The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 17, 1927, Page 6

Page Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY. After the July Days Repressive Measures Taken by the Menshevik and Social Revo- lutionary Authorities Against the Movements ’ ery on the smashed. On {E victory of the Pr ernme: the ‘17th the Soviet pri liey Island was tT and| Vas Social Revolutiona: Exec-| July 15th the chief committee of the| utive over the prole U -|army and navy officers league de- 6 gave a free hand tc cided to put on the black list. all by the Mensheviks and evik officers. After the Party tionists he Provisional govern. was demc hed and the ment, hav with the h | 'S @ ted, rank and file Party of the fore m the ,|members were tak next. The jails the workers | were filled to overflowing with Bol- based on . At the beginning of August proleta: anc ntry,|there w out 800 rank and file hurric und » a determined | Bolshevi rom the different fronts offensive so as definitely to crusi the|in the Dvinsk prison. Subsequent to |the arrests soon|the worl perpetrated the movement. Government he demonstration of to persecute its par-| and mbers of the | visic ants, soldiers the Provis: ructed the Petre grad | The Provisional Government had its ce to investigate the} loyal followers and supporters in the ranks of the working class in the |shape of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. In all facto: a fight was on between the followers of the Pro- visional Government and Bolshevik justice of all th mpathizers. One of the comrades guilty of high treason and betrayal|in the ‘Skorohod” factory of Petro- of the revolution.” Another decree|Stad says in his reminiscences that} of the Provisional Government threat-|after the events of July 3-5 the So- ens: “Those guilty of publicly advo-|cialist evolutionists raised their} cating disobedience to the laws and heads in the factory and declared at (| decrees of the government will be; 2m open meeting of the workers that punished by mment not ex-|the Bolsheviks are German agents. | ceeding thr * * * The se stipulating m revolutionary The Provisi and the closing down of s’ press, the pogroms on Party organizations Party apparatus, the Pro- Government let loose its re-/| ons upon the entire working Government in Palace of Jus f the demonstration of July je Prov gorica the bringi * * * Government cate- ed “the arrest and al ¢ the punishments to be|” Socialist Revolutionists did not| meted out to workers and peasants| merely bring charges against them for opposing the bourgeois govern-| before the workers, but they reported ment culminates with the decree|all Bolshevik workers to the govern- granting the Ministry for Home Af-|ment. In one factory (the Gallery fairs and the Ministry of War the|Island) for instance, a meeting took right to arrest people by mutual|place on July 7th, at which the So- agreement “who are a menace to the|Ccialist Revolutionists demanded that dealing with the Bolsheviks the |] GUST 17, 1927 THEY WANT TO KILL TWO INNOCENT WORKERS! Judge Thayer. Governor Fuller. {gether with a thousand others—young By REBECCA GRECHT. | girls, old women, the flotsam and jet- HERE were several red letter days | Sam of an unjust, decaying social or- | 4 for the women fur pickets in the | ‘er, basing its wealth on the suffer- workhouse, and some incidents will|ing, the misery and degradation of long remain in our memory. With | ™illions of men and ‘women. The the help of its committee, our little | Warden of the workhouse opened the community of prisoners tried to turn| Performance. We ought to be proud its period of confinement into a pe-|0f our country, he said, grateful for |riod of mobilization for future ac- pee Bi ag aaa geen mia 7 a 5 ui! SRL RENE eno We ee which the Declaration of Independ- State, to its safety, and to the con- quests of the revolution and free- dom.” * N July 8th, Kerensky issued a special decree to the Army and Navy in which he orders the| restoration of st discipline in the ranks. The decree said: “I command} * * the Bolsheviks responsible for the July 3-5 demonstrations be handed over to the Government. After this offensive of the Socialist Revolution- ists on the Bolsheviks and the pro- letariat in the factories, after the at-| tempt to create among the workers sympathy for the Provisional Govern- ment and to demoralize the prole- read the few magazines which we managed to get from the special ward, take showers, talk to the matrons, or just rest on our cots. The best part of our day usually began after supper, served at 4 p, m, Then we came together and held coun- cil, airing grievances and discussing proposals for spending our time. As ence had guaranteed to us. We looked about us, at the faces | lined with suffering or callous, bitter, |indifferent; at the dull eyes of the drug addict, the diseased face of the | prostitute. We saw ourselves. We | thought of the hundreds of workers on thé picket line, arrested, imprison- the re-establishment of the discipline |tarian ranks, taking advantage of its in the army. The revolutionary gov-| temporary disorganization, the Pro- ernment must assert itself to the full,| Visional