The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 23, 1925, Page 6

ts j Page Six TR THE DAILY WORKER. Scans eecnmeeseen al Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING O00, 1118 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, DL (Phone: Monroe 4712) SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail: $3.50....6 months $2.00...8 montha By mail (in Chicago only): $4.50....6 months $2. $6.60 per year ..% montha $8.00 per year Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER $118 W. Washington Bivd. Chicago, ilinele J. LOUIS ENGDAHL | : | WILLIAM F. DUNNE{™™ mananntied MORITZ J. LOB wees Business Manager llntahomniiiernh ———— Entered as second-class mail Sept. 21, 1923, at the Post | Office at Chicago, Ill, under the act of March 38, 1879. Advertising rates on app’cation Workers’ Education The Workers’ Edueation Bureau, an adjunct of the American Federation of Labor, baptized at the Portland convention as a legitimate child of Amer- ican trade unionism, meeting in convention in Philadelphia, has remained true to its sponsors by barring Communist schools from affiliation. The Workers’ Education Bureau, beginning as labor colleges endorsed by city central labor coun-j as brought into being by the activity of left It was not long before officialdom of the ran Federation of Labor sensed a danger to its control in these institutions which, for the most part, were dominated by Marxists. The American Federation of Labor has, since the day of its organization, frowned upon anything in the nature of what it calls “abstract education.” In this phrase is included whatever relates to the class struggle and it is because any course that is worthy of the name of education must deal with some phase of the class struggle, that the official trade union movement made no provision of any kind for systematic education of its membership. It is a fact too well known to need extended proof that whatever knowledge of the underlying principles of the capitalist system, the class strug- gle, the revolutionary role of the working class, has been obtained by members of the trade unions has come from other organizations—working class political parties and the syndicalist unions. But new times bring new methods and since the world war there has been a great skepticism mani- festing itself jh the labor movement, a questioning that would not be stilled. Following the jesuit principle of “what we can- not destroy we must control,” the labor official- dom, reluctantly and with many misgivings, gave the Workers’ Education Bureau its endorement. It is supposed to be modeled after the Workers’ Edu- cational Association of Great Britain and, it must be said, has in its leading organs many types ~eminiseent of the “pure” intellectuals who in at Britain send the youth scurrying down the path of knowledge in quest of “pure” truth. Any- thing savoring of revolutionary working class edu- cation is taboo. The educational activities of the American Fed- eration of Labor are safely under control now. They train workers, not for combat but for negotia- tion. The ideal of the “educators” is that of the liberal middle-class economists who spend their lives gathering data, but never daring to arrive at a conclusion, The Workers’ Education Bureau operates within the confines of capitalism and woe to the unfortunate student who mentions Marx. Marx and Engels are not respectable, they cause doubts as to the stability of capitalism to arise and natur- ally enough their works cannot become textbooks in courses that touch only the fringe of capitalist society. In short, the Workers’ Education Bureau is engaged in. turning out labor fakers lacking even the physical courage of the two-fisted roughnecks who fought their way up from the rank and file. The emphasis in the Workers’ Education Bureau is on respectability. The future trade union fakers must be gentlemen. It was to he expected that an institution estab- ure to European capitalism. It would have a tremen- dous efféct in Greece, Roumania, Italy and Poland. With ‘a Soviet government in the Balkans -the line of imperialism between Europe and Asia’ Minor would be seriously endangered if not broken com- pletely. Just as the Finnish revolution wag crushed by a German army under Mannerheim, go is the war on the workers and peasants of Bulgaria conducted by the scourings of the capitals of Europe, from the troops of Wrangel to the gunmen who took part in the separatist movement in the Ruhr. Bulgaria was an enemy nation in the world war, her army was reduced after the armistice and severe restrictions were placed on her by the allies. Today she appears as a friend in need. Her request for additional troops to turn loose on the workers and peasants has been granted and the sympathetic tone of the dispatches to the capitalist press in- dicate that the Bulgarian