The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 16, 1926, Page 6

‘1 OBe more vote against the world court, which almost all the demo- , { ¥4, a Page Six CTHE DAILY WORKER _ THE DAILY WORKER Th Revolutionary Phone Monroe 4712 | Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. 1118 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Il, SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mali (in Chicage only): By mail (outside of 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 Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, 1118 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, IIlInuls ——_ —_ csiecter cs eekdesscie vepiomernte*petamiismicaseedarerstte J, LOUIS GDAHL id Wiltors WILLIAM F,. DUNNE MORITZ J. LOEB. jusiness Manager Entered as second-class mail September 21, 1923, at the post-office at Chi- cago, Itl., under the act of March 2, 1879. Advertising rates on application. Another Hundred Victims Before the echoes of the professional optimists extolling the new Year as one of unmeasured prosperity and security for the working class had died down a muffled blast in an Oklahoma mine started 1926 on its series of mine holocausts. A hundred or more workers become corpses as the cloud of black smoke rises ominously above the mine shaft. Those prostitutes on the capitalist press who raise loud clamors about the risk of profits when workers strike to overcome conditions that yearly take such a ghastly toll, never consider the risks of work- ers sacrificed to the greed and avarice of the mine barons. This explosion, as is the case of so many others, occurred in a non-union mine, where the individual stands alone against the power of the capitalist owner, where he dare not raise his voice to protest against conditions that menace his life for fear of unemployment and hunger, whose sceptre ever haunts him. - Union men had been locked out over a period of two years and, almost unaided by the United Mine Workers of America, had strug- gled against the open shop. Had Lewis & Co. spent a little of ‘the money for organization purposes that they waste rolling over the country in Pullmans to attend conferences with the operators this non-union condition would not exist. Workers’ lives will only be safe when the workers themselves, thru their organized power, can enforce safety regulations, and as a first step toward unionization of the coal industry of this country the reactionary officialdom must be defeated and the miners’ union changed into a fighting organization that talks to the employers in terms of power—the only language they heed. State laws, supposed to protect workers from such disasters, are flouted because their enforcement is in the hands of old party agents of the employers. A labor party, with representatives of the working class to create and enforce laws protecting the workers, would aid in overcoming the constant menace to human life in the mines of this country. <p 390 McKinley, Smoot and Cummins Seat Nye The senatorial record says Gerald P. Nye, from the agricultural state of North Dakota, who is classified as an insurgent, was seated after a bitter fight on the senate floor by a vote of 41 to 39. He will support Borah against the world court and will oppose the admin- istration’s tax program. Because he will line up with the insurgents and democrats against the Coolidge-Mellon tax program, the over- whelming majority of democrats supported him. They do not fear erats support, as they have a safe majority that is not likely to be dangerously reduced. Had the Coolidge senators voted solidly against Nye he would have met defeat, but Senators William B. McKinley of Illinois, Albert B. Cummins of Iowa and Reed Smoot of Utah, absented themselves from the chamber, thereby seating Nye. There is method in their apparent madness. All of them are up for re-election this year and they are all dependent upon agricultural votes, so they do not want to face the accusation that they kept out of the senate an insurgent from the corn and wheat belt. Nye can do no harm in the senate, and his defeat by the votes of the senators from the farm states would add one more obstacle to those already in their path’ because of the agricultural crisis itself. Noteworthy also is the fact that the staunch supporters of the republican gang that tried to whitewash the odoriferous Newberry of Michigan, who tried to corrupt the electorate of a state in order to obtain a seat in the senate, voted against the seating of N Among those coming up for re-election who voted against the seating of Nye are two “tombstone” senators, George Wharton Pepper of Pennsylvania and Wm. H. Butler of Massachusetts, both of whom By MORRIS BACKALL. FEW weeks ago Henri Barbusse, the great French novelist who is writing for the Saturday Magazine supplement of The DAILY WORKER, was attacked by the fascisti in Ru- Barbusse went to Rumania to tigate the atrocities against Com- munists in the dungeons of that coun- try. The fury of the working