The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 24, 1926, Page 6

Page Six THE DAILY WORKER Published by the DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO. | 1113 W, Washington Blvd., Chicago, Il, Phone Monroe 4718 | SUBSCRIPTION RATES By mail (in Chicago only): By mail (outside of Chicago): $8.00 per year $4.50 six months $6.00 per year $3.50 six months 0 three months $2.00 three months Address all mail and make out checks to | THE DAILY WORKER, 1113 W. Washington Blvd. Chicago, tl, | iaeeneeneaat, | J. LOUIS ENGDAHL | Wi AM F. DUNNE BE MILLER .. Editors Business Manager fn | Entered as second-class mail September 21, 1923, at the post-office at Chi- | cago, Ill, under the act of March 3, 1879. | Gi 290 ‘Advertising rates on application, | The Task of the “Save the Union” Bloc Re District 5, and District 12, Mlinois, published in Tus Damy Worker within | the turns from the anthracite, last few days, indicate unmistakably that the “Save the Union” ticket headed by John Brophy has defeated John L. Lewis in these decisive sections of the union. In most of the locals from which the returns have been secured | the Brophy ticket beat the Lewis machine two and three to one. Even in local unions where the machine had all the tellers Brophy has polled a majority of votes. But it is apparent now that the Lewis machine has not the slightest intention of complying with the constitutional -provisions which makes it mandatory to furnish all local unions with | the} tabulated lists of votes cast local by local. Failure to “do this in| the last election was prima facie evidence of the defeat of the Lewis machine. In the meantime the Lewis machine is carrying on in the cap- iialist press, the United Mine Workers’ Journal and the official trade union press, an intensive campaign to substantiate the claims of victory. Ellis Searles, editor of the United Mine Workers’ Journal, says in the issue of December 15, which went to press before the election: | While the votes cast at the election have not yet been can- | vassed and counted, owr confidence in the proverbial loyalty of the membership to sound trade union principles is so deep that | the result, when announced, will prove to be such a crushing de- } feat for these interlopers that nothing more will be heard from | them. John L. Lewis himself has been getting up to meet Springfield trains going to outlying mines to tell members of the union that} he has been re-elected. The whole publicity machinery of the American Federation of | Labor is claiming the re-election of the Lewis machine. With the detailed results of the election in possession of the} machine, it is preparing now for the convention on January 25. Reports from District 31, West Virginia, received from miners approached by agents of-the Lewis machine, are to the effect that.a group of 150 delegates is to be sent to the convention from that dis- | trict alone altho, including members exonerated from paying dues, | the total membership is only about 6,000. This delegation will be | the Lewis machine. Such are the methods of an officialdom that has been repudiated the rank and file. The “Save the Union” bloc must likewise prepare for the con- vention struggle. It must be able to show to the membership of the union and the labor movement at large the nature of the Lewis conspiracy against the membership. It should also broaden its slogan of “organize the unorganized fields” into a practical program for the struggle which will take place beginning with the expiration of the Jacksonville agreement next spring. is The mines are working now better than for many months, The | financed by by British coal strike created a huge world shortage. In addition to this the coal barons are storing up coal with which to supply the markets if a strike takes place. western» Pennsylvania | ha PSY paler wo! WORKE R a at AT Class Peace an nd Class Struggle in Great Britain — By WILLIAM F. DUNNE, IGHT is thrown on the conditions in which the British coal miners were left by the desertion of the Trades Union Congress leaders by an | item appearing in the London Daily Herald for Dec, 6: Hundreds of miners from Ryhope and Silksworth, large colliery vil- lages near Sunderland, who went on trek to find work in the South York- shire coal fields last week, have had a wretched experience, Many spent the night in disused coke ovens, sheds and even in the open air under hedges. They had spent their all on charabanc (motor busses) fare of 10 shillings, and the charabane proprietors had to bring them back free, Now comes the significant part of the item: Meanwhile the local terms offered at Ryhope Colliery have been ac- cepted during the week-end, and the pit will re-start today. ITH such misery prevailing among the miners as the above item pictures, the’ coal owners are in a position to ate terms. What these terms mean can be athered from another item in the same issue of the Daily Herald, from which we quote above: Never had proposals so exacting, So unjust, and so inhuman been of- fered to any body of workers, said Mr, W. P. Richardson, treasurer of the Miners’ Federation and gerieral secretary of the Durham Miners’ Association, in a speech at Ryhope, on the settlement terms. . . . the owners demands as to times of starting and ceasing work were so unreasonable as to make it impos- sible for the men to have any social life at all. In some places they were making it that the men did-not fin- | ish a shift until 7 p. m. or 7:30 p. m. 