The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 25, 1925, Page 6

ceil « Page Six THE DAILY WORKER , Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. 1118 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, It. Phone Monroe 4712 SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail (in Chicago only): By mail (outside ef Chicago): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months | $6.00 per year $3.50 six months $2.50 three months $2.00 three months TH By |. STALIN. In the following article we pub- lish Comrade Stalin’s answers to the questions of the Moscow corre- spondent of the Japanese paper, Nishi-Nishi. We also give verbat- im the questions of the correspon- | dent.—Ed. | IRST question. The Japanese peo- ple, the most advanced among} Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, IIlinols Pea ae ————————— J, LOUIS ENGDAHL mie WILLIAM F. DUNNE {7 the peoples of the east, is the one ..Business Manager MORITZ. J. LOEB... | which is most intrested in the move- Entered ay second-class mall September 21, 1923, at the post-office at Chi |™ment for freedom of the eastern peo- | 1 5 le would cago, Itl., under the act of March 3, 1879, |ple. The Japanese peop! 2 ae IRAEE *e | gladly become the ally of the Soviet ae country that is more developed jtidustrially o tS to ine Meienes; the image of its own Pensa iq Advertising rates on application. | <a 290 The Boys Are Skeptical Geneya is skeptical that the league of nations will be or can be able to turn swords into ploughshares or establish,a reign of peace | upon earth. There is good reason for this skepticism, | Several years have now passed since this league held its first} parley.. But war is now no more remote than it was when the league | of nations dropped the gavel on its first session. | To enumerate the number of respectable wars that have passed, | would be superflous and uninteresting. Suffice it to say that every | important European power has unsheathed its sabre at will, with the league a grinning spectator. The league has failed to establish peace. It never meant to establish peace. The league was meant to be a tool of the British ' empire or of whatever power or combination of powers that was able to use it to further certain aims. If those aims. could be ac- camplished without war so much the better, if not so much the worse for peace. The capitalists, taken as a whole, don’t want war if they can avoid it, but war is as inseparable from capitalism as_ strikes Granted that the lying diplomats who meet occasionally at Geneva were not liars, but honest men who wanted to abolish war, never- theless, the conflicting interests of the capitalist powers make peace impossible, just as the conflicting interests of the workers and cap- italists make industrial peace inside a nation impossible no matter how much class collaboration bunk’is indulged in by the capitalists and their labor lieutenants. A correspondent cabling from Geneva expressés his thoughts in the following terse manner: “No nation will disarm unless it feels | that its safety will be insured by some other means.” That is the crucial point. What other means? The fact of the matter is that the capitalist powers of the world can be compared to a gang of robbers who sometimes make. alliances against each other. Those alliances last just so long as they serve | the interests of the contracting parties. When they outlive their usefulness they are ditched. Treaties are not sacred under the cap- iialist system. Nothing is sacred but profits, and every, capitalist inthe world is willing to unleash the dogs of war and cause untold misery in order to make profits. ee Peace conferences, disarmament conferences! So long,as capital- ism exists there can be no peace. Under capitalism when the robbers are not quarreling among themselves, they are grinding the lives of ithe workers into dollars. They are doing that all the time. It is an axiom that revolution only takes place when the. cost of obedience is no greater than the cost of rebellion. When that point is reached, a war takes place that the capitalist buzzards in jAutionary circles. Geneva do not relish. 8 Communists are accused of being bloodthirsty because they de- clare that the capitalist class will not surrender their power with- ,out a struggle; that it is more than probable that the struggle which will transfer political power from the capitalists to the work- ers will be accompanied by a few broken ribs, at least. But in Eng- land, the cradle land of democracy, the classie land of parliamentay- ism, the burning ixsue today in the labor movement is, whether the workers shall arm and fight for their emancipation, or whether they shall allow themselves to be slaughtered by the jannisaries of cap- italism. Let the workers not be fooled by this peacé bunk. The cap- italists are not idiots. They know well they cannot, have peace. Their various peace conferetczes are ruses to fool each other and mentally disarm the working class. Mellon Quits Rum Business There is nobody so wicked that he cannot be induced to walk the straight and narrow path. It is true that there are disappoint- ments, like, for instance, Joseph (Yellow Kid) Weil, the noted Chicago confidence man, who cannot help relieving friends of their spare cash, no matter how many times he endeavors to repent.’ But he keeps on trying and who knows but he may yet become the treas- urer of a bank? There is Andrew Mellon for example. His friends call him Andy. Therefore.we shal! call him Andy. When he became secre- tary of the treasury he owned a thriving whiskey distilling business. Even tho Volstead had. done his arid worst, the drop that cheers still trickled from the pipes in Andy’s booze foundry, in Pittsburgh. Andy as secretary of the treasury, was charged with the’respon- sibility of enforcing the provisions of the prohibition clauses of the Volstead law.. But he was so darned busy that he forgot all about his own distillery. . People began to get suspicious. They always do. -Then like a bolt from the, blue.came the an- nouncement that: Andy remembered that he was violating the Vol- stead law and like a law abiding citizen, he sold out, his booze at a handsome profit. After all he is an American! More Troublesome Than Ever. As we pointed out when the news of Saklatvala’s exclusion from the United States by a state department order, was made public, the Hindu Communist is making a great deal more trouble for the capitalist system, than he would had the governnient met him at the Battery in New York with a brass band and a reception committee. The New York Times spent hundreds of dollars on cable tolls which carried Saklatvala’s revolutionary words across the Atlantic to decorate the front page of America’s leading conservative news- paper. And the Times did this not because of any love for Com- munism or the Hindu masses but simply because it is in the business of furnishing news and it wants to be ahead of its competitors. It is safe td predict that had Saklatvala been allowed entrance here without. any advertising such as Kellogg's action has given him, the few words of his that might be noticed by the capitalist press would ‘be buried’ among the pawn shop and second hand furniture ads. “Those Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad,” is an old-saying, but when those whom the gods wish to destroy are as stupid as Cal and Kellogg, the gods have an easy task. ‘shows, | curry favor with the master class, is Union in this great cause, the cause of the liberation of the oppressed peo- ples of the east from the yoke of the western powers. Nevertheless Japan, which is after all a capitalist state, must sometimes act in opposition to this movement and make one front with the western powers. (For in- stance the Anglo-Japanese alliance in consequence of which Japan must sup- port England in its struggle against the insurgents in India, and the com- mon action of Japan with England, America and France against the Chin- ese workers in connection with the| recent events in Shanghai.) What in your opinion, is the way of escape from this complicated sit-) uation of the contradiction between | the national ambitions of the Jap-| anese people and the public and so-| cial order of the Japanese state? Answer to the first question. It is true that the Japanese people are the most advanced of the eastern pedples, and that it is interested in the success of the movement for the liberation of the oppressed peoples. The alliance of the Japanese people with the peo- ples of the Soviet Union would mean} a decisive step in the cause of the liberation of the eastern peoples. Such | \ E DAILY WORKER an alliance would mean the beginning of the end of world imperialism. Such an alliance would be invincible. It is however at the same time true that the political and social order of | Japan drives the Japanese people in- to the path of imperialism, and makes it an instrument not of Ifberation but of the enslavement of the eastern peo- ples. You ask where a way of escape can be found from this contradiction be- tween the interests of the Japanese people and the political social order of Japan. There is only one way of escape: the political and social order of Jap- an must be adapted to the fundamen- tal interests of the Japanese people. Russia was at one time the terror of eastern peoples, the gendarme of any movement for freedom. low can the fact be explained that it has changed from a gendarme of movements for liberation into a friend and standard- bearer of this movement? Only thru the fact that the political and social order of Russia hag been changed. ECOND question. The eastern peo- ples who inhabit the territory of Soviet Russia, are many cénturies be- hind in their development, in conse- quence of the despotic:regime of czar- ism, and only since the revolution have they received the right of inde- pendent development of their indus- try, their agriculture, their culture, ete. How many years will these peoples of. the Soviet Union, im your opinion, require to reach the cultural level of the other peoples of the Soviet Union? Answer to the second