The Communist Party of Canada, born 50 years ago in
repudiation of social-reformism, which had disgraced itself
during the war by supporting imperialism, and combatting
“leftist anarcho-syndicalist moods and movements that
split militants from the main body of the working class,
entered the period of the post-war capitalist prosperity"
in the 1920's fighting for workers’ unity.

- That struggle, including the attacks upon it by the Trots-
kyite and right-wing opportunist groups and their defeat,
is told in Tim Buck's book "30 Years — 1922-1952" in the
chapter entitled, "The American Way . . . in the 1920's"
which we present here in abbreviated form.

Militant labor struggles were not the
only characteristic of the 1920’s. The
political climate of that decade was
colored by the rise of American im-
perialism to world primacy. With the
tremendous expansion of foreign in-
vestment and influence there went also
a new cycle of expansion of United
States economy, in which Canadian
economy shared to some extent. An
outgrowth of this new stage of Amer-
ican imperialism was the increasing
corruption of trade union leaders. To
secure for themselves a share in the
“prosperity” of American capitalism,
more and more of them used the re-
sources of the unions under their
leadership to establish union-financed
capitalist enterprises: insurance com-
panies, banks, real-estate companies,
even scab industrial concerns.

Along with commitment of the re-
sources of trade unions to capitalist
enterprises there went attempts to tie
members to the unions through insur-
ance policies and investments, instead
of by the struggle for higher wages and
better conditions. The unions were
made part of the machinery of capital-
ist management—in some cases, for
example the Amalgamated Clothing
Workers, the International Association
of Machinists, etc., union leadership
sought to replace the capitalist efficien-
cy experts. “Theoretical” and ‘‘moral”
justification for the brazen betrayals
perpetrated by those "misleaders of

labor” was attempted by the elabora- -

tion of a whole body of propaganda to
the effect that, through ‘Fordism,”
American capitalism had _ discovered
the secret of permanent prosperity.

"Class Partnership"

The “labor” bankers, — real-estate
speculators, insurance brokers and
their paid propagandists declared that
all previous experience of the labor
movement was now out of date, the
teachings of Marx completely dis-
credited, and that the sole but wide-
open path forward for the labor move-
ment lay through class collaboration.
They described their schemes to trans-
form the unions into capitalist trusts
and promoters of speed-up systems as
“the higher strategy of labor.’ The
Executive Council of the American
Federation of Labor carried its anti-
working-class doctrine to such a length
as to invite a hundred right-wing social
democrats from Germany to attend the
El Paso convention in 1926 as guests
“to study the secret of the new Amer-
ican economy.” Following the conven-
tion, the German right-wing union offi-
cials were the guests of the Ford Motor
Company. They were taken to Detroit,
shown through the Ford plants and
lectured concerning Ford methods with

a great show of cooperation. The real
content of the so-called “union-man-
agement cooperation” of that period is
illustrated by the fact that, right then,
while it was entertaining the AFL
leaders and their guests, the Ford com-
pany was smashing, by the most ruth-
less use of labor spies, discharge and
blacklist, an attempt being made by
AFL unions to organize the Ford
workers. ‘

The political character of the policies
developed by the right-wing union
leaders and socialists all over the

. United States and Canada during that

period showed their acceptance of the
perspective aimed at by the bankers
and the manufacturers’ associations.
They became conscious agents of the
Capitalist class within the labor move-
ment. Accepting the capitalist perspec-
tive, they moved to emasculate the
trade union movement and destroy its
fighting spirit. When the left wing mo-
bilized the workers for effective oppo-
sition, the bureaucrats resorted to a
vicious anti-working-class campaign to
“clean out the Reds.”

There was little trade union organi-
zation in Canada except the interna-
tional unions. International officers in-
terfered in the affairs of Canadian
locals with even less regard for the will
of the Canadian membership than they
show today. Charters were lifted by
presidents in the United States who dis-
dained to hide their contempt for the
small Canadian membership. Workers
were expelled from unions for ‘‘advo-
cating industrial unionsm.” Hundreds
of workers were excluded from union
membership for refusing to incur large
obligations for life insurance in the
company headed by the president of
their union. Because independent work-
ing-class political action was contrary
to the political philosophy of the capi-
talist-minded bureaucrats who domin-
ated the AFL, Canadian locals.of the
international unions and trades and la-
bor councils were ordered to disaffil-
iate from the Canadian Labor Party on
pain of expulsion from the “interna-
tional” trade union movement. Expul-
sion didn’t mean simply that the expel-
led local or council could henceforth
pursue its own course: it meant that
another local or council was set up. By

collaboration between the top union~

leadership and the bosses, the new one
usually became the only organization
through which the workers could se-
cure employment.

