REPORT OF EXECUTIVE BUREAU TO THE V RILU CONGRESS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-01226R000100130004-5
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 32
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 27, 2008
• Sequence Number: 4
• Content Type: REPORT

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RIP 0 R T
OP E X E C U T I V E E B U R E A U T O T H E
V R I L U C O N G R E S S .
PART II.
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The World Crisis, Conditions of the Working Close.
The Strike Struggle.
SECT ION IV.
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UNEMPLOYMENT.
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m3$COW,
Sol,yanlsa 12, Red International of Labour Unions.
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.L oh/.
Tr, XSD.
ti N E L .. P L 0 Y I.: E is T
Ea,?L year the si.tt ation on t e labour r:iarlk.et Lecuines Lure and more
c,atastrorhic. During the last three ;rears capitalist society, on the
whole has been ble to boast of a favoi_urahle economic; situation. In
most c'.-ortries and in most industries output has increased, and profits
and dividends have increased acco:rdin-;ly. It was only in the second half
of 1929 that the tendencies towards an ecos.orric depression began to ' ke
themselves felt more strongly, developiri- towards the besrinnin- cif 1:.7.,
into an open crisis.
Whilst capitalist economy has continued sorrily, to develop, the-
position on the labour market has grown steadily worse. For under post-
war Capita libm ther's is a trbmei.'d outs r,,z: er-q Totnl r e r`Yly ever!
and the slightest depression in the economic situation even though sea-
sonal, is all that is required for new hundreds of thousands of workers
to be thrown out onto the streets,
At the end of 1929, whon the developinz world economic crisis
had only Just set in, there were 6 million workers thrown out of the fac-
tories and workshops in the united States; three million were register-
ed on the labour exchanges in "erma.ny; two million in Britain; one million
In Japan, three quarters of a million in Italy, half a million in ?'exieo,
400,000 in Czecho-Slovakia, 350,000 in Austria; a like number in Po3a nd;
300,000 to Run, ary, and so on without end, Altogether, by the "Happt
New Year", in the industrial countries of the word alone, there were
SEVENTEEN 1ILLI0IT UNE712LOYED, 0.
What is the explanation for this "permanent orisis" on the la-
bour market, which knows no abatement at all? Even in those periods when
a sli 7ht improvement does set in this improvement is not in the least able
to bring unemployment down to the leirel which before thc" War could be
considered "norm1", :"That is this new element which makes L employment
the determining factor in the position of the entire working- class"''what
throws these millions of workers out of industry for months and years
thereby dooming millions of families to starvation and need surpass inp all
description? Why does capitalism take no measures against this threatenp?
in4T increase in the reserve army of labour, most of whom will never mote
return to industry?
' The reply to these questions consists of one word ---rati.onall-
eation, Capitalist rationalisation, when it was applied in a few count-
ries only squeezed a part of the workers out of the rationalised indus-
tries, and the number of commodities required to cover the demand was pro-
duced by a smaller n.umter of workers. If the capiti4Iists succeeded in in..
oreatiing their sales, and especially in. increasing their trade in foreign
markets, if, thanks to lowered costs of production, they succeeded in -grin-
nin?; new L arkets-true part of the dismissed workers were taken ba& ,
unemployment automaticall spread to the country which had lost its mar
Xeta. On an intern!. tional scale--and this is the only scale that the
international proletariat can accept---rany successful application of ra-
tionalisation measures implies p
unemployment rotracted loss of work, implies ~?ror~ing
,
Does this, however, refute the reformist statembnt that, by -
iv-Lag strmg support to rationalisation in !'their own eoCntxyr", the l.ork, rs
will be able to eliminate crises and unemployment on a nationail-;kale?
Taking this theory as their argument, as is known, the American tae
unions went so far as to nominate their own en:-ineere who were to rationa-
lise the plants for the employers; the German reformists, puttir?s^ forr.'ard
this argument, tried to force the workers to accept capita list rats. )nalice_
tion uncomolainingi_y; the English reformists, with this self-same aratzmcnt
becaw:c ,ne agents of capitalist ration.a.lisatiou in the working class
camp
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The i?efu 1-6t h r,,amo it was incorrect even if the rational. satlon
of it.d .us cry took lace in one or in only a few countries for in view
of the tr(:.r::endous innovations which c~aA now be introduced into industry,
in the best of cases only a part of the v.orkers formerly employed can corn-
tinue .?t) rki n;; ~ The campaign of rationalization, started in America, and
continued in Germany, however, has now become an International race,
Those countries at whose expense the First "successes in rationalisation"
were achieved have also coi$menced to reorganise their industries, In all
countries a widespread reequipment of the industrial apparatus is going*
on; the most important industries, the largest consumers of labour power
have considerably restricted their requirements in this respect, and hun-
dreds of thousands of workers in the world mining industry, hundreds of
thousands in the metallurgical industry, in agriculture, in the textile in-
dustry, etc., are now superfluous. In all countries the so-called
"structural" unemployment of capitalist rationalisation has increased tre.
