The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 8, 1926, Page 4

Page Four —--+*~— % ~ THE DAILY WORKER THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, IIL Phone Monroe 4712 SUBSCRIPTION RATES By maii (in Chicago only): By mail (outside of Chieago); $8.00 per year $4.50 six months | $6.00 per vear $3.50 six months $2.50 three months $2.00 three months Address all mail and make out checks to THE DAILY WORKER, -1113 W. Washington Bivd., Chicago, IIlInole ii 2 ads J. LOUIS ENGDAHL EE TPS WILLIAM F', DUNNE MORITZ J, LOEB..., .Business Manager 0 ECS Someta tonsa domenanateateatoca Pe oak MEN Entered as second-class mail September 21, 1928, at the post-office at Chi- cago, lil, under the act of March 8, 1879, <> 200 The British Delegation and the Coal Strike | The delegation of British trade unionists and labor members | of parliament, headed by Tillet, Purcell and Ellen Wilkerson, which | 94 is coming here to raise funds for the striking coal miners should be | accorded the most hearty reception by the trade union movement | and all sections of the working class. ; But it will not be enough to have the delegation given an official | welcome. They are not here to convey fraternal greetings but get generous and quick support for the miners who have been on strike for more than three months, who are and whose families are hover-| ing on the verge of starvation. The least that American labor can do to duplicate the gift of | more than $2,500,000 made by the trade unionists of Soviet Russia. | This is the sort of rivalry between the workers of Soviet Russia and the United States which can do nothing except strengthen interna- tional solidarity of the labor movement. The American trade unions, thru their official spokesmen, claim to have won for their members a much higher standard of living and more privileges and power in relation to industry and government than.the Russian workers have been able to achieve. # Here is a splendid opportunity to convince the British workers that a higher standard of living means added ability to assist the struggles of workers in other countries. We are sure that if American labor gives more to aid the British strikers than Russian labor has that the Russian workers will be the first to rejoice. The activities of the British trade union delegation should be thoroly organized and their tours so arranged that they lose no time in getting the ear of and access to the pocketbooks of the Amer- ican trade unionists. : The labor banks, which some twenty-two unions are now oper- ating, should be authorized to extend generous loans to the Miners’ Federation of Great Britain. Union treasuries should be drawn on for substantial sums. But most important of all, the delegation must have organized | for its speakers special meetings of unions and huge mass meetings | in all the principal cities so that American labor can learn at first | hand of the gigantic conflict which is going on in Great Britain. | It would have been much better, of course, if the delegation | could have come with the magnificent story of a general strike fought | thru without treachery and cowardice on the part of many officials | marring its splendid effectiveness, or if they could have been able} to say that the coal miners were not left to fight alone. For these crimes against the working class the blame is being) placed and it must be placed. But the delegation will do well if it makes no attempt to disguise the facts and simply appeals for sup- port of the miners as the vanguard of the British trade union move- ment to whom American labor owes a duty which can be carried out partially by a stream of dollars. Revolutionary Records in America Strange as it may seem to 100 per cent Americans, the historians of Soviet Russia, busy compiling a world history of the struggles of the working class to organize a revolutionary world party, find that America has a wealth of material which they need. The history of the First International cannot be written in its entirety without the letters and documents which are in the archives of the University of Wisconsin and which are the record of its ac- tivities while its headquarters were in New York, It is interesting to recall that the high tide of reaction in Europe which followed the Franco-Prussian war and the, defeat of the Paris Commune made America the haven of revolutionists. Rus- sia was in the grip of czarism and no single ray of light penetrated the gloom which enveloped the Russian masses. Seven years before had seen the end of civil war in the United States, the Negroes had been freed, a president of the United States had received and an- swered a letter of congratulation from Karl Marx in the name of the International Workingmen’s Association. Today, under the ausipces of the workers’ and peasants’ gov- ernment of the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics, historians are writing of the thoughts, words and deeds of the men and women who first saw clearly the monstrous horrors which capitalism had in store for the working class, and the. way capitalism must be fought. In a different America, an America which is now the leader of world