Page:William Zebulon Foster - Strike Strategy (1926).pdf/29

 The strategy of the right wing is to break up all militant attacks against the employers and to reduce the struggle to a class collaboration basis. The strategy of the left wing must be to make the struggle militant in spite of the counter efforts of the right wing.

The strike sabotage of the right wingers manifests itself in various ways. First, let us consider their attitude towards strikes conducted by, independent unions under control of the left wing. In such cases no treachery is too extreme for them. Take the I. W. W. strike in Lawrence. In this historic struggle the leaders of the United Textile Workers did not hesitate to furnish strikebreakers to the employers. Or take the more recent case of the Passaic textile strike. This was one of the bitterest ever waged in the history of American labor. But the A. F. of L. leaders openly played the employers’ game and denounced it, using the charge of dual unionism as a blind for this attack. They sabotaged the collection of strike relief and they attempted to demoralize the strikers.

In such cases the left wing must maneuver carefully to kill the dual union charge by moving for affiliation with the A. F. of L. In Passaic, affiliation was actually brought about in the midst of the struggle and the A. F. of L. was compelled to endorse openly the strike which for seven months it had shamelessly sabotaged. But in carrying through such affiliation maneuvers the left wing must be careful to maintain its ideological and organizational control over the striking masses and to prevent a sell-out settlement by the right wing, for which the left wing would be held responsible by the workers. This can be accomplished by an intelligent and determined left leadership.

In established unions, where the left wing is in a minority or where its control of the official machinery is weak, the fight against the right wing takes on other forms. The general policy of the right wing leadership is to use