The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-01-10
By A. BIMBA.

field of our activity is and must bt
in the industrial field. 1t took quite
some time for our Party to convince
itself about this. 1t had to make
grave leftist, sectarian and oppor.
tunistic mistakes to come to the con.
clusion that only through active par.
ticipation in the everyday struggles
of the workers in the factories, mills
and mines can the Communists win
the masses for Communism and
mobilize them for the struggle
against the capitalist system.
In the early days of our party's
life we had very definite syndical-
list, dual-union tendencies. We would
have nothing to do with the old, con-
sentative, reactionary trade unions
led by Gompers and other mislead-
ers Of labor. We were for the In
dustrial Workers of the World. We
were out to Smash" the old unions.
and build up fighting, militant,
revolutionary industrial unions in
no time and we thought the masses
would flock to our revolutionary
banner. They would be with us be-
cause we are fighting for them.
To work in the old, reactionary
trade unions, we thought, would be
nothing more nor less than a waste
OF our valuable time. Only about
three million skilled workers belong
to these conservative craft unions,
while there are at least twenty mil
lion unskilled and semi-skilled, I'M
organized and mercilessly exploited
workers who are impatiently wait
ing for our call. How ridiculous il
would be--we argued-to waste our
energy on a handful of labor aris-
tocrats, when we have great masses
OF real proletarians to be organized
and led by the Communists.
But our movement soon discov-
cred that this attitude toward the
old trade unions was wrong and
harmful. The Communist Interna-
tlonal spoke and fought against the
desertion of the already organized
workers on the industrial field. 1t
condemned dual unionism. Comrade
Lenln was at the head of the cam
palgn against this dangerous, sec
tarian, un-Communistic attitude on
the part of the Communi
Our Communist Party no
At the second convention the
Party we repudiated our sectarian-
ism on the industrial field, rejected
the tactics of dual unionism and de-
cided to work within the old trade
unions. We reorientated ourselves
completely and were absolutely cor
rect in so doing. We had to fight
our isolation from the masses of
the organized workers ideologically
as well as organizationally.
Now che pendulum has swung to
the other direction. The reaction
against dual unionism was complete
and sweeping. The Party member
ship discussed this new policy at
their meetings. Our literature 'be-
came thoroughly saturated with agi-
tation and propaganda against the
desertion of the old unions. Our in
fluence in the trade unions began
to rise. Our campaign to bring
every Party member into the unions
became permanent. Many of our
comrades accepted the new policy of
the Party and joined the unions,
tho very reluctantly and against
their old convictions.
The Trade Union Educational
League became a united front be-
tween the Communists and the "pro-
gressives." 1t soon developed into
an important factor in the class
I struggle.
Did the pendulum swing too far
in the new direction? To a certain
extent, yes. We plunged from one
extreme into another. Our Lew pol
icy was fundamentally correct a
hundred per cent. 1t was absolutely
necessary to fight against the dual
union tendency, against the deser-
ton Of the trade unions, against Sec
tarianism. Without such a struggle
the American Communist movement
would have been condemned to per-
manent isolation and sectarianism.
But we failed to properly estimate
the possibilities of the old unions.
We overestimated their impor-
lance. We went SO far in this direc-
tion that an idea began to creep in
our ranks, that the only way to or
ganize the masses of the morgan
lied is through the old trade unions,
that our Party as such will prob
ably never undertake campaign to
organize the trade unions directly,
that it is possible to capture all of
the old unions and to reconstruct
them on a new basis, that almost
every new union is a dual union,
etc.
We failed to emphasize the i'm
portance of the slogan to organize
the unorganized, the necessity of
building new unions where none
exist or where the old unions have
no mass following, or where they
are so reactionary and so corrupt
that there is no possibility of our
working within them except by
abandoning our principles.
This lack of emphasis and at
tention on this phase of our duty
was probably due to our numerical