Principled Attitude in Trade Union Struggle /2

Left sectarianism

Although it appears to be inspired by revolutionary Marxism, petty-bourgeois revolutionism, which cannot fully absorb it, causes various left deviations as it manages to creep in the labour movement. Such tendencies have been expressed in various political forms in the past and continue to do so today. However, the common element in almost all of them is the sharp revolutionism that dominates at the level of words, in other words, revolutionary verbiage. We can give a simple example to illustrate this. Let's say that downplaying the struggle for the actual demands of the workers and talking only about the ultimate revolutionary goals may give the person who does this a sharper revolutionary appearance on the level of words. But in reality this attitude does not necessarily mean being more militant. On the contrary, such attitudes often serve as a cover for pacifism.

We have witnessed variations of the left sectarian attitudes in the context of problems concerning the field of trade union struggle. A typical example is the approach that limits the horizon of the trade union struggle to the bankrupt state of the trade unions in Turkey and does not make any effort to change this state of affairs. Never in any period of history has such an approach led to the success of the workers' struggle. On the contrary, they deepen the already existing regression and petty-bourgeois pessimism. Sectarians always try to justify themselves with various excuses. Let us illustrate this again with an example. It is absolutely true that the political struggle of the class is of primary importance and that revolutionism cannot be limited to the economic struggle. But it is completely wrong to go so far as to underestimate the militant struggle that must be waged in the trade union arena. But deriving a falsehood from a truth is perhaps one of the most striking tricks of the petty-bourgeois left. In fact, the Bolshevik way of working, which is one of the indispensable components of our revolutionary tradition, points to problems that the left sectarians cannot grasp. The most important reason why the Bolsheviks were able to win the leadership within the working class was that they embraced all the painful problems of the working masses, no matter how big or small.

There is also the other aspect of the matter that can never be ignored, which is the need to grasp revolutionary political tasks without distortion. It must be clear to everyone that the revolutionary party cannot be built by doing trade union work among the workers. Without trying to create an organisation of vanguard revolutionaries on the basis of cadres equipped with Marxist theory and steeled by the experience of action, there is no point in talking about party-building activity. These are very important problems. And such problems cannot be solved just by discussing and talking, but by trying to do the right thing. A style of activity which, in the name of working within the working class, immerses itself mainly in the trade union struggle means underestimating the basic political task which we have tried to summarise here. Just as it is essential to continue the struggle against left sectarian attitudes, it is equally imperative not to tolerate the tendency towards syndicalism that belittles the basic political tasks.

It is very helpful to think carefully about some issues that are sometimes not fully understood in order not to be led astray. For example, participation in trade union activity among workers under the discipline and control of a revolutionary organisation that conduct work in the Bolshevik style has nothing to do with the deviation of trade unionism. If this point is not well understood, it becomes inevitable for those who criticise left sectarianism to go adrift to left sectarianism themselves.

Sometimes workers who begin to undergo a revolutionary transformation isolate themselves from other workers in their workplaces and stay away from trade union struggle with the rationale of giving weight to political work. However, political work is not an abstract thing disconnected from the struggle at various levels among the workers. It is a sheer blunder to interpret becoming politically competent as isolating oneself from other workers and being content with the pleasure of obtaining personal information. Those who fall into this situation turn into sectarian elements, useless in the struggle to organise the factories and workplaces they work. For a worker who took part in a revolutionary organisation and whose process of getting armed with revolutionary theory has begun, it would be an intolerable mistake to turn away from fellow workers because she/ he finds them backwards. One of the key aspects of revolutionary activity in the Bolshevik style is that those who march on the fore have the determination and ability to lead, in all spheres, those who as yet stand behind.