'HILE the miners are being driven back to the pits under conditions described succinctly above, the British capitalist class and its government jare moving against the rest of the labor movement all along the line. The Daily Herald for Dec. 4 says | editorially: Another of the tory government’s attacks on the workers appears to be ready for launching. The cabinet }committee, which has been consider- ing measures to cripple the power of the trades unions, has completed its OUR, i. > The time has come for the whole trade union and labor movement to tell the government definitely and unmistakably that this policy must be changed. . . . Labor's energies have been directed to meeting at- tacks on the Industrial fleld, inl- tiated by the employers and fo- mented by the government. And our opponents have imagined that the industrial struggles of the past year have placed the workers in such a Mp8 Peerien that ereshaede may Z The way the Moscow Izvestia viewed the betrayal of the British miners by the reactionary labor leaders of Great Britain. Arthur Henderson and J. H. Thomas. Stabbing the British Miners in the Back Dn ome The two gentlemen are safely go on with, | Its political at- tacks, HE LONDON pAiLy HERALD is | other “political” furnishes the full ex- the official organ of the Trade Union Congress leadership and the la- bored attempt made in the above state- ment to draw a distinction between the struggle of the past months and By ERNEST ETTLINGER. HE British Mine Strike is ended and the men forced by privation and suffering have gone back to work on the terms of the mine owners, The The membership of the U. M. W. of A. must be informed of the} danger of the Lewis slogan of “prosperity and employment.” The “Save the Union” bloc has the task of mobilizing the union for a fight for its existence—a fight whose decisive character will be shown more clearly as the end of the contract approaches. Around this basie issue the struggle of the membership should be centered. Contradictions in Britain’s Chinese Policy The contradictions in the British policy towards China, ex- pressed in the dispatch of a flotilla of destroyers and a cruiser to Chinese waters on one day and the statement the next that the for- eign office has decided to agree to the collection of customs duties by the people’s government, is puzzling only if the division of the British ruling class itself is forgotten. For months the British cabinet has been torn by a conflict over Mhinese policy. The Birkenhead-Churchill group, giving official ex- pression to the British interests and British press in China, has urged a policy of blood and iron. Under the protection of this die hard tory element the British press has been carrying on an open campaign of provocation and support of the Mukden clique headed by ‘ “hang Tso-lin and other militarists. The massacre at Wahsien was the result of this policy as was'the proposed loan of $50,000,000 from British banks to the northern militarists. The conciliationists in the British cabinet have won at least a temporary victory aided by the refusal of Japan and the United States to jeopardize their interests in China by a joint campaign of intervention with Great Britain. But concessions to the die-hards still have to be made to preserve some semblance of unity of policy even tho they carry, as does the dispatch of gunboats, the menace an open break with the powerful people’s government of China. But the British policy is still one of unreality. It still recog- nizes the Peking paper government and places the collection of enstoms revenves for the northern and eastern provinces nominally in its hands, but actually in the hands of Chang Tso-lin and Sun Chuang Fang--militarists who do not represent the national aspira- tions of the Chinese people. Such a policy compels the people’s government, now ruling three-lifths of China, to continue its victorious military and political struggle for the liberation of all of China from imperialist agents. The fiction of the Peking government will be dissolved and Britain faced with the eruel reality of the 440,000,000 workers and peasants of China nnited under a popular g tas this mass force drives forward with its armics as the fs bore of the national liberation movement, _ Sanene the tri ers, were unable this and forced to stand idly by while the miners were beaten by mass memory of this struggle, however, will long remain, and the heroic resist- ance of the miners in the face of un- equalled treachery on the part of the trade union bureaucracy is one of the brightest chapters in the history of the world-wide labor movement. Such resistance, altho it ended in de- feat, augers ill for the future of Brit- ish capitalism and when that deter- mination to resist spreads among the rest of the British working class, the death-knell of British capitalism will have sounded, OW is it, that in spite of the ter- rific losses inflicted on the Brit- ish capitalist class, losses which can only partially be made up, and which have further accentuated the decline of British capitalism, the British capi- talist class has solidly rallied behind the