Party building and political leadership

Party Buildin

and

Political

WM. Z. FOSTER
ALEX BITTELMAN
JAMES W. FORD
CHARLES KRUMBEIN

THREE SPEECHES
of WORLD SIGNIFICANCE

The Commijnists in the People's Front

Earl Browder 10

Mastering Bolshevism

Joseph Stalin 05

Organizational Problems of the
Communist Party

A.A.Zhdanov 10

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PARTY BUILDING AND POLITICAL
LEADERSHIP

*\

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WILLIAM Z. FOSTER

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A Manual of Industrial Unionism

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What Means a Strike in Steel

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Questions and Answers on the
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Unionizing Steel
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PARTY BUILDING

AND POLITICAL

LEADERSHIP

BY

WILLIAM Z. FOSTER

ALEX BITTELMAN

JAMES W. FORD

CHARLES KRUMBEIN

NEW YORK
WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS

The first two articles in this book are
reports delivered at the Plenary Meet-
ing of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party, U.S.A., held June
iy-2o t 1937* The second two articles
are excerpts from reports at the same
meeting.

PUBLISHED BY

WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS, INC.

P. O. BOX 148, STA. D, NEW YORK CITY

AUCUST, 1937

209

CONTENTS

PARTY BUILDING AND POLITICAL
LEADERSHIP

By William Z, Foster 7

THE PARTY AND THE PEOPLE'S FRONT
By Alex Bittelman 77

DEVELOPING NEGRO COMMUNIST
LEADERS

By James W. Ford

102

PROBLEMS OF DEVELOPING
LEADING FORCES

By Charles Krumbein

J

115

Party Building and
Political Leadership

By WILLIAM Z. FOSTER

Part I

In the United States, under the
blows of the difficult economic situ-
ation and the threat of political reac-
tion, the masses are moving towards
the People's Front; they are being
rapidly radicalized and are breaking
the leading strings that held them so
long under the control of the capitalist
class. There is a deep class differentia-
tion and shifting of class forces. This is
shown by the unparalleled regrouping
of political and economic organiza-
tions during the past year, including
splits in the Republican, Democratic

7

and Socialist parties, the rise and
breakup of the Townsend and Cough-
lin movements and the deep split in the
American Federation of Labor, and
also especially by the growth of the
C.I.O., Labor's Non-Partisan League,
the great peace movement, the youth
and women's movements, etc. Es-
pecially are the forces of reaction and
incipient fascism grouping themselves
around the Republican Party, and
those of democratic progress around
Roosevelt.

But the Communist Party and the
Daily Worker do not experience an
organic growth corresponding to the
expanding mass movement of the toil-
ers. Our Party is active in every phase
of the developing People's Front move-
ment and it has greatly increased its
prestige and forces in mass organiza-
tions of all kinds— trade unions, labor
parties, fraternal, national, farmer,
youth, Negro, women, peace, anti-fas-

8

cist, labor defense, unemployed, vete-
rans, as well as in political life general-
ly. This lays a sure basis for future
growth, but for the present the expan-
sion of the Party and the Daily Worker
lags badly. Thus, during the past year,
a period of unparalleled mass organiza-
tion and class struggle, our Party's
membership has fluctuated around
40,000, and the circulation of the Daily
Worker stagnates.

The problem of speeding up the
growth of the Party and its press, of
liquidating the contradiction between
the rapid intensification of the class
struggle and the slow growth of our
Party constitutes the most urgent issue
now before the Party.

Before analyzing this problem it is
necessary first to eliminate a harm-
ful misconception. This is the opinion
that the economic situation in the
United States is not favorable to the
rapid growth of the Communist Party,

9

that the Communist Party cannot grow
in periods of "prosperity" but requires
a situation of economic crisis or de-
pression.

Such a notion is basically wrong.
The growih of the Communist Party
is conditioned by a whole complex of
factors, not the economic question of
industrial production alone. When, as
at present, with some 9,000,000 work-
ers unemployed, with the cost of living
rapidly rising, with the masses more
conscious of economic and political
grievances than ever, with millions of
workers and other toilers organizing
and fighting, the groundwork is at
hand for a rapid expansion of the
Communist Party's strength and in-
fluence* Therefore, if our Party and
its press are not now growing faster the
reasons are not to be found in an un-
favorable objective situation, but in
other factors which we shall develop as
we go along. There is absolutely no

io

reason in the objective situation why
our Party should not be numerically
several times stronger than it is at the
present time.

REVIEW OF ORGANIZATIONAL CON-
DITIONS AND METHODS

That the Party as a whole needs
greatly to improve its organizational
work, its recruitment and assimilation
of new members goes without saying.
There is the grossest neglect of this
fundamental question. Without defi-
nite improvement in this vital work all
talk of building the Party and its press
will remain fruitless.

The Resolution of the June Plenum
of the Central Committee correctly
calls for "a general review of the or-
ganizational conditions and methods
of the Party/'* This general review

* Resolutions of the Ninth Convention of
the Communist Party, Workers Library Pub-
lishers, New York, 10 cents.

1 1

and the improvements that should re-
sult from it must have as its starting
point the strengthening of the Party's
united front alliances, of developing
the Party's contacts in the numerous
mass organizations, of intensifying the
toilers' struggle and raising it to higher
political levels, and of fulfilling the
Party's general tasks in the developing
People's Front movement. Examined
from this standpoint, the following can
be summed up as an outline of some of
the Party's major organizational tasks.
A. A greater organizational con-
sciousness. Our Party needs further
education in the necessity of carrying
on systematic Party organizational
work. Too much reliance h still placed
on mere agitation, the regular building
of the Party being left largely to spon-
taneity. This situation must be dras-
tically corrected. The whole Party
membership must be made acutely or-
ganization conscious, and educated

12

never to forget that the building of a
great mass Communist Party is the
center of all of our activities. Party
building must be made the central
issue everywhere and at all times
throughout the Party.

B. Intensified preparation of cadres.
The cadre question also must be re-
shaped in view of the present situation.
Our whole system of the training of
cadres must be broadened and speeded
up to satisfy the great demand for
trained personnel created by the grow-
ing mass struggle and the multiplying
activities of our Party. It must be espe-
cially directed toward producing the
new types of cadres demanded by the
new mass organizations. All our schools
must be extended.

We must especially adopt a bolder
policy of promoting comrades to more
responsible work, and thus bring out
their latent abilities. While stressing
the great importance of the cadre ques-
ts

tion we must not, however, fail to com-
bat the wrong theories of those who
try to justify inexcusable inactivity by
urging a lack of capable cadres.

c. Link together the Party's organ-
izational and educational work. The
education and organization of workers
are essentially one process, both on a
Party and mass scale, and the two
phases of the work must be closely co-
ordinated. The combination of the
two former separate agitprop and or-
ganization departments into the educa-
tional-organizational department is an
important step forward in the methods
of Party building and mass work, and
the full logic of it must be developed
throughout the districts. This depart-
ment should study the methods of agi-
tation and organization used by vari-
ous other organizations— political par-
ties, trade unions, fraternal organiza-
tions, etc. The department should also
send out instructors to the districts to

H

check up on the carrying out of its
directives.

d. Connect Party recruiting with the
mass movement. Party building must
be made an organic part of every mass
campaign of the Party, The educa-
tion-organization department must
concern itself directly with the plan-
ning of our mass work and weave into
it the various tasks of Party building.
Heretofore, Party building has been
considered too much as a separate
Party activity, detached from actual
mass work. Thus, for example, during
the recent election campaign, many
big mass meetings were held; radio
speeches delivered; literature distrib-
uted; etc, in which no appeal whatever
was made actually to draw workers into
the ranks of our Party.

The Party must also fight energetic-
ally against the "stages" theory of or-
ganization; which is, that first we build
the mass organization and later the

*5

Party. Party building must be a con-
tinuous process, proceeding simulta-
neously with the development of the
mass campaigns, and must not be the
object simply of occasional Party re-
cruiting drives. The Party Organizer
should be broadened out from its
present narrow inner-Party line (that
is, its dealing almost entirely with
purely Party affairs), and should also
concern itself directly with all im-
portant problems of mass organization,
linking Party building with them,

e. New methods of Party recruiting.
Our methods of recruiting members
into the Party should be restudied with
regard to our united front situation
in the developing People's Front move-
ment. Very often prevailing methods
of recruitment are too narrow, too
much confined to close Party circles*
We must find broader approaches to
the awakening masses and develop sys-
tematic efforts to recruit among them

16

on the basis of the shop, union, family,
friends, neighborhood, fraternal or-
ganizations, etc Special attention
must be paid to developing recruiting
activities by all our contacts in the
mass organizations, particularly our
hundreds of new functionaries. Also,
the fractions should be given more re-
sponsibility for Party recruiting. A
better planning and check-up should
be developed for all recruitment work.
f. Reduction in membership fluctu-
ation. Our efforts to correct the evil of
membership fluctuation, through
which we lose a large percentage of the
new members recruited yearly, must
also be based upon the united front
situation of the Party and the tasks
of the developing mass movement.
There must be a better distribution of
tasks to new members, a more systema-
tic education of these new members,
a better dues collection system, a more
thorough check-up on those who have

dropped out of the Party, the raising
of the political tone of the unit life,
etc.

g. Connect the Daily Worker
more closely with the mass movement.
The problem of improving the circula-
tion of the Daily Worker must also be
examined in the light of our tasks in
the growing People's Front movement.
In the first place, it is necessary to link
the paper up more closely with the
workers' struggles. The Daily Worker
must be not only a first-class journal of
general labor information and com-
ment; it must especially be a fighting
organ and leader of the mass struggle.
It must be reorganized as the main
agitational expression of the Party.
The paper should display greater ini-
tiative in the inauguration and inten-
sification of the mass struggle by sys-
tematic exposures of bad conditions in
plants; concentrated reporting of
strike situations; specially organized

18

circulation of the paper in struggle
zones, etc. The special editions in the
auto strikes, the steel strikes and the
Minnesota elections are very good steps
in this general direction.

This sharpening up of the role of
the Daily Worker as the outstanding
leading fighting paper of the workers
can only be successful provided it is
backed up by a better organization of
the circulation department. At present
there is gross neglect in circulating the
paper at mill gates, union meetings,
and in many other situations where the
workers welcome it. It is necessary that
skilled assistance be brought into the
circulation department to organize our
circulation methods on a modern basis.
There should be developed in the
Party a spirit and organization some-
thing similar to the old Appeal Army.
Circulation of the Daily Worker should
be raised to the height of a major po-
litical task.

