The Threat to the Labor Movement/Introduction
Introduction.
The purpose of this pamphlet is to show by documentary evidence, whose authenticity no one can impugn, that the campaign against all progressive tendencies in the labor movement which was launched at the A. F. of L. convention in 1923 has entered a new phase in which there is a more open combination than ever before of the trade union officialdom, the capitalist press, the employers and the government.
It will also be shown that the main motives which prompt the intensified attack, centering on the left wing, are (1) the desire of the capitalists to suppress all struggles which interfere with the development of American Imperialist prosperity and either destroy the trade unions or force them to a general dead level of docility, (2) the desire of the trade union officialdom to force on the unions a policy which will make of them the docile organizations which the capitalists will accept, (3) the desire 'of both the capitalists and their labor agents to drive the most conscious and active left wing workers out of the unions and destroy their influence in the labor movement because they are trying to rally all workers for struggle on a program of immediate and necessary demands.
Finally, this pamphlet will show that the policy. of the trade union officialdom, of which the latest attack on the left wing is a logical result, is based on one phase, and one phase alone, of American capitalist development, i. e. its present temporary upward swing, and that because of this neglect of other fundamental factors, can bring nothing but disaster to the labor movement.
The more "successful" this policy is, i. e. the more endorsement it receives from the masses now, the more disastrous will be the ultimate result. The left wing therefore fights the battle of the whole working class when it resists to the utmost the new offensive of the combined forces of American capitalism which, in the period of imperialism, include with some minor exceptions the whole bloc of trade union officialdom.
The present struggle is in reality produced by the determination of the left wing to prevent the agents of the capitalists in the unions splitting the labor movement or. failing this, turning it over to the bosses.
This struggle could be avoided only by the left wing abandoning its correct program and accepting the official program of unconditional surrender of the unions.