Two letters on America

The Social Composition of the Party - Leon Trotsky, October 10, 1937

Dear Comrade Cannon: 

I fear that the fragmentary character of my previous letters may lead to misunderstanding. I insist upon the fact that the general line of development of the Fourth International will be connected in the next period with a new crisis and the inevitable disintegration of People's Front policies and the Third International. This perspective seems to me very important for the general orientation. I heard that some comrades are more or less, if not pessimistic, at least reconciled to the idea that the growth of our organization will be very difficult and slow. The perspective of a sharp turn which can open the greatest possibilities for us is thus necessary not only for a clear orientation but also for moral encouragement. 

However, the above-indicated perspective is too general. We don't know precisely when the crisis will begin, with what tempo and to what depth in its first phase it will influence the working class movement and its political organizations. Possibly, even probably, the next year will be a transitory period before going into the "great turn." Such a possibility should be indicated in the basic document [for the coming convention] in order to prevent confusion and disillusionment. 

But whether the development in the next period is slower or quicker, one question retains its tremendous importance for us: that of the social composition of the party. It must be considered with the utmost attention. 

The party has only a minority of genuine factory workers. This is an inevitable beginning for every revolutionary workers' party everywhere, and especially in the United States. The nonproletarian elements represent a very necessary yeast, and I believe that we can be proud of the good quality of these elements. But the danger is that we can receive in the next period too much "yeast" for the needs of the party. 

The disintegration of the Communist Party will very probably begin not among the workers but among the intellectuals, who are more sensitive to the ideas and less loyal to the organization. The influx of the new generation of intellectuals to the Communist Party will stop even before the open disintegration of the Stalinist organization. Because of this we can wait for an influx of fresh intellectual elements toward us.  

Our party can be inundated by nonproletarian elements and can even lose its revolutionary character. The task is naturally not to prevent the influx of intellectuals by artificial methods (such political Malthusianism would be at least premature) but to orient in practice the whole organization toward the factories, the strikes, the unions. 

It seems that this should be one of the most important tasks of the new convention, if not in an open session then in a closed commission or section work with virtual participation of all the delegates. 

The orientation of the whole party toward factory work is intimately connected with the question of the organizational structure of the party. I don't believe that in view of the very small number of our members and the very short experience in mass work, we could establish emphatic rules for the party organization now. We must leave some elbow room for the local organizations. As to the National Committee itself, in order to improvise, adapt, and select the most adequate methods and forms in approaching our new tasks, it would be fatal to imitate a big party with its established forms of activity. The worst of all bureaucratisms is the bureaucratism of a small body which sacrifices practical tasks for an imposing appearance. We should not renounce guerrilla methods, but should continue them upon the condition that the National Committee controls and directs this guerrilla activity. A concrete example: We cannot devote enough or equal forces to all the factories. Our local organization can choose for its activity in the next period one, two, or three factories in its area and concentrate all its forces upon these factories. If we have in one of them two or three workers we can create a special help commission of five non workers with the purpose of enlarging our influence in these factories. The same can be done among the trade unions.

We cannot introduce nonworker members in workers' unions. But we can with success build up help commissions for oral and literary action in connection with our comrades in the union. The unbreakable conditions should be: not to command the workers but only to help them, to give them suggestions, to arm them with the facts, ideas, factory papers, special leaflets, and so on.

Such collaboration would have a tremendous educational importance from one side for the worker comrades, from the other side for the non workers who need a solid reeducation. 

You have, for example, an important number of Jewish nonworker elements in your ranks. They can be a very valuable yeast if the party succeeds by and by in extracting them from a closed milieu and tying them to the factory workers by daily activity. I believe such an orientation would also assure a more healthy atmosphere inside the party. Naturally it is not necessary to emphasize that an adequate corresponding part of the Jewish members should concentrate their forces especially to work among the Jewish masses. 

