BOOKS

...By this test the UAW is still far from being a one-party organization...

...For if enough members learn what democracy means and become inspired with the will to fight for it, no iron law of oligarchy can over-ride union affairs...

...Master-minding the apparatus is an elite of specialists and technicians under the command of the top officialdom...

...Right or wrong, he felt they commanded the interest (and examination) of socialists...

...Nevertheless, The Prophet Armed is a political biography, and the choice of what to include, what to omit, what to compress, what to elaborate, must necessarily have political meaning...

...As Lipset points out, "many socialists who are now trade union leaders still attempt to explain and 412 • DISSENT • Autumn 1954 justify many of their actions as being consistent with a socialist or left-democratic goal...

...That the reader may not concur in these judgments is not of special importance...

...Deutscher is no novice, lately come to his subject...

...The degree of dictatorship tends to be greater in unions like the Steelworkers, which were organized from the top down, whereas in unions like the UAW, which resulted from the merger of large, strong, autonomous bodies, opposition gets built in from the start, and in the early stage offers fierce resistance to the attempt by any leadership clique to clamp down on de mocracy and to set up a dictatorship...

...I do not mean to suggest that Mr...

...In time they become an elite and have more in common with each other than they have with the rank and file union members...

...Inevitably, comparison with Trotsky's own abundant work suggests itself...

...It is the year 1921...

...Rejecting the "great man theory," he holds that a multiplicity of elements interact to make a given union what it is...

...Examining with a fresh eye the theory that "the greater the bureaucratization of an organization the less potential within it for membership influence over policy formation," Lipset shows how, once in control of the administrative machinery, the ruling group takes over communication, clamps down on the union press, and exacts conformity from field staff members on penalty of stopping their pay checks...

...It is true that some unions conduct so-called leadership training courses, but such courses are also carefully managed by the hierarchy, and serve to indoctrinate members with a barrage of official economics, politics, and policies—in short, with a "line...

...If the idealistic views he began with are far in advance of those of the membership, he has to compromise his ideals in order to stay in power, and adjust his policies to the framework in which he operates...

...Calling his last chapter "Defeat in Victory," Mr...

...Yet this is just the kind of paper that deserves to be read, studied and discussed far and wide in union circles...

...Which may be a fault, but is certainly the prerogative of the author...

...Significantly, too, it is the year in which the Bolshevik Party, with whatever misgivings, outlaws oppositional groupings...

...The conviction that he acts always in the workers' best interests gives the "committed" leader a feeling of self-righteousness which easily becomes ruthlessness in defense of his power...

...Deutscher notes that the decision to outlaw factions set the stage for the dictator "waiting in the wings...

...How do we test whether internal democracy exists in a union...

...Defining bureaucracy as...

...Knowledge, skills, income, job control, "head" instead of "hand" work—these separate the union official from the work ers who elected him...

...Use Form 22, available at any Post Office...

...Once the union apparatus is fairly well stratified, however, the opportunity for secondary and Iocal leaders to climb diminishes progressively...

...But to Lipset it is the trend that counts, and he believes that any constitutional clause which strengthens the international executive board of a large union over its local bodies signifies a drift away from democracy...

...Though the prevailing tone of the book is admiration and respect, there is no effort to conceal or minimize what are in his view failings...

...If he goes back in the shop he must buck production—and what a come-down that is for an erstwhile labor leader...

...This does not mean that the committed leader does this deliberately...

...Deutscher's article in the last issue of DISSENT...

...Deutscher is steeped in the knowledge of his material...

...In time, a complex of administrative agencies and personnel becomes formalized and evolves by a kind of 410 • DISSENT • Autumn 1954 inner logic of its own...

...A Chapter in Freedom and Control in Modern Society...

...NOTICE Subscribers: Please advise us immediately of any change of address...

...Lipset is careful to point out that the degree of bureaucratization varies from union to union according to the nature of the industry, the union's history and background, and even such chance factors as the traits of high-ranking leaders...

...has little opportunity or need to learn such skills...

...In the pattern of the book, only those events and disputes in which Trotsky was a direct participant are generally given full attention...

...What is there about unions that drives them toward dictatorial control...

...All in all, if Lipset's thesis is sound, the long-range chances for democracy in trade unions are not so good—and this goes even for those unions whose official rhetoric is replete with the word "democracy...

...It is difficult to imagine that any future biographer will unearth significant material on Trotsky's life that Mr...

...Out of the middle class and into the proletariat, he suffers from a deep sense of humilia tion and failure...

...What, for example, happens to democracy when unions like the CIO Oil Workers propose including in their draft constitutions a provision which would penalize a member who "wrongfully" criticizes any decision made by an officer of the organization...