19

J-* ■

li J*

h. Strengthen the shop papers. Our
shop papers also face new problems in
connection with the organization of
huge masses of unorganized into the
C.I.O. unions. These papers are not
prospering as they should. Some are
displaying a tendency to stagnate and
this must be corrected; for the shop
papers can be built into powerful
weapons to bring the Party's policy to
the masses, and generally to show the
face of the Party in the shops.

i. Self-criticism, Party democracy
and collective leadership. Improve-
ment in all these elementary respects
is necessary for the strengthening of
our Party politically and organization-
ally. There must be a better examina-
tion made of our weaknesses— a franker
admission of errors, if we are to sharp-
en up our policies and activities; a
better combination of democratic pro-
cedure with firm Communist disci-
pline, if we are to give the workers

so

more of a feeling of active participa-
tion in the life of the Party, and a more
systematic development of collective
leadership if we are to develop the best
leading and working ability that our
Party has in its forces.

Substantial improvement of the
Party's organizational methods along
the above-suggested lines is bound to
result in a decided speeding up of Par-
ty building. It would result in much
growth for our Party and the strength-
ening of its influence on all fronts. The
need of the betterment of our organiza-
tion work, therefore, cannot be over-
stressed.

21

Part II

PARTY BUILDING— BETTER POLITICAL
WORK

Effective political work among the
masses is, of course, fundamental to
the building of the Party and its press-
In this sense, the resolution of the June
Plenum o£ the Central Committee of
our Partv says:

"In this way, the Communist Party must
guard against the danger of dissolving itself
in the general mass movement either ideo-
logically or organizationally. It must aim to
become more and more the initiating, organ-
izing and unifying force of the People's Front
movement and, at the same time, the gather-
ing, organizing and recruiting center of the
most advanced elements of that movement.
This should express itself in the mass agita-
tion of the Party, in its independent activities
of various forms, and in the central organ of
the Party, the Daily Worker. This strength-
ening of the initiative and of the indepen-
dent political activity of the Party can be
only beneficial to the successful development

22

of the People's Front. And, in turn, only the
most powerful development of the people's
mass movement can create the most favor-
able condition for the growth and strength-
ening of the Communist Party/'

How, concretely, can we carry out
these elementary Party tasks? How can
we apply them in the present situa-
tion of growing mass struggle and uti-
lize them most effectively for the build-
ing of our Party and the Daily Worker?
In order to answer these fundamental
questions it will be well for us to ex-
amine in detail the degree and manner
in which the Communist Party is real-
izing, in the concrete situation of the
rapidly growing American People's
Front, its historic role as vanguard of
the proletariat.

As our approach to this very im-
portant question which is so vital in
Party building we will do well to study
the experiences of the Communist Par-
ties in France and Spain. In these two
countries (not to mention China,

23

Chile, Mexico and elsewhere) strong
People's Fronts have developed and
the Communist Parties have also
grown rapidly. Thus, in France the
Communist Party in the last eighteen
months has leaped up from some 60,-
000 to 325*000 members and its po-
litical influence has been enormously
increased; in Spain a similar develop-
ment has taken place, the Communist
Party there growing from 50,000 to
300,000 in ten months.

When we examine the French and
Spanish situations we at once note that
in France and Spain the Communist
Parties are in strong positions of po-
litical leadership in the People's Front.
They are real vanguard parties. This
fact is of vast importance in their
having achieved so much organiza-
tional growth. For by the excellent po-
litical work in their respective People's
Front by which they convinced the
masses of workers of the politically acl-

24

vanced role of the Communist Party,
these two parties have also, at the same
time, laid the groundwork for easy re-
cruitment of the most advanced ele-
ments into the Party. When the French
workers once saw clearly the leading
role of the Communist Party and real-
ized how necessary our Party was, par-
ticularly in the everyday struggles for
immediate demands, they readily af-
filiated themselves with it. In fact, it is
only to the degree the workers any-
where recognized this politically lead-
ing role of the Communist Party that
they take up seriously the job of build-
ing the Party on a mass basis.

Consider concretely the situation in
France: In the French People's Front
the role of the Communist Party as the
vanguard stands out snarp and clear,
although the official posts are mostly
held by other parties. The Communist
Party proposed the People's Front in
the first place, was the main factor in

*5

organizing it, took a very prominent
part in the recent victorious election
campaign, was the most active force in
reestablishing trade union unity and
organizing four million workers and
it is now the militant fighter for every
step forward of the People's Front. All
of which leading activity is quite ob-
vious to great masses of workers and
this, therefore, develops among them a
powerful impetus to join such a po-
litically strong party.

In Spain the Communist Party is
also in a minority so far as holding of-
ficial posts in the People's Front is con-
cerned, but it has, if anything, played
a still more outstanding leading po-
litical role. It, too, originated the pro-
posal for a People's Front and was its
main organizer, and it has also taken
directly the lead for nearly every im-
portant measure to strengthen the
struggle against Franco, including the
powerful mobilization of its forces in

26

the army, the better consolidation of
the government, a unified military
command, a firm army discipline and
a concentrated defense of Madrid, the
improvement of industrial production,
etc. The result is that militant Spanish
workers see clearly the advanced role
of the Communist Party and thus are
ready to affiliate themselves with this
powerful and intelligent political or-
ganization.

In the United States, however, the
Communist Party, while moving in
that direction, does not yet occupy such
a definite leading political position in
the various mass movements making
up the developing People's Front.
While the Party is undoubtedly giving
the broad theoretical leadership to the
growing People's Front movement, the
actual and immediate and official lead-
ership of the day-to-day struggles which
are decisive in winning the general po-
litical support of the masses rests most-

27

Jy in other hands than those of the
Communist Party. Thus, in its Party
building our Party lacks the outstand-
ing leading mass prestige enjoyed by
the French and Spanish parties, and
manifestly this makes our Party re-
cruitment and membership assimila-
tion considerably more difficult.

The most elementary reasons why
the French and Spanish Communist
Parties occupy a stronger politically
leading position among the masses
than does our Communist Party are
pretty obvious, Sound policies, mili-
tantly applied, are fundamental in
their success; but underlying this is the
basic factor that the fascist and war
dangers are more acute in these coun-
tries than in the United States and this
inclines the toiling masses who are also
more class conscious than in the United
States, the readier to follow the mili-
tant lead of the revolutionary Com-
munist Party in the People's Front.

28

It would be a grave political error,
however, to conclude from this that,
therefore, our Party is in no way re-
sponsible for its relatively weak degree
of mass political leadership and can do
nothing substantial about it except to
plug along and await the ripening of
the class struggle. Such a fatalistic pas-
sivity is groundless. It lies distinctly
within the power of the Party, through
the further development and improve-
ment of its political work, and the im-
provement of its methods of work,
greatly to improve the Party's prestige
among the masses and hence to speed
tip the Party's growth.

PARTY MASS LEADERSHIP AND
PARTY GROWTH

The direct relationship between the
growth of the Communist Party and
the degree of the Party f s mass political
leadership is abundantly demonstrated
not only by the foregoing comparisons

2 9

with the French and Spanish Commu-
nist Parties, but also by our own ex-
perience. Our Party history teaches us
that the more clearly the workers have
seen the vanguard role of our Party
the more readily they have joined the
Party and, what is no less important,
the more firmly they have maintained
their membership once they joined.
And by the same token, when for any
reason the leading role of our Party
has been obscured the problems of
Party recruitment and membership
fluctuation have always become much
more difficult.

It is precisely in those districts and
situations where the Party has the
most political prestige that Party
building is the easiest. Thus it is that
in the best recruiting district, New
York, where, through the broad cir-
culation of the Daily Worker, the great
May Day demonstrations and Madison
Square Garden meetings, the indepen-

3o

dent Party activities in strikes, etc, as
well as by systematic work inside the
trade unions and other mass organiza*
tions, the workers are made, in large
measure, to see the face of the Party
and to feel its power as a leading po-
litical force. In California, the second
best recruiting district, the Party also
enjoys much prestige as a political
leader, won during several years of
agricultural workers' strikes, marine
workers' strikes, the San Francisco gen-
eral strike, etc., in which struggles the
Party did not hide its light under a
bushel, but, to a considerable extent at
least, appeared before the workers as
their practical, daily political leader.

To the foregoing examples could be
added many more from our Party's
past, illustrating the same fact, Thus,
in the great unemployed campaigns of
*929-33> during which our Party occu-
pied a strong leading position be-
fore the masses, Party building was

3»

greatly facilitated, although we did not
fully utilize the favorable situation.
Likewise, during the big T.U.U.L. coal
strike of 1930, where the Party leader-
ship was clearly recognized by the
striking masses, 1,100 miners were re-
cruited into the Party in the Pittsburgh
district with little effort. And, similar-
ly, one of the best periods of Party
growth was during the great strike
wave of 1933-36, in which, through the
wide activity of the Trade Union
Unity League and our Party directly,
the Party's leading role was much em-
phasized and made visible to the
masses.

On the other hand, by the reverse
operation of the same principle, our
Party's history also provides many in-
stances where Party building has been
hampered by the Party's failure to de-
velop political leadership. This was
notably the case in our many "Left'*
sectarian enterprises of the past, in-

3*

eluding the skeleton Trade Union
Unity League unions, narrow Labor
Parties, etc. While in such cases the
leading role of the Party seemed great-
ly to be emphasized, this was only in a
pseudo sense. In reality, the Party was
only being exposed in its isolation and
its leadership lacked the necessary mass
basis. Besides these sectarian tenden-
cies which injured the Party's mass
leadership, there was also in our his-
tory much Right opportunism by
which our Party also obscured its lead-
ing role. Thus, in various united front
mass movements the Party tended to
lose its identity in the general work
and consequently failed to develop the
definite and visible mass leadership
necessary for the most effective Party
building. Evidences of t*his Right ten-
dency are especially to be found in
abundance in the present great organ-
izing campaigns in steel, auto, textile,
etc., and the danger from this source

S3

increases as our united front work, ex-
pands.

I have remarked earlier that it lies
distinctly within the power of the Party
very substantially to improve its posi-
tion of political mass leadership. In-
tense mass work on a united front basis
is, of course, the starting point for all
growth of the Party. But in doing such
work the Party must not be simply a
helper or auxiliary to the various cur-
rent mass movements, of tailing after
them politically, of liquidating itself
into them. It is not enough that the
Party be active; its activities must also
take on a leading character. In all these
mass movements the Party must find
the ways and means to stand out clearly
as the most constructive force, as the
real political leader of the masses in the
daily fight as well as in general theory.
The more the Party succeeds in accom-
plishing this objective, the easier and

54

quicker it will grow in numbers and
influence.

