The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 3, 1924, Page 9

» ve 4 Out of Our Own Strength May day! Awakened by the rays of the spring sun nature bursts the bonds of winter and frees itself. This freedom is the fruit of nature’s own inherent energy and power. Man has ever recognized the great- ness of that phenomenon. He has ever celebrated this awakening. He did not only welcome the new life that spring brought forth; he €speci- ally paid tribute to the forces that dare to break with the old and build the new, he paid tribute to the forces of revolution. May day was celebrated by the barbarians in the woods of Brittany as well as by those in the valleys of the Daffube and the Rhine; it was celebrated by the civilization and culture of ancient Rome. May day suggested freedom after slavery, it suggested beauty after stark and barren ugliness. , Day of Exploited. The exploited and oppressed have forever dreamt of freedom. But tho the dreams often made them forget their misery, they could not stop it. Every achievement that made life less of a burden for them had to be gained after hard struggles. The inexorable needs of life forced them into battles again and again. Their very lives they had to defend against the exploiters and oppressors. Often defeated the exploited gained strength even in defeat. The experience gain- ed in defeat strengthened their sinews for the inevitable new battles. Experience was the creator of a consciousness that all the exploited and oppressed have something in common; that this common interest must be defended in a common struggle because in unity there is greatest strength, With the growth of this conscious- ness, (class consciousness), there also grewethe self-confidence of the exploi- ted masses. The blind struggle for existence of the exploited slowly de- veloped into an organized and con- scious struggle of the class of op- pressed. When these conscious warriors for the freedom of their class looked for a symbol of their aims and aspira- tions, for an expression of their hope and determination, they could do no better than select the celebration of labor. granted to the slaves by the oppres- sors—no—a day taken by tional labor as an expression of its revolt; a day denoting the beginning of a new era; a day denoting that May day as that symbol. May day, the time gate thru which enshackled nature marches to free itself from the fetters of winter; May day that awakens nature to a consciousness of its own strength; May day that en- thuses nature to action to break a dead past future, and build a beautiful May day thus became the day of Not a day of rest graciously interna- the masses of the exploited and op- pressed are slowly becoming dominat- ed by the understanding that this new era must be built by the struggles of the exploited themselves; a day ring- ing out as a clarion call to the yet dormant forces of the working class the rousing battle cry: ARISE YE PRISONERS OF STARVATION! ARISE YE WRETCHED OF THE EARTH! International Labor Day. May day is international labor day. On that day the aims of the struggle of the international proleta- riat emblazon the banners of millions in demonstrations all over the werld. On that day international labor de- monstrates its determination to battle for those aims. Not all the workers of the world are yet within the ranks of volunteers for the battles of labor. But like the spring sun awakens nature, so does the ever increasing experience of the masses of workers strengthen their forces. The latent energies of the working class are freed and the Mo- dern Sampson tears dowa the pillar upon which rests the temple of capi- talist society. Capitalism has increased its power with its profit. It used this power with ever increasing fury against the organizations cf labor. Ford to the wall the ~vorl.ers defend themselves and lew. oni of the exp2.ienve of this struggle to perfect thcir organi- zations as well as their methods of defense.. The insufficiency of anti- quated weapons bring defeat in- the actions of today but also. teach methods that will lead to victory to- morrow. The insatiable hunger for profit drives capitalism to “few methods of exploitation and oppression. . Finally that hunger dominates every manifes- tation of life of the capitalist order. Law becomes nothing but forms under which profit making is per- missible and means by which profits are safeguarded. Order means a rule of conduct conducive to profit. Patriotism means a firm and unshak- able belief in the sacred mission of the profiteers. And over this mad orgy of profit there is drawn as a convenient cover a political system called democracy, “the rule of the people.” After every human being in this order has been made a slave of the god of profit, poisoned by the education of the profiteers, taught to fear the god of the profiteers, shackled by the laws of the profiteers, then the order lets him loose mesmerizing him with the cruel jest of his politi- cal sovereignty. Capitalism Own Grave Digger. But a system build on the strength of illusions can only last as long as the illusions hold out. And it is the fate of capitalism that its very mis- sion is destined to kill the illusions upon which it has built its power. Democracy contains the poison which will eventually kill the illusions which alone uphold it. The dictatorship of the profiteers can function under the cloak of a democracy because the “sovereign” workers are ideologically the slaves of profiteering. The ex- perience of the struggle for existence will gradually free the workers from these bonds. Political class con- sciousness will open the eyes of the exploited and oppressed to the laws of profiteering, to the gods of the profiteers, and to the state of the profiteers. Then the workers will be- gin to apply democracy, make use of their sovereign rights in the interest of their class. Capitalism will then discard the pretense of democracy and will cynically transform it into an out and out dictatorship. May day 1924. f The international proletariat is again reviewing its forces in demon- strations all over the globe. Every- where they pause long enough on this day to recapitulate the development of the past year to see how far the growth of class consciousness with the workers has advanced, to see how much nearer the grave capitalist order is this year than it was yester- year. - r --This review in the United States reveals a progress in the struggle for By Max Bedacht freedom never before witnessed in that short span of time. A political revolt of the workers is. brewing. The first signs of it are so powerful that its speedy development is a foregone conclusion. The expectations of that development are not based only on the objective conditions favoring it, but also and mainly on the subjective factors that interfere. May day 1924 can register the activity of organized forces within the labor movement of the United States that are no longer satisfied with interpreting the struggle of the exploited for freedom, but that are bent upon organizing, leading and directing it. ‘These forc- es create with their energy and