STRIKE STRATEGY
of performing the bulk of the multitudinous detail work of the battle.
The organized left wing must make a scientific study and application of strike leadership. It must study carefully every mass strike or other movement of the workers and learn their lessons. It must be courageous, militant, and flexible in its policies. It must know how to struggle for power in the unions, before, during, and after strikes. It must work consistently for the building up of an energetic and capable trade union leadership, defeating on the one hand, tendencies towards a merely opportunistic scramble for union office, and on the other hand, the ultra-leftism which looks upon all office holders in trade unions, whether good or bad, as parasites and grafters.
It must combat the anarchistic conception that the workers need no leaders and that union officials shall serve not more than one term—an illusion cultivated by the I. W. W. which has effectively prevented the growth of a real leadership in that body. It must colonize with militants those industries and plants entering into strike conditions which are not producing leaders capable of handling the approaching strikes.
It must know how to practice the principles of democratic centralism: that is, while keeping a firm grip on the strike situation and preserving an iron discipline, at the same time maintaining close contact with the masses and securing their support for every move that is made. Such an organized left leadership must act as a real general staff, conceiving and working out its problems largely in the sense of military strategy.
3—The Fight Against the Right Wing.
The present dominant trade union leaders ideologically and organizationally constitute a definite group, a conservative machine that is controlling the labor movement.
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