The self-proclaimed "left" advocated policies marked by adaptation to syndicalist practices. Its views reflected several major weaknesses: inadequate knowledge of the historical experiences of the workers' movement; lack of experience in applying a Marxist program; sectarian excesses in trying to counter social reformism; no concept of the transitional method and program, or of necessary alliances; and efforts to bypass the initial stages through which the masses pass on their way to revolutionary consciousness.

Ultraleftism, the Russians patiently explained, could only isolate the vanguard, instead of deepening its integration as a leading component of the working class. The communists had to learn how to function among large numbers of workers just awakening to political life. Their aim should be to lead them forward and help them make a transition to revolutionary perspectives. To accomplish that, however, the workers themselves had to go through political experiences. These experiences would have to be shared by the members of the Communist Party, who would only then be in a position to help the workers analyze the lessons of their ongoing struggles. Only in that way could the treacherous role of reformists and centrists in the labor movement be systematically exposed for all to see and the way opened for development of revolutionary leaderships in the mass organizations of the proletariat.

Lenin took the initiative in spelling out the strategy and tactics required by communists in the revolutionary situation prevailing in Europe. His views were presented in "Left-Wing" Communism--An Infantile Disorder. This small book, published in June 1920, was distributed the following month to the delegates at the Comintern's second world congress. It dealt chiefly with the perspectives of ultraleft Communists in Germany, Great Britain, and Holland.

"It is far more difficult--and far more precious--to be a revolutionary when the conditions for direct, open, really mass and really revolutionary struggle do not yet exist," he wrote in the booklet, "to be able to champion the interests of the revolution (by propaganda, agitation, and organisation) in non-revolutionary bodies, and quite often in downright reactionary bodies, in a non-revolutionary situation, among the masses who are incapable of immediately appreciating the need for revolutionary methods of action.

"To be able to seek, find and correctly determine the specific path or the particular turn of events that will lead the masses to real, decisive and finally revolutionary struggle--that is the main objective of communism in Western Europe and in America today."

The massive postwar influx of radicalizing workers into the trade unions, Lenin said, confirmed "that class-consciousness and the desire for organisation are growing among the proletarian masses, among the rank and file, among the backward elements. Millions of workers in Great Britain, France and Germany are for the first time passing from a complete lack of organisation to the elementary, lowest, simplest and...most easily comprehensible form of organisation, namely, the trade unions."

In that volatile situation, the main aim of the reformist hacks who dominated the trade union officialdom in the capitalist countries was to preserve their bureaucratic control over the workers in order to perpetuate class-collaborationist policies. Their central objectives were to confine union demands to limited economic and social improvements within the capitalist system; to maintain a formally "neutral" attitude on political questions that amounted to support for ruling-class policy; and to ensure that trade-union action did not move toward challenging bourgeois political power.

The "leftists" were impervious to the growing opportunities for communists to take on these class-collaborationist perspectives in the unions and win workers to their views. They repudiated the established trade unions unconditionally, calling for new, revolutionary unions.  
 
Working in the existing unions
Lenin quoted a pamphlet of the German "left-wing communists" on this question. "A Workers' Union, based on factory organizations, should be the rallying point for all revolutionary elements," the pamphlet said. "This should unite all workers who follow the slogan: 'Get out of the trade unions!' It is here that the militant proletariat musters its ranks for battle. Recognition of the class struggle, of the Soviet system and of the dictatorship should be sufficient for enrollment."

Such a course, which puts an ultimatum to the masses of workers, could only lead to disaster, Lenin said.

"This is so unpardonable a blunder," he wrote, "that it is tantamount to the greatest service Communists could render the bourgeoisie....

"To refuse to work in the reactionary trade unions means leaving the insufficiently developed or backward masses of workers under the influence of the reactionary leaders, the agents of the bourgeoisie, the labour aristocrats."

"There can be no doubt," Lenin continued, that the union bureaucrats of all nations "are very grateful to those 'Left' revolutionaries who, like the German opposition 'on principle' (heaven preserve us from such 'principles'!), or like some of the revolutionaries in the American Industrial Workers of the World advocate quitting the reactionary trade unions and refusing to work in them."

To the contrary, Lenin explained, "The task devolving on Communists is to convince the backward elements, to work among them, and not to fence themselves off from them with artificial and childishly 'Left' slogans."

To be effective, communist policy required that party cadres participate in the unions as they currently existed. Only in that way could they cooperate directly with the workers in their struggles and experiences, using that close relationship to guide them toward adoption of revolutionary perspectives.  
 
 
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