The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1933-02-02
The Place OF the I.W.O. in
the Revolutionary Movement

lem which mutual insurance can
only solve inadequately.
st must teach the workers, in
the course of the struggle for So
cial insurance, that in the last
analysis, all their many problems
which grow out Of the fact that
they are workers, that they have
only wages to live off, and that the
chance to earn wages is beyond
their control, is in reality a funda-
mental political problem-the prob
lem of establishing a Working
Class Rule N the place Of the ex-
isting capitalist class rule. az
IN these paragraphs our concern
is not the first task, although 1t
is a very important one. After, all,
the masses will judge a mutual
benefit society by the services it
renders to its members in the form
of mutual help. We must not be
surprised at this seemingly selfish
approach. Collectively it is not SO
selfish. The problems Of the work.
ing class present themselves to the
individual worker as his own indi-
V1dual and concrete problems. To
recognize ones own problems, is the
first beginning of ones efforts to
solve them: therefore it is the first
incentive to class struggle activi-
ties. Only in the course Of such
class struggle activities, that is in
the course of efforts to solve his
own problems, does the worker
learn to recognize in his own prob
lens the problems of his class. This
recognition is the beginning of
ass-consciousness.
Since it is our main task to win
the workers for and in the strug-
gle for the solution of their irnne-
date problems, and since we can
make them S-consciouS only in
the course of this struggle, we must
welcome in the ranks Of our pro-
letarian mutual benefit organiza-
ton, especially those masses that
will join only for the immediate
benefit attached to their member
ship. We want these workers in
our proletarian mutual benefit So
ciety, although they are not yet
class-conscious. We want them be-
cause when they join they put
themselves under our leadership
and through our leadership we hope
to make them class conscious.
In this article, our main concern
is how our proletarian fraternal Or
ganization, the International Work
ers Order, can make the workers
class conscious. We will therefore
deal here only with the third task,
above mentioned, the problem OF
making the workers class conscious.
PROBLEM IMPORTANT
This problem is Of the greatest
Importance. 1t is the major prob
lem of Communist leadership in all
non-Party mass organizations.
There is a tendency on the part
of many comrades to transfer all
the conditions of membership in
and all the tasks of the Communist
Party, as well as the tasks of in
diviual Communists, to every mill
tant mass organization and its
members. But that is pure secta-
rianisn. 1t liquidates the varying
immediate purposes OF the different
organizations; it obScures under the
screen of general revolutionary.
propaganda phrases the concreteTis-
sues and problems of struggle on
which these organizations were
built; it reduces all of these organ
izations to uniformity; 1t makes
out of all of them more or less dis
tinct but, nevertheless, bad copies
of the Communist Party. ConSe-
quently the membership of these
organizations becomes limited only
to revolutioflists. Instead of serving
backward workers to develop them,
this policy leads TO repel and ex-
rcf them from these organizations.
REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVITIES,
MUST BE CONCRETE
Very seldom we make serious eff
forts of combining our revolutions
airy activities in such organiza-
tons with their avowed purpose.
For instance, the efforts to reyo-
lutionize the members of our mu-
tual benefit society, of the Two,
must have something definite TO do
with the solution of the problem
which brings the workers into the
ranks of the Two.
(TO BE CONTINUED) r