The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 5, 1925, Page 6

rene Page Six | THE DAILY’ WORKER THE DAILY WORKER. eee Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING OO. 1118 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, DL (Phone: Monroe 4712) SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mall: $3.60....6 fhonths : \eaars months By mail (in Chicago only): J $4.50....6 months $2.60...3 months — $6.00 per year $8.00 per year Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER 1113 W. Washington Bivd. 3. LOUIS ENGDAHL WILLIAM F. DUNNE MORITZ J. LOBB......meme Business Manager Qntered as second-class mail Sept. 21, 1938, at the Post- Office at Chicago, Ill, under the act of March 8, 1879. Ep 230 Advertising rates op app“catien Fruits of Class-Collaboration All workers, and particularly the coal miners, should take careful notice of the sytematic cam- paign to reduce wages that is being ‘carried on from coast to coast and in Canada. The employers are more artful than in the last century, when the sheriff of Cook county, Illinois, for example, told a group of strikers in 1885: “You must go back to work for $1.50 a day, or Chicago, Iilinele { anata AMROFS “A Satisfactory Situation” The secretary of labor in Coolidge’s cabinet, Mr. James J. Davis, says that “May Day presents no industrial disputes” and that “industrial relations are very satisfactory as a whole.” While the textile workers of New England are first given the starvation cure of unemployment and then handed a wage cut, while hundreds of | thousands of miners and their families are on ra- tions below the coolie standard and face wide- spread unemployment, wage cuts and the assault of the operators to break up their union, while President Grace of Bethlehem Steel frankly tells the steel trust employes that they must compete with labor enslaved by the Dawes plan, and all along the line the American workers confront a terrific attack on wages, hours and unions, the secretary of the deportation department blandly remarks that the situation is “satisfactory.” In one way, that is to say from the capitalist viewpoint, the situation is, certainly, satisfactory. Capitalism has installed its most reactionary pup- pet in the White House, it has defeated even the most ineffective constitutional limitation to child labor, the wage cuts are for the most part meeting with only sporadf resistance, the enforcement of longer working hours is being pressed, the open shop drive is making headway—and in all these things the capitalists are enlisting the active sup- T’'ll call the troops to compel you to do so.” Those] port of the labor union officialdom. were the days when the employers openly waged unrelenting and brutal warfare on the slightest sign of unionism. Those were the days when the labor movement grew amazingly, and was inspired by militant leaders for tremendous battles. It was the back- ground upon which labor organized its ranks and marched to victory in the magnificent conflict for the eight-hour day in 1886. It was the foundation upon which was erected the American Federation of Labor and the Knights of Labor in their best days. But the employers found that frontal attack on labor organization is not always effective. The policy of corrupting the labor union officialdom and turning the whole stream of unionist ideology into class collaboration was begun and has blos- somed and blown like the deadly upas tree. Everywhere today the union bureaucracy is spreading the idea that the boss really wants to raise wages, really wants to give more employment and better conditions—and is only prevented by lack of efficiency on the part of the workers. The current and most poisonous of all is the intensive propaganda being carried on to convince the work- ers that the remedy for unemployment is to accept a cut in wages. This is an international campaign begun simul- taneously in Europe and America, and it would be interesting to learn what part the union bureau- crats agreed to play in the conspiracy, the exist- ence of which cannot be questioned. The Dawes plan competition with German slave labor fur- nished an excellent excuse. But capitalism is responsible for the Dawes plan and the workers must not accept the burden. In Nova Scotia, Besco gives the unemployment “starvation cure” to 12,000 miners, then demands a wage cut. In Alberta the coal operators haye fairly succeeded in not only cutting wages, but declaring the open shop. The New England textile barons, after a dose of starvation, put over a wage cut. In the Pittsburgh district the coal operators are saying: “If you will take a wage cut, then we will open the mines,” Ten thousand miners are get- ting the preparatory starvation cure. Other in- stances are numerous, in lumber production, for example. The answer of American labor ought to be sharp and decisive. If it is not, and if the American workers are losing right and left, the fault is that the unions are corrupted with class collaboration and union officers teach that “industrial peace” and helping the boss is the first function of the workers’ organization. Such a situation, from the viewpoint of Wall Street and the capitalist government of which Mr. Davis is spokesman, undoubtedly is a source of satisfaction. To the working class, however, such a situation is a living menace to life and happi- ness. While Bill Green and John L. Lewis and the whole tribe of