The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 1, 1924, Page 10

' 5th yn GOMPERS AND RUSSIA | -:- tnemies of Soviet Russia always delight in pointing out that it is Sam- uel Gompers, titular head of the Amer- ican labor movement, who fights against Russia most bitterly. Not even those bourgeois Rtssians who lost their means of exploiting Russian la- bor because of the revolution, are able to spit more venomously at the Workers’ Republic than Gompers. What is the explanation of this fact, that Gompers, “labor leader,” hates the Soviets at least equally as much as does Judge Gary or the Grand Duke Michael? Can it be that Soviet Russia men- aces any interest of the working class? Is that why Gompers hates Russia? No, that is not the reason. To prove that Soviet Russia is a tower of strength for the labor movement in every country, it is not mecessary to believe what the Communists say. Bitter anti-Communists, “labor lead- ers” of the reformist stripe thruout the world, have acknowledged and /publicly stated, that Russia is the one strong bulwark against capitalist re- action and the destruction of the la- bor movement, The first desire of all enemies of the struggling proletariat is, to overthrow the present form of gov- ernment in Russia, i. e., the rule of the Workers and Peasants . . . The overthrow of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Republic would be the severest blow which the internation- al working class could sustain. For no matter what the differences di- viding the working class interna- tionally, theoretically and organiza- tionally, one thing is certain: Soviet Russia is the last stronghold against the growing international reaction which threatens to submerge the working class. The above is not a Communist pro- clamation. It is a document signed in Berlin, in May, 1923, by Edo Fim- men, then secretary of the Amster- dam International Federation of Trade Unions (bitterly anti-Communist), and also secretary of the Transport Work- ers’ Federation of the Amsterdam In- ternational. It was also signed by Robert Williams, chairman of the Transport Workers’ Federation, and leader of the British Transport Work- ers’ Union. The entire British labor movement is unanimousiy (and enthusiastically) in favor of recognition of and a treaty with Soviet Russia by Great Britain. The British labor movement is ready (no matter how reluctant its leaders) to fight out a general election on this issue. This should be convincing proof that the British working class feels sympathy and even love for the Russian working class and its gov- ernment. When Churchill, in 1920, threaten- ed war against Russia, the British working class organized a tremendous “Hands off Russia” movement, set up councils of action, and threatened a revolution if the war movement was not stopped. That was a convincing demonstration that the Russian Soviet government is known to the British working class as its friend. But it is not necessary to go to Great Britain to find that the work- ers feel confidence in Russia, and rep- udiate entirely the Gompers’ hatred of the Workers’ Republic. Thousands of, local unions and city central bodies in the American Federation of Labor have demanded the recognition of Sov- iet Russia, in spite of all Gompers’ snarls and lies. Such a conservative organization as the American Federa- tion of Teachers has repeatedly adopt- ed such resolutions. The conservative International Association of Machin- ists, both at its convention in Roches- troit this year, unanimously \demand- ed the recognition of Rumgia. Why then does Gompers fight so bit- terly against Russia? Why does he repeat every white guard lie against the Soviets and even improve upon them? Why is Gompers a more yo- ) feur years ago and again in De- for a few crumbs of concessions to small sections of the organized work- ers and in return for social and politi- cal recognition for himself. What Gompers’ policy means, for the workers in the United States, is weakness, demoralization, and a help- less submission to the capitalist class. His opposition to amalgamation, to class political action, the militant poll- cies of every kind, bring about such a condition that The Magazine of Wall Street could say, (August 30, 1924). “it is evident that this country (read Wall Street) has in no way to fear from such institutions as the American Federation of Labor. On the whole, American business can con- gratulate itself on the inherent good sense of the average American labor- ing man.” Domestic policy is but one side of Gompersism. f perhaps even great- er importance in the long run is the support that Gompers gives to Ameri- can imperialism. And here we -can readily understand why Gompers hates Russia. Soviet Russia has established itself The Beginning of the Bolshevist Uprising in Petrograd cal enemy of Soviet Russia than even Secretary of State Hughes? 1 Gompers is Enemy of Workers. . The answer to this question is that Gompers has interests, separate from and opposed to the interests of the working class, which are threatened by the rise of revolutionary sentiment among the workers. Soviet Russia is the great center of revolutionary thot and feeling in the world’s working class. Therefore Gompers hates and fights against Soviet Russia. What are these special interests that Gompers represents? They are manifold, but all come under the gen- eral heading of “Gompers’ policy of co-operation with the ruling class.” Gompers’ settled policy, in all fields, is to support the capitalist system and American imperialism in its merciless exploitation of the masses of unorgan- ized workers at home and the masses of the population in the colonial and semi-colonial lands abroad, in return in the hearts of all oppressed peoples as their friend and champion. The example of Russia granting self-de- termination to all national minorities within the old czarist empire is but one example. The contrast that this policy of the revolutionary workers of Russia makes as against Gompers policy of echoing the words of Secre- tary of State Hughes, agent of Wall Street, must make Gompers grind his teeth in rage. Gompers’ role as a servile tool of American imperialism is nowhere more strikingly illustrated than in the functioning of the Pan-American Fed- eration of Labor, a creation of the partnership of Gompers and_Morones, chief