reaction, they find the record of early revolutionary strug- gles under the banner of Marxism. In Russia, once the seat of world reaction, they are bringing up to date the story of those early con- flicts which brought into being the Communist International—the world party of the working class. Fifty-four years have brought great changes, the working class has entered the period of the struggle for power, capitalism, except in America, is on the downgrade, and nothing brings this more clearly to our attention than the yellowed documents of the First International sent to the historians of Soviet Russia by the histori- ans of an American university. ANOTHER 1924 GARMENT STRIKE PICKET I$ FREED Hungarian Workers Disillusioned with AMSTERDAM, Aug. 6. — The gec- retary of the Hungarian national trade union center, S, Jaszai, writing in the new service of the International Fed- Meyer Barkin was released from Cook county jail yesterday afternoon after serving a 50-day jail sentence for defying “Injunction” Judge Denis B. Sullivan's order against picketing by the union. Morris Krvetz will be released this afternoon at 4.0’clock. Mrs. Eleanor Sadiowski will leave the county jail Monday afternoon. SEND IN YOUR SUB TO THE DAILY WORKER! eration of Trade Unions, expresses disillusion with the league of nations and its International Labor office, He says in part: “As to the Washington convention, Hungary is @ member of the league of nations, and as such, has submitted to her parliament the conventions of the International Labor office; but some of the most important of all, including that of the eight-hour day, was rejected at the proposal of the government, HH British general strike smashed the thin veneer of “stabilization” which the capitalist class of Hurope had set up around their shaking) sys- tem like a stone smashes a mirror. But it revealed not only the weakness of capitalism but weaknesses in the basic organizations of the working class which must and will be correct- It revealed somethiing else—some- thing of such primary importance to the working class that it must be examined most carefully and thoroly understood. The British general strike has given us a new insight into the Tole of the trade unions during a Period of revolutionary struggle in a highly -industrialized country where the working class is well organized, UTHO the weak and treacherous leadership of the British general strike—the officials of the Trade Union Congress general council and the labor party—denied .the accusa- tion of the Baldwin government to the effect that the strifke was a challenge “to the constitution’ and that the The British Unions and State (Lessons of the British General Strike) Practical Results of New Developments. By WILLIAM F, DUNNE | Besh ae for a brief period, it is true, and under the terrible handicap of conscious sabotage from within and above, assuming the powers British workers have been taught for genera- tions to believe could be exercised only by “constitutional government,” thru parliament and officials elected by all strata of society, RITISH workers have seen the king and his ministers able only to publish one single miserable sland- er sheet because workers refused to get out the usual organs of the cap- italist class. The trade unions them- selves had an organ of their own. In this the unions were at the worst on an equal footing with the ruling class. British workers haye seen the trade unions with hardly more than half their full strength mobilized, paralyze industry and the government appar atus, haa! trade union movement in Great Britain is a broad movement. It has its labor party and its co- operatives, The Committees of Action did not have to go outside these three sections of the organization to em- trade unions were setting up a gov- ernment of their own, the fact re- mains that in many industrial centers the trades councils did take over gov- ernmental functions and became the only power recognized by the workers. ‘O less an authority than George Lansbury, a pacifist and certainly no propagandist for the dictatorship of the proletariat, but one closely in touch with both the trade union and parliamentary wings of the British la- bor movement, makes the following categorical statement in -the July 24 issue of Lansbury’s Weekly: The outstanding achievement of the strike was certainly not its con- trol by the national leaders, who were from the first afraid’ of ‘the great force they had called. into ac- tivity, The big and successful thing wag the local control—the swift and instinctive unification of all the local labor forces under the impulse of a common spirit of solidarity. Not merely did the Trades Councils all over the country take up suddenly their proper position of responsibll- Ity and power; all the other work- ing class forces in each district rallied quickly round them, Under various names, of which council of action was the commonest, there came to be in each place a single body to which the whole working class movement of the district look- ed for guidance and control, The brace representatives of the whole working class, Thus it was that the British trade union movement mado its challenge