mine owners and have backed up their program to the hilt? The rea- son is to be found in the fact that the struggle between the miners and mine owners is far more than a strug- gle, and ag such it was essential that the British capitalist class show a united front to the workers in this struggle. To the British capitalist class, the miners are regarded as the shock troops of the British working class. Defeat them, and the defeat of the British working class is assured, and the program of foisting upon the workers the losses of British capital- ism is made easy. So reasoned the British capitalist clas: plains their willingness to sustain such terrific economic losses as in- creased taxation, adverse balance of trade, and a further weakening of the whole structure of British capi- talism. In this struggle the government has opnely revealed its function, that of the executive committee of the capi- talist class, seeking by all possible means to execute the program of Brit- ish capitalism and defeat the advanc- ed section of the working class. HE miners’ strike was a political struggle and the tragedy of it was, that the masses of workers outside the ranks of the miners, paralyzed by orous ct of thelr lead- act in accord with i starvation and omnes ‘coercive mea- sures. The strike was rich in a number of lessons for the working class move- ment not only in England but else- where. First and most was the complete unmasking ‘of the reform- ists, their role as agents of the capi- talist class was clearly shown. From the beginning of the general strike called to assist the miners, right up to the end of the struggle, the leaders of the British trade union movement, the members of the general council, showed their hatred of the miners and their solidarity with the program of British capitalism. Let us enumerate a few of their betrayals to refresh the memory of those workers who easily forget the events of yesterday. HE calling off of the general strike, when the solidarity of the Britislr workers in support of the miners threatened to develop into a political struggle for power between the capi- talist class and the working class was the first act of treachery. The strike was called off without consultation with the miners and the miners left to shift for themselves, the reform- ists believing that the struggle would quickly end once the general strike was called off. Their hatred knew no limits when the rank and file of the miners continued the strike after their betrayal by. the general council LTHO a pact was concluded be- tween the miners’ executive and the Trade Union Council pledging the support of the British labor move ment to the strike, this pact merely served to tie the hands of the miners while the leaders of the British labor movement continued their intrigue against the coal miners. In the heat of the battle, came Bromley's publi- cation of the T, U, Council's report on the strike, condemning the miners for not surrendering and going back to work. This immensely strengthened the hands of the coal operators and was actually responsible for the re- turn to work of thousands of miners who would otherwise have remained out on strike, HEN came the Bournemouth con- gress when the official trade union achine was able to spike all effec: tive aid to the miners in spite of the genuine rank and file sympathy among’! the workers, Bournemouth was fol- lowed by Margate which again refus- ed aid to the nd where the chairman of the Party, Robert Williams, insulted the struggle of the miners for a living-wage by likening A ‘ ss the struggle of the present and future by labeling one “industrial” and ‘the planation for the fact that British cap- italist government now is able to threaten the life of the whole labor movement, With appeals to heaven to bear wit- of" British’ Industries and the govern- | Communist Party. them to “blind Sampson” who were pulling down the structure of British civilization. All thruout the long tense struggle, all the demands of the miners for aid were refused by the the general council, and efforts to establish an embargo on scab coal coming in from the outside and to es- tablish a levy among the British trade unionists on behalf of the miners were contemptously refused by the bureaucracy of the various unions. And so in spite of their solidarity with the miners the rest of the Brit- ish working class was forced to stand idly by and see the miners finally starved into submission. Such treach- ery of so-called leaders of the work- ing class has been unequalled in the history of the labor movement. ND what did the Amsterdam Inter- national and its affiliated body, the Miners’ International, do to help the British strike? Not only was help refused, and no’ attempt made to stop the flow of coal into Great Britain, but the officials of the Miners’ Inter- national were bitterly hostile to the British strikers and endeavored in ev- sty possible way to hamper them. Che crowning infamy of the Miners’ snternational was a little resolution sassed at the beginning of Septem- oer when it seemed that the miners’ struggle was over, and the miners oeaten. A resolution was passed stat- ing that should Mie British mine strike still be in, foree by September 30, the Miners’ International would call a general coal strike of all coal miners