The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 27, 1927, Page 4

Page Four THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JULY 27,°1927 THE DAILY WORKER Published by tie DAILY WORKER PUBLISHING CO, | Essay on Propaganda | By A. HAMILTON. Lenin wrote’ in “Left Wing Com- Daily, Except Sunday 85 First Street, Nsw York, N. Y. Cable Addres: Phone, Orchard 1689 | ‘Datwork” | SUBSCRIPTION RATES { same process) but also the distinc-Neither is it to be assumed that it is | | tion between agitation and propagan- unnecessary to conduct propaganda | munism,” “So long as the question |da. This distinction rests upon the work on a broad scale, in ‘order to} : was (and so long as the question still | fact that the masses are not of uni- provide every worker with the oppor- | By mail (in New York only): By mail outside of New York): | lis) one of gaining the vanguard of | form composition, but are divided into tunity of becoming acquainted’ with Q800'per year $4.50 six monthe $6.00 per yuar 96.80 six months | 11, proletariat for Communism, just | the maxses -in-general on the one Communism. On the contrary, it ia $2.50 three months $2.00 three months sc long and so far will propaganda | hand, and the comparatively small impossible to determine mechanically Superb Acting in Tolstoy’s “Power of Darkness” [ HUGH BUCKLER A well-chosen cast from the Mos- cow Art theatre not merely acts Tolstoy’s drama, “The Power of y Address ali mail and make out cnecks to | THE DAILY WORKER, 88 First Street, New York, N. Y. | | J. LOUIS ENGDAHL | i ; a ; atic intensity that i i WILLIAM F. DUNNE evens ih raigthanel ck gaia Editors been gained for Communism in the | isn is different, and on the other is therefore necessary to conduct PTO-| seen in aie erate eg ae BEET. MILDOR, « ociises coe, éediecms business Manager United States; consequently propa-} hand, the specific methods and ma- paganda on the broadest scale Pos- | Hollywood luminaries, Entered as second-class mai! at the post-office at New York, N. Y., under the act of Merch 8, 1879. Advei E>» sing rates on applicatiom French Imperialism Takes Another Step Toward War Upon the Soviet Union. The heavy sentences imposed by French courts upon eight | Communists yesterday, ranging from five years imprisonment and deprivation of civic rights for long periods, together with! fines, follows on the h of the raid upon the office of the Soviet | Union staff of the Chinese Eastern railway, operated jointly by| the Soviet Union and the Chinese, conducted by French concession | police. | Paris dispatches contain more than a hint of a rupture of re- | | paganda society; | active part in the class struggle as it | take the first place.” Certainly it cannot be correctly said that more than a small percentage the “vanguard of the proletariat” has yet ganda must occupy a_position of prim- y importance in tivity in this country. It is perfectly true that a Commun- ; ist Party is NOT MERELY a pro-/ it must take an Communist ac- | proceeds from day to day. But this| does not mean that propaganda is to be relegated to the rear or disre- garded altogether. We believe that one of the most serious defects of the Workers Party is just in respect to its propaganda work, consisting in er- roneous ideas in reference to this | question, and a failure to conduct the | work with the proper effectiveness. | What Is Propaganda? In “What’s to Be Done?” Lenin re- ferred to Plekhanov’s definition “The | minority of actual or potential lead- who or where are those who will re- ership on the other; the response of cruits to the Communist movement, these two general divisions to the ef- who are\ where are those who will re- fort to spread the ideas'of Commun- spond to the Communist message; it lations between France and the Soviet Union and the trials of the| propagandist teaches a large number : $1355 imi h i | of ideas to a single person or a very Communists have been utilized to the limit by the French impe | sinatlcnuciien: aeatierssei) ths apie: rialist press and the Poincaré government. tor teaches a single or a very small | terial properly to be used in reaching Sible; there is a “mass” characteris- them are different. The masses come to accept the re- volutionary ideas only gradually, in response to the development of capi- talism into a stage of stagnation and decline, with the economic and po- litical crisis connected therewith; thru the lessons of long experience in the class struggle. The Objective of Propaganda Work. But a certain minority of the work- ers are at all times, whether the gen- character or not, capable of grasping more