The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 30, 1927, Page 8

’ men ' ging, hard On The New Road Qo’ the 2nd of February the Fascist Press published the-notorious declaration of the seven traitors of the Italian General Cenfederation of Labor. Having announced the liquidation of the G. C. L. these trai- tors went into the service of the fascists. On the 20th of February at one of the factories in Milan the real representatives of the G. C. L. held a con- ference, which proclaimed to the world—and no less to Amsterdam, that the G. C. L. was not dead, that the workingclass decided to take matters into their own hands. They proclaimed that the struggle against fascism and the bourgeoisie will not be sus- pended; on the contrary, under the leadership elected by the workingclass itself, it will be carried on more resolutely than ever. This conference was illegally convened on the initiative of three left federations. It was attended by delegations from unions of woodworkers, business employes and hotel and restaurant workers, metal workers, transport workers, printers, chemical work- ers, building trade workers and food workers. Rep- resentatives from the Trade Councils of Milan, Turin, Trieste, Bologna, Genoa, Rome, Naples, Bergamo and Vicenzy and from a number of local trade union organizations also participated. The conference ‘re- ceived greetings and expressions of solidarity from the Barbers’ Union, the Agricultural Workers’ Union of Apulia and from a number of individuals. Besides the Communists, there were also reformist and maximalist delegates at the conference. Decisions of the Conference. The conference at which complete unanimity pre- vailed declared the liquidation of the G. C. L. in- valid and elected a provisional committee to direct the work of the confederation. Reformists, maximal- ists and Communists (who were in the majority), were elected to the committee. A decision was taken that the G, C. L. centre must be situated in Italy and demanded that Amsterdam recognize the organ- ization as the only one having the right to represent. the Italian proletariat. It was decided to re-organize the trade unicns on new lines, making the factcry committee the basic trade union unit. Membership dues were greatly lowered. The provisional committee was charged to convene an All-Union Congress to work out a program of action for the trade union movement and to elect a permanent executive bureau. A Reformist’s Admission. Very remarkable is the statement made at this conference by a well-known and responsible reform- ist worker in the executive committee of the G. C. L.: “I came to the conference today,” he said, “to make the following statement: You know that I always bitterly fought any attempt on your part (the Com- munists) to get control of the G. C. L. “I always thought—although this proved an illu- sion—that the distinct division between the social- democrats and the Communists would guarantee personal and trade-union freedom, at all events for the Social-democrats, and that the latter could con- tinue their work of defending workingclass inter- ests under a regime if only of comparative freedom. I repeat that this proved an illusion. After unsuc- cessful experiments we get to know better. Today, I belong to those workers—to those social-demo- crats, who confronted with the choice of two dicta- torships prefer and choose the dictatorship of the proletariat, I, therefore, state that all my sym- pathies are with Communism, which I well under- stood as a world-outlook, but against which I was struggling, being one of the opposite camp. Today, I have finished with them. It is with these considera- tions that I appeal to social-democratic comrades: we must do everything to get the support of the masses for Communism. Once we are smashed by reactionary methods—methods incredibly reaction- ary, by a dictatorship which is considered such even from the capittlist point of view—for has not the masked constitutional forms also been discarded— all our efforts mast be directed to get the working- ciass to join the Communist Party, which is ideologi- cally and organizationally better prepared for the struggle with the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.” Reformist Methods This statement of a reformist worker who for many years past was actively fighting the Commun- ists is exceedingly symptomatic, for it throws light on the feelings among the working masses of Italy. It exhibits the methods used by reformist leaders to control the working masses. It shows how re- formist workers who could not otherwise but feel in complete sympathy with the USSR and the Rus- sian proletariat, who on every occasion manifested their sympa*hy—permitted the exclusion of Com- munists from the trade unions and allowed the trade unions to be incapacitated in face of fascist reaction. The Black Cities | NOTICE an unusual intensity in his voice, a pe- culiar flashing glitter in his eyes, as he glances hurriedly over the vanishing panorama of country- side. He speaks rapidly, like one who has many strange and important things to tell and is pressed for time. I recognize him at once as a miner, a man whose eyes have learned to squint, down in the dark hard veins of the earth. An unsual man, I say to myself as I watch him: a man who can think, and hate, too. For a few moments he is silent. Then a hard ex- pression sweeps over his face. He waves his hand out toward the country sliding by the train window at fifty miles an hour. “This,” he says softly, “is a province of hell. Here we are under the Curse of Coal.” . * * Lights. From shops and movies a bright stream of light. Bits of song, lights and sounds of laughter from saloons. A white hard wave of light engulf- ing the pressing, tramping, talking crowds. The Land of Coal is taking its rest. It is Saturday night in America’s Black Country. Groups of men, silent, broad shouldered men, talk- ing, stooping men of thirty nationalities with their women and children, taking their rest. Laughing men. This is Saturday night. Deter- mined men of strong swinging shoulders and steady eyes. Men with marks of care upon laughing faces. Vast throngs of men who have suffered: men from the black pits, who laugh with their children and women on Saturday night. Men trying to forget the . Curse of Coal. 7: = ‘ Over hills, through fields and towns the train goes on. Through cities and woods, and everywhere one feels the influence of coal, hears the gossip of anthracite. A vast land, large as many European states, built on coal. Proud cities, Wilkes Barre, Scranton, Johnstown, sgn and oe sgenienae smaller laces, all supported masses sweating men poe in the mighty grip of the anthracite. A sprawl- ing land where elemental. forces are shaping for the tremendous conquest of the future. And over it all the sun shines brightly and the railroad tracks crawl like mated serpents, crawling hills and across the meadows and through and towns: crawling over the heads