class against the white terror in that coun- try had compelled the Rumanian gov- ernment itself to invite him. Henri Barbusse has of late years become an embodiment of the conscience of the working masses in Europe. Henri Barbusse, as a naturalist in literature, started to write his poems and short stories before 1914. But in his collection of short stories, “We Others,” in which he demonstrated great power of observation of the minute and detailed occurrences of everyday life, Barbusse nevertheless had no definite ideal and therefore his outlook on life was pessimistic. Everything for him appeared in gray shadows without happiness and with- out meaning. It was the time of the transition period when the ilfe of Europe was changing and when the social-democrats betrayed their ideals of revolutionary activity. To Henri Barbusse life at that period was meaningless and cold, without a pur- pose. Without a future. But the war changed the point of view and the creations of Henri Bar- busse. Henri Barbusse went to war as a soldier in the French army; he saw the battlefields and learned the trage- dies that are connected with it. As a great artist he observed not only the romantic propaganda that came from army headquarters and general staffs, he also saw war in the trenches. And in realistic, brutal, tragical fashion, with artistic fire, he molded his newer works of art. First, his “Inferno,” in which he uncovers the slaughter- houses of capitalistic war and shows that the killing of the sons of Ger- many, Austria, France, England and America is really in the interests, not of the masses who are cutting each other to pieces, but of the masters of the world, of the classes that rule Eu- rope and America. Henri Barbusse himself was made invalid by shell- shock; he himself suffered bodily and mentally the tragedy of war. But at the beginning he was only an eloquent pacifist, he cried for peace and distin- guished himself very little from those who talk in the name of morality for peace while leaving the world in reali- ty to butcher itself under the aegis of capitalism. But in his second vol- ume, “Under Fire,” Henri Barbusse appeared a new man,—no longer a pacifist— but full of the new revolu- tionary spirit that had begun to pene- trate the workers and peasants of the world. The spirit and ideal of revolu- tion to change the order of society, by means of class struggle to do away ith a system of classes and class: struggle, which is also to do away with wars, the human _ slaughter- houses, among nations, was in him. It is true that Barbusse’s book, “In- ferno,” was sold in France in 150,000 copies and appeared in 100 editions,— but the real depths of his sincerity and greatness were disclosed in his later book “Under Fire,” In his novel, “Under Fire,” Bar- busse tells us of a conversation among the soldiers. The soldiers on the battlefield are not only disgusted with the horror of war but they are con- scious of the causes that brought it about and are for a’ conscious and deliberate method ‘to end it. He pictures to us this ‘conversation in such a manner: “Yes,” said one, “but what will it be called tomorrow—” “After all, what is it‘that makes the horror of war?” “It°is the mass of people.”—"But the pébple, that’s us.” —‘Yes, that's true.”“—“It’s the people who are war, without them there would be nothing but some wrangling, a long way off. But it is not they who decide on it, it isthe masters who steer them.”—“The people are strug- gling today, to have no more masters to steer them.”—"This war is like the French revolution continuing.” To make clear his new ideal, his new optimism which is not to be found in his former writing§* Henri Barbusse continues this mass conversation. “The people of the world ought to come to an understanding thru the hides and the bodies of those who ex- ploit them, one way and another.” “All the masses ought to agree to- gether,” In this conversation the interna- tional class character of Henri Bar- busse’s writings is already evident. Seeing the corpses stretched on the battlefields of different frontiers— German, French, Italian,—he realized the narrowness of nationalistic ten- dencies and ideas that are spread by the capitalistic philésophers and pa- cifists. Barbusse rédlized that the masses all over thé!Wworld are made use of as machines‘aré used in order to serve the interests of the masters. He realized that ir reality the work- ers of Germany, of°*Austria, United States, England and France have one interest and must dahere to class soli- darity if they want to avoid other tragedies to oceui e the last war, He realized that solidarity con- sists of getting ridlef the masters and creating a new world,‘a new order of society that will fe wars unneces- sary and will establish a Communist commonwealth and @ ynion of workers and peasants’ on the globe. This spirit an of Henri Bar- Be BOLSHEVIK picture! Could it be anything else coming as it did from Soviet Russia? That’s“what the Chicago’s board of