The most important task of the revolutionaries is to always be in close contact with the workers and to form organised worker circles around themselves at various levels. We know that the worker masses learn not from books but from their own experiences. But revolutionary cadres do not grow in flower pots. But revolutionary cadres do not grow in flower pots. They are trained in a struggle of a revolutionary nature, and they harden and mature in the action. An organisation of revolutionaries, confident in its rightness and strength in defending the class interests of the workers, is obliged to prove these qualities in actual work among workers. Unlike petty-bourgeois revolutionaries and intellectuals, the workers weigh and evaluate individuals or organised circles not by the sharpness of their revolutionary words but by their attitude and actions in actual life. For this reason, it is crucial to be very careful to ensure the workers correctly understand the agitation, propaganda and behavioural style of cadres.

In their early stages of the revolutionary struggle or among the young elements, the number of those falling into left sectarian positions is by no means small. Lenin focused on such “infantile disorders” and criticised revolutionaries with these disorders. An example of this is the call of the German lefts for the withdrawal from the trade unions because of the situation the bureaucracy and labour aristocracy put unions in. While the trade unions stand on one side with their mass of workers, refusing to work in these unions for the reason that they are reactionary ultimately means escaping from waging struggle under challenging conditions. One of the basic rules of Bolshevik-style struggle is to know to conduct work wherever the masses are. Giving up the struggle inside the existing mass trade unions and dreaming of establishing pure but small new workers’ communities would amount to leaving the rank and file of the trade unions under the influence of the bureaucrats and the bourgeoisie.

Finally, let us touch upon another critical point. The factor that determines the forms of organisation the mass of workers need is, in essence, the level the class struggle has reached. In revolutionary situations, different kinds of worker organisations arise, such as factory committees and worker councils, and the presence of trade unions does not eliminate this need. But it should also be known that direct calls for such organisations in ordinary periods would not be timely, cannot serve the desired result and would remain baseless. Unquestionably, these issues must be addressed and included in educational propaganda to expand the horizon and develop the revolutionary consciousness of the workers. But when it comes to determining concrete tactics, the distinction between the different levels we are trying to address cannot be overlooked. Calls for action in inappropriate times and contexts do more harm than good, unnecessarily cause demoralization due to failure, and trivialise and water down revolutionary goals.

Worship of the spontaneity

The economic struggle and the political struggle of the working class have different contents, but ultimately they are not completely disconnected from each other. It is already known that politics in the last analysis means concentrated economy. On the basis of the economic struggle, workers not only confront individual bosses, but their actions for more comprehensive economic demands bring them into confrontation with the class of bosses and its state. Therefore, the trade union struggle of the class inevitably extends into the political sphere.

A correct understanding of the relationship between the economic and political spheres of the workers' struggle is also important for the elucidation of many important questions deriving from this relationship. In this context, we can take the phenomenon of spontaneity, which is frequently mentioned in the Marxist literature. It is natural for a spontaneous anger and reaction to arise among the workers against the capitalist order, even in the absence of a deliberate political intervention from outside the class. In fact, this ‘spontaneous element’ is in essence a consciousness in seed form; in fact, it is the first form of consciousness. The primitive uprisings that break out from the bosom of the class reveal that the workers have begun to feel the importance of struggling together against the order. In fact, these preliminary fermentations are of paramount importance. Because without a certain level of spontaneous class feeling, it is impossible for revolutionary consciousness and organisation to take root among the workers.

For this reason, Lenin pointed out that even a spontaneously erupted economic strike has political significance because it would be an important development for the workers previously floundering in stagnancy to take the first steps in organising and struggling. The communists have never been and can never be indifferent to such steps of the workers. Marx, too, noted that when the scattered workers, competing with one another, begin to close their ranks and come out jointly, this is a step forward; for this reason, the unions can function as a school of solidarity for workers.

In reality, there cannot be an act or action which is fully spontaneous and unaffected by politics and political circles. For this reason, it would be convenient to conceive spontaneity in its broader political sense. If approached this way, spontaneity refers to the type of action that a revolutionary political organisation is not leading or a level of struggle that can erupt from inside the class at any time, even if there is no such leadership. Let us give an example from Turkey. The 15-16 June 1970 Resistance is a spontaneous workers’ resistance in the final analysis. But the aspect of the issue we want to focus on here is the spontaneous nature of the economic struggle compared to the revolutionary political action of the working class.