During that period a change took
place in the attitude of monopoly capi-
tal towards the trade union movement.
The limited success achieved in their
open-shop drive, at enormous expense
to their corporations, had shown the
more far-sighted of them that the trade
union movement could not be destroy-
ed or rendered incapable of militant
struggle by the traditional methods of
open warfare against the idea of trade
unionism. To an increasing extent the
“labor relations” experts of monopoly-
capital were searching for more effi-

cient methods of blunting the militancy
of the workers and beheading their
efforts to secure improved wages and
conditions.

Collaboration with right-wing union
Officials was alredy an_ established
practice. < <3,

Such collaboration had not been the
general policy of monopoly-capital.
When practised it had been in the
nature-of a temporary acceptance of
what big business management con-
sidered at the time to be a lesser evil.
But, in the second half of the 1920's,
organized collaboration with the right-

' wing officialdom of the trade union

‘movement became the main policy of
monopoly-capital towards the trade
union movement.

In some cases, typified by numerous
experiences of the unions organized by
the party and the Workers’ Unity
League, employers would invite reac-
tionary leadership of other unions to
“come in.” In such cases, a closed-
shop agreement and the check-off were
utilized to ensure that every worker
employed paid dues to the collaborat-
ing outfit... .

Police Terrorism

Theatre and almost succeeded:
detonated a stink bomb on the

while Beckie Buhay was pie i
When Philip Halperin, then ed! fh
Der Kamf, appealed to the crow yh?
remain calm and not to play a '
hands of the police provocatel ‘
was arrested and charged with di 4

ing the peace. d

iN

(ha
Organized efforts at suppress
the public activities of the parly
ed a critical stage in the latter
the decade, The struggles that 18
over the country at that ine
typified by the “‘battles of ‘
Park” in Toronto through 1%,
1930. Those were, in fact, attem®
the workers to maintain thell
tional right to hold meeliNb
Queen’s Park—a right then at)
lenged for the first time sincé

if)
The first violent effort o 7
this traditional right was mad@ (gs
Toronto police department of wort?
1, 1929. Some 12,000 Toront? "oy
were gathered in the park for the
nual “No More War” day. At ot A
moment Chief Constable DM.
lowed it to be known that he hi
to prevent the meeting. Ww 108
speaker and the chairlady a by
the bandstand they were seiz®
a dozen policemen. The bi:
beaten, several of his tel
knocked out by a police’ ,
chairlady, 19 years of age, wae
mauled and insulted. As ee
were a signal, scores of mone
licemen rode into the crowd 48 ory!
whips right and left against ©” ng
who didn’t run. Simultaneous, :
cycle police rode into the sm si
of workers missed by the
The meeting was smashed. ~

Such were the conditions
the party had to carry OF 1920
activities at the end of the ©" ¢
part of their general campale, i

secution, the police suCcee at

During the second half of the 1920’s
the capitalist class and its governments
resorted increasingly to open reaction
as an integral part of their conscious

. turn to fascism and imperialist war.

Use of the state machinery against the
labor movement became more open.
Contemporaneously with the increasing
use of RCMP spies in labor organiza-
tions and of police and troops against
strikers, there.was a marked change in
the attitude of local police authorities

to working-class activities. The change

was too general and uniform to have
been accidental. Street meetings, which
had been the traditional form of public
expression for the working-class move-
ment for decades, were subjected to
violent persecution which was develop-
ed rapidly to systematic suppression.
Local police authorities sought to bar
the left-wing movement from the use
of public halls. In Toronto, for exam-
ple, Chief of Police Draper prohibited
public speech in any language other
than English in licensed halls. A mem-
ber of the party, Albert Greaves, was
arrested and charged—for speaking
French. Operators of licensed halls
were warned by the police that any
who rented his premises to the Com:
munist ‘Party or an organization which
supported the party, without first se-
curing permission from the police,
would be liable to lose his licence. At
first some operators ignored the warn-
ing. In one such case police officers of
the so-called “anti-subversive” squad
tried to create a panic among 1,300
workers crowded into the Standard

The rapid spread of the com
movement throughout Cana by
the 1920’s was accompanle |)
tain lowering of its theot
Many workers had been 4
the practical work and i
devotion of the Communls = jistiil
larly its battle against secesa gn
campaigns against wage othe!
organize the unorganized. in
ers were attracted to thé
by the party’s unwavering |
against the class-collaboralt 0
pursued by the internation’. of
dom and the unscrupulous the
campaign launched agains’ |
munists by the AFL bureal to
the activities which proved eet
Party of Action” had not bet
panied by equally systema”,
within the party on the |,
theoretical work. The pare ful
ship had not yet grasped © the i
port of Lenin’s emphasis ¥ ary we 4
that “without a revolution 4 og
there can be no revolution” say
ment.” : .. As a result the 1 f
vulnerable to high-sounding ype?
da even when it was base” ars
theories. Some party meé nda
confused by the propaee ath
“permanent prosperity’ 11
ica. Others were temporal.
by the radical-sounding pa 0
ing of the Canadian follow
Trotsky.

Often, ideas’ which Wer”

le

unwa

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY MAY 14, 1971—PAGE 6