...By steady practice, leaders learn to speak before large groups, to negotiate with management, to write articles, reports, resolutions, to handle parliamentary strategy...

...Years must go by and a long series of constitutional changes and organizational decrees must be enacted before subordinate bodies are shorn of all independence and trans formed into obedient creatures of the ad ministration...

...a system of rational (predictable) organization," Lipset points out that unions are compelled by their collective bargaining role to develop bureaucratic structures...

...In these words, delivered at the 1947 convention of the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union, Harry Bridges made no bones about admitting that his union is a dictatorial, one-party organization...

...Deutscher has overlooked, or supersede this volume in breadth...

...It may well be that I am reading into this book what is not there, nor meant to be there...

...Though this move was defended as necessary for successful contract negotiations, Lipset suggests it had the added effect of strengthening the hands of international officials over local opposition...

...This may account for the fact that in such unions unfettered participation and institutionalized opposition prevail...

...Let them raise challenging questions, search out critical answers, make comparisons and test their own conclusions...

...What is worse, "there is evidence that it is also perceived in this way by fellow workers," Lipset observes...

...He rarely, if ever, is called upon to make a speech before a large group, to put his thoughts down in writing or to organize a group's activities...

...More centralization means increased bureaucratic control, since in return for granting seniority, pensions, improvement factors and other such security benefits, a corporation demands "union responsibility," meaning freedom from wildcat strikes, strict adherence to contract terms, and uniformity in local practices...

...Deutscher's achievement that his work is fresh, a tribute to scholarship and objectivity...

...We have the right to demand of the socialist historian that he critically evalulate the Russian Revolution with the vision of retrospect...

...Edited by Morroe Berger, Theodore Abel and Charles H. Page...

...The corporation with which a large union deals is highly centralized, and the union cannot escape the need for coming to terms with that kind of centralization...

...Unfortunately, "The Political Process in Trade Unions" will probably share the fate of many other valuable studies of this kind, hidden away in a sociological tome few trade unionists will ever bother to read...

...And why couldn't the set of hypotheses posed by Lipset be tested by an intensive study of specific union constitutions, bylaws and organizational procedures, beginning, say, with the steelworkers union...

...Deutscher, we must judge the book under discussion on its own terms and not with the consciousness of his views on other matters with which we may disagree (see Mr...

...Consequently, when an official fails of re-election he can return to his trade with little change in his style of living...

...Lipset quotes from The UAW and Walter Reuther, by Irving Howe and B. J. Widick: There is one decisive proof of democracy in a union (or any other institution) : oppositionists have the right to organize freely into "parties," to set up factional machines, to circulate publicity and to propagandize among the members...

...Moreover, many industrial and quasi-industrial unions have administrative departments to handle education, recreation, political action, workmen's compensation, unemployment compensation, and public relations...

...Freed from the dull routine of the assembly line, union officials lead a more varied and interesting life...

...Such a crisis situation, brought on by a disastrous strike, mass unemployment or sweeping technological changes, brings to the fore secondary leaders who still take their ideology seriously, with a new program to challenge the controlling group...

...Second class mail is not forwarded by the Post Office...

...A second volume, to be called "The Prophet Unarmed," will conclude the biography...

...Lipset makes clear that when a union is dictatorial the reason is not that the leaders are dictators by nature...

...Deutscher concludes this first half of what is to be a two-volume biography of Leon Trotsky...

...Pages upon pages present Trotsky's agreements and disagreements with Lenin and Martov and Plekhanov in the first decade of this century, and their further agreements and disagreements in the pre-revolutionary and postrevolutionary periods...

...For there comes a time when the leadership's performance falls far short of its promises...

...History, tradition, type of community, nature of the industry, size of the union, state of the market, occupational status of the members— the interaction of these factors exert more force in shaping a leader than the leader can exert in making the union what he thinks it ought to be...

...He then doubts whether the distinction between the armed and unarmed prophet, "the difference between conquest and destruction," is always as clear as it was to Machiavelli...

...Inasmuch as Trotsky has been vilified more, perhaps, than any man in history, The Prophet Armed commends itself if only in the respect that it sets the record straight...

...On the face of it, the biographer has planned his structure exceedingly well...

...Most labor leaders are not that honest...

...They develop a "class" interest in their administrative jobs, in the power they wield, and in their social prestige...

...In a sense it is the very thoroughness of the book that is its undoing...

...Defeated for office, he cannot find an other high status role within the union...

...The alternative is dictatorship...

...he comes to justify his post on the grounds that he is most capable to perform it...

...He wrote extensively on subjects ranging from poetry to military science, and wrote with consummate skill...

