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Letter to B. J. Field, Extract, September 6, 1933
| Author(s) | Leon Trotsky |
|---|---|
| Written | 6 September 1933 |
Rooseveltâs Experiment and Workersâ Control
The question of the political orientation of the League [CLA] is of the greatest importance in the present situation of the USA. Unfortunately, I am very busy now with European affairs and have not even the possibility of following the development of Rooseveltâs experiment and the discussions in the League. From afar it seems that an important shift must occur in the workersâ movement and, in general, in the political relation of classes in the USA. Rooseveltâs experiment translates the lessons of the crisis into the language of politics. What should be our answer?
Insofar as the state wants to control private economy, we place ourselves on the basis of government control from the point of view of the proletariat. We demand, first of all, the complete abolition of commercial secrets: bookkeeping and accounting of each enterprise should be an open [book] for society and consequently, first of all, for the workers of the given enterprise. Social control over production is a fiction without the participation of the workers in this control. In the shops the control should be exercised by shop committees. On the basis of shop committees workersâ committees of the trust should be formed. And so on. The formation of such committees, if circumstances permit, should be begun immediately, without awaiting, it is clear, the legalization of workersâ control by the government. Insofar as the planned government control, on one side, and the workersâ control, on the other, will encounter at every step the ill will of the owners, the slogans of expropriation and nationalization should flow naturally from the development of the struggle. The bare slogan of nationalization would be insufficient, but in conjunction with the slogan of workersâ control it may acquire a revolutionary character. The whole problem hinges around the question of how vital, that is, how efficacious the slogan of workersâ control can become already in the nearest future. âŚ