The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-04-30
By VIM. F. dunno

DEACTION in the American labor
~ movement has suffered a political
defeat in the last thirty days.
If the left wing is able to drive
home the lessons of this defeat to
the worl1ingclass and give organiza-
tional expression to the disilluslon-
ment and resentment which is bound
to arise, it will be able to take the Of
fensive again in the near future.
IT MUST be understood to begin
with, in this article a distinction
is made between reaction in the la
Dor movement proper and the general
wave OF reaction which is sweeping
the United States and which is bound
up intimately with it's predominant
imperialist position. 1t is exactly the
great depth of this general wave of
reaction which is partially respon-
sible for the impossible political po-
sition in which the Greens, Wolls,
Lewises-the whole leading circle of
the American Federation of Labor
and it's socialist allies-now find
themselves.
1T is hardly necessary here to give
in detail the evidence listed in
many previous articles) which shows
that the leadership of the American
labor movement has adopted pro-
gram having as it's central point the
castration of the unions and the re-
placement of virility by organizations
which are to be instruments for pro-
noting increased production. This
policy does not merely abandon the
class struggle (these leaders have
never acknowledged the existence of
the class STRUGGLED but it repudiates
the rank and file militancy, shown
in strikes, boycotts and armed strug-
giles which made the American labor
movement as forceful as it is.
THIS policy, to be successful, must
be based on truce in the class
struggle-agreement by the capital
lists to abandon their aggressions
against the workers organizations,
their wages and working conditions
and all attempts to lower the political
status of the workers and their or
CARNATIONS. The class struggle
arises from the fact that the capital
list class never treats the working
class as anything else than a subject
class. THE reasons for this do not
need to be explained here)
THE official leadership of American
labor has acted on the theory
that in the United States there is
no such thing as the class struggle
no class division. 1t does not fight
capitalism. In the American Fedora
zionist for June 1923 (about the time
the present offensive against mill
tant trade unionism got under way)
we read that the American Federation
of Labor is "squarely for the defense
and maintenance of the existing order
and for it's development and improve
ment."
IN practice the above statement has
4 expressed as "union-management
cooperation" Baltimore and
Ohio plan, the Watson-Parker bill,
etc. Flowing out of this denial of
the class struggle has come flood
of apologies for the discarding of the
policy of struggle for obtaining de-
mands made by the unions.
A WHOLE literature has developed
n whose sole purpose is to justify
the embrace with American capital
ism. Every two-by-four economist"
has been prating about the ''tremend-
Gus new developments in American
industry" preaching against "waste
in industry" lauding the "sane and
constructive" policy of the Greens,
Wolls and Lewises, forecasting
new. civilization" etc.
THE Workers Education Bureau,
beginning as something of revolt
against the absolute lack of any edu-
cational activity in the A. F. of L.
program, has rapidly become a prop
uganda instrument for efficiency
It's principal function is to
give as much theoretical justification
as possible for the wrecking of the
unions as weapons of the workers.
AGAINST the Communists and the
"a organized left wing the principal
used by the efficiency
union apologists have been u that
they insisted on basing a policy on
the class struggle when no such clash
existed in democratic America and