question. You ask about how mafiy years the east- ern peoples of the Soviet Union will require to reach the cultural level of the other peoples of the Soviet Union, It is difficult to say. The rapidity of the cultural development of these peoples depends on many internal and external conditions. I must once for all remark that the prognosis with re- gard to the rapidity of development has never been distinguished by ac- curacy, especially when it is a ques- tion of “how many years.” The most essential facilitation for the cultural development of these peoples ,.9s in the fact that che chief obs.acies fo de- velopment have already been remov- ed, such for instance as czarism, Rus- sian imperialism and the regime of the exploitation of the border terri- tories by the center. This fact gives the cultural development of the east- ern peoples of the Soviet Union a tre- mendous impulse. But to what ex- tent this essential furtherance is util- ized, depends on the eastern peoples themselves, and above all on the stage of cultural development at which they were when the Soviet rev- olution broke out. One thing however can be said with- out hesitation; under the present-day conditions of development, the eastern peoples of the Soviet Union have much more prospect of a rapid and allround development of their na- tional culture, than would have been possible under the rule of even the most liberal and cultured capitalism. THIRD question. You say that the union of the national movement for freedom of the subjugated peoples of the east with the proletarian move- ment with the advanced countries of the west, insures the World revolu- tion. In our country, among the Jap- anese people, the slogan is popular: “Asia for the Asiatics!” Do you not find that there is something in com- mon between our endeavors and your revoltuionary tactics with regard to the colonial countries of the east? Answer to the third question. You ask whether there is not something in common between the slogan “Asia for the Asiatics!” and the revolution- wigiote as of the east. sofar as the slogan: “Asia for the Asitics!” means a call to revolution- ary war against the imperialism of the west, insofar—but only insofar— there is without doubt something in common. The slogan “Asia for the Asiatics!” does not however merely refer to this side of the question. It contains two other component parts which are ab- solutely irreconcilable with: the tac- tics of the Bolsheviki. In the first place this slogan begs the question of eastern imperialism as tho’ it were the opinion that eastern. imperialism s better than western and that war against eastern imperialism could be left out of the question. Secondly, this slogan inspires workers ‘of Asia with a feeling of mistrust for the workers of Europe, enstfanges the Asiatic and the European’ workers from one another, undermines the in- ternational connections between them and thus undermines ‘the foundations of the movement for freedom them- selves, The revolutionary tactics of the Bol- sheviki are directed not only against | westtern imperialism, but against im- perialism as a whole, including east- ern imperialism. Its aim is not that of weakening international connec- tions. between the workers of Asia and the workers of other countries, but in strengthening and extending these connections, Thus, as you see, besides there be- ing certain things in common, there are also fundamental differences be- tween the slogan “Asia for the Asiat- On the Revolutionary Movement in the East ics!” and the Bolshevik tactics in the east. FOURTH question. In 1920, Lenin in a discussion with me, answered my question as to where Communism had more prospect of success, in the east or in the west, as follows: “Real Communism can only be victorious in the west. The whole west however lives at the expense of the east; the European capitalist powers enrich themselves chiefly in the eastern col- onies, but at the same time they arm their colonies, teach them the art of war and thus the west is digging its own grave in the east.” Do you believe that the events which are following more and more closely on one another in China, In- dia, Persia, Egypt and. other eastern countries, are a sign that the time is near when the western powers will be compelled to lie down in the grave which they have dug for ‘themselves in the east. Answer to the fourth question, You ask whether I am not. of the opinion that the intensification of the revolu- tionary movement in China; India, Persia, Egypt and other eastern coun- tries is a sign that the time is near when the western powers .