On 2011-12-25, at 10:35 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
> But revisiting Gompers is probably more fruitful than reliving the
> "glorious past" of the Bolshevik revolution.
Why do you suppose Gompers would have more success than Trumka or other trade union leaders organizing workers in today's economy? Gompers belonged to an era when the US economy and corresponding demand for labour was expanding rapidly. His successes had little to do with his particular approach to trade unionism and politics, as the parallel growth of the IWW, led by radical trade unionists like Debs and Haywood - both later sympathetic to the Bolshevik revolution - demonstrated.
You're making the identical error as those Marxists who imagine that a faulty understanding of the Leninist strategy of party-building is what has mainly blocked the many far left groups of varied persuasions from making political inroads in today's environment.