The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 6, 1924, Page 8

|The Youth Rallies Again HILE the blood of countless ‘young workers was reddening the soil of Europe's battlefields in the most horrible’ war that history re- cords, and their masters had calmly settled down to see thru the war until either side should be completely van- quished, eliminated as a competitor in the world struggle for economic su- premacy, there met in Berne, Switz- erland, a group of representatives of the revolutionary youth movement of Europe. The situation was black for the class conscious rebels of the world. Every ounce of class feeling seemed _ to have been crushed by the huge wave of patriotic frenzy that swept over the workers with the first shot of the war. The parties of the masses divided in two parts, one seizing the flag of the fatherland and waving it aloft in the name of “national de- fense,” the other holding steadfastly to the red flag, being beaten to the knees by the blows of reaction, by the contumely and scorn of the socialists of yesterday and the patriots of today. The parties of the red flag were very, very few. The workers who had looked for leadership to the workers’ parties did not find any. The enemy had ab- sorbed it. But of the few that remained to form the thin red line were the mem- bers of the Young Socialist League, or fractions of them from practically all of the warring nationas. They met in the summer of 1915, and in the face of the imperialist greed, of the slaughter on the battlefields, of the betrayal of the Second International, these young revolutionaries, these “milksops of the Youth League,” as At Last In Moscow ES — really Moscow. Really Rus- sia. The landscape did not change as we crossed the border. The stars didn’t sing nor the little hills skip. The country was just the same beau- tiful open rolling land, with thickets of sedate young pine and birch, and great stretches of cultivated fields that we had left on the other side of the arch that spans the railway at the frontier. We had been trans- ferred to a very hard bare and not very clean third-class car in the morn- ing, but they put on an extra second- class for our party in Russia—not that we were of any importance, but they wanted to be accommodating and we were willing to pay the ex- ‘tra fare. Some of the “boys” decided to remain in third, and had a sorry tale to tell of bruised bones and sleep- less hours, tho each declared the oth- ers had snored straight thru the night. They had gallantly given most of their blankets to a young Russian bride who had been put into their compartment after parting in tears, from her young husband. At the bor- der we saw our first red_ soldiers. They didn’t look smart like Some sol- diers, but they looked efficient, and’ I felt like saluting “Zdrasdvuitya, Ta- varishch!” and did. There was no shirking at the Customs,—they went to the bottom of our bags, but had I only collected my wits to show my party credentials, there would have been less mauling of my carefully folded things. The young Russian cel- list said naively, “You may leave your things and go-to lunch. These are good people.” And I felt that they were. Everywhere else we had kept guard over the luggage. Little thatched cabins along the route, many of logs, amid carefully cultivated fields. Men and women working among the vegetables, some striding along to work, thru the cool pleasant morning, with the sacred sickle over the shoulder. Mowed grain, standing grain, yellow stubble. One lone man ploughing a narrow strip with one lone horse. No grasp of Communistic cultivating there. Our horticulturist pronounced favorably up- on tle condition of the crops and the By MAX SHACHTMAN the old German social-democrats used problems. .The ghastly hand of unem-fialist War. We realize that it is ab- to call them, issued the flaming call} ployment is slowly chilling the lives for “War Against War!” . That call soon resounded thruout the length and breadth of war-torn Europe. Dark stories began to go the rounds about the effectiveness of the revolutionary propaganfa of the youth; French regiments downing arms and starting on the home march with L’Internationale on their lips and the Red Flag at their head, only to be shot down for desertion by their less revolutionary comrades, That call marked the beginning of the new International of the workers. It marked the birth of the Communist International. and of the Young Com- munist International. * * s e The first week in September of every year was designated as the day of the revolutionary youth, the day on which the young workers mass their strength in demonstrations against exploitation, against capitalism and its miseries; war, unemployment, pov- erty. Today under the leadership of the Young Communist International, the rebel youth of the world againg gathers to celebrate the tenth anni- versary of International Youth Day. In the United States, under the direc- tion of the Young Workers. League, the organization of the young Com- munists, demonstrations are being ar- ranged all over the country. ' Wher- ever there is a unit of the ledgue, large scale meetings are being ar- ranged, revolutionary slogans issued, and the voice of protest of the ex- ploited youth is to be heard from coast to coast. On all sides the young workers of of growing numbers of the proletariat. Where the workers are“fortunate enuf to remain at work, the bosses take this opportunity to cut wages to the bone, to increase the work day, to make conditions of work more unbear- able, And should the workers protest by going out on strike, the unem- ployed, especially the young who haye not yet felt the class struggle so keenly, who are still steeped in the psychology of the the master class, are ready to take their places, at any wage, at any work day, under any con- ditions. The Young Workers League calls on the workers of all ages to unite in a firm front of the young and old, the employed and the jobless, against the greedy encroachments of the capitalist class. Then there is the drive towards the next war. The investments of Ameri- can capital in other lands are drawing it into cofiflict with the imperialist In- terests of other ‘countries. The clashes between empires become more frequent, more sharp. The capitalists feel the inevitability of the next war, and with their usual foresight, they are making all preparations for it. The youth of America,,as well as of the rest of the world, is being coralled into Citizens’ Military Training Camps, Reserve Officers’ Training Camps, intensified drives are made— with the generous aid of Mr. Gompers, —for the increase in the membership of the Boy and Girl Scouts, and more recently, the master stroke of Mobili- zation Day. , Against hese militarist maneuvers, he Young Workers League raises the surd to think that we can prevent the coming of war. The master class pre- pares too cunningly, and the workers retalize it only when rifles are thrust into their hands and they are ordered to shoot down other workers whom they have never seen and with whom they can