The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 16, 1927, Page 5

THE NEw MAGAZINE fi. SATURDAY, JULY 16th, 1927. EDITOR’S NOTES eee BY ALEX BITTELMAN ei A RACE for armaments, chiefly between the United States and England, such is the up-to-date re- sult of the three power “limitation of armaments” conference in Geneva. By the time these lines appear in print, the conference may be all ovér, but its consequences will be felt throughout the world. And the reason for this is that the Geneva gathering opened up a new phase in the relations between the imperialists of England and America—the phase of open struggle for the mastery of the seas and hence for the mastery of the world, This situation was not created by Geneva, of course. The conference merely served as the occa- sion, whether intended so by its organizers or not, to bring forth into bold relief what was inherent in the present world situation, This is, namely, the fact that American imperialism has come to take the place of British imperialism as the world domin- ating power and that the American imperialists are now beginning openly to prepare themselves for a show-down by force of arms if necessary. The Geneva conférence has given us a forecast of the coming world imperialist war, bd * * *At the same time the machinations of British im- perialism to effect a joint military attack upon the Chinese revolution and upon the Soviet Union are continuing unabated. The English conservatives have NOT given up hope of crystallizing an im- perialist united front against the main revolution- ary forces of today—the Soviet Union and the Chi- nese Revolution. Hence, it would be a fatal mistake® to assume that the sharpening of the struggle be- tween the United States and England precludes all possibility for their united action against Russia and China. This possibility still exists. It presents the most menacing feature of the present world situation considered from the point of view of the workers, the farmers, and the poorer sections of the middle classes. The danger js still present of England, America, Japan, France, Italy and possibly Germany uniting their forces, in one way or another, for a common attack upon the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union and for a large scale’ war upon the Nationalist liberation movement of China. This danger must be guarded against most vigilantly by an intensified mobilization of all anti-war and anti- imperialist forces in the United States. (Continued on Page Two) (2 N NOVEMBER the proletariat of the world will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia—ten years of rule of the workers and peasants government. But ten years ago now, in the dark days of the July reaction, when the revolution was at its lowest ebb and the danger was gravest of a successful consolidation of the forces of reaction, only the most clearsighted could avoid succumbing to the illusion that the outcome of the tremendous upheaval that sent the czar into exile could be nothing other than a bourgeois government. The political adventurers, constitutional demo- crats, mensheviks and social revolutionaries whom history placed at the helm of the new government in Russia had tried, time after time, to turn the elementary movement of the revolution into dis- tinetly capitalist class channels. These attempts evoked determined resistance on the part of the class conscious proletariat of Petrograd (now Len- ingrad). There was never, from the beginning of the revolution, any question regarding the prole- tarian character of the masses in that great center of industry. When blood flowed in the streets in July ten years ago the so-called legally constituted government was the coalition of May 6th, which had been formed after Miliukoff, first minister of foreign affairs, had promised the allies to continue the war until many of the czarist objectives, including the capture of Constantinople, were realized. The crisis created by this announcement forced the fall of the Milu- koff-Lvov cabinet and the creation of the coalition government, : Behind this official government there stood an- other authority, the Councils of Workers and Sol- diers (Soviets), which did not then have at its disposal the state power,-but which unquestionably had the support of the vast majority of the popu- lation and was directly supported by the armed workers and soldiers.’ Owing to the pressure of the masses who had achieved the overthrow of the ezar the Soviets, even while under Menshevik con- trol, were forced to take sharp issue with these “statesmen” of the provisional government, that tried sometimes openly and sometimes by devious ways, to continue the imperialist war.on the side of the allies. : ae Donnie Such dualagite “and could never characterize a whole epoch in the development of revolution. Either the coalition government had to fall before | the Soviets, or the Soviets had to sink to the condition of mere adjuncts to the bourgoisie, to be used for a time to cloak their treachery to the workers and then gradually wither away before the consolidated power of the political lackeys of capitalism. One of the first acts of the coalition was an of- fensive against the workers in the factories and work-shops that had for its objective the lock-out of many of the most determined sections of uy proletariat, the beating bak ag their standards o i horribly miserable. ; oe girieg to east this offensive the Bolshevik Party and the Central Bureau of Factory a mittees arranged a demonstration for the tenth _ June to protest against “industrial anarchy an lock-outs by the employers.” The coalition gov- at Section of The-DAILY WORKER This Magazine Section Appears Every Saturday in The DAILY WORKER, ALEX BITTELMAN, Editor wee July Days In Russia SS Ten Years Ago By H. M. WICKS ernment was desperately afraid that such onistration would develop into a rising pealed to its agents in the Soviets to take action against it. The Soviet Congress debased itself before the contemptible scoundrels of the coalition ministry and issued a denunciation of the proposed demonstration, using revolutionary slogans to con- ceal its counter-revolutionary character. The Bol- shevik Party was denounced and the workers and soldiers were exhorted to “remember that demon- strations these days may hurt the cause of the revolution. At this dangerous moment,” continued the manifesto, “you are called out into the streets +o demand the overthrow of the provisional govy- ernment to which the All-Russian Congress has just found it necessary to give support. And those who are ealling you out cannot but know that out of your peaceful demonstration chaos and bloodshed may result.” This shameful and provocative manifesto, issued by the Council of the Soviets, dominated by the Mensheviks, on behalf of the coalition government, caused the Bolshevik leaders to abandon the dem- onstration because they were aware that the pro- posed peaceful demonstration would probably be turned into a slaughter of workers by mercenaries, criminals, former black-hundreds and other ele- ments whose historical destiny it is to play the part of bribed tests of reaction in such situations, In spite cf the fact that the Mensheviks controlled the Soviets and were using their power to break the effectiveness of these revolutionary organs of the masses, the Bolsheviks realized that a deep-laid plot was on foot to utilize the demonstrations as an excuse for fierce excesses against the workers and the eventual dispersing of the Soviets. The Petro- grad Soviet was the revolutionary core of the whole movement, but an All-Russian Executive Committee had been set up that tried to cripple the work of the local Soviet. Determined to carry out the plots against the workers and to crush at one stroke the opposition to the bourgeois government, the reactionaries, the (Continued on Page Five) a dem- and so ap-