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Source: New Militant, Vol. II No. 15, 18 April 1936, pp. 1 & 4.
Transcribed/Marked up: Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
A long and decisive step has been taken to put an end to the division of the organized unemployed workers of this country into three separate national organizations and countless local groups. By virtually unanimous vote, the delegates assembled in convention in Washington last week in the auditorium of the Department of Labor brought about the amalgamation into one body of the Workers Alliance of America, the National Unemployed League, the National Unemployment Councils, the American Workers Union (a Missouri organization) and several other local and state-wide organizations of the jobless.
The name of the new organization, as agreed upon by all its constituent bodies, is to remain that of the group which had the largest representation at the Washington convention, namely, the Workers Alliance of America. Similarly, the principal officers of the new Alliance have been drawn from the old one.
There can be no two opinions about the progressive nature of the merger. The separation of the unemployed workers into organizations which were not far removed from enlarged editions of the political organizations mainly responsible for their formation or maintenance, has proved to be a costly division of energy and efforts. It may even be added that, just as on the trade union field, so among the unemployed, workers should be organized not upon the basis of their political beliefs, associations or sympathies, but upon the basis of the simple and adequate fact that they are workers – in the case of the trade unions – or that they are unemployed (or part time, or relief) workers in the case of the organizations of the jobless.
The indispensable corollary to this principle is that in both cases the field must be left entirely free for any member who may be so inclined to agitate in a loyal and comradely manner for the particular political, economic, philosophical views he may hold. The workers demand of their employer that hiring be not confined to those of one sex, creed, race, color or political view. This demand is usually accompanied by the right which every worker in a plant takes to himself to agitate among his shopmates for any views he may have. The two propositions have at least equal validity in the broad organizations of the workings class.
The unification of the organizations of the unemployed is therefore correct generally speaking, and even more correct and urgent in the present circumstances. Assembled under one banner, and determined as they are to maintain the most intimate contact with the organized trade unions, the masses of the unemployed who have already understood the need of organization will be imbued with a greater spirit of self-confidence and consequently of militancy. The disunity of the jobless gave the ruling class and its government indubitable advantages in the struggle between the two forces. The unification not only takes these advantages out of the hands of the enemies of the unemployed, but gives the latter a corresponding and hitherto unpossessed superiority.
The whole outcome of the struggle to ameliorate the lot of the jobless and the relief workers – to the extent that this can be accomplished under the capitalist system which inexorably creates their wretched conditions – now depends entirely upon the extent to which the unemployed combine with their new solidarity a militant policy of action, a policy of class struggle. Without the latter, even the completest unity can mean nothing at all, or worse yet, can become a treacherous consolation.
It is especially from the latter standpoint that the situation is far from reassuring. The course of the convention registered several deficiencies in the movement which, in our opinion, require the earliest possible rectification. The fact that these shortcomings relate to political questions in no sense conflicts with our previous contention that the unemployed cannot merely be the appendage of a political party, a disguise for it. For, from the latter view one must not for a moment conclude that political questions, politics in general, can or should be excluded from the organization of the unemployed or of any other group of workers. It would be even more absurd to try this among the jobless than almost anywhere else. For, whereas the average trade unionist directly confronts his “individual boss” every day in the week and the “political state” only infrequently, the unemployed worker faces the “political state” – the government – every single day of his life. This important fact, stressed by more than one delegate to the convention, should be enough to indicate how exceptionally preposterous it would be to attempt to rule out “political questions” in such a movement – be they questions of capitalist politics, the capitalist government, or working class politics.
The convention was divided, so to speak, into two parts. The first was devoted to the sessions of the old Workers Alliance, which culminated to all intents and purposes when the resolution in favor of unity was adopted by an overwhelming majority of the votes. The second part was participated in by all the fusing groups and it was here that the elections of the officers and the National Executive Board and the adoption of resolutions took place. Apart from the fact that every single session was presided over by the same chairman – a custom which we do not find healthy or fitting in the labor movement – there were other features of the convention which revealed what we consider its essential and very serious weakness: the absence of firm, consistent and well-prepared guidance. With the exception of the question of unification itself, on which the leadership of the W.A.A. took a positive and generally correct stand, its sails were set in such a manner on virtually every other convention question that they could be blown by winds from almost any direction.