-will lie down in the grave. which :they have dug for themselves in the east. Yes, I believe it.. The colonial coun- tries are the most. important support of imperialism. The. revolutionizing, of this support must*undermine im- perialism, not only in the sense that imperialism will lose its support, but also in the sense that the revolution- izing of the east will give a decisive impulse to the intensification of the revolutionary crisis in the west. Im- perialism, harassed on two sides, by a frontal attack and an assault from the rear, will have to recognize that its death sentence has been passed. Another Professor Discovers Marx = ByH.M. Wicks ARXISM, until recently a target for» the malignant assaults of every nincompoop professor trying to now coming to be accepted as respect- able in certain university circles. It is not unique to find faculty members of colleges and universities embracing a sort of emasculated Marxism and thereby gaining a degree of standing among certain elements of the revolu- tionary movement, Of late a book written by a profes- sor who adopts the cognomen, “V. F. Calverton,” which, for want of a bet- tertitle, is called “The Newer Spirit— A Sociological Criticism of Literature” has been attracting attention in revo- Some comrades have referred to it in laudatory terms, even to the extent of heralding it is a distinct contribution to Marx- ism. : A careful reading of the book clear- ly reveals its superficiality and shal- lowness and every Marxist will in- stantly discern that the whole concep- tion of the thing is anti-Marxian. The leitmotif of the book is that that since the literature of various ages is the reflex of the prevailing economic con- ditions and with the rise of new classes new cultures develop it there- fore follows that as the proletariat de- velops within a bourgeois society a proletarian culture inevitably arises. R. Calverton has obviously come in contact with the merest fringe of Marxism. He has learned to re- peat certain formulas such as: “Every revolution in ideas is a consequence of a revolution jn the social structure that the material conditions have pro- duced.” Certainly no Marxist will dispute the soundness of that assert- ion, But that formula has been the rock upon which all novices in the realm of Marxism have met disaster. Equipped with that quotation many are tempted to create of historical ma- terialism a mechanical monstrosity and proceed to apply it to any and all situations and experiences as one would apply a yard-stick. The author of “The Newer Spirit” -applies it to literature in America and makes a number of amazing discoveries. He discovers that as the proletariat de- yelops in this country a proletariat culture also develops. On page 142 of his book he states that Walt Whit- man was perhaps the first to voice this new departure in America. Fol- lowing his analysis of Whitman we are treated to a series of intellectual contortions that conclude with present day writers and we learn that Sher- wood Anderson is “the avater of the proletarian movement,” that Eugene O'Neal is among the proletarian dram- atists, etc. S abet American Marxist recog- nizes Walt Whitman, not as a de- fender of the proletariat, but as the apostle of bourgeois democracy. In- stead of voicing “the aspirations and dreams of the proletariat” he sang paens to the god of middle class equality, vitiated by anarchism, His idea of universal brotherhood was the fetish of bourgeois democracy where all are equal regardless of class, His espousal of freedom in sex life was also bourgeois; poetic apologies for the looseness of the capitalist swine who, as Marx and Engels said in the Manifesto: “not content with having the wives nad daughters of the pro- letarians at their disposal, not to speak of common prostitutes, take the greatest pleasure in seducing each others’ wives.” Whitman's place in literaturé is that of apologist of the Amertean bourgeoisie just emerging 4 from the terrors of Puritanism into the so-called freedom of the machine age. ae. As to the assertion ‘of’ ‘Calverton that Sherwood Anderson is the avatar, the incarnation of the proletariat, it is even more ridiculous than his estima- tion of Whitman. Any’ Marxist who reads Anderson’s booké ‘is bound to be impressed with the fact that this novelist deals almost exclisively with the hopeless struggles of the petty bourgeoisie of the small town against the rise of ‘the machitie!' Prostrate before the machine they Yail at their fate. The exception is When he deals in true bourgeois style With the sex struggles of some petty small town legal luminary and his stenographer. Certainly, the proletari not con- cerned about the tribulations of such creatures): ee F a piece with the absurdities with which the book abounds is Cal- verton’s classification df Eugene O’- Neal with those who display proletar- ian tendencies in literature. The most talked of drama of ‘this play- are not one whit better dramatically or otherwise. The chea» thriller simply moves from the Bowery to the Times Square district. oS of the most inexcusable blunders abound in the book, such, for instance as is to be found on page 204 where Calverton refers to the pseudo-Marxist and renegade, Enrico Ferri, the Italian criminologist, as having “done more thoro analysis and research into the history of crime than any other contemporary criminolo- gist.” Long ago Antonio Labriola ex- plodéd the Marxist pretenses of Ferri and évery informed Marxist living to- day knows that even in the field of criminology, Ferri’s