in Europe. This was a gesture adopted to save the face of the offi- ‘lals of the Miners'International who were firmly convinéed that the British miners would be beaten ere Septem- ber 30 came. Be September 30 passed and the miners were still on strike, and when the reformist leaders of the Miners’ International were called up- on to put into effect their resolution, they refused to do so, passing the buek along to the respective sections of the international. When the leaders of the German coal miners were asked to call a strike in support of the British min- ers or at least to prevent scab coal | at well over a million, | treason within its own ranks, (did: the leadership that now formally |recognizes, the political character of ness to the truth of their statement that the general strike Was an “indus- trial” and not a “political” struggle, the leaders of the British labor move- ment allowed the government to raise all the political issues and then called off the general strike and deserted the miners, 4 HIS desertion policy was carried out up to the day the miners went back to work—starved and ragged. Not only did the official leadership re- fuse to put an embargo on foreign scab coal, but it sabotaged. the raising of strike relief. To this day the official leadership maintains that the general strike was not of a “political” character. But now that an attack is to be made upon the trade unions by legislativé methods, its official’organ announces that the unions face @ political strug- gle, Surely the attack on the labor move- ment df last spring was just as deadly in its purpose as that for which the government prepares now, PEAKING of the campaign of the \) Federation of British Industries, the Daily Herald’says: They have declared that “wages must come down in order that in- dustry may~ adjust’to the new post- war conditions.” Their campaign has resulted in a definite lowering of the standards of hundreds of thousands of men and women; it has been so successful that the pur- | chasing power of ‘the people has been criminally reduced; it “has gone on simuitaneously™ with the continuance of the unemployed army And yet they are not content, LL of the above is true, but was it not just as true last May, when jthe whole organized section of the | British working class was in revolt | against Slave conditions and against ; the government which fought for the |capitalists and against the workers? When the labor movement was on | the march, ready for the struggle in which it was certain of victory, barring why the conflict constantly din into the ‘ears of the masses that their fight was \a-purely: industrial struggle? Last May was the time to make the | statements that are being made now— before’the miners had been starved and beaten. gets ready to take the struggle out of parliament it will find these same leaders in opposition and making the same excuses, proposing the same futilities by which they covered up their treason last spring. Right flow such right wing spokes- men, as Philip Snowden and Feank Hodges are advising the workers to adopt a policy of “industrial peace,” the same slogan under the Federation Thoughts of the British Miners’ Strike EB take any steps to aid the British strik- ers. . Another: “achievement” of the Miners’ International was to, refuse to admit. the: Russian coal miners to the International in spite of the tre- mendous. aid given by the Russian miners to-the British strikers. NOTHER factor which seriously weakened the. miners in their struggle was the vacillations and com- promising tactics of their own execu- tive. The first mistake was the pact entered into between the mizers’ ex- ecutive and the Trade Union Council whereby the miners agreed to the call- ing off of the Trade Union Executive meeting scheduled to take place June 25 where the council would have been forced to give a detailed report and explain its conduct’ in the calling off of the general strike. This was a crowning blunder, for an elementary understanding would have pointed out the simple fact, that the men who called off the general strike would not aid the miners to continue the strug- gle and that the only way in which the miners could get real ald trom the British labor movement would be by exposing these leaders to the rank and file and thus’ eliminating them and securing a change of working class leadership. rns was a fatal mistake and con- tributed hy ily to the defeat of the strikers. Then there was the re- fusal to call’ ‘out the safety men, the accepting of the Bishop’ 's proposal for arbitration which was voted down by the rank and fil The more the lead- ers of the miners indicated their will- ingness to compromise, the more. se- vere became the terms of the govern- ment to settle the strike. What the leaders of the miners should have done was to prosecute the strike with all possibile vigor and appeal to the rank and file of the other unions for aid over the heads of their respective leaders. Had that policy been follow- ed instead of a. vacillating attitude, a willingnéss to compromise, first on wages, then on hours and finally even on a national agreement, the resist- ance of the miners would Have been tremendously strengthened, and their struggle would have ended in a vic- from reaching Britain the reply was | tory. “That if the