With the bulk of the National Unemployed League having merged into the Workers Alliance even prior to the general amalgamation, the essential problem before the convention boiled down to the fusion between the Alliance, led by militants of the Socialist Party, and the Unemployment Councils, led by the Stalinists.
Now, although only a reactionary would oppose unification with the Councils because they are headed by Stalinists, at the same time only a miraculously naive person would throw prudence and vigilance to the winds when effecting such a unification. For a grown-up person to be taken in by the pious humility and amicableness of Benjamin, who represented the Councils, is really inexcusable. The Stalinists are motivated in their conduct by the interests of the unemployed to approximately the same extent that the writer is animated in his actions by his concern over the flora and fauna of sunken Atlantis.
To put the matter bluntly and squarely, the Stalinists today see in the movement of the unemployed – as in every other movement – (1) a vehicle for the formation of their fraudulent “Farmer-Labor” or “People’s” party, and (2) a recruiting ground for the war of the “good, peace-loving” imperialists against the “bad, bellicose” imperialists, presumably in the interests of the “defense” of the Soviet Union. That is why their energies were bent so exclusively towards committing the new organization to their views on these subjects, or preventing commitments to contrary views, and, to further these ends, towards obtaining as firm – even if anonymous – a measure of control of the new organization as the relationship of forces and their renowned skill at manipulation would permit.
To the extent that the organization of the unemployed must deal with such problems – and it is impossible and incorrect to avoid them entirely – it was the job of the progressive elements in the convention to counter the tactics of the Stalinists. More easily said than done, however!
The Stalinists came to the convention in the usual manner. They were prepared in advance to act on every question, and what is more, to act as one man. In a word, they were a disciplined political force. The same cannot be said of the Socialists. Except for Lieberman of Pittsburgh and one or two others, the Old Guard of the S.P. was not even represented at the convention (work among the lowly jobless is hardly a dignified occupation for a respectable social democrat!). But while the bulk of the Socialists in the W.A.A. are supporters, in the S.P., of the Militants. and even count among the best Left wing elements, there was no noticeable unity, and certainly no efficiency in action, in their conduct during the convention.
On those questions in which the Stalinists are vitally interested – and rightly so; everybody else should also be – such as the Farmer-Labor party, the C.P. representatives showed both aggressiveness and unity. Barring isolated cases, the representatives of the S.P. showed neither quality. It was evident to the observer that not only did the S.P. Militants at the convention display a deplorable lack of unity of opinion (which is far from a vice, providing the prevailing opinion is a correct one), but what is worse, this lack of harmonious view was translated on the convention floor, in negotiation committees and in other committees, into a lack of unity in action – that is, into an absence of discipline.
The entirely proper sentiments of many of the S.P. Militants to organize a unity of action, while it resulted in remedying conditions in some measure, did not prove sufficiently effective in attaining that necessary level of discipline particularly demanded by the presence of the organized Stalinist phalanx.
We limit ourselves to a few illustrations.
There were really three views represented in the convention on the “Farmer-Labor” party: the familiar Stalinist view; the S.P. Militants’ view in favor of a “genuine” Farmer-Labor party but not in 1936; and the revolutionary Marxian view held by many of the delegates of the former National Unemployed League. Aroused out of their hypocritical meekness when the question arose toward the very end of the convention, the Stalinists stormed and shouted from floor and platform in favor of their standpoint. A few Socialists also took the floor for contradictory speeches in line with their own views. But the representatives of the third tendency sought in vain for even the five minutes allotted to discussion speakers.
Important for our theme, however, is the fact that, leaving apart the principle differences we have with the Militants on the question of the F.L.P., they are entirely correct in their resistance to any committments that would tie them to the kite of a Stalinist Farmer-Labor Party hoax in the 1936 elections. Nevertheless, even though they were presumably a minority in the convention, the Stalinists virtually shouted through a “substitute motion” by their spokesman, Weisman, worded in such a manner as to leave the door wide open for the C.P. agents in the W.A.A. to maneuver the organization into precisely the position the Socialists do not want to take. How? Mainly because the Stalinists acted on the rule of every man as one, while the Socialists acted mainly on the rule of every man for himself.
