The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 29, 1925, Page 12

LT ~- -—- ’ ¢ a * 9S 0 en are, pedi ei ae NR Re RR —_ (Continued from page 3) the affairs in the party, Lore was in the pOlitical committee, Lore had to be in the steering committee at the convention of July 8 Because the minority, then majority, beleived him to be a good Communist. Is the min- ority ready to recognize and admit their mistake? I say, on what ground can the min- ority blame the present Central Exe- cuttve Committee for the failure to completely exterminate the Loreist tendency in the party? That we have fought Lore and Loreism is beyond the shadow of a doubt. Let me bring to your attention two or three facts. You speak about the majority having been in alliance with Lore. Can you point to a single instance where the majority of the Central Executive Committee sacrificed or compromised its program or policy to satisfy the Lore group in the party? On the con- trary, in the last convention of the party the Lore group, or part of them, demanded as price of their support to the majority, that we discard our third party alliance and the only reply we-made was that we cannot do it because we believed in the correct- ness of that alliance, Not So Backward. Another fact, a very important fact. Much talk has been made here about the backwardness of the majority fol- lowers, particularly about the sup- port of the Finnish Federation. Do Stee oe oe oe ste and because the center of our work 1s in the trade uniots, The 0. H. 0. was always quick to act the moment it saw the manifestations of any right wing deviation, and therefore the 0. BH. O, never failed to make clear its position and to fight against all these deviations, In the time that has been left me, only a few words on our main reso- lution, immediate tasks has been adopted by the Parity Commission unanimously. Most of you comrades, in fact all of you, are familiar with this resolu- tion. There is nothing exceptionally new for our party in that thesis. Nothing exceptionally new except a few basic economic and political facts. No Immediate Crisis. The basic economic fact is that there is no immediate crisis in the economy of American capitalism, No prosperity, very far from that. In- dustry is proceeding very slowly. In fact even the miost optimistic cap- italist papers when they speak of the present economic conditions, cannot work up any optimism at all for the economic outlook of the United States. There is a quiet depression. Amert- can industry lives from hand to mouth, No big projects, no big deve- lopments and no considerable growth of home industry at present. Is there jany outlook for an immediate, severe you know, I am sure the minority) oyjsis? leaders know, that the Finnish Fed- eration, its predominant majority, was against dropping the farmer labor par- ty slogan? Nearly every Finnish branch that went on record on the labor party issue during the discus- sion, went on record for continuing the labor party slogan and according to those Finnish comrades we wére wrong. Did we sacrifice our position to please the Finns? No! It is suf- ficient merely to enumerate some of these facts to show how ridiculous your assertions are about the alliance between Lore and the majority. You cannot disregard the fact that in our everyday activities, wherever we came in contact with right wing deviations, owhether ‘they called themselves Lore- ism or not, the Central Executive Com- mittee was always very quick in call- ing down and cmobatting them. I need refer only to a few instances. Our fight against the right wing devia- tions in the needle trades; our fight against opportunist mistakes in a number of other unions. The reasons why our main struggles against op- period of hesitating development on a downward scale with occasional severe disturbances, aggrevating still further the conditions as far as the workers are concerned. This is one of the new factors in the thesis. As to the political conditions in the United States, naturally the biggest feature is the tremendous growth of American imperialism. The contrast between the growth of imperialism and the slow development of home in- dustry is very striking. Whereas the investments abroad are reaching tremendous proportions, whereas American capitalism manifests trem- endous initiative and aggressiveness in penetrating industry and finance in Central Europe, Asia and Latin America, the home industry does not show any such big designs and pro- | jects. Imperialism and the growth of | it is one of the main determining fac- |tors of home economy and policies. | And when you analyze the policies of portunism can be seen mainly on the | American capftalism of the present trade union field is this: It is on|day you will see how these are de- the trade union field that these mis-| termined by the imperialist designs takes become very quickly apparent, | of big capital. I already mentioned the) pen irrespective of the intentions of Our main resolution : with the present situation and our Our thesis says this cannot be de- tected. We are probably in for a long erally. The second major policy is