The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-02-03
The Place OF the Two. in
the Revolutionary Movement
Mutual Help and the Role of international
Workers Orders in the u. S.
BY MAX BEDACHT,
I 1

THE international Workers Order
serves the workers as proleta-
rian mutual benefit society. 1t
serves them as a mutual insurance
organization. Since social help is
withheld from the American work
er, we ask him to help himself
through collective efforts. The
TWO. is our contribution to such a
collective effort. 1t represents our
effort to solve, by means of mutual
insurance, the problems for the
American worker by the non-exist-
ence of social insurance. That is
really in itself a service to the
whole working class, not only to
the individual members of the Or
der. But it is not enough Of a SER
vice. While we organize the work
ers within the Two. to insure each
other we still emphasize the right
of the workers for social insurance.
That is why the International
Workers Order not only pays ben
efits to its members but it also or
ganizes them, and, as far as pos
sible, the workers as a whole, to
fight for social insurance. This
struggle for social insurance is di-
rectly connected with the purposes
of the International Workers Order
as mutual insurance society. The
struggle for social insurance there
fore, is not an extraneous issue for
the members of the Order We do
not deceive the workers when we
tell them that mutual insurance is
the purpose of the Order. BY lead
ing our members into the struggle
for social insurance we merely ex-
tend our members conception of
mutual help to the individual work.
er, to a conception of help to the
whole working class.
Too often, our comrades in the
non-party mass organizations are
complaining of the hesitancy with
which non-claSs conscious members
in these organizations approach
participation in the struggles of
the workers. Much of this hesitancy
is of our own making. 1t is caused
by our not making any efforts to
connect up the struggles into which
we desire to lead the workers with
the purposes for which these work
ers joined our organization. We de-
sire to win the masses for member
ship in the International Workers
Order because such membership
supplies a measure of economic
security which is not supplied by
society itself. In all activities, there
fore, the Order must prove that this
(to supply some measure of eco
nomic security to its members) and
in the main, this only is its con-
Germ. The Order must therefore
lead its members into such strug-
giles that develop directly out OF
the reasons that made the workers
join the Order. The further devel-
opment of such political activities
beyond the scope of the Order
must be the result of good leader
ship. For instance, when members
of the Order because of well di-
rected struggles for social inSur-
ance become Communists, 1t would
be wrong for the Order itself to
take on the functions of the Com
munist Party; such revolutionized
members of the Order will then join
the Communist Party. Or if mem
bers Of the Order, because of we'll
led struggles for social insurance
become convinced of the necessity
of economic struggles, the Two.
surely cannot take on the func-
tons of militant labor union for
the sake of such members; these
members will be directed to join
the revolutionary union.
The International Workers Order
remains what it set out to be, an
active proletarian Mutual Benefit
Society. The development of it's
members into militant trade union
lists or into Communists thus be-
comes a natural result of correct
functioning of the Two. as an ac-
tive workers mutual benefit So
ciety. 1t is necessary, for example,
to show the members of the Order
how working conditions and wages
are determining factors in their
health, in their continuous ability
or disability to work and to earn a
living, are factors In the soundness
and efficiency of their proletarian
mutual aid society. From this, revo-
lutionary leadership can easily de-
velop in these members an under
standing of the need of improving
wages and working conditions.
From this it is easy to lead these
workers 10 an understanding of the
need OF militant unions as instru-
ments of struggle to achieve such
improvements.