of | far down under the earth digging, dig- men of many races engaged in the battle of coal. A smiling land seen from a tvain window. A stage set for a mighty drama, a play in which the bodies of men are being broken, lives are being smothered out, are being, day and night, crushed out by the pitiless coal. Shacks and palaces, want and wealth, despair and the arrogance of power, toil and the hunger of women and little children, The Curse of the Coal. * * * Blacker than the coal down in the earth, despair sulks over the great region. Up out of the pits men are swarming, up into the sun they are not sup- posed to see, come streams of sweating men. A thrill of purpose fires the land. It is war, war and the stirring preparations for battle. The men from the black pits are on strike. The men of the deep pits are pouring into the light of day to fight wealth and arrogance and power for their women and children: the slaves of the anthracite are com- ing up to fight for the very lives of their people of the hovels. ; Armed guards appear, a terrifying display of brutality and weapons. State police, minions of the coal barons, patrol the whole land; silent, menacing, hating the men of the deep black pits, Terrified women, screaming children, and dogged determined men in whose blood the flames of con- quest have been lighted. Violence, guns, clubs, prancing horses, bright uniforms. A land at war. Into the houses they come. the armed guards and the uniformed police. Men are beaten before the eyes of their families. Terror has holiday. But the grimy men stay in the sun, the men refuse to go back into the black pits. An unbelievable campaign of starvation, brutality, coercion in a myriad of forms; a monstrous unhuman force employed upon a race of workers in the name — of justice and law. The hate of the great barons desolates the land, but the workers do not go down into the black holes: they take the bitter lashing in broad day. By hunger and suffering they are learning a lesson, they are being trained, hardened for the magnificent future conquest of coal. Heroism and tears, the glory of the strike. * Betrayed! Defeated! ’ The Black Cities under the round are crowded again. Human muscles are digging, digging into | the tough bones of the earth: again the bodies of men are pitted against the coal, the men who have been betrayed and defeated in the sun. The strike is over. Again men must labor for ‘By 5. SLOBODSRY They believed the assertions of the opportunist lead-- ers that in steering clear of the Communists, that by keeping “clean” of them, reformist unions would be able to continue their existence under the fascist regime. Their leaders assured them that with sub- mission and loyalty the fascists could be persuaded to allow the legal existence of the unions. This is the justification for their opportunist and treacher- ous policy. Step by step the reformist leaders closed down the trade union organizations, day by day they capitulated to fascism for the sake of saving their “personal and trade union freedom.” The re- sults of this policy are now conspicuously clear and the anger and dismay of the workers are equalled only by their contempt for these traitors. What is more important in this statement is the fact that it was made not before the representatives of a victorious Communist Party, not in a moment of triumph or rise in the labor movement of Italy— but at an illegal meeting in the presence of thirty representatives of the workers, who risking their lives and their freedom has gathered at a time when fascist reaction was rampant and at its worst. Shared Workers’ Needs. This .clearly demonstrates that the foremost ele- ments of the labor movement, the most honest and steady workers of the trade unions have maintained their connections with the rank and file, have shared their needs and hopes and despair and have learnt the bitter lessons of recent years They realize now that the road to victory is through national and in- ternational unity under the slogan of the Com- munist Party. This feeling among the Italian work- ers prompted the maximalist workers who at one time was in the leading organs of the Trades Coun- cil and in the Metal Workers’ Union of Milan to participate also at this conference. “My comrades,” he declared, “in deciding to send me to the conferefice said: ‘Go, but with conditions.’ But I put up no conditions. My comrades are intel- lectuals. I am a worker. As my conscience dic- tates so will I act.” As indeed, the Milan conference is the expression of the revolutionary consciousness of the Italian proletariat. The impulse for unity, the incentive to take up the struggle, which for so many years had been held up by the leaders of the G. Cc. L. and socialist parties, is now once again crystallizing into concrete forms. By BERNARD COFFIN long hours in the menacing black depths. They fought bravely, and still women and children are weeping in hovels; again hunger and terror are doing the work of the hard driving barons laughing in the sun. ; Stories of betrayal are told, are whispered from house to house, carry the challenge even down into the black pits. Defeated! Betrayed! But there is a difference now. Men talk quietly - together. In the hovels they talk, by two and two in the black gas haunted veins of the earth men talk. There is something new, something clean and strong and terrible come into the Empire of Coal. Men digging, digging down there at the bowels of the planet catch a glimpse of a new dawn; down there they hear whispers of words that bring them hope, words that fortell another time of battle and victory. : Down in the black pits they are dreaming and planning. Down there they have learned the need for the universal solidarity of labor, are fitting their souls for the inevitable conflict for domination of a world. This is the drilling ground of the future’s Iron Cohorts, the training place of strong men who will one day stream up into the sunlight to take their places by the sides of other workers to answer blow for blow the challenge of the bosses. Down in the black pits men are digging, digging, flesh against rock, digging, digging, iron willed men who are destined to cacepe the Curse of Coal. _ * *” ‘ The eyes of my companion gleam with a strange intensity, the flame of enthusiasm casts a glowing shadow over his face; there is something of the air of a prophet in his manner. Now, for a while he is silent again, peering out over the swiftly moving landscape. “Coal! Coal!” he murmurs as if to himself. “There is fire in coal, a fire that lights either the flames of hell or the flames of revolution.” He turns toward me suddenly. His face darkens, he speaks with a savage vigor, “But today you are passing through a corner of hell.” * * The train rushes on: over hills and acrdéss mea- dows and through towns and proud cities caressed by the sunlight. Over the heads of sweating men, down, far down in the black pits, digging, thinking, digging, digging: 6