to British capitalism without new forms of working class apparatus making their appearance, as Committees of Action were never popular with the official leadership. Their organization was sabotaged but in spite of that trades councils themselves became commit- tees of action. The slogan raised by the Communists of “all power to the general council” in its local applica: tion became “all power to the trades councils” or “all power to the commit- tees of action." Nowhere does it ap- pear that any objection of these slo- gans came from the masses and this in spite of the fact that the general council did not use the power it had and which the masses wanted it to use, Ww must conclude then that the British trade union movement is capable of development as an organ of revolutionary struggle and that it has already given concrete evidence of this development in its splendid or- ganization and discipline and its as- sumpion of state power in opposition to the state Power of the capitalist class. That this was done against the will of a leadership part of which entered the struggle with the deliberate in- tention of throttling it, another part condoning and participating in this barriers which usually keep our dif- ferent sections apart were flung down; solidarity found a meaning in organization as well as-in- the spirit of the workers. (Emphasis mine). . UT the direction of the strike itself was only a minor role of many of the unions and trades councils, In a number of distriicts they took over {control of the food supply, transpor- tation, communication and the neces- sary policing. , a In one district at least the govern- ment apparatus. collapsed completely (altho in genera] sense its.apparatus functioned well ®owhere).and it had to “depend” upon what was ac- |tually the governmental apparatus of the trade unions, . 0 HE testimony of a score or more of eye witnesses who, saw the strike in various sections of thé coun- try is that the real authority passed into the ‘hands of the trade unions— local unions, trades councils and strike committees, committees of action, Trucks, (lorries as they. are called in Great Britain) loaded with. provi- sions of all kinds, were allowed to pro- ceed only if they bore the permit of the general council of thé Trades Union Congress. Even these were sometimes held up by the pickets and searched to see if they were trying to evade the trade union regulations by carrying prohibited articles. If this was. found to be the case even the general council permit availed the cul- prits nothing. if aga sole exception to this rule were the troop lorries. These. were allowed to pass the lines only because the strike leadership was obsessed with a pacifism with which the gov ernment was not afflicted, It'is. evi- dent from all reports of the temper of the strikers and sympathizerg, a mixture of good-natured contempt and résentment against” the display of armed force, that a single order from the general council’ would have been League of Nations | ‘"<ient to have stopped troop move- ments. From the’ first moment when it was apparent that the rank and file of the trade unions were determined to sup- port the miners by a general strike, a quiet but none the less severe strug: gle began between the strike leader- ship and the masses—the leaders try- ing to mit both the acual number of workers involved and the political character of the strike expressing it- self in the assumption of power by the trades councils and committees of action, the masses ready and willing to broaden the strike in every way, HE leaders won and the masses lost but the experiences gained by the workers will never be forgotten by them, They have seen the trade betrayal in a cowardly manner, is still stronger proof of the soundness of the British trade union masses and of their trade unions as a combination of combat and state organs, Qeletkay Bukharin, speaking at a meeting of party workers of the Moscow organization of the Commun- st Party of the Soviet Union on June Poincare Cabinet in Split, Kills Plan to Ratify Debt Accords PARIS, Aug. 6.—The stabilization of the frane is still obscure and no credits can be expected as a result of the split in Poincare’s cabinet yesterday when he tried to get an agreement to present. meagures for ratification of the London and’ Wash- ington debt accords to the chamber. Three cabinet members, Marin, Herriot and Tardieu, revolted. and threatened to quit. Poincare, backed by Briand and Painleve, tried to whip the rebels into line, Poincare pointed out that stabilization without credits was impossible, and that credits could be obtained only by ratification, The loan from Holland, Poincare declared, was not enough to secure stabilization without more from Lon- don, The ratification with reserva- tions of the Mellon-Berenger pact would have helped, Now | this is killed. The loan from Holland was, moreover, known to have come in- directly from the United States, dodg- ing the embargo by indirection, In the chamber today, Poincare will ask that the chamber muzzle itself ind give a vote of confidence on every measure, ineluding the authorization to the Bank of France to issue unlimit- ed