When we approach the study of the work of the factory cells in
capitalist countries we are often struck by the great passivity
of the members of the cell. A further examination of the reasons
for this passivity will reveal, as a rule, a complete ignorance
on the part of the Party members as to what they should do in the
factory in their everyday work. The task of the Party organizer,
his most important task, consists in teaching every Party member
working in the factory what he should do every day. Every Party
member working in the factory should begin with the workshop in
which he is working, organizing the Party work there. He should
first of all find out who his fellow workers in the shop are.
That is his first Party duty. He should establish who is the
Fascist agent in order to know whom to avoid, and in his presence
not talk about Party affairs or carry on Communist agitation;
next he should find out which workers are so narrow-minded that
they are not interested in politics at all, either Communist or
Social-Democratic; he should know which of his neighbors in the
shop is a member of the Social Democratic Party, but still an
honest proletarian, capable of fighting for the interests of the
working class even though against his Party leaders. Finally, what
is specially important, every member of a factory cell should
know which of his neighbors at the bench is revolutionary minded
even though non-Party, and ready to take or has already taken,
active part in strikes and revolutionary demonstrations. When a
Party member working in a workshop has a clear picture of what
each worker there represents, it will be much easier for him
to carry on his everyday work. He will then know whom he is to
avoid, whom he will have to fight, with whom to become acquainted
and establish closer relations with the aim of bringing them
into active revolutionary work. As to the latter, he must have
systematic chats with them in the intervals of work, preferably
during working hours, also on the way to and from work, or
arrange special walks with them in the town on holidays; he must
patiently, unceasingly, from day to day, using every hour, every
minute, agitate them into the spirit of Communism, of course not
in a general abstract way, but on questions of everyday struggle
in the given enterprise and in the given workshop, organizing
them around himself and thus creating a revolutionary kernel in
the shop, and in consequence a workshop factory cell. Next, the
most important everyday task of the comrade in the workshop is to
carry on discussions with the Social-Democratic workers, winning
over the Social-Democratic workers to his side, bringing the
more revolutionary minded of them and members of reformist trade
unions into every kind of action against the employer, against the
Social-Democratic and reformist leaders. His third task should
consist of getting the Fascist agents, police spies, etc., driven
out of the shop and factory. This last task is forgotten most
often of all. However, it is evident that so long as there are
among the workers in the shop police agents who are following
every movement of the revolutionary minded workers, and informing
the boss about their actions every day, it will be very difficult
to organize work in that shop. But if by pressure of the workers
he should succeed in ridding the shop of these agents, Party work
will be greatly facilitated. Among those who should be thrown out
it will now be necessary to include individual Social-Democrats
who show themselves Fascist police agents, but the general line
in relation to Social-Democratic workers must remain, i. e., they
must be drawn into the general class channel of the revolutionary
struggle of the proletariat by means of the organization of the
united front from below.
Thus the foundation of the factory cell must definitely be the
workshop of dept. cell. The general factory cell can work well
only when it has strong support points in the workshops and
separate departments.