censors must have thot when they heard that somebody wanted them to give the once-over to a film that told about Lenin’s death and of the tremendous crowds of workers and peasants that paid their respects to their beloved leader. None of us had seen the picture. The few who were privileged to be present at its premier, showing in Chicago were just as such, interested succeeded senators who died while in office, as was the Gase with Nye. As for Nye, himself, like all the other milk-and-water progres- sives, his influence is not feared, otherwise he would not have been seated. Thus the corrupt game of capitalist politics goes merrily on while the workers and farmers continue to foot the bill in decreased standards of living, and if the world courters have their way, with their very lives. ‘We Communists reiterate that nothing other than a,class party of Jabor that can win the support of the impoverished farmers will aid the exploited masses of the United States. A “Labor Member” of the School Board As a means of creating the illusion that all classes in the city of Chicago are represented on the school board a labor official of some sort is usually selected. At present this labor (?) member is John English, organizer of Typographical Union No. 16. It goes without saying that this is a political job and goes to those who are regarded as ward heelers in some reactionary political clique. The role of this labor member was revealed during the dis- enssion over Superintendent McAndrew’s attitude on war pictures in the class rooms. When certain patriotic organizations questioned McAndrew’s patriotism, the capitalist press interviewed various as the censors. And of course we hoped that the censors had a good dinner and were in an agreeabl mood. / It was one o’clock when we wer ushered into the little projetting room where every picture that “is shown on Chicago’s many 4creefis must pass the scrutinizing gaze of the board. : Each one had a little. pad of paper in hand, ready, I thot, to draw in- dictment of the film should it contain words or scenes that might invoke ‘te- bellious thots in the minds of thi proletariat. But while the picture was showing the pencils were idle. Not so the eyes of the censors, They used up all the available nervous can- dle-power in the collectiive censorial system. They were fixed intently on the screen, Up where the operator was operat- ing the machine one could hear the buzz of conversation. “I can tell you what a Bolshevik is” said one, I be- lieve it was the operator talking as just then there was a flicking sound a8 one reel was spent and another one started. Silence for a moment. members of the school board, among them John English. In his state- ment English said: “I don’t believe there is a more patriotic man in Chicago than Mr. McAndrew.” That is the only reply this labor member made to the interviewer. McAndrewis admittedly a militarist, an advocate of military training in the public schools, and boasts that he is a colonel in the Milinois national guard, a.strikebreaking agency, If English really represented labor, instead of playing the game of old party politics, he would, in no uncertain terms, have denounced this imperialist superintendent of schools as an agent of the employers polluting thé minds of the children of the working.class who are so unfortunate as to be under the influence of the present Chicago school system. One supposed to represent labor certainly renders a poor service to the working class when he refrains from denouncing such a palp- able enemy of the working class as this militia colonel who calls him- self a “military pacifist?—a pacifist in the service of imperialism. 4 He returned to the charge. “Bolshe- vik, Bolshevik,” he muttered delib- erately “is the Russian for majority,” “Now what the devil do you think of that” replied his companion, “I thot it was sumthin’ like birth control or evolution.” It was good to see the old hammer and sickel appear on the screen, I can imagine the thunder of applause that will greet it at the Coliseum, Sunday evening, Jan, 24, Then, Lenin, haranguing a great throng. Other revolutionary celebrities appear now and again, Crowds marching—always marching except when they ‘are stand- ing still listening to some speaker. What crowds? There is snow almost up to their ears. Yet they stand like monuments, Vi 4 C ‘ desea, — A Bolshevik Picture Fro Giants of men iiftuniforms, snappy ‘niforms. Soldierg ‘toting long, vic- ous-looking rifles son’ their shoulders. Sayonets on top them, Perhaps chey were after exéi#vating the bowels of a counter-revohition or two. It was good to see thém, not because bayonets are pleasffigto the eye, but in a world where 'Bayonets still rule, it is consoling to @ worker to know that all the bayonets are not on the other side, - Lenin is shown speaking at the Third Congress of the International. busse was portrayed and brought out n the most artistic style in his book, “Light.” It is possible that in this novel Henri