With the issue of spontaneity, it is not the spontaneous reactions and actions against capitalist order that revolutionary Marxism sees as problematic. The problem begins where one sees these spontaneous actions as sufficient. Because the spontaneous workers’ movement ultimately cannot go beyond trade unionism or becomes a servant of bourgeois left politics. Those who slavishly submit to spontaneity despise the need for revolutionary politics, revolutionary organisation and the task of conveying revolutionary consciousness to the working class. Such approaches have also given rise to certain political currents over time. One of these is anarcho-syndicalism, which reflects the influence of anarchist thought in the workers’ movement. Another is trade unionism, namely economism, as the more prevalent term in Turkey, which raises the economic struggle itself to the level of politics.

In terms of its historical roots, anarcho-syndicalism is a left tendency shaped by the ideas of politicians such as Proudhon and Bakunin, who opposed Marxist thought. As has been repeatedly exemplified in France, in cases this political tendency spreads among intellectual circles, it takes on a character detached from the militant class struggle. Nevertheless, as the period of the Spanish Civil War shows, it is also the case that it exhibits revolutionary proletarian characteristics when defended by militant workers. It should be noted right away that instances like Spain are, in fact, exceptions created by combative workers who have been influenced by the revolutionary class struggle, i.e., communism. But in general, anarcho-syndicalism contradicts the revolutionary struggle of the working class and contains the features of anarchism, most. Anarchism is a political current that rejects the seizure of political power by workers and the establishment of a workers’ state and, therefore, denies the necessity of a comprehensive political struggle. Anarcho-syndicalism leads the workers to indifference towards political action and revolutionary politics and, in reality, has many similarities with its sibling, economism, although they look like the opposite extreme. Both political tendencies are contrary to the Marxist understanding. They ultimately bring the trade union struggle harmfully to the fore, albeit with different contents and methods.

While anarcho-syndicalism deserts from the task of building the revolutionary political leadership required for the struggle for the emancipation of the working class, it exaggerates the importance of trade unions. In the name of defending the independence of the trade unions, it opposes the need for guidance of revolutionary political leadership. In fact, anarcho-syndicalists do pursue politics in practice in line with their own political views. And by doing that, they plunge workers into the quagmire of condemning revolutionary politics and seeing the economic struggle as sufficient on the grounds that the fight for power will corrupt people. The advocates of this current developed the view that the trade unions and spontaneous struggle would almost be sufficient to overthrow the bourgeoisie and establish a classless-stateless society. These circles despise the task of the working class seizing political power by revolutionary force and exalt the importance of the general strike weapon in overthrowing the bourgeois order. These circles despise the task of the working class seizing political power by revolutionary force and exalt the importance of the general strike weapon in overthrowing the bourgeois order. To sum up, worship of spontaneity, hidden behind sharp revolutionary tirades, when needed, is typical of anarcho-syndicalists.

The history of the workers’ movement is full of countless examples proving that petty-bourgeois revolutionary radicalism, detached from the effort to revolutionise the working class, eventually drifted to the other extreme, reformism. As a matter of fact, the majority of anarcho-syndicalists, who had a sharp radical discourse before the first imperialist war in European countries and did not find Marxism revolutionary enough, followed the Socialist International, the organisation of class collaborators, when the imperialist war broke out, and got bogged down in the swamp of compromise.

The politics limited to economic struggle

Again, trade unionism is the tendency that submits to spontaneity, exaggerates the importance of the economic struggle and shapes this struggle in a reformist political mould. Originally born in England, the trade unionism movement took its name from the word trade union. However, it is usually translated into Turkish as economism and settled in that way. In contrast to the petty-bourgeois left sects that remained detached from the mass struggle of the working class, trade unionism extended to the workers in the trade union struggle, created a political line confined to economic struggle and to demands for reform, and on this basis, became a mass force. The most striking example of this is the British Labour Party, which has risen based on trade unions.

