers
in the shops or factories. Instead of
a direct vital working class thought,
we find in the branch what might be
called community or neighborhood
thought, a sort of middle class rebel
lion tinctured with working class
knowledge.
Shop Nuclei Ensures United Action.
But how about the shop nucleus?
Where in does it differ from the party
territorial branch? Why is it super
ior? First, what is a shop nucleus?
1t is the basic unit of the party, made
up of party members working in the
same shop or factory or mill. What
does it mean when the party members
are organized in that way? 1t means
that the party members are in close
contact with one another EVERY
DAY. Further, the party members are
in contact with the workers in the
shop. But so are they with the work
ers in the shop when they belong to
the branch. But there is a difference.
In the shop nucleus the party mem
bers are in conscious contact with the
workers. They know they are in the
shop nucleus in that particular factory
with definite aim in view relative to
their fellow workers, and they proceed
to carry out a program in the shop.
In our present party branches, com
rades tend to hypnotic themselves
with all sots of phrases, prophecies
and views about what they think, but
do not know, is going on in the
world. But organized politically in
the shop with a program of action,
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