VLVL II: Warum gibt es in den Vereinigten Staaten keinen Kommunismus?

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

 ° ... from Anthony J. Badger: The New Deal. The Depression Years 1933-1940. new york 1989:      
    hill and wang, pp. 138ff.

   " ... concentration on the great and violent clashes and emphasis on the role of political   
     radicals obscures the fact that militancy was directed essentially at limited, trade    
    union gains, not at political revolution or a fundamental change in the economic system./   
   the militant mood of the workers was relatively short-lived. not only was the 1933-4 
  upsurge ephemeral, but the later dramatic gains in 1937 were followed by a remarkable fall-
 off in dues-paying by the newly signed workers (...) the core of militant activists, 'spark 
  plug' unionists or leadership cadres, was always small and not representative of the mass 
   workforce (...) these leaders gained support from the mass of workers essentially to remedy    
     shop-floor grievances. militancy was directed towards the contract, higher wages, 
      seniority, and grievance procedures, and control of the speed of production. what the 
       workers were seeking was control of the shop floor, not control of the means of 
        production or a role in wider management policy-making (...) as the politically  
         radical leaders had to acknowledge, the ordinary mass of new immigrant, newly 
           organised workers were loyal and enthusiastic supporters of roosevelt and the 
             democratic party. the radicals served the cause of trades unions far better than 
               trade unions served the cause of the radicals. communists and socialists were 
                effective and gained support because they were good organisers (...) time 
                 after time, veteran communist and socialist organisers of the 1930s lamented 
                  self-critically their failure to inculcate radical political values in the 
                   workers they were so successfully organising into unions. socialist 
                    organisers like the reuther brothers increasingly found that their goals 
                      could be just as well won within a labour-dominated democratic party.  
                       communist organisers found themselves vulnerable, well before the  
                        anti-communist hysteria of the post-war years, to red-baiting attacks 
                         from within their unions (...) this limited and precisely 
                          circumscribed rank-and-file militancy partly explains the later 
                           conservative and bureaucratised nature of the trades union 
                            movement. the union development was not simply the result of a 
                             self-serving bureaucratic plot by union officials, or a 
                              sophisticated move by corporate liberals (...) it was only for a 
                               small group of workers that the union became the centre of 
                                their day-to-day existence. for others, ethnocultural ties 
                                 continued to complement the union membership. unionism did  
                                   not become the mechanism for a class-based, anti-capitalist 
                                    movement."
  
  
 BOLSHOI METALLISTI: Can you take me where they are? KFL +