or less thoroly the ideology of Communism, even long before the masses come to that point, otherwise there would be no Communist move- ment at the present time in the United States. But we should not assume that the present membership of the | Communist movement includes ALL these capable of understanding Com- eral situation is of a revolutionary | tic to propaganda, consisting not in the possible response, but in the lat- itude of the work. Activity in the Class Struggle. Another error on this point consists in the belief that efforts to get the | workers to take progressive and mili- tant steps are sufficient that specific Communist propaganda is unneces- |sary; if the workers can just be stirred up to fight the bosses, that is suffi- cient. Such “practical” work of course is | absolutely essential providing abso- lutely- necessary experience for the |masses and the mass leadership but of itself it will never build the Com- | munist moyement or produce the pro- letarian revolution. Progress and mili- tancy in the class struggle are not necessarily REVOLUTIONARY. The Marxian ideology must be injected or |all the militancy possible to be de- Darkness” at the Fifty-fifth Street Cinema, but lives the thing. Chosen for their ability to portray certain | peasant types, they achieve a dram- Tolstoy’s story is a sordid one, run- ning the gamut of murder and in- fanticide, that deals with the exploits of a wife who married a rich pea- sant for his money, fell in love with the village lout, a romantic young | bum who played upon an accordion, The mother of the lout warted her gon to be happy s0 she bought poison to give to the wife of the old man in order that she might quickly dispatch him and marry the son. All of which was achieved to the accompaniment | of sustained dramatic acting. But no } sooner had the lout married the old| man’s widow than he grew weary of} her and seduced a young lady of the house who was supposed to be the} daughter of the old man by an earlier | wife. A baby was born and buried! beneath the house. | During the entire action the lout’s father, a stupid, drunken old moujik, passed through the scenes as a _ In “The Ladder,” which is continu- ing its long run at the Cort theatre. Little Theatre . ; “ i \ : ideas to a mass of | munism and inclined to accept it; for | veloped has only a temporary value | S¢¢ondary figure, devoutly religious. 44th Ss GRAND Practically all of the leaders of the French Communist party | number of ideas, but : paaagal | 4 ; eat ee d St, W. of B'way. a aay: eee : aes ” A = s easy to see that large numbers | and is bound to degenerate int .|4n due time a marriage was arranged | Hyenin t 8:30. STREE' are under indictment or in jail, the legal preliminaries to the mil-| people.” Lenin comments on this de: 8 B into apa Pe itarization of the French masses have been arranged by the Bon- | cour bill, a general offensive against the French working class is) in progress—in other words, French imperialism is taking much | the same measures against the masses and the Soviet Union that! finition as follows: “If the propagandist deals, for ex- | ample, with unemployment, he must | explain the nature of crises, to show their inevitabiilty in present-day so- have never been made sufficiently ac- quainted with the ideas of the Com- munist movement. It should therefore be distinctly understood that the objective of PRO- thy or reformism. The masses must |be continually -instrueted in the | LIMITATIONS of the most militant | fight possible to make under the capi- | talist system, and their fight against for the mother of the murdered in- fant and at the wedding the lout wandered out of the house and de-| cided to hang himself from a barn| rafter. The other end of the rope ES T AND THURSDAY, 2:30 FOLLIES The LADDER All seats are reduced for the : 4 ie r: i summer, Best Seats $2.20, 5 |ciety, to prove the necessity for the | PAGANDA work at present is not to | specific and immediate evils must be ae. piachee _ the drunken body of | Cort Theatre, 48 “st, E, of British imperialism has taken. transformation of this society into the | Secure a response from the broad | given a more extended horizon in or-| ‘"¢ Sitl’s grandfather and so the only | eer“ Matlnes egueee’: The French government is joining in the offensive against | the Soviet Union. In France as in Great Britain every effort is) socialist society, in a word to supply a ‘great many ideas’, so great a num- | ber of ideas that they could not be mi but rather from the small minority of more advanced and cap- able elements scattered thruout the | der to display as