The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 2, 1927, Page 6

Page THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, AUGUST 2, 1927 Marx-Engels Institute Invades New York in Its Hunt for Labor’s. Treasure}, YGDAHL. ee By. J. LOUIS Bolshevik Revolution in Russia has brought about ew kind of treasure hunt. It is being ¢ Engels Institute at Moscow, U. 1 reaches into many parts of the world. sures left behind by s. The writings of ed at their real worth The hunt is for the Karl Marx and I Marx and were not appr iterary tre: until the v came to power in Russia and the Soviet Governme thru special decree, established the Marx- Engels Institut arch workers, under Communist direction, were signed the task of unearthing these treasures and bringing them, in some form or other, to Moscow New York City because during Marx was a frequent con- York Tribune, edited by Horace ly interested in the Civil War his letter to Abraham Lin- il War p being often quoted to show n that he paid to American developments. the 10-year per tributor to the } Greely. ader would conclude that there would be in getting a set of the files of the New this period and clipping the articles from its pages. But it isn’t so e: In the discovered that there is only one file period, and that is located in ffort was made to purchase where “Soviet Gold” was | herefore, had to be resorted to, in ates, or photostats, not of articles found, but of whole pages, in du- them would make the that could be e plicate s: reading use to reduce There were other obstacles, however. The Tribune, with real American newspaper technique as one of its liabilities, did not always give Marx credit for his con- tributions. rticles would be given a date line and run as a news stor At other times the tired editorial writer would take one of the articles sent in by Marx, change the introduction a little, work over the conclu- sions reached, and make a first rate editorial out of it. Those were days in American journalism when editorials were famous for their. length. “So when the ship came in with its articles from Marx, who was at that time living in London, it was considered a big day, if not a holiday, for the editorial writer of The Tribune. Sometimes the It ison xy making a thoro study of the contents of The Tribune, page by page, with a keen knowledge of the ma haracteristics of the style of writing used by Marx, that the literary treasure hunter is rewarded with any degree of success. That hunt is not being} carried to its final conclusion here in New York. The} photostats of thousands of ‘the editorial and news pages | of The Tribune were taken in New York and then for-| " ed to the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow, where the hunt proceeds, conducted by experts in Marxism. While in Moscow, I was shown thru the treasure | chambers of the Marx-Engels‘snstitute, where these and | thousands of other photostats are being kept, in spe- cially p red vaults and cabinets, more carefully | watched d more highly treasured than the contents of the y deposit sections of New York’s great finan-| cial institutions. There are also, in the New York Library, 400 original letters of Marx, written to friends in this country and dealing with events of interest at that time. Photostats have been made of 200 of these letters and sent to Moscow. It great pride that the custodian of these treasures ed me the photostat duplicates of the writings of Marx and Engels still held by the German Social-Democratic Party in Germany. When Engels died in 1895 this literary heritage was turned over to the German Social-Democracy with Eduard Bernstein and August Bebel as executors. It has already been shown how “Ber n took advantage of this opportunity to falsify the writings of Engels. The German socialists refused to surrender this ma- terial to the Ma Engels Institute. But they allowed It will not be so easy, there- traitors to issue faked or blue- x and Engels in the future in ken. * * * 2 are 150 members of the staff of the Engels Institute. These include 30 librarians, 50 technicians and 40 scientific workers. about facts illustrate the thoroness with which the| work proceeds. Here is to be found the marriage license of Karl Marx and Jenny von Westphalen. But here also} are 45,000 titles on the Revolution of 1848 in Germany. | Two ° * * Attached to “The Institute” is Abraham Deborin, the philosophical writer, all of whose writings on philosophy are based on the materialistic conception of history, He is one of the editors of “Under the Banner of Marxism.” | He is also one of the vice presidents of “The Institute.” The aim of the department of philosophy, headed by Deborin, is to give out the works of the German ideal- ists, Haegel, Fichte, Schelling