The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 25, 1927, Page 6

Page Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, MONDAY, JULY 25, 1927 Fist of the Proletariat Growing Menace to Unstable Capitalist Rule in France By J. LOUIS ENGDAHL NOTE.—Here is another article by Comrade Eng- Results of the Plenary Session of the Executive Committee of the = Communist International | The Forward Blacklists a Poet '0 what lengths will The Jewish Daily Forward and some of its right wing contemporaries go in their |fanatical opposition to anything and everything they | think is even remotely related to Communism? The (Speech by N. I. Bucharin.) (Continued from last issue.) The main difference between the Basle Congress of the II. Interna- tional, with the well-known amend- dahl on what he saw during his three days’ stay in 3 ‘ | events now impending and the events Paris, returning to New York City from Moscow. P |of the year 1914 consists of the fact | that this time it is not a question of Engdahl writes about the tomb of Jean Jaures at the “Pantheon,” which he visited. ast issue he | wrote about the debate in the Chamber of Deputies | that resulted in the withdrawal of parliamentary | immunity from Marcel Cachin, editor of l’Humanite. Tomorrow Engdahl will tell about “The Red Wall,” the memorial to the 36,000 workers slain during the last week of the Paris Commune, May 21-28, 1871. » bet center of attention in the big ante-room to the French Chamber of Deputies was a Worker. The big thing about him w i g waiting at the doorstep of the par! 1 self-assertive. | and he did not choose for a moment not humble, He was a Wor to hide the spirit of a May Day demonstration or the | celebration of a Soviet Anniversary. His cap was pushed | back on his head; his hair in joyous disorder. He was still wearing his overcoat. The shirt was wide open, dis- playing a grizzled chest that testified to well-developed lung power. The priest sitting in the corner, with hands folded,| was meek. The widow, still in mourning, sat quietly in her place. Other elements, distinctly middle class, tried to appear unconcerned. But there were plainly other worker elements in this interesting gathering. All were at , however, by this Worker who scoffed at the necessity of filling out in detail a lengthy questionnaire, just because he wanted to see the deputy that represented his district in the chamber. It was clear that he never did much writing. Then the pens furnished in such public places are always bad. But the task was finally accomplished. His slip, like many oth-| ers, were passed on to one of the many attendants, and a messenger took it on to the Chamber. | It was not long before it came back. The deputy was “Not In.” I did not understand French. So I did not learn his mission. But it must have been very miportant to this Worker, who showed his dismay. But only for a moment. He was quickly surrounded by nearly everyone in the room he opened an attack on the deputy he wanted to see. In elegant satire, it must have been, he told of how fat and puffy this deputy was. I could make this out from his telling gestures. He was a finished actor, in this respect, born to the class struggle. He was |likely—but above | Union conflicts among the imperialist powers themselves—although such conflicts are in themselves not un- all of an attack made by the imperialist states against the Soviet Union on the one hand, and against the Chinese revolu- tion on the other. The existence of a of proletarian republics, the existence—at the same time and un- der the great influence of this union —of the great Chinese national struggle for emancipation, which has already been able to adopt state! forms to a certain extent, and which | possesses its organized state centre,— | the existence of these two mighty historical facts has naturally caused certain questions to be raised by the Comintern, and has influenced its answers. At the beginning of my report I stated that the existence of the Soviet Republics and of the Chinese revolu- tion changes not only the objective situation, but the whole course of events, and with this the method deal- ing with the tasks of the proletariat. It need searcely be said that in the case of a war between imperialist states, it is highly probable that the majorjty of the working people would take sides with their own government, | would once more attempt to solve the question of which side had attacked |first, and so forth. But the fact of the Chinese revolution, and of the existence of a Union of Socialist Re- publics, especially in view of the peace policy which has been pursued, and will continue to be pursued, by this Union of Socialist Republics, are like- ly to alter the probability of this prog- nosis a little. For it is easily