The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-07-02


the tasks of building new unions,
we devoted pages of our paper and
wasted barrels of printers ink, dis
GUESSING that question, which first
arose in the form of controversy
between Comrades Foster and Bittel-
man. None of the comrades parti-
cipating in that discussion gave a
correct analysis of the question,
least of all the majority of the Cen
trail Executive Committee. Especial
ly wrong was the final benediction
of the Central Committee in sum-
ming up the matter in a page-and-a-
half statement. The Gee said:
."For Comrade Foster social re-
formism is in a rapid and full
decline and the whole future is
crowned with company unionism.
Foster sees only bourgeois re-
formism and fails to see social
reformism. Bittelman, on the
other hand, fails to see bourgeois
reformism, he does not take the
further development of company
unionism into consideration and
sees only the A. F. of L. as the
sole agency of bourgeois corrup-
ton menacing the working class.
"Comrade Foster is fascinated
by his so-called discovery of cap
italist efficiency socialism, and
refuses to see anything else. Com
rade Bittelman, on the other hand,
fails to see the whole complex of
bourgeois schemes, welfare plans,
efficiency experts and organiza-
tons which play certain role, as
correctly estimated in the election
platform of the Party"
So the Central Committee, in its
profundity, was able to see both. 1t
had very good sight for things that
did not exist.
Instead of correct analysis the
Central Committee embraced the il
lusions of both the contending dis
putants. They thought that if the
American Federation of Labor fol-
lows a reformist program, that is
social reformism, and if the bour-
geois professors, the Tugwells, the
Chases, the Fosters and Catchings,
follow the same policies it becomes
bourgeois reformism. Certainly it
does not require the analytical mind
of a Lenin to realize that the policies
of the labor fakirs as we'll as of the
above mentioned university profess
sors is one piece of the same social
and political fabric. Why couldn't
the Central Committee have pointed
out that instead of these professors
constituting a, special school distinct
and separated from social reformism
as practiced by the At. of l.. they
simply rationalize the threacheries
of the labor leaders, after they are
an accomplished fact? Instead of
standing at the head of a special
as some of our comrades
have thought, these professors SIM
ply act as theorizers of the betray-
ais of the reactionary labor leaders.
Why didn't our Central Committee
analyze the special development of
this school in America, and contrast
it to the development of the social
democratic labor movement in other
countries and explain it to the Party
membership and the working class?
! am convinced that the reply is
to be found in the six years history
of almost total absence of self-cri-
ticism. With collective leadership
and self-criticism it is possible to
develop the theoretical understand
ing of our Party so it. can analyze
such phenomena.
1t was the obvious task of the
Sixth Party Convention to have
taken up the shortcomings of the
Party as pointed out in the Open
Letter of the Communist Interna-
tional and correct them in a Bolshe-
visit manner. All the questions
touched upon in the letter as we'll
as the wholes problem of factional-
ism should have been carefully ana
lyzed and corrected. The convention
could have been of tremendous value
to the Party if the line of the Com
intern had been accepted. But in
stead of accepting the Open Letter
honestly and carrying out the or
ganizational proposals of the Com
intern the delegates to that conven-
ton were subjected to a fractional
debauch. The Comintern was openly
slandered, especially in the reference
of Lovestone to a running sore" in
the Comintern.
Both factions accepted the letter
in their traditional fractional manner.
When the minority interpreted it as
turning the Party leadership over
to their group the majority utilized
that claim, which they knew was
false, to mobilize the convention
against the organizational proposals.
Never, in the history of the Com
intern, has there been a Party con-
gress held that was as utterly de-
void of political content as was the
Sixth Congress of the American
Party. Only desultory references
were made to the third period. There