mendously, and the victims can entertain no hopes of being included once
more in indo-:stry, even duri.n-; the most favourable seasons. This structu-
ral unemployment in the most important industrial countries has by far
exceeded the million marks, Rationalisation, as the chief means of effect-
ins capitalist "stabilisation," has led to exactly the opposite results.
By throwirj a whole army of workers out of industry, it restricted the
internal market in all countries. Simultaneously, the industrial possibi-
lities have increased so greatly that their exceed by far the purchasing
power of the world market, That which seemed the salvation for capital-
ism, when it was used in only one or two countries, is now resulting in
an economic catastrophe. The efforts of each separate capitalist coun-
try to rain the advantage over its competitors by cheapening grass produc-
tion, is ending for the capitalists in mass overproductim, chaos unfa-
thomable, an acute cris s, arid, for the working class, in unprecedented
unemployment, the final dimensions and duration of which it in impossi
ble to foretell,
In this connection a few words should be said about the relations
between female labour and unemployment, The proletarian women suffer
doubly from the consequences of this "era of unemployment": as the wives
of the workers, and as hired workers. The poverty and burdens imposed on
the workers' wives during unemployment are only too well known to need
any going into, During unemployment many proletarian women leave the iso-
lation of the it"sheltered home" and are drawn into the vortex of the class
stru='g1e
On thy. other handP numerous proletarian women who hitherto knew
nothing of hired labour are themsclves farced to register on the labour
exchange thanks to the evermore frequent unemployment of the "breari-
wi.nn er,"
Driven by relentless need, these women in most cases are
prer
ed to work f' tr~e lowest wares, in the worst conditions, if this canpin-
the least serge to alleviate the position of their family, (1)
It woes without saving that a very large number of these women
present themselves on the labour ma' is in the eapaclity of hired labour
power, takin.- their stand in the permanent army of hired workers and em-
ployees. Thus we see the paradox.-al phenomenon, that unerrploytentwhich
turns part of the non-Moiling; proletarian women into ndi7strgal workers,
in tree selfsame way creates conditions which still further extend and
deepen unemployment
rlj PesiCies ,Jo!ren. f Jri'erlJ into jt 1E: C: vliL craft
v
."ants are al,so al"';IyJri rthe iad~astrialsme~l, Journeymen and pea-
of hired laboi_ar power, pparatu in the capacity
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The ever--.Trowing anplication of female labour and unskilled
1abcnir power in general, which we are now able to observe, is facilitated
and promoted by the consequences of rationalisation, which divides com-
plicated processes of labour into simple operations and transfers hea-
vy muscular work to machines, etc, This increased number of women taker
in- up hired labour primarily in industry (the employers being attract-
ed by the low wages paid to women) , this industrial mobilisation of a
new section of the proletariat, is taking place despite the fact that a
huge reserve army of workers is knocking at the doors of the factories
in all countries. The employers' greed, their desire to increase their
profits by exploiting the cheap labour ')ower, drowned their fears of the
social and political a onsequences of too protracted and stubborn unem-
ployment, This explains the twofold feature which we are now able to
observe---on the 9ne hand, the increasing employment of the industrial
labour of women,, On the other hand, as the economic crisis grows Treater,
we see the growing; number of unemployed women,, Rationalisation is the chef cause of the pass unemployment.
However, it is not the only cause, The permanent depression in which
various important industries, employin- many millions of workers have
found ti-emselves ever since the raox#ld war, plays a most important part.
ITention shouldb be made of the minin=, and textile industries as two of
the most important branches, In both these industries the depression has
been made more acute by the organisation of similar industries in coun-
tries which were formerly huge markets (for the textile industry, in the
Far East,etc,), or by the reorganisation of the industrial apparatus for
war purposes. England suffers especially from the results* of this deve--
lippment, one-fourth of the workers imerly being employed in the indus-
tries which are now passing through a crisis.