Barbusse confessed the struggles that he himself went thru until he reached the stage of revolu- tionary ideal and Communistic prin- ciples, ; In the book, “Light,” Barbusse pic: tures to us a commonplace _ clerk, Simon, It could not be only a clerk, and it could not be only Simon. It is true of every person educated and raised in a capitalistic order of 80- ciety. Simon is influenced by his en- vironment. He ‘thinks well of the rich and despises the poor, altho being himself a struggling worker—a low- salaried clerk in an office. He longed for wealth, and at least he looked upon himself as a person being able to accumulata fortunes. His ideal was the ideal of the narrow, egoistic self- centered individual that is to be found among all shades and groups of society educated in the present public schools and stimulated: by the sur- roundings of present-day society. Simon lived a double life. A hypo- critical life. He appeared as a moral, conventional personality among friends and in society, while in the shadows of the night he was running to the criminal quarters of the city, mingling with prostitutes and outlaws of society. When the war opened Simon was caught by the fire of patriotism and the slogan, “my country is in danger.” Being married to Mary, his relations with her meant nothing to him, be- cause of his hypocritical and conven- tional moral and social ideas. He went to war. Ha felt that he was a hero. That he would really serve his country. He believed whole-heartedly that the war filled his heart and his soul and gave meaning and value to his existence. But the war unmasked for Simon the horror and the reality and the lie that is embodied in the patriotic utterances. He saw _ that those who sacrifided themselves and fight one another on the great battle- fields are poor devils like himself ai they are sacrificing their lives for a cause that isn’t theirs. Of course it Sitting close by, is Karl Radek, not an Appollo in looks but he is wearing a Satirical smile that atracts. Kalinin is also near as Lenin Pounds away, We'see Lenin again a tew years later, but a different Lenin, This By GREGORY ZINOVIEV. (Continued from" previous issue) The Three Tracks of the International Revolution, ITH regard to the international volutionary movement, our task can be formulated briefly as fol- lows: we are only “beginning to use the tactics of a wilted front. It is developing on peculiar lines. ‘I think we should now ‘‘distinguish three chief tracks of this’ movement, The first chief frack is the ap- proach between the workers of Eng- land and the Soviét Union. It economic foun 8, but is leading to the English wopking class freeing itself from by e influence, cast- ing aside reformism more and more and slowly but surely coming round to our point of view. The influx of delegations of foreign workers into our country is a similar ‘powerful phenomenon. Only a few years ago relief committees were formed in all the towns of Europe to help the starving people in Russia, and now numerous foreign workers’ delega- tions leave our country overwhelm- ed with profound Joy at our success and achievements, If we place these two facts side by side, we shall grasp what a gigantic step forward has been taken in the fereatruction of our economics and in the approach to the workers who still, to a certain exent, stand on the ground of reformism., social-de: its often point out that the its in the largest countries are ney in the min- Gr did not occur to Simon at once. He had to go thru fire and hell until he reached his disillusionment. Barbusse portrays to us in a very deep and red color the change that took place in Simon. This was the way Simon pictures his own feelings: “T am alone on the earth, face to face with the mud, and I can no longer move. The frightful searching of the shells alights around me. The hoarse hurricane which does not know me is yet trying to find the place where I am! “I shall remain nailed to the ground. By clinging to the earth and plung- ing my hands into the depth of the swamp as far as the stones, I get my time he comes against the doctor’s orders to address the Fourth Con- gress of the Communist International. He is plainly ill. His old fire is gone but the brain is still functioning, The next time Lenin appears on the Screen, he is dead. In the little place called Gorki, he passed away. A special train takes the body to Pet- rograd and at every village and ham- let, worker, peasant, soldier, sailor— all gather to pay the great. teacher a last mournful farewell. “Was there anybody ever loved like Lenin?” asks one of the titles. And thé answer is given by the countless thousands and hundreds of thousands who march, march, march in an apparently end- less procession behind the funeral. The “Old Guard,” is there, They Estimation of the International Situation ority. This is actually true. ‘The so- cial-democrats ask: “With what troops are you going to defeat us?” When they ask us this question, I am reminded of an old humorous