The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-02-20
10y A. z + Ct 5EZs,5 g
Lenin and The International
Trade Union Movement
PART 2.

The policy, the principle of Lenin-
ism in the trade union movement is
to bind the trade unions with the
Party as closely as possible, leading
them through fractions For the the
DRY of trade union neutrality, as dis
tingushed from the theory as to the
need for close connections between
the unions and the revolutionary So
cial democracy lie, the Communist
Parties now, author), leads inevitably
to the preference of such means. OF
improvement (of the workers mate
rial standards) that blunt the work
ing class struggle" ubid)
Fighting against the reformists and
Mensheviks who tore the trade union
movement away from the revolution
airy path of development, Lenin like
wise fought the 'lefts'.. who under
estimated the significance Of the
unions and the need for working in
them. He untiringly returned to trade
union questions, proving the need for
working in the trade unions seeing
that. the revolutionary working class
Party must be found wherever the
working masses are found. He spoke
thus before the war, and returned
again and again to this line after the
war and the October revolution.
| Bolshevism was founded, said Lenin,
Firstly, and chiefly, in the struggle
against opportunism, which in 1914
had completely developed into social
chauvinism, completely going over to
The side of the bourgeoisie against the
working class.
Naturally, this was the chief enemy
Of Bolshevism inside the labor move
ment This has remained the chief
enemy on an international scale. Sec
ondly, Bolshevisfn was founded, grew.
and was steeled in the prolonged
struggle against petty bourgeois revo-
lutionariness, which smacks Of anar-
chisrn, or borrows OF it, which in all
/ things substantial differs from the
conditions and requirements of tried
proletarian class struggle. Anarchism
and opportunism are two defornities
which mutually supplement one an
other" Unfantile Disease of Ieftism'
in Communism -
Left Theories.
Previous to and after the october
Revolution Lenin fought strenuously
against '1eft" theories in the trade
union movement. Both during the
l905-1907 revolution, as well as inn
mediately after the October Revolu-
ton, there were those among the Boil
sheYiks who did not realize the role of
the trade unions in the revolutionary
movement, who did not realize their
Significance as transmission belts
from the Party TO the masses, did not
realize their educational-politica1 role,
either. Such "1efts" denied the need to
oTganize unions and activities in them.
We should note here that outside Of
Russia Rosa Luxembourg was one Of
these ''lefts". Rosa was highly valued
by Lenin as a revolutionary, but at
the same time he relentlessly exposed
her mistakes.
After the october Revolution Lenin
had to fight both against the rights
and against the "lefts", in the Soviet
trade union movement and in the
trade union movement in capitalist
countries. This is the period when he
made the most speeches and wrote
the most articles on trade union ques-
tons Lenin elaborated the theory
and tactics of the trade union move
ment in the epoch of Proletarian Rev.
olution with exhaustive thoroughness.
Here we will only describe the basic
points of what Lenin left us,
] At the very beginning of the Octo-
Der Revolution some Bolsheviks put
forward the idea that trade unions
were Superfluous under the Prole-
tartan Dictatorship, that it was nee
essary forthwith to make them state