Farrell Dobbs

Labor and the Elections

(August 1940)
Source: First published in Fourth International, Vol.1

No.4, August 1940, page 95-97.

Reprinted in Workers International News, Vol.3
No.10, October 1940, pp.4-8. [1]
Transcription & mark-up Ted Crawford, and Einde O
Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism OnLine (ETOL).

History is made daily now, if not hourly. Yesterday great

battles were fought for a few miles of territory; today a battle
is for the conquest of entire countries. Great military powers
are reduced in a few days to the role of a pawn. Political
regimes beat their breasts in defiance one day only to collapse
the next. The rotten structure of capitalistic society stands
completely exposed before the eyes of the world working
class. And with it the political quackery of the misleaders in
the ranks of labor. The middle way has gone with the
German conquests of Denmark and Norway. The fatal policy
of working class support to democratic capitalism has
brought the French workers new legions of dead and a
totalitarian regime.
In the midst of these events the workers of the United
States prepare to vote for a president to hold office during the
next four years - four years which are pregnant with such
events as would surpass the happenings of 400 earlier years.
But the political policies of the officialdom of the trade union
movement remain unchanged. They have learned nothing.

The AFL has proclaimed neutrality in the election

campaign; it takes no official position. The individual officers
are free to back whomever they choose. Hillman, Murray,
Kennedy, Thomas, and others of the CIO have declared for
friend Roosevelt, as have the bulk of the AFL leaders.
Dubinsky is in the Roosevelt camp but no longer in the CIO.
A few rebels are for friend Willkie. John L. Lewis has
attacked Roosevelt, defended Hoover, told the Republican
show they could be a party of the people and ballyhooed
for Wheeler, representative of the copper trust, proposing him
as a Democratic candidate and material for a third party
leader. Both the AFL and the CIO have solemnly presented
proposals for the Republican and Democratic platforms.
The very mention of the idea of an independent labor party
frightens the wits out of these pro-Roosevelt Paul Reveres
who are dashing madly up and down the countryside,
shouting The Republicans are coming. John L. Lewis has
not as yet indicated whom he will support, nor has he
evidenced any thought of independent working class political
action (his white hope, Wheeler, went back to Roosevelt at
Chicago). Where there is not outright hostility to the proposal
to form a labor party, there is widespread inertia on the
question. It is sometimes argued that the trade unions have
gotten along without a labor party in the past so there can be
no practical reasons for getting heated up about it now. But
the problem is not as simple as that. It is necessary to
examine the conditions of the past and the problems of the
present
before
making
a
decision.

Why No Labor Party Before

Samuel Gompers carved the first unit of the AFL out of the
most highly skilled trades. Its growth thereafter was confined,
in the main, to these narrow and select fields. The later
inclusion of the miners and the needle trades workers as
unions embracing almost all workers in a mass production
industry were exceptions to the rule. The AFL has never at

any time represented more than a small fraction of the

industrial workers. There has always existed as the backbone
of the AFL a skilled group of workers capable of
commanding above-average wages and most generally able to
control the labor market in their trade.
The AFL, jealous of its privileged position, has always
been quick to resist fiercely any attempt at additional
organization by a non-AFL union. This gave the employers
an excellent stop-gap against broad mass organization. They
could make concessions to this small minority and
compensate for the outlay at the expense of the great majority
which thus remained unorganized. The final struggle of the
Knights of Labor, the activities of the Anarchists, the rise of
the IWW, all helped to give the bosses an extra push toward
cooperation with the AFL.
American capitalism was able until recently to afford
certain concessions to the trade unions without seriously
impairing its profits. It was then motivated both by the
necessity of self protection and the ability to make small
concessions. Then, as now, the politicians of the Democratic
and Republican parties voted and acted according to the
dictates of the corporations and the banks. It is not difficult to
understand how, under these conditions, Gompers was able to
outlaw independent working class political action and
establish the theory that the trade unions have friends
among the politicians of the employer-controlled political
parties.
Capitalism still is and will continue to be motivated by the
necessity of protection against the organized workers. But the
AFL can no longer play its former role. It has been partially
transformed in itself. And alongside it stands the CIO, just as
powerful, if not more powerful, than the AFL. Further,
capitalism finds itself less and less capable of making
concessions even to skilled minorities. Those trade union
leaders who continue to adhere to the Gompers political
policy do so because thats the way Grandpaw did it. They

do not have a policy based on present day conditions. The

majority of the officialdom, both AFL and CIO, falls in this
category. They repeat the original sin of subordinating the
workers to the political leadership of the bosses without
having even the slender pretext of the originators of this
policy.

