Page:William Zebulon Foster - The Bankruptcy of the American Labor Movement (1922).djvu/50

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The R. I. L. U. program for America says:

This categoric condemnation of dual unionism by both branches of the Communist International, political and industrial, produced a profound effect in America. The left-wing elements who for so many years had accepted industrial dualism as a self-evident necessity, in fact, almost as a religion, were literally shocked into a re-valuation of it. Their eyes were opened all of a sudden to its disastrous consequences. Then they repudiated it and began their present great drive back to the old trade unions. To the Third International, and particularly to the Russians at the head of it, is due the credit for breaking the deadly grip of dual unionism in the American labor movement.

With the repudiation of dual unionism, the militants have also cast aside many of the theories they once held regarding the unions and have adopted new and different conceptions. In the past, blinded by the glittering dual union utopia and embittered by organization chauvinism, they developed many bizarre notions about the trade unions in order to justify the dualist policy. In the tight of recent events these theories seem ridiculous. The real meaning of the labor movement escaped the dual unionists altogether. Besides ascribing the most extravagant virtues to their utopian dual organizations, they lashed the old trade unions with criticisms which, for wildness and vitriolic sharpness, have never been equalled in any other country.