In this historical period, the central task for communists carrying out political work among the working class is still party building. Where a communist party is lacking, the working class is without real leadership for its revolutionary struggle with capital.
In the USA there is still not a revolutionary current among the working class. To develop such a current, communists must strive to propagate proletarian ideology and propagandise revolutionary politics on a broad basis, and in the course of giving leadership to the spontaneous struggle of the class, work to win the most politically advanced to communism.
Historically the U.S. working class has been relatively militant on the more strictly economic front but been backward in the political arena. Witness to this backwardness is its inability to bring forth its own class party, even in the form of a social democratic or labor party. This condition is the result of objective factors such as the strength and vitality of the capitalist system in this country in its early period which was unfettered by feudal constraints. But it is also due to the failure of communists to consistently bring out revolutionary agitation and propaganda and give reliable Marxist-Leninist leadership to the class struggle.
Responding to the economic militance of the U.S. working class, the principal form of opportunism among communists in trying to carry out work in the bourgeois-dominated trade union movement has been economism. One significant expression of this prevalent economism has been the notion that a major area of communist work should be “trade union work.” Trade union work as a separate category unto itself is a reflection of subordinating revolutionary politics to trade union politics. What is indicative of a correct orientation is to strive to take up revolutionary work among the working class and necessarily in the foremost mass organizations of the working class, the trade unions.
To rivet communist work within the confines of the trade union movement and organization is to narrow communist work to fit the strictures of bourgeois politics. The principal aspect of a trade union movement which is not guided by the strategic goal of socialism is that it is a bourgeois trade union movement. Therefore, the principal task of communists in the trade union movement is to liberate it from the ideological, political, and organizational chains which bind it to the capitalist system.
This represents a complex and complicated task which requires communists to unite their maximum programme of socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat with partial demands which call for reforms within the capitalist system itself. It requires a strategic clarity and firmness combined with a tactical flexibility and ingenuity which have mastered all forms of organization and struggle. It requires building up a communist party with a base of support among the masses and entering into necessary blocs and alliances with non-communist and even reformist political forces.
The central task of communists in building a Marxist-Leninist party cannot be accomplished without developing a revolutionary current within the working class. And this revolutionary current cannot be fostered without communists reaching out broadly with revolutionary politics. Advanced people from the working class cannot be won to socialism and communist organization unless Marxist-Leninists gain a hearing for socialist ideas among the masses and take up the question of giving active leadership to the class struggle.
The central task of communists in building a Marxist-Leninist party cannot be accomplished without developing a revolutionary current within the working class. And this revolutionary current cannot be fostered without communists reaching out broadly with revolutionary politics. Advanced people from the working class cannot be won to socialism and communist organization unless Marxist-Leninists gain a hearing for socialist ideas among the masses and take up the question of giving active leadership to the class struggle.
This active leadership of the class struggle will necessitate communists working within the organizational framework of the trade unions, and independently of them as well. The primary form for the organizational independence of communists is the cell. The cell or nuclei is the basic unit of communists within a mine, mill, or factory. The basic goal of a cell is to help build a communist party where none exists and win the masses of workers in a particular workplace to support revolution. In order to build a communist party and win the broad masses of working people to the side of revolution, the members of a cell work within the trade unions. Winning leadership in the trade union apparatus is a strategic goal of communists, but only in the sense that it serves to build support for revolution.
When a communist succeeds in becoming a trade union official with considerable power within the union apparatus, this does not mean that this communist is necessarily winning the rank and file members of the union to take part in the revolutionary movement of the working class to emancipate itself from wage slavery. In fact, what often happens, given the tremendous pervasive political and ideological influence of capitalism and the spontaneous pull of trade unionism itself, such a communist degenerates into just a trade union militant or reformer, essentially concerned with the price and conditions for the sale of labor power.
It is imperative that communists become actively involved within the organisational framework of the trade unions, but in this period what this means is that they will be militating on the shop floor, possibly as directly elected committeemen or shop stewards, and trying to use the union meetings as forums for bringing forward their maximum and minimum program. But it will be rare that communists should base their tactics on getting elected to positions within the established apparatus of the union. Without a strong base of support as communists, they will have great difficulty in breaking beyond the predominant trade union politics, no matter how militant such politics can become.
The strategy which tends to land communists in the mire of economism, reformism, and trade union politics is commonly called the strategy of “boring from within.” This strategy is based on the belief that communists should principally concern themselves with becoming better and more effective trade union militants than the run-of-the-mill bourgeois reformists themselves. The minimum program of communists comes to the forefront in such a strategy and relegates the maximum program of socialism to secondary importance. Hence, instead of the winning of reforms being judged in relation to the building of a revolutionary movement for the abolition of wage slavery, the goal of revolution becomes dependent essentially on the tactical goals of winning partial demands.