What Has Happened Since 1929

A periodic capitalist crisis struck like a thunderbolt in 1929.
The business index started on a dizzy descent which took
three and a half years to hit bottom. Roosevelt came into
office and undertook the job of patching up the cripple. He
was forced by the severity of the crisis to make certain
concessions to labor. The trade union officialdom hailed him
as a Moses come to lead them out of the wilderness. But the
workers reacted by flocking into the unions and pressing for
direct action against the employers. This pressure from the
mass production workers soon broke through the shell of the
aristocratic AFL and the industrial unions of the CIO were
formed.
Militantly pushing the fight against the corporations, the
CIO workers rolled up impressive victories. The CIO enjoyed
a phenomenal growth. Capitalism was forced to make
concessions, one after another. But the CIO campaign was
less than a year old when the business index again hit the
skids, dropping back as far in nine months as it had in two
and a half years during the previous decline, The four and a
half years of Roosevelt prosperity, based mainly on a
movement of light industry, could no longer sustain itself.
The CIO leadership was frightened by the militancy of the
rank and file. The workers had already been led - in Little
Steel - into a severe defeat in an attempt by the leaders to
substitute dependence on friendly politicians for trade
union action in a strike. The leadership welcomed the new

crisis as an opportunity for them to move openly to curb

strikes.
The mass production workers brought problems into the
CIO which demanded action on the political front. The direct
fight against the bosses, necessary as it was, could not alone
provide an adequate solution. Sentiment grew for independent
working class political action. Labors Non-Partisan League
was formed by the CIO. It was not permitted, however, to be
anything more than a streamlined method of applying the old
AFL political policies.
These latest convulsions of capitalism have created the
industrial unions. The AFL has also grown. The combined
membership of the trade unions is today more than twice any
previous figures. Capitalism finds its contradictions
permanently sharpened. Yet the leaders of this new union
movement are capable of nothing better than to continue to
look to the capitalists for political leadership. They cannot
visualize the working class doing its own political thinking.

Now Labor Faces the War

The present perspective of capitalist strategy is not based on a
movement of the light industries; it is based on preparations
for war. No matter whether a Roosevelt, a Willkie or any
other capitalist politician is in the White House, this will be
the program. They all have one plan for the workers regimentation in industry and combat service in the military
machine. The plan is of course sugar-coated so that the
gullible among the trade union leaders will swallow it the
quicker. Many of these leaders even seize upon the defense
program as an alibi for a welcome escape from direct
struggle against the bosses.
The industrial unions, just as the craft unions, have been
unable to solve all the workers problems. The need for
political action grows sharper. It is true that the business

index has been hesitatingly working its way upward,

especially since the war started. This has momentarily made
the problem of workers political action less acute. But this is
only momentary. American capitalism is strong, but its
contradictions are stronger.
The trade unions are receding more and more into purely
defensive activity. Under these circumstances they will lose
members and become weaker. The treasuries will grow
slimmer. The tasks will be bigger, but the means smaller. The
leadership will become even more disoriented; the rank and
file more dissatisfied. The situation will be worse for the CIO
than for the AFL. The AFL will be more capable of resistance
because of its aristocratic base. It will have less opposition
than the CIO which, with its broad base among the mass
production workers, will meet head-on resistance from the
corporations. A much more energetic policy is possible in the
direct struggle against the employers, but even with the most
militant leadership, trade union action alone is not adequate.
As the trade unions become more and more aware of their
inability to cope with all the problems of the workers, they
are pushed toward the road of political action which is a
generalization of economic action. Political action generalizes
the needs of the workers and directs the struggle not against
individual bosses or groups of bosses, but against the
employers as a whole through their apparatus of state. Despite
all the official opposition and inertia on the question, the
objective necessity for a working class political party is
present. The political channel must be developed if the class
struggle
is
not
to
be
crushed.