much as possible a jfight for more general and ultimate aims. : 4 7 ive it of its being made to suppress the labor movement and deprive | immediately assimiliated except by a militant leaders. |few people. Treating the same ques- To the mass of evidence already accumulated we must add the} tion, the agitator on the contrary, | masses constituting the actual or po-| Is Successful’ Propaganda Work tential leadership of the masses in| | Possible? their struggles. But simply because; Due to the special difficulties met Ivy L. Lee, is a tribute to the power of the workers’ and peasants’ recent developments in France as showing the growing threat of | war against the Soviet Union. In every imperialist country the same developments are to be| noted. They re sharp and clear as in the European nations, or | takes the example the most striking, the best-known to his hearers; for ex- ample,»a family without work, dead of hunger; the increase of beggary, ete. And taking advantage of this} | fact known by all, he seeks to give} the NUMBER of those responding to propaganda work is known in ad- vance to be comparatively small, we | with, some appear to incline to a nega- | tive answer. It is correct that undef existing American conditions a high are not therefore to minimize the im- | degree of response to propaganda portance of the work; in the con-| work is not to be expected. But the trary it is, just these comparatively | conditions of American capitalism and laudable impulse the lout ever had was frustrated. Wandering back into the house he broke down and con-} fessed his numerous crimes which, to} say the least, was a rotten stunt, in-| asmuch as he did not confer with the} other parties to his bloody perfor-| mances. | When the police came in the re-| ligious father gazed at them with the | wild-eyed expression of religious} fanaticism and adminished them not. NOW PLAYING AMERICAN PREMIE of the Remarkable Film Version of TOLSTOY’S. “POWER OF DARKNESS” Enacted by Moscow Art Players Directed by ROBE tor of “Cabinet of ga and Punishmen Continuous Performance 2-11:30 P.M. RT somewhat disguised and confused as in the United States, BEES the mass a SINGLE IDMA, that of | Small numbers who must be won or |the world situation provide a sufficient pea ae SPA eee Saal 55th St Cinde Went ing upon the intensity of the class struggle. | the contrast between the increase of | the Party itself is unable to grow. | situation for winning a certain num- showed the lout and his wife, tecon-| RS MA Just B. of 7 Ay, But in every country the Communist parties have the same task—that of informing and mobilizing the masses against the war danger and against their national imperialists. Here in the United States there is, because of the dominant role of American imperialism, and the powerful propaganda agen- cies of the ruling class, an insistent necessity for the broadest pos- sible united front against the war danger and ceaseless work among the American masses. The Oil War Is an Old Story. |riches and the increase of poverty; |he attempts to STIR UP discontent | and indignation against this crying | injustice; and leaves to the propa- | gandist the task of giving a complete | explanation of this contrast. For this reason, the propagandist works chiefly by writing, the agitator chiefly by speeches. For a propagandist, one does not demand the same qualities as for an agitator. Kautsky and La- |fargue, for example, were propogan- | dists; Bebel and Guesde, agitators.” Propaganda and Agitation. Redshirt Battalion Anti-Fascisti Will Be at Press Picnic. CHICAGO, July 26—The Red Shirt’ Battalion of the Chicago Anti- ber of the more thoughtful and class- conscious elements but the trouble is that the Party does not properly util- ize it as opportunities in this respect. We Need More and Better Literature The standard works of Marx-Lenin | and other authorities need to be given | ciled and in chains, tramping toward | Siberia with a band of convicts. Their | expressions convey the idea that they are happy in having discovered Christianity and the captions on the screen do the rest. It is a powerful portrayal of Tols- Let’s Fight On! Join The Workers Party! In the loss of Comrade Ruthen- a specific adaptation to American con- | toy’s slave religion, which exalted| berg the Workers (Communist) Par- ditions in order to make the principles | ™isery and exhorted the staves under| ty has lost its foremost leader and more readily grasped as well as the! understanding of American capitalism | and the tasks of the revolutionary movement here more easy and certain. For instance, the general