Max Shachtman
articles from The New International
The Problem of the Labor Party
Source: The New International: A Monthly Organ of Revolutionary Marxism Vol 2,
No. ?, March, 1935. Pg. 33-37.
A GREAT CHANGE has come over the policies of the communist party in the United
States, in consonance with the Rightward swing of the whole Third International.
Where, only yesterday, the party elders thundered against the blasphemous
suggestion that the united front should be made from organization to
organization, that the leadership of the socialist party and other labor
organizations should be directly and formally approached -- they now pant
pathetically at the heels of the National Executive Committee of the S. P.
Whereas the C. P. convention as late as the spring of 1934 set itself the task
of building up the "revolutionary T.U.U.L." and of establishing the "Independent
Federation of Labor", it now hastens to dissolve every non-A. F. of L. union it
ever had its hands on. But nowhere is the change as startling, both for
completeness and abruptness, as in its policy with regard to a Labor party.
Best evidence on this score is offered by examining its old policy. In 1928, the
prevailing line of advocating a labor party was laid on the table. By 1930, that
is, at the height of the now totally ignored but unforgettable "third period",
it was taken off the table and slashed to ribbons. In the theses and resolutions
presented by the March-April 1930 Plenum for the 7th national convention, we
were told that the results of the economic crisis "destroy the reformist
illusions with which the bourgeoisie attempted to deceive and pacify the workers
[and] continually accelerates the narrowing of the very social basis of
reformism" (p. 8). Reformism and its illusions are not only dying of social
inanition, but "a revolutionary upsurge grips the working masses" (p. 9). There
is precious little difference among the tottering "reformist organizations and
elements, some of which (A. F. of L.) are outright Fascist, while others
(socialist party, Muste group [ !]) cover their Fascist activities with
pseudo-radical phrases" (p. 11). The reactionaries have tamed "the labor unions
from instruments of struggle on behalf of the workers into instruments against
the working masses and into Fascist troops of capitalism" (p. 11). If the C. P.
has been at fault at all in this situation, then only because "it has been a
mistake on our part that we did not sooner clearly analyze and characterize the
open Fascism of the A. F. of L." (p. 33).
Conclusion: "Any Labor party crystallization at this moment could have only
[only!] the A. F. of L. unions, the socialist party and other social reformist
organizations as a basis, or would be composed only of those already in sympathy
with the communist party. A Labor party made up of social-Fascist organizations
would not mean political separation of the workers from the capitalists but
would mean the delivery of the workers to capitalist politics under the guise of
a Labor party." (P. 15.)
Neither the analysis nor the conclusion could be more sober lucid or
unassailable. Be that as it may, here was the C. P. policy on the Labor party
till the end of 1934. It was so completely interred, that neither in his
political report nor his summary at the April 1934 convention of the C.P., did
Browder so much as mention the words "Labor party" or hint that it was or might
become an issue. At the end of that very year, however, finding himself by
chance in the city of Moscow, the same Browder war suddenly stunned by the
realization that the workers of the United States, till then in the grip of a
revolutionary upsurge, had begun to break away from the capitalist parties and
were at the same instant in the equally merciless grip of a Labor party upsurge.
Bursting with the new knowledge, he rushed home with such an effervesceing
anxiety to impart it to the masses that he felt it would be unjust to keep it
from them long enough to consult with the presumable leadership of the party,
the Central Committee, or the membership, much less to wait for their decision.
The first revelation of the fact that the "party" had changed "its" policy and
now favored the formation of a Labor party, was made at a public gathering in
Washington on January 6. The Central Committee of the party, subsequently
convened, put its predestined stamp of approval on the new line about two weeks
later. Whether the formal detail of discussion and approval by the membership
was attended to in the hustle and bustle has not yet been fully established --
in any case, it could not have been considered very important. Only an
incorrigible petty bourgeois democrat, we are now taught, wants to discuss a
policy before executing it; your modern revolutionist carries it out first and
then discusses it, if at all.
"We must change our negative position towards the Labor party question," Browder
explains, "which was determined by the absence of a practical mass movement
which made it a practical problem." (Daily Worker, Jan. 19, 1935.) But it was
determined by exactly opposite considerations in 1930; the mass movement was
indeed there, but the Labor party then could have as its base merely the A. F.
of L., which, was "outright Fascist", the trade unions, which had been turned
into "Fascist troops" and the "social Fascist" S. P. Trusting to short memories,
Browder continues to point out that "Now there is a mass movement and it is a
question of our party's participation among these masses and influencing their
course".
With that gift of contempt for consistency which elevates Browder above the
common run of men, he nonchalantly denies the above assertion a few weeks later,
and points out: "There does not yet exist a clearly-defined Labor party
movement. There is only the beginning mass break-away, within which a struggle
is going on between two main class forces." (Daily Worker, Feb. 14, 1935.)
But regardless for the moment of whether the mass movement for the Labor party
does or does not yet exist, the new policy of the C. P. most certainly does. It
merits an examination which we think will not prove fruitless.
*
One need not go far afield to study the background of the question: what is the
relationship between a revolutionary Marxian party and a Labor party? The
American movement has a rich and instructive history in this field, and even a
condensed recapitulation of it here will greatly facilitate an appraisal of the
problem as presented today. Indeed, the latter cannot be achieved without the
former.
In 1922, the just organized legal communist party (the Workers party) put
forward for the first time the slogan for a Labor party and launched a campaign
to realize it. The reasons for the new policy were fourfold: 1) there was not
only a strong Labor party sentiment among the workers, but a national
Farmer-Labor party, strongly supported by many trade union bodies, actually
existed; 2) the railroad Brotherhoods, together with other national unions and
farm organizations, had launched the Conference for Progressive Political Action
in Chicago in February 1922; 3) the recently [....] front tactic of the Third
International; 4) Lenin's advice to the British Communists to seek affiliation
with our party.
Better to understand in retrospect than to have perceived it at [....] the
socalled Labor party movement developed simultaneously and in significant
combination with the socalled Third party movement. The former may be summed up
as the first post-war reformist political expression of the discontent of the
workers with the capitalist regime and its two parties, dissatisfaction with the
hoary official policy of "reward your friends and punish your enemies", a
groping towards independent working class expression on the political field. The
latter was the movement of middle class protest, chafing under the yoke of the
parties of monopolist capitalism, dominated by the labor bureaucracy, the
survivors of Bull Moose Progressivism and the latter-day representatives of
western Populism, all of whom piously abhorred the idea of independent working
class political organization and action with sufficient zeal to counteract any
movement in that direction. Anxious to break with the sectarian past of their
underground existence, apprehensive lest they remain isolated from the political
development of the masses, the communists flung themselves into the campaign for
a Labor party, with a rising overestimation of its hold upon the masses, its
distinctive class character, its possibilities and its virtues.
The original conception of the Labor party was that it would be, roughly, the
American equivalent of its British namesake, based on the trade union movement
whose political organization it would be, reformist in character, affiliated
with all the fundamental defects of its British counterpart, but representing,
as did the latter in its early days, the separation of the working class from
the bourgeoisie on ...
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