The Slogan "Save the Trade Unions."
The slogan, "Save the Trade Unions," as it has often been applied heretofore, is erroneous. The trade unions cannot be saved on the old lines. In order to realise this goal, it will be necessary to effect a fundamental transformation in the trade unions by means of the factory councils, with the object of industrial organisation and the liquidation of reformism by means of revolutionary activity.
The Rôle of the Factory Councils
In view of these facts, the principal task of the Communists is to concentrate all their energy on the work in the factories and the factory councils with the object of establishing the factory councils as starting points and supports for the whole work of the Party among the masses, especially against the reformist trade union leaders.
The factory councils are also confronted with the important task of uniting the organised trade unions masses with the unorganised masses in their ever-increasing elementary struggles.
In this connection the factory councils must be organisationally allied with one another according to industrial groups on a local, district, and general scale, so as to form potential basis of the future organisation of production.
Hence it is necessary at the present time to combat the danger of placing the factory councils in one form or another under the jurisdiction of the reformist trade unions.
The Economic Struggle
The decentralisation which is naturally and necessarily developing from the present situation (the unfavourable state of the market, the slump in production, the bankruptcy of the reformist trade unions, &c.), and the spontaneous outbreak of unofficial strikes (against the will of the trade union executives and without the financial support of the latter), places upon the Communists the duty of leading these strikes.
The Communists must combine every concrete Problem of the economic struggle and trade union tactics with the general historical tasks of the working class, and with the necessity of the fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The Communists must actively participate in the organisation of the strike leadership and the committees of action, and ally them with the factory councils.
But in view of the fact that the factory councils must act as the basis for the general re-grouping of the forces of the working class in its struggle, the entire weight of this economic struggle must not be placed exclusively on the shoulders of the factory councils.
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