But the Party cannot improve its
degree of leadership arbitrarily or
artificially. It cannot be done by a
grabbing for official posts in mass or-
ganizations, or by vain boasts of Com-
munist achievements in the class strug-
gle, or simply by putting out more
radical slogans than those of the basic
mass movements, # or by merely insisting
that our Party is the vanguard of the
proletariat. Such mechanical attempts
to win leadership can only weaken the
growing united front and isolate the
Party from the masses. Tke Party can
develop leading prestige only by car-
rying through a whole series of prac-
tical political and organizational meas-
ures, by proving in the daily struggle
that it is actually the most intelligent
and militant influence in the working
class.

35

THE PARTY'S CHANGING STATUS IN
THE CLASS STRUGGLE

In weighing the problem of develop-
ing and strengthening the Party's mass
leadership and thereby of building the
Party more rapidly, it is necessary to
consider two important changes that
have been brought about recently in
the Party's position in the class strug-
gle by the developing People's Front
movement. The first of these is that
numerous mass movements, officially
led by non-Communists (but in which
Communists actively participate) have
now taken up and made their own,
various progressive slogans and activ-
ities in the advocacy and pursuance pf
which our Party had for many years a
sort of "monopoly/' The second im-
portant change in the Party's situation
is that the Party has recently passed
over from a position of relative isola-
tion to one of broad united front ac-
tion.

36

Let us consider first the ending of
the Party's "monopoly" of various pro-
gressive slogans. It is an incontestable
fact that for a long period our Party
practically stood alone in defending
many of the most elementary slogans
and interests of the toiling masses. This
was because the A. F. of L. was deeply
reactionary and either ignored or
fought against everything progressive
and because the Socialist Party, al-
though it had many of these issues in
its program, was so permeated with op-
portunism and prostrated by weakness
that it did practically nothing about
them. But now the situation is radical-
ly changed. Huge masses of workers
have become conscious of the need for
measures and methods once supported
almost solely by the Cdmmunist Party,
and many leaders and great mass move-
ments have developed around these
issues. These slogans have passed from
the stage of agitation to that of mass

37

action. Communists can only rejoice at
this wide acceptance of our progressive
slogans, that the masses are going the
way we urged. It shows the role of our
Party as the vanguard, that the ad-
vancing masses are at last developing
a political program of their own in op-
position to the bourgeoisie, and are
thus laying the foundations for a great
People's Front movement in the
United States.

Take, for example, the question of
industrial unionism. For many years
the Communist Party and its imme-
diate allies were practically the only
ones to fight, both inside and outside
the A. F. of L., for this measure. But
the huge C.l.O. movement, headed by
John L. Lewis, has now sprung up and
the immediate leadership of the fight
for industrial unionism has passed into
its hands. The C.LO. has also gained,
at the same time, the practical leader-
ship in the organization of the unor-

38

ganized, another slogan in the applica-
tion of which the Communist Party
alone, for many years, did any serious
work.

The same is true regarding leading
the opposition against the Green re-
actionary officialdom in the A. F. of L.
This, too, was long carried on almost
solely by the Communist Party and the
Trade Union Educational League in
the face of great persecution; but now
this important function has also fallen
under the leadership of the C.LO.

Similarly with regard to the struggle
for unemployment relief and social in-
surance. From 1930 to 1933 especially,
the Communist Party and its support-
ing organizations were the unchal-
lenged mass leaders in this field, mili-
tantly conducting huge demonstra-
tions all over the country; while the A.
F. of L. leaders trailed after Hoover's
starvation program and the Socialist
Party was quite inactive. But Roose-

39

velt, the A. F, of L., the Townsend
movement, and many other organiza-
tions and leaders have since stepped
forth with programs of unemployment
relief and social insurance and thereby
the leading role of the Communist
Party on this question has been greatly
obscured.

The Communist Party, the T.U.E.L.
and the T.U.U.L. were pioneers also
for ten years in advocating a militant
strike policy, while the rest of the labor
movement, from the A, F. of L. to the
Socialist Party, was buried deep in class
collaboration and based its activities
primarily on a no-strike program. For
this militancy we were condemned as
disrupters and wreckers of the labor
movement. But now the masses in
many A. F. of L. organizations, as well
as in the C.I.O. itself, have adopted an
active strike policy the symbol of which
is the sit-down strike. Accordingly, the
Communist Party's leadership in this

40

respect is not so clearly evident as for-
merly.

Likewise, many other progressive
economic and political slogans and
programs, long advocated in the
unions almost alone by the Commu-
nists in the face of great persecution by
the officialdom, have now been taken
over as their own by these organiza-
tions and leaders. Thus irt the recent
I.L.G.W.U. convention the union lead-
ers were given big ovations and unlim-
ited credit for the splendid success of
the union, a success based on policies
for advocating which the Commu-
nists were expelled wholesale from the
same union by the same leaders only
a few years ago,

A similar development has taken
place in the peace movement. When in
the years following the Sixth Congress
of the Comintern in 1938, the Commu-
nist Party called upon the masses to be-
ware of the war danger this was con-

4i

demned as absurd and our warnings
were treated as "just so much Moscow
propaganda." Our Party then had in-
deed pretty much a "monopoly" of
active anti-war slogans. But now gi-
gantic masses are awake to the war
danger and huge peace organizations
and movements have developed to
combat it. These are extended far be-
yond the scepe of Communist official
leadership and the great masses look
much more to Roosevelt (even though
he has distorted the peace slogans)
than to our Party as the leader of the
anti-war forces.

Thus it is also in the case of Commu-
nist slogans for the struggle against
fascism, for labor defense work, for the
demands of ihe youth, Negroes, wom-
en, etc., that were once widely con-
demned as mere Moscow innovations
without relation to American life.
They have now become largely the de-
mands and the basis of movements of

4«

huge masses, the programs of organiza-
tions and leaders who can by no stretch
of the imagination be called Commu-
nist, All of which goes to show that
the so-called impractical Communist
Party was indeed the most practical
and far-seeing organization, and that
our Party has functioned, in the matter
of the masses' immediate needs as well
as their fundamental revolutionary ob-
jective, as the vanguard of the prole-
tariat*

At this point we may well ask our-
selves why, if political leadership is
such a stimulus to Party growth, did
not our Party grow more during the
years in which it had so much of a
"monopoly" in the advocacy of so
many progressive slogans, and why was
it that great mass movements which
have grown up recently around these
issues have done so largely outside the
scope of official Communist leadership?
The answer to these questions is, first,

43

that it was precisely in the mass strug-
gles led by our Party around these pro-
gressive issues that the difficult task
was accomplished of laying the solid
foundations of a strong Communist
Party in the great American capitalist
stronghold; second, that the Commu-
nist Party's influence in all the progres-
sive movements of the day, including
those under the non-Communistofficial
leadership, far exceeds what appears on
the surface and cannot be measured
simply by the numerical strength of
our Party; and, third, that if the Party
did not grow faster and develop more
direct leadership in the labor move-
ment during the period in question it
was due to a complication of hindering
forces, such as sectarian methods of
applying mass slogans, inadequate or-
ganizational wort in the mass move-
ments, fierce resistance by the employ-
ers and the government (discharge,
blacklist, arrests, clubbings, deporta-

44

tions, etc.), persecution by labor bu-
reaucrats (expulsions, Red-baiting,
etc.), the years' long inner-Party fac-
tional struggle, and the demoralization
and passivity among the working class
caused by many years of A. F. of L. mis-
leadership and capitalist propaganda.

RAISING THE TOILERS' STRUGGLE TO
HIGHER POLITICAL LEVELS

Obviously when so many of the im-
mediate-demand slogans long advo-
cated almost solely by the Communists
have been adopted by various mass
movements not under direct Commu-
nist leadership, our tasks with regard
to these slogans have been modified
and we must reorientate our Party's
policy accordingly. How \hen shall the
Communist Party act as vanguard in
connection with these slogans? The an-
swer is that basically, the Party must
develop further its leading political

45

role by: (a) pressing for the most ener-
getic application of these immediate-
demand slogans; (b) realizing their
full implications; (c) preventing their
distortion; (d) supplementing them
with other mass slogans of a more ad-
vanced type, In short, the Communist
Party can build up the necessary mass
prestige only by taking the lead in rais-
ing the whole siruggle of the workers
and other toilers, notably the C.I.O.
movement, to higher political levels.
By adopting our immediate-demand
slogans the masses have taken a long
step forward; it is our task now to lead
them politically to more advanced
stages, making absolutely certain that
the whole mass, especially the C.I.O.,
moves forward instead of only our-
selves, which would result in our break-
ing away from the masses and becom-
ing isolated. Let us, therefore, examine
the above-noted fourfold character of
this general task.

46

a. Energetic application of the im-
mediate demand slogans. Although the
trade unions and other mass organiza-
tions adopt progressive slogans they
usually apply them in a relatively slug-
gish manner. Not only are immediate-
demand slogans thus supported half-
heartedly, (such as the six-hour day
demand by the Railroad Brother-
hoods) but also their endorsement is
frequently of a formal character (such
as the A. F. of L. demand for unem-
ployment insurance). In general, con-
servative or even progressive leaders of
various types of mass organizations, by
their hesitancy and timidity, develop
only a fraction of the power of the mass
movements which they head.

In this fact, the Communist Party
finds one of its most important tasks
and opportunities for developing po-
litical mass leadership. The Party must
be the dynamo in all movements of the
workers for immediate demands. It

47

must fight for the actual full realiza-
tion of these demands. Its members
must be the best leaders, fighters, or-
ganizers and JimmieHigginses on every
front of the class struggle. They must
have the answer to every practical
problem as the movement develops;
they must spur on the masses; they
must arouse the workers' militancy and
fighting spirit, they must be the leaven
that leaveneih the whole lump. This
intensification of the workers' struggle
for immediate demands is a veritable
cornerstone for Communist Party lead-
ership and growth. In order to achieve
it to the maximum possible extent our
Party must be more active in initiating
mass struggles; it will have to learn
how more effectively to concentrate all
available forces, both national and lo-
cal, in a given struggle (better than we
did in the General Motors strike) and
also how more systematically to com-
bine these forces in the field to carry on

4 8

the mass fight (better than we did in
the national steel organizing cam-
paign).

b. Realizing the full implications of
mass slogans. Not only do trade unions
and other mass organizations, as at
present led, usually apply their pro-
gressive immediate demand slogans
weakly, but also in a narrow sense.
Therefore, another important channel
to Communist mass leadership is in
broadening out the application of such
slogans and the linking together of the
scattered struggles around them.

Take, for example, the application
of the slogan of "organize the unorgan-
ized." Today this is largely confined to
the GXCX unions. It must also be
spread to A, F. of L. and independent
unions that do not infringe upon the
industries being organized by the
C.I.O. Communists must see to it that
the "organize the unorganized" slo-
gan is applied upon the widest possible

49

front. There is very much room for the
Party to sharpen up its work on this
basic issue and in so doing greatly im-
prove its mass prestige.