government has the full | support of the allies in its murderous work. In addition to the support given the bloody Zankoy government, the European capitalist press, with that of Great Britain sounding the keynote, is opening a new campaign of slander of. the Com- munist International and the Soviet government. Poland has recruited 170,000 additional troops and in all the border states, backed by allied finance and bayonets, there are evidences of fever- ish military activity. Is a new war on Soviet Russia in the offing? Perhaps. Certainly there is need for the greatest watchfulness on the part of the working class everywhere. As for the -Comtiitnists in Bulgaria, they are hounded and hunted like wild beasts, but the very ferocity of the Zankoy government is proof of its weakness. Even the capitalist press is forced to admit that troops are going over to the revolu- tionists and that in many districts the government has been routed. Whatever comes out of the struggle in Bul- garia, victory or defeat for the workers and peas- ants, it will be only a prelude to a greater struggle in eastern and southeastern Europe between the masses led by the Communists and the terror gov- ernments of capitalism. Get a member for the Workers Party and a new subscription for the DAILY WORKER. Textile Workers’ Needs Nine textile unions are amalgamating in Great Britain, A. few years ago,” when the American textile workers read of the conditions of the British work- ers inythe same industry they could and did con- gratulate themselves on the difference in their favor. They did not organize—at least not to any extent, Today, the textile barons have the industry com- pletely controlled. Textile towns have the same meaning as coal and copper camps—they are com- munities. where the capitalists of the local indus- tries are.supreme, Wages are low, employment precarious and working conditions bad. The mill owners are reducing the wages of the American textile operatives to a starvation scale. The Trade Union Educational League of the tex- tile industry is calling a conference in Lawrence next Sunday, April 26. The purpose of the con- ference is to establish a united front of all the workers and organizations in the industry, to or- ganize the power of the workers against that of the textile capitalists, to prepare the way for amal- gamation of the many feeble unions in the industry and a great organizing campaign. The British textile workers have set an example for the American industry. Let next Sunday mark the beginning of a new era for the textile work- ers—an era of organization and struggle that will end with the unionization of every textile mill on the continent. Shop committees, amalgamation and industrial unions—these are the immediate goals for the victims of the textile capitalists. Every day get a “sub” for the DAILY WORKER lished to counteract Communist activity and edu- and a member for tHé Workers Party. cation would not admit representatives of a Com- munist school. The last ones to expect this were; those Communists who attended the convention! in Philadelphia. But here as elsewhere the work-| ers have had an opportunity to see the difference between the Communist theory of education, edu-} cation for struggle against capitalism, and that! of the capitalist tools in the labor movement who are simply fitting men and women to fool the work- ers with a little more efficiency. That Communist education is a factor in the lives of the American workers is shown by the trouble and expense to which the officialdom of the trade unions have gone to counteract it. Bloody Bulgaria ‘the terror in Bulgaria is no more a purely Bul- @arian than the Finnish, Esthonian or Polish ter- ror. It is an incident in the war of world capitalism on the revolutionary sections of the working class. Were the issue in Bulgaria merely between the ruling class and the peasantry, the Bulgarian mur- der government would not last twenty-four hours. Probably in no other country, with the possible exception of Russia just before the overthrow of the ezar in 1917, has the population been so much a unit against the tyrants. But the Bulgarian regime is backed by allied Guns ard Workers Chief of Police Collins, of the peaceful American city of Chicago, called in his police captains and told them to have their cops wear their guns in front. After a’short speech on the necessity of added vigilance in order to check the crime wave, the chief ordered the captains to go out and search the camps of MEXICAN laborers, who, he said, have been getting guns lately. This little incident is revealing in the insight it gives us into the mental process of the bold and ‘fearless, man-hunters of capitalist government, There are probably a hundred thousand inhabi- tants of the Chicago underworld who carry guns but it is to Mexican laborers that the chief of po- lice