The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-09-07
Shop Organization and Shop
Activity

speadily renedied. For long time we have
pointed cut the serious danger of the wide ten
dency in the Party to lag behind the masses in
the developing struggles. A major cause of this
tagging behind is due to the fact that our Party
is ret yet organized upon the shop basis 1t is
an 4. 3. c. CT Communist organization that for
our Party to be the real leader Of the masses,
it mus base its organization and life directly
upon the shops Shop nuclei c-e much superior
to street nuclei for developing mass struggle.
This is true not only with regard to strikes,
but also unemployment work, anti-war work,
Negro work, election campaigns, the fight against
the social fascists, and all the other major
tiyities of the Party. While it is true that we
must build street nuclei wherever our forces for
the time being are too weak to build shop nuclei,
but our Party must and will be fundamentally
built on the shop nucleus basis
A dec We turn of the Party towards the shops
is now -ically necessary for its further growth
and dew opment. Great strikes and other mass
struggle3 now stand before the American work
ing clac5 faced as it is by the deepening crisis,
wage GUS, mass unemployment increasing ter
rorism etc. If our Party is to play leading
role in the coming fierce mass battles, it must
proceed vigorously to strengthen its position
in the shops, especially in the basic and war in
dustries. The same is, of course, true with re-
gard to the Young Communist League
The mine strike teaches us clear lessons in
this respect. When this great struggle began we
had in the mine fields in spite of the great
rehabilitation Of the workers, only few scat
tered fragments of Party organization. These
collapsed under the big tasks at the outset of
strike. If we had a real Party base, and it could
easily have been so, we could have organized
three times IS large strike, controlled 1t much
y,,or ir,,,Iy,
greater degree the leading role and organization
of the Party But we had to build the Party
from the ground up in the struggle, which con-
ssituted great handicap. In the future we must
not wait till these big strike storms burst about
our heads before we start Party building. We
must now take time by the forelock by system
aticaly developing our shop nuclei in the key
and b2sc industries The whole Party and the
YCL must be ORIGINATED upon this task.
SO far as our present Party membership is
concerned, it is not SO much matter of
organizing the existing street nuclei into shop
nuclei, as it is of building shop nuclei out of and
with the support of the street nuclei. We are
long past the stage Q925-27 period where some
thought we had reorganzed the Party onto
shop nucleus basis six weeks time The build
ing of shop nuclei out of street nuclei, indeed
the building of shop nuclei generally is a diff
Cul tdSho ISHulIlllS the Close GCCenUOn OF tne
Party leadership 1t must not be done sche-
matically in this initial stage would it be well
for each district committee to make the most
intimate study of a single nucleus in a given
plant, so that the basic lessons learned there
may be carefully applied elsewhere.
Our tsks is more than one of simply reorgan-
izing street nuclei into shop nuclei. We must
especially branch out into theindustries recruit
ing new nuclei in many plants and industries
where we have no reorganized Party. This will
require skillful mobilization of cur contacts in
prolecarian fraternal cr51-l.-ations, the readers
of our language press, etc. 1t also necessitates
he vc".i,lg out Of concentration points by the
cGpective districts. Such Party concentration
ok in the industries must, of course dovetail
18th the concentration programs of the revolu-
onary unions
In establishing contacts to begin shop activity
ne question of work among the unemployed,
nd especially the part time workers, is of the
"ceatest Importance. Mass movements among
t.cGe workers can readily be set into motion
ard these furnish bridge to the masses in the
shops
The Party can be built in the shops on the
basis of struggle Party shop nuclei must be
born out of the furtherance Of the Party cam
paigns, and Party nuclei can live only by car
in on g p"ogrcn Of struggle. Here The trad
nion work assumes basic Importance. Every