In the fight for better wages, shorter
hours, etc., it is also the leadership task
of the Communists to spread this strug-
gle upon the widest practical basis, to
link up the workers' scattered strikes
into broad national movements, to
raise these economic issues to national
political questions of the first magni-
tude.

And, likewise, in the case of the slo-
gan of trade union unity. The C.LO/s
application of this slogan, by the build-
ing up of its own forces, is excellent.
But the Communist unity slogan must
be still broader; it must also undertake
the organization of the progressive
forces within the A. F. of L. actively to
support the unionizing campaigns of
the C.I.O., to repudiate the splitting
policies and misleadership of Green

5°

and Co., and to fight for an eventual
general convention of all trade unions^
the C.I.O., A. F. of L., Railroad
Brotherhoods, etc*, to establish trade
union unity in the United States on the
basis of the C.LO. program. The Party
has not displayed sufficient initiative
on this question.

Similarly, it is the task of the Com
munists to broaden out the application
of the industrial unionism slogan. It is
well that this slogan be applied by the
C.LO. to the mass production indus-
tries. But the question of industrial
unionism affects the whole working
class and the fight for it must also be
carried into the building trades, rail-
road unions, into all A. F, of L. unions,
in the most practical forms adapted to
these organizations and industries. Our
Party has not done this sufficiently and
its mass influence has lagged accord-
ingly.

The progressive wing of the labor
5 1

movement, including the Communist
Party, tends also to apply too narrowly
the slogan of political action by the
workers and other toilers. In the mat-
ter of election strategy* it is correct, as
the C.LO. advocates, to support pro-
gressive candidates on the Democratic
ticket against the danger of a reaction-
ary victory. But we must also go much
further. The Communist Party must
be the leader for the placing of united
front candidates independent of the
old parties, for the crystallization of all
the toilers' scattered political forces
into a great national Farmer-Labor
Party, Here too our Party, by increased
activity, can win a much larger degree
of mass leadership than it now enjoys.
We must be especially on guard against
tendencies to weaken or discard the
Farmer-Labor Party slogan.

Many more examples could be cited
of progressive slogans narrowly ap-
plied in the fields of labor legislation,

5*

in the fight for peace, against fascism,
for civil rights, for the rights of youth,
Negroes, women, etc. It is the task of
the Communists to broaden out these
demands and struggles and to realize
their full political implications. In the
measure that the Party accomplishes
this work will its leading prestige ex-
pand and the growth of its membership
and press be facilitated.

c. Prevent distortion of slogans. The
Communist Party must also fight
against all distortion of popular-de-
mand slogans, whether by progressives
or reactionaries* Roosevelt's twisting
of the mass anti-war sentiment into a
"neutrality" resolution against Spain
is an example of such distortion, Then,
among many other examples, there is
also the notorious ^demagogic use of
democratic and anti-fascist slogans by
reactionary elements. Fighting such
distortions is a broad road to political
leadership by the Communist Party.

53

d. The advocacy of more advanced
slogans. Besides intensifying and
broadening out the application of cur-
rent mass immediate-demand slogans,
and preventing their distortion, the
Communist Party also has before it a
fruitful source of mass leadership in
putting forth the more advanced im-
mediate-demand slogans as these con-
stantly become necessary and capable
of rallying masses in the developing
struggle. This is elementary in raising
the workers' fight to higher political
levels and to do it as a basic function
of our Party as the vanguard of the
proletariat. Our Party must constantly
develop the struggle perspective of the
masses; it must be the trail blazer of the
exploited generally. The most fatal
thing that could happen to our Party's
leadership is to neglect this most vital
task, and thus to fall politically in the
wake of the various sections of the gen-
eral mass movement,

54

Our Party's experience offers many
examples where we properly take the
lead in initiating new, practical mass
slogans. An excellent case in point was
our launching of the general strike slo-
gan in San Francisco, a step from which
our Party gained much real leadership
prestige. Our present advocacy of the
slogan of the People's Front is another
example of good political leadership-
But there are also many examples
where we have failed to show alert-
ness and where other parties and
groups issued burningly necessary slo-
gans that won them broad mass sup-
port. The Party, to win the maximum
mass political leadership, must greatly
improve its work in this very important
respect.

Our Party must also more energetic-
ally show leadership in educating the
masses. Especially is this necessary and
important in the case of the huge num-
bers of workers who have recently

55

joined the C.I.O. unions. We must not
stand around and wait until other peo-
ple take the lead in this trade union
education work, and it is precisely the
Daily Worker that must be developed
as the Party's chief instrument in this
great work of mass education.

In connection with the general ques-
tion of advocating advanced slogans
and educating the masses the Party
must also lay stress upon the mass
propagation of its revolutionary ob-
jectives. Recently there has been con-
siderable slackness in this respect. The
teaching of Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist
principles of socialism is not merely
an inner-Party affair; it is basically a
matter of broad mass agitation. Fail-
ure militantly to advocate socialism for
the United States would weaken our
Party's leadership, both among the
large numbers of the more militant
workers who provide the membership
sinew and bones of our Party and also

56

among the broad masses who are more
and more losing faith in the capitalist
system and are groping for the revo-
lutionary way out. We must rememebr
that the Communist Party is not only a
Party of progressive immediate de-
mands, but also the Party of the pro-
letarian revolution. Any tendency to
neglect active propagation of our revo-
lutionary slogans plays directly into
the hands of the Trotsky ites and others
making demagogic use of Left phrase-
mongering. The development of the
maximum Communist mass leadership
and Party growth imperatively de-
mands an aggressive propagation of
socialism, closely linked up, of course,
with the immediate fighting slogans of
the toiling masses.

In this brief survey *of the Commu-
nist task of raising the toilers' strug-
gles to higher political levels it is evi-
dent that our Party is not making the
fullest use of the broad opportunities

57

for mass leadership lying wide open
before it. It must, therefore, conscious-
ly sharpen up its work in this whole
matter. The reward for so doing will be
a far greater political following and a
much easier and more rapid Party-
growth.

TWO MAJOR CONSIDERATIONS

In carrying out this central task of
raising the toilers' struggles to higher
levels, to the level of proletarian unity
and the People's Front, by militantly
intensifying the fight for their imme-
diate demand slogans; by broadening
out the application of these slogans,
drawing their full implications, pre-
venting their distortion and by initiat-
ing new and supplementary slogans of
a more advanced type, two elementary
considerations must be constantly
borne in mind by the Party.

The first is that all this activity must

58

be based upon the principle of
strengthening the united front be-
tween the Communists and progres-
sives, anti-fascist forces and, thus, upon
advancing the growing People's Front
movement. This consideration cannot
be emphasized too much. The very
heart of Communist policy is the
Leninist strategy of the united front
for the mobilization of the masses.
Only by strengthening the united
front can the Communist Party itself
become strong and the stronger the
Communist Party the stronger the
united front. It is precisely because the
French and Spanish Communist Par-
ties were the best, most militant fight-
ers for the People's Front that they,
themselves, grew so powerful. When
we speak of Communist Party political
leadership in a practical sense, there-
fore, we mean Communist leadership
in building the united front. The Com-
munists must be the greatest fighters

59

against any and all tendencies to split
or weaken the united front, which is
the basis o£ the broad, growing People's
Front movement.

The second elementary considera-
tion to bear in mind in the strength-
ening of Communist leadership and,
hence, of Party building, is that the
work of the Party must be carried on
so openly that the masses can clearly
see what the Party is actually doing.
The French and Spanish Parties are
not only the best builders of the
People's Front, but they work in such
a way that the masses can plainly recog-
nize their activity* But with us, hiding
the face of the Party is one of our
greatest present-day weaknesses. It is a
major obstacle to developing the
Party's mass leadership and growth. It
also seriously exposes the Party to
demagogic attacks. This concealment
of the Party's face is brought about in
many ways, such as failure to circulate

60

the Daily Worker, neglect to cultivate
independent mass activities by our
Party in struggle situations, by promi-
nent mass workers using undue cau-
tion in making known the fact that
they are Communists, by ultra-sensi-
tivity to Red-baiting and by otherwise
making it impossible for the workers
to perceive clearly our Party at work.
Through such face-hiding practices
our Party is prevented from getting
due credit for very much of the effec-
tive work it is doing in the class strug-
gle and thereby serious barriers are
erected against the Party's growth.
Workers cannot be expected to join a
Party which they do not see definitely
in action as a Party, nor do they want
to affiliate themselves to a semi-under-
ground organization. Face-hiding ten-
dencies in our Party are a harmful
Right-sectarian hangover and out-
growth from past persecution experi-
ences and are out of place in the pres-

61

ent broad united front mass move-
ments. The development of the Party's
leading prestige and growth impera-
tively demands that all such tendencies
by liquidated and that our Party be
fully legalized in the labor movement,

SPECIAL PROBLEMS OF CROUP RELATION-
SHIPS WITHIN THE UNITED FRONT

In the preceding section of this ar-
ticle I have dealt with problems of
Party mass leadership confronting us
with respect to the first element of the
recently changed position of our Party
in the class struggle; that is, the fact
that the developing People's Front
movement has taken up and made its
own various slogans of immediate de-
mands, the advocacy of which long has
been a sort of Communist "monopoly."
Now let us consider some of the major
problems of Communist leadership
arising out of the second element of
our Party's newly changed position in

62

the class struggle, namely, that the
Party in the last couple of years,
through a successful application of its
basic policy, has largely advanced from
a status of relatively isolated action to
one of intensive united front move-
ments.

We have seen that the united front
is our Party's line of action in support
of all immediate demands of the masses
and that all Communist policy is based
on strengthening the united front. But
to carry on the united front success-
fully requires a whole series of com-
plex conditions. The Party can grow
in numbers and political mass leader-
ship only if it meets successfully these
conditions. That it has not yet thor-
oughly adapted itself to its united
front tasks we shall see^at a glance.

