Text - IV A : CPI LEADS WORKING CLASS MOVEMENT

1

The Capitalist Offensive In India

The capitalist offensive in Europe is naturally followed by an offensive of the Indian capital against native labour. The European offensive was the result of capital's resolve to smash the strong position to which labour had reached during the war. European offensive is partially successful. The success of imperial capital of Europe means bad days for the half-developed, unconsolidated bourgeoisie of Indian and other semi-capitalised countries like India. A reduction of wages on the European labour front means cheapening of products and flooding of colonial and semi-colonial markets with white goods. If, in this competition, the Indian bourgeoisie means to hold its head, ... either it must become less greedy of profits, to which it become accustomed in the war period, or it must pull labour down to the pit-level from the position to which it had reached in the days of war. The Indian bourgeoisie has decided to follow the second course. The first skirmishes of the fight will be between Ahmedabad mill-owners and workers. The mill-owners have decided upon a 20 per cent reduction in wages and refuse to decide matters by arbitration. The workers however mean to give a fight straight, in spite of the advice of some treacherous labour leaders.

When the All-India Trade Union Congress was held there was high talk of giving the Indian Labour movement a “character distinctly its own”. The aristocratic Mrs. Naidu scornfully talked of traditions of western labour, with whom she would have nothing to do, as she did not want class war out here. Can this aristocratic lady say whether the Ahemedabad mill-owners themselves are not beginning the class war? ... Babu Shyamsundar, at the Bengal labour conference, very paternally advised labour to look more to the collective good than to class interests. Surely, Babooji, labour means to do the same. The collective good is the good of the greatest number. Labour forms the majority of the nation and so it is going to look to its interests i.e. collective interests! Will the heroic non-cooperator tell us if the mill-owners of Bombay and Ahmedabad are looking to the good of the nation by creating troubles in the textile industry, when in the interests of the boycott movement there ought to be no trouble in this branch at least ?

We advise labour leaders and workers not to heed these soft words and philosophic phrases of bourgeois intellectuals. Only by class war, to which the Ahmedabad workers are slowly drifting unconsciously, can labour hope to win. Defeats may come once or twice, but final victory is of the workers.

Source: The Socialist, March 1923

 

2

All-India Trade Union Congress

The All-India Trade Union Congress held its eighth annual session at Kanpur in the last week of November 1927. Out of fifty-seven affiliated trade unions, with total membership of 125,000, only twenty-seven were represented at the congress by about 100 delegates.

... Of the 57 affiliated unions, 13 were railway unions, 11 textile, 10 general labour, transport (other than rail), and 4 seamen's unions. ...

The proceedings of the congress showed the presence of an active leftwing group, mainly representatives of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Party, who succeeded in getting discussed to Simon Commission, the threat of war to the USSR, the League against Imperialism and Colonial Oppression, etc. The influence of the delegates from the British Trades Union Congress, Purcell and Hallsworth, was actively exerted on the side of the right wing and they obtained the support even of Chamanlal. The Purcell-Chamanlal group, together with Joshi, the general secretary, opposed the resolutions on the League against Imperialism, on war danger and on the Pan-Pacific Conference, but they failed to secure a vote in support of the IFTU, the congress reaffirming  its detision to press for unity between the IFTU   and RILU. …

Source: Labour Monthly, April 1928

 

3

Manifesto of the AITUC

(The new General Secretary of the AITUC, SV Deshpande has issued the following manifesto on the Nagpur Session on behalf of the AITUC as an answer of the militant working class to the splitting party of the Right-Wing leaders.)

“The existence, life and growth of trade unions in India is of the most vital importance to the Indian workers to fight against the oppression of foreign imperialists and our own capitalists, mill-owners and others, ...

The textile workers of Bombay suffered a temporary defeat because of the united brutal effort of the Indian mill-owners and British imperialism and also the fact that the textile workers of Bombay stood alone without the assistance of other textile centres. The Jute workers of Bengal suffered defeat in their local strikes because they were disorganised. The same is true about the railway workers.

Strong trade union are vital to the very existence of the-working class, to the success of their many struggles to better their condition. And in spite of that, a section of the so-called leaders arranged a split at the last Trade Union Congress at Nagpur.

The Right-Wing leaders split away because the Trade Union Congress decided to boycott the Whitley Commission. This every worker must remember and understand. The task of the Whitley Commission appointed by British Imperialism is to fool the workers and help to stabilise and strengthen the exploitation of the workers. This commission is dominated by capitalists like the Bombay mill-owner, Sir Victor Sasson, who, by starvation plus brutal force temporarily defeated the textile workers of Bombay, is not going to help the workers. Its sole purpose is to help imperialism and the mill-owners and other capitalists. The workers will not allow themselves to be fooled again by promises of the imperialist commission into giving support to imperialism by participating in the commission. The workers can improve their lot only by fighting for freedom, for independence, and by organising their own forces. This must be clear to every rank and file worker.

The Trade Union Congress was correct in deciding to boycott this commission and taking a stand of militant struggle. And the Right-Wing leaders, lawyers, and bar-at-laws, Chamanlal, Joshi & Co, who never suffered as the workers in the mill suffered, joined the Whitley Commission, became members of it, thus betraying the struggle for the betterment of the condition of Indian workers. ...

The Nagpur Session of TUC has shown again the necessity of developing militant working class, leadership from the rank of the workers themselves, true to the interests of the workers. The Right-Wing leaders, with the ease of intellectuals caring only for their own ambitions, split the Trade Union Congress. …

... Short-sighted reformists, assistants of British imperialism, your efforts are futile! The militant Indian Working class understands your machinations judges you by your deeds. The textiles workers of Bombay repudiated Joshi and created a powerful textile union — The Girni Kamgar Union — which you are slandering and condemning in chorus with British imperialism and the mill-owners for its militant working class stand. But the same fate awaits the rest of the reformist leaders who are now trying to weaken and split labour ranks. They will find themselves in the garbage can of history. The militant Indian working class will triumph. ...

Source: Labour Monthly, March 1930

 

4

Current News

Red Trade Union Congress

White Paper strongly condemned

A meeting of the representatives of the various unions registered under the Trade Union Act was held at Calcutta on the 12th August, under the Presidency of comrade Abdul Halim, and the following were among the resolutions passed at the meeting :

1. This meeting of the representatives of the various registered Trade Union of Bengal affiliated to the Red Trade Union Congress emphatically condemns and rejects the White Paper proposals which are going to be imposed upon the starving millions of Indian people by British Imperialism. The Constitution is meant for safeguarding the interests of Imperialism by strengthening the reactionary alliance of it with Princes, landlords and propertied classes and for perpetuating the slavery of the Indian masses, therefore this meeting calls upon all unions to organise workers’ protest meetings and demonstrations all over India.

2. This meeting of the Unions of the Red Trade Union Congress vehemently opposes the proposal of the Government of Bengal to the effect that one seat is allotted to the Railway workers (registered unions) and one to the water transport workers (registered unions) only in the council. The meeting is of opinion that the major number of seats should as recommended by the Lothian Committee be allocated to the working masses, moreover all the seats for labour should be given to the registered workers’ unions and other workers who are still unorganised. The present proposal is quite in contravention of all these. This meeting further protests against the system of election as has been proposed because such a system only facilitates the reformists in their being returned in the council by easy means and it demands that the election should be by means of ballot papers so that every worker will have individual right to vote directly.

3. This meeting of the trade unions protests against the arrest of many labour leader’s of Calcutta, during anti-Gandhi agitation, by the Calcutta police and demands their immediate and unconditional release as by this and by binding them down under various conditions the workers' movement is being sabotaged, though some of them are released on bail.