the development of militarism in the United States—something that we must be aware of and something we must react to in a very effective manner. Trying to Win Farmers. The third major policy of American capitalism is the sytematic effort that is being made by American capital— by big capital primarily—to win over the farmers, particularly the rich and middle farmers to the cause of capital- ism in the United States. Those of you comrades who are following events closely have probably notfced that within the last two months Presi- dent Coolidge has held several con- ferences, probably dozens of them, with congressmen and senators from the agrarian section of the country. What were they discussing? One thing. And the thing is how to win the farmers of the United States, the fich and middle farmers particularly, to the cause of capitalism in America, how to prevent a new solidification of the farmers in America for a third party movement on the political field. The fourth major policy of the American capitalist class is to break the morale of the American workers by wage cuts and various other cuts and to prevent by all possible means the political awakening of these work- ers and their organization for inde- pendent political action. These to us, comrades, seem to be the four major policies of American capitalism at the present day. And the thesis that we submit in the hame of the Parity Com- mission and the Central Executive Committee on our immediate tasks are policies and tactics that our party must pursue in order to combat in a Communist way these policies of American capitalism. United Party Needed. In conclusion just a few remarks. The basis of our work in the future, as has been stated here repeatedly in the convention, is a united party. We will adopt in this convention all the thirteen or fourteen resolutions that we submit to you from the Parity Commission, but without Communist unity no effective work will be pos- sible. If, following the convention, we cannot show a united fronr of all the Communists in the party (Or carrying out these resolutions, these will not be werth the paper on which they have been printed. I do not speak here now of something that can not happen. To come here and demand the immediate and complete liquida- tion of the factional struggle is some- thing that no one can expect to hap- £ Se eneantiililictna, dieieanenantl * a o tremendous growth of the export of {any comrade in our party. ‘The impe capital and imperialist expansion gen-| tus of the sti that accunmlated t spent. itself yet, there is no usé in complaining about it. If has not spentitself yet. It may take the party another cotiple of monthg before this impetus will spefid itself. But I say, comrades, that’evéry member of this convelition, every delegate of this con- vention, must keep this thing before his eyes, to apply all efforts and to take all necessary measures that this factional struggle spend itself and liquidate itself in the shortest possible time. We have been speaking here about the danger of the right wing. Com- rades of the minority have been trying to establish a case here against the majority of the party that it 1s the right wing. I say as far as I am per- sonally concerned, I am not going to waste a single second to convince any- one of the minority that we are not the right wing, because they know we are not. The question that is of more importance is how soon and by what means can we really. unite: our. party? I have no prescription and no particu- lar means to propose. But there is one thing of which I am convinced, that if the minority and the majority leave this convention with this idea, that the factional struggle, altho it may continue for a while, cannot and should not continue for any length of time, the factional struggle will be liquidated, It will come to an end. Factlonal Struggle Must End. And when it does come to an end, it ig then and only then that the reso- lutions that we adopt in this conven- tion, that the motions passed in this . convention, will take life and become part and parcel of the work of our party, of its activities and its future successes. I wish-only one thing, that the comrades of the minority realize as much as we do that the factional fight cannot continue, no matter what you say in your caucus meetings, no mattter what slogans you throw out. In Cleveland in the city convention someone read a caucus document of the minority which contained the fol- lowing saying: “If you give your oppo- nent the right name you hare won half the battle.” When you will stop to believe that your main objective is to find names for the majority, when you come to the conclusion that the party imposes upon you more earn- est duties than to find quotations as to how you can most effectively brand the majority with names, when you come to the conclusion that you can- not continue this fight without ruin- ing this party and ruining yourself in the process, our party will be able to proceed to work in an effective and successful manner. Ruthenberg Replies to Bittelman C. E. Ruthenberg, speaking for the. minority of the Central Execu- tive