Let us see more concretely, then,
how the Party should develop its po-
litical leading prestige and thereby
accelerate its growth under the ex-

65

panding united front conditions.
A. The full Communist program. In
his recent speech to the Plenum of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union,
Comrade Stalin forcefully pointed out
the danger of Communists getting so
buried in economic work that they
overlook other vital political tasks, in
this case the fight against the counter-
revolutionary Trotskyites. Stalin's
warning is full of meaning also for
the American Communist Party. For
there is a broad tendency throughout
the Party, especially in the centers
where the C.I.O, is working, to devote
the Party's forces to the task of trade
union matters to the exclusion of many
other important activities. A classical
example of this tendency was recently
seen in Flint, where the Party became
so immersed in the strike and union
building that it paid little or no atten-
tion to the local city elections, and the
Republican Party managed to sneak

64

1

into power without serious opposition.
Obviously, with this "bogging
down" tendency, the Party cannot
function as a real political leader. To
develop such leadership it is necessary
for the Party to present its whole po-
litical program. As things now stand,
in various places and with many in-
dividuals, there is a tendency for the
Party to fall into a sort of trade union
economism. This tends to liquidate
our Party into the mass trade union
movements. The cure is not, as some
comrades say, to do less trade union
work. But in carrying out this impor-
tant work the Party must so conduct
its activities that the whole Commu-
nist program moves forward and not
merely a part of it. Failing to bear this
consideration clearly* in mind definite-
ly limits our political mass leadership.
B. Criticism of united front allies.
Constructive criticism of those groups
and parties with whom we are formal-

65

ly or informally cooperating in united
front mass movements is also funda-
mental to the development of our
Party's mass political leadership and
growth, as well as to the health of the
mass movement generally. This criti-
cism must not be merely negative in
character, that is, by pointing out the
shortcomings of our allies; it must
especially be positive by the assertion
of our own constructive proposals and
program.

But here, again, in this constructive
criticism our Party suffers grievous
weaknesses. In some cases (Detroit, for
example) Communists have too sharp-
ly and also incorrectly criticized the
progressive elements and thereby need-
lessly alienated great masses of work-
ers. But in the main our weakness in
this general respect consists of making
too little criticism of progressively-led
movements. This RighL tendency is
manifested, among other examples, by

66

inadequate criticism of Roosevelt and
Lewis, and by a failure to put forward
our own program (including our revo-
lutionary slogans) in the mass move-
ments led by these men.

The general effect of failure to criti-
cize constructively is to blunt our
Party's line, to fail to make our Party's
program stand out distinctly in rela-
tion to those o£ the various mass move-
ments that we are supporting. This
blunting o£ the Party's line is all the
worse when our revolutionary slogans
are also soft-pedalled. In consequence,
the leading role of the Communist
Party is hidden, and the incentive of
militant workers to join our Party or
remain within it is not stimulated; for
why should they affiliate themselves to
our Party if they cannot see the ad-
vanced character of its program and
activities?

c. The independent role of the
Party. In mass movements of various

67

I

kinds based upon the united front of
progressive and Left elements it is not
enough that the Party support activi-
ties conducted solely under the banner
of the united front. It must also de-
velop its own activities as a Party, both
in support of the united front line,
and also of its own more advanced
Communist Party program. This is
good for the mass movement and good
for our Party. In all situations the
Communist Party must come forward
with its own proposals, press, litera-
ture, meetings, etc., and thus show iu
face clearly to the masses. Only when
this is done effectively will the masses
appreciate the role of the Party as a
leading force and be really impelled
to join its ranks.

But we neglect all this grievously in
the practice. Too often we do all our
work under the official auspices of the
mass organization and next to nothing
under our own Party's banner. This is

68

a definitely liquidatory tendency which
must be changed. The Party must
function independently as a Party, as
well as jointly with other groups with-
in the united front. To do it is a prime
necessity for it to develop political
mass leadership.

D, A militant Party initiative. The
Party must also display a strong initia-
tive, both in furthering the accepted
program of the united front and in
blazing the way to higher forms of
struggle* How this can be done effec-
tively is shown by the daily practice
of the French and Spanish Communist
Parties, whose militant initiative in
the shaping of policies and the inaugu-
ration of united front actions is a
prime basis of their mass leadership.
They are the driving force in the Peo-
pled Front; they lead it from ahead,
push it from behind, build it tip from
the bottom. It is obvious that our
Party must cultivate more of this mili-

69

tant initiative and fighting spirit. In
too many cases Party forces accept
the initiative as resting more or less
automatically in the hands of others.
There is too much routinism in our
mass work; too much tailing after
various mass movements. In the
clays of the T.U.U.L. our task was
to cultivate the initiative of the
Red unions which were somewhat
overwhelmed by the Party's militancy;
but now our task is to develop the
initiative of the Party within many
vigorous mass movements. More mili-
tant initiative and a more active and
fighting spirit will do very much in
winning added mass leadership and
increased numerical strength for our
Party and the Daily Worker.

e. Organizational leadership, Com-
munists must not scramble for official
posts in mass organizations, as this can
only alienate us from valuable mass
elements. It is, of course, necessary that

70

we Communists acquire our organiza-
tional share of leadership in the
People's Front. But this can be accom-
plished only by superior work in the
class struggle. Our advance to greater
official leadership must be primarily
on the basis of agreement and joint
slates with our progressive united front
allies in common struggle against the
reactionary elements. It is no serious
problem for Communists to become
officials in this way if they show them-
selves to be the best workers and lead-
ers in the daily fights around the im-
mediate issues of the workers.

In this matter our Party practice dis-
plays many errors and weaknesses.
There are some comrades who, with a
fear of Red-baiting, are satisfied if they
get "recognition" from their united
front allies and passively allow the
latter to occupy more than their fair
share of major official posts. This is
wrong; for Communists are no "blush-

71

ing violets" that stand modestly aside
while others assume responsibility in
the class struggle. Then there are other
comrades who, with a narrow sectarian
line, make the worse error of failing to
make proper united front alignments
with the progressives especially in
union elections, and thus they carry
on needless struggles against our po-
tential allies for control, which tend
to isolate the Party from the masses.
The Communist Party is not out to
"capture" the mass organizations, and
it by no means assumes that all com-
petent and honest leadership is con-
tained in its own ranks. It works for a
People's Front based on a joint leader-
ship by all progressive forces. Commu-
nists must use restraint, flexibility, and
good judgment in building up the
official mass leadership. We must learn
to work cooperatively and in confi-
dence with all progressive anti-fascist
elements throughout the mass move-

7*

ments. We must ever bear in mind that
the strengthening of the united front
is the immediate goal of every step we
take throughout the mass movements.
This is a vital necessity for the develop-
ment of the Party's maximum politi-
cal leadership and to facilitate the
Party's growth.

IN CONCLUSION

In the foregoing pages I have under-
taken to analyze the problem of build-
ing our Party from the standpoint of
the specific conditions confronting us
in the growing People's Front move-
ment in the United States. I have
tried to show:

i. That the objective situation is
highly favorable to the growth of the
Party and that if our Party is not grow-
ing faster the cause is to be found else-
where than in the objective situation.

s. That all our organizational meth-
ods need to be restudied and rnodern-

73

ized in the light of the situation of
united front, mass radicalization, and
sharp class struggle in which the Party
finds itself in this period of the birth
of the People's Front movement.

3. That the degree of political mass
leadership exercised by the Commu-
nist Party is a basic factor in Party
building and that we must improve
our work in this respect.

4. That our Party can definitely im-
prove its position of political mass
leadership by overcoming various
erroneous theories current in the Party,
that objective conditions are unfavor-
able, by sharpening up its work in the
advocacy of immediate demands and
revolutionary slogans, by showing its
face more clearly to the masses and by
generally improving upon the Party's
independent activities, concentration
and initiative.

5. That the development of Com-
munist mass political leadership can

74

only proceed upon the basis of
strengthening the united front with
ihe progressive elements and intensi-
fying the mass struggle of the toilers
and for the creation of the People's
Front.

The sum and substance of the article
is that we have in our hands the pos-
sibilities of greatly increasing the
Party's tempo o£ development and
growth. By adopting the suggested im-
provements our Party can make real
progress towards its goal of becoming
a broad mass Communist Party.

Our Party should bear in mind
Stalin's timely statement (Foundations
of Leninism, p. 162):

"The Party should march at the head of
the working class, it should see farther than
the latter, it should lead the proletariat, and
not lag behind. . . . Only a party which is
conscious of its function as vanguard of the
proletariat, which feek itselE able to inspire
the masses with a proletarian class conscious-

. 75

ness, only such a party can lead the worker*
out of the narrow path of trade unionism and
consolidate them into an independent polit-
ical force. Such a party is the political leader
of the working class."

j|B

The Party and the
People's Front

By ALEX BITTELMAN

Comrades, the report of Comrade
Browder and the resolution pre-
sented to this plenum have given our
Party a powerful weapon for initiating
the most important work before us to-
day. That is the building of our Party
as a more effective and leading force
in the struggle for the united and Peo-
ple's Front, I am convinced that, as a
result of this Central Committee meet-
ing, if the Party takes, hold of these
documents, the report of Comrade
Browder, the resolution, and the sum-
mary of the discussion which we are
having here, and uses them to arouse
the Party, to draw every member into

77

the task of building the Party, it will
really begin moving on the road
toward making a mass party out of
our organization.

SHIFTING POLITICAL ALIGNMENTS

From this angle, I should like to dis-
cuss further some of the highlights of
Comrade Browder' s report, first of all,
about the political situation. Comrade
Browder said that the political con-
dition of the country is in flux, that
class relationships are changing, and
that as a result, although not in the
same tempo, changes are taking place
in the parties which necessarily reflect
the shifting of class forces. This is a
fundamental point in understanding
the present-day political conditions, as
well as the perspectives.

It is a fact, as Comrade Browder ex-
plained, that the Republican Party of
today is not the same party, not the
same traditional Republican Party.

78

Nor is the Democratic Party. It is a
fact which no one will deny, a fact
which we made known some time ago,
before the last November elections—
that the Republican Party has become
the center of reaction and fascism, the
main concentration ground of these
forces, and that the Democratic Party,
under pressure from the independent
struggles of the masses in the country,
as well as the progressive elements
within, is moving generally in a pro-
gressive direction. That is correct.
From this, certain very important con-
clusions follow as to the immediate
perspectives in the struggle for the
Farmer-Labor Party, concerning our
tactics and policies.

What is the perspective of the re-
actionary forces in this country so far
as alignments are concerned? We don't
have to guess about it. We know it.
The reactionaries are doing their best
today to undermine and break up the

79

Democratic Party. It might be more
correct to say that they are trying to
undermine and break up the hold of
President Roosevelt on the Demo-
cratic Party. It is not hard to under-
stand why they are trying to do this.
First, from the point of view of im-
mediate consideration. If the reaction-
arks can destroy Roosevelt's hold up-
on the Democratic Party and its
machine,, this will weaken the very
modest program of the Democratic
Party and therefore create for them-
selves a new basis for consolidation of
the reactionary forces. Thar would im-
mediately reflect itself on such ques-
tions as balancing the budget, taxa-
tion, relief, or anything that is vital to
the interests of the masses, and which
determines today class alliances and
class struggle.

