The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-06-19
PARTY TASKS IN THE
MINING FIELDS
BY VINCENT KAMENWITCH.

IL.
THE mining industry is one of the chronically
sick industries. Naturalization was intro
duced in the mines right after the close of the
world war. The coal operators, with the help
of the Lewis machine in the U.M.W.A. squeezed
out of the industry over 100000 miners in the
last ten years. The wages paid to the miners
are below the 1917 scale. New wage cuts
taking place daily, and the wage cut of II
per cent by the Rockefeller controlled Consoli
dated Coal Co. the other day is sigN& for
new wage cuts on a national scale, AN will
be followed by wage cuts in all the mines.
The speed-up has intensified hundredfold. The
conveyer and loading machines are introduc-
ing the belt system into the mines, and the
percentage of the coal loaded by the convey
.ers and loading machines is increasing by
leaps and bounds. In 1924 this percentage was
very insignificant, it 1929 it has reached to Is
per cent of all coal mined. Unemployment in
the mining fields was chronic but since 1919
whole sections of miners are totally unem-
ployed. The miners have resisted the wage
cuts, naturalization, and speed-up, and despite
the betrayals of the Lewis machine have strug-
gled very militantly.
The strikes of 1919, 1922, 1927 are marked
with red letters in the history of the American
working class, for their militancy. The miners
have supported the progressive movements,
and the votes given in the election of 1924,
1926, for the program of the "Save the Union
Committee" show the deepness of the radical
ization in the mining fields. The support the
National Miners Union is receiving in the
mining fields is further indication of the deep
ness of the rehabilitation of the miners. The
mining fields today are very fertile ground
for the building of the Party into a mass
Party and of the NMU. into a mass union.
On the other hand the weaknesses of the Party
and N.MU. are such that we have not been
able to organize this support into the form
of Party mine nuclei and N.M.U. local unions.
Why?
The Old fractional Fight.
The factional fight that was wrecking our
Party, was deeply rooted in the mining fields.
The factional fight permitted all kinds Of
right tendencies to flourish in the mining
fields. The Lovestone leadership nurtured
right line and all types of opportunism and
bureaucratism went on unchecked The Party
was sort of "Save the Union" committee
with no serious political discussions taking
place in the units; no Party bulletins only
few issued in the mines and this only for
records sake. No serious attempt to change
the composition of the Party membership; no
real drive for Party membership on the basis
VI lHe 1dTty recruiting CdEIlSu vi vi
the basis of personal relations and contacts
no real functioning local, sectional, district or
national fractions which would put the Party
line into effect not mechanically, but on the
basis of understanding and political support
of the line. In this period some of the grossest
right wing mistakes were made.
The membership of the Party had to go to
the miners and ask them to support the Bren-
mans Brophies Hapgoods, etc. in the elections
in the U.M.W.A. and alliances with these ele-
ments were kept up even after it very
obvious that these alliances were harming the
work in the organization of the N.M.U. The
leadership of the national and district move
ments was of the worst type of old line
U.MW.A. clements. The Party carried on the
struggle against these elements on the top,
mechanically, and the membership was not
able to give the Party full support in these
fights, and on occasions the membership was
opposed to the Party line due to this method.
In turn this did not tend to raise the political
! level of the Party membership, but on the con-
trary, created the feeling that the Party is in
New York City; makes its decisions there, and
the membership has to carry them out. The
absence of the fraction work to explain to the
masses of the miners these decisions, also
created difficult situations in the lower branch
es of the sue. and lost us some valuable
supporters in the ranks, The period jI pre-
cee1ing the N.M.U. organizational convention