The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 3, 1926, Page 17

: eS —$— ' By HENRI BARBUSSE. (Speech given before the jury in the trial against Clerd and Bernardon. Paris, April-May, 1926.) Gentlemen of the jury: if we wish to penetrate and under- stand this dranta, then we must pene- trate the greater and bloodier drama which controls and explaing it; and that is the drama of international fascism. I am, myself, in the midst of the social struggle. I had the opportun- ity to inquire into its causes and search in its depths. On that account, I shall analyze a definite side of the struggle for you, while, like a witness, I appeal to your human reason and to your judicial conscience. Today, fascism binds the entire world together or is preparing to do so. Those who have a sense of real- ity must utter a loud cry of help, a cry of distress, for they see all the threats and all the catastrophies which this seizure of power by the fascists proclaims and signifies. The true driving forces of fascism are the financial powers which, thanks to the recruiting activity of the press which the rich always have at their disposal, were able to direct the dis- satisfaction, the apprehensions and tthe suffering of the middle and petty bourgeoisie into the path of reaction. Nobody can deny that the sentence which a great American newspaper expressed a short time ago is fully justified. It said: “If capitalism has always determined human affairs in @ greater or less degree, it must be gaid that this power 6f capitalism has today achieved its greatest effective- ness. And capitalism, that is, the rule of the money-bag cliques over the ea- tire social life, goes everywhere hand im hand with fascism. It is no secret Clerd that international fascism has grown thanks to the financial support of the upper bourgeoisie, big business and the banks. “Fascism arises out of capitalism. It is its logical consequence, its or- ganic product. It is the highest and most violent reaction carried to its utmost extreme, the reaction of the old order against the new.” Fascism hag a two-fold aim, a poli- tical one, that is, the seizure of the state power, and an economic one, that is the exploitation of labor. The exploitation of labor is its raison d’etre! The unchaining of fascism, accord- ing to the current phrase which is al- ways used in this connection, wants to effect the return to order of the mighty mass of producers, of the city and country workers, who are in teality the essence and the life force It was only in our time earried on for a minorit) of profit- makers, for interests wholly removed from those of the creators. Now that the workers have begun to open their eyes and to be amazed, the first re- sult was their organization and unity in order to oppose an unjust con- straint. As a matter of fact, social relationships stand thus: For cen- turies there has been an exploited and unconscious proletariat. Today it becomes conscious. One may even assert that the class conflict is in no way a new phenomenon of our time; on the contrary, one may much rather say, that only today have we learned to differentiate and to understand. As a@ matter of fact, the class conflict thas always existed, because it was the result of the oppression of a ma- jority by a privileged minority. As a matter of fact, up till today, the work- ing class has been the subjected part. But in, spite of its defeats, it has al- ways been a struggle. The organized proletariat opposes this war of destruction by an order which rests upon the political equal- ity of all, upon the just rule of labor and upon the feeling of unity of the various peoples beyond boundaries which the proletariat deems artificial and criminal. said that it is everywhere essentially the same. Everywhere it pursues the same goal: To stifle the effort to free the laboring people. But even if the fascist groups of the various countries are separated from one an- other by their national aspirations, they still have friendly feelings for one another and support one another by their concurrent efforts. Fascism is weaker or stronger ac- cording to the country in which it is active, and consequently unscrupulous in a greater or less degree. It enjoys either the co-operation or. the obliging acquiescence of the governments ac- cording to its actual successes. It appears everywhere—at least in its beginnings—with the same hypocrisy. it does not say, “I am fascism.” It says, “I am the party of order,” which is indeed the most convenient of all lies used to betray the people. Or it describes itself as republican-national patriotic, or it plants another stand- ard. It assumes all possible names. It seeks to confuse us with words. It We Celebrate--- (By Henry George Weiss.) We celebrate July the Fourth, The monumental fact that we, An outlaw band, Drove from the land The hosts of English tyranny, And flung o’erhead The stripes of red, The field of blue, the stars of white, To show the whole wide world that we Had won the fight— Democracy! Had won the fight and would be free To drive the Indian to his doom, With plow and spade To rape and glade And rear for him a monstrous tomb Of clanging steel ‘And whirring “wheel; To kill the deer and fence the plain, To raise upon his murdered slain i The festering slum— , - “OUR KINGDOM COME.” We celebrate—how long, how long! The day