The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-01-27

that prior to the Revolution the work
ers did not have social insurance, free
medical aid and medicines, low rents,
health resorts, rest homes, sanatoria,
the 8 and 6-hour day, annual vaca-
tions for 2 to weeks with pay, and
adds all that to the wages, it appears
that the material condition of the
working class after the Revolution
has improved considerably. The basic
improvement in the condition of the
working class consists in that the
public economy, the industries, are in
the hands of the State-the workers
state-and that they are being devel-
oped in the interest of the working
class. The growth and development
of industry lead to the immediate inn
provement in the economic condition
of the working class and not to the
amassing of large fortunes by small
group of capitalists-private property
owners.
Question 3.-What principles of
Soviet unionism would be of benefit
to the American workman?
Answer: (a) The trade unions in
the United States, mostly under the
influence of their leaders, deny the
revolutionary class struggle, reject
strikes as a means for improving the
condition Of the workers, although
everyday life reveals facts indicating
fba errn1ryi,o ao,,fa,,acs &c 4Lo oIoce
struggle which goes on without the
trade unions or is CLOSED over by
them. The basic principle of the work
of the Soviet trade unions is the or
ganization of the revolutionary class
struggle, participation in the building
of the proletarian state. If American
trade unions should adopt this prin-
ciple it would greatly benefit the
American workers. ~
(b) A majority Of trade unions in
the United States, also under the in
fluence of their leaders, deny the ne
cessity for the working class to take
an active part in the political strug-
gle, by creating their own proletarian
political party. Therefore an over
whelming majority of the workers are
Indifferent to politics and do not fight
against the existing political order,
and many of them, with the aid of
these same leaders, are drawn into
the nets of the bourgeois political
parties, which thus strengthen their
power and use it to enslave the work
ing class still more.
The trade unions of the U. S. S. R.
hold the view that it is necessary for
the working class to have an indie
pendent proletarian political party,
which should direct the political strug-
gle of the working class and aim to
wrest the political power from the
bourgeoisie, securing it for the work
ing class. If the trade unions and the
workers of the United States should
adopt this point of view and apply it
in practice, it would greatly benefit
the American workers. Then the pow
er of capital would be destroyed, the
workers would make an end of the
spy and strike-breaking agencies, the
injunction process would be abolished,
the special policemen and soldiers
would not break strikes and the heads
of the strikers, and the judges would
not send the workers to warehouses;
and jails.
(c) In the United States, where the
most highly developed and concen-
trated capital rules, where the num-
Der of gainfully employed persons
reaches 100000, the trade union
movement is weak and disintegrated.
1t is organized along most backward