The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-04-26
A WORKINGCLASS POLICY IN
THE COOPERATIVES

The struggle for 1Corking class policy m
the cooperative movement, nolO going on
nguoro the Finnish 9Uorkers, deals auth such
fundamental problems of the entire work1ng
class and aCith such an important section o.
the revolutionary a0orkers' movement m inc
United States, that it becomes a document OF
Vital interest to the entire increment inc
Daily Worker has Just received the author
ised English translation, and bGstcns to pA0-
lish it for the benefit Of oil revolutionary
aoorIors. as aUell as for the Finnish Increment,
aUhich already has received 1t IN the FF'lnsh'
Continued
The present leadership of the c. P. u ). A.
has correctly and vigorously fought against
the Lovestone renegades and has shown also
by its activities that it is carrying out the
policies adopted by the Tenth Plenum OF the
E., c. l. The Finnish Bureau, connected
with the C. C. and headed by Comrade Euro,
has already begun to orientate the actlvlties
of the Finnish Workers clubs and socletles
in the proper direction. In the struggle against
the Right devations among the Finnish men,
bers the Political Bureau of the Party, the
Secretariat of the c. C. and the Finnish Blu
reau have in general followed an absolutely
correct line, but have made some tactical er-
rors which must be corrected in the future
One must agree that the task of the Cen
trail Committee and of Comrade Puro IN this
struggle against the Right Danger among the
Firms has been rendered difficult by the con-
sequences of the protracted fractional struggles
and dstrust which have not yet been FULLY
overcome In many instances when the FIN
nish Bureau should have taken the initiative IN
starting a timely theological struggle IN the
Finnish organizations against the Right Dan
ger no such initiative was shown. Inns lack
of initiative can be simply explained by the
fact that the Finnish Bureau believed that the
former fractional opponents would Interpret
any initiative on its part as continuation OF
the old fractional struggle. 1t did not want to
"aggravate" matters and therefore postponed
action "for more suitable occasion"
This tactic was wrong In order to over
come most quickly the old fractional remnants
in the ranks of the Finnish organization all
leading comrades should thoroughly criticise
in the organization their former fractional posi-
ton 1t is not in vain that it was proposed
in the Open Letter of the Conlintern Tin solving
the Lovestone crisis) that the Party should
organize "Wide discussion on questions con-
corning the internal situation" This has not
been done to a sufficient degree at least among
the Firms and therefore it is not so easy for
the members of the former factions to over
come their distrust against the leading COM
rades. who have shown sincere and deter
mined departure from factionalism. Naturally,
there was even more reason for the Flnnlsh
Bureau of the Central Committee to demon
strate openlv it's departure from the old course
by drawing in prominent comrades VINO mad
belonged to the one or the other faction Tor
various Party work, since a great change has
taken place in the tactics of the Party EXecu-
five since the days of Lovestone so that now
personal questions are settled impartlally, al
WAYS bearing chiefly in mind the interests OF
the Party The Party Executive also has good
reason to say that both in the mass organlza-
lions. as well as in the Party, course has
been taken of persuading members instead OF
using the old fractional system when all forms
of internal democracy were ignored, and when
instead of calling Party fraction meetings Tor
example, they called caucuses OF "rellables
etc.
Taking this into consideration it is clear that
number of tactical slips were made IN the
methods used last autumn in the struggle
against Halonen. One fine morning 1t was
decided by the Secretariat of the Central Com
m;ttee without much ado to order Halonen's
dismissal from the Central Cooperative. The
secretariat hardly imagined then the right
wing revolt that would follow. Until then Halo
men was considered one of the major represen-
tatives of the Party, the secretary of the frac-
ton of the cooperative movement without any
official criticism or remarks ever having been
made about his work. Even in the same year
he was elected without any objections to the
Ninth District Committee of the Party. 1t was
clear that an organizational decision such as
the demand to dismiss Halonen should have
been ideologically prepared first in the Party
and in the cooperative movement. And THIS
should have been done we'll before organiza-
tional measures were called for. But instead
of this Halonen given an additional
trump with the possession of which he could
argue, by misinterpreting the letter he re-
ceiyed from some of the leaders, that the
Secretariat's decision about his expulsion fol-
lowed his disagreement that the Central Co.
operative should make a loan to the Party.
With this demagogical argument he first OF all
won a majority of the fraction of the Central
Cooperative for an open revolt against the
Party leadership, as it is obvious that for this
petty-bourgeois crowd the idea of lending
money to the Communist Party must have
been something terrible.
The Commission sent by the Secretariat OF
the Party could not concentrate its attention
on the political side of the Halonen case. On
the contrary. it considered the main issue in
the struggle to be the absolutely unimportant
question as to whether the managing board OF
the Central COOPERATIVE Exchange should pub
fish two days sooner or later Halonen's first
polenlical article against our Communist paper.
which was later distributed at large. When
the article was set for the pyramid Builder"
the Central Cooperative organ, published in our