Click on title to link to a Leon Trotsky 1938 article on a discussion with leaders of the American Socialist Workers Party on the Labor Party question as it pertained to America.
COMMENTARY
BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR SOCIALISM
I have spent a good deal of my political life waging a propaganda campaign here in America in favor of an independent workers party with a program that fights for a workers government, socialism. I have no regrets about that work although I have had more than my share of disappointments over the small inroads made toward that goal. But whining is not what I want to do here. I have received various communications over the past period asking about the whys and wherefores of the workers party question in America and elsewhere and about militant work in the trade unions. Here I make some historical comments and general observations about the work. I will deal with tactical questions at another time.
Let us be clear on this from the outset, calls for formation of a generic workers party are part of the tactics that revolutionaries in America, and elsewhere where such parties do not exist, are appropriate in order to anchor their program and gain a hearing from the more class conscious workers. In the best of all possible left-wing political worlds where working people have developed a level of political class consciousness sufficient to begin flocking to revolutionary parties we would not have to raise the question of a workers party. And there is the rub. Raising the workers party question is a reflection of the apparently undying weakness that the American trade union bureaucracies have for the capitalist Democratic Party (and on occasion a scattering of support for its sister capitalist party, the Republicans) and the weakness of left-wing forces in trying to break that allegiance.
Simply put, unless one assumes some kind of stagist theory of working class organizational development, which this writer does not subscribe to, there is nothing to preclude mass recruitment to a revolutionary organization under proper conditions, like a successful mass trade union organizing drive at Walmart or in the South. To put this point in perspective can one imagine the Bolsheviks in 1917 calling for a mass workers party? Christ, they were the mass workers party (and the class struggle was so 'hot' at the time that there were working class elements to their left who thought the Bolsheviks were unnecessarily dragging their feet on the subject of the seizure of power and wanted to form a ‘real’ mass revolutionary workers party to do so).
To bring this point closer to home there were periods in the 1930’s in America when the workers party question was shelved by revolutionaries because it was possible to recruit the best militants straight to revolutionary organizations. Thus, when we raise the workers party question in the year 2007 it reflects an understanding that we live in tough times for the labor movement. But, as the old Wobbly labor agitator Joe Hill is alleged to have said before he was executed for his labor activities out in Utah in the early 1900’s- “Don’t Mourn, Organize”.
It may be informative to contrast the political tasks that confront American militants with those in, let’s say, Britain where there is a ‘worker's party’, the British Labor Party, that as of this date administers the British imperial state. Despite the changes in that party brought about by one Anthony Blair, in an attempt to make it conform more to a trans –class party like the Democratic Party in the United States, at its core today the British Labor Party is still a working class party, although a clearly reformist one. The British Labor Party has a long and checkered history but mainly it serves as an example of what militants do not want to build. Sure, sure, every British militant today should be a member of the Labor Party in order to get any kind of hearing from the best trade union militants there but their main task is to split the Labor Party and create a ‘new’ workers party that will fight for a workers government. Obviously, that is no simple task given the extreme loyalty of the average British worker to that party. In that sense the tasks in America and Britain, as well as elsewhere are essentially the same.
Someone once told me this little nugget of political wisdom and I hope I have learned it well. Tell me the programmatic basis of your party and I will tell you what kind of party you have. He then proceeded to rattle off various party programs and bowled me over with how close his characterizations came to the type of party he was describing. Sure, innocent political mistakes will be made, and sometimes even conscious ones. Sometimes the whims of personal predilection will twist about the program. Sometimes when confronted with the reality of the class struggle it will fly away in the winds. But, note this well, in the end that damn program is decisive.
If one looks at the latest program of the British Labor Party one will note that even if the greatest amount of class struggle since the Russian Revolution swept through the British Isles that party would stand foursquare in defense of Her Majesty’s capitalist imperial system. Yes, Ma’m. The point is this- if the program of your workers party does not lead to a workers government then you will wind up like the British Labor Party-tied as it is to the monarch, nobility and the state church. Hell, even Cromwell, that consummate bourgeois revolutionary, knew you had to get rid of those things if you wanted to push society forward-and that was over three hundred and fifty years ago!