have no quarrel. The young Communists, as the vanguard of the youth who are the first victims of im- perialist war, are organizing for the time when the war in the interests of capitalist profits will be turned into \the war in the interests of working class revolution, the transformation of imperialist war into civil war for the dictatorship of the proletariat. On‘this International Youth Day, the young Communists call upon the young workers to rally to the stand- ards of Communism in protest against capitalist exploitation and imperialist war, and for working class control thru the proletarian revolution. In this movement, not only the young workers, but the adults as well must join with all their strength. We must not only demonstrate with words, with our voices against the iniquities of capitalist society, but we must show more concretely that we are ready to carry on an every day struggle against it. In the ranks of the Workers Party and the Young Workers League are found the legions of the revolutionary workers of America. Outside of it are the masses of the workers who are yet under the influence of capitalist thot. But to the masses with our revolu- tionary message! Rouse the workers, the youth, to the banners of Communism on Inter- America are confronted with grave |fhegan of Class War against Imper-|national Youth Day! quality of cultivation both there and about Moscow. Picturesque crowds at all the stations, many in white, the men with white blouses the women with white kerchiefs about their heads, or red. High-heeled American shoes, ruining the free carriage of the girls, flat felt slippers of red or green. Everywhere the emblem of the sickle and hammer just as if it had always been, quite worn and shabby and authentic. Arrived at{the Moscow station, we were immediate- ly investigated by the police. One of the party had indiscreetly photo- graphed a pretty peasant girl at a way-station, the information was there before us, and the whole party was under suspicion. But our cre- dentials are unimpeachable. We were not detained. At the Savoy, the Nep tourist hotel, he prices were so high, that we tried the Passage, and were given: accom- modations there, only to be told later that it was by mistake of an assist- ant. This hotel had been taken over by the government for the “Profin- tern.” In other words, the delegates to the Congress of the Red Trade Un- ion International were housed there at nominal rates by the government, which paid the difference to the Neps, We also discovered that he had been mistaken for a circus troup expected in town; but whose appearance gave rise to this fantastic mistake, and whether it. was for this reason we were let in or threatened with putting out, we never learned. We hope it was our collective baggage which ar- rived before us on a dray with one of us sitting on top as guard. But there were the rooms, so out came our vari- ous credentials against—so many good Communists on legitimate con- structive missions—and we held our rooms, of course, at Nep rates. Next day the hotel emptied, for the last of the many congresses have closed. Below my window is a great empty lot, with mountainous piles of old bricks beside a large half-built struc- ture begun before the war. There in the amphitheater of rubble the boys play football until the long twilight fails. There in the morning is an en- campment of vendors, loafing in the i lll sunshine until eight o’clock calls them to their stands. These they have with them, some carrying them in front by straps about the neck; some infold legs and set them on the street corner, with a folding chair beside hem, Women with white head-ker- chiefs indicate government control and good food—sausage and caviar roll sandwiches, fruit, cake and candy, and huge bottles of kvass, a sort of cider made of different fruits or grains. On the rubble field, a few idlers are left, lying as if they had slept there. They pull their ragged coats up to their caps as the sun grows hotter on their faces, and turn over for a final snooze when the | busy ones leave. A Russian fellow- passenger returning after two’ years, finds fewer unemployed. Everyone, he says, is working. A woman living here says, at the present moment un- employment is increasing. So slow nust be the readjustment and ad- vance in the face of world opposition —always a step back to two steps ahead, but still an advance. Food is high except for those who have their union cards and factory eating places. But if you have to pay at these shabby little restaurants, 50 to 75 cents (a rouble to a rouble and a half) for a plate of soup, and no napkin thrown in, it is borshch with plenty of vegetables and a big hunk of meat, and you need nothing else for a substantial dinner. I bought a melon the other day in the street, not such a very big melon, and when I had done the arithmetic of it, I found I had paid 75 cents. But it is the be- ginning of the season. For break- fast at our little 4th class hotel, (ac- cording to American standards) a glass of coffee, a large roll with but- ter and an egg, still without a nap- kin—is a rouble and 20 kopeks, but the rouble is stable and almost at the old par, something that no other European country can boast of. More- over, these are Nep prices, which the workers do not have to pay. My first impression, for it is a new impression after eleven years, as we came up from the station in the elec- tric, was “how oriental!” ; The colorful bare-headed crowds By Anna Porter against pink plaster houses, and the aimless way they seemed to mill about. Further along, within the town, I was struck by the number of ‘book stores, and my astonishment in- creasés at the big orderly window displays, mostly in paper bindings, and all apparently worth while books on all possible subjects. Pictures sug- gest also much propaganda in these shops—of a simple sort, much of it connected with Lenin and his work. We had an early tea-and-jam* with our professor who had arrived the day before us, and a late tea-and-current- pie with Anna Louise. If you don’t know who Anna Louise is, go out at once and buy “The First Time inH is- tory.” Then you -will know. I trust the editor not to cut out this ad. For- tunately and unfortunately, she is off to the Caucasus, one of the bath re- sorts in the lower range, for a month’s rest. Fortunately—for I fall heir to her apartment, with the very bour- geois attachment: of a little maid for some hours a day. The “apartment” is one room, high up in an old hotel, with no bath or elevator. As a regis- tered worker, her rent is very small, but more than a family would pay, as a penalty for occupying alone a room of more than the square feet alotted to one person, And the rent is scaled to the wages one receives for the month. Fortunately, I may have this for the month, but unfortunately, I shall feel without her deaf and dumb and blind. (To Be Continued) Go to eat where all-the rest 100% union men and women go Deutche-Hungarian Restaurant 29 South Halsted St. Pure Food, Good Service and reasonable prices our motto Join the Workers Party!