I don't think Gandall is trying to let the union leadership off the hook,
exactly. (At least I hope not.) Bureaucrats remain in place, with their rotten
> class-collaborationist politics, in good times as well as bad. They continue
to be on the lookout for any kind of rank-and-file
militancy, and try to thwart it, even though it may be uncommon. I think Marv is trying to explain why the rank and file
accepted this leadership for so long. I agree that the explanation should be sought in objective circumstances.
It's also not quite accurate to say that the Communists were pursuing a class-struggle strategy at the time they were purged.
They did employ class-struggle methods in the 30s (during the so-called Third Period and on into the building of the CIO). During the war,
however, they were even more zealous in enforcing the no-strike pledge than CIO leaders. They even denounced John L. Lewis as a
fascist when he took the miners out on strike in 1941. They also advocated a continuation of the pledge into the post-war period. Their disgraceful
record was sometimes used against them by the anti-communists in the unions. They were not purged for their opposition to class collaboration,
but as a result of their failure to support the Marshall Plan. Their ultimate
loyalty
> was to the Soviet bureaucracy, not the US ruling class. This is the main
reason the government deemed them untrustworthy with
the onset of the Cold War. The ruling class was also probably uneasy with the fact that they had once employed class-struggle methods,
and might be inclined to do so again, now that the popular-front class snuggle was over.
> Jim Creegan
>
>
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