...The leadership of a bureaucratic union also tends to monopolize the political skills needed to run the organization...

...Surely, the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly warranted a critique, favorable or otherwise, as extensive as the machinations of the Pravda editorial board in 1902...

...Don't bring in any union officials or university professors to "lead" the discussion or "guide" the thinking, but allow the workers to explore the subject for themselves...

...Yet a multitude of questions nag their way into mind, and they compel suspension of a full discussion of this study until the appearance of its second half...

...To achieve the needed centralization for efficient bargaining with large corporations, union officials must press for mechanisms designed to assure standard procedures...

...As a union grows and multiplies its activities, the bureaucratic apparatus expands and becomes more intricate...

...The average worker...

...The present volume undermines its own virtues precisely to the extent that an affirmative answer is discernible...

...This would be a democratic adventure in Iearning what democracy really is, and in working out yardsticks for measuring the degree of democracy in their own union...

...Deutscher should have written a book that he did not intend to write...

...What does seem important, however, are (a) an empirical emphasis that seems to hand the decision to success (it worked—hence it must be right) ; and, far more important (b) the omissions— the disputes, issues and events which are so badly skimped, minimized or "compromised" as to undermine what is valuable in the book...

...There is no question that Mr...

...His autobiography, My Life, and the monumental History of the Russian Revolution, to mention but two particularly relevant works, are masterpieces in their respective genres...

...Democracy" thus becomes understood to mean only this kind of controlled education and participation...

...The revolution has, by fair means or foul, weathered a series of wracking trials...

...Lipset suggests that the more diffuse and far-reaching a union's goals are, and the more it encourages participation—even if supervised—the greater the potential for internal opposition...

...It commends itself further in that, as against the spate of books which in recent years have belabored and distorted the revolution, its ideals and its heroes, it is written in sympathy with the revolution...

...The leaders of the revolution are still its heroes—Lenin, Trotsky, their colleagues...

...and it is plunging into others which will witness its destruction in the triumph of absolute dictatorship...

...He is presumably a Marxist and certainly an avowed socialist...

...In the process of making the union "responsible," the officialdom gathers more power in its collective hands, exercises increasing authority over subordinate bodies, and cracks down on local opposition elements...

...Nor that he should have joined the pack which can't see the Russian Revolution for the Constituent Assembly...

...Trotsky was, as Mr...

...Deutscher explores every facet of Trotsky's development and genius against the background of Russia's revolutionary movement...

...Many of the propositions he asserts have been raised before, but by reformulating them and indicating how they might be tested by further research, he has made a genuine contribution to the study of what makes unions tick...

...Deutscher explains the source of his title in Machiavelli's The Prince ("all armed prophets have conquered and the unarmed ones have been destroyed...

...it can't deliver, and the ranks become restive...

...Usually the latter passes through an evolution, beginning as an idealist and ending up as a "practical" man...

...Deutscher has performed a prodigious job of research and presentation...

...and 2) the leader committed to a social ideal that means more to him than material rewards...

...To defend the right of factions to exist is not at all to applaud this or that faction...

...Yet it is precisely here that the "nagging" interposes itself, for it is questionable whether The Prophet Armed does socialism or, for that matter, Trotsky, honor...

...Lipset distinguishes between two types of union leaders: 1) the career leader or official who knows that no other career is open to him which affords a comparable income, congenial work and social status, and who therefore regards his office as a vehicle to advance his personal welfare...

...And he acquires mid dle-class mores, outlook and attitudes...

...Noteworthy is Lipset's hypothesis that dictatorial unions usually reveal a wide gap between the status of rank-and-file workers and that of the leadership...

...Yet, however quietly or indirectly, these views, or their basis, intrude themselves...

...The officers' political skills within the union may therefore be suggested as one of the major factors which prevents the effective organization of opposition sentiment in labor organizations and which enables an incumbent administration to use its superior communicative skills to subdue or divert discontent," Lipset writes...

...After acquiring a deeper insight into the causes that lead to dictatorship, such discussion groups could then investigate the problem of how to safeguard union democracy with the view to learning what methods, techniques, organizational devices, administrative checks and structural changes are necessary to make unions really democratic, or at least to slow down the trend toward crustification and bureaucratic blight...

...In big unions, collective bargaining becomes a complicated affair, requiring the attention, not only of the elected officials, but also of research workers, statisticians, time study engineers, experts on pensions, social security and industrial hygiene...

...There are some unions—Lipset mentions the Newspaper Guild, Actors Equity, and the Typographical Union—in which the status gap between leaders and rank-and-file members is negligible...

...Examining these factors, Seymour Martin Lipset, a professor of sociology at Columbia University, comes up with a list of propositions which he believes should be tested by further careful research...