illustra- tion which appeared in an English newspaper during ‘our fight against Koltchak, In this illustration, Lenin is on the one side and Koltchak on the’ other, Koltchak big and Lenin small but supple. Koltchak asks: “With what troops are you going to defeat us?” Lenin answers with a smile: “With your own troops.” When now the social-democratic lead- ers, who still in many countries have the majority of the workers behind them, ask with a superior air: “With what troops are you going to defeat the international bourgeois and us, the leaders of the German and other Social-democratic parties?” then, in view of the mood of the delegations of workers who have visited us, we ca confidently reply: “With those troops which you still regard as your own, with those workers who are still at present in your ranks,” The second track is the revolution ary movement in the East. This is a Bigantle stream which is forcing its way thru all the narrows, This is China, Japan, India. We ha’ ‘e already achieved a certain amount of success in China. Canton today closely re- sembles Moscow. But it cannot be denied that other centers will soon arise in the Chinese movement, that other centers will join Canton, We shall have important successes in Japan which i¢ pregnant with a bourgeois ehh sod It is inevitable he Ideal in the Writings of Eenri Barbusse neck round a little to see the enorm- ous burden that my back supports. No—it is only the immensity on me. “My gaze goes crawling. In front of me there are dark things all linked together, which seem to seize or to embrace one another. I look at those hills which shut out my horizon and imitate gestures and men. The multi- tude downfallen there imprisons me in its ruins. I am walled in by thoge who are lying down, as I was walled in. before those who stood. é While in hospital Simon finds out that: “They do not wear similar clothes on the targets of their bodies, and they speak different tongues; but from the bottom of that which is hu- man within them, identically the same simplicities come forth. They have the same sorrows and the ‘same angers, around the same causes. They are alike as their wounds are Alilte and will be alike. Their sayings are as similar as the cries that pain wrings from them, as alike as the aw- fulvsilence that soon will breathe from their murdered lips. They only fight. beeause they are face to -face.| Against-each other, they are pursuing a common end. Dimly, they kill them- selves because they are alike.” When Simon is disillusioned "he thinks of; revolution: “After all,” he says, “I believe in the success of truth. I believe in the as yet few brotherly péaple that are | standing in all countries among all nationalities in this wild dance o! ret egoism and they stand fast»in their places as those rocks cut out in the wonderful statues that are repres- enting justice and truth.” “This eve- ning I believe in it. That a new so- ciety will be built up thru the efforts of these people.” After his publication of “Light,” Henri Barbusse was considered in the literary and liberal circles of France, as well as in all other countries, as a rebel. He distinguished himself from all pacifists in his acceptance of the international revolutionary ideal of Comunism. And joined the Com- munist Party of France and took his Part with the Communist revolution- ary activities of the workers all over the world. Barbusse organized a small Bolshe- vik literary circle in Paris and estab- lished, his publication, “Clarte,” (“Light”), in which he undertook a struggle against all reformists and moralists of the Tolstoy type who, from the first day of the war, sprang to life in Frace with Romand Rolland as thpir leader. Barbusse attacked Rollahd for~his ideological point of view towards the world war, and he proved to the intellectual circles of Europe that thru purely idealistic Struggles society cannot be altered, that it will not merely remain as it is but''will go deeper into reaction and imperialism and wars because of the are.the pallbearers. Kalinin and Zinaviev are usually to be seen at the head of the coffin—one on each side and in front holding the box with his hands behind ‘his back is Michael Tomsky,,.chairman of the Russian trade unions, Stalin is there, and Kameney; Buh- karin. and Rykoy. Lenin’s wife and comrade: M. Krupskaya, stands deso- lated with grief but tearless. Dem- onstrations, flags. Thousands of chil- dren, Peasants with faces so wrin- kled that they look like chips from some ancient granite boulder. Peas- ant, worker, soldier and sailor—it is a symbol of the unity of the decisive forces that made the Russian revolu- tion and who are today building up present capitalistic economic and poli- tical order of society. Henri Barbusse also criticizes Ro- mand Rolland for his attitude towards the Russian revolution, Barbusse tidi- culed the pacifists’ contradiction, of being on the one hand against war and atrocities and on the other hand unable to grasp the significance of the