Page:William Z. Foster, James P. Cannon and Earl Browder - Trade Unions in America.djvu/23

 tion, has developed to the point where the question of affiliation to the Red International can be made the big immediate fighting issue, but, in spite of this, the league, by a steady propaganda, has succeeded in making its principles known to large numbers of workers and in winning their support. The official labor movement is too conservative even for Amsterdam, but the Trade Union Educational League is inspired by the spirit of Moscow. The revolutionary goal runs like a red thread through all the concrete practical activity of the league.

N drawing up a balance sheet for the first three years of organized activity of the left wing of the American trade unions, represented by the Trade Union Educational League, we cannot content ourselves with a bare recital of the various battles, lost and won, nor even pay much attention to separate struggles except as they illustrate a point or mark a new turn of events. What we want most of all, is some definite conception of what the situation in the trade union movement was three years ago, what were the conditions under which it worked for the past three years, what part was played by the reactionary officialdom and by the left wing in the events of that period, and where we are at today.

Conditions of industry were prosperous (using the word in the economic sense of comparatively high production and brisk movement of commodities and not as indicating the actual condition of the workers) during most of the three years. The year 1922, when the T. U.