notes supposedly secured by pur- chase of foreign currency, and_a na- tional tobacco corporation, Detroit International Labor Defense Picnic on Sunday, Aug. 15 DETROIT, Aug, 6. — The annual Detroit International Labor Defense picnic willbe held at the Finnish Marxian Club grounds, stop 54, East Jefferson Ave, Sunday August 15. The grounds over which sweep the sooth- ing breezes of Lake St. Clair, are the best in Metropolitan Detroit, afd any- body who owns a bathing suit can very easily take a dip in the lake, In addition to the usual pienic fea- tures, 2 teams of the Young Workers’ Sport Alliance will battle for honors, Ralph Chaplin, working class po: and speaker, will speak, ‘ eas $$$ $$ $$ ees EES sibel otha ans aR Se ee eT ie EI 8, (only one month after the con- clusion of the general strike) said: As a consequence of its whole history, as a result of the tremend- ous importance of its Trade Union organization, and on account of its historic traditions, the English prol- etarlat did not take up the question of power by circumventing the Trade Unions but thru the Trade Unions themseives..... When we put the question, what are the spe- ciflo and peculiar features of the English labor movement, then we must draw the conclusions which at the same time constitute one of the greatest lessons of the English gen- eral strike, |. e. THAT THE ENG- LISH WORKING CLASS WILL AP- PROACH THE QUESTION OF POWER. THRU THE TRADE UN- IONS, (Emphasis Mine). ‘HAT this means {s not that the English trade unions will take the place of Soviets but that THEY BE- COME SOVIETS during the course of the struggle for power. The establishment of this fact raises immediately a practical question rela- tive to the attitude of the capitalists toward the trade unions in advanced industrial countries like Britain and America where the trade unions have preceded powerful working class pol- {tieal parties and where, therefore, the trade unions efther have more {n- fluence over the working class than the labor party has, as in Britain, or where, as in America, they are the only mass expression of the working class. ee have pointed out constantly that the frade unfons, in addition to being organs of strug- gle for the dafly needs of the workers, become rallying centers for the whole working class during the struggle for power. In addition to this role of the trade unions we now have the concrete ex- ample of the British trade unfons act- ing as ORGANS OF WORKING CLASS STATE POWER, appearing as the basic units of the revolutionary state—the embryonic units of the prok etarian dictatorsh{p, may be sure that this all-fm- portant fact has not escaped the attention of the advisers of capitalism. In America this will mean that in ad- dition to their hostility to trade unions as a means of raising the living stand- ards of the workers and interfering with the steady flow of their profits, the capitalists have an additional reason for trying to debauch and des- troy the trade unfons. Just as the tremendous inspirational influence of the Russian revolution urged the capitalist class of America to renewed efforts to discredit even the idea of social-revolution, so now will the tremendous role of the Brit- ish trade unions act as a spur for renewed activity against trade unions as organs of the class struggle. Power “Not Merely Did the Trades Councils All Over the Country Take Up Suddenly Their Proper Positions of Responsibility and Power; All the Other Working Class Forces in Hach District. Rallied Quickly Around Them”—Trades Councils and Committees of Action Assume Governmental Functions—The Will to Power of the Masses— Strike Broadened in Spite of Leaders—New Estimate of the Role of the Trade Unions— HIS, fear of the trade unions will express itself in two ways: 1. A more decided offensive against the few remaining militant unions. 2. ‘Renewed efforts in conjunction with the labor officialdom to stimulate the already strong tendency to liquid- ate the trade unions as such and make of them appendages to the profit- making machinery, Os party and the left wing must redouble its efforts to make clear to the American working class the lessons of the British strike and espe- clally must {t make clear the basic importance of mass trade union organ- ization, discipline and trade union morale in powerful industrial nations like America, Trade union morale in Great Britain became revolutionary morale and the task of rallying the working class had already been ac- complished. means (and it fs of tremend- ous importance) that much of the organization and preparatory work which Irad to be done in Russia DUR- ING the struggle tor power can be and has been done in Great Britain, (and may be done in America) BEFORE the struggle for power. It would be going too far to say that the course of development in Amer- fea will follow the same lines ag in Great Britain, We have an agrarian population only slightly smaller as yet than the working class, we have a far smaller percentage of the working class organized fn trade unions, only the embryo of a labor party can be seen, the cooperatives are small and lacking in infinence, they have little connection with the labor