 Source: Indian Front, September 1934.

 

5

For Trade Union Unity in India

Working men and women of India

The working class of India is on the eve of new struggles for its existence. The British imperialists, spreading terror and oppression, have drained, with the aid of the landowners, princes, and usurers, two thousand million rupees of gold out of the country in the course of the last two years. All this gold drained is the result of the exploitation of the workers and the ruin of millions of peasants who have been driven off their land and are now dying of hunger.

The lot of the workers is no better. During the last few months of 1933 a further 30,000 textile workers of Bombay, 10,000 workers of Ahmedabad, 3,000 of Coimbatore, etc., have been thrown out from the mills into the streets. ...
Unemployment is growing, wages are being slashed, but the workers are compelled to work more. Weavers are forced to work on four looms instead of two, and the same is true all over the contry. …

The struggle for bread and the struggle for freedom

The Indian worker suffer from the yoke of the British imperialism, which is the basis of the unbearable slavery and misery of the people. Not one worker should stand the foreign imperialist oppression and slavery.

The All-Indian Congress Committee of the National Congress called upon the workers not to fight against their own capitalists, but to support the bourgeois National Congress in a pseudo civil disobedience campaign against the imperialists.

Hundreds of thousands of workers believed the National Congress and went with it. They thought the National Congress would defend the interests of the people, would fight against the imperialists. They were told by Bose, Kandalkar, Ruikar, Roy, Karnik, and other similar leaders of the labour movement that the INC will fight for the toiling masses. In the summer of 1930 Kandalkar and Roy appealed during the notorious “Labour Week” campaign to the workers to stand by the common national front with the bourgeoisie and remain as “arms and feet of the Congress” i.e., to remain a submissive appendage to the capitalists, and not to fight against the bourgeoisie and not to organise strikes. However, the result proved to be bad. The workers were deceived. The leaders of the National Congress (Gandhi and co.) went to London to negotiate with the imperialists. And now in 1933 the National Congress has called off the mass civil disobedience campaign, shamelessly throwing the blame on the people, claiming that the masses have no desire to fight. The National Congress disorganised the ranks of the toiling masses and prepared in this way the conditions for a new offensive on the part of the imperialists and the mill-owners against the workers and peasants. And now Karnik, Kandalkar, Ruikar and Alve, who joined their ranks, in order to divert the attention of the workers from the political struggle, state that they are prepared to fight only for wages, and call upon the workers to abandon for the time being the struggle for independence.

The advice of such leaders at the present time, just as before, only helps the enemies of the working class. The workers of India do not want to be slaves. ... The class-conscious workers will not follow these reformists, who say: Fight for bread and don't mix up, don’t join the struggle for independence. The workers will not follow the reformists, because the struggle for bread cannot be separated from the struggle for independence. The working class will reject with contempt the false statements of Karnik (see “Mahratta”, October 15, 1933), that the working class is politically unconscious and that the masses “are not able to grasp big political issues ... national independence ...” etc.

The working class will fight for bread, for every pice, and at the same time help the peasantry to overthrow the yoke of landlords and usurers, and will gather its forces and, attracting along side it the peasantry, will fight for independence. These tasks are inseparable. Only enemies of the proletariat, only national-reformists, the concealed assistants and liberal-assitants of British imperialism, can separate them. ...

What the past experiences of workers’ strike teaches us

The experience of the workers’ strikes during the last few years shows us that:

The trouble is that most of the workers are not organised, not united, do not have a revolutionary Marxian Proletarian Party and mass class trade unions, and quite a number of the workers follow the reformists and the national-reformists, who have split the ranks of the proletariat and, with the aid of reformist policy of arbitration and class collaboration, are carrying on harmful activity.

The results of this policy of the reformists can be easily seen from the experiences of the railway and textile workers.

In 1930 the workers of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway came out on strike. Ruikar and Co. insisted on arbitration and appealed to the Viceroy and to Gandhi for help. The Railwaymen's Federation, led by Giri and Mehta, instead of organising strikes on other railways in support of the GIP, joined hands with Ruikar and compelled the workers to submit to an agreement, the result of which was that thousands of workers were discharged and the strike was defeated.

They did the same thing in 1932 on the SM Railway, despite the fact that the workers throughout the country were demanding a general railway strike. A ballot taken among the railway workers by the reformist Railwaymen’s Federation in 1932 showed that the great majority of the men voted in favour of a strike.

However, Mehta, Ruikar, Giri and Co. while adopting, under the pressure of the masses, a resolution for a general strike, sabotaged its being carried into effect. ...

Working men and women, the policy of the national-reformists is the policy of arbitration and class-collaboration, covered up by phrases about the defence of the interests of the workers, leading to the defeat of the proletariat. It is time to finish with such a policy and oust such leaders out of the labour movement.

The only path of successful struggle, even for the partial demands of the workers is the path or class solidarity and mass struggle, the path of strikes and revolutionary actions, the path of a consistent class struggle. But to carry out this struggle the working class must form its militant class trade union orgnisations, that will be capable of defending the interests of the workers.

What Trade Union do workers need ?

Without an all-Indian revolutionary Marxian proletarian political Party, the leading orgainsation of the working class, able to work under any conditions, without concealing its face, and mass trade unions and other proletarian organisations, the working class cannot attain the independence of the country and the improvement of the workers’ conditions.

Organisation — that is the only weapon in the hands of the proletariat in the struggle against the imperialists and their own capitalists.

It is time to form mass trade unions in every branch of industry, trade unions that will fight under the banner of the class struggle. The trade unions must base themselves upon the mill and shop committees. Mill committees, elected by the workers in every factory to defend the daily interests of the workers and protect their rights, must become the powerful base of the working-class movement.

“Every worker should join a class trade union.”

“In every factory a factory committee, elected by all working men and women.”

These are the slogans for everyday work among the workers. It is time to put through a determined struggle against the practice of forming bureaucratic, small trade unions, controlled by a handful of leaders, where the president and the secretary manage affairs against the interests of the workers and replace the organisation with themselves.

In every trade union it is necessary to elect a management committee mainly composed of the workers from the bench, a committee which will meet regularly and decide upon the business of the union. It is necessary to hold often regular meetings of the trade union membership to discuss and decide upon the most important trade union and political problems of the given industry, as well as problems that agitate the entire country. ...

Struggle for Trade Union unity

Unity in the ranks of the workers is a necessary condition for the successful struggle of the workers for their daily interests and for their total liberation from exploitation. The factory owners, the landowners and the imperialists fear this unity as they do death. Through their agents — the reformists — they split the ranks of the proletariat and disorganise its resistance to the capitalists, hinder the development of the strike movement and the workers’ leading participation in the struggle for independence. During the past years the agents of the exploiting classes succeeded in splitting and disorganising the workers’ movement in our country. Such a situation can no longer be tolerated. We must attain the unity of the ranks of the workers. It is necessary to throw out from the ranks of the working-class movement all agents of the exploiting classes. Among the workers the movement for the unification of their ranks to fight the offensive of the imperialists and the millowners is growing. And that is one of the most important events at the present time.

Seeing the moods of the workers, the reformists are trying to utilise the slogan of unity in such a way as to strengthen their influence, isolate revolutionary workers, and retard the development of the strike movement. ...

Kandalkar, Ruikar, Roy and Co. split in 1931 the Bombay Unity Committee, which was organised to prepare the All-Indian Trades Union Congress. It included the Red Trade Unions and the representatives from the national-reformist trade unions. But the latter split this committee because the revolutionary workers come out for a class platform and policy and protested against the reformist proposal to allow affiliation with the Amsterdam International, in which there are labour organisations that support the bourgeoisie and the imperialists.