The distribution and alignment of our forces should be done, I repeat, not in accordance with some a priori scheme, but in accordance with concrete and concretely conceived tasks in different parts of the country and even of a town. Only one general rule can we establish immediately: a party member who doesn't win during three or six months a new worker for the party is not a good party member. If we seriously established such a general orientation and if we verified the practical results every week, we would avoid a great danger: namely, that the intellectuals and white-collar workers might suppress the worker minority, condemn it to silence, transform the party into a very intelligent discussion club but absolutely not habitable for workers. 

The selection of party functionaries from below to the top should be done under the same criterion. We naturally cannot appoint only workers, even not a majority of workers. Not all workers are suitable for the job. But every functionary must be attentive to what the worker faces and what he needs. Many intellectuals and half-intellectuals terrorize the workers by some abstract generalities and paralyze the will toward activity. 

A functionary of a revolutionary party should have in the first place a good ear, and only in the second place a good tongue.

You can see that my letter consists two-thirds of abstract "generalities" and that many of them are too elementary. I see it very well myself, but in order to avoid any misunderstanding I prefer to say even superfluities, with the assurance that you understand very well the peculiarities of the position of an observer from afar.

With my best wishes,
Comradely,
Hansen [Trotsky] 

P.S.-The same rules should be in a corresponding form elaborated for the working and recruiting of the youth organization, otherwise we run the danger of educating good young elements into revolutionary dilettantes and not revolutionary fighters.

On the Relation between Mass Agitation and Trade Union Work, James Cannon June 30, 1939

Practically all the serious articles contributed to the party pre-convention discussion by individual comrades, groups, or party committees emphasize the same point: Mass work. Different proposals are made. There are different evaluations of the past activity of our party. Some comrades offer more ambitious plans, and some betray more impatience than others. But all apparently pursue the same aim, the decisive turn of the party to mass work and the more efficient organization of this work. From this we can see that the party is united at least to this extent: It knows what it wants. So far, so good. 

But that does not solve the whole problem. It only poses the problem. The aspiration to direct all attention to the broad masses and to gain a wider influence over them is not new or original with us. There is nothing in this aspiration, of itself, to distinguish us from other parties. Leaving aside the sects and mutual admiration societies, which habituate themselves to isolation as something normal and also desirable, all parties, whether bourgeois or proletarian, strive to win mass support and work out for themselves various techniques of mass appeal. 

There Is No Short Cut
An agreement in general on the necessity of a more decisive turn to mass work, such as we appear to have, signifies only that we consider ourselves ready to enter into active and direct competition with all political tendencies for the support of the working masses. Our success in this competition in our time will be determined by how much we understand our own problem and apply that understanding in practice. Here, as our party discussion has disclosed, we run into difficulties and differences of opinion. Some of these differences are simply matters of emphasis. Others represent conflicting conceptions, and that is far more serious. With others, impatience to reach the agreed upon objective is giving rise to ideas which are false in conception and which, if adopted by the party, would have fatal consequences. 

One of these false ideas born of impatience is the idea that we can find a short cut to a mass movement over the head of the trade unions. I mention this first because it is the most fundamental and the most dangerous.

There are numerous other misconceptions, all related, however. A considerable section of our movement, in its impatience to get to the masses, is experimenting with ultraradical nostrums which, ironically enough, are the surest means of assuring a permanent isolation from the masses. 

These sentiments are most conspicuous among the youth, whose leaders, apparently, consider it fashionable to play a little bit with adventurism and leftist phrasemongering. If one put his mind to it he couldn't think out a better way of wasting the energy and courage of our young militants and of guaranteeing the eventual reaction of disillusionment and discouragement.

Mass work has many forms. It is necessary to combine them in such a way that each separate division serves the others. The modern proletariat is accustomed to act through its organizations. Most basic and fundamental of these are the trade unions. A party which aims to lead the working class must acquire a strong base of support and a leading influence in the unions.

