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From Labor Action, Vol. 12 No. 34, 23 August 1948, pp. 1 & 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
In a signed column in the August issue of the United Automobile Worker, official publication of the United Automobile Workers Union, CIO, Walter Reuther, union president, this week pledged his “complete support (and) full energy” in fulfilling and implementing a resolution adopted by the UAW executive board months ago directed toward “the formation, after the 1948 elections, of a genuine progressive political party.”
Appearing as part of a 4-page supplement on political action and the work of the extra session, Reuther’s statement makes “a commitment to every one of our members that political action by, with and for all who feel as we do, shall have first call upon my time and energy as president of this International Union.”
Though the statement leaves much to be desired, and contains within it an orientation that stands in contradiction to its objectives, it is of the highest importance for American labor. The commitment, if fulfilled, will mark an enormous step forward for the American people. There is every reason to believe that Reuther will live up to his commitment. And it is certain that the auto workers, who many times have stood in the vanguard of their class, will demand its fulfillment.
Reuther apparently does not have a labor party in mind, but rather a vague combination which will unite liberal elements in the two big capitalist parties with the strength of the labor movement. On the face of it this would seem a futile effort to blend unmixable elements which can achieve little. However, in architecting a break with the Democratic and Republican Parties, the dynamics of the development will themselves resolve the confusion and misdirection in the Reuther position.
The decisive base of support for such a new party exists only in the labor movement, which is increasingly discontented with the party-system as it now stands – offering a choice only between two agencies of capitalism – and which is groping continually toward independent expression. Based upon the unions, as it must be if powered by the UAW, the test of its direction toward a third party of capitalism or toward a militant labor party will tend to resolve itself in the pressures that the component elements will be able to supply from the beginning. Regardless of what confusion attends its birth, regardless, of what Reuther himself may intend, a new party can be a beginning toward cementing a political force through which the masses of American people will shape their own future.
Much will depend on the intelligent intervention of those who have long worked in the labor movement for a labor party which can express and exert the class strength of American labor in the political arena. It is they who must seize upon Reuther’s statement with the greatest excitement and interest, and strive to encourage the further initiative of the auto workers. In this sense, the mere commitment to a break with the old parties, and the promise to create a new party outweighs the crying deficiencies with which the statement is larded.
However, these deficiencies must be noted. They cast a cloud on the intent of the statement, and actually serve to impede the very thing for which the statement speaks. The full text of the statement has not yet arrived in the mail, and we are compelled to write on the basis of excerpts that have appeared in the press. The excerpts make it clear that emphasis for the present is to lie in the direction of electing “good” congressmen now. Thus, Reuther says:
“The first step in implementing the resolution is the hard plugging and campaigning that is needed to elect as many good congressmen and senators as possible in the 1948 elections. That will give us a base from which to work. The next step is to proceed immediately with the organization of forces that will work with us to achieve in America a new political alignment.”
Restated, this means campaigning tor various “palatable” Democratic and Republican congressmen. As such it stands in the way of embarking on a new political path. As such it contradicts the creation of an independent political force. For it repeats the endlessly deceptive choice between lesser and greater evils.
Commenting on the UAW executive board proposals we have a number of times written that, although it may be impossible at this date to launch a national labor party for the 1948 elections, much can be done now to ensure its eventual creation. A new and genuinely progressive political force cannot be imaged after the handful of liberal faces in the Democratic and Republican parties, even if one or another of these, for whatever reason, should elect in a showdown to stick with labor. The direction of independent action must be clearly stated now, and acted upon to the extent possible. Anything else is not only evasion, it amounts also to undermining the new creation at its very beginning by inserting into its foundation shoddy material.
We can concede that a national formation is impossible before November of this year. But no one can concede that local actions are impossible. In the past months we have offered our opinion that auto workers ought to ask the UAW executive board for an earnest of its intentions in the shape of local candidates and other activities designed to culminate eventually in a new, independent party. Reuther’s personal commitment is a step forward, but the context in which he frames his immediate advice cannot be considered that. Why cannot the auto workers union, in Michigan, let us say, put forward candidates for the various municipal and Congressional offices?