And so we see that the reformists and the national reformists, while using phrases about unity, in actual life split up the trade unions so as not to let the workers start a determined fight against the imperialists and millowners. ...

Our Proposal for Joint Struggle

The supporters of class trade unions, seeing that during the last few years the conditions of life of the workers have been constantly becoming worse, have considered the steps that have to be taken to help the working class to organise resistance to the offensive of the imperialists and capitalists, and decided to appeal to all workers and trade union organisations to come together to organise and jointly carry out defence of the workers' interests.

The supporters of class trade unions propose to all the trade unions to organise a united front, on the basis of the following points taken from the platform of the class trade union movement :

(1) To prepare, organise and carry out the resistance of the workers to the insolent and brutal attack of the owners and develop it into a fight to raise the wages and improve the labour conditions.

(2) To consolidate and organise the unemployed workers for the struggle against hunger, misery, and unemployment. ...

In order to organise the struggles of the unemployed, the supporters of the class trade unions propose to all trade unions to come together and jointly organise unemployed committees, linking up their work with the other workers' organisations, and start a widespread campaign by means of meetings, demonstrations, hunger marches, etc., and getting support of the employed workers, demand aid from the municipalities, millowners, and the government. To prepare and carry through the struggles of the unemployed under the following slogans :

• (1) Immediate payment of a grant to every unemployed worker to the amount of 50 rupees; free rent, heat, light, and free transportation on railways while looking for work.
• (2) Introduction of State unemployment insurance at the expense of the government and the employers.

In order to carry out all these proposals directed to organise resistance to the employers, the supporters of the class trade unions appeal to all workers and trade union organisations who are ready to accept these proposals of united struggle against the employers, to come together and jointly form strike committees, elected by workers, and other organs to prepare for strikes and carry them through.

If the joint struggle assumes genuine forms and will be carried into practice, the supporters of the class trade unions are prepared to unite with other trade unions and form united trade unions by way of calling conferences of workers’ delegates from the mills and workshops.

The supporters of the class trade union movement fought and will fight for the unity of the workers’ ranks. The Girni-Kamgar and GIF trade unions were split through no fault of the revolutionary trade union movement; the initiative of the split belongs to the national reformists. Our weakness — i.e., the supporters of the revolutionary trade union movement — was that we did not try energetically enough to prevent the split and did not succeed sufficiently enough to explain to the wide masses of the proletariat the essence of the splitting policy of the national reformists and liberal reformists.

The supporters of the class trade unions are prepared in the course of joint struggle to unite our class trade unions with the parallel trade unions which split off, and form united trade unions, by way of calling joint conferences of worker — delegates elected from the mills for the purpose of uniting the trade unions and electing management committees. ...

Long live the fighting united front of the workers to defeat the attacks of the employers !

Forward To The Creation Of Class Mass Trade Unions !
Forward To The Defence Of The Interests Of The Proletariat!
Long Live The Independence Of India !

Source: Inprecor, May 25,1934

 

6

The AITUC Proposes Unity

What Must We Do ?

(December 1934)

…    …    …    …    …    …    …

We are now in a position to examine the grand idea or Mr. Ruikar and his friends in its proper perspective. The idea has been thought out as one-stroke solution of all the problems arising out of the complex situation described above. Ruikar & Co. are out to kill not two but four birds with one stone. While merging into the right and swallowing the left, they desire at the same time, the credit due to unity-makers and the halo due to radical. That is the essence of Mr. Ruikar’s proposals. The merging with the right is effectively achieved by the rejection, or principle, of affiliation to any “foreign” organisation (term No. 2 of the proposals) and by leaving the question of sending delegates to the ILO open to decision every year but making the decision binding on all affiliated unions (term No.3). With the re-entry of Mr. Joshi and his associates with their huge contingents into the AITUC, this annual decision is a foregone conclusion. Mr. Ruikar has no worry on that account. The radicalist appearance (Mr. Ruikar, in the past, has abused Joshi & Mehta only a little less perhaps than he has abused communists) is kept up by the payment of a lip homage to the principle of class struggle (term No. 1) and by the formality that the AITUC is to be accepted by the amalgamating units as “the Central Organisation of the Indian Working Class” implying thereby that the process of unification is to be construed as the home-coming of the prodigals, the “parent” (Mr. Ruikar’s own word) AITUC agreeing, as befits a loving father, to forgive the Red. TUC its contumacy and the NFTU its sluggishness. The laurels of achieving the almost superhuman task of bringing about the fusion of the warring camps in Indian trade unionism are to be won on the purely numerical logic that right, left and, centre all are to be herded into a single TUC. That their unity proposals do not refer concretely either to any fundamental principle or to any positive programme for common action is trifle not worthy of the attention of  Mr. Ruikar and his colleagues. The slogan of unity and the show of not breaking with their own past, besides being independent objectives in themselves also serve as a masquerade for camouflaging the actual desertion of Ruikar & Co. to the camp of the extreme right, and the fettering and muzzling of the left. It now remains to show how the AITUC proposals have been calculated to achieve the latter end.

If reformists are afraid to face the masses shoulder to shoulder with communists, if they split working-class organisations and attempt to isolate communists from the masses, if they carry on an incessant campaign of vilification, misrepresentation and lies against communists, it is because they know that when flung into the furnace of the class struggle, communist gold always wins the esteem and support of the masses in preference to reformist copper. The strength of the communist lies in the street, in the actual struggle of life, in direct action. But this precisely is the weak spot of the reformist. The further removed he is from mass action, the more bookish and pedantic the issues involved, the greater the scope for quibbling, hair-splitting and obscurantism, the more is the reformist in his element. “On paper” he is prepared to stand his ground against communist attacks. In committees that shun the masses like the plague, that waste hours together on unreal problems of their own creation, he engages in the most valiant duels with the communists. If, therefore, the reformists get a fair assurance that the law, by the brutal suppression of revolutionary propaganda in any shape or form, and by nipping all militant working class organisations in the bud, would prevent communists from, getting an upper hand over reformists in open work, then the main source of the letters’ fear of working in the company of the former, is considerably allayed. They feel assured that if the communists were to jeopardise their position by overstepping the legal-reformist limits of ideological propaganda, the police would always be waiting to clear them out of the way. Moreover, when on account of their substantial and increasing influence among workers, and their suffering at the hands of imperialism, it seems impossible — as now in India — to direct against communists a frontal or vulgar attack of the kind earlier described, the course of dishing them under the laudable plea of unity, naturally suggests itself to the reformists. Of course that this manoeuvre may not turn against themselves, reformists have to fortify their own position in a number of ways. They require, to use a term now made famous by the political genius of British Imperialism, certain “safeguards” for the protection of their “legitimate” interests. Among other things, they require a bureaucratically controlled voting strength, large enough, under any conditions, to overwhelm the red element, as also the binding and unalterable acceptance of a set of reactionary aims and objects, of rules of organisation and procedure, with which to rule out of court any attempt that might be made by the radical element to utilise the united organisation for intensifying the struggle of the masses. Mr. Ruikar ensures the fulfillment of the former condition by bringing the forces of the NFTU to outweigh the forces of the RTUC, and of the latter, by his proposed terms of unity. If with all these precautions and safeguards, the refractory element persists in making revolutionary appeals to the workers, or criticising the treachery of the reformists, the latter would always be armed with a host of “constitutional” powers for punishing such “disruptive” and “indisciplinary” conduct. Indeed, having once liquidated the independent organisational existence of revolutionary trade unionism, it would be a deliberate policy of Ruikar & Co. to provoke and often compel the representatives of red unions to commit technical breaches of discipline, with a view to isolate them from one another, and thus crush each one individually and separately. This mode of attacking communists has the super added advantage that it makes the genuine ideological differences for which a reformist attack is really launched.

