The leading figure of the American Workers Party, A.J. Muste, lays out his position and criticizes the conceptions and practice of the ‘united front’ by the U.S. Communist and Socialist Parties in wake of the German catastrophe which saw a dived working class succumb to fascism.

‘Tactics of the United Front’ by A. J. Muste from Labor Action (C.P.L.A.). Vol. 2 No. 8. May 1, 1934.

I.

No progress can be made in the consideration of this question, unless we first get clear that unity and the united front are two different things. It is desirable that the working class should be united. Some day it will be unified under the leadership of the revolutionary party. But unity in name or in the abstract does not mean anything. Differences of viewpoint with regard to principles are important. It is better that they should be fought out than blurred over. Unity on a false basis will bring nothing but bad results. army moving unitedly in the wrong direction cannot get to the right place.

The fact that political or other differences exist among workers does not mean that workers and their organizations cannot and must not act together in specific situations–in unions to resist wage cuts, in unemployed leagues to avoid evictions, in defense organizations to protect class war prisoners. That is what is meant by the united front–united action for specific purposes by labor organizations and workers who have political differences and who do not foreswear those political differences. Of the two major workers’ political parties in the United States today, the Socialist Party ridicules the united front and declares that it is impossible, The Communist Party shouts united front day in and day out. Both are doing an almost perfect job of preventing effective united front action.

The Communist Party works on the theory of “the united front from below,” a piece of asinine and childish stupidity which has had tragic consequences for the workers in Germany and elsewhere.

According to this theory, if you want united action, let us say, of the Communist Party, the American Workers Party, the Socialist Party and various unions against some manifestation of Fascism, you do not, if you are the Communist Party, go to these other organizations and propose united action. That would be recognizing that there is some good in these organizations, whereas, according to the C.P., they are counter-revolutionary and Social Fascist. So instead of such a united front of organizations, appeal to the workers who are members of these other political parties and unions, behind the backs of their organizations, over the heads of their leaders, to “united front” with you. Obviously, however, if these workers were thus ready to break away from their own organizations and unite fully under C.P. leadership, there would be no need of a united front. They would all be united under C.P. leadership, even if not all members of the C.P.

The result of C.P. tactics upon workers who still have some faith in their organizations and leaders is not to win them away from conservative or reactionary leader ship but precisely to solidify them behind this very leadership. That happened with Socialists and trade unionists after the Communists broke up the Madison Square Garden meeting of protest against Fascism. The Communist Party’s united front theory is closely bound up with its theory of Social Fascism. According to this the Socialist or Social Democratic Parties and the unions under their influence cannot prevent the coming of Fascism. Indeed, their policies of compromise and class collaboration open the way for Fascism. So far so good. The Communist Party then goes on to the most fantastic and illogical conclusion imaginable, namely, that there is no difference between the Socialist party and Social Democratic unions, and Fascism. They are twins. Socialists, therefore, are Social Fascists. Therefore you have to destroy the Social Democracy before you can conquer Fascism. Tied up with this are some equally fantastic views which underestimate the danger of Fascism and interpret the triumph of Fascism as a prelude to the triumph of the Communist revolution.

The American Workers Party certainly believes that where Fascism triumphs the revolutionary working class must seek to reconstitute its forces so as eventually to overthrow Fascism. But this pollyanna attitude that the triumph of your armed foe is to be hailed as opening the way for your own victory, is outrageous and dangerous.

The Social Fascist idea that the Social Democracy and Social Democratic unions are identical with Fascism and which leads to smashing these parties and unions, is obviously crazy. These organizations which stand to be crushed by Fascism must be got to join in a united front against it, but certainly that cannot be accomplished on this basis. The fallacy of Social Democratic illusions and leadership need to be exposed, but this is just the way not to do it.

