THE THREAT TO THE LABOR MOVEMENT
struments of the working class.
4. An effort to deceive the workers into believing that the Communists as a revolutionary political party are more of a menace to the trade unions than are the capitalist democrat and republican parties.
5. An effort to make the trade union membership believe that the Communists alone of all political groups form and hold caucuses to decide on what policy and methods they shall pursue and use in the unions.
6. An effort to convince workers that not difference in policy but Communists are responsible for internal union struggles which in all countries center around the same basic issues.
In this the phase of the campaign against militant trade unionism and militant trade union members mentioned above, the official trade union and socialist press is receiving the wholehearted support of such open organs of the industrial and financial lords as the New York Times.
Capitalist Press Supports Right Wing.
THE support given by the capitalist press to the drive against militant unionism is of three kinds:
1. Agitation against the left wing which follows—shapes, is probably nearer the truth—the tactics of the socialist and right wing trade union press.
2. Completely false statements as to the gains made by the workers in Passaic and the cloakmakers' strike with the purpose of making victories obtained under left wing leadership appear as defeats.
3. Propaganda for "class peace"—the worker-cooperation policy of the official trade union leadership—"efficiency unionism."
The first and second types of agitation against the left wing are generally combined as in the following quotations from editorials in the New York Times:
Whether a strike is won or lost, it is a victory, in the Communist doctrine, if the operation of peace machinery is destroyed, if a six month's strike leaves behind it a rankling bitterness. To be sure it does not always work out that way. Among the local garment workers the indications are that the lessons have been learned and the left wing's power for harm will be wiped out.
The above was written before the mass meeting of 18,000 needle trade workers in Madison Square Garden categorically demanded the resignation of President Sigman and endorsed the left wing leadership of the New York joint board in the cloakmakers' strike. It will be seen from this that with The Times, as with the socialist and official labor press, the wish is father to the thought. "The Communists should be driven out of the trade unions and the left wing should be crushed." No sooner said than done—on paper.
The Times again:
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