and Kant. The Kant section includes more than 700 titles; the Fichte section about 800 titles. French materialists, Helvetius, Diderot and Holbach. The denartment of philosophy is also rich with literature pertaining to Descartes, Spinoza, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke and Leibniz. * * * There is extensive material concerning England, “the ¢ land of capitalism,” where Marx lived for a long in London, and where his remains now lie buried. material covers such subjects as the British labor movement in the 14th century, the struggle of Wat Tyler, the movements of the Lollards and the followers of Wycliff, the position of Jack Cade and others who protested against the exploitation of the workers. Ev- ery period in the British labor movement is covered with the same thoroness. me * * The American section is attached to the British di- vision, It deals mostly with the Civil War period and the labor movement generally in this country. This section will grow with the development of the Communist movement in America, The last request made of me by the comrades at “The Institute” was that two copies of every bit of Communist literature produced in America be sent to the Marx-Engels Ins- titute. Here are also sections devoted to the | /Results of the Plenary Session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International Speech by olai Bukharin. (Continued from Last Issue). lly, two further “proposals” nade by the Opposition in con- with the war danger. Both proposals are simply ridic- One of them was brought for- Comrade Vuyovitch, with approval, the other by both Trotzky, and is re- »eeches, proclama- proposal is that under the given circumstances, and in view of the war danger, our orien- tation “should be in the direction of | narcho-syndicalist workers. The d proposal is that the group around Maslow, Ruth Fischer, should be readmitted into the Comintern and into the German Party. A few words must first be devoted count a to- ‘or the most part these without an army. No rcho-syndicalist organiza- anywhere, American I. W. W. all anarcho- anizations still exist- urope are violently opposed to the Soviet Union, their ideology not differing in the very slightest de- gree front the Menshevist social re- volutionary ideology. They hold the standpoint that the Bolsheviki have be ty of threefold treason international revolution, that ¢ torship is an oligarchy, that our dictatorship is not of the prole- tariat; they agitate against the So- viet Union with, the most despicable methods, ete. And these are the al- lies to whom Trotzky and Vuyovitch would have us a , that they may “defend” us! Complete and abso- lute nonsense! We have not the slightest leaning towards an “orientation” in the ,di- rection of that counter-revolutionary petty bourgeoisie which is doing ts | utmost, from day to day, to compete |with the leaders of the Social Demo- jerats in the choice of the dirtiest apons to be used against us. It st be remembered that these ele- ments are not backed up by the mass- This is the rub. In 1914 Trotzky B accidentally against a few anar- cho-syndicalis' and stuck there for atime. But now it is no longer 1914. Comrades, the idea is perfectly ri- diculous, complete nonsense. And it is especially ridiculous at the present moment, when our chief task is to win over the average worker, espe- cially the European average worker, who is, regrettably enough, still in the clutches of the Social Democrat- ic parties and of the Amsterdam In- ternational. The problem of winning over the average worker was first raised at the time of the III. Conr gress of the Comintern, held with the tion ception es. r¢ aid of Lenin’s authority, and this problem still confronts us today, more urgently than ever. To create a diversion with respect to this pro- |blem would mean substituting Le- |nin’s slogan, demanding the conquest of the mas: by a slogan calling for the “conquest” of a few counter- revolutionary leaders. As to Maslow, the proposal with regard to him and his group has | aroused extreme indignation among | the members of the Executive Com- mittee. You will no doubt recollect |that the declaration of repentance made by the Opposition on 6. Octo- |ber, and expressly stated by Com- rade Zinoviev to be “meant seri- | ously,” one point was the assurance | that the Opposition entirely gives up | every connection with the group ex- | pelled from the Comintern, the names |of Urbahns, Maslow, and others be- }ing given. I must here relate a few d of the position of these ex- cluded members. They have their |own newspaper, they have already converted this paper into a weekly, and are taking steps towards issuing with the ex-| It | their own, There is no doubt what- | ever that they are in receipt of