movement —the base of the American trade um- fon movement {s far narrower than that of the British nnions, ‘N addition to all this the American rulers have learned much from the mistakes of the rulers of other coun- tries. They are devising new methods of meeting and counteracting the tend- ency toward trade union organization, We struggle tn América against a Tising capitalism. But the Amerfcan working class fs not as yet fettered as much by the tradition of empire as was the British working class. In basic industry the heavy hand of the industrial lords forces revolt. The labor bureaucracy have shown, as in Passafc, that they and they alone stand in the way of a much broader trade union organtaa- tion. Organization of the unorganized, struggle against the sabotage of the bureaucrats, understanding of the slorious role of the mass trade unions in the revolutionary struggle, building of a broad left wing, ceaseless parti- cipation in the daily struggles of the trade unions—these’ are practical and invaluable methods of applying the lesson of the British general strike in America, ON TO A HALF MILLION! = Distribute a half million copies of the pamphlet, “The Workers (Communist) Party—What It Stands For, Every Worker Should Join” by the end of this year. Why Street Nucleus No. 1 Milwaukee 280 WHAT IT STANDS the party! ORDER A BIG SUPPLY OF Bivd., Chicago, III, THEY SHOULD JOIN! HERE’S AN EXAMPLE! has ordered copies of the new pamphlet by C. E. Ruthenberg, THE WORKERS (COMMUNIST) PARTY, WORKER SHOULD JOIN. Each of these nuclei is going to tell about TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY WORKERS what the Party stands for and why they should join Where does YOUR nucleus come in? How many workers is your nucleus going to introduce the party to, to how many workers is it going to tell what the party stands for and why they should join it? PER MEMBER—THAT’S YOUR QUOTA! — The pamphlets sell at five cents apiece—2%o to party units. Order from: National Office, Workers Party, 1113 W. Washington | DISTRIBUTE\HALF A MILLION COPIES!. LION WORKERS WHAT THE PARTY 57, Street Nucleus No. 23 Chicago, Ill. 224 FOR, WHY EVERY THESE PAMPH LETS—TWENTY S! TELL HALF A MIL. STANDS FOR AND WHY WITH THE STAFF Being Things From Here and | There Which Have Inspired |. Us to Folly or Frenzy GREAT AGITATION IN HEAVEN. Notice fe hereby given that the “Clergy” class and Ite affiliations have beamirched the Word, Char- acter and Being of God. They have no appreciation of His plan, Eph. M1, 14 (Greek) and totally ignere Hig precepts. There fs but one school of Christ; the above are not of, or In It. Remedy, see Rev. XVIII, 4, Penalty, see Rev. XXI, & There Is a countertelt stock, of which Satan Is the father, now due for destruction. Alf systema, socie~ tles and organizatiohs are of ft. Out- come, see Dan, 11, 44, and X11, 1-3, —From an advertisement in an Eng fish newspaper, This seems to be about as clean as the row in the Balkans, in fact i's more than likely them comix tadji are mising it up with Jesus. Anyhow, all squirrels should take note that the address signed to tha above is-—F. Speed, Harbour Heights, Newhaven, England. ee 8 Scripture Made Easy for Scissorbills. CHAPTER X (Wherein, according to the gospet of St. Bruce, Jesus tells *em all to go to hell and goes on @ spree.) All achieving characters have « sublime disregard of criticism. “Never explain; never retract: never apologize; get it done and let them howl,” was the motto of a great Englishman. It might well have been the motto of Jesus. “No man. can expect to accom- plish anything if he stands in ter- ror of public opinion,” he said in substance. “People will talk about you. no matter how you live or. what you do. Look at John the Baptist. He came neither eating nor drinking and they said he had’ a devil. I come both eating and drinking and what do they calk me? A wine biber and a glnt- tonous man!” eee Festive Comitadji Cut the Hours. “Orders following declaration of # state of siege by Roumania In a zone 18 miles wide along the Dobrudja frontier of Bulgaria, forbid the in- habitants to leave their houses after 7 p. m. and before 6 a. m., thereby hindering the gathering of the har vest.”—News Item. The usual summer complaint of agricultural workers of limitless hours seems ‘slightly reduced by the comitadji epidemic, against which the. state of siege was aimed, We gather that Bulgaria may plead that over-worked har- yest hands who aspire to the Inx- nry of reducing the hours to thir- teen. a day have been disguising . themselves as Macedonian comi- tadji and taking pot shots at ruminating Roumanian frontier guards. ; The king of Hedjaz and the comt- tadji ~ Ttave. irl argument concerning Silistria, i tnd some murders on the frontier of Dobrudja, Se | Jo the question’s clear as mud to - you and mia, ‘Look for the woman,” says the Frenchman's data, f Uf iA aed | to a mystery you toil; y And we bet a chervonetz to: peseta, } That the comitadji’s backed by Standard Oil. : “After all, we're boch | Russians,” is the reason jiven by @ supposed Bol- shevik bas letting off a sounter-revolutionist caught red-handed, | ac- cording to the movie, ‘The Volga Boatman.” {