Those even slightly familiar with American labor history know that the 1930’s represented the last widespread and successful organization of the working class. It was also the time of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s reign. Some labor bureaucrats, knowing that many militants would refuse to support Roosevelt under the Democratic banner, organized an organization called the American Labor Party, which was essentially a vehicle for steering militant and socialist votes to Roosevelt. Needless to say our conception of a workers party has nothing in common with that electoral scheme. You can be sure, however, that some bright labor bureaucrat (and there are a few), if there is a labor upsurge will drag out a 21st century model of that moribund organization.
The obvious place to propagandize for a workers party is in the trade unions. I would like to round out my thoughts by observing that the only real way to make an impact on the unions and to break them from their reformist (at best) leadership is to form a caucus within the union based on a program. In that sense the union caucus is the workers party in embryo. Here again all experience has showed that if one does not base oneself on a program one is kind of doomed to failure. A million guys and gals have started out as militants only to burn out, be co-opted by the bureaucracy, or fall silent without such an anchor. If the goal is to bring political consciousness to the working class then it is necessary to have a political program. Yes, yes by all means every militant is the best defending of the day-to-day needs of their fellow workers and defender of democratic rights but one must go beyond that to educate about the need to take power.
Elsewhere in this space I have presented some talking points for the program of a workers party (see the archives under A Modest Proposal for a Workers Party). Here are a few for a trade union caucus. Today, the central question is the war in Iraq and therefore it is necessary to take a position on that in the unions. Sure, plenty of unions these days have ‘paper’ resolutions against the war. However it is necessary to move to action, and fast. I have presented elsewhere my point about building anti-war soldier and sailor committees and that could be fought for here. Moreover, a critical point for the independence of the trade unions is to vote against support to capitalist party candidates. Today, also, in some recent cases this is a desperate necessity, for a fight in support of immigrant rights and organizing the unorganized. More latter.
COMMENTARY
BUILD A WORKERS PARTY THAT FIGHTS FOR SOCIALISM
I have spent a good deal of my political life waging a propaganda campaign here in America in favor of an independent workers party with a program that fights for a workers government, socialism. I have no regrets about that work although I have had more than my share of disappointments over the small inroads made toward that goal. But whining is not what I want to do here. I have received various communications over the past period asking about the whys and wherefores of the workers party question in America and elsewhere and about militant work in the trade unions. Here I make some historical comments and general observations about the work. I will deal with tactical questions at another time.
Let us be clear on this from the outset, calls for formation of a generic workers party are part of the tactics that revolutionaries in America, and elsewhere where such parties do not exist, are appropriate in order to anchor their program and gain a hearing from the more class conscious workers. In the best of all possible left-wing political worlds where working people have developed a level of political class consciousness sufficient to begin flocking to revolutionary parties we would not have to raise the question of a workers party. And there is the rub. Raising the workers party question is a reflection of the apparently undying weakness that the American trade union bureaucracies have for the capitalist Democratic Party (and on occasion a scattering of support for its sister capitalist party, the Republicans) and the weakness of left-wing forces in trying to break that allegiance.
Simply put, unless one assumes some kind of stagist theory of working class organizational development, which this writer does not subscribe to, there is nothing to preclude mass recruitment to a revolutionary organization under proper conditions, like a successful mass trade union organizing drive at Walmart or in the South. To put this point in perspective can one imagine the Bolsheviks in 1917 calling for a mass workers party? Christ, they were the mass workers party (and the class struggle was so 'hot' at the time that there were working class elements to their left who thought the Bolsheviks were unnecessarily dragging their feet on the subject of the seizure of power and wanted to form a ‘real’ mass revolutionary workers party to do so).