Why We Want A Labor Party

The Socialist Workers Party presents the program for the
fundamental solution of the problems of the working class. It
welcomes all workers into its ranks. But it must be stated
frankly that the numerical growth of the Socialist Workers

Party has not kept abreast of the radicalization of the broad

mass of the workers. It does not as yet have sufficient
authority in the general labor movement to attract a mass
following. This is not unnatural. The program of the SWP is
based on a careful analysis of the capitalist system, the
international experience of the working class under
capitalism, the role of the class in bringing about a socialist
society. It is a party of advanced political thought. Many of
the trade union militants have found their way into our ranks.
The great mass of the workers, however, are learning mainly
by actual experience. They have passed through the first stage
of their training in the trade unions. It is now necessary for
them to enter actively into the political arena.
At present the best medium for this political education is an
independent labor party based on the trade unions a
working class political party which will present its own
candidates from its own ranks for election. This political
channel will enable the workers to generalize their needs and
mobilize powerful forces for the struggle to obtain
concessions from the bosses. These demands will also treat
with the needs of the unemployed and the deep layers of
highly oppressed workers who remain unorganized. They will
lend their weight to the fight. Small farmers, merchants,
professional people and other middle class elements will
follow the leadership of the workers in such a political fight
against the banks and the corporations.
It must be remembered that a trade union which places
reliance upon the political agents of the employer is building
a structure on quicksand. A policy of independent working
class political action is necessary at all times. We repeat: an
independent labor party is not the fundamental solution of the
problems of the working class. If its creation is delayed too
long it might be an unnecessary, even a backward, step.
However, at the present time, the formation of a labor party
based on the trade unions is a progressive step. The Socialist
Workers Party will help to create it.

Footnote
1. Published in WIN under the title American Labour and
Elections.

Farrell Dobbs

The 1960 Elections

(Spring 1960)
From International Socialist Review, Vol.21 No.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde OCallaghan for ETOL.

2,

Spring

1960,

pp.35-37.

Farrell Dobbs is the Socialist Workers Partys candidate for President

of the United States in the 1960 elections. He was the SWP presidential
candidate in 1948, 1952 and 1956.

WE ENTER the sixties amid changing political conditions that forecast

the opening of a new and higher stage in the American class struggle.
Events are pushing the unions away from support to capitalist political
parties and toward the formation of an independent labor party. This
necessary turn in union policy, which the union bureaucrats cant block
indefinitely, points in the direction of a fundamental showdown
between labor and capital. Although labor is by far the stronger in
potential class force, its victory in a showdown is not automatically
assured. In the long run class political consciousness will be decisive in
determining the outcome of the battle. Today the capitalists have a big
class advantage, stemming from policies consciously designed to serve
their own interests at the expense of society as a whole. Labor stands in
an opposite position; it remains crippled by illusions that social
progress can be made through collaboration with the enemy class.
Despite growing necessity, the unions have failed to develop an
independent class policy in industry and politics; and they have still to
arrive at the anti-capitalist, pro-socialist outlook fundamental to a
solution of societys basic problems. These class needs can be met only
when the workers unseat the capitalist-minded union bureaucrats in
short, labor faces an increasingly acute crisis of leadership.