compre- hensible that the greater part of the workers would lend themselves with very heavy hearts to an attack on the ment to that resolution, proposed by {Comrades Lenin and Rosa Luxem- |burg at Stuttgart and incorporated Jin the Basle Resolution, and stating that in the case of war it will be |necessary: “to make ful use of the {economic and political crisis caused | by the war for the purpose of arous- ing the people, and accelerating the joverthrow of the rule of capital” (Lenin, Complete Works, vol. 13). | Secondly, reference is. made to one |of the last documents dealing pre- | cisely with the question of the fight | against war—the often quoted instruc- | tions issued by Comrade Lenin to our delegation to the congress of trade union, co-operative, pacifist, and other organizations, held at the Hague. In these instructions Lenin “first advances the thesis that we must com- bat with our utmost energies the foolish and senseless idea that it is possible to “reply” to war with a gen- eral strike or a revolution; that in reality the majority of the workers will take sides with their bourgeois government during the first days of a war; that it is of the utmost im- portance to expose the foolishness of the standpoint of those who imagine themselves in possession of a uni- versal remedy against the “evil” of war; that we must unmask the oppor- tunists, the semi-pacifissts, the pacif- ists, etc., who fancy that they “know” how to fight against war; that we must contend determinedly against the empty phrase of a “reply” to war by means of a general strike or a revolution. These theses are the main import of the instructions drawn up by Comrade Lenin. | Whilst our Commission was work-,| ling various interpretations were !brought forward with a reference to |the connection between these instruc- |tions of Lenin’s and the Basle Resolu- jlatest brilliant attempt in that direction just brought to/ light is the blacklisting by The Forward of a poet who! has appeared in these columns, as well as in a score or| |more conservative and capitalist newspapers and maga- | zines. The utter ridiculousness of the ultimatum handed | the poet by The Forward, refusing even to examine any | more of his work, rests on the fact that the poet is not a member of the Communist Party and his work has been unmarked’ by political partisanship. His sole of- fense seems to have been in writing for The DAILY WORKER. Henry Reich, Jr., the poet in question, several months ago had contributed some werse to The Forward and had received the lavish sum of $2.50 in payment for a poem appearing “In the Best of Humor” column in the Sunday English Section of The Forward. Subsequently he sub- mitted another batch of manuscripts which were rejected. Meanwhile, and even previously, he had been appearing with considerable regularity in the columns of The DAILY WORKER. Shortly after the return of his sec-)| ond lot of verse there came a single poem that had been | kept in hand by The Forward for some time. It was accompanied by the following note: “I don’t think we would care to see any more of your stuff. You had better save your efforts and your postage for publications that appreciate them the Communist sheets, for example. THE FORWARD.” | The poem which this note accompanied was an alto- gether innocuous one, as were all of those submitted. It follows: TO A WRITER OF MARGINALIA Your notes along the pages of my book Are like black pearls upon a golden string, Or pebbles at the margin of a brook, Worn round and smooth—and suited to a sling! Just what dark and devious undercurrent of political significance exists in this quatrain, it is difficult to say. The poet, at any rate, is totally unconscious of any such significance. Upon receipt of the above rebuff from The Forward, the poet addressed the following letter to the paper: “Mr. H, Rogoff, Managing Editor, The Jewish Daily Forward, New York City. » My Dear Mr. Rogoff: I am in receipt of the following letter from The Jewish Daily Forward: “ T don’t think we would care to see any more of your stuff. You had better save your efforts and your postage for publications that appreciate them the Communist sheets, for example. | CO-OPERATIV S HOW THE “COOPERATIVE NEWS” FIGHTS AGAINST INTERVENTION IN CHINA It is generally known that the last congresses of the Co-operative Soci- ety, (Belfast, May 1926) and of the Co-operative Women’s Guild (New-| castle, June 1926) adopted peace re-)) solutions declaring that in the event | of bellicose actions a “policy of | determined resistance” is*to be adopt- Jed by co-operators. The manner in | which co-operative bureaucrats car- ry out this “policy of determined re- | sistance is clearly shown in the num- {bers of “Co-operatives News” pub- lished since the beginning of the year. | At the time