The working class of the USNA constitutes the majority of the population with an active work force of over 86 million. However, they are unable to marshal their strength because the class is divided and disunited.
Most important is the division of the working class into two hostile camps: one camp being pro-imperialist which in the main is the most bribed workers. The other camp is the more revolutionary strata which stands opposed to imperialism. This group in the main is the unskilled and semi-skilled workers. The trade union leadership attempts to inject bourgeois ideology into the working class, utilizing particularly the more bribed sections. As the economic and political crisis of imperialism deepens, this split in the proletariat will deepen as the ruling class maintains the bribe for a certain section of the working class, while driving the mass of workers further into poverty.
As the fascist offensive develops, the counter-revolutionary policies of these trade union aristocrats against the working class and in support of the bourgeoisie becomes more vicious. This can be seen through such programs as ENA (Experimental Negotiating Agreement), and the so-called “consent decree” in the steel industry. Presently, the main influence in the labor movement comes from the open opportunists such as Fitzsimmons, Meany, Abel, Woodcock on the right and the CPUSA on the “left”. In other words, a two-edged sword, a line of no strikes and open support for the company from the right, and the CPUSA pushing the line “permanent detente” with management and the imperialist class, giving our class no real choice.
The working class has a valiant, militant history of fighting for improved wages and working conditions, for recognition of political rights, for union organization, and against reactionary, corrupt trade union leadership. Once again we see an upsurge in the working class as the economic conditions worsen and the fascist attacks increase. Presently over 230,000 workers are involved in strikes each week, the highest strike wave since World War II. We must not fear entering these struggles for that would isolate us from our class. We must unite the basic democratic demands of our class, a better living wage, better working conditions, etc., with the call for Socialism.
The Party of the proletariat must be involved in these concrete struggles of the working class, must organize and lead these struggles and inject proletarian class consciousness into these struggles. Only through such class conscious leadership can the working class defeat the policies and influence of the corrupt trade union leadership, win back control of the trade unions, and extend trade union organization to the masses of unorganized workers, particularly national minority and women workers. Only through the political leadership of the Party can the working class organize itself as a united fighting force to achieve lasting reforms and decent living and working conditions by destroying the capitalist system of wage slavery and establishing socialism under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
To accomplish this aim, the Party resolves:
1. “To make every factory our fortress” by winning the vanguard of the proletariat to the cause of communism through the organization of factory nuclei in the large factories, the basic industries such as steel, auto, coal, rubber, that is among those key sectors of the working class that occupy strategic positions in relation to the means of production. In these industries, the Party will concentrate the work of nuclei among the semi-skilled and unskilled workers who are most active in resisting the blows of the imperialists. As the C.I. stated, “The large factories and railroads are the nerve centers of the economy and the political life of the country. In the large factories, the workers are concentrated in large numbers. Workers in the large factories have great influence on the workers in the small shops. Workers in the large factories are better trained and disciplined by the process of production, and finally workers in large factories are generally more militant because, concentrated in large numbers in one enterprise, they feel their strength.” Communist Party Manual on Organization, Page 44.
2. To organize and give political leadership to the United Front Against Fascism in order to defeat the fascist offensive and by doing so pass over to the offensive of the working class, the overthrow of monopoly capitalist rule which is the seedbed of fascism. The United Front must be organized from below, from the semi-skilled and unskilled workers, many of whom are national minority and women workers. It must include rank and file members of trade unions and all organizations of the working class. To organize and win the workers over to the United Front the Party sets out to lead the revolutionary Struggle for concrete reforms, stated in the Party Program, and other struggles of the class.
3. To lead the struggle of the working class by combined struggle:
a. To support and enhance the struggle of the working class for its just economic demands; that means to dig deep into the present and growing strike wave, to use this strike wave as an opportunity to unite with the basic fight back of the working class. To unite the call for the defense of the basic rights and desires of the proletariat with the struggle for socialism.
b. To fight for trade union democracy so that the trade unions will be effective weapons of the workers in the economic and political struggle against capital. As a part of trade union democracy, the Party will fight to guarantee that the leadership of the national minority and women workers is recognized and that no privileges are granted to any section of the class over another.
c. To expose the bribery, corruption, and class collaborationist policies of the trade union leadership, and in so doing discredit and defeat their leadership. The Party will
fight for political consciousness instilled into all working class struggles. The Party recognizes that all aspects of the economic struggle, including the right of workers to organize into unions, are the basic rights of our class. The labor leaders are incapable and are unwilling to defend
even the most basic rights of our class because of their pro-imperialist outlook.
To at all times in the factories, trade unions, the organizations of the working class, see education as the main political task, this education being based in the science of Marxism-Leninism. Only in this way, by combined struggle can we hope to unify our class for the final struggle against capital.
4. When the Labor Commission is formed it will round out this report by dealing with the following questions:
1. Analysis of strategic industries.
2. Concentration of the work force.
3. Role of secondary industries.
4. Class analysis of the USNA.