Speech at the Third National Conference of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA
Fall 1986
(From The Workers' Advocate Supplement, vol. 3, #1, January 20, 1987)
I'm going to make some points about building up a network to distribute Party literature at my plant [Great Lakes Steel near Detroit, Michigan].
At the 2nd National Conference of our Party it was emphasized that
"In the present situation we cannot expect rapid advances. Every step we take will be difficult, slow, and will come only from the most painstaking and creative work. . . . Nevertheless, we can use the small, sporadic, and scattered skirmishes that break out . . . to build up the Party's prestige, its ties and organization among the masses."
That is very much our unit's experience at my plant. In the last two years there has been no strike nor even job actions inside the plant. But a certain amount of ferment did develop against job combinations and against concessions in the contract which was negotiated this year. We were able to use that ferment to reactivate the pro-party workers in the plant and, around that core, to draw the bulk of the most active workers into a network to distribute Party leaflets on the industrial struggle.
Subheads:
- What the distribution network looks like
- Built in the ferment against concessions
- The anger over unsafe conditions
- Against job combinations and job elimination
- The difficulty facing organizational consolidation
- At the union meetings
- The rigged vote
- The fruit of persistent work and opposition to liquidationism
- Better organized than the opportunists
- Narrow trade unionist pressures on the militants
- The necessity to build up the pro-party trend