The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-07-11
The Immediate Problems OF the
Mine Strike

ing OF the strike? The greatest danger is the
development of weaknesses in the present strike.
either weaknesses in policy or the breaking of
the ranks in any large scale back-te-work move
nents. I think that the greatest weakness now
at this moment is not the back-to-work move
n1ent. This is not the greatest danger. Be-
fore you see any broad back to-work movement
develop you will see another kind of danger deve-
1op namely moods of desperation, and indivdu-
al militant action.
This is not new among the miners. This has
happened many times. 1t is the method of des-
perate miners when they feel that their strike
is losing and that they must do something of a
desperate nature, and usually it is followed very
quickly by the defeat of the strike think We
have to consciously endaavor to prevent the deve-
lopment Of this mood of desperation among the
miners One way that can be done is to keep
before them the possibilities of the winning of
the strike. We have to fight against every pes
sinlistic tendency, and particularly we have to
watch our own organizers to see that they don't
become the vehicle for the spreading Of pessl-
nlisun I am inclined to think that some of our
greatest dangc>s are among our own organizers
and not among the miners. This emphasizes
all the more the necessity Of establishing frac
ton work. Precisely now comes the test of our
leading forces in the field, in the fight against
defeat. It will be impossible to do this only
through the strike machinery We must have
fractions And the fractions must become the
steel rod that goes through the strike commit
tees and holds them up and prevents the develop
raent of any wild moves off to one side of the
main line
Now, about West. Virginia In West Virginia
we are not dealing with an entirely unorganized
movement. I don't accept the stories that Kee-
ney puts out that they have 10 or 20 thousand
miners organized. We have a stronger orgari-
cation than Keeney has, nevertheless the fact
remains that in Southern West Virginia we are
dealing with not an entirely unorganized move
ment and the Keeney group has the hegemory
in Southern West Virginia. This requires that
we have tactic of maneuver in regard to these
people We cannot merely decline to have re-
lations with whatever group comes out of this
Held, whether it is Keeney personally or Kee-
ney's representatives The fact remains that
one of the roads to the miners in this terri
tory is rlaneuvers with this outfit. I think
our tactic must be in connection with the Keeney
outfit, TO get our connections established there
and create the issues in the strike on which
we will overthrow the Keeney leadership and
begin it, Of course, at this Conference So,
whoever we can get from Southern West Vlr-
ginia should be taken into The Conference
4nere sIlCu1o DC no I4uSlo4Is CreGOsO U IeOh VI
issues between us. But the issues should be
developed on a concrete basis not abstractly.
Now, what is the significance of the changed
tactics Of the Socialist Party? It is very def
mite new line expressed in the slogan. Win the
N M u away from the Communists" IN my
opinion there are two sides to this In the first
place, it is a recognition of the failure of the
direct attack against us. It is the launching of
new line OF attack against our leadership. 1t
L. analogous to the slogan,-"Soviets without