Similarly on the question of war. With trifling exceptions in formulation, the resolution originally drafted by some of the Militants in the W.A.A. was flawless from a working class standpoint. It pledged the organization not to support the capitalist government of the U.S. in any war it may undertake, regardless of who its allies may be.
Now, this last clause is far from a trifle, for if you wish, it is around this “trifle” that the Stalinists are already recruiting troops for French imperialism. Are the Stalinists against imperialist war? Absolutely! They will vote against it any day in the week and twice on Lenin’s birthday. But, if the imperialist government fights a war against another imperialist government in alliance with the Soviet Union, then, do you see, it is no longer an imperialist war. Or, if the “capitalist” government is allied with the Soviets in a war against another “capitalist” government, the former somehow ceases to be “quite” a capitalist government and its war is not “quite” a capitalist war.
Is this merely a question of petty factional bickering between Stalinists and Marxists? If it is, then at the same time it involves nothing less than the life of the labor movement, and literally, the lives of millions of workers in the world war to come. It is such a “trifle” that the hawk-eyed Stalinists promptly pounced upon it, with the result that the phrase underlined above was deleted from the final draft of the resolution. The Stalinists were vigilant, aggressive, organized. The Militants were not, with the result that they ceded ground where they had no need to, where they should, instead, have advanced.
The contrast of firmness and looseness, manifested in these two situations, was not absent in other convention fields. The Councils acted as a unit, as did the C.P. stooge organizations in the so-called “independent caucus” which was rigged and framed with all the expertness that comes from years of Stalinist training. The W.A.A. acted like anything but a unit in the convention, and the S.P. Militants acted like anything but a unit in the W.A.A. Result: the work of the Stalinists was facilitated, both politically and organizationally. Even flagrant (and characteristic!) acts of disloyalty of the Stalinists – such as was involved in the violation of agreement made on representation from the “independent caucus” – could not be counteracted by the unorganized Socialists.
This is not only an indication of the road that must still be travelled by the Left wing in the Socialist Party – a road which the presence at the convention of splendid rank and file workers gives high promise that they will take. But it is also a matter which justifies apprehensions about the course which the Stalinists will take in the immediate period to follow, during which arrangements are to be completed for the holding of various unification conventions on state-wide scales. A repetition of what happened in Washington, on an even more injurious scale, is inevitable, unless its lessons are learned and steps are taken accordingly.
A word remains to be said about the ranks of the former N.U.L. Its delegation of close to 100 men and women from the field made an impressive showing, especially by the side of the – financially – infinitely more resourceful Stalinist Councils, whose convention had only a score more in attendance. A lamentable contrast to this showing was made by Arnold Johnson, former national secretary of the N.U.L. and belated convert to Stalinism after months of protestations of fealty to the Fourth International. Despite all the C.P. support and Daily Worker ballyhoo behind him, Johnson was only able to muster a good baker’s dozen from nowhere in particular for his “convention,” which promptly dissolved into the “independent caucus.” The business meeting of the former N.U.L., after a report by a special investigating committee which heard both Johnson and the loyal officers (Ramuglia, McKinney, Selander), voted unanimously to endorse the action of the officers mentioned in removing Johnson from office in the emergency he had created, and in joining forces with the Workers Alliance.
The delegates present at the N.U.L. convention could count themselves among the most devoted and experienced front-line fighters in the movement of the unemployed, and for that matter, in the labor movement generally. Their entry into the ranks of the united organization, reinforced by the election onto the new National Executive Board of such well-known militants as Ted Selander of Toledo and Sam Gordon of Allentown, brings to the merged movement the best of the traditions of the National Unemployed League, the best of its fighters, its experience, its ranks – constituting, all together, one, and not the least, of the guarantees for the great future of aggressive struggle that the new Alliance has before it.
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