directs the attention of his underlings. All of which is proof of our contention that a gun in the hands of a workingman ig considered a thousand times more dangerous by the bosses than a hundred thousand in the possession of actual criminal elements. It’s as hard to expel Communist delegates from central labor bodies as it is to turn-back the tides of the seven seas, Pretty soon the fakers will give up trying. oe Now is the*time to order a bundle of the DATLY imperialism. A sticcessful revolution in Bulgaria wud mean the Joss of the entire Balkan territory ¥) f WORKER'S International May Day Issue. On May First it’ will be too late! E DAILY WORKER Sessions of (Continued froin last issue.) Moscow, April 2 (By Mall). IOMRADE BUGHARIN on the peas- ant question: ! Altho it is the fashion nowadays to call oneself a Leninist and to renounce Trotskyism, many comrades are of the opinion that the peasant question is, in the more . developed. capitalist countries, of secondary importance. This view is aboslutely false and Trotskyist. According to Trotsky’s theory of the permanent revolution, it should have been impossible fom the Russian pro- letariat to maintain its power with- out the aid of the well-organized West European proletariat, This theory is false, because after)the world victory of the proletariat, the agrarian ques- tion will reproduce. itself on a higher scale. The agrarian question is just as much the problem of. our epoch, as that of the seizure of power by the proletariat. The‘colonial question is in reality but the/struggle of the colo- nial peasantry against the imperial- ists. 3 The elimination 6f opportunism is closely connected with the peasant question, because” it ‘is only by means of the surplus profits’ from the colon- ies that the bourgeoisie is able to render the upper strata of the work- ing class bourgeois. °° Nes Chinese problem is but a ques- tion of organizing the Chinese peasants against the imperialists. The economic weight of the peasantry is also important, because the positions of France and Britain are determined by their colonial possessions. At the present time there exist three decis- ive social forms: Firstly, the big bourgeoisie and large estate owners. Secondly, the proletariat. Thirdly, the peasantry. The peas- antry constitutes ‘the decisive factor in the relations of power, whereas in the most important “industrial coun- tries, we have almost no influence whatever on the peasantry. HE speaker gives’a thoro analysis of the peasants’ organizations in Germany, where the,“Reichslandbund” (National Land gue) comprises two million peasa and even half of the agricultural proletariat, under the leadership of thé large landowners. Enlarged In France the situation is no better, since the peasants are influence by the big landowners, and the peasants’ co-operatives are connected with the banks, The larger the peasant organ- ization, the more reactionary is its leadership. As to the conquest of the peasantry —we are as yet at the beginning of our task; which fact, in a period of temporary stabilization, is very de- pressing. Our balance on this field is unfayorable, altho the seizure of power without winning over the peas- ant reserves is problematic. HE bourgeoisie has recognized the importance of the peasant re- serves, as may be seen from the statements of many bourgeois econ- omists who consider the peasantry as the main support of conservatism. The war and post-war periods have dug deep into the peasantry and have changed the character of that section of the peasantry which is not so much bound up with private property—just as they have changed the character of the proletariat. The process of de velopment is of course slower among the peasantry than it is among the workers. ‘We must win over the poor peas- antry. The present epoch is char- acterized by the struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat—for the conquest of the peasantry. The bourgeoisie understands this better than the Communists; they form the ‘united front with the peasants in or- der to win them over to their side. HE fascists and the social demo- crats also work among the peas- antry; we—the least of all. The bour- geoisie is striving to agrarianize the world, and to develop agriculture at the expense of industry—in order to prevent the social revolution. The bourgeoisie at times opposes the im- provement of agriculture technique, in order to prevent land-Communism. The bourgeoisie is carrying out the united front tactic, ag may be seen from its land reforms. The measly land reforms arose under the pressure from the peasantry; however, they give rise to illusions among the peas- antry. i ce bourgeoisie organizes the agri- cultural credits thru the peasants’ co-operatives which in turn are close- ly bound up with the banks. In Finland the co-operatives dominated by two banks. In