...326 pp...

...the others, most of them, victims of assassination at the hands of the "committee man...

...Along with increasing specialization of function goes centralization of control...

...More over, the rank and file union members support this high status, vote for the high salaries and for measures which help to formalize the power position of the of ficialdom...

...As a way of testing the democratic spirit of the more progressive unions, ones with established educational programs, this reviewer offers the following suggestion: Organize rank-and-file-discussion groups and let them go to work on Lipset's thesis...

...Van Nostrand...

...In fairness to Mr...

...One could suggest many current developments in the trade union movement which might be studied to test Lipset's hypothesis...

...If the position of the union leader in office is an enviable one, his place once ousted from office is hardly to be envied...

...Autumn 1954 • DISSENT • 413...

...Deutscher appraises the disputes and "takes sides"— often with Trotsky, sometimes against him...

...Or what happens when a union like the AFL's Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters condemns the right of members to petition for redress inside the union and bans caucus meetings as unconstitutional...

...Autumn 1954 • DISSENT • 409 Tim POLITICAL PROCESS IN TRADE UNIONS: A THEORETICAL STATEMENT, by Seymour Martin Lipset...

...Deutscher closes the book at this point, with the introduction of the New Economic Policy and the suppression of the Workers' Opposition...

...Having held onto victory against fantastic odds, they and the revolution with them, will perish —Lenin dying in 1924, fearful of bureaucratism's menace...

...Actually, the union official leads, not Autumn 1954 • DISSENT • 411 a working class life, but one more com parable to that of proprietors, managers and professionals...

...Neither idolatrous, nor carpingly critical, Mr...

...4.50...

...An answer to this question calls for a careful study of such factors as the internal structure of unions, status level of union members, leadership traits, and a union's need to adjust to the industry with which it bargains...

...Yet it is a measure of Mr...

...Essentially, The Prophet Armed is a political biography, though the personal facts of Trotsky's life are fully presented (in greater detail in many respects than in My Life...

...This transformation reveals the limitations of the labor leader as leader...

...As a case in point, Lipset cites how the UAW recently gave its international executive board the right to suspend officials of local unions for violating international policies...

...DISSENT cannot replace copies to subscribers lost through failure to advise us of change of address...

...Similarly the differences between Lenin and Trotsky on the World War, and on the nature of the revolutionary dictatorship, are glossed over in the solidarity effected' in the revolution itself (which is brilliantly and excitingly presented) . Trotsky, in his years of exile, returned to all of these issues (as well as others, like Kronstadt) and defended, by and large, the acts of the revolution...

...The chief training ground for acquiring such skills is the union itself...

...Secondary leaders who aspire to climb the union success ladder know what is expected of them and take care to display only the attitudes that meet with approval from above...

...In fact most labor leaders are probably not aware that the majority of unions are more like one-party states than like genuinely democratic organizations...

...THE PROPHET ARMED (TROTSKY: 1879-1921), by Isaac Deutscher...

...And when next the Prophet Unarmed is contemplated," he writes, "the question will arise whether a strong element of victory was not concealed in his very defeat...

...Deutscher details, 408 • DISSENT • Autumn 1954 one of the literary giants of our times...

...Because in large unions such leaders require a mass base, they institute a system of "education" to convert as many workers as possible to the official viewpoint...

...Years of internecine warfare between contending factions mark their history, and even after one faction finally defeats its opponents and gains full control of the central appara tus, the democratic habits of voicing op position die hard in locals...

...Union officials enjoy a higher and more steady income ; they move in better prestige circles, come in contact with other union officials, management representatives, even political figures...

...Eventually his high status legitimates his authority...

...The extent to which the leadership can control participation in union affairs varies from union to union...

...A country that has a totalitarian government operates like our union operates...

...In his introduction to the book, Mr...

...But even controlled democracy can sometimes get out of hand and shake the apparatus from top to bottom...

...this adjustment is rationalized in the context of the day-to-day policies of the union...

...The presence of an opposition . . . is the best way of insuring that a union's democratic structure will be preserved...

...But this is the overhead (well worth paying) of democracy: groups one considers detrimental to the union's interest will be formed...

...Surely, the decision of the Tenth Party Congress to outlaw factions merited substantially fuller discussion than Trotsky's 18-yearold philippics...

...indeed the members of some of these unions often enjoy higher income and prestige than their officials do...

...One has only to read the proceedings of suc cessive UAW international conventions to see how, in such unions, the habits of democratic participation become stub born cultural traits...

...But there is a curiously sanguine "resignation" about it—are we to conclude in the next intallment that it was awful, terrible, but it "worked...