Government launched its at- | . not stopping even before the use of|tack. On July 7th, the Provisional ” Kerensky wanted to/ Government decreed the surrender of €. led, brutally beaten by gangsters mmon. We wanted to create a| While the Industrial Squad look on of unity to bring us closer to calmly or aided in _the jobs. We nother, and drew us nearer to| thought of the millions of workers, the movement, {struggling for a mere livelihood, op- as possible we acted on everything Ten Days in Workhouse | PART III. rule is, that prisoners must be count- ed morning, noon and night, and a dozen other times. We knew no end of counting. When we awoke, when we went to sleep, and during the night; before breakfast, lunch, sup- per; when the matrons changed shifts, three times a day, ete., ete. In our sleep we dreamt of counting. One matron especially had great trouble. She could not count us. Some- times there were more than there should have been, sometimes less. It was easy counting up to thirty. After that—confusion. And so, for 15 or 20 minutes, we’d be counted over and over again. That was the chief com- edy feature of the workhouse. The Appeal. So the days passed, more quickly my by the employment of | old methods. To save it, meant to} subordinate the forces entirely to the| bourgeoisie and the Provisional Gov- ernment. In order to subordinate the army, the Provisional Government | knew only one method, namely, to} drag the revolutionary leaders and| izers out of the army and to} ze the soldiers by means of re-| pression and persecution, Kerensky’s decree ordered “that | all criminal elements be removed} from the army, advocating disobedi- ence to the government and the com-| manders either in the press and orally.” On.the 8th of July the Pro- visional Government began to re- move the dangerous elements in the army and its first step in that direc- tion was the decision to dissolve all military units. which participated in the revolutionary demonstrations of July 3-5. By doing. so the govern- ment hoped to “kill two birds with one stone,” It meant to break up the revolutionary forces in the army, to} scare them, disorganize them and} drive them underground. By the dis- } | solution military units in Petrograd the bourgeoisie snatched the arms frcm the hands of the revo-| lution; it disarmed the revolution, de- | stroying those revolutionary forces! which the revolution created for it-| self. | * * BY trying to hold on to its shattered | position and to keep the army in its hands the bourgeois government and the bourgeoisie naturally directed all their forces, all their, blows, against the Bolshevik Party which was the organizer and the leader of rian revolutionary move- | Provisional Government | es of orders and decrees | purpose of destroying the| Bolshevik press. On July 12th the Provisional Government granted the Minister of Domestic Affairs and the Minister of War the right to close down all publications which “advo- eate disobedience to the revolutionary government and the refusal to fulfil military duties and propagate civil war, bringing at the same time the of justice.” after repression were the Bolsheviks. Dirty Bolshevik baiting was let loose and the Bolsheviks were besmirched with dirt. On July 6th, the Provisional Government ordered the arrest of Lenin and his consorts; on the 6th Leain’s residence 1 , on| the 9th rrested; on the 13th slontai were paper in Re-| down, Kronstadt was} nder Roshal, Roskol-| In the night of | and Lunacharsky July 28 the Bol- was sup- shevik | ssed. On was shed by the junkers and closed} ed, s close ordered to sui nikov and Remny. On Some workers who were dis- tributing the “Pravda” were caught by the Junkers and one of them was kills] near the office. * * IDE by side with the breaking up of the Bolshevik apparatus the Provisional Government organized mass progroms on the Bolsheviks. On July 8 the Petrograd jurkers smashed the office of the metal workers’ ‘inion. On July 17th the Bolshevik} THINK OF THE SUSTAINING |and sent them to fight agai | proletariat, ment. * all arms to the Govern awe SUBSEQUENT to this punitive ex- peditions were sent to the factor- ies with the purpose of disarming | the military workers detachments and| to remove the leaders of the Work- ers’ Revolution from them. A whole punitive detachment with extensive | powers was sent to the Sestroretsky | Factory to disarm the workers. The first thing the detachment did was to smash the Party committee, then it searched the houses for Bolsheviks and ordered the workers to submit their arms and to swear allegiance to the Government. The disarming of the workers subsequent to gaining control of the army strengthened the Provisional Government. A bloody alliance was formed in the days of July 3-5. The Menshe-| viks and Socialist Revolutionists called the forces to Petrograd exert- ing their authority as Socialists and Revolutionaries in perpetrating a dastardly deed. They deceived the rank and file soldiers. They placed them at the disposal of the counter- revolutionary generals and officers inst the | proletariat and the peasantry. On| July 12th the same Mensheviks and| Socialists Revolutionists justified the | bloody action of the Provisional Gov- ernment, which had only one aim in , namely the destruction of the| proletariat, the disarmament of the| the destruction of the| revolutionary army, the destruction of the General Staff of the revolu- tion—the Bolshevik Party. Preacher Who Pickets Lashes Congregation For Sacco, Vanzetti BUFFALO, Aug. 16.