Belgium ahd French Un- fons would refrain from-ehipping scab coal they would also do so, but not otherwise.” The lead@raff the Bel- gia, French and Pollkh minérs’ soc. “ons replied in a similar vein, all of ‘hem actually refusing. to in any way > Every tendency to compromise only hardened the determination of the capitalist class to put thru their pro- gram of smashing the ' Pedera- tion and thus pave the for de- feat of the entire working class move- | ment nia st UT even today, if the working class | ment is carrying on its campaign against the labor movement, AE ot the National Minority Moye- ment, speaks in a tone far different from the whine of the Daily Herald. It says in its i$sue for November 28: Steps must be taken immediately to prepare for the next Trade Union Congress so that it will be capable of selecting real leaders for the com- ing struggles, and not strikebreak- ing agents, . . The labor party executive and the general council are boasting that tima and again they have opened the door for ne~. gotiations, sisted, not in opening the doors of negotiations for the benefit of the. miners, but in opening the pits and. collieries for the mine owners, . « « The fight for a new leadership im the trade union movement must ‘go hand in hand with a fight against those who are trying their utmost to make the wiole labor movement mes {for the dominant classes. E see from this that altho thé struggle in Britain is much more advanced than it is in the United States, due tothe rapid decay of capi: talism, that» the necessity .still “re mains for ousting a teadersnip that “is trying to make the whole labor movement safe for the dominant classes” just as the American trade union leadership is trying to do, tee Class peace versus class struggle is still the big issue in the Britten labor movement. The Workers’ Weekly, organ’ Of the British Communist Party, speaks stilt more definitely about “industrial peace.” It says: ~ They are not terms of peace, but terms of slavery which degrade the miners and menace the whole work ing class. They shall not endure. At the earliest moment the miners’ helped by the rest of the working: class, must repudiate — terms. . . Organize *0 Repudiate the Stave Peace. HE British capitalist class can éry industrial peace and at the same time*make war upon the workers, ‘the cowardly official labor leadership may write fierce verbal denunciations ‘of the attack on the workers’ Hving standards and their rights of orgati* | zation, striking and assemblage, while at the same time it plots against thé | masses as it did in the general strike jand the miners’ strike, but there is a new force rising in the British labor movement which is teaching and or- ganizing, and in the next struggle will rally the, non-capitalist masses, ”* This force is that of the British trade union movement, which, rapidly tiring of reformist deception” and learning fast the lessons of the pres- ent period, is crystallizing its s! in the National Minority Movement and following more and more the path to working class power blazed by - id hs discussing various angles of ‘the strike it is interesting to contrast the aid given by the Russian workers who contributed five million dollars in support of the strike and who Rl the financial backbone of it, "teh aid given by the Amsterdam ine national and by the American Trad Unions. The right wing leaders had placed great hope on the aid to be seoured from the American unions. But when all the smoke had vanished, the great American contribution amounted to only fifty thousand @ol- lars, a mere drop in the bucket, and 4 staggering blow to those who rested their hopes on the American Iabor movement, The difference between the contribution of the Russian work- ers and the American workers is/an excellent comparison of the ratio“of class consciousness existing in he two countries. dss Wear effect did the strike have en the British labor movement? | ~ The decline of British capitalism ha® revolutionized the British labor movement and the general strike and the long drawn out miners’ struggle had increased_ class consciousness among the workers ten-fold. This. has expressed’ itself in a tremendous surge of left wing sentiment among the rank and: file of the workers and the very rapld growth both in nutn- bers and influence of the Communist Party of Great Britain which is {n the process of becoming a real mass having its roots deep down in- ‘the British labor movement, A* signs point to a further decline of British capitalism which means an intensification of the class strug: sle. The one big lesson of the British seneral strike apd the miners’ strug: Sle is that if the working class is to win in its struggle with capitalism, st must have a leadership which will not falter at the critical moment and which will be steeled by a correct un- derstanding of the styuggle, a The old leadership at best was tra- ditionally ineapable of cond a struggle of the whole of the ing class, It thot in terms of and sectional struggles, not on basis of a united’ working against the capitalist class, leadership as 18 needed at the ie ent time by the working class. can only bah the Commu: nist Pi will the real leader of the workers in the om struggles of the the future, We. Their work con-:+ ae UWE Tame ME SUNDAY WORKER the organ ©