The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-12-08
SHALL WE DROP THE SLOGAN
OF A POLITICAL UNITED FRONT?

organization.
But the majority thesis shows the
astonishing fact that the majority CON
sidered exactly the opposite alterna-
tive to be the only reality: that the
only possible organizatonaI outcome
Of the united front farmer-Iabor party
campaign would be If the trade union
buroeracy actually did form farmer
labor partyl
4. Majority thinks that since the
trade union buroeracy refuses to or
sanize labor party, and betrays the
movement, then the object Of the
slogan (Which was to have a labor
party is lost and the basis of our
political united front action has
vanished.
For, after the trade union burocra-
cy has failed to form one of these far
mer-labor parties of the kind which
IF it is to be a success cannot be a
Communist party" and after they
have thus presumably exposed them
selves, then, says the majority thesis.
''But when the leaders Of these or
CARNATIONS enter into a permanent
alliance with the petty bourgeoisie
and when such an alliance with the
LaFollette movement receives the re-
cognition and support Of almost the
entire organized labor movement,
then the question of forming labor
party loses its basic foundation and
ceases to be a fighting issue for inn
mediate practical use."
Foster and Cannon think that the
desertion of the leaders breaks up the
basis of the united front. For them
in theory, as in practice it was shown
to be, the political united front is in
conceivable except as a farmer-labor
party to be reached thru agreement
from the top. ITO say that the Fitz-
patrick group did not want labor
party is ridiculous" said Comrade
Foster to the Comintern But now
Fitzpatrick is with Gompers, and
Comrades Foster and Cannon turn in
bitter remorse to tell us: Now /. !.
it must be the united front to fight for
specific demands, on burning issues,
from below in the shape of councils
of action unemployment councils,
shop committees, etc. and not the
united front from the top in the shape
of farmer-labor parties" (See the
majority's summary of it's thesis.)
5. Is the period Of 1924 the same
as that Of 20 years ago, when British
Labor Party was formed?
We assert that the misconception
of the Foster-Cannon group in consi-
dering that the use of the farmer
labor party united front slogan would
not be profitable or successful"
because there is mo immediate pos
sibility of the growth of a mass
farmer-labor party" arises from that
groups belief that the only profit or
success" from the use of the slogan
would be the actual formation of
labor party something after the type
of the British labor party, including at
one sweep the respectable A. F. of L.
practically as a whole. We have
never believed this. AS we say in our
minority thesis:
1.-THE conclusion that it will produce
a similar party to that which exists
in England ignores the fact that it is
developing in a different historical
period = the period of the decline of
capitalism and of the proletarian re-
volution"
And as far back as our thesis of
November 1923 (Which the Foster
group desperately fought against but
later accepted momentariIy for the
convention), we said, " It would
be an illusion to believe that an all
inclusive mass labor party will be or
ganIzed in the near future" We said
then, "Only the left wing of the labor
movement will in the beginning par
ticipate in the organization of a mass
class party of the farmers and work
ers." But when the Foster-Cannon
group discovers for the first time in
November 1924 (exactly year later
that an all-inclusive mass labor party
as large in the girth as the British
labor party is not in the immediate
future in America, they hurriedly
sound the alarm and scurry out Of the
political united front policy.
Our conception of the aim of the
united front has differed from theirs
from the time OF our first practical
action-that Of the Chicago farmer
labor convention of July 3, 1923. when
our policy was the ruling policy.
From the beginning our conception
of the united front labor-party policy
has always been that:
1.-THE first task Of the Workers Party
Is to become a mass Communist Party
Of workers." Immediately after the
July Chicago convention it was
Comrade Pepper who called the polit-
zeal committee together furiously to
denounce the inadvertent slogan which
had crept into the party organ. build