The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-08-02
Open Letter Provides Key by Which the Party
Can Move Forward on the Road Towards
Becoming Mass Party

however, necessarily makes it i'm
possible to 60 deeply into all the
problems confronting the workers
and farmers Concentrated work over
small area, done parallel with the
mass work, would yield excellent re-
suits and would make possible a
broader mass effort within a short
time. BY concentrating the work the
natural questionings and doubts of
newcomers to the Party would be
answered directly as they came up.
BY conducting work of this sort the
Party member and the prospective
member would have ample time and
opportunity to size each other up, to
exchange notes and confidence. Also,
the prospective member would quick
ly discover that the Party is ground
ed in practical theory and makes use
of a scientific revolutionary appar-
atus. Many workers now feel, after
listening to Party speakers, that it
is all very opportunist, that the Party
may be here today and gone tomor-
row. They fail to grasp the historical
continuity of the working class
movement, fail to realize that every
thing the working-class has today
(the eight hour day, unions, etc. etc.
has been won by working-class strug-
gle for more than 100 years.
I was very glad to see the Open
Letter because I have for some time
thought the Party was, in its present
tactics (not policy, somewhat to the
right of mass working-class senti-
ment. The working class sentiment
of the nation is, at this time, very,
very radical. The trouble is that
this spirit of rebellion is not chan
nelled properly. The workers cannot
see the enemy, and think it is what
the radio announcers call Old Man
Depression, what the capitalist press
calls hard times and what econom-
lists call a dip in the business cycle.
The workers need personal heart
to-heart talks by Party members,
need to be instructed in the MARKHAM
literature, need to have pointed out
to them the dangers of Socialist,
A. F. of L. and Musteite leadership.
Careful instruction Needed
The Daily Worker is an excellent
means of introduction in some in
stances, but it is most effective in
mass efforts to capture the soul of
the unrestricted worker. In too
many cases that I know of workers,
after struggling for years with fear
and starvation, have found the facts
as set forth in the Worker more
than they could take in steady doses.
I know of cases where workers have
been appalled, to find that their
hard luck, but was the result of
sympathetic exploitation going on
throughout the country, all over the
world. Instead of having been made
into effective fighters they have,
confronted with all the facts in the
Daily Worker, become fearful at the
magnitude of the task before the
working class.
In short, without careful instruction
at first-hand to guide them through
the examples of exploitation and
struggle against wholesale misery
they have felt like young child
suddenly lost at night in the big
city. Workers like these, and like the
child, can quickly throw OF the
feeling of despair at finding them
selves face to face with the horror
of the bourgeois system. But they
need personal and continuous coun-
sci over period. They would get
this If all Party members would
concentrate intensively, and would
report in some officially designated
period on the results of drive for
converts to thee revolutionary move
ment of the workers and farmers
against their inhuman exploiters.
What have Party members to say
to this proposalP
A. G.