The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-09-17

ming the majority of the working class, is OPP
portunisTn expressed in various forms, of lack
of faith in the masses and reliance on sponta-
neity. Always opportunist, this fear of the
masses is sometimes openly right-wing and at
other times masked with cleft" phrases. 1t
operates among our members with a
thousand variations in its slogans, Of which the
following are examples: American workers are
especially backward and therefore will not strug-
gle" Our Party is too weak to lead broad
mass struggles, 1.-THE masses are too undeveI-
oped to follow our Party; Unframed workers
cannot be trusted in leading positions; "Work-
ers must go through long period of experience
with reformism, with the S. P, L. P, Musteites,
etc, before they are ripe for the Communist
Party; Only flll-fledgsd LeninIsts should be
taken into membership Of the OPP; an, one
can be trusted in the Leadership of struggles
until he is a fully trained feminist; BE care
full not to talk much about the Communist Par
ty or you will scare away the workers from the
mass organizations" I'VE cannot organize the
workers until we have fully trained corps of
organizers" etc.
This opportunist lack OF faith in the masses
and reliance on spontaneity whether openly
right wing or "leftist" in form, prevents us from
organizing the masses when we are leading them
in the midst of struggles. It not only prevents
the building Of the mass organizations; but
especially it builds up high wall to keep the
workers out of our Party. 1t is Scandalous
condition when in almost every district, we find
examples of good militant workers who spent
from to IL months of persistent efforts before
they were able to force their way into the Party.
This fear Of the masses leads in the direction of
liquidation of the leading role Of the Party,
hiding it from the masses SO that it disappears
as an effective factor. This lack of faith in the
masses and dependence upon spontaneity ex-
pressed itself in the unemployment work as too
great an orientation upon demonstrations and
in weakly developing organizing and carrying
through the day to day struggles and organizing
authoritative local unemployed councils with
committees that carry through the manifest
tasks in the day to day fight for the interests
Of the unemployed. In the strike struggles it
expresses itself in insufficient attention to the
basic masses Of the proetariat, to the fortresses
Of capitalism dominated by the trusts, to the
huge factories with thousands Of workers, in in
sufficient preparation of strike struggles in the
weaknesses in formation OF local strike COM
mittees, and stimulating the initiative OF the
masses and overcoming formal and bureaucratic
methods of work, in the failure to take the
necessary energetlc measures to build UP the
revolutionary unions in the struggles, in insuffi-
cent popular agitation, maneuvers and actions
to expose the strikebreaking reformist bureau
cracy and in countering and exposing the maneu-
vers Of bourgeois demagogues. At the same time
within the Party and the mass organizations 1t
expresses itself in bureaucratic methods of work,
in the sitting of democracy within the Party, in
sitting the initiative from below preventing the
absorption Of new members, stunning the growth
of organization, in the insufficient politicaliza-
ton and activization of the Party membership
by means of enlightenment upon the tasks, day
to day guidance and practical assistance to the
Party membership in carrying out these tasks
Only conscious, intoerant and systematic
struggle against every evidence Of bureaucratic
methods of work by the entire Party simultane-
ously with the struggle against right and cleft"
deviations, will eliminate this obstacle to the
growth of our movement, and enable us to re-
aze the tremendous opportunities that lie be-
fore us in the coming months to rouse the de-
fensive struggles Of the working class, give them
firm organizational basis and develop them
into counter-offensive against the offensive of
Che bosses. The most persistent struggle against
formal and bureaucratic methods OF work must
go hand in hand with the development OF mass
struggles and with the widest self criticism
TO- The above weaknesses indicate the need
for sharper struggle against opportunism
within the Party, against the right danger which