 

7

Regarding Unity Moves Between AITUC, RAITUC, NFTU

The Proposal : We are prepared for immediate amalgamation if you accept the following conditions :

(1) Complete freedom of revolutionary propaganda inside amalgamated unions. (No union should be split because of differences of opinion as to the line of ideology and action. Genuine Trade Union democracy. One should not be expelled from the executives simply because one professes a revolutionary line; e.g. the split in the GIF Railway Workers’ Union. The doctor and his associate and you were expelled because you professed the communist line; you were also charged of following the discipline of an outside body etc.)

(2) As a precondition to amalgamation of the Central AI Organisations the NFTU, the AITUC and the Red TUC must accept the amalgamation of rival unions wherever they exist; (The GIF and the BB and CI Unions are the only rival unions) on the basis of equal representation and on the basis of beginning their amalgamated existence by immediately undertaking to develop a struggle on the basis of concrete programmatic demands — in the case of these Railway Unions an all-India General Strike within a specified period.

(3) Wherever there are single unions in particular industries we give them equal representation and they give us equal representation in the executives to jointly further the development of the struggle on the basis of bringing about General Strikes within specified periods for specified demands.

(4) In order to guarantee genuineness the NFTU, the AITUC and the Red TUC issues a joint declaration calling upon their affiliated unions to amalgamate where there are rival unions, on the basis above given and also calling upon them to undertake immediate propaganda for struggles within specified periods for specified demands.

(5) As a culmination of this process of amalgamating the unions, The Central AI Organisations finally amalgamate into one powerful all-India TUC. ...

Source:  Unity moves between - AITUC, RA1TUC, NFTU

8

Towards Trade Union Unity in India

— By Ben Bradley and R Palme Dutt

The growing determination of the Indian working class to struggle for unity in the trade union field is a most significant and welcome feature of the present situation in India. To establish one united centralised trade union movement constitutes the most important immediate task facing the Indian working class. That this task is not easy was shown by the events which took place when the Trade Union Congress and National Trades Unions Federation met at the end of last year at Nagpur. Credit is, however, due to the persistence of the militant section in the trade union movement for consistently pursuing a number of steps towards unification. These steps, taken by the militant section of the trade union movement of India, have resulted in the achievement of a number of successes in the struggle for the consolidation of the forces of the working class in the country.

... Nevertheless, we cannot fail to recognise that with all the determination of the workers these struggles have been seriously impaired by the breaches in the ranks of the movement. This is clear if we take some of the outstanding struggles; such as the GIF Railwaymen’s strike of 1930; from the very beginning the position of the railway workers was considerably weakened by their ranks being divided. Similarly, with the Bengal Jute workers’ strike of 1930, and the many textile workers’ strikes in the years following in Bombay, Nagpur and elsewhere. The more recent examples are shown with the dock workers’ strike in 1934, in Bombay, and the dock workers’ strike in 1934-35, in Calcutta.

All these struggles were conducted with determination, vigour and sacrifice, but without unity in the face of the enemy. With their ranks broken the workers can put up but feeble resistance to the continued attacks upon their economic standards; at the same time they are unable to present to the employers united commands for better conditions. The determination of the working class of India to establish a united working class movement springs from these experiences and this situation.

The advance of unity

Already steps of tremendous importance have been taken to achieve this unity. The first struggle to obtain unity was in connection with the All-India Textile Workers’ strike of 1934. This was followed by the unification, on the basis of the class struggle and trade union democracy, of the Red Trade Union and the All-India Trade Union Congress in April, 1935.

... an effective and powerful trade union movement requires all-embracing class solidarity of the workers. At the same time the representatives of different view points within the trade unions should be free to conduct propaganda for their viewpoints and policy on the issues that arise, always avoiding all disruptive conflicts and loyally maintaining discipline in the common struggle. Here we feel that the importance can not be overestimated of the acceptance at Calcutta of the two points as the necessary basis of trade union unity; (1) acceptance of the class struggle and, (2) internal trade union democracy. These two points must be emphasised and form the corner stone of the future trade union movement; they will help to ensure a vital, fighting, mass trade union movement in India. ...

The establishment of the, Joint Labour Board was the next step taken towards the further extension of the workers united front. The Joint Labour Board was established to co-ordinate the activities of the amalgamated TUC and the national Trade Union Federation, and to draw the mass of the trade union workers and local organisations of the right reformist unions closer to the workers in other unions towards trade union unity and to participate in the class struggle.

Alongside the establishment of the Joint Labour Boards there were organised in Bombay, Calcutta, Nagpur and elsewhere joint mass meetings and demonstrations against the new slave constitution, against the ban on militant workers’ organisations, against the fascist aggressive war on Abyssinia, and joint demonstrations on May Day. ...

It is necessary also to place on record the fact of the active participation of the adherents of the militant trade union movement in the Radical Political Conference both in Bombay and Nagpur (November, 1935). All these are indications of the increasing activity of the masses in the struggle against war and imperialism, and testify to the fact that the Communists and the adherents of the militant trade union movement are steadily overcoming the remnants of sectarianism, and the isolation of the trade union movement from the anti-imperialist front.

Opposition to Trade Union unity

The intense desire of the workers for unity manifested itself at Nagpur towards the end of last year when the All-India Trade Union Congress and the National Trades Union Federation met simultaneously. Yet, despite the efforts made, particularly by the militant section, to bring the TU movement under one head, this was not achieved.

The Executive Committee of the AITUC formulated certain proposals for unity, and it appears that the most important of these were : (1) The name of the organisation shall be the All-India Trade Union Congress; (2) The constitution shall be that of the national Trade Union Federation, with modifications if necessary; and (3) that the first working committee shall consist of an equal number of officials from both organisations. To which a couple of sub-points were added; (a) No affiliation to any foreign organisation, (b) The amalgamated central working class organisation to accept the principle of sending delegates to Geneva.

It is quite reasonable to draw the conclusion from the above that the Executive of the AlTUC were prepared to sink everything in the interests of trade union unity. But it is amazing, in view of the principles accepted at Calcutta, that the important question of trade union democracy does not appear at all, while it was not thought necessary to stress the principle of the class struggle, the reason being, according to RS Ruikar, that the principle of class struggle was acceptable to both groups.

The tremendous demand for working class unity had its repercussion in the discussions in the General Council of the National Trades Union Federation. In fact reports show that there was majority in the body who favoured immediate structural unity, and a section of the members favoured “Unity by stages.” This opposition to immediate unity was led by NM Joshi, whose demand was equivalent to a call for capitulation of the AITUC, and it should unconditionally enter the National Federation, the federation leadership reserving the right to accept whom it thought fit and to reject those with whom it did not see eye to eye. To have accepted such a position would have been to have betrayed the fundamental principles of the working class. The working class members of the National Federation and the AITUC demand unity not capitulation, unity based upon the recognition of the principles of the class struggle in practice and complete trade union democracy.

Despite the majority in favour, the resolution for immediate unity was withdrawn and a resolution giving wider powers to the Joint Board, and extending the principle of such Joint Boards to the Provinces, was agreed to. Unity for the moment is sidetracked, nevertheless, the policy of NM Joshi must be fought and the struggle the achieve one united trade union movement must go on with redoubled energy.

