The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 19, 1927, Page 5

— Ne a ae ee fe EE TIENT ‘rian state. Tue New Macazi % Section of THE DAILY WORKER Second Section: This Magazine Section Appears Every Saturday in The DAILY WORKER. ST “SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 1927 EDITOR’S NOTES THE Paris Commune. What a source of inspira- tion, revolutionary energy and deep lessons in the science of class struggle it-still presents to the working class of the world? Fifty-six years ago the working class of Paris raised the banner of revolt against French capital- jsm and established what is known as the Paris Commune—the first working class government, the glorious forerunner of the Bolshevik revolution and the Soviet Republic. This working class government was in power only a few months,- but the historic consequences of the Commune are still making them- selves felt in the proletarian struggle for power. The lessons of the victory as well as of the defeat of the French workers in 1871 have contributed greatly towards the victory of the Russian workers in 1917 and are serving as a guide to action for the working class the world over. * * * It was a brave and glorious struggle. The cour- age and self-sacrifice of the Paris workers, their wives and children, will forever stand out as an ex- ample to be followed and emulated by victims of capitalist and imperialist exploitation. The memory of the heroes of the Paris Commune is still green in the hearts and minds of the revolutionary labor movement. The martyr deaths of the thousands of French workers murdered in cold blood by the beasts of French capitalism still call for account and re- venge. The Paris Commune was defeated ‘but the cause of the Communards is marching triumphantly forward. It established itself on one-sixth of the surface of the earth as the Union of Socialist Soviet . Republics. It is rallying around its banner, earried by the Communist International, ever larger num- bers of proletarian revolutionary fighters. The day ' will soon come when the cause for which fought and ’ bled the French Communards in 1871 will be com- pletely and finally vindicated in the triumphant es- tablishment of the. ional Soviet. Marx and Engels, the fathers of the modern work- ing class movement, were the first to open the eyes of the workers to the historic meaning of the Paris Commune. It was they who analyzed the achieve- ment of the Communards as the first i attempt of the workers to abolish the rule of the capitalists by destroying their government, their state, and to establish the rule of the workers by establishing a workers’ government. It was Marx and Engels, the great proletarian teachers, who on the basis of the experiences of the Paris Commune had formulated in concrete form the proletarian dictatorship as the only means for the abolition of capitalism. It was the genius of Marx and Engels that discerned through the primitive forms of the and Engels the image, the tradition, and the great lessons of the Paris Commune have lived through decades of working class struggle until they became embodied in the glorious achievements of the work- ing class of the Soviet Union. The opportunists and reformists in the socialist movement have treated the Paris Commune prac- -tically the same way as they treated the whole re- volutionary philosophy of Marx and Engels. They, the opportunists and betrayers of the working class, have persistently strived to blur the revolutionary. . meaning of the Paris Commune as the first attempt to establish the proletarian dictatorship. They have ' done all they could to strip the uprising of the Com- munards and their achievement of the greatest les- _ gon of the event, namely, that the way to abolish -eapitalism is for the working class to seize political power, destroy the capitalist government and estab- - lish a workers’ government. It became the task of _ the revolutionary Marxians in the pre-war Second International and of the Communist International after the war to carry forward the traditions and meaning of the Paris Commune and to make these a living part of present day working class struggles. * * * The Bolshevik revolution of 1917 was the historical event which gave the Paris Commune its first great vindication. It was through this revolution that the itive forms of working class government embodied in the Paris Commune found their mature and com- plete expression in the concrete proletarian state represented by the Soviet form of government. It was through this revolution that the Paris Commune came to life again only this time on a much grander scale, with incomparably more consciousness of its own tasks, with a background of nearly half a cen- tury of experience, under the leadership of a power- ful Leninist party and in the period of the decline of world capitalism. All of which made possible the victory of the Bolshevik revolution which became the starting point of a new social era—the era of social revolutions. * * * Lenin, like Marx and Engels, never lost sight of the meaning of the Paris Commune. He cultivated its traditions and applied. its lessons to the revolu- tionary struggles of the working ’class. It was in the teachings of Lenin that the proletarian dictator- ship as first realized by the uprising of the Com- munards came to be organically connected with the more complete form of proletarian diciatorship in the form, ef Soviets as realized by the Russian revo- lution 46 years later. In the teachings of Lenin and in the theory of Leninism the Paris Commune, which scored a triumphant