The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 8, 1926, Page 12

ice lec I isin illite lenin Seth enema ee copa aA ARR A RF rae a a RO NN I REARS AGES APG OE ESET I “EM Pri By WILLIAM TOOLEY. is now eight and a half years since the Russian workers chal- lenged the whole bourgeois world to a death fight. Those eight epic years are the pride and inspiration of every bold workér from the Thames and the Hudson to the Hoogli, the Niger and the Hoang-Ho. Where was Gorky? He spent @ year er two in the Soviet Republic ybleat- ing, now and then, that he did not ap- prove; he really did not approve of the rough stuff that the Whites were getting. Then he left. The hardships ef the blockaded Republic were not too severe for foreign liberals such as Clare @heridan, Anna Louise Strong, Louise Bryant, Isadore Dun- can-—these were inspired. by the new life; but the “devoted revolutionary” Gorky fled to the Mediterranean para- dise of Capri, to shelter under the bloody wing of Mussolini. This manikin surely would not be worth discussing—if he did not in- dulge, every few weeks, in an attack on the Red Republic. His latest in the current “Liberty’—the weekly magazine published by the owners of the Chicago Tribune—is two columns of drivel linking Lenin with Mussolini. Gorky says: History is determined by national psychology. Russians are very gloomy—this led to Bolshevism. (And Gorky once claimed to be a Marxist, tho a poor one!) To quote directly, Gorky “diagnoses” Bolshe- yism thus: “Russia is a country of pessimism. There has not been a writer yet who dared to speak in the tones of happines and who dared to be optimistic. If such a man were to come, everyone would follow him. “and he came. This was Lenin. There appeared a man who had the courage to laugh. He actually did not laugh, but he embodied in himself hope; in the reign of curses, he spoke of Mfe. He had an optimist’s philoso- pay... But he himself never laughed.” (It is false to say that Lenin never laughed—as we shall see later. Gorky alone gave him many hearty chuckles. Gorky goes on to tell why he dis- approves of Lenin: “We became en- emies. We always had differences of opinion. Now, that he is dead, I can gay that never before nor ever in the future, will I love and respect a man as deeply as I did him. But never did I fight anyone as I fought him. Lenin turned the reins of power into the hands of the people. This | did not want. (Emphasis mine—W. T.) “] knew that a Russian peasant is il- iterate, brutal, unculturefl, and cannot rule. Lenin took away the reins of power from the hands of the intelli- gentsia and the educated industrial class and turned it over to those who are only now awakening from a bru- tal state, to those who did not partici- pate in the slightest way in the crea- thon of new Russia, and to those who were and still remain uncultured.” Think of it! Gorky, the “friend of the oppressed,” Gorky, the tender- hearted, whose soul (according to his own accounts) was torn by the suffer- ings of workers and peasants—this Gorky “did not want” power to be turned “into the hands of the people” @o that they might at last do away with this oppression and these suf- ferings. RTUNATELY, Gorky’s attack need not go unanswered. Altho Lenin is dead, we know what he thot of Maxim Gorky. Months before the Russian proletarian revolution, Lenin pierced the cloak of Gorky’s senti- mental words and saw the essential taincerity and muddle-headedness of the man. Every rebel—even such @ dilettante as Gorky—knew what the war was about—markets and colonies. In 1917, after the March revolution, Gorky issued this ‘statement: the Rus- sian government should conclude peace; “this must not be a peace at any price. . It must be a peace that will enable Russia to live with honor among the other peoples of the world.” In plain words, the Russian peasants, after leaving ten million of their dead on the battlefield, must fight on until “their” government ruled Constantineple and Poland and did Calipaw service ig the French bank- eve ih éeippling Germany, What Len- ik thet of such iPeachery We ews learn fini the article “How fg Attain Peace," written at Zurich ia March, The Ass Knows His Masters’ Crib Vicking His Master’s Boots =. LAGER “ARSToceT” a “American trade unions are reactionary.” But WHY are they reactionary? The trade union movement of the United States is based upon the highly skilled trades—about one-tenth of the mass of the workers. The capitalist class is able with surplus profits to corrupt the labor movement thru concessions to the highly skilled and exclusive crafts during the ascendant period of imperialism. But this Is the period of decline of capitalism, and with correct tactics the trade unions can be won for the cause of the working class. In Great Britain the process of revolutionizing the trade union movement—once the most reactionary in the world—is rapidly advancing. The trade union burocrat, representing the “labor aristocracy,” licks the master’s boots in America as nowhere else in the world. But with persistent work in the trade unions—not by getting outside of them—the militant work: ers can win the unions here as they are winning them in Great Britain. 