Weaknesses in carrying through the struggle for unity

While we can place on record a number of successes achieved by the adherents of the militant section of the trade union movement, it is necessary at the same time to emphasise that certain incorrect approaches have been made in their activities in actual struggle. One of the most striking examples was the refusal of the adherents of the militant TU movement from the Nagpur amalgamated textile workers' union to let the national reformist leaders and officials of this union participate in the leadership of the Hingangat textile workers’ strike. So far was this carried that the national reformist leaders of the amalgamated textile workers’ unions and of the TUC were refused the floor at the strikers' meetings etc. This policy made it easier for the reformist leaders to apply their policy of expelling the adherents of the militant trade union movement, with the result that the struggle for trade union unity was hampered.

Further examples are that of the organisation by the Lal Bavta Press Kamgar Union of a provincial press workers’ conference, and also an All-India Conference — an excellent piece of work, but done without the participation of the nationalist reformist unions which are in existence. Another example of surviving sectarianism is that of the decision of the Calcutta Tramwaymen’s Union, to remain an independent union and not to affiliate to the amalgamated Trade Union Congress; to this extent our forces inside the Trade Union Congress struggling for TU unity are weakened. We recognise the difficulties of our comrades, but these must not prevent us taking the lead always and every time on the question of trade union unity. ...

Next steps for Trade Union unity

We feel that the adherents of the militant trade union movement, working in the trade unions of India, will be able to greatly strengthen their position and place themselves in the forefront of the struggle provided they are able to concentrate their attention on and carry through the following suggestions:

It is necessary to carry through at the earliest possible moment the amalgamation of the parallel Lal Bavta and national-reformist trade unions still existing in a number of centres and industries. This should be immediately applied to the unions on the GIF Railway, to the press workers, to the textile workers in all centres — linking up these centres, and to a number of unions in Bengal. The next step would be the transformation of the amalgamated trade unions into powerful mass organisations. This would constitute the major task in the struggle for the elimination of the split in the trade union movement. When we recognise that only a very small percentage of the industrial workers of India are organised in the trade union movement and what tremendous possibilities there are, the next task obviously is to achieve powerful mass organisations. To do this every amalgamated union should declare a “recruitment month” and make the recruiting of the new members one of the most important tasks of the trade union. ...

Unity of action between the trade unions of the TUC and unions of the National Trade Union Federation can be greatly facilitated by full use being taken of the proposal to extend the principle of Joint Labour Boards to the provinces. By our joint work and action with the workers in the unions under the National Trade Union Federation we should greatly strengthen the demand for trade union unity. The struggle for the amalgamation of the TU Congress and the national TU Federation, on the basis of class struggle and trade union democracy, necessitates a strengthening of business-like, concrete criticism of the policy of class collaboration, pursued by reformist leaders, and an exposure before the working class of all the opponents of trade union unity, of all reformist leaders who endeavour to replace unity on the basis of class struggle by unity on the basis of class collaboration and expulsion of the militant forces from the amalgamated unions.

The development of united struggle

The struggle for the united front and trade union unity will not achieve its aim if it remains isolated and divorced from the developing struggle of the working class for its immediate economic and political demands. The united front and trade union unity should become a mighty weapon for strengthening the working class struggle against the ever continuing and, in some centres, intensified offensive of capital, against the anti-labour and emergency laws of the Imperialist Government, aiming to deprive still further the workers of their remnants of political rights.

The task of the adherents of the militant trade union movement should be to show the greatest possible activity and initiative in developing and extending the struggle of the working class for its vital economic demands, taking into account the situation in various industries, and mobilising the masses for the struggle around urgent slogans and demands, based upon the vital needs of the masses and the degree of the their fighting capacity.

Question such as the fight against wage cuts, for the restoration of the cuts effected in the past period, for insurance against sickness and accidents, for the reinstatement of dismissed workers, for non-contributory unemployment insurance, against the anti-working class laws, etc., are the question agitating at present the broadest masses of workers. These are the slogans around which the workers should be rallied for a counter-offensive fight against capitalism and imperialism. All these issues should be linked up with the struggle for the workers’ elementary political rights; (the right to strike, freedom of organisation, freedom of the workers’ press and assembly, freedom of political prisoners, universal suffrage, etc. ...

Work in reformist Trade Unions

Persistent, systematic work inside the reformist trade unions is among the most important conditions of a successful struggle for the everyday economic and political demands of the working masses. It is necessary to develop systematic, painstaking, everyday work in all the reformist and amalgamated trade unions. While it would be a mistake to aim at crystallising in a fixed organisational form a trade union opposition, it is necessary to carry on independent work of militant education and mobilisation of the masses, in defence of their economic and political interests, tirelessly combating all tendencies of class collaboration, and explaining that the policy and practice of Gandhist non-violence objectively aids British imperialism for the enslavement of the toiling masses of India.

The more determinedly the adherents of the militant trade union movement lay stress on the consolidation of the trade unions, on the recruitment of new members to the amalgamated trade unions from among the unorganised, the more actively they join in the day-to-day work and life of the trade union organisation, always remembering the specific features of every mass union and every industry, the more boldly they will be able to come out in the defence of the workers' demands — the more successful they will prove in strengthening their positions in the reformist trade unions, in gaining the confidence of the workers and leading positions in the unions, and turning the latter into organs of the class struggle. The question of developing work in the railwaymen’s, textile workers’, dockers; seamen and municipal workers' unions, of which some are very large and have increasingly militant membership — is acquiring particular and growing significance. ...

Strengthening militant Trade Unionism

To strengthen and broaden the whole of our work in the trade union movement the adherents of the militant trade union movement should consider in the nearest future the possibilities of issuing a militant labour press, carrying propaganda through such a press from the viewpoint of the militant labour movement, publishing material on all the question of current life in India and abroad, developing a determined struggle against the reformist ideology and policy as well as the practice of class collaboration, concretely criticising the opponents of the united front and trade union unity on the basis of class struggle and trade union democracy, and rallying and organising the masses for the struggle against capitalism and imperialism.

The question of assisting in the development of and bringing forward new militant working-class leaders is a problem facing acutely the militant section of the Indian trade union movement, and one which requires immediate solution. The promotion of leaders from the midst of the workers devoted to the cause of the working class, from those connected with the masses and steeled in [storm] of the class struggle, should become the main concern of the militant trade union movement. The proper allocation of those leaders, their protection, the careful and comradely notification of any shortcomings and mistakes, concrete everyday leadership and political education of cadres should not bear a casual character, but becoming a living part of the work and struggle of the adherents of the militant trade union movement. It is therefore imperative that Marxist literature be issued, short-term courses organised, etc.

... The tremendous experience over these years has shown with ever greater clearness that the Indian working class, drawing in its wake the great mass of peasantry and all the exploited mass, is destined to lead to a finish and to final victory the fight against imperialism. The bourgeois-landlord class have proved themselves incapable of leading the struggle; they move towards co-operation with imperialism and bitterly oppose every sign of mass struggle of the workers and peasants for fear of the menace to their own private interests. ... The Indian working class has a decisive role to play in the anti-imperialist people’s front as the strongest driving force.

For the working class of India to realise this important role one thing is indispensable — the development of a united trade union movement, organising the main body of the workers on the basis of their common class interests in the daily struggle. In this manner the united working class will not merely be able to pull its full weight in successful economic struggles, but will be able to bring its full strength to bear in the powerful anti-imperialist people’s front and this will be decisive for the future victory in the struggle against British imperialism.