There exists within the general labor movement a revolutionarysocialist tendency capable of projecting the independent class policy
the unions require. But this politically class-conscious section of labor
has been thrust into isolation from the workers through a combined
attack by the union bureaucrats and the capitalist witch hunters. Only
now are favorable conditions developing for fusion of the
revolutionary-socialist program with the mass power of the unions.
An opening step toward such a fusion can be taken through the
presidential campaign of the Socialist Workers party which is now
getting under way. To understand why the SWP campaign holds
promise of gains which will help to strengthen class political
consciousness among the workers, let us examine the broad lines of
social conflict developing on a world scale and the political
repercussions that result within this country.
Across the globe peoples long subjected to imperialist exploitation
are rising up against their oppressors. They want to develop their own
industries in order to raise their standard of living. They are
determined to free themselves from foreign interference and decide for
themselves what, economic and social order will best serve their needs.
Their search for the right answer impels them, erratic though the
course may be, in the direction of socialism.
China has advanced along this road to the abolition of capitalist
property relations and establishment of a workers state based on
nationalization of the means of production and the introduction of
planned economy. Earlier social overturns of a similar nature took
place in Yugoslavia and across Eastern Europe. Together with the
Soviet Union these workers states now encompass one-third the earths
surface and close to half of all humanity. Viewed in combination with
the colonial rebels elsewhere in the world they constitute a formidable
anti-imperialist force.
The power of the anti-imperialist forces is further strengthened by
the great forward leap in Soviet scientific, technological and military
potential. American imperialism no longer has the atomic monopoly
and general military superiority with which it launched the cold war
some fourteen years ago. A country that can send a rocket to the moon,
as the Soviet Union has done, can also deliver rockets armed with
hydrogen warheads against an imperialist aggressor anywhere on
earth, including the United States.
These revolutionary advances on the world arena have brought a
power stalemate which compels American imperialism to slow down its
cold-war offensive and adjust its diplomatic policy to a temporary,

uneasy truce in international relations. Although the imperialists try to

use this act of tactical expediency to parade as peace lovers, they have
actually made no basic change in their foreign policy; on the contrary,
they are using the lull in the cold war to intensify their preparations for
hot war.
The situation becomes doubly dangerous for world labor because
imperialist
political
deceit
is
accompanied
by
Stalinist
misrepresentation of the true state of affairs. Dressing up old-line
Stalinist policy in new verbiage, the Kremlin bureaucrats call for
universal disarmament, peaceful coexistence and friendly competition
between rival social orders. They dangle this line before the insurgent
world masses as a sure road to socialism by gradual means.
Reasonable though this approach may seem and no matter how
great a popular response it may evoke the imperialists would never
agree to such a course. The Stalinist bureaucrats understand this fact
and they have shaped their real policy accordingly. What they actually
aim for is a deal with imperialism to divide the world into spheres of
influence with an agreement to maintain the status quo within each
sphere. They are ready to help preserve capitalism outside the Soviet
orbit in the hope this will enable them to save their own privileged
position in the area where they now rule.
Stalinist policy runs directly counter to the needs of the masses in the
capitalist sector of the world and it clashes with the democratic
aspirations of people within the Soviet bloc countries. Workers
uprisings in 1956 against the Stalinist regimes in Poland and Hungary
laid bare the basic antagonism between the ruling bureaucracy and the
masses within the workers states. In crushing the Hungarian revolt the
bureaucracy strengthened itself temporarily, but didnt win a
permanent lease on life. The status quo cant be frozen indefinitely in
the Soviet bloc countries; new political explosions will occur and they
will cause repercussions throughout the world labor movement.
It is equally impossible to freeze the status quo for very long in the
countries under capitalist rule. The very forces that have acted to
compel a slowdown in the imperialist war drive are also operating to
prevent any lasting social stability under capitalism. Although the
world labor and colonial movements face a general crisis of leadership,
this obstacle does not halt the struggles for social improvement. Mass
action simply takes longer to gain enough momentum to break through
the barriers and then it develops in distorted forms; but the masses
keep asserting themselves.