the United States, the banks are are mer ht (Continued from Page 1) the Universal Negro;Improvement As- sociation which had, called the con- gress, and by direct, efforts of federal officers to terrorize. the delegates on the floor of the congress. . An effort is nowgbeing made in the courts to take aw: m she organ- ization its New York meeting place, “Liberty Hall,” as a further induce- ment to it to disband. uf hese president ot the Universal Ne- gro Improvement Association, Marcus Garvey, is in the federal peni- tentiary “at Atlanta, Georgia, with a five-year sentence nd the prospect of deportation as an “undesirable alien” at the end of that’term. The federal court of appealé@@nd the United States supreme court dispensed with their usual custom! of long-drawn-out delay and acted with unheard-of speed in condemning this Negro leader where those courts’would have been only too gentle in finding loop-holes for a big criminal of the ruling class and the so-called “superior race.” Defend Negro Right to Organize. HE Workers (Communist) Party calls upon all class conscious workers, both white workers and the Negro workers everywhere, to join to- gether in protests and demonstrations against the persecution of the Uni- versal Negro Improvement Associa- tion and against the imprisonment of Marcus Garvey, We demand Gar- vey’s immediate rélease from the capi- talist prison, and the stopping of all persecutions agairist the organization. In fighting against the imprison- ment of Marcus Garvey, the Workers ; (Communist) Patty”does not endorse the leadership of Mr. Garvey. Many times we have directed the severest criticisms against “Wis leadership, and we intend to contittue to do so.. Ever since the memorable convention of the Universal Negro Improvement As- sociation in 1920 Mr. Garvey has steadily “progressed backward” by seeking more and more each year to evade the vital issues of the wrongs of the Negro people. The Workers (Communist) Panty has been obliged to point out thatwG@arvey refused to fight for the Negroes’ rights in the labor unions, altho: he was instructed by the 1920 convention of the Negro organization to do.so, . E have severely criticized Mr. Garvey for refusing to fight against the peonage of the Negro ag- ricultural laborers and the Negro “share-croppers” and tenant farmers in the southern states. The splendid ‘| spirit of international solidarity of the American Negroes»with their op- pressed brothers/of Africa and oth lands, has becom@.in Mr. Garve: hands a miserable excuse for shirk- ing the struggle ofthe Negro massos for emancipation ithe United States, or, in effect, anywhere, ‘ By appealing to white capitalist Ne- gro-baiters for support on the ground that he teach the Negro masses not to aspire to social and po- litical equality in the United States, Garvey has degraded the dignity of the great Negro people and injured their cause. In the convention of the U. N. I. A. of August, 1924, Garvey persuaded the convention to refuse to make a stand against the ku klux klan, which habitually murders, tor- tures and terrorizes the Negro people. The Workers (Communist) Party does not endorse the leadership of Marcus Garvey, but severely con- demns it. UT the imprisonment of Marcus Garvey is a political question hav- img nothing to do with the personal deficiencies of the man. The brutal manner in which this Negro leader was treated upon the occasion of his arrest, the flouting of his “legal” rights both while on trial and while under bond, as well as the fact of his imprisonment, are intended as an insult and an injury to the 12,000,- 000 Negro workers and farmers of America. This is a direct attack by a capitalist government against the Negro masses whom the government fears and hates. It must be made a lesson to the Negro people, that the capitalist government which suppres- ses their efforts at organization is the bitterest enemy of the Negro people and of the working class, GOVERNMENT which exists ,for the purpose of robbing the masses of the products of their toil, a gov- ernment run by thieves for the bene- fit of a thieving class and even headed at present by the thieves of Teapot Dome, cannot persuade us that it has become the protector of the masses front robbery. If Garvey has swin- dled his people it is for his people to judge, and not for the capitalist gov- ernment which is the enemy of the Negro people, The real reason for the arrest of the president of the Negro associa tion is the crude belief that this will cause the organization to fall to pieces. of Organization of Negroes, Importance ‘ si fp Workers (Communist) Party takes this occasion to point out to white workers as well as Negro workers the importance of organiza- tion of the Negro masses of this coun- try. The Negro population is posed almost entirely of wage work- ers, agricultural work and the most