labor faker of Mexico. This so- called Pay-American Federation is made up of delegates from countries controlled by the agents of the United States department of state, thru in- trigue, money, or the rifles of U. S. marines. Its policy is to sabotage, By Earl R. Browder Editor, “Workers’ Monthly.” beat down labor and nationalist re- sistance to the orders of Hughes, or whoever happens to be the mouth- piece of Wall Street dt Washingtom Its only activities are in the direc- tion of enforcing Wall Street orders upon South and Central America. A recent example of tts servility is given in the “mission” that Gom- pers sent to Nicaragua in July of this year. The official report , pub- lished in the American Federationist for October, discloses that the whole “mission” had Wit one object—to force the adoption of an election law “draft- ed,” says the report quite frankly, “by a representative scat down there by the United States department of state.” “The U. S. state department is in accord with the legislation pro- posed and Charge de Affaires, Mr. Thurston, so adyised the Nicaraguan government when the bill was under consideration. Notwithstanding the congress refused to enact the bill.” That was the reason the mission was sent—to try to force the Nicaraguan congress to pass the bill sent down for them by Mr. Hughes. The report threatens “violent resentment” be- cause this was not done. The whole affair is palpably another glaring in- stance of Gompers filling his classic role of agent of American imperialism. Gompers hates Soviet Russia, be- cause Soviet Russia is the bittterest enemy in the world of just such im- perialist intrigue, such slavish sub- mission to the rule of capitalist im- perialism, such arrogant carrying out of the policies of imperialism under the cloak of “labor.” And in the same issue of the Amerl- can Federationist which reports, thru Gompers, this black piece of treach- ery to the working class, the old hypo- crite howls against the “machination of Wall Street.” And his man Friday, Chester Wright, prints an eulogy of “American diplomacy” as “the best brand of diplomacy in the world,” re- marking that “it is possible for an American to be proud of many Ameri- can institutions.” Because Soviet Russia is the flam- ing embodiment of working class re- volt against the treacherous policies of all agents of capitalist imperialism such as Gompers, and because Gom- pers feels the volcano of a similar re- volt gathering force beneath the sur- face of American society also, the head of the American Federation of Labor hates Soviet Russia with a deep and abiding hatred. But all of Gompers’ wild abtize of Soviet Russia has been as futile as the armies of allied capitalism which were thrown against the Workers’ Re- public. The Seventh Year of Work- ers’ rule is now being celebrated, and to the extent that Gompers curses this glorious day, the workers of America and of the world should rejoice. And for the same reasons Gompers hates Russia because it stands as the guar- antee of the complete downfall of the capitalist system. The workers love Soviet Russia for that very fact. Program of the Communist International (Continued from last Week) tl. THE FALL OF THE BOUR- GEOISIE AND THE FIGHT eon COMMUNISM . 1. General Characteristics of the Transition Period. Between the Capitalist and Com- munist systems there lies a long per- iod of proletarian struggle, of its vic- tories and defeats, a period of contin- uous decay of capitalist relations with intermittent periods of revival. A Draft Adopted by the Fifth Congress has gained through so much suffering and privation will be followed by an epoch of accelerated development of the conditions of the revolutionary relations—this will be the main feat- ure of the tedious transition period |velopment of the proletariat, which process renders inevitable also the formation of a variety of types of new of development. Here the capture of power by the proletariat constitutes period of national wars, of colonial the essential preliminary for the uprising which, although not revolu- peaceful growth of socialistic forms tionary movements of the proletariat | as such, are objectively becoming a component part of the proletarian | becomes transformed, and grows in world revolution, inasmuch as they, ‘maturity while in charge of all the undermine imperialist domination, of Spheres of public life, drawing the armed and “peaceful” warfare of cap-. ‘other classes into this process of re- italist states against the budding so- generation and thereby of economy, as well as the cultural de- laying the former against the alliance of land- owners and capitalists. The trans tion period on the whole is character- ized by the cultural growth of the proletariat and of the entire toiling masses. Not until this epoch has fulfilled this historical task will so ciety begin to become a Communist society. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat as the Unavoidable Pre-Requisite of the Struggle for Communism. An unavoidable premise for the transition from capitalism to Commun- ism—thoe starting point without which the further evolution of man- kind is entirely impossible, is thus the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeois state, and the seizure of power by the working class, which has to set itself the first and most cialist states—a period which com- foundation for the total abolition of one another, and life and death strug: \ subsequent transformation of the so-|letariat—that is the most elementary gles. poo wonton ae ogg agate bee cpap mabey ste ch ge Mpa ciel ag of the proletariat, and the firm cs-|alliance is formed, tablishments of tho power which “it ical and political hegemony of iH i sian and Hungarian Revolutions, which greatly extended the experience gained by the Paris Commune in 1871. It is precisely this type, arising im- mediutely out of the broadest mass movement, which assures the greatest activity of the masses, and conse quently the best guarantee of ultimate victory. The esha ions 0 aha tt taki tab posed to bourgeois democracy, which is invariably a, veiled form of bour- geois dictatorship, The mass organiz- ations of the workers, which are at best merely tolerated under bourgeois dictatorship, form in the proletarian Some ty, te peele democracy the main supports and or (Continued on next page)