—Declaring that Sacco and Vanzetti are prisoners of the class war and are in jail be- cause they dared stand up for the workers’ rights, the Rev. H. J. Hahn has shocked a congregation of hard- ened saints from the pulpit of the Salem Evangelical Church. “Intelligent, fair-minded men and women all over the world have come to the assistance of Sacco and Van-| zetti beeause they are so obviously in-| nocent of murder and guilty of de- fending the interests of the workers,” | the preacher asserted. “Crucify them! Burn them! are words familiar to Christian ears,” the Rev. Hahn stated. ‘You church peo- | talent, ple are shocked because I, an abscure preacher, spent a few hours in jail) for pleading in behalf of my brother/| men, victims of a cruel system of | rapacious exploitation. You modern) Christians make the church an instru- | ment of reaction, a sardonic carica- ture of Christianity, a farce and | travesty.” | The Rev. Hahn was recently jailed | in Boston for picketing the State House, Stay For Radio Stations. WASHINGTON, Aug. 16. — A period of thirty days grace was ted by the Federal Radio Com- ion today to 25 broadcasting sta-| accused of violating the Com-| mission’s rules. The respite was asked by attorneys representing the | stations. Sang “Solidarity Then we had our chorus — and mighty proud we were of it. True, it not have the organization, the the direction, of the New York Freiheit Singing Society. There was no harmonious blending of trained voices, no emphasis on artistic inter- pretation. But what we lacked in tone, we made up in spirit. And if there was a little discord now and then—well, our ears were not so sen sitive. T had with me a song book issued by the Industrial Workers of the World. It proved to be a real treasure-house. Its songs of battle roused and stimu- | lated us. . We sang other songs, as well — Russian, Jewish. Moving songs of the struggles and sufferings of the working class; thrilling, invigorating songs of revolution, such as must have inspired the masses of Russian workers and peasants in their victori- ous march towards freedom. And as we sang, depression van- ished like thin clouds in air. We ex- | perienced as perhaps never before the strengthening power of mass singing. It cheered us. We forgot, the miser- able spaghetti and beans, the lack of fresh all the restrictions and re- pressions of the workhouse. We got new courage and enthusiasm. We longed to be out again, on the picket | line, in the ranks of our militant com- rades, fighting for our class, sure of ultimate victory. One song we especially enjoyed was “Solidarity.” Everybody joined in the refrain. It rang through our room, through the wards upstairs, outside in the corridor. It seemed to symbolize the spirit of the struggle. It was our answer to the police, to the judge, to the McGradys and Wolls who seek to wipe out every bit of progressivism and militancy in the needle trades, in the entire American labor movement. Singing Prohibited. We wondered at first why we were allowed to sing. That privilege was taken from us, however, after July 4th, A celebration had been planned! for that day by the prison authorities, ! including a show arranged by the in- mates, and while rehearsals were go- ing on we were not bothered. But after the holiday, no more mass sing- ing was permitted. We shall: remember that July 4th celebration. When the judge sen- tenced us to 10 days, that was his way of commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence. No doubt he thought the workhouse would teach us good lessons in Amer- icanism; that to be deprived of our freedom, for picketing in a strike, lduring the week of July 4th, would impress us with the great privileges enjoyed by the American working class since America won its independ- ence We owe him thanks, then, for having given us this enlightening lesson in capitalist democracy. It is a lesson we shall not so soon forget. The day began with the glad news that we would be permitted out-of- doors in the afternoon. At 1.80 p. m. we were led out into the prison yard. For two and one half hours we en- joyed the sunshine and fresh air, for the first time in five days, then in- doors again. y The Show. In the evening the big show took district committee was broken up. On] FUND AT EVERY MEETING\place. We filed into the corridor to- ( | pressed and exploited. | Hopes to Catch "Em All. The warden continued. He didn’t | think so badly of the inmates. The jonly difference between them and | those outside was that the others had not yet been discovered. And as for |him, he had become warden twenty- cne years ago so that he might es- cape being found out. Loud laughter |and applause gretted these remarks. jA truth at last, perhaps! The show went on—singing, danc- ing, recitations, all by the inmates. When it was