In this series of articles, we have shown the importance of carrying on the struggle within the trade unions against reformism and trade unionism and against the leading spokesmen for these ideologies within the trade union leadership.
Alongside the reformist trade union leaders, in direct opposition to the revolutionary movement of the working class, stand the revisionists–those defenders of capitalism who pose as communists. With their center in the now-capitalist Soviet Union, the revisionists throughout the capitalist countries try to penetrate the workers’ organizations, get into leadership and steer the labor movement down the capitalist road.
Living on the name and reputation of the once-revolutionary Communist Party, the modern revisionists are based among the better-paid sections of the workers. They try to move in at the top of the union bureaucracy through a strategy of allying with the reformist labor lieutenants.
In some unions such as the United Electrical Workers (UE) and Local 1199 of the Drug and Hospital Workers Union, the revisionists hold many of the most influential and leading positions. Their main efforts at present, however, are directed in the basic industries such as auto, rubber and especially steel. In the steelworkers’ union (USW), the revisionists are among the most vocal backers of reform candidate Ed Sadlowski and his “Steelworkers’ Fightback” group.
But it is not adequate to simply view the revisionists in the exact same way as reformist elements within the unions. While the revisionists in part promote the same brand of trade unionism as the reformist trade unionists we have described in earlier articles, they must also be seen in their capacity as agents of Soviet social-imperialism within the workers’ movement in each country.
With the Soviet social-imperialists going on the warpath to redivide the world against their U.S. imperialist rivals, the revisionists’ penetration of the unions in all the capitalist countries becomes crucial. Just as George Meany serves U.S. imperialism’s objectives in Latin America, Europe and elsewhere, the revisionist trade union leaders serve the social-imperialists.
The particular task of the revisionists today is to build sentiment for “detente” within the U.S. trade unions. In trying to drum up support for Soviet aggression disguised as “detente,” the revisionists appeal to the narrow economic interests of the workers, raising slogans like “Detente Means Jobs.” George Meany did the same thing when he drummed up support for U.S. aggression in Indochina by saying it was “good for the economy.” From either source, the purpose of the appeal is to blunt the working-class struggle against imperialism. The only difference is the imperialist master served.
In the course of serving the interests of social-imperialism, the revisionists pursue a tactical line of forming a bloc between themselves and the reformist trade unionists. This means that, while mainly in the service of social-imperialism, the revisionists also act as props for the section of the U.S. ruling class whose interests are represented by these reformists. By building such a bloc, the revisionists hope to ride the wave of rank-and-file upsurge to positions of power in the union structure.
The CP trade union program pays lip-service opposition to the present union leadership. But to replace the Abels and Meanys, the revisionists look to the “new trends that are (reflected).. in the trade union leadership as a result of the intensification of the class struggle and the pressure of the rank and file” (Draft Political Resolution for 21st National Convention).
The “new trends” which the CP upholds^ are actually the old-line social-democrats, direct inheritors of the Second International’s rotten class-collaborationism. These self-proclaimed “socialists” have been preaching the reform of capitalism and support for imperialism since WWI.
The CP describes these “new trends” as “moderate social-democrats such as Harrington, Wurf, Lucy and Seldon, who shun Meany’s more reactionary positions but are reluctant to challenge them. They continue to waver under the influence of Cold War inertia and anti-communism. Many of these can be brought to a pro-detente stand and to more consistently democratic and class-struggle positions...”
On the basis of this opportunist analysis, the revisionists put forth their strategy of a “Left-Center united front” with the whole section of social-democratic and reformist traitors to the working class whom they describe only as “waverers.” This growing merger between revisionism, reformism and social-democracy in support of “detente” (meaning support of social-imperialism) is an international phenomenon and carries beyond the trade union movement into the arena of electoral politics. It is part and parcel of the revisionist strategy to take power while keeping the capitalist system intact.
While the danger of the revisionist trade union leaders is greater because they carry out their work under the mantle of “communism,” their program of struggle and trade union demands is in essence the same as that of the reformist trade union leaders. It is based on an open defense of trade unionism, or, as they pose the task “the defense against monopoly’s attack on honest trade unionism” (Draft Resolution).
The revisionist program calls for “nationalization of key industries under democratic control” as part of apian for “radical structural reforms” of capitalism. “Restructuring” is posed as an alternative to the communist program of socialist revolution, and it is on this basis that the CP tries to build its “Anti-Monopoly Coalition.”
In calling for a “restructuring” of the trade union movement, the revisionists are basically defending the liberal labor bureaucrats and manuevering for more influence themselves. The new structure they seek to build is not a trade union movement organized as a center for revolutionary struggle, but a bureaucracy in which they and their allies hold hegemony.
The CPUSA’s traitorous policy of class-collaborationist trade unionism was clearly seen in the recent strike of San Francisco city workers which ended in bitter defeat last May. The defeat was the result of a sell-out by the San Francisco Labor Council in which the revisionists have gained some influence. Their strategy for winning the strike was based on a cozy alliance with “pro-labor” Mayor Moscone rather than mobilizing the workers themselves. Moscone and other city officials turned on the workers, knowing they could rely on the bureaucrats to force the strikers back to work with none of their demands met.
Because the revisionists had a stake in building up these union misleaders to secure their own future and undermine the rank-and-file sentiment of resistance and rebellion, they openly declared the settlement a “victory” (Daily World, May 18).
The traitorous alliance with the reformist trade union leaders is just one part of the strategy of the revisionists. They have also attempted to organize their own independent fronts within the trade union movement to increase their negotiating position. Playing on the widespread rank-and-file sentiment for independent organization in the form of the caucus movement which arose in the 1960s, the CP launched their own organization called Trade Unionists for Action and Democracy (TUAD).
TUAD, in its newspaper Labor Today, describes itself as organizing “rank-and-file trade unionism.” This is an honest self-portrayal in that it confines itself strictly to trade unionist politics as opposed to revolutionary working-class politics. Its main program is confined to support for the reformist trade union leaders like Sadlowski combined with agitation around “detente” and lip-service to the fight against racism.
It is necessary to mention that the revisionists’ strategy in the unions also includes a life-or-death struggle against genuine communists who have begun to make their influence more greatly felt within the trade union struggle. In France and Italy, where the revisionists are strong in the union movement, genuine communists have been barred by the revisionist bureaucrats, fingered to the police and even set up for assassination.
In the U.S. union movement, revisionism directs its most vicious attacks on the “Maoists” and “Black nationalists” (see “Rebellion in the Unions” by revisionist labor hack George Morris), whom they see as providing the greatest challenge to their own legitimacy in the labor movement.
The struggle against the revisionist trade union leaders is part and parcel of our revolutionary struggle against the capitalist system. Along with the reformists, the revisionists must be made the target of our main blow within the workers’ movement. Their danger is bound to increase as the crisis of capitalism deepens and thousands of workers begin to turn towards communism as the only solution. It is at this point, when capitalism’s open labor lieutenants stand exposed before the working class, that the bourgeoisie will come to rely more and more on the phony “communists” in the CP.
Key to this struggle is the building of a genuine communist party in the immediate future which will enable us to organize in the unions on a revolutionary basis of class struggle. Without such a party, the fight against the revisionist and reformist leaders cannot be carried out in a thorough-going way.