specialty, he has no standing since the appearance of William Adrian Bonger’s monumental work “Criminality and Economic Con- ditions,” a part of which is devoted to the delusions of Ferri. But the greatest blunder of Colver- ton and the one that proves him to be an anti-Marxist is his whole concep- tion upon which the book is based— wright, “The Hairy Ape,”*depicted the | the notion that there can now, or at worker as an atavism, a’ semi-beast from which normal peoplé shrank with any later time develop a class culture known as proletarian. Nowhere in all horror—a piece of bourgeois sensa-| the: history of the world has a culture tionalism revolting in thé extreme to an intelligent worker. Trte ‘his dramas deal with what he calls proletarians, but there have been many dramas that deal with the workers, Twenty years ago for instance we used to have at the ten-twenty-thirty theaters such dramas as “Bertha the Beautiful Sewing Machine Girl;” these dramas (?) dealt with proletarians but no dil- letante professor arose to hail them as symptomatic of proletarian art and culture. Yet the O’Neal productions arose voicing the ideology of a. class while that class was enslaved. It is only after the class has triumphed over its oppressor and firmly estab- lished itself as the ruling class that it has time to create a culture of its own. If, as Leon Trotsky has shown in his masterful work on “Literature and Revolution” this class happens to be that working class and rules only long enuf to reorganize society upon a classless basis, there can be no pos- sibility of a proletariat culture aris- This Is a Gem We have stated many times that the socialist parties of Europe —or wherever else there are any—did not represent even the right wing of the labor-movement but the left wing of the bourgeoisie. Now here comes one of the editors of the Milwaukee Leader and clinches the point, even if it is done in a very stupid and incoherent. manner. No better indictment of the socialist international could be written than the following: Observers of the International socialist congress in Marseilles say that it gave a comprehensive picture of the mental development in the different sections ofthe European labor movement. The old friction’ between realistic politics and theoretical guiding lines showed itself this time in the shape of a difference between western and eastern socialists, This found expression most drastically in the discussion which led to the adoption of a resolution on the problems of the East. In West Europe, where strong socialist parties must share the respon- sibilities of government, the prevailing sentiment favors reformist policies, in East Europe, where parties reflect the chaos of unsettled and unde- veloped capitalism, there is a strong leaning towards methods of direct revolution, partly inspired by Moscow propaganda, partly by fascist counter-revolutions,’ | Western Europe has developed a mature capitalism and strong democracies in polities. Eastern Europe is in a state of ferment, eco. nomically and politically. To provide a common international policy by m of resolutions is, of course, practically impossible. Even a na- tional socialist party adopts different methods in different geographical sections. At Marseilles, for instance, the British iabor party adopted reform- Ist Ideas In connection with a league of nationg based on the Geneva © protocol. In problems dealing with Soviet Russia, India and China the same party adopts ideas which savor strongly of left wing tendencies. The special problems which each socialist party has to meet in con- nection with the foreign policies of its government often make it im- possible to get aj y guidance out of the general views laid down in a resolution of the international congress, International jalist unity as a practical working arrangement must Inevitably itn an ideal rather than a reality under such con- ditions. The big,advanced parties cannot act in any decisive manner without Ignoring more or less the temporary interests of the smalier national parties. these small parties cannot follow the general directions of the onal in special phases of their own politics, ae: ne ge 24 ma 5 r] \e : nig. Says Trotsky: “The formless talk about proletar- ian culture, in antithesis to. bourgeois culture, feeds on the extremely uncrit ical identification of the historic des- tinies of the proletariat with that of the bourgeoisie. A’ shallow and purely liberal method: of making an- alogies of historic forms has nothing in common with Marxism. There is no real analogy between: the historic development of the bourgeoisie and of the working class.” S°. Calverton coming in contact with certain Marxian formulae, which he only half understands, rushes into print with a volume that reeks with AS WE SEEIT -:- (Continued ‘from page 1) That is the reason why he got trimmed by Shanessy. sae bers. UDLEY FIELD MALONE is great- ly aroused over the menace pre- sented by the spread of ideas—if they can be so-called—such as were spon- sored by William Jennings Bryan, be- fore