The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 28, 1927, Page 10

"Mose. Kum. Rr” This article is timely because of the recent raid on the Soviet Trade Delegation headquarters in London and the breaking off of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union because of alleged interfer- ence in the domestic affairs of Great Britain. The _ picture of the fake Pravda, official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, that accompanies this story should set at rest any doubts our readers may have that the British government does not descend to the des- picable method of forgery in framing up on its op- ponents. People of Irish, Egyptian or Indian na- tionality aceustomed to the perfidy of the British ruling class will have no difficulty in believing anything no matter how despicable about the Brit- ish government. No doubt we will have a deluge of forged documents tn the capitalist press from now on, alleged to have been captured in the Arcos raid.—Ed. New Magazine. — oh — T mare smeeceenee: oa HIS is simply a part of the whole phrase used, which runs: “Pravda, Organ Cen. Com. Mase, Kum. and Mosc. Prov. Com. R.C.P.” The reader will rub his eyes and protest: “But ‘Pravda’ was never published anywhere with such a title!” And neither was it. Yet a “Pravda” was published not some- where, but in London, and not some time or other, but in 1920, under the direct instruction of close epoperation of that famous English police institu- tion—-Scotland Yard.* SACCO AND VANZE TT MIST NOT Dre!!! a Aa The Martyr Myth By HENRY GEORGE WEISS The opinion expressed among some radicals that the execution of Saceo and Vanzetti would redound, in the long run, more to the good of the labor move- ment than would the winning of their life and freedom, is not only based on faulty reasoning, but is a dangerous state of mind for any worker to get in, and must be fought strenuously by the clearer thinking elements in the ranks of labor. The workers holding to such an opinion must be made to realize that martyrs are a confession of weakness on the part of the laboring masses. The fact that the bosses can railroad to prison or put to death our leaders with impunity becomes a wea- pon of intimidation in their hand and does help to eow and keep in submission the less militant mass. It is true that the martyred comrades become sym- bols around which sections of workers rally, that their» names become battle-cries in the fight for freedom, but that is making, after all, the most of a battle which labor has admittedly fought—and lost. The more powerful labor becomes, the more effective it is in making its demands heeded, the less will it have martyrs. The opinion that martyrs ae a necessary adjunct to progress must be taken with an extra big pinch of salt in spite of the eminent poets and historians who have immortalized them in song and prose, In some cases, like the more or less uncertain tale of Jesus for instance, martyrs have been killed off- hand and used a few centuries later to hoodwink their gullible brethren in the ranks of toil. This, let it be understood, is not the fault of the martyr, but it is a hell of a fate to die more or less sincerely for your class and later find yourself used as an excuse for bible-thumping. In any case, labor has many martyrs, monuments to master-class vie- ies, and the time has come to call a halt. Down “with the thinking that would inevitably breed mental apathy in the ranks of toil, that would even consider sacrificing any worker to the martyr myth! Coe The post-war years in very truth can be called the period when the doubtful art of preparing for- geries of every kind blossomed forth in all its glory. And without doubt the palm for supremacy in this respect -—- if not for quality, then for quantity — should be given to England, famous for the cele- brated “Zinoviev letter,” which guaranteed the en- try to power in 1925 of the present Conservative Government with Baldwifi at the head. In connection with the 15th anniversary of “Prav- da” and the recent Peking forgeries, it will not be superfluous to pay a little attention to the Scotland Yard “double” of our “Pravda,” about which the reading public has doubtless already managed to forget. And, by the way, on February 28th, 1921, it was practically impossible to obtain a copy of the “Daily Herald,” which denounced the whole business of the SCOTLAND YARD FAKED “PRAVADA.” The “Daily Herald” wrote up in detail the “technique” of the production “of the forged Pravda.” The publication of this “newspa- per” had been started by Russian White Guards living in London in 1920, The “Editorial Collegiate” was situated in the “old Russian embassy,” and the financial side was ron by the “old Russian con- sulate.” The “paper” was printed once in two weeks, and was taken straight from the printers to Scotland Yard. In England there is a law that on every printed publication the name of the editor, the publisher and the printer should appear. A close examina- tion of the faked “Pravda” revealed a few English : words at the bottom, written in tiny print. These words, run: “Editor—Pushnow, Publisher—Free Society, Printed by Williams, Lea & Co.,. Ltd., E. G. 4.” It is absolutely obvious that the “Pravda’’ indi- eated was printed in a London printing shop, little suited to the purposes of these “Tsarist Russians.” And this is where the official English police insti- tution—Scotland Yard—came on the scene, zeal- ously fighting against the “interference of the Bol- sheviks