Since the end of 1.929 the world crisis has become the most im-
portant factor in the growth of unemployment,
In many respects, as a result of its hu&e dimensions, unemploy-
ment has b -come the determinin.r factor in the
position of the workitl.r
classes a Even in those countries where social-insurance is relatively high-
ly developed during unemployment, only the minority of the unemployed are
in receipt of a very small cart of their former earnin-, paid out qs bene-
fits, Thus in these countries, too, unemployment implies lowered living
standards for millions of proletarian families, failing far below the fix-
ed living minimum. It likewise implies fresh burdens for those who are
still at work, who are forced, from their already miserable earnings,
support the unemployed members of their families,
It saes without saying that this applies all the more to those
countries where there is no unemployment insurance at all and where the
entire burden of maintaining the unemployed is imposed directly and exclu-
sively on the workine class itself--end these countries comprise the
overwhelming aa. jority, including the United States, In view of the pre-
sent mass nature of unemployment, all the working class achievements
gained t,n wa,-e agreements and during economic disputes are not only wip-
ed out, but for the most part are mare than made up for by losses in wa-
^,es as a result of short tike and unemployment,
Moreover, especially during the last few months, there have been
numerous examples of the heroic stru-~gle conducted by the unemployed a
ainat starvation. Simultaneously, however, in a number of countries, this
period of permanent and ever more acute mass unemployment Is oharacteris--
ed by a numerical falling- off in the economic stru?gles organised on the
initiative of the employed workers,
In some bi- industrial countries durin,r the last two years the
number of strikes, as well as the number of involved, and their durationi.,
had decreased. The initiative of te workers, directed at struggles to
improve their working conditions and wagep, has been weakened under the in
fluenpe of unemployment and the defeatist and ;.isruntive activities of
the social-fascist leaders that accompany tThe working class is Not
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t,et fully in a ,)u-, tion to co:or?j u.ate ogle ooti.vibes of em?oloved and un-
employed~ At the same time the initiative of the emt~loZrers :ho are cog.--
ducting an offensive against the workinc, class, has drawn new strength
fro: the mass unemployment and the still farther worsened conditinns of
1_1.bour0 It goes without sayin.M that the conditions required for the suc-
cess of this employers' offensive, based on mass unemoloyrnent, is the
active assistance of the social-fas(,,ist leaders, The capitalists have
sLkcceeded in r;akiog the broadest possible use of this support, At the
most c -itical moments the reformist leaders enter the bourgeois -overn-
me n is , they take upon themselves, and in some countries even monopolise
police functions they have become active or ?anisers of strikebroakincr in
unofficial struggles of the proletariat, etc.
Needless to say, however, this weakened. activity of the work-
ers lio are still in Indust ?y , xeaultant upor: trie press re exerted by un-
employment, can only be temporary, The revolutionary vanr-card will all
the more decisively c ,~)neentrate its forces on the task of overco~!iing this
cende.ncy-on the task of uniting the forces of the employed and unemploy-
ed., who even to-day ou~te often are split by the treacherous tactics of
the reformists, It is fl, . tat,y of the vanguard to or-anising their strug -
'les, and by mobilising, the gasses who suffer most, by uniting the move -
meat of the une;-Tloyed and employed to load the proletariat to decisive
s tru--tile s ag in st capital 0
NITED G S T A T E S
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There were at least 6,000,000 unemployed in the United States
1-6t vf1r:tero 1 o precise fi
of cloth, ~:han :hanged methods almost overnight and produced
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the same yarda'ze with 3,100 men.
Railroad efficiency has compelled 200,000 men to seek employment
in other fields. Instances could be riultiplied.
"any thousands of musicians are unemployed as a result of the
introduction of the "talkies."
These are the three factors responsible for structural unemploy-
ment in the Un 4 ted States o, the thra?:,inc- out of workers from industry, also
from a :riculture, and the growth of population.
Naturally , not all the workers belonging to these groups remain
without work. A number of new industries and industrial areas have been
formed which canabsorb labor power. In the automobile industry, in the
apparatus of distribution, in the theatrical industry, cinemas, and else-
where, in the municipal services, liberal professions, etc, the absolute
number of employed ersons has grown to a fair extent, although relatively
it has decreased o he number of persona in work .have increased, though
mainly outside the product industries---in the professions and in per-
sonal and other services, though the greater part are in branches catering
for the needs of the big bourgeoisie.
