The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-07-06

observed among the Party members. For ex
ample, at Party fraction meeting of miners
in East Ohio early in May, Party members put
forward among others, the following arguments:
l. The fact that we need new line and
program for the NMU, is proven by the fact
that the NMU is not yet mass union.
2. That it is impossible to get Negro workers
into the union.
3. That since the present membership has
failed to build a mass union, we should COM
pletely eliminate all present members and start
building everything from the beginning
4. That we too weak to lead strikes at
the present time in East Ohio.
Another form of the failure to properly est-
mate the situation is seen in the argument put
forward that what the Party needs now is day
to day detailed organization work, and not
"showy demonstrations"
This argument was used by leading comrade
who argued against holding a Hunger March on
these grounds, but who, however, quickly saw
and corrected his mistake
This artificial separation of mass work" from
detailed organiaztional work" Visiting of house
to house contacts etc., was manifested on
number of different occasions in the District A
leading members of the YCL displayed ten
dency towards this separation and towards the
separation of the work of building the YCL,
too much, from the TUUL youth work The
Daily Worker Agent of the District stated that
his work was not mass work, and went further
and argued against being placed on the agit-
prop department, the ground that he would
rather do mass work. and also stated that
the visiting of units by District Representatives
is not mass work. These comrades did not fully
realize that detail organization work cannot be
mechanically separated from mass work" and
is an important part of mass work.
1t is quite obvious now, at least in District
Five, that in the present period, if the Party
wants to lead masses, and build mass Party
it must do SO on the basis of leading struggles
and strikes of the workers against wage cuts
and starvation and for the needs and demands
The basic cause of these wrong tendencies
was the underestimation of the tremendous
militant fighting resistance against starvation
which was developing in the workers.
The District Bureau knew that conditions of
literal starvation to an unheard of extent ex-
listed in the mining field, but underestimate
the speed of the development of the struggle
against these starvation conditions. This is
shown by the fact that the two months plan of
work of the Party did not emphasize the i'm
mediate Development of strike struggles. The
Party leadership realized that strikes were in
creasing and foresaw that the NMU must be
built into mass union in the heat of such
strike struggle. But the Party Fraction of the
miners union for example, which met on April
26th, was not yet modified for immediate strike
struggle The mistake was in foreseeing a per-
iod of small individual strikes and in not re-
alizing that broad mass strike movement had
ripened.
On May It'll, two leading Party members from
Avea came to the Party Office and insisted that
plans for developing strike struggles in the
Avea Section must be speeded up. The min
utes of the Secretariat of May 7th states:
Comrades called the attention OF
the Secretariat to the necessity Of decisive &C.
ton and demand on the part of the miners
for strike The Secretanat at this tins de-