These trends upset the schemes of American imperialism, making it

more determined than ever to impose its will by all possible means,
including war. The imperialist belligerence stems from social
contradictions within the United States itself. Growth of the productive
forces within the country threatens a deep crisis of over-production.
There is increasing danger of a severe economic slump that would
bring on catastrophic unemployment and lead to a social explosion at
home, unless the capitalist class can expand its exploitation of peoples
abroad.
But one-third of the world market has been closed to capitalist
exploitation by extension of the Soviet bloc to China and Eastern
Europe. Elsewhere lesser imperialist rivals are stiffening their
competition with American capitalism. In the one-time colonial
preserves strong opposition to imperialist domination has developed;
and in the case of Cuba a colonial revolt has flared up right on the
United States doorstep.
Instead of forging ahead toward unrestricted exploitation of the
world, American imperialism finds its expansionist drive slowed down,
if not turned back. Still determined to achieve its objectives, the
capitalist ruling class is using the cold-war lull for an attack on
American labor to safeguard capitalist privileges nationally and to get
into a better position to drag the country into war.
Imperialist military adventures are not ruled out because of the
horrible dangers in an atomic war. Truman risked atomic war when he
plunged the country into the Korean conflict. Eisenhower had no
compunction about the war risks involved in a military occupation of
Lebanon. The bipartisan government at Washington continues the
fantastic military buildup, quarreling only as to whether enough is
being done. Generals and capitalist politicians openly advocate a policy
of limited wars, disregarding the risk of triggering World War III.
Only the revolutionary advances abroad have prevented a general
war so far. These limited advances have allowed precious time for the
extension of class-struggle opposition to imperialism; but peace can be
assured only when the workers within the imperialist countries take
independent class action against the imperialist warmakers.
An anti-war struggle of this kind cant be waged under the leadership
of Stalinists, social democrats or union bureaucrats. In every case these
misleaders of labor are shifting further to the right in their political
line, abandoning any pretext of real socialist policies, if they ever had
any. A new leadership must take the helm before labor can get started
on the class-struggle road to peace.

In the United States the present capitalist attack on the unions

begins to open the way for the rise of a leadership capable of projecting
the policy labor needs. Changing economic and social conditions
should help the process along.
Within the framework of a series of boom-recession cycles the
country is drifting into economic decline. Even though a full-scale
depression has not yet struck, the cyclical ups and downs in the
economy are generating feelings of insecurity in the population. Many
are being thrust directly into personal economic crisis by the persistent
rise in chronic unemployment which is spreading across wider areas of
production; government figures for January show that over four
million are now jobless during boom times. The AFL-CIO predicts the
present boom will slack off by July; and capitalist economists speak of
a general economic slump by 1961. For workers this will mean a sharp
rise in unemployment, in many cases so prolonged that jobless benefits
will become exhausted.
Economically the workers are put in double jeopardy because of
bureaucratic misleadership in the unions: they are hurt by the crisis
trends under capitalism; and they have no independent class program
to defend their interests. The politically-bankrupt union bureaucrats
support the imperialist war policy and count on the arms program to
provide jobs. They look to the capitalist government for social benefits
through legislation and for help in collective bargaining with the
bosses. To impose their false policy on the workers, they strangle union
democracy and connive with the bosses to suppress so-called wild-cat
strikes.
Changing times are now beginning to break up these well-established
forms of bureaucratic control over the unions. The bosses dont intend
to allow the class peace so necessary to the bureaucratic policy. They
are resisting, not granting, concessions to labor; and the government is
backing them up in what is rapidly becoming a general war against the
unions.
The bosses are cutting production costs through automation,
speedup and other devices intended both to squeeze more out of the
workers on the job and to whittle down employment so far as they can.
They resist wage demands and chip away at the escalator clauses
pegged to the cost-of-living index; without resorting as yet to outright
wage cuts, they put the workers in a position where rising prices and
stiffening taxes eat into their purchasing power.
Union demands are met by counter-demands calculated to tear down
long-established job conditions and to weaken union control generally.