Very comical situations develop out of these fantastic theories, as for example, when the Daily Worker, official organ of Communist Party, one day attacks Harry F. Ward and the New America as Social Fascists, and the next day hails Harry Ward’s acceptance of the chairmanship of the Communist-dominated League Against War and Fascism as a great means for strengthening the Anti-Fascist united front! Occasionally the Communists get away for a short time, or at least seem to, from their impossible united front from below tactic. When they do they make real inroads upon Socialist Party membership, as was the case in the spring of 1933 when the Communist International instructed the CUPSA to propose united front action directly to the Socialist Party, the Conference for Progressive Labor Action and the A.F. of L. For a time, in the preparations for the Mooney Congress, the Communist Party representatives acted in a straightforward and intelligent fashion. The S.P. Executive, as usual, refused to participate in any united action. Thus they put themselves in the wrong and there was a considerable deflection of young Socialists to the C.P. Soon the C.P. fell into its old habits and behaved in so obviously a sectarian fashion that it was no longer putting the S.P. leadership “on the spot” and so the S.P. ranks were solidified.

II.

THE united front must be based in each case on a specific issue or a few specific issues on which organizations can for the time being unite in spite of their differences. Otherwise, it becomes a general alliance, and a general alliance between a revolutionary and a reformist organization is wrong. When it is attempted it must only result in loss and discredit for the revolutionary organization. Thus some years ago the Stalin-controlled Communist International made such an alliance with the Kuo-Min-Tang, the Chinese Peoples Party, and with British trade union leaders in the Anglo-Russian Unity Committee. The result was that the Communist International had its hands tied while Chiang-Kai-Shek, leader of the Kuo-Min-Tang, was shooting strikers in Shanghai and killing peasants trying to form Soviets, and while leaders of the British Trade Union Congress were betraying the great general strike.

The way in which any united action is to be carried out must be carefully agreed upon in advance. A measure of common sense, decency and honesty is essential. If certain steps are agreed upon they must be carried out. This would seem to be an elementary truth, but the Communist Party has yet to learn it. Last summer, for example, there was an agreement for united action between the unemployed leagues in Ohio and the unemployed councils. The agreement specifically provided, among other things, that the one organization was not to try to break up or draw members away from the other. In the midst of a strike conducted by the two organizations in Toledo, the district office of the Communist Party issued instructions telling Communists to concentrate on the strike for the purpose of winning members away from the leagues and into the councils, and of winning members to the Communist Party. Breaking up the leagues was more important than winning the strike.

It is the duty of a revolutionary party to expose leadership which really is compromising and reformist and to win the masses away from such leadership. But how is this to be done? Chiefly and most effectively by letting the reformist leaders expose themselves, which they are certain to do sooner or later, and usually sooner. If they refuse to enter a united front, if they fail to carry out agreed upon action in militant fashion, if they are passive and will not take aggressive action, if when they find their followers attracted to sound radical leadership they withdraw from the united front, then their weakness and dishonesty are effectively exposed.

The Communists cannot wait for such a truly effective demonstration of the inadequacy of reformist leadership. They usually insist on using a united front gathering for and especially on trade union leaders not a general attack on any elements present obtained by inviting a fellow to join with in full agreement with them. No one in his senses can believe that real results can be you in an attack on common enemies and then throwing big gobs of garbage at him.

We have remarked that there has to be a measure of decency and honesty in the labor movement. Communists are apt to contend that this is just falling back on outworn bourgeois morality; revolutionists must sweep cover all obstacles and by whatever means to the revolutionary goal. Much might be said on the whole issue raised here which space does not permit. This we do assert: No human group or organization, including the labor movement, can hold together, can function effectively, without morale. Morale requires that within the group or movement there shall be a measure of decency, fair play, mutual trust, a chance for members to express their views freely, for an opportunity for the opposition to be heard, etc.

Solidarity, united action, are desperately needed in the labor movement today. They are impossible under a policy of lying, vilification, double-crossing, chicanery, cheap political tricks and deals. The Communists have done incalculable injury to the labor movement, and have themselves been rent with divisions, because they have elevated these practices into a policy in their relations with other groups in the labor movement. Until they abandon this psychology and the whole tactic of the united front from below, there is no hope for any so-called united front in which they participate.

All this is not to say that when a revolutionary organization enters into an agreement for united action on specific issues it suspends all criticism of other organizations in its party organ or meetings. Criticism, however, must deal with principles and not cheap and vulgar personalities. It must be based on sound working class conceptions and not fallacies such as the tactic of the united front from below and the theory of Social Fascism. And it must set forth facts and not fabrications.