But aside from the immediate point
of view, reactionaries view this con-
dition from the angle of the longer

80

perspective. There are going to be im-
portant municipal elections this year,
and then a Congressional election in
1938, and then the next Presidential
election. The reactionaries feel that if
ihey ran weaken the Democratic Party
by undermining Roosevelt's standing
in that party, they have created the
possibility of preventing the progres-
sive forces in the Democratic Party
from playing an important role or a
decisive role in the political life of the

country.

It is not absolutely certain to anyone
what will happen, but so far as re-
actionary plans are concerned, it is
clearly visible what they are driving at.

They caimoL hope to bring the Re-
publican Party to victory either in the
next Congressional elections or in

1*140, unless they destroy the New Deal
in the Democratic Party, or the Demo-
cratic Party as such, as a major po-
litical party.

81

I

The wide masses of workers, es-
pecially those who are being drawn
into the big mass movements— the
C.LO,, Labor's Non-Partisan League-
while they might not always be con-
scious of the implication of events, to-
day sense this situation. They feel that
as things are now, and until the na-
tional Farmer-Labor Party emerges as
a power, the only effective force that
stands between them and a victory of
reaction on a really Urge scale is
Roosevelt's hold upon the Democratic
Party.

From this, of course, ali kinds of
conclusions are being drawn, and
many of them wrong conclusions. But
the fact in itself nevertheless remains
a fact, that at the present time, when
there is no mass Farmer-Labor Party
powerful enough to contest for power
and win, the masses know that if this is
not in existence there is something
else in existence, the Democratic Party

8*

which, though it includes reaction-
aries, fascists and semi-fascists, is dom-
inated nationally by middle-of-the-
roaders like Roosevelt himself, sup-
ported by people to the Left, well to
the Left, progressives, labor men, and
potential adherents to the Farmer-
Labor Party in the United States, and
that due to certain developments in
the country this has become a force
that stands in the way today of a wider
extension of reaction either on the eco-
nomic or political field.

Comrade Browder has demonstrated
this very concretely and constructively
in his report- The conclusion is that
we must take into account this attitude
of the wide masses, and especially that
of the C.LO. and groups around it,
and from this, and ot\ the basis of this,
proceed to push further the develop-
ment toward the Farmer-Labor Party.

Does that mean that we accept all
the illusions that some of the C.I.O,

83

people may have about this situation?
Of course not. And we must not be
quiet about such illusions. Where we
find illusions existing that stand in the
way of promoting further the advance-
ment of the progressive movement
toward the Farmer-Labor Party, we
must dissipate them by propaganda
and agitation. This is how the van-
guard can function at the present time.

THE ROLE OF THE COMMUNIST
PARTY

You see, there is no need to have
any blueprint worked out for the van-
guard, for all times and all countries.
Marx didn't do it, Lenin didn't do it
and Stalin didn't do it either. It de-
pends upon the political maturity of
the class forces and Party forces in a
given situation, in which the proletar-
ian revolution develops and the van-
guard functions.

Now, to give you an example— the
84

Communist Party of the Soviet Union
in October, 1917, was the vanguard of
the Russian working class, and as the
vanguard, it proceeded to organize the
socialist revolution. The Communist
Party of the United States, being a
Communist Party, a Party of Lenin
and Stalin, is the vanguard of the
working class of America. But nobody
will conclude that therefore we must
decide to organize now the socialist
revolution in the United Stales. This,
of course, is extreme. It is made pur-
posely, so as to show the historic ap-
proach to the question of what a van-
guard like us can do at various historic-
al periods. It always must be a van-
guard, but in what sense? It must al-
ways fight shoulder to shoulder in the
front ranks of its class for the interests
of that class. That is true always,
under all conditions.

Second, the Communist Party, while
fighting for the daily needs of the

masses as part of that class, must al-
ways by propaganda, by agitation, and
by our independent actions, show the
workers the deeper meaning of their
struggles; show them the next step,
and work with this aim- that the
whole movement, not only we alone,
become ripe for making these next
steps.

A Communist Party whose struggle,
whose class relations are more acute,
whose political struggle is more ma-
ture, will play a more leading role
than others, though all Parties are
destined to play a leading role in the
class struggle and in the people's
movement generally. I say this in order
to emphasize what has been explained
by Comrades Foster and Browder and
in the resolution. The point is to em-
phasize it so that it stands out very
clearly. We cannot permit ourselves
to work in mass organizations like
any other member does. We must al-

86

ways work as Communists, which
means something more.

And to further emphasize why we*
as the vanguard, must always endeavor
to bring the movement forward to its
next step, let me discuss the idea of
pushing forward the whole movement
and not just ourselves. There was a
time when our Party and the situation
in the country were much less mature
than today. We were a Party mainly
of propaganda and agitation and lead-
ers of minority movements* Very im-
portant ones. Movements which played
a very great role in making possible
the present-day upsurge, but, never-
theless, minority movements. Then,
we could more easily afford to make a
more rapid transition in the direction
from a lower stage to higher stages.
But today, when we' have the C.LO.
and a new working class movement of
the country marching in the direction
of progress, it has become somewhat

87

different. It becomes possible not only
for ourselves and minority movements
to become ready to make the next step,
but by working properly, in a correct
way, to prepare the ground for the
whole movement making thai next
step. And I believe that by carrying
forward these policies in the true spirit
of The Communist Manifesto, our
Party can really build itself as a mass
party in this country.

THE NEED FOR BUILDING
A MASS PARTY

Comrade Browder in his report said
that the fact that our Party is not grow-
ing as it should grow, and that our
Baity Worker, one of the best papers
in this country and a Communist
paper at that, is growing so slowly, is
an intolerable situation. I should like
every comrade to take back home ex-
actly this fact-that it is an intolerable
situation. It must be changed. We have

88

to make our Party understand why
it is intolerable. And why is it? Is it
on some general abstract ground that
it is intolerable? And are there some
more immediate and more acute rea-
sons why it is intolerable?

I want to communicate to you a cer-
tain opinion relating to this problem
given to me by a sympathizer of our
Party, a very intelligent person and
very helpful to the Party in many ways
and a friend in the best sense of the
word. And he wanted to know why it
is that the Communists are so anxious
about getting more members in the
Party, He said: "You have about 40,-
000 members, or thereabouts, con-
scious Communists, wel Morgan i zed,
well-disciplined. They are really lead-
ers, not just rank and file, You have a
press. You have a program and a po-
litical strategy which command at-
tention among the widest masses
throughout the entire world, and you

89

are making your general political in-
fluence very strongly felt in many
places, thus enabling the movement to
go in the correct direction."

"Is it true/' he wanted to know,
"that the general direction in which
ihe C.LO. is going is the direction in
which you would like it to go?*'

And 1 answered: "Yes, M

"Then why," he asked, "are you so
anxious about the slow growth of the
Party? The social revolution is not yet
around the corner. For the present,
you can fulfil all your important tasks
with the approximate number that
you have.

"If you begin to grow, since, even
from your own point of view, you will
have to work with the progressive
allies, will these allies not become fear-
ful of a much larger Party? Would it
not be better strategy to remain about
your present size and still influence the
movement sufficiently by your correct

90

policies? Of course, you have got to
recruit, but why be so impatient?"

I found the exposition of this point
of view very important, from this angle
—that it contains a certain plausibility,
that truth and untruth are so well
mixed here that I should not be sur-
prised to find that this is not only the
viewpoint of this sympathizer, but that
there are perhaps many other sym-
pathizers with the same point of view.
Perhaps some within our own Party
hold this view. There may be a feeling
that: Well, of course we want to be a
bigger Party; who doesn't want the
Party to be a bigger Party? But why is
it so essential that we now must go
ahead and become bigger? Well, why
is it necessary?

Let me go back to Engels for a min-
ute and what he thought was the pe-
culiar nature of the American labor
movement. He said: One thing that
distinguished the American labor

91

movement from other countries, at
that time, was that the American
working class has been making numer-
ous starts, beginnings, upsurges, of
tremendous importance in scope, in
militancy, and in revolutionary dis-
play of instinct, and suffered just as
many set-backs. We know that to be a
fact ourselves. That is true. And then
Engels said: Why was it so? And he
answered: Because these big mass
movements of the American proletar-
iat lacked the backbone of a revolu-
tionary party, the vanguard. Engels
said: Of course setbacks are inevitable,
though we always fight against them!
but when there is a revolutionary
party within the working class, the
setbacks will not occur so often. And
when they do occur they will not be so
disastrous, but when there is no revo-
lutionary party within the working
class, they will always be disastrous.
Today we are facing an upsurge of
9*

the working class, unseen and unheard
of in the United States before, an up-
surge which Comrade Dimitroff is able
to characterize as the birth of the
American working class as a class. Ob-
jective conditions today, if we see them
nationally and internationally, and we
cannot separate the two, are very favor-
able for the continued growth of this
new working class into a position,
both organizationally and politically,
of continued power and strength.

Yet it is perfectly just to ask, are we
guarding against setbacks? No, we are
not. Things may take place which we
cannot foresee. But we can see the
strong reactionary power and strength
in this country, there is plenty of
reserve power, economic and political,
for reaction to give us ,plenty of head-
aches and troubles in the coming
months and years. We are not insured
against setbacks, even for this tre-
mendous change that is taking place

93

in the country today. And if we will re-
member the history of the American
labor movement and its lessons, then
we will realize why it is important to
have a bigger, a mass Communist
Party to cement and push forward the
present upsurge, for its success, and
thus bring nearer the socialist revolu-
tion. It is, I believe, for this reason
that Comrade Browder in his report,
Comrade Foster in his speech, and the
political resolution before us, say that
the slow growth of the Party and the
Daily Worker is intolerable, that we
have to begin to build the Party and
to make it a mass party.

Again, by way of emphasis, the
Party will be built if every Party mem-
ber takes part in the building of it.
The Party will be built and the Daily
Worker will be built if every Party
member and every Party organization
makes this one of their main tasks.

94

PARTY AND MASS MOVEMENT
BUILT TOGETHER

Now in this connection I should like
to say a few words. Is it correct to put
up as one against another, as being in
opposition, the building of the Party
and the building of the mass move-
ment? Can we say that when we build
the trade unions, the People's Front,
we build it for somebody else? And
when we build the Party, we build for
ourselves? I do not thinK" so. I do not
think that in this fashion we will really
mobilize the Party to build the Party.