To bring this point closer to home there were periods in the 1930’s in America when the workers party question was shelved by revolutionaries because it was possible to recruit the best militants straight to revolutionary organizations. Thus, when we raise the workers party question in the year 2007 it reflects an understanding that we live in tough times for the labor movement. But, as the old Wobbly labor agitator Joe Hill is alleged to have said before he was executed for his labor activities out in Utah in the early 1900’s- “Don’t Mourn, Organize”.
It may be informative to contrast the political tasks that confront American militants with those in, let’s say, Britain where there is a ‘worker's party’, the British Labor Party, that as of this date administers the British imperial state. Despite the changes in that party brought about by one Anthony Blair, in an attempt to make it conform more to a trans –class party like the Democratic Party in the United States, at its core today the British Labor Party is still a working class party, although a clearly reformist one. The British Labor Party has a long and checkered history but mainly it serves as an example of what militants do not want to build. Sure, sure, every British militant today should be a member of the Labor Party in order to get any kind of hearing from the best trade union militants there but their main task is to split the Labor Party and create a ‘new’ workers party that will fight for a workers government. Obviously, that is no simple task given the extreme loyalty of the average British worker to that party. In that sense the tasks in America and Britain, as well as elsewhere are essentially the same.
Someone once told me this little nugget of political wisdom and I hope I have learned it well. Tell me the programmatic basis of your party and I will tell you what kind of party you have. He then proceeded to rattle off various party programs and bowled me over with how close his characterizations came to the type of party he was describing. Sure, innocent political mistakes will be made, and sometimes even conscious ones. Sometimes the whims of personal predilection will twist about the program. Sometimes when confronted with the reality of the class struggle it will fly away in the winds. But, note this well, in the end that damn program is decisive.
If one looks at the latest program of the British Labor Party one will note that even if the greatest amount of class struggle since the Russian Revolution swept through the British Isles that party would stand foursquare in defense of Her Majesty’s capitalist imperial system. Yes, Ma’m. The point is this- if the program of your workers party does not lead to a workers government then you will wind up like the British Labor Party-tied as it is to the monarch, nobility and the state church. Hell, even Cromwell, that consummate bourgeois revolutionary, knew you had to get rid of those things if you wanted to push society forward-and that was over three hundred and fifty years ago!
Those even slightly familiar with American labor history know that the 1930’s represented the last widespread and successful organization of the working class. It was also the time of Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s reign. Some labor bureaucrats, knowing that many militants would refuse to support Roosevelt under the Democratic banner, organized an organization called the American Labor Party, which was essentially a vehicle for steering militant and socialist votes to Roosevelt. Needless to say our conception of a workers party has nothing in common with that electoral scheme. You can be sure, however, that some bright labor bureaucrat (and there are a few), if there is a labor upsurge will drag out a 21st century model of that moribund organization.
The obvious place to propagandize for a workers party is in the trade unions. I would like to round out my thoughts by observing that the only real way to make an impact on the unions and to break them from their reformist (at best) leadership is to form a caucus within the union based on a program. In that sense the union caucus is the workers party in embryo. Here again all experience has showed that if one does not base oneself on a program one is kind of doomed to failure. A million guys and gals have started out as militants only to burn out, be co-opted by the bureaucracy, or fall silent without such an anchor. If the goal is to bring political consciousness to the working class then it is necessary to have a political program. Yes, yes by all means every militant is the best defending of the day-to-day needs of their fellow workers and defender of democratic rights but one must go beyond that to educate about the need to take power.
Elsewhere in this space I have presented some talking points for the program of a workers party (see the archives under A Modest Proposal for a Workers Party). Here are a few for a trade union caucus. Today, the central question is the war in Iraq and therefore it is necessary to take a position on that in the unions. Sure, plenty of unions these days have ‘paper’ resolutions against the war. However it is necessary to move to action, and fast. I have presented elsewhere my point about building anti-war soldier and sailor committees and that could be fought for here. Moreover, a critical point for the independence of the trade unions is to vote against support to capitalist party candidates. Today, also, in some recent cases this is a desperate necessity, for a fight in support of immigrant rights and organizing the unorganized. More latter.