when British warships | and thanks were already on the way} |to China the periodical published on ; January Ist, extravagant praises of the well-known hypocritical China manifesto of the Baldwin Govern- ment under the lying heading “Peace |in China,” Congratulations are of- fered to the government for this dec- | |laration, which reads as follows: | “The manifesto should help to establish the belief that Bri- tain has no malicious intent with regard to China.” | The same number announces that the Central Committee of the Co- | operative Society has sent a circular | to the affiliated consumers’ co-opera- tive with the invitation “that societies should become associated with the League of | Nations Union, and in that way | help the League of Nations to | carry on its good work.” At the same time the British Co-| | operative Women’s Guild invites its | | local organizations to support the} disarmament plans of the League of | | Nations. And this as fulfillment of | |the peace resolutions of last summer, | in the face of the overt bellicose ac- | tions of the British government! | On January 22nd, the “Co-operative | | | News” is no longer able to keep up ‘the swindle about “peace in China”. \The article on China appears under the heading “The War-Clouds in| China”. The article is from the pen| of a “special contributor” who certi- | fies once more the examplary pacifism The article tells its readers that the national-revolutionary govern- ment of Canton cannot pay its troops and that therefore there is: “a spirit of revolt which may re- verse the previous victories of the Nationalist movement.” Coop Patriotism. While in this manner responsibil- ity for any armed collision is placed beforehand at the door of the Na- tionalist government, the imperialist war-mongers are represented by the | “special contributor” as innocent lambs: “The sending of warships to protect British interests is an in- evitable measure so long as Brit- ish subjects are there under con- ‘ditions and for purposes sancti- oned by agreements with previous Chinese governments”. And once more there is a “friendly” warning to the Canton government which is responsible for protection to British subjects and their property. On February 26,.the “Co-operative News” -— in keeping with the official policy of the government — already adopts the method of covert attack on the Soviet Union which is, so to speak, represented as an accomplices “The Cantonese no doubt have the aid of “Red” Russian advis- ers. Whether the Soviet govern- ment is a party to that or not is not certain, but on the other hand, the northern forces have the aid of “white” Russians. It would be well for China if these foreigners kept out of the fight on either side.” These crafty insinuations and at- tacks on the Chinese people, which is fighting for its freedom, and against the Russian Workers’ and Peasants’ Republic — together with prases for the “pacifism” of the British government — are the ac- companiment of the “Co-operative News”, to the work of the guns of the British armored cruisers. One can judge of the feelings of the mass of rank and file co-gperators in re- Union of Socialist Republics—if they | ,. ‘ | can be induced to take part in such Sie ic Bee tO be Ore Seen a eHeee Re atl |the formula of the Basle Manifesto | pagers a; «,/ Was taken from a document which _, The bourgeois governments will find| had already been accepted at the it increasingly difficult to throw their | Stuttgart Congress. The original hirelings and their armed _ forces wording of the amendment referred against the proletarian republics and} directly to revolutionary action, that ane. national revolutionary allies in is to strike and insurrection). The UM Basle Resolution makes mention of |of the British government: “Only extreme care on the part of the Canton government and the British government will prevent a clash of arms in China, which might, indeed, have appal- ling results, notwithstanding the Pacific attitude of the British government to which reference {gard to this matter by the fact that many local co-operative organizations as already mentidned in No. 3 of the “Coop Inform” are supporting the anti-war campaign of the left wing. A number of local co-operative or- ganizations and particularly Co- operative Women’s Guild are affili- ated to the “Hands off China” com- the breath of the rising populace that has so often swept Paris repeatedly in its many revolutions; in 1789, 1830, 1848 and 1871. THE FORWARD. ” “I would say that my work has appeared recently | and with some regularity in twenty-five papers, in- cluding such publication as The Jewish Tribune, The New Leader, The New York Herald Tribune, The Evening World, Frze Verse, The Greenwich Village Quill, The Guardian, The Voice, The Prism, in such