The book featured in the below article is available from Learning Ally.
The narrator has a problem pronouncing the word Trotskyism.
http://themilitant.com/2016/8014/801449.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 14 April 11, 2016
(Books of the Month column)
Lessons of 1934: Gov’t mediators are no ‘friends of labor’
The History of American Trotskyism, 1928-1938: Report of a Participant
is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for April. In 12 talks given
in 1942, James P. Cannon, a founding leader of the communist movement in
the U.S., recounts the effort to build a proletarian party that aspired
to emulate the Bolsheviks. “Trotskyism is not a new movement, a new
doctrine, but the restoration, the revival, of genuine Marxism as it was
expounded and practiced in the Russian revolution and the Communist
International,” Cannon said in his first talk. Cannon was national
secretary of the Social Workers Party until 1953 and then national
chairman until 1972. This excerpt is from the chapter “The Great
Minneapolis Strikes.” Copyright © 1944 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by
permission.
BY JAMES P. CANNON
The strike began July 16, 1934, and lasted five weeks. I think I can say
without the slightest exaggeration, without fear of any contradiction,
that the July-August strike of the Minneapolis truck drivers and helpers
has entered into the annals of the history of the American labor
movement as one of its greatest, most heroic, and best organized
struggles. Moreover: the strike and the union forged in its fires are
identified forever in the labor movement, not only here but all over the
world, with Trotskyism in action in the mass movement of the workers.
Trotskyism made a number of specific contributions to this strike which
made all the difference between the Minneapolis strike and a hundred
others of the period, some of which involved more workers in more
socially important localities and industries. Trotskyism made the
contribution of organization and preparations down to the last detail.
That is something new, that is something specifically Trotskyist.
Second, Trotskyism introduced into all the plans and preparations of the
union and the strike, from beginning to end, the class line of
militancy; not as a subjective reaction — that is seen in every strike —
but as a deliberate policy based on the theory of the class struggle,
that you can’t win anything from the bosses unless you have the will to
fight for it and the strength to take it.
The third contribution of Trotskyism to the Minneapolis strike — the
most interesting and perhaps the most decisive — was that we met the
government mediators on their own ground. I tell you, one of the most
pathetic things observable in that period was to see how in one strike
after another the workers were outmaneuvered and cut to pieces, and
their strike broken by the “friends of labor” in the guise of federal
mediators.
These slick rascals would come in, take advantage of the ignorance and
inexperience and political inadequacy of local leaders, and assure them
that they were there as friends. Their assignment was to “settle the
trouble” by extorting concessions from the weaker side. Inexperienced
and politically unschooled strike leaders were their prey. They had a
routine, a formula to catch the unwary. “I am not asking you to give any
concession to the bosses, but give me a concession so that I can help
you.” Then, after something had been given away through gullibility: “I
tried to get a corresponding concession from the bosses but they
refused. I think you had better make more concessions: public sentiment
is turning against you.” And then pressure and threats: “Roosevelt will
issue a statement.” Or, “We will feel obligated to publish something in
the papers against you if you aren’t more reasonable and responsible.”
Then get the poor greenhorns into conference rooms, keep them there
hours and hours on end, and terrorize them. This was the common routine
these cynical scoundrels employed.
They came into Minneapolis all greased up for another standard
performance. We were sitting there waiting for them. We said, “Come on.
You want to negotiate, do you? All right. That is fine.” Of course our
comrades put it in the more diplomatic language of the negotiations
“protocol,” but that was the gist of our attitude. Well, they never
negotiated two cents out of the Trotskyist leaders of Local 574. They
got a dose of negotiations and diplomacy which they are still gagging
from. We wore out three of them before the strike was finally settled.
A favorite trick of the confidence men known as federal mediators in
those days was to assemble green strike leaders in a room, play upon
their vanity, and induce them to commit themselves to some kind of
compromise which they were not authorized to make. The federal mediators
would convince the strike leaders that they were “big shots” who must
take a “responsible” attitude. The mediators knew that concessions
yielded by leaders in negotiations can very rarely be recalled. No
matter how much the workers may oppose it, the fact that the leaders
have already committed themselves in public compromises the position of
the union and creates demoralization in the ranks.
This routine cut many a strike to pieces in that period. It didn’t work
in Minneapolis. Our people weren’t “big shots” in the negotiations at
all. They made it clear that their authority was extremely limited, that
they were in fact the more moderate and reasonable wing of the union,
and that if they took a step out of line they would be replaced on the
negotiations committee by other types. This was quite a poser for the
strike-butchers who had come to Minneapolis with their knives out for
unsuspecting sheep. Every once in a while Grant Dunne would be added to
the Committee. He would just sit in a corner saying nothing, but
scowling every time there was any talk of concessions. The strike was a
hard and bitter fight but we had plenty of fun in planning the sessions
of the union negotiations committee with the mediators. We despised them
and all their wily artifices and tricks, and their hypocritical
pretenses of good fellowship and friendship for the strikers. They were
nothing but the agents of the government in Washington, which in turn is
the agent of the employing class as a whole.
Related articles:
On the Picket Line
Big protests in France oppose anti-labor ‘reform’ law
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