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SOCIALIST ACTION MARCH 1987 11 38.50 IBEW EW 700,000 trade unionists mobilized in Reagan's economic policies.

tactic varies with changes in mass consciousness.

In this country, the formation of a labor party based on the unions would represent a higher form of the united front. A labor party would unite workers who understand the need to take their economic struggles into the political arena. Advocates of reform and revolution would continue to coexist and vie for leadership in such a party.

In Europe and other countries where several mass labor or socialist parties exist, the call for the united front is a call for these parties to unite in action both in the streets and in the electoral arena against the capitalists and their representatives.

In Germany in the early 1930s, for example, revolutionaries called for the Communist Party and the Socialist Party to unite against Hitler. Their failure to unite paved the way for the advent of fascism in that country.

Workers' councils

The workers' council is the highest form of the united front. But this form can be reached only in a crisis of near revolutionary proportions.

In these periods of heightened class struggle, the workers' united front tends to become a kind of executive committee of the fighting organizations of the working class.

Trade unions, strike committees, factory committees and other institutions created by the workers in such periods tend to come together into a centralized and representative united front to direct the struggle of the entire class.

Such workers' councils also may evolve, in especially tumultuous periods, toward becoming an organ in the struggle for political power, i.e., a sort of "congress" or "parliament" of the fighting working class that can evolve into a workers' government.

In Russia, "soviets" (Russian for council) developed prior to the October 1917 revolution and became the organs of the new state power.

But in less turbulent times the united front is simply a form for uniting workers for limited action in the face of a clear and present danger.

Democracy in the united front Although pressure for the united front always comes from the ranks, it must begin with an agreement on top-between the leaders of competing workers' organizations. Democracy, at least initially, may be restricted within the bounds of the framework of such an agreement.

But the united front is established for the purpose of carrying out an action involving the mobilization, by each participating group, of their thousands and hundreds of thousands of members.

Practical decisions must be made on many levels in the course of preparing for and carrying out the agreed-on joint actions. This can only be done according to the principle of majority rule. Thus, the inexorable logic of the workers' united front is profoundly democratic. -NAT WEINSTEIN As the depth of opposition to the war visibly grew, increasing numbers of rank-and-file trade unionists and an important sprinkling of union leaders were won over to demand the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Vietnam. It was their sons who were least able to finagle exemptions from the draft, or, when drafted, to be assigned safe posts far from the battlefields.

Through this medium-the students and others directly threatened by the war—the class interests of workers made themselves felt in the antiwar coalition decision-making process. In the long run, of course, there is no substitute for the direct involvement of the organized workers.

Workers as a social class gain nothing from imperialist wars. Only the capitalists gain. Their wars are always a profit bonanza for the exploiting class, while workers are compelled to make sacrifices.

Guns or butter?

Despite capitalist promises about "building the Great Society" and "fighting a war against poverty" (both slogans cynically put out by the Johnson administration), resistance to the war steadily increased among workers at home.

Economic hardship would have accelerated this resistance. For this reason, the war strategy of American capitalism had to be based initially on a policy of "guns and butter."

Through deficit financing, full payment for the costs of the war was being temporarily postponed. Wage standards were maintained and even increased for many in the stronger unions. But this could not be maintained indefinitely. Either wages or profits would have to be diverted to pay for the enormous and steadily growing costs of the war.

The capitalist economy became seriously destabilized, taking the form of a worldwide crisis of confidence in the dollar. Forced by the monetary crisis to take measures to pay for the enormous war costs, an attack on workers' living standards and their unions was signaled in 1971 by President Nixon's decree of a "wage-price freeze."

Like all such "freezes," wages, but not prices (for the most part), were restrained by government edict.

This move to make the workers begin paying for the war had profound potential consequences, ultimately threatening to bring the heavy battalions of the working class, despite the bureaucracy, into the struggle. Had the U.S. capitalist government not withdrawn from Vietnam, its crisis could have grown to nearrevolutionary proportions.

But the development of mass consciousness was only slowed down. It didn't stop with the end of the war. It continues to evolve, under the impact of the deepening assault on workers' living standards and their unions.

U.S. war in Central America The experience of the Vietnam War laid the basis for a more rapid development of an effective antiwar movement in response to the imperialist intervention against the Nicaraguan and Central American revolution.

Late in 1984, sentiment grew for a mass action to show opposition to deepening intervention in Central America by the U.S. government. The same kinds of organizations that sponsored the anti-Vietnam War movement again took initiatives leading to a national action in the spring of 1985.

But there was a big change from the Vietnam War years. The assault on workers' living standards and their unions had been under way since Nixon's 1971 wage freeze. The anti-labor offensive was accelerated almost at the same time that the revolution in Nicaragua exploded.

