This paper centers on what we feel are some fundamental errors in PWOC’s labor strategy. But first it is important to understand exactly what that strategy is. In this section we present a concise summary of PWOC’s labor strategy. In developing this summary, it was necessary to go beyond PWOC’s own position papers on the subject, since these papers do not present a clear, coherent strategy and do not fully describe their approach. A careful reading of their labor theory shows many concepts to be vague, confused or even self-contradictory.
Take for example, the notion of the advanced worker. At times, PWOC describes advanced workers as “the active leadership of the class struggle”, “the quickest to respond to the tyranny of capitalism, the most willing to struggle”.[1] They do not necessarily have a highly advanced political understanding: “Few among the most advanced workers understand the capitalist-conditioned nature of their problems.”[2]
Later in the same paper, PWOC tells us that advanced workers “will patiently explain the role of the labor bureaucracy in the trade union movement and the inevitability of such a bureaucracy under capitalism”.[3] And again, “The advanced workers desire above all else to lead their fellow workers to victory in the struggle to capture the trade unions for the revolutionary movement”.[4]
The concept of the advanced worker will be treated more fully later in this paper. Our point here is simply to illustrate that PWOC’s own theoretical writings are in many respects an inadequate guide to its labor approach.
Our own summary of PWOC’s labor strategy then, is drawn from many sources, including our close study of their theoretical documents and the Organizer, discussions with experienced PWOC members, observations of PWOC’s practice and our own rank and file work which has included PWOC members. Thus when we speak of “PWOC’s labor strategy” in this paper, we are referring to their overall approach as we have synthesized it.
PWOC’s labor strategy may be summarized as follows:
GOAL: To develop rank and file organization around and win the mass of workers to a complete Class Struggle Program defined as:
1. The militant defense of our standard of living, the struggle against capital.
2. Trade union democracy.
3. An aggressive opposition to all forms of racial, sexual, political and religious discrimination and a conscious approach to working class unity.
4. Political action and organization of the working class independent of the present bourgeois-dominated political parties.[5] (Often the idea of a mass peoples’ party is raised)[6]
Alternately, this goal is described as winning the mass of workers to “a class conscious understanding of the Trade Union question” or even to “a class conscious understanding of the need to revolutionize the trade unions as the first step in the struggle for proletarian power.[7]
PROCESS FOR REACHING THIS GOAL: The means to this goal is the left-center alliance, also called the united front (although quite distinct from the United Front of the Comintern, an open alliance of Communist and Socialist parties). In the left-center alliance, communists and advanced workers unite with “middle” workers and develop their consciousness.
Program is the key tool to “cement the left-center alliance” and also to politically educate workers (although this is not necessarily the complete Class Struggle Program). The concrete demands in a program “serve to draw the masses into conscious struggle.”[8] But once they are involved in struggle, the program also “serves as a means for the most advanced to elevate the political consciousness of the masses.”[9] It does this by “expressing the consciousness of the most advanced elements,”[10] by “providing the most advanced possible understanding of the nature of the struggle.”[11]
The process works roughly as follows. Communists take, the lead in developing the caucus program. Initially this is not the complete Class Struggle Program, but a partial, dilluted version that most middle workers can accept. The masses become involved in the struggle to win the demands of this program. Through this process of struggle and education, they come to accept the political analysis underlying this program and thus pass to a higher stage of political consciousness. They are then ready to struggle for a somewhat more advanced program. This process is repeated until they are won to support the complete, unabridged Class Struggle Program.
At this point in time, due to the overall backwardness of the workers, the most appropriate form for the left-center alliance is a rank and file caucus united around a dilluted version of only the first three points of The Class Struggle Program.
The special role of communists in this strategy is to bring their scientific, theory to the aid of the advanced workers. In order to lead the struggle forward, the advanced must know how much to dillute the Class Struggle Program, “to temper their demands in order to stay with the center, without compromising the goals. Communists, then, have the special responsibility of providing the glue which holds the alliance together. This glue comes in the form of concrete and politically correct program.”[12]
LONG RANGE SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS GOAL:
1. This strategy provides communists a good opportunity to meet and work closely with advanced workers. The advanced also learn to respect communists for their leadership in choosing correct program. As an important by-product, this strategy offers good opportunities to recruit advanced workers to a communist organization.
2. This strategy builds a “communist current” in the workers’ movement. A communist current is defined as the “fully developed united front”: a mass of workers who accept the complete Class Struggle Program and are willing to allow communists the freedom to express their views, and, in fact, communists will play a leading role in this movement.[13]
The communist current is the prerequisite to forming a revolutionary party. Thus once the strategic goal is reached, it will be possible to move toward the organizational formation of the party.
3. This Class Struggle movement will eventually be able to recapture the trade unions from the labor bureaucrats, to “revolutionize the trade unions” by transforming them into militant, democratic and united organizations. This is the first stage in a revolutionary strategy. Only after the unions are “revolutionized” will the working class be able to move ahead with its revolutionary political struggle, establish Soviets, etc.[14]
A key flaw in PWOC’s labor strategy is the role it assigns to program. Program is to express the “immediate felt needs of the masses” so as to draw them into action, yet it is also expected to express “the consciousness of the most advanced elements” so as to “politically educate the masses”. What this means in practice is that in each particular shop PWOC sees the same program as both the key to rank and file organization and as the key to advanced political education. While this may seem logical on paper, we feel that PWOC’s own experience demonstrates that no program can play such a central role in these two related, but different tasks. We will show in this paper that by relying heavily on program both in building mass rank and file organization and in conducting political education, PWOC does neither task effectively.
Note: PWOC’s major writings on labor strategy consist of four works: “Trade Union Question – Part I” and “Trade Union Question – Part II”, their basic theoretical works published in 1974, and two speeches from a trade union conference in 1976: “Strategy and Tactics for the Trade Unions” and “Party-Building and the Trade Unions.” These writings which were informally circulated for some time have now been compiled into a larger pamphlet entitled Trade Union Question – A Communist Approach to Strategy, Tactics and Program. References to any of these four works are listed here by the page number in the larger, collected pamphlet. Readers who may have one or more of the individual articles can find the references by following the table:
“Trade Union Question – Part I”, pages 4-20
“Trade Union Question – Part II”, pp. 22-32
“Strategy and Tactics for the Trade Unions”, pp. 34-42
“Party-Building and the Trade Unions”, pp. 44-53
Trade Union Question, the larger pamphlet, is available from PWOC at P.O. Box 11768, Phila. Pa., 19101. Price is $2.50. We encourage all readers to examine these documents.
* * *
[1] Trade Union Question. A Communist Approach to Strategy, Tactics and Program, by the Philadelphia Workers Organizing Committee (PWOC), November, 1977, p. 24.
[2]Trade Union Question, P. 24.
[3] Trade Union Question, P. 26.
[4] Trade Union Question, P. 25.
[5] Trade Union Question, P. 28.
[6] Trade Union Question, P. 47.
[7] Trade Union Question, P. 27.
[8] Trade Union Question, P. 27.
[9] Trade Union Question, P. 27.
[10] Trade Union Question, P. 27.
[11] Trade Union Question, P. 27.
[12] Trade Union Question, P. 42.
[13] Trade Union Question, P. 46.
[14] Trade Union Question, PP. 18-19.