What is wrong with our organiza-
tional condition and methods today?
It is precisely that we do not do these
two things simultaneously, both things,
build the Party and build the mass
movement as part of % an all-inclusive
great task of preparing the victory of
the working class in this country. It is
only when we can make every Party
member understand that if he is a good

95

trade union organizer but does not
utilize every action in his trade union
work, in whatever form that conditions
may dictate, to build the Party, recruit
for the Party, raise the prestige of the
Party's paper, he is not doing a com-
plete job, a Communist job. In the
• same way, if he goes about recruiting
Party members, building the Party
press circulation, but is not doing it in
a way to build the general movement,
the People's Front, he is not doing a
complete job, a Communist job. A
Communist job, a complete job, is to
strengthen the mass movement; and
to strengthen the mass movement is to
get better results for building the Com-
munist Party. Only in this way can and
will we build the Communist Party.

MARXIST PROPAGANDA AMONG
THE MASSES

In conclusion, on one of the essential
phases of building the Party, I men-

96

tion only one phase, because many
have been discussed already, and time
does not permit to discuss all o£ them.
The one phase I want to pick is the
propaganda of Marxism among the
masses, the propaganda among the
masses o£ the special role of our Party,
and of the special class tasks of the
proletariat in the struggle for social-
ism.

The Daily Worker has not been
fulfilling this task as it should, and if
the Daily Worker doesn't do it, the
chances are that in the Party as a whole
the job will not be done welL The
prestige of the Daily Worker is grow-
ing, not only in the Party but outside
also. It is therefore becoming an im-
portant, more potent and influential
weapon in building the mass move-
ment and building our Party. It is,
therefore, necessary when we speak of
improving our propaganda on a wide
mass scale, the propaganda of Marx-

97

ism, that we first of all turn our atten-
tion to the Daily Worker, the Sunday
Worker, and how we can best organize
the work through these mediums.

When we speak today of the propa-
ganda o£ Marxism— the teachings of
Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin on a
mass scale— we are not indulging in the
use of phrases but we are proposing to
meet not only a need, but something
possible and realizable. It wasn't al-
ways so. But today, listening to the re-
ports of the comrades from the dis-
tricts, what did they report? That the
workers today are thinking politically,
they have problems and want them
solved. And if the workers have po-
litical problems and want them an-
swered, this is our opportunity to
bring to them Marxist answers to
their questions. Therefore, instead of
spreading Marxism on a small scale,
we must become active on a large scale

98

and meet the needs of the masses by
the widest circulation of Marxist lit-
erature.

In this Marxist propaganda, I wish
to emphasize two points. First, some-
thing which we seem to forget— the
special role of our Party in the given
historical conditions—not abstractly,
but in the given historical conditions.
I think it could not have been better
put than by Comrade DimitrofF in his
recent article,* when he said that in
the present historical conditions the
Communist Party fulfils the role of the
vanguard by being a factor of unity
in the ranks of the working class as
well as in the ranks of the People's
Front— a factor that promotes political
enlightenment and understanding
among the masses, pushes the move-
ment forward, makes impossible the

• Georgi Dimitroff, "The Communists and
the United Front," The Communist, June,

99

victory of fascism and thus creates the
prerequisites for socialism.

Second, in connection with this, the
role of the working class as a class and
the struggle for socialism in the United
States. When we speak of propaganda
of socialism, we do not mean merely
copying the traditions of the Social-
Democratic abstract presentation of
socialism. When we speak of propa-
ganda of socialism today in the present
historical period, what do we mean?
We mean the following: Systematic ex-
posure of capitalist exploitation and
of the fact that fascism is a product
of capitalism. It means, second, that
we must always point out the leading
role of the working class in the libera-
tion of mankind from the horrors of
capitalism. It means systematically
popularizing the victories of socialism
in the Soviet Union. If we do that, we
will thereby create the possibility for
a much wider conversion of the work-

100

ers to the Communist Party and will
also be building the independent
power of the working class for influ-
ence and leadership in the struggle
against reaction, fascism and war.

101

Developing Negro
Communist Leaders

By JAMES W. FORD

During the last five or six years
the Communist Party has made
some fine headway among the Negro
people. We have great prestige among
the masses and great influence among
certain organizations of the Negro
people.

The Communist Party, by its ideol-
ogy and in its organization of strug-
gles for equal rights and opportunities
and for cultural advancement, started
a renaissance in the life of the Negro
people in the United States. The strug-
gles in behalf of the Scottsboro boys,
for Angelo Herndon's freedom, for
equality in the trade union move-

102

ment, for civil rights through peace
and democratic movements, for oppor-
tunity of advancement in the political
field, have not only resulted in great
advancements for the Negro people
generally, but have brought forth stal-
wart leaders and rank-and-file fighters
among Negro men, such as Angelo
Herndon and many others.

But wide recruitment into the Par-
ty, particularly of Negro women fight-
ers and leaders, on the basis of these
advances, sadly lags behind. We are
therefore called upon to give the ques-
tion of recruitment of Negroes into
our Party serious organizational and
political attention. Happily, we are
reaching a turning point in our ap-
proach, appeal and work among Ne-
gro women. ,

It is a glorious thing to find at our
plenum and in the Negro commission
discussions that Negro women are
clamoring to get into our Party. They

103

are beating at our doors, I think that
is a mighty fine thing. We must find
the way to make it possible for Negro
women to get into our Party and into
the fullest leadership in the Party.
We must take lessons from the Negro
organizations on this question. Wo-
men are the foremost leaders of the
Negro people. Most organizations
have an active women's leadership.

On June 6, a conference was held
in Harlem by the women's commis-
sion on work among Negro women. It
was a most successful conference. I
will not speak about it in detail now.
That, I am sure, will be done by the
comrades of the women's commission.
To win Negro women and involve
them in mass activity, we must learn
to take up in a mass way the special
problems of Negro women and organ-
ize them for struggle.

I think, in the first place, we should
give consideration to the organization

104

of women domestic workers. Do you
know, comrades, that the greatest de-
gree of employment among the Ne-
groes as a whole is found, according
to U.S. statistics, among domestics and
personal servants? No one has to tell
this audience of the working condi-
tions of this category of workers. The
fact is that they are not organized and
it is difficult to organize them because
of the peculiarities of the industry.
We also find a great number of Negro
women throughout the country among
the laundry workers. If we develop
struggle among these workers alone,
we will bring thousands of them into
organizations, and we will win hun-
dreds of them for the Communist
Party. Naturally, there are other cate-
gories. There are many white-collar
workers, there are thousands of teach-
ers, middle class and other categories.
The resolution of the women's com-
mission on work among Negro women

says:

105

"The main emphasis was on the promotion
of cadres. It was proposed that special atten-
tion he given to Negro women on the basis
of their special problems; that special wo-
men's training classes be organized where
necessary, that more Negro women be brought
forward in the leadership of the Party, trade
union, C.I.O., unemployed and peace move-
ments."

There is absolute agreement with
this. In Chicago, for example, one of
the best C.LO. organizers in the Cal-
umet region is a Negro woman. In
Harlem one of the most active com-
rades in the United Aid Committee
for Ethiopia is a Negro woman. I want
to call your attention to a woman
comrade who has been brought for-
ward as the leader of the Workers
Alliance in Harlem. This work had
been led by one of our outstanding
men comrades who recently was sent
to Detroit. When this comrade left,
the organization called a meeting to
replace him. The Workers Alliance in

106

Harlem had become a mass move-
ment. We needed a good comrade to
take the place of the one who was
leaving. We, of course, had had our
eyes on a comrade for a long time— a
woman comrade. She was called into
the meeting of the executive and dis-
cussed the work of the Workers Alli-
ance. At the conclusion some one arose
and said, *'I nominate Comrade
Frankie Duty organizer for the Alli-
ance." There was a unanimous deci-
sion. Comrade Duty has proved her
worth.

Only today was there a mass dem-
onstration of the relief workers in
Harlem, Four thousand workers took
part; thousands lined the streets. It
was my pleasure along with Herbert
Benjamin, national leader of the
Workers Alliance, to lead this dem-
onstration through the streets of Har-
lem with Mrs. Frances Duty. We were
very proud. As we wound our way

107

through the streets of Harlem, work-
ers along the line of march were con-
stantly waving their hands in friendly
greetings to Comrade Duty, hailing
her by her name. It was a great thing.
Here was a woman, who had become a
mass leader— not only a woman leader,
but a leader of one of the largest mass
movements in Harlem—respected and
accepted by the masses. That is the
kind of leader that Comrade Dimitroff
spoke of at the Seventh World Con-
gress of the Communist International.
That is the way we try, and want, to
bring women leaders forward in Har-
lem and throughout the country. We,
and I personally, feel very proud of
Comrade Duty. She has qualified. It
does us or the comrades no good un-
less we can continue this method of
bringing leaders forward. Artificial
promotion means nothing; it some-
times makes a lot of trouble for us.
I want to give another example.
108

Everybody here knows about the mass
organization and movement in and
around the Harlem hospital. Harlem
hospital issues serve as a rallying
ground for civic movements in the
whole of Harlem. I don't want to re-
late the whole story of this develop-
ment. But I must say a word about the
comrade who did it, and how it was
done. You know the comrade. She is
a fine woman comrade. She is a nurse.
She joined our Party some time ago,
and began systematic work of agita-
tion among the nurses and patients,
with the knowledge that she had to
do it at the risk of her job. She did it.
She recruited one, then another and
another into the Party. She worked
under the guidance of the section com-
mittee. This work went 'on for a year
or more. The unit grew. It finally
grew to 40 members of the Party.
Doctors were recruited. The group be-
came a mass movement of more than

109

400 people in and around the Harlem
hospital. Shop bulletins were issued.
Today, this comrade is a mass leader
in Harlem. She had no reservations;
she simply worked. She respected the
section leadership and did not fail to
come every day to it for guidance.
She had no subjective feelings about
the Party nor about her work. She
saw her duty to the people around her
and did that duty. In all of my ex-
perience, I have seen no finer example
of leadership, of an attitude to work
and to the Party on the part of any
of our comrades than that of this
comrade. She is a member of the Har-
lem Division Committee of the Com-
munist Party, and a member of the
District State Committee. I have no
doubt that she is going to become one
of the outstanding leaders of our
movement.

These two examples of women com-
rades show how to develop cadres and

no .

leading mass personnel. Let us con-
tinue that method. It would be mighty
fine if we could plunge into the or-
ganization of the domestic workers.

We have had the occasion to pay
tribute at this plenum to one of the
longest in Party membership among
the leading Negro women comrades.
I refer to Comrade Maude White,
whose tenth anniversary in our Party
is being celebrated this month. It
was very fine of Comrade Browder to
use this occasion to dramatize work
among Negro women by paying tribute
to Comrade White. Ten years, ordi-
narily, is not a long time ? f, for ex-
ample, we compare it to the long,
brilliant record of Comrade Mother
Bloor. But it is unusual for a Negro

woman comrade. We do not have

i

many who have been in the Party ten
years.

in

BUILDING THE PARTY AMONG THE
NEGRO PEOPLE

In order to build the Party among
the Negro people and to extend the
united Negro People's Front, it is
necessary to renew our struggle for
the immediate and elementary needs
of the Negro people. Our Party must
stand out as the independent fighters
for the Negro people.