conservative magazines as The Jewish Forum, and * * * I have never seen workers in the lobbies of the Amer- ican congress. There are no reception rooms at the house of representatives or the senate in Washington. At the lower house the doortender takes in your card. You wait in the corridor. There is a little more splendor at the senate. More door tenders; more messengers; more gilt, and a small waiting room if you want to use it. If the senator is good natured, and if the weather is fair, he may take you on the balcony, with its view down Pennsylvania Avenue, as the best place to carry on the interview. But the visitors that come to Washington and tap at} the doors of the house of representatives and the senate | ar not workers. Washington is not a city with a great) industrial working class. Perhaps its most conscious ele-| ments are to be found among the machinists, for in-| stance, down in the government navy yard. * * * It is declared that Washington was established as a| “made to order” capital city for the United States to| avoid the restless proletarign elements of the great cities, | like New York and Chicago. | Only the other day the militant needle workers had a| mn before the city hall in New York City.! ago, in Chicago, during a big traction fight, | h nooses in them, were dangled from the bal-| conies of the Chicago city council chambers, as a warn-, ing to aldermen whose palms itched with the desire for) Amer an senators and congressmen, safely ¢so- | ton, do not wish to be disturbed in their | ations by any such disturbing incidents. | ber They are not. If the banking cliques in Wall Street wish to speak} to their office boys in Washington, they can easily sum- | mon them to New York. Thus Washington and Capitol) Hill become the destination merely of honeymooners and} other sightseers. Tt is said of the French architects who helped develope the plan for the city, that they, purposely provided for| the wide thorofares, like Pennsylvania, Avenue, so that! an aroused people could be easily met and overcome by a} “loyal” soldiery. These architects remembered that the} narrow streets cf Paris had lent themselves, on ny occasions, too easily to barricades hastily thrown up by workers. * * “« In Europe the national parliaments sit in the chief cities of the nations: London, in England; Berlin, in Germany; Vienna, in Austria; Warsaw, in Poland; Rome, in Italy; Budapest, in Hungary, and Paris, in France. So the throng that crowds the ante-room of the Cham-| ber of Deputies is different from the class of visitors that drifts to Washington. Here are workers. * * * I wondered if this had anything to do with the fact that in this ante-room of the French chamber was a huge! portrait of Jean Jaures, the foe of French militarism who was martyred on the eve of the world war. French Communists today claim Jaures as their own. Yet here is his pictyre, and as I passed on to an inner reception room, there I found a huge painting, in magnificent de- tail, showing Jaures making one of his impassioned speeches before the French chamber, with every member in his seat and the galleries thronged. * idee re is a Boulevard Jean Jaures, while the tomb of this champion of the French proletariat is to be found in the crypt of the Pantheon, fittingly inscribed with the| declaration, “A Leader of the International Working | Class.” | Strange inconsistency here, you say. The Pantheon| stands. on the highest ground on the left bank of the! Seine, being the site of the Tomb of St. Genevieve (420-| 512), the Patron Saint of Paris. The chapel originally | erected over her tomb was succeeded by a church, which} Louis XV vowed to rebuild when lying on a sick bed at) Metz, in 1744. The present edifice was accordingly built | in 1764-90 and was likewise dedicated to St. Genevieve. In 1791, however, it was converted by the Constitutent Assembly into a “Pantheon,” or Temple of Fame, “For (he Burial of Great Men.” Mirabeau was the first to bo (Continued on fourth column) a What are the decisions come to by the ECCI. in the question of fighting methods? The ECCI. has decided that the slogan of the general strike, the slogan of insurrection, and the slogan of the transformation of the imper- jialist war into civil war, are all slo- gans for the orientation of our Party, and that our main task lies in the preparation for the realization of these slogans. It is impossible to prophesy when these slogans will emerge from the agitative and propa- gandist stage into the stage leading immediately to an actual insurrection or strike, when we pass from the propaganda of the general strike or the insurrection to their actualiza- tion. It is perhaps possible to proph- esy with a certain amount of cer- tainty that this actualization will not be possjple in the