help | from our Opposition, from whom they | receive material about our Party life, | even to reports on the sessions of the | Political Bureau, and information on | occurrences in this Bureau. | Steering their course in accordance with the political wind, they direct | their attack at times directly against |the Soviet Union itself, whilst at | other times they adopt a milder tone | towards the Union, and direct their efforts to violent attacks on our | Party and the Comintern. On one {occasion, for instance, “they wrote | that Stalin does not differ in the least |from Noske (Disturbance). I do not understand why you are surprised at that, it is nothing new. Their newspaper, which has become pres the formation of a party of “|the organ of our “Opposition” at the present time, dishes up every morsel | of gossip or slander in circulation against our Party and the Comintern. These good people will presently ar- rive at a slogan of “Soviets without | Communists.” They have already | published an article on war in which they state that, unless the present leaders of the Comintern change their political and organisatony course radically at the last moment, they | will play the same role as the lead- | ers of the Second International at the | beginning of the great war. (The Flag of Communism,” No. 12.) This writes the Maslow pardoned |by Hindenburg’s Government, the | Maslow who disgraced himself at his | trial, about the Parties of the Com- jintern, and that at time when the | Chinese Communists are being stran- |gled, when the French Communists {are being thrown into prison, when \the Italian combardes are perishing |in their dungeons, when the German Communists are organizing hundreds | of thousands of workers in the strug- | gle against war, when an incredible | agitation is being carried on against the Soviet Union, when the whole | capitalist world is eonspiring togeth- |er against the Comintern! And these | hostile elements (who seek to pro- |voke us further by dubbing them- |selves “orthodox Marxists,” ‘“Lenin- ists,” etc.) are proposed to us as sav- {iours of the German Party. | Our policy in preparing for war, jin all that concerns inner party ques- tions, must consist of ensuring the |strength and unity of inner relations |in the Party, and of steering a def- jinite course towards winning over the broad masses of the Social Demo- cratic workers. Our Parties are well aware that they will be plunged into situations |at stake if they are to remain true to the Comintern, and to protect with their own bodies the socialist father- land of the proletariat against the at- tack of the imperialists. But instead of demanding that our ranks stand closer together than ever, instead of demanding the expulsion of apostates and the winning over of the broad masses, the Opposition proposes that we admit any offal into our Party, the various types of anarcho-syndi- calists, the more than suspicious Mas- low, the “disciplined” Ruth Fischer, \etc., and meanwhile we may forget the Social Democratic workers for the present. We are not in agree- ment in any single point with this standpoint; not a single comrade has |said a word in favor of these “meas- jures,” with the exception of Comrade | Vuyovitch, whose fractional interests |make him Trotzky’s supporter in all |these attacks, sallies, and proposals. | Not one single member of the Plenum is agreed with the readmission of Maslow and his group, or with the \idea of turning our backs on the broad |masses and starting on a search for ja few syndicalists to help_us to de- |fend the Soviet Union. ‘ (To be continued.) { (ai SZECHWAH S uN > XN ? HoNAN 2) ‘A 7p HUPEH ‘\, HANKOW Ha, il Hi birt ay > KIANGSI ? , Many towns and cities in the province of Kansu, China, have « been completely destroyed and casualties have been placed at 100,- 000 as the result of a great earthquake, May 23, in the interior, reports of which are just now re: shows the position of the provin 10,000 were reported killed. Oth destroyed by a moving mountain. aching the coast. The map above ce in the interior. At Liangchow er towns were reported completely |in which their lives will be literally | SomeEarly Labor Struggles By W. J. White. © the student of modern unionism and the rise of the} trade union, a study of the English union movement | is indispensable. It was in England that the applica-| | tion of steam to attomotive machinery was first ap-} By HARVEY O’CONNOR. plied. It was the application of the steam engine to) WASHINGTON, (FP) August 1. machinery and the massing of the new proletarian la-|—President Coolidge’s most ,em- bor in the factory, which first forced the combination| barrassing foreign problem lies in of workers into trades union, and this first took place|the United States’ delicate relations in the factories of England. It was in that country that| with Latin America. The approach- this change in the base of production and a like change|ing doom of Sacco and Vanzetti— in the methods of distribution first forced upon the| whether in the electric chair or life consciousness of the workers that the old methods which| imprisonment, the massacre of Oco- had done service in the days of feudalism were no|tal and the extension of the Monroe longer fit to serve in the new conditions which had| Doctrine in ever more offensive man- arisen out of these new methods which had come into| ner are the three sore spots in Pan- existence with the introduction of the machine. This| American relations, does not say that we must let those organizations which| So deeply is Coolidge concerned by preceded the modern union slide by without entering | the growing tensity that he is think- into their history. Not by any means, on the contrary | "8 of attending the Pan-American the student must give those organizations of labor|congress in Hayana next spring, which had their use in the days of feudalism and before | Marking the first time that an Amer- even that the closest and most painstaking study. But| ican president has officially visited for the purpose of this article it is enough if we take|® Latin American country. if 1s up and look into the reason for their existence and the| *hrough the Pan-American Union part played by the labor organization which arose after and its congresses that the United Sia th a States government and big business the application, of machinery re Beoduction: hope to extend their influence. While z . ‘ i . all nations are nominally equal in the One of the first things which strikes us in our study | Union, the overshadowing bulk of the of trades unionism is the transfer of the state power] United States against the score of from the domination of the feudal lord of the manor to| small, weak Latin American nations the rising capitalist class, and the brutal use of this) make it a convenient instrument of |power in helping to keep down and strangle the protest! American foreign policy. The Union’s of the workers. This brutality of the capitalist class| headquarters, naturally, are in Wash- lis put in the pithy words of J. C. Calhoun, the out-|ington. Its imposing’ marble halls standing champion of the slave owning class in the] are mainly the result of United States United States, when he says: “the true solution of the| government donations. contest of all time between labor and capital is that Hate U. S. Capitalism. capital should own the laborer whether white or black.”| The wildfire of denunciation run- The reports of the law courts are filled with cases of|ning through the Latin American workers being brot into court on the charge of con-| press from the Excelsior of Mexico spiracy against their employers. The case of the “Six| City to the Prensa and Nacion of men of Dorset” is the outstanding ¢ase, where the use| Buenos Aires followed by declara- of the state was called in by the masters to send into| tions of boycotts and the attempted exile for seven years, in the penal colony of Van Diemans| destruction of United States monu- Land, agricultural workers who had protested against | ments in Cuba and Argentina are too the reduction of their miserable wages from eleven|clocuent testimonials to the -failure shillings a week to the sum of seven shillings, For this| of Washington to build up the sound they were transported into penal slavery for seven years,| Pan-American sentiment it hopes | Another leading case in the history of the trade union | for. : movement is the case of the Glasgow Spinners and their _Pan-Americanism is doomed, in the conviction by the courts, in which the student can trace |View of open-minded Americans who |the struggle which raged about Eighteen Hundred, for| Understand spanish and keep close tab |the right to meet and publish and speak for labor and| 0 what happens among the “Indo- ‘unionism. latins.” Instead, Latin-Americanism | |is forging to the front with unmis- Pan-Americanism is * * * Marx in the first volume of Capital gives us one of| takable vigor. the most tragic pictures of the struggle of the workers} for the shorter day, and the right to organize. | book the student can peruse and study with profit on! | the protection of his class, | The journeymen tailors, silk weavers, woolen and cot- ton weavers, and hosiery weavers are among the first unions which we have any trace of in the early days of unionism. They first appear in the history thru laws passed in parliament and the appointment of commis- sions to examine into their usage and the use they made of these “riotous and tumultous clubs and societies,” as these first