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From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 57, 30 December 1933, p. 2.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
A look at the League today, in its palpitating growth, throughout the country and the excellent types of serious fighters it is attracting into its ranks in ever-growing numbers, offers a really encouraging picture. It is a far cry now from the time when those who expelled us from the official party scornfully dubbed us the “three generals without an army”. Still, there is no intention at all on my part to exaggerate our numbers and influence or to create false impressions of a greater strength than actually exists. But the League is making a place for itself the conditions now developing in the country.
With a total of 28 branches spread today from coast to coast, including Canada, we have more than doubled our membership since the last National Conference two years ago. On the recent national tour larger audiences than before were attracted to our meetings. Including those held in New York City, a total of over 4,000 advanced workers participated in the meetings and heard our proposal for a new party. We can say today that the League has definitely become the standard bearer of the future revolutionary party. It reflects not only this new current but steps on the scene as the herald of the future upward curve in the working class movement as a whole. That is why the revolutionary youth responds so readily to the extent that the Spartacus Youth movement has grown up within the last year, and a half from almost nothing to about a dozen live active branches. It is also the explanation of the particularly frantic onslaughts upon us by the Stalinist bureaucrats.
What a glaring contrast this presents. On the one hand the League surging forward, teeming with life and vitality, attracting to its banner the more conscious Marxian students; the League surging forward in accordance with the trends and direction of future struggles. On the other hand the Stalinist party, belonging to the past, bringing out from the arsenals of reaction the methods of gangsterism which have long ago been properly branded as a curse to the American labor movement.
In Chicago where the Stalinist party, infuriated by the progress we had made, came organized in large numbers to break up the meeting held on my tour, two new League branches have since emerged. That is a most fitting answer. To it can be added the fact, which augurs well for further progress, that in Chicago our youth movement is perhaps the most active of any place in the country. Two live Spartacus clubs already exist there. The Chicago Workers’ School, directed by comrade Goldman has become an excellent supplementary institution reinforcing the Marxian foundation of the movement. With a total of over one hundred enrollments, the school is now expanding and forming branches in various parts of the city. The Friends of the Militant Club and an influential Italian workers’ club complete the Chicago picture.
To the misguided workers who participated in the Stalinite blackjack expedition these developments should be telling proof of the falsity of such methods. They will only produce the kind of repercussions which return to annihilate their initiators. In the final analysis the issues of the movement, and the positive ideas which grow out of them, will always have to be considered squarely. Personally, I noticed that those who performed the hooligan role in this instance were not at all enthusiastic about it. On the other hand the League members and other workers who defended the meeting were in high spirits. They were defending the principles of democracy and free speech in the labor movement. This is something worth making a fight for. In this the League already today performs a service which will be of much greater importance in the future sharp conflicts to be fought with the capitalist agents in the ranks of organized labor.
Will the League play a serious part in the grandiose perspective for rising labor militancy speeded on by the structural changes of American national economy? That, after all, is the decisive question. For a young organization there naturally is no great tradition to point to. But there is such a thing as a test of political position in the crucible of events. In this respect we have lound our position standing firm as a rock.
Therein lies the great hope for the future. Still we are today very small for the big job ahead. In recognition of this one of our comrades, a well driller from Oregon, wrote us the other day asking the very pertinent question: “In the awakening which is now beginning will not our forces be too small. There is so much to be done. Will we not be altogether too late?”
Today we stand before the coming storms. A few recent strikes, notably the Philadelphia transportation strike, indicate the resistance which is gathering against the pressure of degrading working class conditions. And we need not expect in advance that international union officials or the NRA labor boards will in every case succeed in smothering the fight. On the contrary, even the very conservative unions will be forced to take some steps forward. In preparation for that the League is also taking its first steps towards its announced objective, of rebuilding the Left wing in the trade unions.
The accomplishments are modest so far. Not only that, but it must be said that in view of the immensity of the job ahead our own weakness in this field is all the more apparent. The steps which have been taken are reflected in The Militant, in union and strike activities of our comrades in New York, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and elsewhere. But, as an indication for the future, it is noteworthy that in two separate points in the Pittsburgh steel region members of the League have already taken the initiative and become the most active organizers of newly established local unions of the A.F. of L.
A further good indication for future trends is afforded by the examples of the Minneapolis comrades. They have been in the very forefront organizing the local unemployed movement and founding it firmly on a trade union basis, thus establishing the unity between employed and unemployed, with the unions taking up the fight for the needs of the unemployed. There was a similar example in Toronto, Canada, although somewhat different in its nature. In that city our comrades were leading and moving forces in a united front Anti-Fascist demonstration which brought out between 15 to 20 thousand workers in a demonstration coupled with a strike of brief duration. It became a powerful thrust against the infamous Section 98 of the criminal code and restored free speech in Toronto.
In the unemployed movement the League is entering a broader field of activity. It is now collaborating directly with the Workers’ Leagues of Chicago to extend this organization of the unemployed to other centers. Despite the general sag in the unemployment movement it has maintained several branches intact with more than a thousand members and a few additional hundred members outside of Chicago. The Communist League is cooperating in the work of this organization with a serious determination to help revive the unemployed movement.
On the Pacific Coast our new branches in San Francisco, Oakland and Vancouver were almost entirely recruited from forces coming over from the official party. In New York City, where we have our largest membership, there are at this moment considerable new forces also taking the step from the official party to the Left Opposition. Within the official party itself there is a dead calm, all the more ominous after the Soviet recognition “bargain”. Unquestionably many of its members feel very uneasy and there will be new forces turning away from Stalinism to become supporters of the new party. This was already indicated by the official party organizer in New Castle, Pa., when he attended our meeting of my recent tour. He said, “Yes, the Left Opposition rests upon a sound foundation and it has excellent forces while the official party in New Castle is dead.”
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