characteris- the ezar to accept anything that came their way. In this particular case the moral was that wealth made this delactable pair sordid and unhappy and that poverty and chains softened the American working class its staunchest fighter. This loss can only be overcome by many militant work. ers joining the Party that he built. Fill out the application below and ‘ " Inj is-| To fail t ognize the sh: dis- | Fascisti Alliance which was already | tics of imperialism inted with Christianity made them sub-| mail j+ Bec Rather belatedly the kept Legg eee Aes Laea iss ae Gistion ‘Reeves yen rodeo of | become quite popular amongst the | Lenin need to be apeciticatlc lems limely happy. Fortunately the re-| Workers comma eee ss covered the fact that a world-wide war rages between the Amer-| workers is planning to invade the 7th| pe ican Standard Oil trust and the British Royal-Dutch Shell. This fact has been reiterated and elaborated in the columns of the Communist press so many times during the past decade that to most of our readers it is an old story. ~The important fact today is not the oil war itself, but the fact that it is openly recognized eral conflict between these two powers as was clearly revealed at | the naval conference at Geneva. No one should think however, that Walter C. Teagle, head of the Standard Oil company of New Jersey is playing the game of the British concern headed by Sir Henri Deterding, because Teagle has long opposed the proposition of New York Standard Oil to fight for trade relations with and even political revognition by this government of the Soviet Union. Sir Henri, head of the Royal Dutch Shell group has long held the idea of becoming master of the great oil lands in the Caucasus, and has continually spec- ulated on the fall of the Soviets in order to have a free hand in that part of the world. He has on many occasions made himself ridiculous by predicting that on a certain date the Bolshevist gov- ernment in Russia would collapse. He has been one of the prime instigators of anti-Soviet political fury:and is influential in the present British conspiracy against the Soviet Union. The chief competitor of Deterding in the Caucasus has been the Teagle con- cern, the New Jersey Standard Oil company. Teagle also gambled on the fall of the workers’ and peasants’ government in Russia to such an extent that he bought an equal partnership with the Nobels in Russian oil fields, that had been nationalized by the Soviet government. Thus they gambled on the fall of the Soviets in order to make legal by force their spurious claim to lands they had “bought” from the Nobels, who could not sell them for the simple reason that they did not own them. This is one of the motives behind the attacks upon the Soviet Union by such misera- ble sycophants of capitalism as the late secretary of state, Charles | work is a serious but common error. | One variety of mistake is to lump to- | gether all efforts to disseminate Com- munist ideas, either giving the whole thing a strongly propagandist char- acter (capable of being assimiliated only by a few) or a strongly agita- sively simple; too much avoidance of | general ideas and revolutionary con- clusions). Another variety of error is to set up an artificial division between pro- paganda and “activity,” between what we try to teach the workers and what we try to get them to do. This was one of the “Economist” errors exposed by Lenin, who showed that the ob- jective in all forms of revolutionary work is ACTION by the masses. Len- in wrote, “To set up in addition a third activity (ie, besides agitation and propaganda—A. H.) consisting in ‘calling the masses to certain concrete action’, is an absurdity, for the ‘call’, as an act in itself, either completes naturally and inevitably the theore- tical treatise, the propaganda pam- phlet, the agitational discourse, or else represents a function purely exe- cutive.” But the “Economists” called “propaganda” the work of spreading ideas, and “agitation” the work of “calling the masses to certain con- crete actions.” This erroneous “Economist” view not only confused the relationship be- | tween the dissemination of ideas and Annual Party Press,Picnic to be held at the Riverview Park Grove. The labor press, the English speaking as well as the press of the various lan- | guage groups, representing the mili- | tant section of the labor movement The Red Shirt Battalion reports that on that day other workers may join their ranks, for whom they have uniforms available. Those who de- side to join for the day may meet with the leaders of the Battalion at 19 S. Lincoln