that freed our Money Kings To unrestricted Wealth depicted Buy sable coats Buy luxuries And granaries and diamond rings, Wrung from the labor of the poor— How long, how long will we endure The mean estate, The starveling’s fate? The mean estate, the starveling’s fate, The festering slum, the children dead, The crumbs, the oaths, The hungry mouths, The endless toil How long, how long Endure the wrong Of robbery and for board and bed? persecution? .The class conflict, as Lenin said, must lead to the abolition of classes thru the rule and victory of the pro- letariat, Similarly, it must lead to the abolition of wars between individ- ual peoples, because this victory of the proletariat would create a differ- ent, deeper, more sensible and more real class division among mankind than fs done by the geogtaphic bound- aries and a more enduring unity than diplomatic ties could effect. * On that account, the second aim of fascism is the capture of the state power. It is a question of maintain- ing the old arbitrary order of oppres- sion, Which is clesely interwoven with nationalism and imperialism, and to sharpen it. As in the past, they want to force the continuation of the law of war and the destruction of all society thru the principle of rivalry carried to the extreme and of struggle under the slogan, “Everyone for himself,” a struggle which is to be carried on be- tween individuals ag well as between peoples. Today, it must be said that fascism exists everywhere. It must also be forms all kinds of divisions, but at bottom the same kind of people are still involved. We see fascism under the cloak of patriotic or sport associa- tions, and in Hungary alone, merely to pick an example at random, in Hun- gary, whose army was fixed at 35,000 men by the treaty of Trianon, there is an entire secret fascist army which is at present participating In the civil war, having no other task to fulfill for the moment. It receives its weapons from Italy; lately articles of dress, too, which, however, it has now also ordered from England. In other countries we see fascism in the form of military societies, anti-se- mitic students, finally, the countless and perfectly organized divisions of soldiers and officers of the former Wrangel army. All these are the in- struments of the fascist scheme, In a@ large part of Europe, the govern- ments already depend vpon this more or less secret and ser ‘official class- gendarmery. And everywhere that fascism has obtained a footing, there rages a sys- tem of labor-hating robbery, which op- erates with fear and murder and The Dangers of International Fascism keeps all the workers in slavery. Gentlemen of the jury, I saw with my own eyes the devastation which vic torious fascism has caused in city and country. A few months ago I travelled thru the east of Europe. I came into closest contact with the un- fortunate peoples of Bulgaria, Rou- mania and Hungary, all of whom are massacred by the white terror. I found down there a seeming tranquility which pierces one’s heart, because it is the tranquility of a cemetery. It is impossible to enumerate the indi- vidual and mass murders, to picture the injustices and the tortures of the prisoners or of the witnesses of s0- called conspiracies—which were in reality invented or intentionally con- jured up by those who are called the responsible bearers of power—be- cause there are too many of them. In France, fascism has not yet completely raised its head. But not much is needed for it to decide to do so, if it continues to enjoy the un- heard of impunity as it has until now. The possibility of a coup de main is all the mere threatening since multl- form fascism is confusing public opin- ion in a hypocritical manner concern- ing the true aims of its labor-hating, imperialistic organization, because it —which crowns it all—wraps itself in the tri-colored scarf of democracy. In our day, we must deeply depre- cate the inactivity and the credulity of public opinion which sees the in- undation only when the dams are broken. Matteotti had to die at the hand of an assassin first—and he was only one among thowsands— before public opinion could recognize Mus- solini’s true face. The counterfeiting in Hungary, exceeding all power of imagination, was needed first to rec- ognize the true face and practices of Horthy and his circle, Bernardon First Labor Parade HE first labor demonstration ever held in America took place in Philadelphia on f4he Fourth of July, 1788. An eye-witness mentions the fol- lowing trades as being represented in the parade: There was a federal edifice drawn by ten white horses and followed by 500 architects and house-carpenters; pilots of the port with their boat, boat- builders, sailmakers, clockmakers, watchmakers, shipjoiners, ropemakers, cordwainers, coachpainters, cabinet- makers and chairmakers brickmakers, house, ship and sign painters, porters, weavers, bricklayers, tailors, instru- ment-makers turners, spinning-wheel- makers, carvers and gilders, coopers, planemakers, whip and canemakers. Then came the blacksmiths, white- smiths, nailers and coachmakers. After them the potters, hatters, whéel- wrights, tinplate workers, skinmen, breechesmakers, and gloves, printers, bookbinders and stationers, saddlers, stonecutters, bread and biscuit-makers, gunsmiths, coppersmiths, goldsmiths, silversmiths and jewelers, ete, ~