For the first time, with the unions under (continued on page 12)

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SOLIDARI JAY t-book een as er into hnson, : of his 1 youth Asian ard the paraalcolm can get their slogan "Victory Revolution!"

Had this slogan been adopted by the movement as a whole, it would have reduced the potential size of active opposition to the war from millions to thousands. Only those already convinced supporters of the Vietnamese Revolution —a tiny fraction of the potential antiwar movement—would have responded to such a call to action.

This would have short-circuited and blocked the course of development which passed through a stage of ever-increasing numbers of marchers to a stage that included active opposition to the war among the troops themselves.

The mistake is not an uncommon one. It derives from short-sightedness and impatience. It is the result of failing to accurately gauge the existing level of mass consciousness—a pre-requisite for advanc -ing slogans that make sense to masses of people and are designed to lead them, in action, to higher levels of consciousness.

Single issue vs. multi-issue Should the political basis for joint action be the single issue of opposition to the war? Or should it include a commitment to support a range of issues as a condition for participation?

A dispute seemed to arise over this question, too. But, at bottom, it flowed from the basic argument over whether the antiwar coalition should be independent of the political parties of the warmakers or whether it should take an electoral Working people and their families are an absolute majority of society. The capitalists are a tiny minority. If workers were united in struggle for their class interests, they could easily overcome capitalist power and come to rule society.

But in every country the working class tends to be divided into a plurality of parties, unions, factions, and tendencies.

This is an expression, in the last form-that is, voting for candidates.

Given the lack of any working-class political organization in the United States-even of a conservative Labor Party such as exists in England-any electoral expression of opposition to the war would have inevitably found its way into support to the Democratic Party wing of the capitalist political establishment.

In any case, a serious proposal for a united front must of necessity be limited to a narrow range of urgent demands. For the united front to include, at the outset, all the political questions which divide the movement-something that is implicit in an electoral campaign—is a contradiction in terms.

Unity in action

Such a limited agreement for joint action does not, of course, require that the participating groups give up their position on any question. Also retained by all is the right to criticize each other—including the right to march separately, under their own banners, and to carry their own slogans.

This united-front principle allowed advocates of "Negotiate Now!" "Out Now!" and "Victory to the NLF" to march together against the U.S. war in Vietnam. Meanwhile the argument continued, events shed light on opposed positions, and minds were changed. "Out Now!" eventually came to be the dominant position in the antiwar movement. The rest is history.

Under this principle, a united front-type antiwar coalition was formed. (This was not a real workers' united front given that the main workers' organizations-the unions-were not involved.)

The mass-action antiwar coalition encouraged progressive, issue-oriented groups to participate in the marches as selforganized contingents. Labor, Black, Latino, women's, gay and lesbian, church and other groups, organized and built their own contingents and carried their own banners and slogans in the marches. All these points of view were further represented by appropriate spokespersons on the platform at the jointly sponsored rallies.

It is important to note, however, that support to these issues was not made a condition for participation in the united action. The only condition was opposition to the war.

Democracy in antiwar coalition Another dispute within the movement against the Vietnam War was over the coalition's organizational structure. Some of the political currents favored a structure composed of one representative from each organization to constitute a leadership body that would be empowered to make policy.

There were basically two problems with this structural form.

First, one delegate per organization meant that the larger and more influential organizations would have the same voting weight as an "organization" with half a dozen members. (Experience showed, too, that where this method was put into effect, some political groups had an inordinate number of its supporters claiming to represent different "organizations.")

Second, in sharp contrast to the traditional united front of mass workers' organizations, all the groups together could not bring out more than a small fraction of the action's organizers and participants.

The delegated structure provided for virtually no representation for the main force of foot-soldiers, among which students were the most numerous. It was they who printed the leaflets, distributed them, made the banners and posters, and otherwise did the nitty-gritty work of building the antiwar actions.

Given this real situation-particularly the absence of the unions from the movement-the best and most democratic organizational structure was based simply on the rule of one person, one vote. This structure was designed to let the people who were crucial for carrying out a successful action make the decisions. This policy facilitated the greatest possible activism directed toward building the largest possible demonstrations.

Most important, it provided the force for keeping the antiwar coalition pointed in the right political direction.

The key role of students Because the labor bureaucracy enjoyed virtually exclusive domination over the unions, they were able to chain the class organizations of the workers to the pro-war policy of the capitalist government. This meant that mass worker participation was not present to keep a united coalition can be reached only in a crisis of near revolutionary proportions.

In these periods of heightened class struggle, the workers' united front tends to become a kind of executive committee of the fighting organizations of the working class.

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