Mitchell, member of the 'T0over s+ommission to study recent chan-
ges in American economic conditions, most optimistically declares that
following; or he eXtension of economic activity, especially in the group
coming under the heading of "miscellaneous" industries and on commercial
activity, the possibility has been created during the last seven years
of ubing the labor power of approximately 4,500,000 wage earners.
Other observors arrived'at the same conclusions, Leo Woilman---
also a member of the Hoover Commission---comes to the o mclusi an that
from 1920 to 1927 1,400,000 new workers were absorbed in trade,970,000
in transport and communications, and 630,000 in the building trades, The
"miscellaneous industries have been responsible for the biggest abscrp-
tion of labor, This group includes musicians, stable artists, employees
of banks and insurance companies, hotel employees, barbers, cilema workers
garage hands, automobile motor mechanics, etc. The number of persons
engaged in this group has grown almost to 2,500 000.
In the same April issue of 1930 the "American Federationist"
gives (page 456) the following examples of the growth in employment:
"In the last eight years, however, the increased automobile
wales have necessitated employment of 750,000 or more salesmen and garage
employees. New hotels have added 500,000 to their staffs. Telephone com-
panies added 78,000 to their wage rolls. Bobbed hair and the popularity
of beauty: parlors, it is estimated, have taken another 200,000."
:pow, even if we do accept all these most optimistic calculations
as corrects and further take it that as from 1920 from four and a half
million to five million new workers have been placed in jobs, what is the
importance of this increase if the consequence of squeezing workers out of
industry and agriculture---plus the result of the gray th of population---
means that not less than nine million candidates are lining up to claim
these fobs?! Thus, during a single decade, as the result of structural
changes in industry, a aeserve army counting not less than four million
persons has been created in the USAQ
The other side of the medal of the much-vaunted prosperity of
America---with all its industrial successes, its creation of new branches
of industry bringing in millions in profits,, with its fantastic stock ex-&
change circulation, and its wealth, automobiles, labor-saving machinery
and so on- -is this growing army of beggars many millions strong, an e-r--
my of workers squeezed out pf production, of men who ar? not needed, who
are "surplus", and army of unemployed.
It must be remembered that such a level of unemployment is the
normal accompaniment of American prosperity. No statistics cover this
unemployment, nothing is done to take-
ake keep any track of it whatever, it
remains the hidden side of the medal of prosperity, According to figures
of the American 7`'ederation- of Labor, during the last twenty-seven months
before the crisis the average of unemployment amorg-its members was 9~6,
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After the economic crisis had developed, the number of unemoloyed'" in-
creased considerably,, Production rapidly fell, The first to :-*! the
blow were the luxury trades, but the crisis di not stop there. _In the
automobile, iron and steel and even in the coal industries---everrhere--
we see a considerable decline in production, For the space of six months
the volume of production dropped as much as it had increased previously
in five years of prosperity,, It will be readily realized what effect
this has had on the labor market. Among trade ,unionists uner loyment has
increased more than double,, During. the first months of this year over
2O~, of union members were out of work, a position the like of which has
not-been seen for years back,, Among the building workers unemployment
has actually risen to 43w, Unemployment (we take the, fi-ures for March
1930 has hit hardest of allat the centers of the metal manufactures and
automobile Indus try---Birmin-ham, Alabama, 20,o unemployed; Chicago .25w;
Cleveland 25Yo; Detroit 2510, Unem-loyment is also very hir?h in the 't'ex-
tile centers of the Forth which just before the crisis were already sul
fering from much unem~)loyment due to the migration of this industry tc
the South.
