Militants in the Masses - William Z. Foster
From Activist's Guide to Trade Union Theory

The new movement now crystallizing in the Trade Union Educational League also differs widely in tactical conceptions from those of the dualists. The essence of the program of the latter was to set up labor unions upon the basis of their several political and industrial theories and then to try to educate a backward working class into joining them. This was a violation of the first principle of labor unionism. The workers organize in the industrial field not because they hold certain elaborate social beliefs jointly, but because through united action they can protect their common economic interests. Labor unions are built upon the solid rock of the material welfare of the workers, not upon their acceptance of stated political opinions. In the very nature of things labor unions at present must consist of the many sects and factions that go to make up the working class, Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, Communists, Anarchists, Syndicalists, Catholics, Protestants, etc., etc. The natural result of the dualists’ attempt to organize labor unions around their theories was a whole crop of new labor movements. As fast as new conceptions, political and industrial, developed, their proponents organized separate labor unions to give expression to them. In some industries there were as many as five of these dual movements, each representing a different tendency and each engaged in the hopeless task of converting the masses to its particular point of view. Dual unionism, with its program of labor organization along the lines of fine-spun theory, not only devitalized the trade unions by robbing them of their best blood, but it also degenerated the revolutionary and progressive movement into a series of detached sects, out of touch with the masses and the real struggle and running off to all sorts of wild theories and impractical programs.

But the militants in the Trade Union Educational League rigidly eschew this sectarian policy. Their program is the very reverse, to keep the militants in the organized masses at all costs. Instead of setting up intellectual and organizational barriers and then coaxing the worker to break through them, they carry their propaganda right into the very heart of the workers’ organizations and struggles. The Russian revolution has taught them that the great masses will probably never become clear-headedly revolutionary, but that they will follow the lead of an organized conscious minority that does know the way. The League militants conceive the question of labor organization to be largely one of leadership, and they aim to secure the backing of the mass of organized workers by taking the lead in all their battles, by showing in the crucible of the class struggle that their theories, tactics, and organization forms are the best for the labor movement. Thus will be broken the grip of the revolutionary bureaucracy who now stultify and paralyse the labor unions, and the control of these organizations thereby gradually pass into the hands of the militants who will stimulate and develop them.

In the past the militants have voluntarily isolated themselves from the organized masses, which was very convenient indeed for the labor bureaucrats. But now these active spirits fight desperately against such isolation. They realize fully that their place is in the big trade unions. And when the controlling reactionaries, who instinctively know that the rebels are dangerous to them only if in the unions, expel individuals and local unions, the latter must fight their way back in again. Such a policy however, does not mean that the old organizations must be maintained at any price. In extreme cases secession movements may be unavoidable through the reactionaries’ refusing to obey the mandates of the rank and file. But when such splits occur the militants must have so maneuvered as to keep the mass of the membership on their side. Otherwise disaster will come upon them and the labor movement. The winning combination for the rebel movement, the typical situation that the Trade Union Educational League is trying to create everywhere, is for the militants to function aggressively as a highly-organized minority in the midst of the great unconscious trade union mass. The heart of the League’s tactical program is that under no circumstances shall the militants allow themselves to become detached from the unionized section of the working class. “Keep the militants in the organized mass,” is the slogan of the new revolutionary movement.