It does not require the machinery of a national party. In Detroit, certainly, there are no obstacles. Such a demonstration, an independent ticket promoted by the UAW, would have a thousand times the effectiveness of promises and commitments. It could and would be duplicated, we are sure. But even by itself it would be sufficient of an inspiration to guarantee the successful launching of a national independent labor party in 1949.
Beyond that there is much else that could have been done, that can and must still be done.
It may be that in a few days we will have details as to how Reuther proposes to effectuate his proposals. In the meantime we suggest that committees formed now, that conferences called now, are essential if anything is to be done later.
Given the overall importance of the commitment, we are little concerned for the moment with the gibberish Reuther introduced into his statement. When Reuther inveighs against monopoly and writes that “the government we elect must be for something. For example, for an economy that is both free and enterprising,” he is proposing something that is ... nothing, the rotten, bankrupt nothing of capitalist enterprise. Monopoly is the heart of capitalist production, the product of “free and enterprising” economy. Such fiddle-faddle merely proves that the one-time socialist Reuther has pedalled backward in his understanding along with his progress in other directions. The addition of “government expansion and even operation of necessary productive capacity when private enterprise refuses to expand,” does nothing to improve his formulations.
But, we repeat, we are little concerned tor the moment with Reuther’s theoretical conceptions. We are deeply concerned with the creation of a party which the working class can seek to make its own, programmatically and in every way. We have worked consistently and energetically for the creation of a labor party. And so we pledge ourselves to work in the new party when it is formed for a program that alone meets the needs of the working class people. We are utterly convinced that the new party must necessarily gravitate toward a labor party, a class political instrument. We are equally convinced that in it there will be an increasingly receptive audience for the ideas of socialism, and that out of this audience will come the movement which will seek to establish a socialist society.
That, as reported, the timing of Reuther’s statement is intended as a blow at the Wallace movement is all to the good. The only effective way to head off the Wallaceite creation of the Stalinist totalitarians is to present the working class with the clear alternative of an independent political party. Other aspects of the timing do not appear in the same favorable light.
We have already commented briefly here (and at great length on other occasions) on the proposal to support “good” Democrats and Republicans. And the timing is obviously calculated to buttress the campaigns of these “good” capitalist candidates. In addition, there are conflicting rumors as to the importance of the timing with respect to the national candidates.
One view holds that the timing was intended to lay the ground for support of Truman (who is scheduled to open his campaign in Detroit on the invitation of CIO and AFL unions). If there is any truth in this report, the auto workers ought in our opinion to do everything they can to show that they will not permit that disgraceful bit of politicking. Whether direct or indirect, support of Truman cannot be tolerated. It would be a swindle of huge proportions, an insult, an act of conspiracy against labor.
There is, however, another view which holds that Reuther’s statement is intended as a means of ducking a statement of position on the national election. Whichever of the two it is will soon be clear. We wish merely to note that the second is in our opinion not very much better than the first. Evasion may have its advantages over outright support of an injunctionist. But there is no excuse for evasion.
We are not insisting that Reuther adopt our policy, which Is to support the three socialist candidates in the field – or one of the three if he should prefer (though there is nothing to prevent a union leader from endorsing a socialist candidate except his own backwardness). But we do think that the auto workers have a right to insist that, at the very least, he refuse to have anything to do with the candidacy of either capitalist party, with Truman or Dewey – to aggressively, avowedly abstain, and to do so with a denunciation of both capitalist candidates. No union leader has a right to support a strikebreaker and an injunctionist. And, breaking it down to the local level, no union leader has the right to support any candidate who is allied with a strikebreaker and an injunctionist.
In conclusion, the Reuther statement must be seized upon by the labor movement, especially by the workers in the union which he represents, with the greatest eagerness. To step forward toward the creation of a political force which can be shaped into a labor party is to advance American labor immeasurable strides. The political disorganization of labor does not conform to its immense economic might. To fuse the political potential of labor with its demonstrated economic power is to take the first long step in the rebuilding of society along lines of human sanity. In so far as Reuther advances that objective with whatever limitations of his own, he perforins a service in his own way. Intervening today, we can help mold the new developments that are taking shape, bend them toward meeting the requirements of labor and of the people.
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