That is what the founding convention of the party a year and a half ago had in mind when it issued the sweeping slogan, "Ninety percent of party work must be directed to the trade unions." 

Was this slogan incorrect? Or, has something happened in the past eighteen months to change the nature of workers' organizations and the workers' habit of acting through them? Not at all. But the impatience of some comrades for action is leading them to flirt with the most grotesque ideas in this respect, ideas which they may consider "new," but which in reality are as old as the Marxist struggle against anarchist adventurism. 

We hear it said nowadays that the unions are too slow in responding and that we must go direct to the masses. The masses, it seems, are something entirely outside the unions with their seven million or so members. The masses are presumably only waiting to hear from us, and are ready to act without the formality of organization. Even the Ohio-Michigan District Committee of the party, whose jurisdiction covers precisely the heart of the field of the great new unions of workers in the mass production industries, take a rather cross-eyed view of this question. They permit themselves to advocate a program of action which, they say, "can be conducted independently of the limitations and uncertainties of the trade union movement" (Socialist Appeal, June 27). 

No doubt, the members of the Ohio-Michigan District Committee, who have seen and taken part in workers’ demonstrations of power through their unions, knew better. Perhaps they just took a Sunday off for a manifesto spree. Or, possibly, they sought by this high-sounding formula, and the ambiguous verbiage which follows it, to make a "concession" to still more radical comrades who are "tired of waiting for the trade unions." But this sort of concession must determine the correct approach to mass work and firmly reject the false. Otherwise we will have a smash-up. 

Deeper into the Unions!
We cannot yield anything from the "90% trade union" formula of the founding convention, not even one percent. Mass agitation in general must be conceived, organized, and developed, not as a substitute for the systematic penetration of the trade unions but as a supplement to it. 

Woe to the party that despairs of the trade unions and turns away from them! The harder such a party works and the more hysterically it shouts, the sooner it will wear itself out.

Trade union work is not easy. Moreover it is restricted in scope, not complete of itself-herein the syndicalists commit one of their greatest errors-and must be supplemented all the time by the general political and agitational work of the party. But even this general work of the party, unrestricted in its scope by any trade union rules or customs, is directed primarily to the workers organized into unions. They alone are capable of sustained action, precisely because they alone are organized. True enough, we appeal to all workers; in some cases we appeal most directly and immediately to the unorganized who are the most exploited and deprived. But what is the first suggestion we offer to such workers, if they respond to our appeal? We advise them to join a trade union, or, if unemployed, a union of the unemployed. We cannot go around the unions, and we have no desire to. Our slogan is, "Deeper into the Unions!" Every campaign of general mass agitation must aim to deepen and strengthen our influence in the unions. 

No Room for Two Opinions
Trade union work requires patience, endurance, and skill. In very few unions, at present, is it possible to unfold the whole program of the Fourth International. In many unions, dominated by redbaiting bureaucrats, it is necessary for revolutionary militants to refrain from exposing themselves to expulsion by advertising their political affiliations. Revolutionary trade union work, as a rule, in America, is quiet, molelike, unspectacular. To carry on such work unfalteringly; to work in the unions in piecemeal fashion for parts of the program while holding fast to the party, which in its general agitation expounds and defends the program as a whole; to be attentive to the smallest union issues of the day without succumbing to opportunism; to entrench one's self and be in a position to influence the whole union when the time for action comes - these are among the sternest and most important revolutionary tests today. 

Such tasks require courage, persistence, and prudence. It is easy to shirk them, or to fail miserably in their performance. We know such cases, and the super-radicalism of the delinquents is poor consolation to the party which needs influence and support in the unions more than it needs anything else. It is easy to fight one's way out of a union by ill-considered tactics, and still easier to talk one's way out. But what the party needs is militants who know how to dig deep into the unions and stay there, gather a circle of sympathizers and supporters about them, and transmute their personal influence into party support in the trade union movement.

The party convention should emphasize this necessity once again. There is no room for two opinions on this question.