The first truly above-ground congress of the Workers (Communist) Party passes a unanimously agree-upon resolution for trade union work. That unanimity would not last.

‘Trade Union Program from the Workers Party’ from Voice of Labor (Chicago). Vol. 11 No. 580. January 6, 1923.

Adopted Unanimously at the Convention held in New York on December 24, 25 and 26.

The trade unions are the basic organs of the struggle of the working class against capitalist exploitation.

Although unconscious of their essential social function, and dominated by reactionary agents of the capitalist class who constantly cultivate a bourgeois ideology among them, yet the trade unions are formed upon strictly working-class lines, carry on the class struggle with the most extreme bitterness, often with arms in their hands. They are essentially revolutionary by nature, even tho blindly so.

The objectively revolutionary nature of the trade unions is made apparent in the fact that, even under yellow leadership they inevitably generate great struggles which throw them into conflict with the capitalist state. Our task is to clarify their aims, to give them political and industrial consciousness, and by making them conscious of their revolutionary role prepare the unions for their part in the final struggle against capitalism.

The mass unions are therefore objects of prime importance to the Workers’ Party as a revolutionary party. Our first task must be to obtain the spiritual and intellectual leadership of the mass unions.

While obstructed by innumerable practical difficulties, this desired end is open to our achievement. All the major forces of society combine to deliver the leadership of the mass unions into revolutionary hands. With the growing centralization of the capitalist state, and its open use against the workers, combined with the constantly fluctuating and unstable economic and social conditions, continually larger masses of workers are thrown into action, where the reformist policies are shown in their futility and inadequacy, and the yellow leadership is displayed in all its cowardice.

The capitalists are able to defeat the workers in their immediate struggles by means of dividing them, using one section of the working class to defeat another. This is done through the instrumentality of the bureaucracy, which is under their spiritual and intellectual domination, taking as a basis the common ideology, a united front is created between the forces of capitalism and the union officialdom, against all progressive influences in the unions. The result is backwardness and division in the union ranks.

Against the slackness and disunity now prevailing, the work of the Communists, members of the of Workers’ Party, must have as key-notes the slogans “Militancy” and “Solidarity,” which respond to the most pressing needs of the masses in their struggles today. They must be followed with specific and correct programs to put them into effective action, when they produce a galvanizing effect upon the entire working class, whose response is immediate.

The reactionary officialdom, however, fights against these slogans and programs with extreme bitterness. It is in this fact that the revolutionists find the lever for overthrowing the reactionary bureaucracy, and obtaining the leadership of the masses in the trade unions. By thus putting the yellow officials clearly in opposition to the immediate needs of the workers, a wedge is driven between the masses and their betrayers, and the former brought under communist leadership.

Keeping all these facts in mind, the following practical tactics in the trade union work naturally follow:

1. The Communists must be the firmest exponents of proletarian discipline; they must never be instrumental in breaking the solidarity of the workers in the struggle against the employer but, on the contrary, must bend every effort to extend the discipline and consolidate it. The fight against the reactionary leadership must never be allowed to split the masses. Responsibility for disunion of every kind must be placed clearly where it belongs, upon the officialdom. The latter’s disruptive work must be made clear to the rank and file.

2. On the basis of the union discipline, communists develop slogans and policies for more effective action, and more complete solidarity, against the capitalist forces. The programs take the form of movements for amalgamation, for increasing the scope of the union and its discipline, and for broadening the interests for which it fights. The communist policy always drives toward more militant struggle, of larger masses, for ever greater conquests.

3. From these two basic tactics arises the necessity for the most closely-knit organization of the Workers’ Party members within the trade unions to put the policies into effect in the life of the masses, The party can fulfil its function of leadership only if it has the proper organs; for this purpose party members must form nuclei in every industrial center and union organization, to formulate com on policy and action. The communist nuclei are the basic units of all labor progress.

4. The party nuclei must, in turn, form an alliance with all sympathetic and progressive forces in the unions. This alliance should take the form of a left bloc, in which the communist nuclei should be the most active elements, and through which, as disciplined members of unions, they put their programs before the rank and file. The left bloc within the unions is the principal channel at our present stage of development of communist trade, union activity.

5. Every step taken by the W.P. nuclei in the unions should be clearly to advance the interests of the union and its members. Care must be taken to block the reactionaries in their attempts to mis-inform the rank and file, charging the communists with violating union autonomy, and imposing’ the will of an outside organization. These inevitable charges, the last refuge of discredited officialdom, is best refuted when an attack upon the W.P. nuclei becomes an attack upon some pressing immediate need of the workers for which the W.P. nuclei are carrying on a fight. The party industrial activity is upon the healthiest basis when it cannot be attacked without attacking the vital needs of the masses.

6. As the Workers’ Party more and more, through its nuclei activities and its correct programs, establishes communist leadership in the trade unions, to that extent the political education of those organizations becomes a matter of prime concern. The educational work of the party within the union is intensified, as its leadership is consolidated; the party nuclei function more and more openly as the recognized leadership of the organization. This is the goal toward which all communist work drives, communist leadership of the masses, for the conscious struggle to establish the workers’ control of industry and society.

The Voice of Labor was a regional paper published in Chicago by the Workers (Communist) Party as the “The American Labor Educational Society” (with false printing and volume information to get around censorship laws of the time) and was focused on building the nascent Farmer-Labor Party while fighting for leadership with the Chicago Federation of Labor. It was produced mostly as a weekly in 1923-1924 and contains enormous detail on the activity of the Party in the city of those years.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/vol/v11n580-jan-06-1923-VOL.pdf