Committee, replied to Comrade Bitteiman as follows: OMRADES: As for Comrade Bit- telman’s closing remarks, I suggest that he should have thought of that before yesterday in his caucus, when the caucus made its decision as to whether the minority in this conven- tion was to have what it won fn the party or have a policy of extermina- tion directed against it. The main basis which Comrade Bit- telman laid for the failure of the work of the C. B. C. during the last twenty months was in objective conditions. He told us that in the work during the term of the present C. E. C. the conditions, political and economic, were of such a character ag not to be fruitfal for effective progress of our party work. Then Comrade Bittelman told us a little later in his discussion in relation to the La Folletfe move- ment, that everybody in the United States expected that the La Folletts movement would make a much greater , rade Bittelman was either wrong when | he said the objective conditions were not favorable, or otherwise he was wrong in what he said about the La Follette movement. ET us see if in 1924 we had in the industries of this country favor- able conditions. Unemployment extst- ed to a greater degree than for any period since the depression back in 1921. 1923 was a period of the up- grade in industry. 1924, on the other hand, was a period of increasing de- pression with increasing unemploy- ment, with increasing difficulties for securing a livelihood for the workers; and does Comrade Bittelman expect us to believe that a condition in which the workers are unemployed to the extent of millions is not favorable for the work of our party? If Com- rade Bittelman has such an opinion, then under what conditions will our struggle reach its climax if not exactly in such conditions as we had in 1924. There was unemployment, the workers had a difficult time, being ‘orced to fight for food, cloftfmg and shelter. As I declared at the outset that the analysis which says that the condi- tions were not favorable for the prog- ress of the work of our party has no basis and the ©. B. C. majority cannot have such an alfbi for its failure in the last year and a half in the work of our party, ; : Comrades, there is quite a different reason for the failure of the work, an equally important factor fn a 2 ee emcee wirwranenane erie a nemecenraewene relation to the success of the work of our party, which Comrade Bittel- man very easily ignores in his report, and that is the question of what kind of policy did our party follow in re- lation to the objective conditions? That, Comrade Bittelman, is as deci- sive for our party as are the objective conditions. If we have favorable con- ditions for Communist work, Commun- ist agitation, and have the wrong poli- cies, we will not make any progress with our work, and it is our conten- tion, which I am going to prove, that it is because you had the wrong poli- cies that you did not make progress during the past year and a half. ‘OW let us deal with the factor which had a great deal to do with the character of the policies which the Cc. EB. C. followed, that is, the makeup ef the majority group in our party, the relationship of that group to the Lere group in our party. We know that at the last national convention the majority won its ma- jority thru the support of the Lore group in our party and that its main additional prop was the Finnish Fed- eration of our party. In other words, its basis in the party is that group which is the right wing-of our party and which’is not yet developed as a Communist group, that has not yet learned its Communist principles and policies, and, I say, irrespective of the leading group of the majority's dif- ferent view point, different orienta- tion, the fact that it had such a basis in‘the party was sure to carry it into the mistakes which it made in the last year and a half. And I say the fact that it has chosen in this convention to again rest itself in the next year on the same basis is also certain that it will make simflar errors in the year to come in relation to the woxk of our party. You can’t, comrades, get away from the character of your support. It will have its influence in the shap- ing of your policies. OU will shape those policies to satisfy that particular group which has given you a majority, and that means that you have wrong policies and we will not build this party of ours. We found this support of the majority's influencing its action, I say not only this support but also the development of the majority's itself, at the very beginning of the work of the ©. B. C. in 1924. This was on the first political question which we had to decide in the C. DB. C. The question of what is our attitude to- wards Trotskyism That was the first political question of importance that came before the C. H. C. for decision. Did the majority of the OC. B. C. have a clear understanding of the struggles in the Russian Communist Party and make a decision? Was it able to go on record in support of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Communist Party with- out hesitation? Comrades, quite the contrary Comrade Lore had tele- A ®t