The Threat to the Labor Movement/Section 36
The Communist Position.
FAR from wishing to "destroy the trade unions" as the right wing claims, the Communist position is exactly the reverse. In the instructions given to all Communist parties by the enlarged session of the Executive of the Communist International held February–March, 1926, it is stated clearly:
New forms of mass organizations like Soviets, only become feasible just at the beginning of the revolution. TO FOSTER THE BELIEF THAT COMMUNISTS WILL BE ABLE, UNDER THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM, TO DEVISE MASS ORGANIZATIONS OTHER THAN TRADE UNIONS IS TO ABANDON THE REALMS OF REALITY. (International Press Correspondence, Vol. 5, No. 47, Page 617—Under heading "Bolshevization and Work in the Trade Unions.")
As to the charge that Communists systematically, or accidentally, minimise the importance of wage and hour struggles, that they care only for "creating discontent" and nothing about the immediate interests of workers in the shape of improvements in their working conditions and living standards, the same resolution quoted above says:
To enable Communists TO TAKE UP A CORRECT ATTITUDE in all movements which bring the workers into conflict with capitalism, COMMUNIST PARTIES MUST MAKE A CAREFUL EXAMINATION OF ALL THE FACTORS OF THE CONCRETE CONDITIONS of all such struggles: the nature of the business of the factory or factory groups, the bulk and genuineness of the orders places, the connection and mutual interrelation of the various factories, syndicates and trusts, organized strength and capacity for of resistance of the employers and also the strength of the trade union organizations and the readiness for struggle of both organized and unorganized workers, the possibility of the strike spreading and its political consequences.
Why does the Communist International insist on the Communist parties securing this exact information an develop the greatest possible ability for all situations—great or small?
The answer is obvious. The Communist parties want the workers to WIN. It goes without saying that if Communists cannot show work their class how to win strikes, or how to better their conditions without a strike at times, then it is very unlikely that the working class will follow the lead of the Communists in a revolutionary struggle against capitalism and the capitalist state.
Communist parties have to prove their capability as well as their honesty and devotion to the cause of the working class if, as the above resolution concludes, Communists are "to be in a position to give exact directions and to ensure that they the lead in all proletarian encounters with capitalism."
Defeats of workers by capitalists are, because the Communists are part of the working class, just as bad for them as they are for the workers who do not belong to the party. Communists want EVERY STRUGGLE OF THE WORKERS TO END IN VICTORY.