The sessions of the 32nd annual congress of the "American Federation of Labor"){115} – as the union of trade organizations is called – have concluded in the city of Rochester. Alongside the rapidly growing Socialist Party, this union presents itself as a living relic of the past: of old guild, liberal-bourgeois traditions that completely weigh upon the aristocracy of the American working class.

The number of federation members was on August 31, 1911 – 1,841,268. Samuel Gompers was elected chairman again, a decisive opponent of socialism. But the candidate of the socialist workers, Max Hayes, received 5,074 votes against 11,974 votes for Gompers, whereas previously Gompers was elected unanimously. The struggle of socialists against "trade unionists" in the American trade union movement slowly but surely leads to the victory of the former over the latter.

Gompers not only believes wholly in the bourgeois fable about "harmony between labor and capital," but directly pursues a bourgeois policy against the socialist one in the federation – although he claims to defend complete political "neutrality" of the trade unions! During the recent presidential elections in America, Gompers reprinted in the official organ of the federation the programs and platforms of all three bourgeois parties (Democrats, Republicans, and Progressives), but did not reprint the program of the Socialist Party!!

Even from among Gompers's supporters, protests were raised at the Rochester congress against such a mode of action.

The situation in America's labor movement shows us, as in England as well, a remarkably sharp split between purely trade unionist and socialist strivings, a split between bourgeois working-class politics and socialist politics. For, strange as these words may sound, in capitalist society the working class can pursue a bourgeois politics if it forgets its emancipatory aims, reconciles itself to wage slavery, and limits itself to concerns about alliances now with one, now with another bourgeois party for the sake of imaginary "improvements" in its enslaved condition.

The chief historical cause that determined the particular prominence and (temporary) strength of bourgeois working-class politics in England and America is the long-standing political freedom and extraordinarily favorable conditions, compared with other countries, for the development of capitalism in depth and breadth. In virtue of these conditions, an aristocracy was distinguished within the working class, which gravitated toward the bourgeoisie, betraying its own class.

In the twentieth century this peculiarity of England's and America's position is rapidly disappearing: other countries are catching up with Anglo-Saxon capitalism, and working masses are learning socialism from the experience of life. The faster the growth of world capitalism, the sooner will come the victory of socialism in America and England.

Written in December, before December 7 (20), 1912.

First published in 1954 in the journal "Communist" No. 6

Printed from the manuscript