overwhelming ma- jority of states immediately after the beginning of the war. But even to- day we must face the fact that it may be possible in isolated cases, even if these are exceptional; there can be no doubt that this possibility ex- ists. The exact moment at which the agi- tative and propagandist slogans merge into slogans of immediate action will be determined by the situation itself, by the arising of a revolutionary sit- uation, by the strength of the Com- munist Party, by the degree of fermentation among the masses, by the trends of feeling among the lead- jing strata—in a word, by a number of objective and subjective premises. | These slogans will merge into slogans | proletariat is offered a glance of their realization. 1. Fighting Methods. General Strike and Insurrection. I now pass on to the question of |fighting methods. When this question \is raised, two extremely important | documents are generally referred to. | Firstly, the resolution passed by the jof immediate action as soon as the, the Paris Commune and of the rev- olution of 1905, in which the general strike and insurrection formed the “leading forms” of the struggle. The slogan of the general strike and of the |armed insurrection was here indirect-| jly presented as a slogan determining | our action during preparation for | war on the part of the bourgeoisie, | and further during the war itself. But on the other hand the Hague in- structions’ state that the phrases on “replying” to a war by revolution are nonsensical; that we have to obey the dictates of common sense, and face the fact that at the beginning of a} war the majority of the working peo- ple take sides with their bourgeois fatherland. | Various shades of opinion have arisen during the course of our work | in the Commission, and we have come to various decisions upon them, One of these may be formulated as fol- lows: The .slogans of the general strike and of armed insurrection must stand, without reservation, as rules of action for the Communist Party, both during the period of preparation for war on the part of imperialist states, and during the war itself. An- other standpoint: The point of main importance is precisely the exposure of the absurdity of the standpoint that a war can be “replied” to by a general strike, revolution, or insur- rection. What is the right answer to this question? First of all, it is absurd to confront one document with another in this case; it is absurd to confront a document with the demands %f the mass struggles of the communards and the revolutionists of 1905, with the “instructions” given by Lenin to the Hague Delegation, dealing with the ‘necessity of forming a careful and at- tentive judgment of the position, free from all illusions, during the first days or a war. | (To Be Continued). | TO ELLA REEVE BLOOR ON HER BIRTHDAY By HENRY GEORGE WEISS. The years are trampling horses On the road of life. We listen and hear the courses Ring to hooved strife. Madly the steeds go Foam-flecked and red. We take a steed and Until we’re dead And it’s, Ho for the Who gallantly rides ! For the memory of hi Forever abides. And the ones who must mount on the morrow Will whisper a prayer That they make a great ride, and as bravely by us, we ride it horse and his rider orse and of rider in forthcoming issues of Voices, Contemporary Verse and Opportunity. Also The Jewish Daily Forward printed a poem of mine in the Sunday English Sec- tion on March 27, 1927. “I have always sung of the class struggle and much of my poetry both in the conservative publica- tions and the Communist paper has been concerned with the theme of labor. I had’ been harboring the strange delusion that The Jewish Daily Forward was a champion of the working class and stood for work- ing class principles. “Never before has my poetry been discriminated against and I have been writing for publication for fifteen years, It amazed me that a newspaper of the supposedly high standing of The Jeivish Daily Forward would stoop to such tactics. “Trusting that you may give me some explanation of your change in policy, “T remain, “Respectfully yours, HENRY REICH, JR.” That The Forward was unable to face the issue was demonstrated by the fact that no reply has been received, a full two weeks having elapsed since the above letter was sent, The display of peevishness exhibited by the Forward editor in returning the poem indicates a state of exasper- ation which is caused by the growing disgust of an ever increasing circle of literary men over thé Forward’s crim- inal alliance with the employers, the courts, the police and the gangstez elements against the left wing workers in the needle trades. Because Henry Reich, Jr., like many other young artist, finds in The DAILY WORKER a medium for the free expression of proletarian