activi- ty the brooding heat that will develop the embryo of a political conscious- ness of the working masses of Ame- rica into political class and mass action, These forces are the Com- munists. They are nothing foreign to the country and its political and economical system; they are its pro- duct. In the Communists the con- sciousness of the strength of the working class is developed highest. in the Communists the principle that the freedom of the exploited and op- pressed can only be the fruit of their own, struggle finds its most conscious expression. Communists Celebrate. On May day the Communists in America raise the banner of the con- scious struggle for the freedom of the working class, as it is raised by the revolutionary workers every- where. On May day they call upon the working masses of the land to shake off the dead weight of hopelegs- ness. Does not nature around us burst the bonds of Slavery? Does it not triumphantly break the fetters of winter and bloom into & new beautiful future? It does! But it does it with its own strength. It accomplishes this great task with the forces within itself, Out of the triumphs of spring the workers drink the new hope: Seif reliance; self confidence, Strength- ened by a belief in ourselves we workers will burst the Shackles of an oppressive order and built a new, a beautiful future. We must build it ourselves, with our own energy, with our own strength. That is what May day signifies to the working class. That ig why we celebrate May day as international labor day. Concerning Statesmen - 5iiwa. MONG the many erroneous con- ceptions of Marxism, the notion that men are the unconscious and helpless pawns of history is perhaps the most persistent. This is due in part to the superficial thinking of pro- fessed revolutionists, who, especially of late, have distorted historical ma- terialism into a sort of mechanistic conceptioén of history where men are unconscious automatons, instead of the makers of history. Since the average bourgeois his- torian obtains his knowledge of Marx- ism from the so-called popularizers who write in current yellow publica- tions, it is not at all surprising to find Professor Charles A. Beard, un- consciously distorting Marxism in the April number of “The American Mer- cury.” Mr. Beard propounds the question “What Is a Statesman?” He prefac- es his discussion of statesmen by comparing what» he considers anti- thetical historical methods—those of Thomas Carlyle and Karl Marx. After devoting a few sentences to the great man theory of Carlyle, Mr. Beard asserts: ‘The Marxians at the other end of the pole dismiss the statesman with a scoff as a mere au- tomaton produced by a complex of economic forces”. * *¢ *® In all the literature of Marxism there is nothing to even faintly sug- gest such a dogmatic formula. Not one recognized Marxist ever indulg- ed in such fantastic delusions. Those who are responsible for this concep- tion of Marxism are the vulgarizers of Marx who are too mentally lazy to familiarize themselves with the profound works of the greatest think- er of the past century. Where is the Communist tyro who is not familiar with the famous quo- tation from Marx’s “Eighteenth Brum- aire of Louis Bonaparte”: “Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of whole cloth; he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such as he finds close at hand.” ‘ Surely there is no justification in this quotation for the notion express- ed by Professor Beard and the vul- garizers of Marx. But one swallow does not make a summer and one quo- tation is not sufficient to refute : misconception so widespread as this one. Again and again, thruout all the writings of both Marx and Engels, we find illuminating passages that dis- prove the idea that men are automat- ons and, that history is the result of blind, unconscious forces. In his famous introduction to “A Contrib. tion to the Critique of Political Eco- nomy,” Marx sets forth in brilliant strokes the fundamentals of his his- torical method. Briefly this method declares: ; 1, In carrying on production in a given stage of society men enter in- to certain social relations that are independent of their will. 2. These relations correspond to -a definite stage of the development of these powers of production—in the ancient world slave owner and slave master; during the middle ages feudal baron and feudal serf with the gradual development of the eatly capitalist class; today the working class and the capitalist class with its varied divisions based " upon the present technique of pro- duction. 3. The sum of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society—the real foun- dation—on which rise legal and po- litical superstructures and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. 4. The mode of production in ma- terial life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life. 5. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their exist- ence, but, on the contrary, their so- cial existence determines their con- sciousness, 6. At a certain stage of their de- velopment the productive forces of society come into conflict with the legal and political forces, These political forces then act as a fetter upon further development of produc- tive forces, Then ensues a period of revolution when the superstruc- ture gives way to new institutions that correspond to the newly de- veloped economic forces, 7. In considering such transform- ation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determin- ed with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, re- ligious, aesthetic or philosophic—in short ideological— forms in which men become conscious of this con- flict and fight it out. Thus, according to Marx, ‘while po- litical foreés and the statesmen who carry out political policies cannot transcend the natural and artificial environment in which they function, still they are not automatons respond- ing blindly to this environment. Cer- tain problems arising out of changing economic conditions demand solution and men consciously solve these prob- lems as they arise. In the Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels declare: “The history of all hitherto existing society is a his- tory of class struggle.” No class struggle can exist without the conscious participation of the in- - dividuals who make up the conflicting classes. So even an understanding of this passage from the Manifesto refutes the conception attributed to Marx by the learned professor. The spectacle of Professor Beard assailing Marx with the vulgarities of the odious crew of Marx perverters whose most prominent members in this country are William English Walling, Frank Bohn, John Spargo and James O’Neal, is indeed, ironic, because he is one of the very few outstanding American historians who most consistently uses the Marxian method of interpreting history. His “Economic Interpretation of the Con- stitution” in particular contains pass- ages that would be credit to any Marx- ist. We fear that Professor Beard has obtained his conception of Marx- ism from these clowns who distort (Continued on Page Seven)