The bosses force strikes and drag them out in a war of attrition against
labor. Strike insurance, professional scab agencies and direct
government support to strikebreaking attacks are reappearing in new
forms.
On the political front the bosses use their Democratic and
Republican agents in government to hamstring the unions through
anti-labor laws. They will probably go a little easy on demands for
further laws until their stooges have got themselves re-elected in the
fall. In the meantime they have the new Kennedy-Landrum-Griffin law
to work with; and among its many provisions hostile to labor this law
clears the way for open FBI intervention in the unions. The future will
see these imperialist political police attempting to give all of labor the
same treatment they have been dealing out to radical workers all
through the witch hunt.
The basic shift in capitalist tactics undermines the position of the
union bureaucrats, discrediting their whole line based on labor
statesmanship. In the long steel strike which clearly revealed the
changing class relations the union ranks were ahead of the leadership
in giving battle to the bosses. They won a victory in the sense that the
open corporation attack was halted temporarily. But the wage
settlement was the poorest in years; the escalator clause was mangled;
there was no reduction in hours without reduced pay to help safeguard
employment; and the contract terms open the way for the McDonald
bureaucracy to make statesmanlike concessions to the bosses on
work rules.
This experience illustrates the widening gap between bureaucratic
policy and the workers needs; and the gap will become wider still when
the next economic slump hits. Mass protests against unemployment
reached a post-war high in the spring of 1959, a trend that forecasts an
even greater outburst next time there are mass lay-offs. The fight for an
effective union policy in industry will intensify, along with labor
demands upon the government for meaningful social legislation. Life
under capitalism will drive the workers toward class-struggle economic
and political positions. In the long run the union bureaucrats wont be
able to stop it; but they can and will continue to inhibit and distort the
labor struggle.
At the present stage of developments the task for socialists remains
primarily one of advancing a class-struggle program for labor. This will
help union militants to clarify their thinking and prepare a sound
programmatic basis for future action when the ranks decide to take
union affairs into their own hands. In presenting their political analysis

socialists should also pay close attention to developments in the mass

movement as a whole.
Formation of the Negro Labor Council within the AFL-CIO implies
action going beyond the announced aim to fight for equal rights in
industry and democratic rights in the unions; it may serve to stimulate
more effective union support to the general civil rights movement and
thereby sharpen both the Negro struggle and the class struggle,
particularly in the South. The outbreak of student demonstrations
against Jim-Crow lunch counters in the South gives further impulse to
mass action in the fight for equal rights; and it marks a shift of
initiative toward younger Negroes capable of greater militancy.
Social ferment is increasing among youth on college campuses and in
the high schools. Many are becoming rebellious against conditions
under the capitalist two-party system. They are searching for a new
political course and, though they have not yet become socialist-minded,
they are willing to listen to socialist ideas.
Rising social tensions, generated by the twin threats of war and
depression, are beginning to counteract conformist pressures long
imposed by the witch hunt. People in many walks of life are asking
searching political questions; they are thinking for themselves; and
they begin to recognize the need to fight boldly to maintain freedom of
thought, expression, association and action.
In addressing people newly interested in socialist ideas it will be well
to keep in mind the political circumstances under which their thinking
has been previously conditioned. Take, for example, a person who
came of age after 1946. Throughout his adult life he has been subjected
to an atmosphere of cold war, hot war and witch hunting. He has
experienced or seen others experience periods of temporary economic
hardship in times of slump; but he has at most, only hearsay
knowledge of severe depression conditions.
A person in this position knows union life only under the domination
of an iron-handed bureaucracy which preaches class peace, extols the
virtues of capitalism and stifles democracy within the organization. He
has little idea of the tremendous power inherent in the working class;
and he has had virtually no access to a true, complete history of past
labor struggles which would help him to understand that power.
To reach people who find themselves in this situation it will be
helpful to start from the big concerns in their minds today and present
the socialist answer to these problems in clear language and
comprehensible terms; then go on from there to deal with even more

basic political questions. By weaving in the class lessons to be drawn

from world labor history, a sense of class power and a deeper
knowledge of sound class principles can be developed.
Groundwork can be done in this way to get across a basic classstruggle program: formation of an independent labor party in
opposition to the capitalist parties; labor support to the civil rights
struggle and promotion of a political alliance between the unions and
the minority peoples; an economic policy designed to serve labors
needs; a working class policy to defeat the imperialist war conspiracy
and attain world peace; a program to establish workers democracy
throughout the world labor movement; a socialist perspective for the
United States.
These are the lines along which the Socialist Workers party will
conduct its presidential campaign. Vigorous efforts will be made to use
every possible medium to reach people becoming interested in socialist
ideas and draw them closer to the movement. This calls for a strong
turnout of active socialist campaigners and equally strong financial
support.
If socialist-minded people throughout the country back the SWP
campaign to the best of their ability, 1960 can be made the best year for
revolutionary socialism since the cold war began.