Page:William Zebulon Foster - Strike Strategy (1926).pdf/10

 strike strategy must be to develop a political consciousness and activity among the workers in their struggles.

A prime objective of ours is to clarify the aims of the present scattered, blind strikes of the workers, to raise them above purely economic ends, and to unite them all into a broad political attack against the entire capitalist system. Consequently, we must fight for a break with the old capitalist parties and utilize every strike to further the movement for the creation of a mass political party of the workers, the labor party.

This course brings us into violent conflict with the conservative trade union bureaucracy, who refuse to recognize the growing political character of strikes, and to arm the workers with the necessary consciousness and political organizations for the struggle. The policy of the right wing union leaders to keep our strikes on a purely economic basis disarms the workers and is fatal to success in the struggle.

The experience in the British General strike, where the leaders stubbornly refused to recognize the political character of the strike even when the capitalists were using the whole governmental power against the workers, sufficiently signalizes this danger and the necessity for arousing the workers to conscious political action and organization.

The bitter experience of the British workers in their recent general strike raises sharply again the question of the part to be played in working class strike strategy by the general strike. The reactionaries, who flagrantly betrayed the British strike, are shouting in all keys that the general strike is useless, that it cannot be employed effectively in the struggle against capitalism.

But such reasoning is fallacious. These reformists, who are opposed on principle to directly attacking capital-