1917.* Lenin begins by quoting the following communication printed in the Neoveau Journal Auisse: “We are informed from Sweden that Maxin Gorky has sent enthusiastic greetings both to the government and to the Executive Committee. He wel- comes the victory of the people over the lords of the reaction, and calls upon the sons of Russia to help in the building of the new Russian state. At the same time he calls upon the government to crown its work of li- beration by the conclusion of peace. This must not be, says he, peace at any pricé; for there ig less founda- tion at the present time in Russia than ever before to strive for peace at any price. It must be peace of a na- ture that will enable Russia to live with honor among the other peoples of the world. Enough human blood has been shed. The now government would. acquire the greatest merit not only in the eyes of the people of Rus- sia, but of all humanity, if it succeed- ed in an early conclusion of peace.’ “So is the contents of Gorky’s let- ter reported, “One experiences a bitter sensation reading thig letter, permeated thru and thru with middle class prejudices. The writer had occasion in his meet- ing with Gorky on the island of Capri, to warn him against this tendency and to rebuke him for his political with that inimitable sweet smile of his and the frank declaration, ‘I know I am a bad Marxist, but then we artists are all irresponsible people.’ It is dificult to quarrel with a statement like that, “There ig no doubt that Gorky is a great artistic genius who has render- ed and is still rendering great service to the world proletarian movement. (Bear in mind that this was written in 1917—W. T.) “But why should Gorky concern himself with politics? In my opin- ion, Gorky’s letter expresses the pre judices so extraordinarily widespread, not only among the petty bourgeoisie, but also among that section of the working class which is under their influence, All the ‘strength of our party, all the efforts of our conscious workers, must be directed toward stubbornly and persistantly combat- ting these prejudices. “The czarist government began and carried on the present war as an im- perialistic, predatory, robber war for the purpose of plundering and op pressing the weak peoples. The gov- ernment of Gutchkov and Miliukov is a landlord and capitalist government, which is forced to continue, and wish- es to continue the war for the very same ends. To address a proposal to conclude a democratic peace to such mistakes. Gorky parried. the rebuke |@ government is the same thing as to —TeTTited in the Communist interna. #14ress a sermon on virtue to the tional, No. 6, November, 1924, Bae. | keeper of a brothel.” LOL LLL LLL CL LT I N the literary field, Gorky is re- markable as one of the rare men who have a softer heart and a softer head than Upton Sinclair. One who compares Sinclair’s “100 per cent” with Gorky’s “The Spy” cannot escape this conviction. Sinclair burns with contempt for the Judases who betray honest and loyal workers to jail and torture; Gorky on the contrary feels that such vermin are pitiful victims! Probably Gorkys best-known work in revolutionary circles is ‘“Mother"—a novel about a young prig, who self- consciously “sacrifices” himself to “help his fellow workers.” Much of his work describes the slum proleta- riat, the squalor and misery of those poor devils who live by theft and charity. Gorky thinks himself a so cial scholar, because he knows that imprisonment and poverty are cruel and harmful. Gorky and other “socialists” Ing in all sorts of issues—“national psy chology,” technical difficulties, “de mocracy,” and a host more, but the fundamental historical fact is very simple—there is a bitter war between the ruling clase and the subject class or classes, and every man must serve one or the other. In the crisis, Gorky failed the workers, deserted his post and now, year by year, guarded by Mussolini, he grows more and more bitter and more and more openly he serves the ruling clase, The ase knows his master’s crib! Be _ nm in eae OO EA eS ee wt Peele eae waa he