The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-06-05
Party Life
Build Where You Work
BY L. AMTER.

There is not only the tendency but the very
practice for the overwhelming majority of the
membership of the Party not to conduct revo-
lutionary Communist work in the shop where
they work, but everywhere else. Comrades who
will not do any Communist work in their own
shops, will go to other factories to distribute
leaflets get contacts, sell Daily Workers, ETC.
They will attend demonstrations and work hard
at night they are militant fighters on the picket
lne-they will carry out every Party decision
and instruction-but they do no Communist
work in the shops where they work. This is
curious, and evidently is based upon the
fact that the comrades fear to be fired if dis
covered; and they do not wish to be responsible
for their being fired. Even young comrades,
members of the YCL and of the Party who have
no personal responsibilities, will hesitate and fail
to do work in the shops where they work, but
will be most militant outside the factory This
fear has been nstiled into them by the boss
and yet many never consider that millions of
workers who have not engaged in any revou-
tionary activity whatever are today out in the
streets, having been fired by the bosses.
True, the Party does not want members to
be fired, firstly because it puts the Party men,
bers in bad situation, and secondly because
it separates the Party from the masses in the
shops But if the comrade only works for the
boss in the shop, if he fails to carry on Com
munist work while he works, then he is of no use
to the Party in the shop, and, though working
there, is isolated from the masses. He is iso-
lated because today the workers are waiting
for leadership and organization: they look to
militant workers to give them policy If this
is not given them, the workers remain apart from
the Communists and the Communists have no
influence on them.
This situation must be changed True it is
difficult to work in the shops-but it is also
difficult to get contact with the workers outside
the shops. But surely when working in the
shop, knowing the workers of the department
and they knowing our comrades-if we make
careful selection, it is not difficult to carry on
work. 1t is not difficult to smuggle literature
into the shop-leaflets, stickers, etc. 1t is not
difficult TO work out ways and means of reach
ing the workers, of providing information for
bulletins, leaflets, for the Daily Worker. which
are distributed outside the shops. But if the
contacts obtained outside the shop, and the
contacts that may be obtained inside only by the
Party and YCL members who work inside the
shops are not organized with the active aid of
the workers in the shops, then the work of or
ganizing the workers is hampered.
Party members are working in some of the
most important establishment in the country
and yet the movement inside the shops for the
Party and the Trade Union Unity League does
not move forward. This is due to the fact that
that our Party and YCL members do not build
up the Party, YCL and revolutionary unions
where they work. Many workers inside the
shops are much more militant than Party mem
bers, not because they are more revolutionary,
but because they show more daring and not
the caution that too many Party members dis
play
This situation must be changed. The workers
look to the Party for leadership not only in
the streets, but also in the shops. The Party
members in the shops must build where they
work. That is their main task-and on this
depends to the greatest extent the building of
the revolutionary unions and the Party in the
shops