This example reveals that establishing ties between the workers’ political and trade union organisations and achieving a mass growth on this basis is not sufficient alone; and that the content (reformist or revolutionary?) determines if the outcome will be positive or negative. Unification in the British example did not turn the Labour Party into a leader for the benefit of the revolutionary struggle but got the trade unions and unionised workers to form a bourgeois workers’ party, in essence. Clearly, the gathering of the workers in a workers’ party, which is, in reality, a representative of bourgeois reformist politics, means nothing more than to put the working class en masse on the tail of bourgeois reformism. The British Labour Party, or its equivalents in European countries (parties bearing the name of Social-Democratic or Socialist), reflect a situation in which the trade union bureaucracy and party bureaucracy have intertwined. Because of these characteristics, in trade union branches which became at the same time the mass organisations of the party, both the pressure of the bureaucracy over the workers increases, and the bourgeois reformist illusions among the workers grow exponentially.

The experience in Tsarist Russia of the past is another example. At that time, the trade union movements and political movements that emerged in the advanced capitalist countries of Europe influenced not only continental Europe but also expanded their spheres of influence over time. Thus, a policy that exaggerated the role of the trade union struggle, that is, trade unionism, in essence, emerged also in Tsarist Russia, a country with no democratic rights. The impact of the strike wave that aroused the workers in Russia in the 1890s spread the disease of economism, which was the subject of Lenin’s criticisms. Trade unionism in Russia did not just remain an erroneous approach but became one of the main political currents that stood against the revolutionary movement based on Marxist foundations. At a time when the masses of workers began to awaken and the development of class consciousness became extremely important, trade unionists tried to break the influence of political circles striving to bring revolutionary consciousness to the class. While Lenin tried to prove that they underestimated the consciousness factor, trade unionists put against it the “importance of the spontaneity factor of development”.

We can summarise the principal claim of the political current called economism as “giving a political character to the economic struggle itself”. But to avoid falling into error at this point, let us draw attention to an important issue. Marxists can sometimes intentionally emphasise “politicising the economic struggle” not for the purpose of defending trade unionism but, on the contrary, to point out some obligatory tasks. An emphasis on “politicisation” that aim to prevent workers from being content with the trade union struggle is not wrong. Whereas, to become stiff-necked with the concern of not falling into economism, to interpret the trade union struggle as if completely disconnected from the political struggle, and to hold back from the propaganda for politicisation in the trade-union field are utterly harmful tendencies.

On the other hand, the approach of the economism tendency, “giving the economic struggle itself a political character”, has an entirely different content. Economists reduce the struggle of the working class to a politics limited to raising wages and improving working conditions. But such a policy is just the work trade unions have already been doing. Putting forward such views in the name of political struggle actually means nothing more than confining the working class to the level of trade union politics. Lenin says that the slogan of the economists quite strikingly expresses bowing to spontaneity in the sphere of political action. Because without the intervention of the revolutionary elements, the trade union struggle spontaneously assumes a political character under the influence of the dominant ideas of the ruling class. And obviously, this policy will be of a bourgeois party of one kind or another.

As known, the proletarian revolutionary struggle does not exclude the struggle for reforms and daily demands. Therefore, what distinguishes communists from reformists is not only the ultimate goals propagandised but also the way they make efforts to gain reforms or even a seemingly modest daily demand: Communists strive for gains in a way that will open workers’ eyes and inspire them to struggle. On the other hand, the tendency of economism has created a reformist policy that aims not to overthrow the capitalist order in a revolutionary way but to make it bearable through economic improvements. While the advocates of economism brought this bourgeois policy to workers, they accused Marxists of not caring about the masses, as they were striving to convey revolutionary consciousness to vanguard workers. It is known that the advocates of economism, the deserters of revolution, try to justify themselves on the grounds such as “we must focus on the working masses”. It is possible to come across similar approaches today, as in every period in the past. However, keeping pace with the workers with a backward level of consciousness while working in the labour movement for the sake of becoming massive is not a merit, but ouvrierism, i.e., worker-tailism. Conducting revolutionary work requires pulling forward those who stand behind; and it has nothing to do with this revolutionary style to talk and act according to the wishes of those backward layers. Such attitudes may seem to succeed to a certain degree by gathering certain workers around. However, from the point of view of revolutionary politics, these are bogus successes on slippery grounds. Whereas from the point of view of the advocates of economism, it is the preferred politics itself.

