The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-05-13
BY LEON PLAT.

THE changed economic ana PuIlNINa Sltua-
ton in the country, the growing ladicallza-
ton of the working class. definitely raised
before our Party the task of adopting new
methods of work, new forms of approach to
the masses and their mobilization for strug-
gle. The Party must very critically examine
its shortcomings Our Party today is WELDON
the road to becoming mass Communist Party.
The Party is leading the struggles of large
section of the American proletariat and there
fore our responsibilities are greater and our
shortcomings are more harmful.
May First was a tremendous political sue
cess for our Party The Party reached more
workers with its May Day message than ever
before. For the first time in many years the
American proletariat celebrated May First
with street demonstrations and in true revo-
lutionary spirit
In many industrial cities May Day demon
stratons took place for the first time in their
history. In a number of districts May Day
demonstrations were arranged in a larger num-
Der of cities than even for March 9th While
the number of workers participating in our
May Day demonstrations, with the exception
of New York and a number of other cities
was smaller than at March 9Th, yet it would
be wrong to think that the political success
of May First was less than Of March 9th.
We must remember that our May First dem
onstrations were of a clear-cut revolutionary
political character. We modified the workers
not only on their immediate economic demands,
but primarily on the basis of our general revo-
luticnary program. The masses who partici-
pated in cur demonstrations understood well
that they are modified in the struggle
against the capitalist system of society and
for the struggle for the establishment of a
revolutionary workers AMI farmers govern
ment in the United States
In view of this approach, to judge our sue
cess on the basis of arithmeticaI calculations
would be mistake and would not give a cor
rect picture. However, while seeing the great
achievements of our Party, we must also see
the great shortcomings and weaknesses, par
ticularly in the preparations for May First.
May First most glaringly brought out our
serious organzational shortcomings, which,
unless critically analysed and Immediately COR
rected, will have damaging consequences for
our Party.
Did We Stand the Test"
The directves of the Central Committee Of
our Party for the preparations for May list
state: May First will be testing of the poll
teal influence of our Party mainly among the
workers in the factories" Every Party men,
Der must therefore ask himself; Did we stand
the test?" This question also is closely linked
up with the major task in our May list cam
paign-the mass political strike. Both of
these questions are organically connected and
must be treated together. With the exception
of the light industries like the needle trades
and others, no organized mass political strikes
took plac in large factories or in branches of
heavy industry This is a result not because
of lack of political influence of the Party over
the workers engaged in heavy industry, but
primarily because of the failure to consolidate
rr;,- tn
teal influence. The districts did not take
steps to organize the mass political strike.
This gross neglect occurred even in those fac
tories where we have shop nuclei and contin-
uously carried Party activity.
Thousands of workers individually left their
shops. Many spontaneous department strikes
took place, but not planned systematic strike,
nor planned organzational preparations for
the strike. The response Of the workers to
our literature, speakers and demonstrations,
shows that the Party has influence upon the
workers employed in the basic industries, but
it failed to organize it and give concrete or
ganizational expression. These ineXcusable
mistakes were committed by us for number
of reasons
Relying Upon the SpOntaneity of the Masses
The success of the March 9Th demonstra-
tions, the splendid response of the masses to
the call of the Party, created the illusion in
a large section of our Party that the en-
ployed workers will strike and demonstrate
even without any consistent organizational
preparations The Central Committee warned
the Party not to rely only upon the spontan-
city of the masses but to proceed to mobilize
the workers for our campaigns and demon
strations on the basis of hard everyday sys-
tematic mobilization in the shops and in the
mass organizations In our pre-convention
thesis it is stated: "The reliance on spontan-
eous response in many instances replaces sys-
tematic organizational preparations" These
preparations not made and the conse-
uuent results were unavoidable.
The preparations for May Day definitely
show that in the lower ranks of Party
there is still no clear understanding of what
the united front from below means and par
ticularly how to organize this united front
along the political lines laid down by, the Cen
trail Committee.
In its directives for the preparations for May
First, the Central Committee pointed out:
another organizational form of our cam
paign for May First must be organization of
large united front conferences of all workers
including rank and file of reformist organiza-
tions to prepare for May First demonstration"
These instructions were not carried out. The
United Front Conferences we rad we're not
broad enough. 1t is true we had United
Front Conferences for May First in many