Red International of Labor Unions
The reformists select the strike committees themselves, or else endeavor to participate in them. The experiences in Lodz have proven that the acceptance of reformist representatives into the strike committee means the beginning of defeat.
It is therefore absolutely necessary to see to it that the strike committees are prevented from falling under the influence of social-democracy and the reformist trade union bureaucracy and to resolutely fight against the cooperation of official representatives of reformist trade unions on strike committees. No official representation of reformist trade unions should be permitted on the strike committees. The adherents of the Profintern must counteract all the efforts of the representatives of the reformist trade unions to penetrate into the strike committee by putting forth the slogan that all members of the strike committee must be elected by all the workers, organized and unorganized as well.
It is also necessary to fight against the efforts of the reformists to limit voting power for the strike committees only to members of the trade unions. If a reformist union is formally leading the strike, one or two representatives with consultative vote may be permitted so that they may report to the committee on the activities of the officials in the union. All efforts to weaken the struggle against the trade union bureaucracy during the strike on the grounds that they are now at the head of the strike, must be most vigorously condemned. It is especially during strikes that intensified work is necessary, exposing the reformist trade union bureaucracy, their methods of breaking strikes, their manipulations behind the backs of the workers, their connections with the bourgeoisie, with bourgeois governments, etc.
This work of exposure must be carried on not only by the Party press, not only by the press of the trade union opposition, but especially by the strike committees, as only by counterposing the strike committees to the trade union bureaucracy is it possible to attain actual independent leadership of economic struggles. The slightest ideological or organizational dependence of the strike committee on the reformist trade union bureaucracy or the weakening of the fight against it may lead to the fall in authority of the trade union opposition and the strike committees created thru its initiative.