severely exploited class of farmers, often landless. In addition to the or- dinary forms of exploitation and per- secution under which the white work- ers and farmers suffer, the Negroes have to endure the terrible burden of race persecution by which the capital- ist class intensifies its class exploita- tion of the Negroes and also succeeds bin dividing and weakening, the ex- ploited classes, b hy: America and internationally, in the world-struggle against capital- ruining the farmers on the one side, {ena are financing the co-operatives on the .other, In the, question of protective tariffs. the large estate owners have succeed- ed in winning over a section of the peasantry to their side. HE bourgeoisie in general, is trying by all means to win over the peasantry. Our occupation with the peasantry should not be considered a sickness of the Communist parties. The fundamental error of Trotskyism is the underestimation of the peasant question. In this respect, the prac- tical activities of many Communist parties are not Leninistic. The Russ- ian discussion was extremely import- ant because the correct tactic in the Peasant question has been found. HE speaker then proceeds to char- acterize the prejudices of the Communist parties in the peasant question. The underestimation of the work among the peasantry has its roots in the craft ideology of the work. ers in industrial countries. We must make an effort to overcome this ideo- logy. In the organic phase of capitalism, it-was necessary to clear the obstacles hindering the devolpment of capital- ism. At present the immediate task is.the conquest of power, and the ques- tion, of allies is the most urgent one in our whole policy. To. refuse to work among the peasantry is to cap- itulate before craft opportunism, hes great problems of peasant pol- icy must be treated differently according to the given epoch, and in accordance with the concrete situa- tion. The main cause of the over- throw of the Soviet dictatorship in Hungary was the absolutely inadmis- sible policy pursued in the peasant question, namely, the failure to par- cel out the large estates in favor of the small peasantry. Some Hungarian comrades do not yet grasp the significance of this fun- damental error. The negative experi- ences of the Hungarian revolution and of the Italian government, and the pos. itive experience of the Russian revolu- tion, should. be thoroly studied and ap- plied, since. we. haye to deal here with a strategic, problem of the first xecutive of the C. L economig, social and political respects, is a fundamental fact. The second phenomenon is the agrarian crisis, the third,.the growth of peasant activities in all countries, the fourth, the differ- entiation of the peasantry and its or- | ganizations. On this basis the peasant movement is developing contradictions, between large landowners and peasants, and between the peasantry, and big capi- tal. The form of these contradictions is as follows: the struggle for land; the demand for protective tariffs, and the tax question. ANY Communist parties have not | yéé realized the necessity\of ap- proaching the peasantry with empiri- cal: demands. The main demands of all ‘peasant organizations revolve about the tax problem. Taxation pol- icy “is state policy; hence the neces- sity for taking advantage of this cir- cumstance, in order to bring the péas- antry into conflict with the bourgeois state, i It is very. important to fight the trust-industry for lower prices of in- dustrial goods. On this basis it is necessary to combine the struggles of thé workers and peasants. Our tasks in the field of organiza- tion differ with the circumstances, whether in the particular country any peasant organizations exist or not. HERE are two kinds of peasant or- ganizations: political parties, and peasant leagues. Our tactic is, to sup- port the left wing, and split it off when the situation has matured. In those countries where the organ- ization of the peasantry requires our initiative, it should be the rule not to form political parties but peasant leagues. It is the great mass of small peasants that has to be won over, and not the’ small Communist peasant sects; for this work, peasant leagues are more suitable. HE Communist parties neglect the study of the peasant question, and are too little informed on agrarian reforms, The Rote Fahne and the Internationale in Germany seldom write about the agrarian question; similarily with the press of the other parties. The bourgeoisie studies and understands the peasant question bet- order—without. which victory is un- thinkable. HE speaker then passes to an analysis .of the present situation. The growth,of the relative importance of the land. igyrelation to the city, in ter, and pursues a better policy, There can be no victory without win- ning over the peasantry, and. there can be no real Bolshevism without a correct agrarian policy. plause.) (Stormy ap- ae ist-imperialism,° the Negro movement is destined to*piay @ tremendous part. The epoch of! the><world révolution which opened with the Russian revolu- tion, is ‘also°thevépoch of the rise of the darker -Fates).and the two form one inseparable :whole.