poetry, he is blacklisted by the Yiddish organ of the right wing socialists and Tedciany Hall. In its crusade against everything of a progressive char- acter and against everybody who supports progressive | views in general the Forward, like the lickspittles of cap- italism in the American Federation of Labor (Woll, Frayne, McGrady, Green and Co.,) goes farther than even some of the capitalist papers, many of which have accepted poems from Henry Reich, Jr., because of their pure merit. SACLO AND VANZE TT MIST NOT Dre tt! aan interred in the Pantheon (April 4, 1791) and on July 12, of the same year, the remains of Voltaire were brought here. The building was ‘again given over to religious purposes in 1806, but once more became a “Pantheon” jafter the July, 1880, revolution, when the words, “Aux grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante” were inscribed on the pediment, It was reopened as a church in 1851, but finally secularized for the obsequies of Victor Hugo, (1885). At the entrance to the crypt stands a huge urn, said to contain the heart of Leon Gambetta. There are also the tombs of Jean Jacques Rousseau and Emile Zola; of LaGrange, the mathematician, and Marcelin Berthelat, the Chemist, and his wife, who died on the same day; of. Rouget de Lisle, the author of “The Marsellaise,” and Ernest Renan, wtih many others, including hosts of mil- itary dead, some from the last war, * * * In this mixed company sleeps Jean Jaures in a mag- nificent tomb filled with many wreaths left there by workers’ organizations. * The Worker at the Chamber of Deputies and the tomb of Jean Jaures in the Pantheon is typical of the increas- ingly powerful fist of the French proletariat crushi Spur thru tothe clear, ing thru and down the Ks crunghing do asta Seal ona age was made recently.” : mittees. FARMERS ‘SENATOR NYE IN PESSIMISTIC SPEECH FAILS TO OFFER FARMER AUDIENCE MUCH REMEDY FOR ILLS (By ANDREW OMHOLT.) WILLISTON, N. D., July 24. republican, from North Dakota, spoke here last night to a small crowd in the court house. Part of his subject was the North Dakota-Missouri river di- version project, leading the Missouri river into Devils Lake for the purpose of flood control in the Mississippi Valley. The Missouri river is the biggest tributary to the Mississippi, and if the waters of the Missouri can be lead into and stored in Devils Lake it would not only help to control the | flood but would also solve the water problem which is serious in parts of North Dakota, the senator said. | It would also create a playground, as the lake is now drying out, by rais- ing the waterlevel and make a fresh- | Water lake out of it, he said, the peo- | ple of North Dakota spend 2-3 mil- lions of dollars every summer when they go out to play in other states, as there is no playground here; of |course he did not say what part of |the people had the time and money |for pleasure trips. The farmers of | North Dakota have neither the money or time, they have to stay home and milk the cows and slop the hogs in oda to be able to pay interest and taxes and high prices for everything they buy, so the bankers and business- men who are prospering and making money by robbing the farmer, can buy new cars and go out and have a good time. The senator said, tho North Dakota- Missouri river diversion project was not the most important problem be- fore the people; that was the farm | problem. He quoted a few statistics as proof, 44,000 farm owners in N. | Dak. 15 years ago, and today 26,000 | farm owners in the state. Their property is valued at $200,000,000, but there are $82,000,000 mortgages against it. If the farmers are satisfied with these kind of conditions there is some- thing the matter with them, the sena- tor said. He thought Coolidge would sign the McNary-Haugen Bill when it come up in congress next fall, and that would strengthen his chances, so he thought Coolidge would have a chance to carry the state in 1928, The gonator did not put forth any remedy for these terrible conditions among the farmers, only the McNary- Haugen Bill which he himself said 1s of little or no value. "It is not Coolidge, or Senator Nye | j |The junior senator Gerald P. Nye, | | that is at fault, it is the robber capi-~ __|talist system that must go before any real farmrelief can be had, Poultry Congress @L rf Poultry fanciers from nearly every country in the world, in- eluding the Kings of England, Belgium, Spain, and the Prince of Wales, will exhibit their prize stock at the World’s Poultry Congress to be held in Ottawa, Can., July 27 to August 4, Ed- ward Brown, above, of London, England, is president of the Con- gress, and Dr. J. H. Grisdale,' below, Canadian deputy minister of agriculture, Ottawa, is chair- man. The last Congress was held, at Barcelona, Spain in 1924, O