in the internal affairs of other countries.” Democracy in By IL. LAZAROVITZ Union Square—afternoon. The benches were, as usual, taken. The visitors were mostly members of the reserve army, fecling American prosperity in their daily struggle for existence, They sat there and discussed politics. Suddenly the tune of the Star Spangled Banner sounded. & few of these Union Square visitors, among them myself, went to the place where the tune sounded. We saw a hurriedly built wooden platform with a big top sign which read: “Department of New York Veterans of Foreign Wars.” : A small fellow with a belly as big as the wooden platform on whieh he was standing, made the ad- dress. This fellow looked as though he had never seen the inside of a factory in his life. Did he speak about the terrible conditions of the workers in this country? Did he speak about the danger of a new war with all its miseries? Or about the thousands of unemployed who are sub- jected to the worst kind of starvation in this highly developed country? Quite the contrary. He spoke about the prosper- ous time we have. The phrase “American democ- racy” came into his speech often. * * > While he was speaking about democracy I noticed that the crowd began to run somewhere toward the east side of Union Square. Running after the crowd I saw two big fat policemen holding a fellow. One policeman kept a bunch of leaflets which he had taken from the fellow. “What kind of leaflets are those?” I asked the policeman. “Oh, these damn Bolsheviks, wherever you go you meet them.” “May I have one of the leaflets?” I asked the policeman, ; “Who are you, anyhow?” the policeman replied in a voice that nearly made me deaf. I told him I represented a certain newspaper and am interested to know what it’s all about. “O, well, there is one,” he said in a more decent voice. I took one of the leaflets and immediately under- stood why the policeman was so excited. The leaf- © let was a statement of the central executive com- mittee of the Workers (Communist) Party, It be- gan: “Hands Off China—Not one dollar, not one man for the Imperialists.” “Where are you going to take this fellow?” I asked the policeman, but he didn’t reply, By A, ERVEY The copies of the faked “Pravda” brought to Scot- land Yard were sent to the guillotining machine and, UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF BRITISH CIVIL SERVANTS, the “compromising” signature was cut clean off. The “newspaper” was now ready for dispatch, But the kind help of Scotland Yard was not limited to the work of the guillotine. The doctored copies of the faked “Pravda” were packed and delivered by an English police agent to cer- tain English officials in Helsingfors. The “Daily Herald” not without sarcasm. commented, that the expense of the dispatch of the papers was borne by none other than the British taxpayers, who pay also far the upkeep of Scotland Yard. Why and for whom was it necessary that the Russian White Guards and their “mighty defend- ers” from the Foreign Office should print forged copies of “Pravda” in London in 1920? The an- swer to this question will be clear, if we remem- ber that it was in Autumn 1920 that the Lloyd George Government threatened to break off the Anglo-Soviet trade agreement on the pretext of “Bolshevik propaganda in Ehgland”; that in the same year Wrangel was ultimately defeated and the “Russian” conference in Paris decided to begin a new “agitation campaign” against Soviet Russia on a broad scale. The British foreign office was at that time in need of material to prove this “Bol- shevik agitation in England”; can one stop at the preparation of false documents in the attainment of such “great aims”? The British police institu- tions did not let that hinder tlem in 1920, or later in 1924, when the “Zinoviev letter” appeared as the crowning glory of their endeavors. English runs: “Organ Cen. Com, and the Mose, Com. of the RCP (b),” which means: “Organ of the Central Committee and the Moscow Committee of the Russian (now All-Union) Communist Party (Bolshevik).” The sub-title of the London fabrica- tion has nothing in common not only with the present-day sub-titie of “Pravda,” but with the Russian language. Union Square (Worker Correspondent.) The crowd was running to the other side of the square. There we find the same story: two police- men holding one fellow with leaflets. But one of the policemen couldn’t resist the chance of giving some good pinches to the “red trouble maker.” The veterans’ representative on the wooden plat- form meanwhile still chewed the rag about Amer- ican democracy as though nothing happened around him. But the crowd didn’t listen to him longer. They were discussing the arrest of the two reds. “They shouldn’t have given out these leaflets here,” one of the fellows said. “What do you mean, they shouldn’t?” asked a tall fellow with a soldier’s service button in his coat. “They talk about democracy, don’t they? Is it il- legal literature? Believe me they wouldn’t arrest these kids if they were giving out leaflets praising the flag or American policies in China. They don’t like democracy when you tell the people the truth about war.” . “What are you around here, the main attraction?” a policeman shouted out, “Come on—get off be- fore you get pinched, too.” The tall. fellow looked at-the policeman as if to say: “Wait, your day will come yet,” and he quietly moved on. a wn i emer ote a ae SS LM BR! Ya don’t believe in Democracy? Tl bust ya in the nose ya damn Red! That's how Democratic J am!