labor fakers may agree that every- thing is lovely, few ordinary workers can look upon the following words of Mr. Davis as any- thing but pure bunk. He adds: “The American workman is entirely in accord with the policies and principles upon which the nation is established. He realizes that his welfare is depend- ent upon profitable and productive enterprise and he is sincerely co-operating with the employer in the endeavor.” We venture to say that the average worker is bamboozled into co-operating with the boss only by the extremest measures of trickery and fraud of the combined forces of capitalist dopesters and union bureaucracy. < And further we venture that when the bulk of workers have tasted the gall and wormwood of class collaboration such as the machinists have done under the “B. & O.” plan at the Glenwood shops, they will be quite ready to listen to the Communists, who are, we imagine, the “societies advocating discontent,-dissatisfaction and opposi- tion to our form of government,” which Mr. Davis condemned as disturbers in this little paradise of American capitalism. The Annual Fright On every May Day since the workers of the world began to demonstrate against the capitalist system the bourgeois press has indulged in a regular campaign of hysterical anti-radical propa- ganda, designed to frighten away the workers from these demonstrations. And yet those demon- strations grow larger year by year. The onward march of the revolutionary proletariat cannot be stopped by any force on earth. A few days prior to last May Day, the capitalist press spread itself on plots and conspiracies in every capital city in Europe. Even in New York the police raided headquarters of the Workers Party without warrant, drove those present out into the streets, rifled desks and carried away Communist literature, Plots to assassinate government officials were discovered in England and after the headlines had accomplished their purpose those who floated the rumors repudiated them. Mussoliniefilled the jails Against this black be-| with radicals. The Paris police raided the homes| trayal all progressive forces must wage a vigorous|of Communists and confiscated literature, war. A Suitable Memorial There were no attacks made on the socialists by the capitalist governments on this May Day in any country with the possible exception of Italy where the fascist gangsters tolerate no opposition. The The committee appointed by the executive coun-| capitalists no longer recognize the socialists as cil of the American Federation of Labor to erect| their enemies. a suitable memorial in honor of Samuel Gompers, It is not hard to get the capitalists excited on has invited suggestions as to the form this memo-| May Day. They fear the idea of the workers of the rial should take. world showing their solidarity by demonstrating Many suitable suggestions occur to a person,|their common interests against capitalism. The suggestions that would portray the attitude of|class struggle is no mere figure of speech. It is a Gompers towards the struggle that always exists] living reality, as is proven not only on May Day, between the workers, on one side, and the capital-| but on every day of the year. ists on the other. Here is one: A worker on his knees with fore- head touching the ground. The foot of a capitalist on his neck. Gompers with a needle, representing “Hindy” Fills the Bill A capacious gullet appears to bea prime qualifi- class collaboration shooting the dope into the work-|cation for the office of president of the imperial er’s arm, republic of Germany. When von Hindenburg Or another: The workers representing a flock of | celebrated his victory with his friends, he is alleged sheep, with Gompers, like the trained ram in the|to have “drank far mote cognac than, Admiral yon Chicago stockyards, leading them to the knife. But remembering that Gompers did make a real Tirpitz and the other politicians.” It was a touching scene. Politicians who frothed serious fight for beer and wine, the dead labor}at the mouth in anger against each other only a leader might be represented as a male edition of{ week ago, blew the foam off generous steins of the statute of liberty, bearing in his uplifted hand| beer as the guests of the new monarchist president foaming mug instead of the lighted torch. of the reich. One of the prettiest pictures at the Gentlemen of the memorial committee, take your | get-together was that of Count Westarp, national- choice. The Soviet ambassador in Paris called on Aristide Briand to deny the rumors spread Russia’s enemies ‘about the envoy’s participation ist, and Paul Loebe, socialist. No doubt they drank to the health of the Dawes plan, the kaiser and the speedy demolition of the Communist Party of Ger- by} many. All the misgivings as to the ability of von Hin- in revolutionary activities in France. About the|denburg to properly fill the office of the presidency same time the French ambassador in Moscow was} were dissipated when the old field marsha] sent calling on Litvinov to deny that two French officers] his competitors ander the table. There were as participated in a Baltic anti-Soviet conference. Tit}many hochs as there were hiccoughs. It was a happy occasion, 916 ra % for tat. — a a An Interview with the Deputy Peo ple's Commissar fdr Justice and Chief Public Prosecutor for the Republic, Comrade Krylenko. : 7 > * 'N the capitalist countries the terror- ist justice