- A movement among the Negro workers and farm- ers of thd) United’ States must be con- sidered, ages Fi the light of the class struggle ‘in this couftry, but also in connection with the anti-im- perialist. struggles, of the millions of West Indian Negroes and the 150,000,- 000 natives, of Africa, and the awak- ening of the,400,000,000 of China and the 320,000,000 of India. fa widespread awakening of inter- est among American Negroes in international questions, as shown in the desire to.take part in the strength- ening of the African Negro republic of Liberia and the winning of inde- pendence for. the natives of Africa generally, is a guarantee of this his- torical trend. This. newly awakened interest of American Negroes in international affairs, which found. confused but ear- nest expression among the rank and file of the Universal Negro Improve- ment Association,, was one of the causes of the government’s brutal at- tack upon the Negro’ organization. The diplomatic ministers of the Unit- ed States, Great Britain and France brot about the-outlawing of the Uni- versal Negro Improvement Associa- tion from African soil. The president of the Liberian, republic has publicly admitted that, “obligations to the great powers” had something to do witlt the exclusion of the Negro as- sociation from all activities in Liberia. A concession for rubber lands, claim- ed by the Negro association, was with- drawn and given to a big American corporation, (the Firestone Tire Co.), thru the machinations of an American diplomatic minister at the same mo- ment that the United States govern- ment made its final assault to break up the Negro association. Here we|_ see the sharp fangs of American im- MEXICO’S REFUSAL Imprisonment ‘Is Capitalist Plot perialism determined to enter and ravage the African continent just as it ravages Haiti, Porto Rico, the Vir- gin Islands, etc, (HE Workers (Communist) Party, composed of Negro workers as well as white workers, and standing for the solidarity and emancipation of the working class on terms of equality of all races, cannot stand idly by while the capitalist dictatorship at- tempts to destroy a mass organiza- tion of the exploited Negro people. We cannot consent that the Negro should be denied the right of organ- ization. The Workers (Communist) Party calls upon the workers, both Negro and white, to protest against the per- secution of the Universal Negro Im- provement Association. We demand the immediate andun conditional release of Marcus Garvey. We demand that Marcus Garvey shall not be deported. We demand an end to the looting of the treasury of the Universal Ne- gro Improvement Association by the courts of law. We demand that “Liberty Hall” shall not be taken away from the Ne- gro association. We demand that the bloody hand ot American imperialism shall not strangle the African peoples. We demand that the full and free intercourse of American Negroes with their brothers of the African’ conti- nent shall not be interfered with. © We call upon the Negro workers and the white workers to hold mass meetings and demonstrations together to voice their protest against the per- secution of Negro workers. We call for a united front of white workers and Negro workers as a guar- antee and a promise of the solidarity of the working @lass, both black and white, which will bring the emancipa- tion of the exploited classes and races of the world. ‘ _.. Central Executive Committee, _. Workers (Communist) Party of A oe oe TO JOIN ARMS DICUSSION DICTATED BY SLIGHTS — OF BRITISH AND U.S. IMPERIALISM ETHEL Od MEXICO CITY, April 21.—The refusal of the Mexican government to take part in the league of nations traffic in arms conference was prompted by numerous discriminations against Mexico practiced by British and Ameri- can imperialism which controls. the league. In a note to Geneva, the Mexi- can government recalls some of the slights of the world powers, suffered by Mexico, ‘The league of nations barred Mexico, when it was originally constituted, because of objections by Wall Street, mouth piece of its ruling. Just a few weeks ago, it is recalled, the International Labor which used Woodrow Wilson as the, ss When the American impe: its jureau re-| finally withdrew their objections to fused to admit Mexico until she join-| Mexico's entrance to the ‘ea of ed the. of nations, in spite of | natios objections were m iy the: fact that Germany, Finland and |Great Britain, and the resen at of other countries have been admitted | Mexico agate this treatment by the ization altho they are league,