victory in the Russian revolution, has again become a dynamic factor in the struggle for power of the working-class through- out the world. . * * * Of the many great lessons of the Paris Commune disclosed to the working-class in the teachings of Lenin, two lessons stand out most prominently. One is the vital need of a Bolshevistic party at the head of the proletarian revolution if the latter is to succeed. The second is the equally vital need of a firm alliance between the workers and farm- ers in the struggle against capitalism led by the phase—the struggle for power—a complete success. The Américan working-class and the labor move- ment can profit greatly from the experiences of the Paris Commune. A study of these experiences and conscientious application of these lessons to the class struggle in the United States would un- doubtedly, deepen the political consciousness of the working-class, strengthen and reinforce the move- ment for independent political action and for a la- bor party, hasten the crystallization of an alliance between the workers and farmers and generally strengthen the workers against the capitalists. Above all these experiences would convince the class-conscious and militant workers of America that without a strong mass Communist party fol- lowing in the footsteps of Leninism there can be no successful class struggle against capitalism and no victory of the working-class. The building of the Workers (Communist) Party into such a mass ALEXANDER KERENSKY. f Endorsed ey tue “STATE ,ECHURCH 4 ve & fut Hes BOSS: 3S Many American workers would not mind putting a dollar in this panhandler’s hat provided he buys beginnings of proletarian dictatorship and the prim- eyanide of potassium with it—to he taken internally. ~ AMER RE NAR Ne ace BP i ee ALEX BITTELMAN, Editor — By ALEX BITTELMAN Bolshevik party becomes therefore the task of ev- ery projetarian revolutionist in the United States. * * In addressing several Ruthenberg memorial meet- ings in the state of Minnesota, I came across vari- ous incidents which occurred to me both interest- ing and instructive. One of them was that in all of these meetings (Minneapolis, St. Paul and Du- luth) there appeared together with Communist Par- ty speakers also non-Communist speakers. Among these latter there were former socialists, farmer- laborites and prominent trade unionists of various shades of political opinion. This, I think, is quite symptomatic. It speaks very eloquently of the tre- mendous power of attraction of our movement and of Ruthenberg as one of its outstanding leaders. * * * ILLIAH E. McEWEN, a prominent man in the American Federation of Labor and in Duluth labor circles generally, hada been invited to address the Ruthenberg memorial meeting held in that city on March 14, Unfortunately, he couldn’t come in person but he sent in a short typewritten speech which was read to the audience by the chairman of the meetifg, comrade O’Rourke. I noted several expressions in that speech which I wish to repro- duce and comment on briefly. Mr..McEwen said: “Ruthenberg believed in the industrial state, 1 am opposed to it. I hold there is opportun- ity to work out by voluntary, cooperative ef- fort every social and economic problem that confronts the workers of the world. That is why I am a trade unionist. That is why I ad- here to the policies and principles of the Amere ’ jean Federation of Labor. So, you see, Ruth- enberg and I held to principles which are dia- 4 pe ther or not there is opportunity to solve the blems of the working-class by a cooperative ef- rt with the capitalists (if that is what Mr. Mc- ‘wen means), we will not discuss at this moment, except to point to the actual conditions of the class struggle. Only on one point we would like to dis- abuse the mind of Mr. McEwen, namely, that there is some inherent contradiction between trade union- ism and Communism, as is implied in the above quo- tation. ’ The truth of the matter is there is no such con- tradiction or hostility between trade unionism and Communism. Trade unionism and trade union struggles are the elementary and basic forms of working-class organization and struggle against the vapitalists. In the present era of concentrated in- dustry, monopolistic control by finance capital of the economic life of the country, the centralized ma- chinery of the government functioning as strike breaker and oppressor of the workers, the ever present danger of war caused by the terrific gowth of imperialism—all these forces compel the expansion of trade union struggles into struggles of class against class, workers against capitalists, into a political struggle against the rule of capital- ism. Communism is the theoretical expression and explanation of this historical process. Communism supplies the scientifically proven theory which guides and directs the efforts of the working-class towards a eonscious struggle against capitalism and for Communism. The Communists base them- selves on this theory and build a party—a politi- cal party—which educates, organizes and leads the struggles of the working-class until its final vic- tory is secured. Where is the contradiction betweén trade union- ism and Communism? It is only when reactionary trade unionists attempt to degenerate trade union- ism into helping the employers against the work- ers instead of organizing the workers against the employers that conflict arises. But this is a con- flict not between Communism and trade unionism but between working-class trade unionism and capi- talist company unionism. Which is an entirely dif- ferent staév. "