The economic struggle is important, for sure. But it must never be forgotten that it has a limited effect. This is why Marx points out in his work Wages, Price and Profit that workers should not exaggerate the gains from this everyday struggle. In this level of struggle, workers fight against specific consequences of the capitalist order. But they have not yet been able to deal blows that will put an end to the cause of these consequences, i.e. to the capitalist order. In other words, they only use painkillers but cannot cure the disease. Workers must wage a constant struggle against the usurpation of their rights by capital and the falling wages, but they must not be absorbed and get lost in this daily struggle; they must not be content with it. Besides all the miseries it imposes upon them, the capitalist system also engenders the material conditions necessary for emancipation from it. Therefore, the illusions created by trade unionism and bourgeois liberalism among workers that demands such as a “fair wage” can be realised under capitalism should strictly be opposed. It should not be forgotten that the source of the evil lies not in the level of wages but in the capitalist wage system itself. A propaganda that does not expose this truth conceals exploitation. For this reason, instead of the conservative motto: “A fair wage”, workers must inscribe on their banner the revolutionary motto: “Abolition of the wage slavery system”.

The question of what kind of propaganda and agitation is crucial in advancing the workers’ struggle in a revolutionary direction. Lenin drew attention to the rule that communists should follow in their propaganda and agitation in the working class. What is to aim is that the workers not only react to the oppression and injustices against themselves but also oppose the multifaceted attacks of the capitalist order that concern various segments of society. A genuine revolutionary political consciousness within the working class can only develop through efforts in this direction. However, we cannot ignore, at this point, that the obstacles can only be overcome with patient effort. As everyone who carries out work within the class has witnessed, the workers who are confined to the trade union struggle have more sympathy for the agitation and propaganda activity that revolves around demands for wages, working hours and social rights. On the other hand, when the propaganda directs towards opposing the oppression of a nation or oppressed sex, for example, the same workers find it too radical or too “political”. But it cannot be justified to surrender to the actual level of consciousness by making this situation an excuse; because the level of the class struggle can advance by breaking these barriers which the bourgeois order has created in the workers’ minds and by not limiting political agitation to the problems of the field of trade union struggle. On the contrary, the tendency of economism claims that a work of raising consciousness which revolves around trade union problems is the most effective and beneficial tool in the education of the working class.

Let us give another example of erroneous tendencies. Attempting to awaken workers only based on agitation of the problems occurring within the factory, too, is a form of trade unionism. Based on the events in Russia, Lenin pointed out that a passion for “exposure of the facts” by writing and distributing “factory leaflets” may become widespread during the periods of the awakening of the working class. Factory leaflets were basically exposing the factory system and arousing enthusiasm for action in this direction among the workers. In this respect, they also had an important function in the general awakening periods. However, being content with this or being stuck at this point will never develop revolutionary political consciousness and organisation in the workers. Therefore, it is an entirely wrong political approach. In Turkey, as in the past, we still witness these errors Lenin once pointed out.

Although a mode of agitation confined to economic demands or problems within the factory may allow small circles to establish various connections within the class, this mode of work is trade unionism. Those who take such a path are, at best, trying to engage in revolutionary trade unionism, nothing more. As the experience has shown, amateurism eventually leads to economism. It is utter amateurism for narrow circles who want to work within the working class to exaggerate a simple-level agitation that revolves around some workplace problems in a few small workplaces. To present this kind of amateurish “factory work” as Bolshevik-style work without having the necessary preliminary preparation, knowledge and experience for building a revolutionary organisation is sheer economism, aside from its ridiculousness. At this point, it is impossible to forget the words of Marx at a meeting (the meeting of the Brussels Communist Communications Committee): “To appeal to the workers without a scientifically accurate idea and a sound theory is to play a propaganda game. It is a deceitful empty game to assume as if a prophet got revelations on one side and some donkeys who listen to him with their mouths open on the other side. Ignorance has never been the balm for anyone’s wounds!”     

