The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-02-07
The Basic Reason For Unsatisfactory
Situation .,-t .tt.


The Basic Reason For Unsatisfactory
Situation.
V. The basic reason for the unsatisfactory
situation in the League is to be found in the
sectarian isolation and separation from the
basic masses of the young workers. The
League has not begun to follow the course for
winning over the masses by the development
of broad Communist youth Policy" as out
lined by our 9Th National Convention, and the
criticism that "the League has not yet under
stood how to develop a real youth policy and
has not correct line towards the young work
ers both inside and outside the League" still
applies, i. e., the failure to correctly approach
them on the basis of their everyday needs.
A guage of our sectarian position can be
seen in the bad national and social compost
ton Of the League and in the failure to retain
young proletarians in the League once they are
recruited. AS result of the fractional strug
gle and the unprincipled methods used, for a
whole period the League INDUCED in exaggera-
lions as to its strength and painted rosy
picture of its situation. The analysis OF our
membership made by the NEG on the basis
of a national registration in which 1889 COM
rades participated, served to dispel these Jlu-
sions and show US the real facts of the sit
uation. IT,.
The registration showed US that only Al per
cent of our members are industrial workers,
while only 20 per cent are working in any OF
the main industries, the rest of the comrades
being employed in more or less highly skilled
and organized industries where the masses OF
young workers are not concentrated. The bad
connection of the League with the basic Sec
tions of the working youth is displayed by the
fact that the bulk of the industrial workers in
the League are employed in the small or me-
dunn sized factories (e7 per cent in factories
employing less than 500 workers). At the
same time more than 80 per cent of our mem
bers are students, office workers, and petty
bourgeois elements. While the League has
made certain progress in raising the percen-
tage of American born members, the national
composition of the League is still entirely out
of proportion with the national composition
of the working class youth. Thus, more than
so per cent of the League membership is to
be found in Superior and New York, where the
bulk of the members are either Finnish or
Jewish Tin the latter case, foreign born) and
also of very bad social composition. Thus out
of 1889 members registered, 655 are Jewish
and 453 are Finnish, and only 119 are Anglo
Saxon, 20 Negroes, 80 Italians, ETC., despite
the fact that the native born American, Negro,
Italian workers, ETC., are concentrated in the
basic industries While young girls are being
the workers at a very rapid rate (even con-
Quoting their independent strikes) there is an
absolutely insufficient proportion Of working
girls in the League
Numerically the proportion of girls is salts
factory, but most of the girl comrades are
students and office workers, or as in some
eastern districts, needle trade workers.
Since then the composition has somewhat
improved, especially since the membership
drive, and in the improvement in the National
and Social composition of the New York, De-
troit and Cleveland Districts. However, the
social and national composition of the bulk of
the membership is still extremely unsatisfac-
tory.
The sectariansm of the League is further
expressed in its separation from the daily
class struggle events, in its failure to react
not only to local strike movements, but imper-
Missile passivity on the part of whole Sec
tions of the leadership and membership to
such politically important events the strug
giles in the South and the miners strikes. This