Source: Inprecor, March 7,1936

9

Unity at Last — But with Reservations

And yet the struggle for Trade Union Unity is not over. The United Session at Nagpur constitutes a new beginning of this struggle. The advance marked by Nagpur consists only in giving a concrete organisational form to this fight. With Nagpur the struggle now emerges from the realm of discussions and negotiations into a question of practical working. And though the affiliation of the NFTU is a distinct step forward from the ineffective joint Board of 1936, still by itself it does not solve the problem of unity.

For there are a number of reservations. In the first place the NFTU affiliates as a unit and that too for one year, after which the position will be reviewed: Then there are further reservations regarding strike and political questions. The unity resolution passed by the Calcutta Session stated “with regard to political questions and strikes, individual unions will be free to take any action they please in the absence of any mandate given by the three-fourths majority of the central organisation”. The AITUC though dissatisfied,, with these reservations, accepted them as the basis for future structural unity.

These reservations serve to demonstrate the weakness of the present stage of the unity struggle. Driven by their own experience, organisations and individuals are strongly feeling the urge for a united movement. Yet they are not able to cast of their old prejudices and outlook completely. Distrust and suspicion among co-workers which in the past did irrepairable harm to the TU movement, yet holds strong sway in the minds of the moderate leaders. Otherwise one can not explain the clause demanding a three-fourths majority for strikes and political questions.

With the recognition of the NFTU as a unit and the three-fourths majority provision for strikes and political questions, a sort of second chamber is created inside the Trade Union Congress. These provisions make it impossible to have co-ordinated working class action in the TU field, or give a centralised political lead, if a majority of the NFTU unions do not favour such a step. On such occasions the central organisation will be left without direction, a ship without the rudder. The basic purpose of Trade Union Unity, namely, stronger pressure on employers through co-ordinated and simultaneous action, is negated under the present provisions. However these provisions must be considered to be transitional measures designed to bring about final unity. The danger will become acute if they are perpetuated and a second chamber with powers of veto, becomes a permanent feature of the TU movement.

Political currents within the united TUC

These reservations arising from differences in outlook and approach, emphasise the fact that a number of currents and cross currents will be at play inside the TUC. Even if the safeguards are removed, the ship of the TUC will receive sudden jerks, resulting from pulls in different directions. The new orientations of various groups and individuals will make strange combinations, till a common outlook and approach is developed. Mr. NM Joshi with his conservative politics of the Liberal Federation, will not see eye to eye with those who stand for strengthening the National Congress. He is likely to oppose collective affiliation in the name of working class independence. His orientation towards the conception of class struggle is confined to the day to day struggle of the workers. The broader problems of National Front and the role of the working class as initiator and builder of this front, are entirely lacking in his outlook. He would be opposed to the participation of the TUC in the political struggle. However Mr. Joshi, if one is to judge him by his utterances, is likely to take a strong stand on the question of arbitration and imperialist conciliation which threatens to drown the free Trade Unions. In fighting the avalanche of rival unions and arbitration bills, launched under the inspiration of the Gandhi Seva Sangha, Mr. Joshi, who in the past caused immense embarrassment to the Central Government, will prove a great asset to the united TUC.

The national orientation of a section of the NFTU leadership, led by Mr. Giri, will be another important current in the shaping of the united organisation. How far the nationalism of the Madras Minister is a product of his radical orientation and how far it is due to the parliamentary orientation of the Congress, are questions which cai only be answered by the Hon'ble Minister himself. As matters stand Mr. Giri and his followers will act as standing counsels, justifying the policy of the extreme right wing of the National Congress and holding an able brief for depending all on ministerial measures. Collective affiliation will be opposed, though the policy of strengthening the INC will receive passive support. Direct action will meet with active opposition, to avoid "embarrassment" to the Congress Ministries. This identification of Mr. Giri with the ministerial section of the INC creating another danger spot for the TU movement. Recently the Madras Labour Minister went into ruptures over the Ahmedabad Majur Mahajan, and paid glowing tributes to Gandhiji's arbitration principle. If Mr. Giri continues to be enchanted by the policy of the Gandhi Seva Sangha, he will cause immense embarrassment to the United TUC and weaken the struggle against the shackles of arbitration.

Source: National Front, April 17,1938.

 

10

Indian Working Class in Action

May Day, 1938, sees the Indian Working Class in full action in every trade and industry. The action takes various forms and ranges from conferences, huge mass-meetings, mass enrollment of union membership to mass-demonstrations and big strike-battles. ...
… Cities like Bombay, Calcutta, Madras, Ahmedabad, Sholapur, Cawnpore, had already come into prominence as “strike-cities”. The jute and textile workers were already branded by opponents as ‘irrepressible’ strikers. The new strike-wave brought into prominence cities and categories of workers unknown before. Far more widespread in its dimensions and intensity than the 1928-29 strike-wave, the present movement engulfed the backward trades and industries, though the workers did not possess the advantage of concentration and large numbers.

Backward workers join the fray

Tobacco workers, bidi workers, match factory workers — all one by one joined the ranks of the strikers and rallied under the Red banner of the international working class. ...

The economic basis of the strike wave

... Even a cursory glance at economic developments clearly demonstrates that the present strike-wave is the direct result of the new industrial boom through which India is passing. Thanks to the war preparations and the armaments boom, prices are looking up, stock-exchange quotations have risen, shares in iron and steel, textile, jute, have registered a heavy increase. ... The number of employed workers in Bombay reached the colossal figure of 180,000, a figure never reached before. This unprecedented increase took place in spite of the most brutal rationalisation drive, embodied in the six, three and four looms systems in the weaving sections and the increase of spindles per man in the spinning sections. ... Ahmedabad was on night-shift long before this. Even small centres like Khandesh started night-shifts.

The Sino-Japanese war not only cut off Japanese competition in the home market but also secured a large foreign market for the Bombay mill magnates. Up-country mills increased their production, quite a number started night-shifts thus demonstrating an all-round prosperity in the mill industry. The jute industry discontinued short-time as far back as 1936 and the production of sacking and Hessians rose from 2,122 million yards in 1931 to 3,500 million yards in 1936, an increase of 65%. Railway earnings continually increased and output in manganese, iron and coal registered a steady rising curve. Simultaneously with this prosperity, prices of foodstuffs began to rise and the Cost of Living Index Number of the Bombay Labour Office showed an increase of nine points over the 1934 figure. Thus the main basis of the strike struggles is the returning industrial prosperity which the owners tried to monopolise, which fact the workers were not slow to grasp. The success of the Congress at the polls and the consequent formation of popular ministries no doubt added to the enthusiasm and determination of the workers. But any attempt to trace the mighty struggles either to the machinations of the Reds or to the mere enthusiasm of the workers over the Congress ministries, misses the main basic cause — the expansion of industry and the rise in profits. ...

The working class of the offensive

In this background of rising prosperity and increased employment the strike-struggle of the Indian workers undergoes a sudden transformation. Till last year the workers were on the defensive, fighting with their backs to the wall against continued wage-cuts and attacks on their standard of living. ... Between the last and this year’s May Day, the workers pass to the offensive. Throughout India, in every industry and factory, in small and big cities, resounds the one war-cry : “Restore wages to the pre-depression level.” Restoration of old wage-cuts, increase in wages, constitute the invariable demand of the present strike-battles. The confidence and determination of the workers in putting forward this demand can be gathered from the fact that between 1933—37 wages had gone down by nearly 25%. Now the workers demand the full restoration of this monstrous wage-cut effected 5 years back, and take to the streets to gather the fruits of industrial prosperity. ... The owners are on the defensive : they seek to maintain the status quo. The workers demand a change in their own favour.