Young cadres, who still need to gain experience, can sometimes inadvertently drift to economism because of their amateurish efforts among the workers. Let us explain this a little bit. It is known that the main task of a group trying to organise in a Bolshevik style is to carry out revolutionary enlightenment and revolutionary organisation activities among the workers and to win these workers into the political organisation. The way to achieve this is to patiently draw the workers to the issues of revolutionary struggle based on building mutual trust. However, some inexperienced organisers may instead confine themselves to the trade union field so as to establish closer and friendlier relations with the workers. Some also fall into the mistake of considering the experience gained in the trade union struggle as sufficient and ignoring directives and supervision of the revolutionary leadership. These are mistakes that trade union activists often commit, and all these vacillations are called trade unionism.

As various historical examples are examined, it will be seen that the adaptation of communists to working entirely and only in the trade union field always leads to opportunist deviations. The drift towards trade unionism also creates a cadre typology that evaluates the mood of the masses and their capacity to struggle more and more like a trade union secretary. For those who slip to this point, it is almost inevitable to perceive the relationship between the revolutionary struggle of the class and its economic struggle upside down. Those who cannot withstand the pressure of the field they work inside eventually begin to twist and bend under that pressure. As a result, there emerge so-called communists nominally but trade union politicians in reality. There are not a few “revolutionaries” who do not prioritise the requirements of the revolutionary organisation and instead are overwhelmed with the union work and carry out all the activities in line with the directives of the union bureaucracy and the statutory rules of the trade union by reasoning that the trade union field has its own law.

A tremendous shake-up is necessary

History shows that class struggle has various inevitable ebbs and flows. Indeed, there have been periods of significant decline in the revolutionary movement of the working class, and the adverse effects of such periods cast their reflections in the field of trade union struggle. Undeniably, the period of political decline in the world and Turkey in the last historical period caused grave damage to the trade union movement and the approach to the trade union struggle. Aside from the pervasive attack carried out by the capital front against workers’ acquired rights and struggle, the counter-revolutionary effect of the fascism period of the 12 September 1980 military coup has been enormous in Turkey.

The decline in the trade union movement in Turkey clearly demonstrates this situation. Due to the neoliberal attacks worldwide, there has been a significant decline in the proportion of unionised workers in various capitalist countries, too, and, more importantly, in the militancy level of the trade union struggle. However, the decline in Turkey has been much more profound. In addition, it should also not be forgotten that the workers’ movement has recovered to a certain extent in recent years in other capitalist countries. Even more, there have been much more significant rises in some countries. But when we look at Turkey, aside from the problems that the erroneous approaches of the left have accumulated over the years, there is a huge wreck standing, which is essentially the result of the fascism of the 1980 coup.

During the years of fascism and reaction, the working class suffered way too much from the blows inflicted on political life, and there was a worrisome decline in the level of revolutionary consciousness and organisation. Although the bourgeois regime underwent a relative normalisation and revolutionary groups made efforts for recovery later on, we cannot yet say that the workers’ movement in Turkey has been able to straighten its back in terms of both political and economic struggle. As is often the case in such situations, there is a considerable regression and distortion in the revolutionary understanding of the relationship between the trade union struggle and the political struggle of the class. The situation of the trade unions, on the other hand, is indeed deplorable.

But it is also a fact that the factor that makes the problems chronic originates mainly from the political sphere. Unless the revolutionary political organisation of the working class develops, it will not be possible to move the trade union movement forward to a meaningful level and to make trade unions combative. Do not forget the past. Despite all their shortcomings and mistakes, revolutionary organisations in Turkey exerted significant pressure in the trade union struggle towards militancy before 1980. This factor cannot be ignored in any way. On the other hand, what marks today’s atmosphere are adversities such as the slackening in political life caused by systematic oppression, the alienation of workers from active politics, and the avoidance of even the slightest act of claiming rights with the fear of unemployment threat. Compared to the period before 12 September 1980, this panorama almost appears like a return to the age of darkness. 