on Friday, July 29th at 8:00 p. m. Daily In Special Cars. A great contest is being planned for the most popular paper. Since it is already a fact that The DAILY WORKER is the most popular labor | paper, it has been eliminated from this contest. The So. Slavie paper, Radnik, the Lithuanian paper, Vilnis, | the Jewish paper, Freiheit, and many more will compete. Entertainment is provided for. There will be such national known speakers as Wm. Foster, and Jay Lovestone. Singing will be furnished from Lithuanian and Freiheit Sing- ing Society. Efforts are being made to stage a real sports event. A soc- cer game has been arranged with the Red Star Team as one of the conten- ders. This together wi all the other many attractions should make the Party Press Picnic at the River- |the work of rousing the masses into | activity (which are but parts of the | view Park on Sunday, July 31st really worth while visiting. government in Russia, which has convinced even the hard-boiled Evans Hughes, an oil trust lawyer, and the present occupant of | pirates of Standard Oil that if ever they get any more Russian oil that office, Secretary of State Kellogg. The British oil trust also | they will have to deal with the Soviet Union and no one else, and competes with, or rather co-operates with, the Standard Oil of New Jersey in France, Italy, Germany, the Scandinavian and other countries. Deterding of Britain has frequently used the threat of ruinous competition against Teagle of New Jersey in erder to force Teagle to follow his policy. So besides his own Russian interests, Teagle also hesitates at the contemplation of the cut-throat oil war in fields where the two big oil trusts “co- rate.” Mr. Teagle, however, is after all a part of the Standard | il group and has gone to England in order to confer with Deterd- ing and inform him that he will have to abandon his “co-operation” in-case Deterding remains stubborn and refuses to recede from | his position of trying to block an agreement whereby Standard gets Soviet oil concessions on the threat of a price war—-or face a fight. Spurred on by the threat of exhausted oil fields and because of its world struggle with the Royal Dutch the Rockefeller oil trust is perfectly willing to abandon its olympian “moral objec- tions” to dealing with the Soviets and is now striving to get the best that the Russian government has to offer in the way of con- cessions and Teagle of New Jersey will have to follow that policy even at the cost of “sacrificing” his investments with Noble & Co. The attitude of the Standard of New York and its spokesman, on the terms laid down that wil terests of the revolution. Co-operative League Delegates to the Northern 1 guarantee protection to the in- Fights Against War, States Co-operative League con- LP ER BEM o vention, held at Minneapolis, representing co-operatives in Min- nesota, Wisconsin, Michigan and South Dakota, besides laying | plans for the further strengthening of the co-operative movement | thru more intensive organization and a widespread campaign of | education regarding the necessity for building of co-operatives, showed that it is keenly alive to the threat of war as it affects the populations of agricultural states by adopting a resolution against the new slaughters planned by imperialist Wall Street. Also noteworthy is the fact that it recognizes the necessity of raising its voice in behalf of the labor movement generally, as was evidenced by its demand upon Governor Fuller for the release of Sacco and Vanzetti. Co-operatives, such as are being undertaken in the northern states, can, with proper leadership, become powerful weapons in the hands of the farmers and also the workers and it is to the credit of the convention of the co-operators that they clearly per- as displayed by American. imperial- | ism. Such terms as “relative surplus value,” very important for an under- standing of such a period as the pres- ent when the “efficiency of produc- tion” is being rapidly increased, M Bee : rr nv | ought to be explained in the light of * by the official newspapers of the ruling powers of the United) tional character (intended to reach Sire Wane a eae American capitalist practice, if Mons samarng res eer Address. ....eeseessseseeeseseens States and Great Britain. It indicates the sharpening of the gen-|the masses indiscriminately; exces- | "hic Much better use should also be pecans Sc aera DOCU AMR 4 ciais ses disewasasecen The entertainment is worth two hours of anybody’s time. made of the modern developments in the arts of journalism, illustration, typography. The expense required