Workers demand Trade Union recognition

The working-class offensive finds expression on a still higher level. Along with the wage-increase, comes the demand for Trade Union Recognition, that mighty symbol of working-class unity and organisation. In almost every strike this democratic demand becomes a resounding war-cry for rallying thousands of workers. ... Victimisation of union officials and active workers invoke united resistance and strike-action on the part of the workers. ...

A year of progressive triumph

The Election Manifesto of the Congress and the formation of Congress ministries in seven provinces have introduced a new feature in the working class struggle. The strike-struggle wins allies from the non-proletarian sections; Congress committees support it and bring pressure on the vacillating ministries. Strikes cease to be the isolated fights of the factory workers; more and more they come to be regarded as a part of the great democratic movement, led by the National Congress. Volunteers picket mill-gates; small shop-keepers organise relief measures for starving strikers. The challenge to the workers is taken as a challenge to the Congress and the employing class gets more and more isolated. Nowhere was this tremendous urge for national unity more in evidence than at Cawnpore. The local Congress Committee lent its full support to the strike. The Provincial Congress Committee followed suit and the large mass of Congress volunteers moved to action and fought shoulder to shoulder with the workers. In the Khandesh districts of the Bombay Presidency the same story was repeated to the complete discomfiture of the recalcitrant owners. The owners here refused to grant the increase recommended by the Jairam Das Committee. The workers held out a threat of strike. The local Congress Committee denounced the owners. The MPCC urged the owners to put the recommendations into effect. Anticipating a prolonged strike the local municipality passed a resolution for organising relief measures. They came down and granted the increase recommended by the Committee.

The new strike-wave is therefore distinguished from the 1928-29 wave by the following basic features. (1) It is far more widespread in its character and embraces even backward workers. (2) In contrast to the 1928-29 struggle the present strike- battles show the working class on the offensive. (3) The fight for Trade Union Rights is far more determined than nine years back. (4) The isolation of the working class, which was a patent feature of the earlier struggles, is breaking down and strikes come to be regarded as part of the democratic movement. ...

The tasks ahead

The new working class offensive and the success scored by it bring new tasks to the forefront. The efficacy of the strike as a weapon to win basic demands has been effectively demonstrated in the past year. It has been conclusively proved that neither the Congress Ministries nor the workers can achieve anything without direct action. To sharpen this weapon and lead the working class to fresh victories — that forms the basic task of the present period.

But the Congress Ministries, inspired by the false ideology of the Gandhi Seva Sangh, are seeking to curtail the workers' right, just when it is absolutely necessary to keep it intact. The recent Bombay Bill threatens to extinguish the right to strike. The Madras proposals go one step further and openly deny the workers' right to resort to direct action. The same ideology makes Trade Union recognition become conditional on rejection of direct action, thus reducing it to a farce. To wage an irreconcilable fight against these false and reactionary proposals, to compel the Ministries to stick to the spirit of the manifesto, [such are the main tasks confronting us today.]

Source: New Age, May 1938.

 

11

New Chains for Indian Workers

BT Ranadive

Through the present amendment imperialism is extending its attack on the national struggle by still further restricting the political rights of the Indian working class. Under the amended Act provincial governments have been given the right to include Tramways and Inland Water Transport Services in the definition of public utility services. Mr. MM Joshi's amendment to exclude the Tramways was defeated by 454 votes to 5. The Congress and Independent Parties remained neutral. Thanks to this “improvement” tramways and water transport workers will be penalised for organising mass-hartals without notice. Lightning strikes for economic purposes will also be penalised. The neutrality of the Congress Party on this question is simply amazing. No Congressman, unless he wants to repudiate the whole history of the Congress can afford to remain neutral on an issue which vitally concerns the freedom of the national movement and affects the rights of the workers.

The Government sought to replace clause 16 of the old Act by an entirely new clause. The Government were not satisfied with banning every big strike, even though it might be confined to a particular industry or a particular place. In introducing the amendments in 1936 Sir Frank Noyce referred to the Bombay Textile Strike which was confined to one industry alone. With this aim in view, the Government tried to remove the words “prolonged, general and severe” from the clause. Fortunately for the workers and the people the Government were not entirely successful. The dogged fight put up by NM Joshi, Prof. Ranga, NN Gadgil and Abdul Qayyum resulted in the retention of these words, which restrict the scope of the new clause. Once more the conduct of Bhulabhai Desai, the leader of the Congress was amazing, to say the least. He agreed to the deletion of the word “prolonged” and thereby to the broadening of the scope of the new section. Mass-hartals of all industries would thus be effectively banned in future. The leader of the Congress Party has failed to protect the rights of the workers and the national movement.

The new section constitutes a further encroachment on the rights of the workers to participate in the national struggle. The old section penalises a prolonged general strike of all industries when undertaken for political purposes. The new section goes further and seeks to ban protest-strikes and demonstrations which last for a day or two. The case for political strikes was effectively put by Mr. Abdul Qayyum from the floor of the Assembly. He said: “The attempt to make political strikes illegal was dangerous because a general political strike was the only weapon in the hands of the people to wrest power. Such a strike therefore, was a necessity, and a patriotic act.” Prof. Ranga with equal force declared : “It is only through a nation-wide political strike that we are going to get any grievance redressed. ... And when such strike was called no hands could stand in the way”.

The new section does not stop here. Under it, according to Prof. Ranga, “it is open to the police to declare a strike illegal even if one of the strike-leaders used certain political phrases in the course of his address to the strikers. The danger arising frora this was greater because those who were interested in Labour were also interested in the emancipation of the country and believed that it was impossible to do anything real for Labour without getting political power”.

Source: National Front, 3 April 1938.

 

12

On Trade Union Policy

By BT Ranadive

(1) The proletariat, led by its party, must play a decisive role in the struggle for national and social emancipation. ... Disunity in its ranks, and political immaturity, are invariably attended by disastrous consequences — the triumph of Fascism and reaction. The maturity of the working class to shoulder its historic responsibility and unify the people in action at any given stage of the struggle is the one condition of its success.

(2) The task before the Marxist Party, therefore, has always been to win the majority of the Working class for its programme, policy and tactics ..... Before the party can lead the people, it must learn to lead the proletariat.

(3) ... The establishment of a permanent living link between the party and the majority of the working class is ensured only through mass trade unions, which lead the overwhelming numbers in their day-to-day conflicts, with the established order. The strength of the revolutionary party lies in the trade unions and the influence it exercises, through them to activise the entire mass of proletarians. The weakness of the German CP in the TU proved fatal not only to the working class but to the entire mass of German people.

(4) Trade unions and the economic struggle led by them thus constitute the main lever to move the working class as a class. They form the basic condition of its political unification and offer the only training ground for workers to gradually realize the political responsibility resting on their shoulders. ...

(5) This rise of trade unions in post war India and strike struggles round which they centered marked the beginning of a new chapter. Their significance lay in the fact that the class which is historically destined to play a decisive role in the anti-imperialist struggle, had started moving and laying a basic foundation for fulfilling that role ...

Where other parties saw mere economic struggles or a diversion from the main stream of the national struggle, the Communists saw a new class coming to the forefront, a class on whose political maturity depended the outcome of national struggle itself.

(6) The steadily growing strength 'of the trade unions in India, despite heavy repression and intimidation, despite the misery through which the workers have waded before even a semblance of organization could be created, works the beginning of a new era in post-war India. In 1918 no organized trade unions existed. Within a decade there were 29 registered trade unions with a membership of 1,00,619. In 1935-36 there were 236 unions, with a membership of 268,326. ...

