The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-09-13

tlOnal convention OF the WORKERS
(Communist) Party held in New
York City. This installment was
delayed due to corrections that had
to be made in the stenographic re-
port. The third installment, under
the heading of "The Party's Short
comings, Mistakes and Problems"
will appear tomorrow.
H. THE PARTY ACHIEVEMENTS.
DESPITE tremendous difficulties,
~ our Party has moved forward. |
will not say we have moved forward
fully as much as we might have
moved forward. | will not say we
have responded effectively to every
opportunity. l will not say we have
had only glorious achievements in the
past two years. But | will say that
in the face of tremendous difficulties,
our Party has been able to register
some achievements, some substantial
achievements in the past two years.
And these achievements have been
registered by The Party as a Party,
not by groups, not by sections, not
BY individuals, but by the Party as
a Party. The extent to which we
registered these achievements was
entirely dependent upon the fact of
our being able to function as uni
fled party, as a Party homogeneous
and monolithic in the Bolshevik sense.
Compare the situation with two
years ago. Two years ago the out
standing features of our Party situa-
ton were: /. An extremely fractional
condition. 2. No Party organization
at all in the sense of a Communist
Party. We had a Party of 19I
language declarations. Our Party to-
day is weak organizationally but we
have made the first forward step to-
wards a Communist organization. 3.
Two years ago the Party was COM
pletely isolated from the masses.
In speaking of the Party achieve
ments in the past two years, allow
me to state the problem as Comrade
Lenin has stated it. What is our
central problem? Our central prob
lem according to Lenin is "to dis
cover and study and grasp the ma
tional peculiarities in the concrete
methods of each particular country
in order to perform the joint interna-
tional tasks, to defeat opportunism
and radical dogmatism inside the
working class movements, to over
throw the bourgeoisie, to establish
the Soviet Republic and the dictator
ship of the proletariat-tha is the
most important task of the historical
moment" The problems of our
Party are problems involving the APP
plication of fundamental principles of
Bolshevism to concrete conditions in
this country. We are not dogmatists
or formularians. If we were, we
would not be Leninists.
| Our trade union work. In taking
IL this concrete problem, this central
problem, as Comrade Lenin has put it
for us, what has our Party been able
to do, that is what concrete steps, on
the basis of the specific objective
conditions in the United States for
the past two years?
Of course, the anti-war campaign
of the Party,-the Chinese campaign,
the campaign for the defense of
the Soviet Union, has been the most
pressing one, has been the one to which
we have paid the greatest attention
of all our political campaigns.
But allow me for the moment to
go away from this order and to speak
of the basic campaigns of the Party,
the campaigns involving our Party
entrenchlng itself in the mass organi-
cations of the working class. Such
problems are especially important in
this country where we have no labor
party, where we have practically
speaking, no mass cooperative move
merit. Particularly in the U. S. do
the trade unions occupy the most i'm
portant position as the mass organi-
cations of the working class. / will
therefore speak first Of our efforts
to entrench ourselves in the trade
unions.
Here we must recount the cam
paign Of the Party to draw members
into the unions. Regarding the
miners campaign, the details of this
campaign will be dealt with in a sub
sequent report. 1t is of no small
significance for the Party that it was
leading force of the left wing and
progressive movement in the cam
paign that eliminated in the actual
election of the progressive candidate
Brophy in the miners union. The one
who is functioning as the president
of the miners union today is function
ing not as the elected president but
as the usurper Of that office. With
all the weaknesses shown in our
ranks, the fight in the miners con
vention was big step forward for
our Party. The fight of the Party,
weak as it has been and strengthened
as it must be, in this miners strike
today, is a fight which has tremend-
Gus possibilities for our Party.
In reference to the TUEL,- despite
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