III.

THE Socialist Party policy with regard to the united front is even less sound than that of the C.P. For one thing, the Socialist Party has never fought clearly and courageously against the corrupt or reformist practices of the union leaders with whom it enters into joint activities. Thus it has strengthened inadequate or false leadership and instead of radicalizing the unions, itself is made more conservative, has its hands tied by them, as proved the case in Germany.

When Socialists do go “united fronting,” it is usually with those to the right of them including even capitalist elements, but seldom if ever with any left forces. Thus they invited Matthew Woll, a notorious red baiter, and Mayor LaGuardia, whose police had beaten up Anti-Fascist demonstrators the day before, as speakers at the Madison Square Garden meeting, but failed to invite any representatives of left-wing political groups.

The Socialist Party very frequently goes about getting up united fronts in even more mechanical and sectarian fashion than the Communists. After the Madison Square Garden meeting, Socialists who had been active in the League Against War and Fascism (representing the L.I.D. and similar organizations) got out. Almost the very next day the call for a New York Conference Against War appeared. No names were attached to it except those of Socialists and definite Socialist sympathizers. No effort was made to draw in, in advance, any left-wing elements. All arrangements for the conference were pretty much cut and dried. There was no real opportunity for discussion of policies and tactics at what was really a mass meeting rather than a conference or convention. This is, of course, not to say that the Socialists or anybody else are not entitled to hold their own meetings whenever and however they wish. This was, however, supposed to be a united front, obviously to offset the Communist-dominated League Against War and Fascism. And this is not the way to build an effective united front.

A united front is for purposes of action. The official S.P. is in practice not for action. Basically this is because the leadership is afraid that if the masses actually get into motion they will “get out of hand,” that is, away from Social Democratic leadership. The Socialist Party has no faith in the masses anyway. Last Spring when Hitler came to power in Germany, CPLA representatives came to the conference called by the Socialist Party and unions friendly to them for purposes of protest. In the first place, the conference call was delayed. By the time the conference met Jewish middle-class organizations had already staged a great protest meeting. Old-time Socialists raised the question whether under the circumstances there was any point in trying to have another meeting, though Labor had not yet spoken on Hitlerism! Others thought that a meeting might be held in some hall but they were against meetings in a public square because they thought the workers would not respond. Finally a committee was appointed to plan for a demonstration. The committee came. back after a few days and suggested that May Day was coming soon and that instead of having a separate demonstration against Hitlerism the May Day demonstration might be focused upon this subject. After a good deal of arguing the more militant view that a demonstration should be held before May 1 prevailed!

IV.

FULLY effective united front action we shall not get until the American Workers Party, a sound revolutionary party, grows and can assume leadership in the situation. Daily, nevertheless, we must continue to strive for united action. The masses in the unions and the unemployed leagues are showing that they can act, and act intelligently. The political organizations must join and lead them, not over and over again discourage and defeat the deep felt conviction of the masses of the workers that divisions must be ended and united action achieved.

The American Workers Party stands for:

1. Genuine united front or organizations, not fake united fronts from below.

2. United action for specific, clearly defined purposes.

3. United action according to agreed upon methods and in a spirit of proletarian decency, honesty and fair play. Corrupt and reformist elements to be exposed on the basis of their failure to enter into or carry out the given united front, not by dragging in vulgar personalities or issues which are at the moment irrelevant.

4. Mutual criticism to continue in force but to be based on sound revolutionary principles and on facts, not fabrications. Let the workers of this nation and their organizations once unite for action on any single issue and the doom of Fascism will have been pronounced.

There are a number of periodicals with the name Labor Action in our history. This Labor Action was a bi-weekly newspaper published in 1933-34 by AJ Muste’s American Workers Party. The AWP grew from the Conference for Progressive Labor Action, founded in 1929, and Labor Action replaced the long-running CPLA magazine, Labor Age. Along with Muste, the AWP had activists and writers James Burnham and Art Preis. When the AWP fused with the Trotskyist Communist League of America in late 1934, their joint paper became The New Militant.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/laboraction-cpla/v2n08-may-01-Supplement-1934-LA-Muste.pdf