There is a need for a tremendous shake-up in the workers’ movement and radical qualitative transformations in political life to get out of the current period of regression. The bourgeois parties that market themselves as new hope before the working masses against other rotten and bankrupt bourgeois parties may create some kind of politicisation. But this is a distorted and sham politicisation. Therefore, it never eliminates the present adversities. The AKP, the ruling party in Turkey since 2002, proved one thing. In this world where lords, generals and bosses reign, a bourgeois party that exploits the religious beliefs of the masses and advises them to “endure”, “not to revolt”, and “to obey” can do no good for the re-awakening of the working class. So-called new bourgeois parties, new in appearance, cannot resolve the problems of the working masses. The working class needs a revolutionary political organisation for liberation from the swamp of poverty, unemployment, unjust wars and social degeneration created by capitalism.

Without a surge of revolutionary politics that activates the working masses and a struggle from the union rank-and-file directed against the trade union bureaucracy, it will not be possible to drain the swamp in the trade union field. This analysis does not deny that the revival of the spontaneous struggle of the working class can also accelerate the revolutionary struggle. There is a living dialectical relationship that acts and re-acts on each other at all levels between the progress that revolutionary efforts create in the workers’ movement and the spontaneous rises. Approaches that ignore this relationship and conceive mobilisation as a unilateral phenomenon serve the scholastic logic. Nevertheless, we must point out the factor that is of primary importance. Without the pressure of the revolutionary organisation, the trade union struggle could have never been and will never be able to avoid being used as a spare tyre for the bourgeoisie.

Certain fundamental principles, which broader masses can grasp easier in the periods of the rise of the revolutionary struggle of the working class, often become subject to distortions from multiple aspects or are forgotten during periods of political reaction. An example is the question of revolutionary approach to the trade union struggle. Periods of decline that work against the workers in the class struggle can fling not only workers’ organisations but also revolutionary thoughts and approaches far back from previously won positions. Thus, disorders that supposedly remained in the past can re-infect the body. Marxism has already pointed out that old diseases can recur in any new historical stage.

In such periods, it becomes necessary to tirelessly bring to light even the simplest facts, which were assumed to be known to almost everyone in the past. Moreover, the problems to grapple with are not on the surface but in the depths. For example, today in Turkey, we can see among those who claim to be Marxists the traces of two important deviations of different nature, which we can characterise as left sectarianism and trade unionism. Fighting the harmful effects of these recurring diseases is an important and present-day task. In short, the solution to any problem we face in the class struggle lies in the same road. There is no other way out than to devote all the energy and efforts to strengthening the revolutionary organisation and struggle of the workers. Only this way will a militant shake-up in the trade union struggle be possible.

For those who conduct revolutionary work in the class without a fondness for position and seats, the benchmark of success in the trade union struggle can be nothing but making the workers more organised and combative. Considering the low ratio of unionised workers in all capitalist countries, it is easy to see how important it is to try to win over the unorganised for a strong trade union struggle in today’s world. In this respect, it is necessary to make efforts to unionise non-union workers and to organise unionised workers in a way they get involved in protecting and controlling their unions in the workplaces and factories.

A determined struggle must be waged against the defence of professional interests that will feed the labour aristocracy, against the tendency of trade unionists to discard small workplaces, and against the contempt of unskilled workers. Communists must be the ones to defend in the most determined and principled way the trade union democracy, militant class trade unionism and combative grassroots organisations. In order to ensure the unity of the working class struggle, it must be targeted to organise the collective action of workers against unjust wars, the oppression of capital and the usurpation of social rights. A tremendous shake-up will not come up spontaneously by itself in any field. The new positions will be won with fingernails to the extent the fundamental tasks are fulfilled.