Another factor necessary in build-
ing the Party among the Negro peo-
ple is the question of training and re-
training our personnel. This was a
special point on the agenda of the
Negro Commission of the plenum,
Comrade Bassett made an excellent
report and outlined a program of
reading, study, self-study courses and
schools for speedily overcoming a very
great shortcoming in this field.

If we make a careful analysis of our
Negro personnel we find both among
the leading forces as well as among

secondary leaders a woeful lack o£
systematic training in revolutionary
theory and practice. We have, there-
fore, agreed to organize a national
training school We have agreed to
require of comrades in leading work,
who are unable to attend these schools,
to submit a plan of self-study and
reading.

There is a great need for pamphlets
on Negro problems. A number of
comrades have been assigned to write
popular pamphlets.

We are emphasizing again that spe-
cial attention be given to the organ-
ization of the Party apparatus in those
districts where there are large concen-
trations of Negroes, The experiences
in Harlem, Chicago and Cleveland
should be extended. A special problem
is daily attention on the part of the
state or district bureaus to this work.
' Following the plenum regional con-
ferences in the biggest and most im-

"3

portant districts should be organized
and a representative of the Center
should attend these conferences.

At a recent meeting of the Negro
Commission held in New York, Com-
rade Browder said the following to us:

"I would say that the main feature of the
past year has been that in the field of work
among the Negro people. As in most of the
other fields of our work, we have begun to
realize on a mass scale the results of the line
of the Seventh World Congress of the Com-
munist International. We have begun to
emerge from sectarian isolation and become
a mass influence, a mass power. As in our
Party work generally, this has been accom-
panied by a sharpening of alt the problems
involved in our work. All of our weaknesses
and inadequacies come out most sharply now
precisely because we have made some tre-
mendous gains and thereby face responsibil.
mes which politically we feel equipped to
meet."

114

Problems of Developing
Leading Forces

By CHARLES KRUMBEIN

A few thoughts to be emphasized
on the question of inner-Party
democracy. We stressed at the Ninth
Convention, at the December Plenum,
and since, the importance of political
discussion in the lower organizations
of the Party- Such political discussion
will serve two major purposes:

1. It will give all our Party mem-
bers a degree of political education;

i>. Since the discussion will be
around main issues confronting the
masses and the Party policy thereon,
the membership will be participating
in the enriching and broadening of
that policy, in actually helping to

formulate the policy, which means a
broadening out of our Inner-Party
democracy.

Further, on the question of inner-
Party democracy, it is my opinion that
we must extend generally the setting
up of delegated bodies, on a ward,
assembly district, county and city ba-
sis, these delegated bodies to be the
leading body in the given territory,
deciding policy for their territory
within the general line of the Party,
and working out the application of
policy and decisions of the higher
bodies. AH this within the scope of
democratic centralism: the delegated
bodies to be set up on the basis of pro-
portional representation of the units
and branches, with special considera-
tion to the main problems of the ter-
ritories in the selection of the dele-
gates. The delegated bodies should
meet monthly, giving their main at-
tention to some one important mass

116

problem and the Party's policy and
activities related thereto. The dele-
gated body should elect the officers
and an executive committee to meet
between the regular meetings of the
delegated body. Were the officers to
be chosen in any other way, there
would be a rift between the delegated
bodies and the officers which would
not strengthen inner democracy but
create additional problems.

Now, as regards personnel, I wish
to make a few concrete suggestions
that the entire Party can immediately
adopt:

1. Every district should build up
what I chose to term a 'iive list" of
personnel. On a district scale, they
should include the members of the
district committee, members of the
section committees, the leaders of the
most important units and branches,
and Party comrades who are leaders in

117

mass organizations but are not on
these committees.

This should not be the old type of
biography, but should briefly state a
comrade's background, his experience
-organizational as well as educational
-and there should be space left to
keep the list alive- the comrade's po-
litical and organizational develop-
ment, responsibility, initiative, relia-
bility, etc. These lists cannot be kept
alive unless the entire district leader-
ship is continuously on the alert; at
meetings and otherwise they should
watch the activities of the comrades
that are listed, noting their progress
or retrogression; they must turn this
information over to the personnel
director, to be then turned over to a
comrade who does the technical work •
on the list. Two purposes are hereby
served: (a) a greater consciousness on
the part of the district leadership as
regards personnel; and (b) the prac-

u8

tical use that this list will have for
the selecting of comrades for given
work, setting up of commissions, com-
mittees, etc.

This can also be done in a large
number of sections, the lists to include
the section committee, the branch ex-
ecutives, the unit bureaus, and Party
comrades in leadership in mass organ-
izations on a section scale.

2. Another practical proposition as
regards personnel is to apply Com-
rade Stalin's proposal of two deputies
for every functionary, making allow-
ances, of course, for the difference be-
tween the situation in the Soviet
Union and in the United States. Can-
not we at least, all of us, from the
Central Committee down to unit lead-
ers, select one or two comrades for the
purpose of cultivating them, organiz-
ing our work so that we can find time
to discuss Party as well as personal
problems with these comrades-per-

119

sonal problems in the sense of the par-
ticular work that they are doing, and
also other personal problems that they
may have?

Cannot we, in addition, systematize
our life at least to the point where we
can have these comrades go to eat
with us occasionally; spend a recrea-
tional Sunday with them and their
families, during which time we could
discuss "shop" a little? I am sure that
with very little effort, but some sys-
tematic organization, this can be done.
In this way literally thousands in our
Party will be helped and our Party
generally will be benefited.

In my recent trips to the districts
I became very conscious of what I
consider a serious defect in our ap-
proach to comrades. In a number of
places I found leading comrades,
when considering comrades for cer-
tain posts or committees, appraise
them first from the standpoint of their

120

weaknesses, and often reach the con-
clusion that they are not fit. Com-
rades, we have no ideal people. All
of us have weaknesses, but all of us
have more of the positive than the
negative. The approach must be, first,
the positive side of every comrade, at
the same time considering his weak-
nesses, placing him in a position where
the positive side can be utilized and
where we can collectively help to cor-
rect the weak side. If this approach is
made, many more comrades will be
brought forward into leading posi-
tions, much more use will be made of
our human material.

I now want to raise a question or
two as regards shop papers. Review-
ing a number of shop papers from
different sections of the country, as
well as different industries, I was able
to obtain quite a good picture of the
political content of these valuable in-
struments of ours— valuable since they

121

reach hundreds of thousands, and in
many cases, basic workers. I want to
deal with only one phase of the ques-
tion, and that is, bringing the Party
forward.

Most of the papers that I reviewed
do not bring the Party forward at all.
Jn some instances, the Party is brought
forward only in so far as the imme-
diate economic or organizational is-
sues of the particular shop are con-
cerned, and in no instance is the Party
brought forward as the Party of so-
cialism. The vast majority of the shop
papers contain nothing more than
what a militant trade union paper
carries. Some of them bring in such
questions as the Supreme Court issue,
Spain, etc. This is very good; but
again, a militant trade union paper
also brings in these questions. There*
fore, it can be seen that unless our
papers carefully, simply and system-
atically connect the immediate issues

222

of the shop with the general problems
of the working class and the common
people, and from that to the need of
socialism, using the examples of the
Soviet Union as the final and perma-
nent solution of all the problems, it
will not be possible for the Party to
gain the leadership of the majority
of the workers and eventually win
them for its full program.

Many of the shop papers contain a
box asking the reader to join the Par-
ty. But this must surely confuse those
readers, where the content of the pa-
per is very similar to the organization-
al and political content of the union
or its paper. The workers, in such
cases, do not understand why a Com-
munist Party is necessary, since the
shop paper does not bring out the
fact that our Party is the party of
socialism.

Of course, this problem cannot be
solved in a mechanical way. Every

123

shop, factory, mill and mine has a
different composition of workers and
different problems, and these factors
must be taken into consideration; but,
generally, it must be said that the shop
papers must be improved, first con-
necting the general issues and prob-
lems of the working class and the com-
mon 'people as a whole with the im-
mediate problems of the shop, and
from this, propagandizing the need
for socialism as the only and final
way out.

The last point I wish to make is
that the reports on recruiting to the
Party show that a large number of
active and leading trade unionists are
being brought into the Party. A key
question, therefore, is the education
of these comrades* Educating them in
Marxism-Leninism makes them better
leaders and equips them to transmit
this education to thousands upon
thousands of workers in the shops and

124

in the unions. This in turn lays the
base for real mass recruiting to our
Party and mass circulation for our
Daily Worker and Sunday Worker.

This is not an easy problem to solve,
since these comrades are very busy
building and giving leadership to
their unions. But I am sure that they
are confronted with many problems
and the workers are asking them many
questions which they find difficult to
answer. They would be very grateful
if ways and means were found where-
by these questions could be made clear
to them. A practical suggestion in this
connection, it seems to me, is for dis-
trict and section organizers to organ-
ize an informal meeting once a week
of about two hours 1 duration on a
Sunday morning or some other timei
where a talk could be given on the
events of the week, with a Marxist-
Leninist interpretation, followed by
questions and discussion. It may not

12 5

be possible to get many of them to-
gether to start with, but I feel certain
that if those brought together feel
that they are really getting something
out of these meetings—something that
will help them in the course of their
work— the news will spread and the
attendance will increase, so that meet-
ings such as this can become a real
institution, the value of which would
be tremendous.

This suggestion is only one means;
others surely can be found. That we
are confronted xviih a problem in this
connection must be obvious to every-
one, and the problem must be solved.
Full-time and part-time Party train-
ing schools must be organized on a
greater scale than ever before, and as
many of the trade union comrades as
possible brought to these schools. The
unft and fraction meetings must de-
velop political discussions so (hat
these trade union comrades will be

126

benefited. But, in addition to this, I
emphasize that special means must be
found for educating, in a Marxist-
Leninist way, these trade union lead-
ers who are joining our Party in large
numbers and who are the Party's con-
tact with hundreds of thousands of
basic workers.

■ - ,:> ,

I10W ?I

..,■■ '•

127

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papers of America for all people who want to be
well-informed,"

HEYWOOD BROUN. President, American News-
paper Guild: "It has made itself part of the
American tradition An excellent newspaper."

I* J. McCONNELL, Congressman from Montana:
"The Daily Worker is America's outstanding
labor newspaper."

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