combinations of workers were called by the new capitalists, in an effort to suppress and silence these embryonic mass combinations of workers. We find a law against conspiracy, used in the year 1818 applied in the case of a combintion of cotton spinners in an attempt to raise wages, and their officers were | sent to prison for two years for their efforts to force the masters to give up more of the wealth produced by the spinners. In like manner the law of 1549, entitled |the “Bill of Conspiracies of Victuallers and Craftsmen,” held to include within its provisions all combinations of journeymen to keep up wages or reduce hours. The years 1717 and 1725 finds laws placed upon the statute books fer the purpose of stopping the combinations of Wool Combers and Weavers who had combined to keep up the rate of their pay. In 1748 we find that even the men and women who allowed workmen to meet in their taverns, (saloons) were made victims and had to suffer for their assistence given to combinations of workers under the laws of conspiracy. The combinations of workers were,looked upon as mutiny of the working class by the courts of that day, and they passed out sentences in accord with that view. In those days the workers had their Saccos and Vanzettis, Mooneys and Billings who paid the price for the right of the working class to speak and write and meet. In fact the criminal annals are full of cases where workers were deported out of England, to the penal colonies, for no other crime than for speaking and writ- ing for the unionization of the working class. And as now, we find the same blindness to the fact of combina- tion on the part of the master class by the courts. The indictment of Marx, “that the government is but WASHINGTON, (FP) August 1. —Named by congress to punish price- fixing, the federal trade commission, now under reactionary control, is to pave the way for the legalization of the practise. This was the result seen by progressives in the commission’s announcement July 28th that it would institute a broad investigation into price-fixing with a view toward recommending changes inthe law. The commission is acting on its own initiative, it declares, but the recent U. S. Chamber of Commerce referen- dum, which approved of price-fixing, is said to be the inspiration for the inquiry. The mw now acts to prevent manufacturers from naming the price at which retailers shall sell their products. mission vigorously sought out and prosecuted infractions, but within the past year since the reactionaries gained control, prosecution has prac- tically ceased. In some cases firms have agreed to quit price-fixing if no publicity were given their illegal practises, Compulsory Trustifying. Around price-fixing ragés one of the keenest controversies in the busi- ness world. The majority of manu- facturers declare it absolutely neces- sary, with the growing over-expan- sion of plant facilities, if they are to make any money at all. Left to them- selves, manufacturers will indulge in ruinous cutthroat competition, de- moralizing industry, they claim. But if allowed through trade associations Formerly the trade com- | ‘PAN-AMERICAN UNION BEGINS TO FALTER; HATE FOR UNITED STATES IMPERIALISM GROWS | too closely related to business, ex- ports and United States gunboats to |excite much admiration. The “good | will” flight of the American aviators |through every country south of the Rio Grande is a point in instance. In every city, according to reports reach- ing Washington, the expedition was greeted with formal politeness and sullen suspicion. What do they want to sell, was the query on Latin lips. Even the well organized press agents who preceded the flyers and demanded columns of space, failed to light the fires of enthusiam. Ties With Europe. The whole structure of Pan- Americanism rests on geographical proximity of the American nations. But Latin America not only has closer racial, religious, linguistic and cul- tural ties with southern Europe, but is just as near southern European forts, by steamer days, as it is to | New York. Nevertheless trade contin- | ues to grow, and the North American rulers, who think only in terms of ex- ports and imports, rub their hands with glee, assuring themselves that good will follow trade. Probably they have not heard of the old Vene- zuelan women who pray in church that the oil wells may dry up so that the American exploiters will leave. Who will lead the Latin-American movement against the “Yanquis”, No country has yet had the courage to defy Washington and its Pan- American Union. But Washington- ians who follow Latin American af- | fairs closely predict that within 10 years either Mexico or Argentina will have taken the lead in massing the nations of South and Central Amer- ica