It can be recorded that the usual summer fall in unemployrtnnt
this year is not nearly so considerable as is -enerally the case, Even
Hoover's campaign has failed to ift eonstr"..ction to last year's level,
With the constant excess of labor porter that is coin- begging,
only the stron-est. and most suitable unemployed workers capable of yielding
a profit to the boss can count on c*ettinF any work at all, even if that
work be temporary, At 40 years of are the worker in the USA has reached
the dead end when it becomes :,ost difficult for him indeed to find a new
fob. A questionnaire circularized by the All-America Association of In-
dustries brought the fact to light that 30-lo of the plants questioned
have fixed a definite ao-e limit when it comes to hiring new workers---
in most cases 40 years, the maximum being 46, These ficures do not show
what percentage of production falls to the sahre of this3O of working
plants And what number of worke ?s they emplo7T, but even the "American
Yederationist"" reco;nises that they p'rob bly represent the majority, for
as a rule it is the bic est ?plants that'c'ener lly apply the boss policy
most consistently, In many e.:iloyment bureaua necessary part of the
fittings is a prominent notice: "If you are i'4ty you need not apply, We
want speed and production," In this connexion it is interesting; to take
note of the influence exerted by the . )ROLTP ILSTTROCE system effected by
plants for their er.n.ployees,, -t the present time this system is another
excuse for thie employers to rejuvenate their labor power, The point is
that the risk and expenses bound ap pith ii si. ring; workers increase the
older the insured persons are, and for this reason in practically all
plants which have intr.,duced group insurance a perfectly definite and in
most cases very low age limit has been set for new workers taken Into the
firm's employment,, "Then what must a man over 40 do? " The director of
one of these plants was asked, "Keep his old icb," was the laconic answer,
William Green, President of the AFL, states that the losses in
wales suffered by the working class owing to unemployment during the
first quarter of 1930 exceeded a billion dollars; and it must be kept in
mind that he was ping on the fi:guro of a total of 3,700,000 unemployed,
which is considerably below their actual numbers,
In face of th_ s unem )loyment the AFL is only worried about one
thing---how to safeguard the country a-ainst Bolshevism and save capital-
ism from unnecessary losses,, In an article under the bombastio title of
"Constructive Progress or Doles", Green is a-,ainst the introduction of un-
employment benefit, and demands instead that capitalist economy be develop--
Bd along planned lines,, In addition, he very modestly suxrgests that the
unemployment census authorized by Con.rress "should be a regular feature of
the decennial census"---every ten ;rears! Pore for the curiosity of the
thing th n thin .,.:,-c: ,e ma- f 'rther *add that this "Workini lass
organisation ecently ;~;:vocated trie idea in its central or--an o a
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"yearns rest" (1.) for the purpose of reducitrp_~ unemployment,
Owin.- to the abser-ce of any unemployed relief whatever, the pow
sition of the out-of-works 'n this, the richest country in the world is
at least just as bad as in the most backward countries of Europe, In
spite of the wonder-talk of the enchanted reformist bureaucrats and bour-
freois hack-writers visitiri, America regardin'? the high wages paid in that
country, the mass of the workers possess practically no savings of any
value at all,, On the contrary, owins- to. the wide distribution of the
installment buying -in America which enables them to purchase all manner
,of things, the broad masses of the people simply mortgage their wages.
For his t ~ ?on , with the oncoming of unemployment, large numbers of un-
employed workers find themsleves in a hopeless fix. They cannot even use
their things aspsecurities, Hun ;er awaits then tnd the loss of nomfo-+,
A common feature at such times are the long queues lining up to
enter the few flop-houses (where the only convenience for the worker is
a chance of spendi tea' the n Lght in some cellar lyinr on some old news-
papers he my have picked uoo); then the endless breadlines queueing up
to get the bread issued by the "rich philanthropists" of the land; and the
lines, thousands long-, that take their ste.nd in the bitter cold of night
at some factory-ate just because the rumour has got around that "hands".
are needed---these are all f..,cts that t h,row a hard li.-ht on the position
of the 6,000,000 unemployed who ma, drop dead where they stand for all
the boss cares in the wealthy t?ni-ed States where the dollar sun never
sets on the MorrYans, the Rockefellers, and their like,
GREAT BRITAIN
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In oxi.tairt there, _;re no bi- fluctuations between winter and sum-
mer unemp ioyinern t , no abrupt swin>-Ing of tho pendulum of unemployment thn.ow-
ing idle hundreds of thousands of men and women at a time as is to be
clearly seen in the case of countries ?..,ith highly rationalised industries.
In Britain there exists a lot of .l..nemployment which for some
time now has been slowly but steadily climbing upwards still hir-Rer. Be-
;inninP from 1923 unemployment amonM those coming within the scope of the
National Insurance scheme has been moving at the following ratio;
19 23 - 11,, 7;t;
1924 - 1.0,3%
1925 - 11.,3'yo
1926 - 12,5w
1927 - 9,7p
1923 - 10,E
1929 - 10,syo
1.930 Jan,, - 12 ,6*
Feb, - 13,11;b
March