The strategy of “boring from within” banks a lot on being able to win power and influence within the trade union apparatus, on being able to become an integral part of the apparatus itself. In effect then, the strategy of “boring from within” subordinates revolutionary politics to trade union politics, which can guide militant struggle on a day-to-day basis against the capitalists, but does not challenge the capitalist system itself. It is correct for communists to become involved in the day-to-day struggles of the working class, but these struggles should not become the end-all, be-all of their activity.
Communists should strive to give leadership to the economic, trade union struggles of the working class, but they must have as their primary concern to strive to link these struggles with the revolutionary movement for socialism. It is, in fact, very possible to do relatively well in giving leadership to economic struggles, and also effectively undercut the revolutionary movement by failing to raise the class consciousness of the workers involved in the trade union battles. A communist can do well as a trade union militant, but this is no sure barometer of how well he or she is doing communist work.
Often, the alternative that revolutionary-minded workers and intellectuals have turned to in their rejection of the economism and reformism of the “boring from within” strategy has been anarcho-syndicalism. What anarcho-syndicalism does is to try to create a revolutionary unionism. This means that the trade union form is not really transcended, but an attempt is made to give this form a new revolutionary content. The trade unions themselves must be seen as revolutionary vehicles for the emancipation of the working class. The inevitable result is “revolutionary” economism.
In the USA anarcho-syndicalism gained strength in the first two decades of the twentieth century when revolutionaries struggled to break with the reformism of the Socialist Party and ended up forming the International Workers of the World. Again, this trend sprouted up and gained a following during the 1960s in the heyday of the New Left. On both historical occasions the revolutionary break with opportunism on the part of these elements was positive, but these healthy revolutionary aspirations were channeled into political dead-ends.
What anarcho-syndicalism naturally led to organizationally was dual-unionism, since the trade unions under reformist leadership were not revolutionary organizations and had no immediate potential of becoming revolutionary organizations. Thus, anarcho-syndicalists were duty bound to leave these reformist trade unions and set up pure revolutionary unions. But a pure revolutionary union is almost a contradiction in terms, since the working class in the USA is not now nor imminently a pure and revolutionary force.
A union is a mass organisation usually encompassing all the workers in a particular trade or industry. Among these workers there are many competing and conflicting political and ideological trends – anarchism, Catholicism, liberalism, social democracy, and communism. Through a combination of sharpening of objective conditions and the long and patient practical work of communists, the majority of these workers may end up being won to support revolution. But at that point, we are dealing with an approaching revolutionary situation in which revolutionary mass organizations which are organs of political power such as the Soviets come to the forefront and are agitated for and formed.
Communists are not opposed on principle to setting up new unions independent of the existing reformist-led unions. In fact, this has often been done where the existing unions, as in the old AFL and now the AFL-CIO, are either unable or unwilling to organize the large mass of unorganized workers. Communists prefer revolutionary-led unions, but the main question becomes whether these unions are real mass organizations of the working class, or merely competing and impotent sects standing aside from the dominant reformist-led unions. Communists are primarily interested in gaining leadership of the working class in order to unite the class for the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist system. Whether setting up new unions or intervening in the existing unions is preferable for furthering this purpose is a tactical question.
Gaining leadership of the working class necessarily involves Marxist-Leninists in the strategic task of winning organizational leadership in the trade unions. At present, when there is no real mass base for communism in the working class movement, Marxist-Leninists should not actively seek leading positions in the trade union apparatus. The refusal, on principle, however, to hold union position, especially at the level of shop steward or committeeperson, is a form of “left” wing childishness. Communists have always proven to be the best trade union leaders developed by the working class because as revolutionaries they represent the interests of the class as a whole and not just one sector of it, and they struggle for the class1 long-term strategic interests and do not narrowly confine their attention to the winning of short-term gains.
As a general rule, communists will take the opportunity of holding union office only on condition that holding such a position will further the winning of the rank and file to revolution. The present bureaucratic structure of the trade unions, however, institutionalizes the separation of the leadership from the rank and file and ties the hands of revolutionaries in championing socialism.
Hence, holding important union office as open communists is not really an immediate tactical question (the removal of anti-communist statutes from union constitutions is a reform we should energetically fight for). Nevertheless, we must orient our tactics towards the strategic goal of winning organizational leadership of the trade unions, and this means developing now the political power of the rank and file and communist leadership within it. If we are not able to win the rank and file to support communist leadership of the trade unions, then we will likewise not be able to win the working class to fight for socialism and the dictatorship of the proletariat.