the grim reaper called him away from the business ofselling real es- tate and persecuting’ men who favor- ed the exercise of intelligence on cer- tain subjects. Malone is not in the least bit excited over the menace of capitalism, which makes slaves of mil- lions of human beings .and makes them easy prey for charlatans like Bryan and the thousands like him who are still encumbering the earth. se @ . C. FORBES, one of William Ran- dolph Hearst’s financial experts declares that John L, Lewis is the strongest labor leader in the United States. Forbes said that Lewis has never been licked. Forbes might ask the members of the U. M. W. of A. in the bituminous fields what they think of this great man They would tell Forbes that Lewis may not have been licked, but ‘that they have. And they would tell him that they have been licked by Lewis. A few years ago most of the soft coal mined in the United States came out of union pits. Today, less than thirty per cent is union mined, Yet Lewis claims to be a great leader. ld aa 6 pte Prince of Wales must do two things after he gets back from his advertising trip thru South America. He must go to school and get mar- ried. The prince will be called on to select a mate from six girls pick- ed by the royal family. The House of Windsor is highly respéctable, and continued official celihacy on the part of the prince may causé’ evil’ minded people to suspect his royal chastity. It is also whispered that Edward's ac- quaintance with general ‘knowledge is almost as low ag that of‘his father. If the young fellow’s head is anything like George’s, what he needs is an executioner and not a teacher. . * * A BANK in New Castle, Pa., closed its doors a few days ago, and when inspectors got a key to its cel- lar, they found, not &@ load of liquor dear reader, but a pile of paper marks and lira, products of German efficien- cy and Mussolini’s patriotism. - In ad- dition to the waste paper, the other abilities of the bank included a cashier who had embezzled $32,000, If a burglar who was not also a bank official, had gotten away with that much loot, the bankers’ association would protest vociferously, . » 8 *6 HE French government is not hav- ing the best of luck with its. bond floatation of twenty billion 68, So absurdities of logic, historical inac- curacies, and in order to display his erudition completely forgets the simple formula that every working man learns at the very threshold of Marxism when he studies the role of the proletariat in the revolution: “Between the capitalist sociéty and the Communist society there ensues a period that can be known as nothing else than the dictatorship of the pro- letariat.” And the task of the proletariat is not to create a new class and a new class culture, but to annihilate all classes and all class cultures, By T. J. O'Flaherty far the faithful and patriotic French investors have only put up about five billions. A franc is worth so little nowadays, that orilly an expert at figures should attempt to translate those sums into dollars. The new- found alacrity on the part of the French government to fund its indebt- edness to the United States, is said to be based on a desire to take an- other loan out of Wall Street. i Me gf Mid CHRONICLE, a weekly labor paper published in Cincinnati, com- ments on what the “great and conser- vative” British labor leader, Havelock Wilson, has to say about the reds. We need not repeat Wilson’s tirades. Briefly, he says the Communists are in the pay of the Soviet government. Well, Wilson is not. He is only in the pay of the British government and particularly in the pay of the ship- ping interests. The British seamen do not seem to have as much hatred for those “in the pay of the Soviet. government” ag they have for those who connive with the employers to reduce their wages as Havelock Wil- son did, Power Industry Doubles, FRENCH LICK, Ind,, Sept. 23.—The electric light and power industry of Indiana has doubled in volume of pro- duction and sales since the world war, T. N. Wynne, president of the Indiana Electric Light Association, in annual convention here, declared today. Wynne challenged the industrial world to match “this record of pro- gress in Indiana,” U.S. S. R. ABOLISHES HOME WORK SYSTEM IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS |, MOSCOW, U. S. S, R. Sept, 23,-— Assignments of home work in arith. metic, spelling, history ahd geo graphy are forbidden for the pupile in the first nine years of the public schools by order of the commissar- iat of education in the Soviet repub. lic. Brief essays and reports may be assigned providing they require not more’ than six hours of work a week and even those are forbidden on evenings preceding holidays, 4 This change is a radical p for. ward in the system of education. Among the advantage to he derived from it are: it tends to develop character in each individual child; it tends to eliminate memorizing and craming, its effect upon the child’s mind will be to keep it and alert for school fife, It ene j ed with enthusiasm by the parents” as well ae P