is raging more furiously than ever. And the social democrats are more eager than ever to support this system of bourgeois terrorist jus- tice. {hey are conducting a system- atic campaign in order to drown the cry of the revolutionary fighters for | an amnesty which ‘again is arising from the masses. One of their most favorite means is to point to the “terror” in the Soviet Union. Apart from the fact that the proteges of the social democrats are counter-revolutionaries and adventur- ers, who objectively and in almost all cases subjectively further the inter- ests of international imperialism, and against whom the sharpest counter- measures are necessary and justified in the interest of the Soviet Union and of its working ‘class, the campaign of the social deméecracy is absolutely mendacious. y i Nesp outery over Georgia is still fresh in every one’s memory. All the old anti-Bolshevist stories were served up in order to praise and glorify the Georgian mensheviki, who, by means of money supplied by the entente, attempted a counter-revolu- tionary putsch, The central executive committee of the Soviet Union however, at its last session, which was held in Tiflis and which was enthusiastically re- ceived by the Georgian population, decided, among other important ques- tion, upon an amnesty for Georgia. The deputy people’s commissar for justice and chief public prosecutor, Comrade Krylenko, explained to us regarding the ddcision of the central executive committee of the Soviet Union as to the amnesty question as follows: 7 “INHE 8rd session of the central ex- ecutive committee of the Soviet Un- ion was held in Tiflis. The main reason for this was in order to fur- nish palpable proof of the close con- nection which exists between the cen- tral government and those sections of the union which formerly, as border states, were subjected to a regime of national oppression by the czarist bu- reaucracy. This proof has been fur- nished by the welcome accorded to the government in the capital city of | the country where the national ques- tion is particularly complicated (Geor- gia is inhabited by about 10 different nationalities.) The reception of the government in Tiflis was a unique triumph, especially the reception ac- corded by the working population, It has shown that the position of the Soviet power -n Georgia is so firmly consolidated, that there cannot be any talk of any hostile attitude, in spite of the counter-revolutionary putsch attempt of the mensheviki which took place as recently as Au- gust last. “The demonstrative reception has shown that the government acted rightly in deciding. to grant an am- nesty, after it had become evident that the working population of Georgia are unanimously behind the So- viet: power. The evidence against those who participated in the putsch is to be once more exaiined, This will mainly affect the members of the menshevist organizations. “The amnesty extends still further to sentences which were imposed fast year in ‘consequence of failure to pay taxes. This item of the amnesty will particularly contribute to link up still more closely the connections be- tween town and country, as besides craftsmen it is the peasants who are mainly affected in this connection. “Finally, it has been. decided. to grant an amnesty for criminal mis- demeanors. Here, of course, it ‘is im- possible to,examine the evidence, Therefore, the sentences of those who rave been already condemned: will be A RUSSIAN FACTORY (The things about Russia which seem “different,” as | look back from America.) i By ANISE. N my lectures across the United States, I find that the hardest thing of all to explain to American workers is just what a factory means in Rusia. To an American, a factory is merely a place to work; a rather unpleasant spot where you labor eight hours or more per day, and then go home to live. To a Russian, the factory is the center of life. Those very words Sound drab and repellent to the Americah worker. He can’t get rid of the grim unpleasant- ness around that word factory. Sup- pose you think, in8téead, of the words “social center.” A sort of combined university, dance-hall, polling place, musical club, day nursery and sewing circle combined. Is that “jazzy” enough to sound ‘interesting? Well, that is what a Russian factory is, out side of working hours, F course, they also work in a Russ” ian factory. Not so fast as they | do in America, fof the Russian have never learned our spéed. At the pres- ent moment, in fact, they are putting in the piece work system, in the hope of learning to prodti¢e a little more. | The workers in America object to the piece-work’ system, bécause it is used to exploit them and’ wear them out. But extra speed ina Russian plant comes back to benefit all the workers. Besides, it will take & lot of speeding up before the Russians go fast enough to affect their nervés. And there are safeguards established, in the shape of forms fixed, not by the swiftest, but by the moderately slow worker. In any event the Russian workers are really producing in their factor- ies; last year the output of state in- dustry increased thirty-three and a third per cent. Every Russian work- er can see quite plafitly that, as the/| output of his factory increases, so also his wages go up. His ‘shop committee has access to the bédks of the fac- tory, and knows just what the profits are. They can easily tell how much to demand in wages at the time of the next collective agreement. When I tell American workers about this arrangement, they usually grin with Pleasure at the thought of “putting something over” onthe management by knowing all the inside secrets. But in Russia it is not considered “put- ting anything over”; it is considered the most natural thing in the world that the increased profits of a state factory should go, in part, to increas- ing wages, and that the workers in the factory should Know all about the balance sheets in order to encourage, them to produce more and better by seeing how fast the factory is getting ahead. 