Article from the Bremen Arbeiterpolitik, signed under the word W, that criticized the view of the Independents' [USPD] leadership towards the Unitary Organization. Originally published in "Arbeiterpolitik, 1918, No. 17".
The Independent press printed the following ukase after some of its members called for a political-trade union unitary organization: “The trade union bureaucracy has caused a great deal of resentment in trade union circles by acting politically as an accomplice to government policy.
There are frequent complaints that trade union leaders act in an autocratic manner and disregard the independence of the members.
However, the resulting dissatisfaction among members should not lead them to turn their backs on the unions and form new ones. Rather, the members must ensure within the existing trade unions that the trade unions are placed on a sound footing and filled with a socialist spirit.”
Indeed, the call of the Independent Party leadership confirms once again how necessary it is for workers to take their fate into their own hands. The language of the decree sounds familiar to the workers, it is the language of the Scheidemann, who also commanded the workers in an autocratic manner in defiance of all democracy. This is precisely what it is about, that the working class frees itself from an autocratic leadership that disregards the independence of its members.
The Stuttgart Independents have correctly recognized that the political-union unitary organization is the necessary means of struggle for the coming confrontations between capital and labour. What the leadership of the Independents wants is a struggle within the existing trade unions for the trade unions, like that waged by the members of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft within the Scheidemann Party, who always shied away from the ultimate consequences and new paths.
The “Leipziger Volkszeitung” shows that the independent trade union bureaucrats are ultimately only interested in seizing power within the trade unions by writing, among other things, the following about the Stuttgart action: “We declare flatly that we cannot approve the formation of new trade unions. This would lead to a split in the trade unions and fratricidal struggles. ... It is precisely in the interests of the working class that the opposition remains in the trade unions. The split in social democracy must not be referred to. It is not the work of the opposition. The opposition wanted to remain in the party for the most part, but was excluded by the party executive...”
In the trade unions we are now experiencing the same dithering and hesitation; the majority of independents do not seem to want to take a new step. But the unionized working class has also awakened and will go its own way without being commanded by authorities. Even the independents will not change anything about the “free” trade unions. They have entered the waters of the English trade unions and have long since given up the class struggle by adopting a policy of reconciliation with bourgeois society and engaging in horse-trading with business.
For class-conscious workers who have not lost sight of the ultimate goal, for whom the overall interests of the suffering and struggling proletariat are the highest priority, and who are not concerned with rising to become a national workers' aristocracy, but have retained an internal [international?] way of thinking and feeling, the “free” trade unions will sooner or later be finished. The confrontation between capital and labor will come and labor will be the victor if it chooses the form of struggle that is up to the task.
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