for this would be compensated for by the increased saleability and effect. iveness of the literature, Propaganda and Building the Party. In the Eleventh Congress of the Ger- man Communist Party recently held, Comrade Thaelman declared, ‘ ‘Our task must be to create new cadres, to train new functionaries, to fill our Party with fresh and vigorous blood so as to strengthen our vanguard, for we can in no ‘way carry out our great tasks with those sections of the workers which at present belong to us,” If such is the task of the German Party, with a membership relatively very much higher, so much the more is it the task of the W. P. Propaganda alone of course cannot accomplish this task, but without effective pro- paganda it is equally impossible. The Party cannot be built simply by de- monstrating to the workers courage, wisdom, loyalty, in the immediate struggle; by attacking and exposing the reactionary leadership and the) capitalists themselves. It is abso- lutely necessary to explain clearly just what Communism means; in or- der to turn the contacts made in) mass work into permanent and cap- able members of the Party. | One of the greatest difficulties in| the United States is the almost com- plete lack of ideological foundation | within the working class not only for | developing the revolutionary move- ment, but even for the simplest sort of fight for immediate demands. | Even a militant struggle on questions | of the day demands a certain com- |” prehension of the capitalist system, | and the special difficulties met with | in the United States with its huge | industries, ete, make a widespread | acquaintance with at least some of | the general conceptions of Marxism almost necessary. To do this is absolutely necessary for much progress to be made in any phase of Party activity, and especi- ally is the propaganda phase of the work important, in order to greatly increase the existing forces included in the Party and its sympathetic fol- Jowing, and to augment these by other forees of leadership more or less touched with the Marxian ideol- ogy and hence inspired and led to more energetic and correct action in ceived this fact and have laid their plans accordingly. ; F- f stirring up and leadi»e the masses into struggle, ligious clap-trap occurs at the very end of the picture. The Fifty-fifth Street Cinema is a small place, but has within the few weeks of its existence, gained a no- table reputation for the films it has shown. ecret Service Smith,” a detec- tive play, dramatized by Lincoln Os- borne from Major R. T. M. Scott’s book “The Black Magician,” will be produced here this coming season by Ramsey Wallace. Dwight Frey, last seen in “The Devil and the Cheese,” and Billy Quinn, will have leading roles in “Dumb Luck,” which is being pro- duced by the authors, John Bohn and Earle Simmonde. Robert Emmet Sherwood’s success- ful comedy, “The Road to Rome,” in which Jane Cowl is starred, has just passed the \200 performance at the Playhouse. carry forward the work of Comrade Ruthenberg. I want to become a member of the Workers (Communist) Party. Name Stee e eer eneesecescccescece Union Affiliation...............008 Mail this application to the Work- ers Party, 108 East 14th Street, New York City; or if in other city to Workers Party, 1113 W. Washington Blv., Chicago, Ill. Distribute the Ruthenberg pam- phlet, “The Workers’ (Communist) Party, What it Stands For and Why Workers Should Join.” This Ruthen- berg pamphlet will be the basic pam- Palet thruout the Ruthenberg Drive, Every Party Nucleus must collect 50 cents from every member and wil) receive 20 pamphlets for every mem- ber to sell or distribute. Nuclei in the New York District will get their pamphlets from the Dis- trict office—108 Kast 14th St, Nuclei oztside of the New Yor] District write to The DAILY WOR. ER publishing Co. 33 East First Street, New York City, or to the National Office, Workers Party, 1113 W. Washington Blvd., Chicago, Il, Ws offer this combi BOOK. BARGAINS AT SPECIAL PRICE AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY HISTORY ination of books (at a lower price) to acquaint as many work- ers as possible with some of the revolutionary history of this country. The third book has long been outstanding in revolutionary liter- ature. UNDERGROUND RADICALISM By John Pepper A COMMUNIST TRIAL ° Extracts from the testimony of C. EB, Ruthenberg at the Bridgeman Trial THE CLASS STRUGGLE By Karl Kautsky All Three for 50 Gents, TE RR. CoRR Ee rare Books offered in this column on hana NOTE: in limited quantities. All orders cash —10 —.25 —.25 * and filled in turn as received.