5 the Russiaf’ factory is more than a place to-work. If you go in the evening to any large factory in Russia, and even‘to some of the small one, you find from’ four to a dozen rooms going 'full Blast. Clubs and classes and lectwrés and concerts— these make up the evening life. In one room you find ‘the group fighting illiteracy—a dozen ‘or more old men and women who ate painfully learn- ing their A B C’s from the young Communist who 1% ‘teaching them. Down the hall cote the strains of a stringed instrument; ‘it 1s the factory orchestra, Beyond is the’;women’s club, and farther down is @ chess club or a meeting of Young Pioneers. Then perhaps you come to a session of the Guardianship Commit nd you. learn that the faetory has assumed responsibility for helping in the cul- tural life of some near-by peasant community. On Sundays a group of workers goes down to take books and journals from the city, or to conduct classes and give lectures. They are meeting now to mike their plans for repairing the fortfier manor-house ot that district andy turning it into a little theater and_club house for the peasants, ‘OU would sta! ing and writ very night after se } work. When you finish this class, you would enter your factory night school and take all kinds of subjects, history, civics, trade courses, litera- | ture—anything you want. The factory night school is a strenuous proposi- tion, three hours after work five nights a week. I don’t know of any- one but a Russian who could stand it! But tens of thousands of Russian workers are doing it in order to get | ahead. But “getting ahead” in Russia doesn’t mean ceasing to be a worker and becoming a small business man, as it usually does in America, It means getting more and more knowl- edge to use in helping other workers, | and consequently gaining a higher place in union or factory activities or in general government service. When you finish your factory night school, if you have shown ability, yon may be sent by you fellow workers on a scholarship to the workers’ college. This is a‘¥wll time preparatory course of three years. You get you full sup- port from your trade union during your years of study. It is not very elaborate support. I have spent many nights in student dormitories. Six or eight wooden bunks along the walls of the room, a long wooden table flanked by two long benches—this was all the furniture. What more does a student need than a place to sleep and a place to study, anyway? The meals also, are-of the plainest variety. These students from the working class eat little and work hard; they spend their days in study and their nights often in teaching other workers in factory night schools. When they are sent to the university their outside work for their fellow workers increases. They are not getting an education for themselves alone, they have been sent to acquire knowledge for the benefit of all their fellow workers. The Russian factory is not only a center for work and education and entertainment; it is the center of political life and social life and home life. When I reach the United States, I pick up the newspapers and see on the social page all the dances given by wealthy society women for their daughters. The only dances in Russia today are those in the work- men’s clubs. No private person has a house big enough to give a dance in, But there are over three hundred workmen’s clubs in the Moscow. dis- trict alone, where dances alternate with lectures and concerts and the The Amnesty in Soviet Georgian Republic reduced by a half. It would have been possible to dispense with this meas- ure, but as an amnesty had been de- cided upon it was thought it would be as well to include in it these poor and uncultured elements. _ : . “The amnesty will. still further strengthen the position of the Soviet power, ‘It is also a good lesson ‘for the Renaudels and Vanderveldes, who ih recent times have used Georgia as a pretext for an unexampled ’cam- paign against the Soviet Union.”. TTPHE facts expose the social: deme 4 cratic campaigns of caluminy. ° During the last elections. in “Ger many and France the social~demo- erats gave promises of an amnesty in order to capture workers’ votes. ‘After the elections they sabotaged with ‘all their powers the workers’ demands for an amnesty. The terrorist regime in Germany finds staunch defenders in the social democrats.’ In France the case of Sadoul shows how much the promises of an amnesty by: the social democrats and the left bloc were worth. x They continually attempt to ‘con- vince the workers that it is impossible to grant an amnesty to revolutionaty workers in Europe so long as the counter-revolutionaries in the Soviet Union are not given an amnesty. The amnesty in Georgia destroys this ar- gument of the social. democrats. , nD 'VERYONE knows, of course, that eave committee, which leases large the Russian factory is also the center*of political life. It is here that the elections are held for the city Soviet, held on factory working time some afternoon early in December. The men and women who are sent as delegates ‘to the Moscow Soviet, for instance, do not lose touch with the factory from which they come. Usu- ally they keep right on working there; their political activities come after working hours. Only if they are chos- en on committees for important full time city work do they leave their factory jobs. And even then they come back to report to the workers choosing them. There is an obvious and striking difference between a Russian govern- ing assembly and any parliamentary assembly anywhere else in the world. I am not speaking now of. the fact that Russia is governed by: Commun- ists, while the rest of the world is under the control of capitalists. I am speaking merely of the actual types of people seen in the governing body and the way they act. If you have visited any parliaments anywhere— our senate, the German reichstag, the British house of commons-you will notice that they are.all composed of people from one very small class in society—the educated middle class of public speakers. Lawyers mostly, but in any case their chief method of get- ting elected was by making speeches. They are as a class, a sleek, smooth group, who can talk very long on any subject whatever. But they have no vital contact with any:process of con- struction—with transport, or mining or farming. N a Russian election, the candidate never makes a speech. He is nom- inated for the office just as a man is nominated in America for the job of secretary or president of a local un- ion. Somebody else makes the speech and mentions the qualities for which ‘they want to choose him. In every legislative assembly in Russia, from the city Soviets to the central execu- tive committee, you will notice the effect which this fact produces. The men sitting in government waste very little time in debates; their govern- ment is not a “parliament” or a talk- ing body; it is an “executive commit- tee” for doing business. The mem- bers are workers from farms and fac- tories and mines and rajlroads, chosen because of their knowledge of this basic life of the republic, and not for any talking ability. The Russian factory is also the cen- ter of home life. This sounds, doesn’t it, terribly destructive of the “home.” But it isn’t. For the first time, the Russian worker has reasonably com- fortable living quarters. Nothing to other forms of social life. brag of yet, but better than he ever had ‘before, He gets them thru his apartment houses for a term of: years from the city, and thus secures cheap, comfortable quarters where a worker lodges near his fellow workers. T thus becomes possible for him te start co-operative kitchens, and dining rooms and day nurseries. And schools for the smaller children, right in the big house where they live. There is no compulsion about these things; each group of workers does as it sees fit about he matter. Some groups are far advanced and others are more backward. But, in general, I have never seen such well run:day nurseries anywhere as I have have seen in connection with Russian fac- tories. There is a reason for this; in most countries day nurseries are charities and the mothers who patron- ize them do not dare make demands. But in Russia they are under the gen- eral care of a committee of the mothers themselves, employing, of course, nursés and play teachers from the department of health or of educa- tion to do the actual work, but none the less taking a continuous interest themselves in the conduct of the place. The factory thus becomes the place where the Russian worker expresses himself fully, not only in the act of production, but politically, socially, and in all the many phases of Iife. Even the arts are beginning to center around the factory. Not only do the workers’ clubs invite artists from the grand opera and state theater to-give them concerts. Not only are the un- ions the channels thru which cheap theater tickets are secured. Butithe really vital developments of art life now going on in Russia are to be found in the amateur dramatic work’ of Russian workers. In the “living newspaper” with its vivid protrayal of daily events, in satire and laughter. In the new paintings and statuary that are beginning to be ordered by some of the more prosperous central labor unions and workmen’s clubs. , ... Nie all, what is a factory? Tt is the basic cell of modern indus- trial civilization. Soft-souled folk have cried out that modern industrial- isnr is ugly and debasing. . But there is nothing ugly about the fact that men come together to work in com- mon, knit by a common ownership of great machinery, instead of standing, each in his peasant hut, at the toll- some effort of hand labor. It is only when men are the slaves of the ma- chines that modern industrialism be- comes ugly. When they own. the ma- chines, together, as in Russia, then the factory is seen in its true light, as the center of socialized production, which is higher and more co-operative than individual production, and which forms the natural basis for a socia! and co-operating life, 7 FASCISM JAILS WORKERS IN GREECE a class for read-| Members of the Tobacco Worke 2 {MAS Kavalla, Greece, _Jalled at / Federation and members of the Young Communist peer ret ee amr