around the Indo-latin banner. The murder of Sacco and Vanzetti, the bombing of a few more Nicaraguan villages, the ruthless invasion of more Caribbean nations and their reduc- tion to mere colonies, and the Yankees may face Latin America’s second war of liberation—this time against American rather than Spanish im- perialism. “Condition of the Working Class in 1844 is Feel EDERAL TRADE COMMISSION NOW MOVING TO this struggle of the worker to build and have unions for | INAUGURATE WIDE-SCALE PRICE FIXING to fix prices, many troubled indus- tries, such as textiles, can stabilize |themselves and cut handsome profit |melons with the consumers paying |the freight. | Others, led by Secretary of Com- merce Hoover, fear that industry may lose its incentive to progress if price- fixing, paralyzing competition, is legalized. The growth of cartels, | powerful factors in European trade, | would be encouraged with the im- mediate aim of curtailing production. Industry would settle down into a stabilized routine which might easily lead to ossification, with other coun- tries getting the lead in the world fight for markets. Like Gary Dinner. In many industries, price-fixing al- | ready exists, particularly in steel | where Gary’s famous “trade dinners” were for the obvious purpose of set- ting prices and production quotas. In | other industries competition has pre- vented manufacturers from getting together to control production and trade territories. While the federal trade commis- sion’s inquiry will cover only “resale price maintenance” through which manufacturers and wholesalers keep up prices on the retail market by re- fusing to sell to price-cutting mer- chants, a report favorable to the practise would open wide doors to pure and simple price maintenance, fixed by manufacturers on commodi- ties which the ultimate consumer does not buy as such. a bureau for doing the bidding of the capitalist class,” is glaringly shown up in the history of the struggle of the workers to combine and decide upon their hours of labor and the price they would receive for their labor power, sold in the open market. Court cases, in the reports on these struggles will bear out this indictment, for four hundred years they are filled with the brutal assistance given by the courts to the masters in their endeavor to keep the workers from combining and join- ing their fellows in their common struggle for the bet- terment of their class. Lockouts and blacklists of the workers by the masters could get by without calling down, the wrath of the courts, while every effort of the workers was met by the thud of the policeman’s club, the stab of the soldier’s bayonet, and the injunction of the court. ; The following taken from a report of some commis- sioners who had “investigated” unionism, could be lifted out of any capitalist daily of the year 1927. They say: “if the manufacturer is to employ his capital and the machinist or chemist his ingenuity, only under the|, dictation of his short sighted and rapacious workmen, or his equally ignorant and avaricious rivals; if a few agi- tators are to be allowed to command a strike which paralyzes the industry of the peculiar class of workpeo- ple over whom they tyrannize, and then extends itself in an inereasing circle over the many thousands and tens of thousands to whose labors the agsistance of that peculiar class of workpeople is essential;—that if all this is to be unpunished, and to be almost sanctioned by the repeal of the laws by which it was formerly punish- able;—it is in vain to hope that we shall long retain the industry, the skill, or the capital on which our manu- facturing superiority, and with that superiority our pow- er and almpst our existence as a nation depends,” this commission recommended the passage of laws forbid- ding combinations and -naking such combinations come under the bi 6 of conspiracies and illegal combinations against the good will of the government and the cap- iatlists of England. The history of capitalism is a history of laws passed by the willing tools of the capitalists forbidding unions to be formed for the purpose of keeping up the price of labor power, and we find many of these laws having pecuniary penalties to be recovered by those who would stoop to become informers against their fellow workers in the capitalist courts. SENTENCED FROM IT TO 25 YEARS EVERYTHING LOOKS HOPEFUL Although John Mack, above, of a 17 to 25 years’ sentence for a “There are many ‘innocent men i go to their death—so I guess I’m all their savings to free him. ; . wv — SENT TO PRISON BY MISTAKE of Toledo, O., served five years payroll holdup for which anothet man now has confessed, he declares he hatbors no resentment, in prison,” he says. “Some even lucky.” His aged parents spent, *