The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-05-10
By A. LoZOySKY.

General Secretary Red international of Labor
Unions)
THE Fifth Red International of Labor Unions
Congress will be opened on the day of the
anniversary of the Red International of Labor
Unions. This does not mean that the Congress
is especially being convened merely for the
purpose of celebrating the anniversary, or in
order to carry out an international manifesto
ton on the event of the Tenth Birthday of
the RIL.U This Congress will be of mill
tant character, for a whole number of extreme
ly important and urgent problems concerning
the international revolutionary labor movement
will have to be solved by it.
The task of the Fifth Congress is to go ahead
of the Fourth Congress. To go ahead from
the point of view of theological political clos
ing up of the ranks of the followers of the Red
International of Labor Unions; to go ahead
from the point of view of Consolidating the
revolutionary forces; to go ahead along the
road Of struggling aaginst opportunlsm IN
theory and practice; to go ahead from the point
of view of forms and methods for leading the
economic battles of the working class; to strain
all efforts in order that this Congress becomes
a serious event in the life of the labor move
ment throughout the whole world.
Question of Strike Strategy.
What was the Fourth Congress? This Con-
gress served as the turning point in the his
tory of the development of the revolutionary
labor movement; it was convened on the eve
of the upsurge in the labor movement, and
the greatest merit of the Fourth Congress con-
sists in the fact that it was able to grasp the
most important link and bring forward as
the central task for the whole revolutionary
labor movement, for all Communist Parties, for
the revolutionary unions and trade union OPP
positions the problem of independent leadership
in economic battles. This bringing up OF the
question of the whole revolutionary trade union
movement making a determined turn towards
the economic battles and the new tactics to be
applied in the International labor movement
gave rise to some opposition tendencies. which
within short space of time came to be be-
yond the brink of the real international Com
munist movement. Already this stresses the
fact that this turn was effected IN proper
time And today, examining the stage passed
and the struggle still ahead with regard to
this question in the different countries, it must
be said with all conviction that this turn served
to wrest our revolutionary labor movement out
from the opportunist mire and forwarned the
danger of overlooking the vast revolutionary
upsurge among the toiling masses, the danger
of continuing to merely talk of revolutionary
tactics without, however, carrying these revo-
lutionary tactics out in actual life
It must be stressed here that within the
ranks of the Communist International, the
question of the economic struggle is often ne
elected and the significance of the economic
struggle for the Communist Party and for
the winning over of the majority of the work
ing class is often insufficiently understood.
Strikes often pass off without the Party con-
sidering it necessary to take the lead of them.
MANY of the Parties respond when it is already
too late. In some of the countries they sat
isfy themselves merely with devoting several
brewer notes in the press concerning the econ
omic struggle, considering this to be absolutely
sufficient; in other countries, 1t is considered
to be sufficient to have this work carried out
by the TU. Branch of the Communist Party,
while the Party itself, mind you, should busy
itself only with questions of "high" politics.
For Lenin Policy.
With regard to this question, as well as
many other, it would be advisable for all parties
to take some lessons from the Bolshevist Party,
which even during. the czarist times paid ut
most attention to questions of the economic
struggle.
/ want to cite here an extremely instructive
resolution written by Lenin, in February, 1907,
concerning the question of "The sharpening of
the Mass Economic Needs and the Economic
Struggle" In contradistinction to many other
resolutions, this resolution takes up only one