Barry Eidlin’s essay on “rank-and-file strategy” tackles the question of left activism in the workplace and attempts to place it in the context of long-term revolutionary strategy. It should go without saying that any serious socialist movement needs to engage directly with workplace struggles, and not merely in a supportive capacity. The question is how, with what expectations, and with what strategic ends in mind.

I have some specific issues with Eidlin’s essay, but what is perhaps of more concern (to me, at least) is what it does not say. What follows is less a rebuttal than an attempt to fill in the blanks.

Eidlin’s rank-and-file strategy is counterposed to a pair of approaches he attributes to other tendencies on the Left. The first of these sees “workplace organizing as a venue for socialist cadre to engage in propagandizing for revolution.” The other involves attempts to “strengthen the left-labor link through alliances with the more progressive elements of the union bureaucracy.”