Though the number of organized-workers (268,326) appears very small in relation to the total number (18,000,000) employed in some branch of industry or another, or even in relation to those (5,000,000) engaged in organized and regulated industries, yet it would be a mistake to deduce the actual influence and strength from the playing membership alone. ... In 1936 alone not less than 600,000 workers struck work, and the overwhelming majority carried on their struggles under the leadership of their unions.

(7) The increasing membership and influence, in different industries, the establishment of a united central organ — the TUC, — the gradual replacing of the local conflicts by nation-wide conflicts (Textile strike of 1934) —all these be taken that the working class is gradually becoming more and more unified in the day-to-day struggles and developing a co-ordinated and unified leadership. Thus the precondition laid down by Marx for the political unification of the working class namely “that a previous organization of the working class itself arising itself from the economic struggles, should have been developed up to a certain point” is being rapidly fulfilled.

(8) ... The main achievement of the last two decades may, therefore, be summarised as follows : — The trade union struggle has increased in its scope, the trade unions have become a force claiming the allegiance of thousands; every year increasing number of workers are realising the necessity of a permanent organisation to defend their own interest; the workers everywhere have overcome the resistance of the reformist leadership to direct action; the present day organizations are mostly born in the process of strike struggles. “Pure Trade Unionism” or “economism” which-at one time split the TU movement (in 1929) is no longer able to stay the march of the workers towards unification and politicalisation — freedom of political propaganda is allowed inside the TUC. Individual unions and their members freely participate in political activities without a danger of split in the TU ranks. ...

(9) With all this, the trade union movement has yet to achieve its basic task — the task of winning the entire class in the struggle for partial demands. Real class unity can be achieved only if the central organ of the TU movement plays the role of a guide, leader and unifier. The united Trade Union Congress, however, keeps to the old traditions and plays the role of a passive spectator, of gigantic struggles. It does not study the industrial situation and refuses to forewarn the workers. It has no plan for offering guidance to local unions. It makes no effort to co-ordinate the scattered struggles or make special efforts to organise the unorganized. Its unions are left to their own fate when engaged in struggles. Its existence is never felt by the workers in their hour of need. Its decisions are not known to the workers. They remain the special treasure of union officials. The TUC which must appear to every worker, as the embodiment of class unity, as the embodiment of the fighting resources of the entire proletariat, is to-day only a platform. It does not serve as a leader and co-ordinator of struggles.

The result has been that the worker looks only to his local union, and his trade union consciousness does not go beyond his immediate industrial surroundings. ...

The first step towards class unity, therefore lies in activising the TUC into a genuine leader of the working-class in its partial struggles. The TUC must seriously study problems of different industries, and be able to give its guidance to the workers. It must appeal to the workers in its own name and not only through the local unions. It should seize initiative on matters affecting the entire working class and carry on a vigorous agitation in its own name. ... The revolutionaries inside the TUC must see that the central organ discharges its responsibility in this direction.

The revolutionaries inside the TUC must be the first to carry out the mandates of the TUC and popularise them among the workers. They should be foremost in observing TUC discipline in matters which are primarily the concerns of the TU movement. ... The unity at the centre is yet to be followed by amalgamation of rival unions. This useless division in the ranks of the workers has to be ended once for all. Once more the central organ has failed to give a lead on this question. The Left must persistently demand such unification as the logical conclusion of the unity registered at Nagpur. ...

(10) ... Trade unions have become more than leaders of spontaneous strikes. They are rapidly becoming an integral part of working class life. Even though the removal of individual grievances is rendered difficult because of non-recognition of unions, still there exists a wide field open to the unions. The Acts of the central and local Govt., have never been utilised to the full by trade unions. Special agencies have developed in Bombay to secure compensation to the workers under the Workers’ Compensation Act. J he initiative thus passes out of the hands of the unions and the workers are defrauded. A close study of these Acts, the possibility of relief under these, education of the workers in connection with them, agitation for amending them, all these must be utilised by individual unions if they are to retain the loyalty of an ever-growing number.

(11) ... Since 1929, the Government of India, followed by local Governments is making strenuous efforts to attack the right of strike and organisation. Misguided legislation by some Congress Ministries is leading to the same result. Measures like the Bombay Trade Disputes Act, which endanger the freedom of the TU movement, must be combated with the full strength and the resources of working class. ... It is just because they not only disrupt the ranks of the working class, but disrupt national unity, that they have to be combated most ruthlessly. ...

(12) Defending the economic interests of the working class, struggling for TU and class unity, the revolutionaries should be able to bring larger and larger sections face to face with their political responsibilities. The main task that faces the proletariat to-day is that of national unification under the banner of the Congress. The working class as a class does not to-day strive for this task consciously and effectively. Neglect of the trade union struggle by national leaders, the prejudices which hitherto existed against it among the bulk of Congressmen, its consequent development as an exclusive struggle, coupled with the old traditions of “economism”, have been responsible for a certain estrangement and apathy towards the Congress. ... The fact that the backward section of workers still continue to be swayed by anti-Congress Communal leaders (Muslim League, Ambedkar in Bombay) and the fact that a section of the TU leadership itself is hostile to the national organisation, complicates the problem still further.
It is under these difficult circumstances that the task of drawing the workers into the Indian National Congress has to be carried forward. The estrangement and the apathy of the workers has to be overcome; the consciousness that the National Congress is the organ of national unification, that it is their task to make it more effective has to be created.

(13) This task has to be achieved without splitting trade union unity, without turning the backward workers away from the union. Trade union unity and mass mobilisation under individual unions, form the very basis of the task. Any attempt, therefore, to impose high-sounding resolutions by means of a majority vote (Socialist resolution at Cawnpore) asking the reformist leadership to accept the political line of the revolutionary wing is nothing short of disruption.

(14) ... By joining the Congress in their thousands, by participating in all political meetings and demonstrations organised by the Congress, the working class shall be able to increasingly influence the Congress and strengthen those forces inside it that stand for the policy of unity and struggle, for support by the Congress to the struggles of workers.

At the same time efforts must be made to move the Congress towards the working class, to make the Congress organisations take such stand as will enable it to increase its influence over the entire working class including even its backward sections. ...

(15) To carry out this task successfully, the revolutionary leadership should be able to appeal effectively to the people, the Congressmen; this means that the appeal from the TU platform must be replaced by an appeal to the democratic conscience and aspirations of the non-working class sections. The criticism of reactionary ministerial actions must be turned to the consciousness of the public, even strike strategy and tactics will have to be decided with a view to win public sympathy and Congress support. In short in conducting struggles and the trade union movement in general, the revolutionaries must never forget that they are a part of the people's struggle and their success depends not only on working class unity, but on the united resistance of the entire population.

(16) Developing the trade union struggle as a part of the people's struggle, the revolutionary leadership will be able to make it more effective and thereby over-come the resistance of TU sections. Its success will bring even the most backward workers under the TU banner and pave the way for complete class unity. The main demands of the working class such as minimum living wage, and right of trade union organization etc., will for the first time be considered as part of the people’s demands and the working class will secure strong sanctions to enforce them. ... The TU movement will be recognised as a limb of the national movement and the working class as its powerful arm. ...

(17) To develop the TUC into an active leader of the partial struggles, to wage a vigorous fight for immediate demands, and to develop every struggle in close co-operation with the Congress, without splitting trade union unity — these to-day form the basic tasks before the revolutionaries. They will achieve the political unification of the working class, enabling it to fulfil its decisive role, only to the extent they succeed in achieving the above tasks.

Source: New Age, May 1939