social revolution that is really abolishing wars and atrocities. To Barbusse ideals in life are not mere “ moral objection and words, as they appear in the sentimental writings of the pacifists. To him Communism is in essence the whole and the complete readjustment of the individual | to- wards the collective happiness and class consciousness and the struggle of the masses of workers and peasants for a new society. ‘ ‘ In “Light,” Barbusse pictures té us | the former commonplace personality, who when he realizes the new ideal of revolutionary Communism, changes his point of view not only in regard to society “but also in regard to oe - meaning and value of personal Hfe. Simon comes home a changed social individual. He confesses to his wife ’ the double personality that he had been before. He does his utmost to be frank and outspoken and true in his personal life as well as in his social struggle. Henri Barbusse is a new writer of | the world. He is a naturalist in con- tradiction to the romantic and sym- bolic schools of literature and art. To him the earth, the everyday life, he social struggle, the . collective deals, have meaning and value over against the heaven, spirit, religion, attitude of the pacifist and liberals of the romantic schools. In his later writings, “The Chains,” and also “The Beyond,” now being published in The DAILY WORKER Saturday magazine supplement, Barbusse makes a step further and develops his revo- lutionary and Communistic philosophy of life, from.a historical and cosmic point of view. He looks upon the development of the world and the life of the individual from the point of view of class struggle. He gives artistic meaning to this spirit and ideal, Like Emil Zola, Henri Barbusge, greatest artist of France, deals with life of the masses and of the simple persons of France. But his portrayals and his personalities are not only true of the life of France and of the color of the nation; they are universal and cosmic representations of present- day life and struggle and ideal. The bourgeois world has come to look upon Barbusse as one of its bitterest enemies. It knows that thru literature the masses can get a truer picture of their life. His novels are full of the longings and ideals and striving of the masses of the world for a new| society where they will’ rule, where their life will be expressed and their the proletarian state, that’ 4 revolutionary proletarian mass movement will arise there. No re- Pressions will arrest the growth of this movement. ‘ALLY, the third track: the ap- * plication of the old methods of the Comintern, the development of our nuclei under the most difficult cir- cumstances imaginable. Our enemies are endeavoring to shatter our nuclei. We: however, like ants, reconstruct thém Jaboriously and teach the Com- munists of other countries how to construct them, * These were the conditions with us before the fall of czarism, An enor- mous amount of time and energy has been used by our best people in order to form small workers’ nuclei; the heavy tread of the Police destroyed in half a minute everything at which the best representatives of the working class had been working for years. To- jobs. If you have a little come, CAN YOU COME OVER? — We're busy as blue blazes, Work is piling up on our small office force and we need your help to fold circulars, stamp, address—and a hundred other little f of the day—and you want to help The DAILY . WORKER—step over to see us. We'll bid you wel- happiness accomplished. m Soviet Russia _ ere is more but of that later. The picture is excellent, It is the kind that is seen with intense silence. You feel that you are witnessing a human drama, surpassing anything ever put together by the masters of the art. The death of a man who symbolized a movement that is im- mortal, with the iron cohorts that he forged into an invincible revolution- ary machine pledging themselves at his grave to carry the banner of Com- munism to victory. i The Coliseum can seat several thousand people, If the workers of Chicago know about this picture they will fill the Coliseum, The picture will be shown there, for the censors granted a permit, Sun- day, Jan. 24, 8 p. m. day the Communists of other coun- tries are in the same position. ‘Thié hard, stenuous work is the f track, the main track. Without it, victory in England, Germany and Czecho-Slovakia is impossible. We are constructing the main foundation of our work, the Communist nuelel. Our success in the trade unions is a reflection of the influence of the Com munist Party on the masses of ers. These, are the three tracks which must be brot together and must be strengthened into a junction. Today our whole wisdom consists in combin-’ | ing these three tracks into one. It | cannot be said that the first or see ond or third is important im itself. All three are of importance, ey present the picture of a slow and dif- +. ficult process of the maturing of the _ world revolution. 4 ‘i (The end.) 7 time to spare at any time 4