over, out we filed again into the yard, to witness the fire- works. It was a beautiful night—we drank it in. | .Later, when we returned to our room, we thought of the warden’s re- mark, as he watched us going into the yard, that “we'll annex you, too, to America some day.” So now, surely, we understand the meaning of Amer- icanism. For the T..U. E. L. We were not permitted outdoors again. We were deprived, also, of our singing. But we found other things ito do. One evening we related anec- dotes, experiences. On Thursday, when we got our commissary, we ar- ranged a party, with apples, oranges, crackers, and punch made out of a thin watery jell-o left over from our lunch. We certainly did feast that day. . Fruit and soda crackers had surely never tasted so good before. Another evening, we had a long discussion on the Trade Union Educa- tional League. We talked about de- velopments in the American labor movement, the trend towards trade union capitalism, company unionism, {class collaboration. We explained the ‘program of the league We related \the history of the left wing struggle lin the needle trades. Comrades who | were not members of the league gave their names and addresses, expressing a desire to join. It was the most in- teresting evening of all. We forgot that we were in the workhouse. Educate Matrons. We carried our propaganda beyond our own group, even to the ranks of the matrons, telling them about our struggle whenever we got a chance. Though some of them had been harsh and hostile at first, by the time we left even the worst had become friend- ly. In spite of themselves, a few be- gan to sympathize with the furriers’ struggle—perhaps because the mem- ery of their own fight for the 8-hour day was still fresh in their minds. They were impressed by our solidar- ity, which we made them feel was merely a reflexion of the spirit in the ranks. of the needle trades workers. “What do you call those who don’t stick?” said a matron to us. “Slack- ers!” we cried out, and she nodded assent, Another brought us news about the strike—we could not get newspapers. Apparently, we were a new type of prisoner, to them. Strik- ers weren’t so had, after all. We didn’t bite, or scratch, or creep on all fours. * The Counting. But one difficulty we did present to them. It made us have many a hearty laugh. There were 52 of us the first day. Then the number drop- ped to 40, and finally to 33, as the 8-day, and 5-day pickets departed. Now numbers take on a tremendous significance in the workhouse. The than we had ever thought they would. We who were to serve 10 days had not thought of an appeal in our case. We were therefore gladly surprised when, on Friday, 9 days after our arrival, all of us, with the exception of the two comrades sentenced to six months, were released, and bid farewel! to our prison quarters. It was over, now. We had gone in, full of spirit and enthusizism: we came out with our spirit undampened, though lack of air and nourishment may have weakened us a little physi- cally. If the police and the judge had thought to weaken our morale, they succeeded only in strengthening it and making us more class conscious po- litically. If the dark and sinister forces of the right wing had hoped to break us away from our allegiance to the New York Joint Board, to the militant fighting leadership of the left wing, they succeeded only in for- vifying us in our convictions. We had turned our prison quarters into a class room where we reveiewed in the meaning of the fight being aged in the needle trades; where @ le=ined once more the meaning of the alliance between the government agerts in New Yorx, the bosses, the rade union bureaucracy; where we tried to drill ourselves in preparation for further struggle. We had not been overtaken by any calamity. The workhouse is not a home, and imprisonment is not free- avin; but to spend there 2 days, or 10 cays, or 15 days, if need be. is not a fearful evil. On the contrary we had been enriched by this experience, and not one of us regretted that we had “stuck.” To Continue Fight. On the night of our release, when we came together at Unity House, where a welcome had been arranged for us, we felt there was only one thing further to say. Our comrades must go on, must continue the fight. In the ranks of the militant, class- conscious workers there must be ne weakening. Ours is the vital task of maintaining the militancy, the class character of our union, preventing its degeneration into a company union; of maintaining the rights of workers to strike and picket, against the com- bined forces of police, courts, zang- sters, socialist betrayers, the reac- tionary officialdom of the A. F. of L. It is not a battle of a day, -nor is it centered only in the fur market. It is part of the fight being waged throughout the entire labor move- ment. And we must look beyond it. We must enter the broader struggle o2 the industrial and political field against capitalism as a whole, and “stick” in unity and solidarity until the entire system of capitalist op- | pression and exploitation is destroyed. The End. Ww Motorman Faints On Car, Robert Bacon, thirty-five of 586 East One hundred and_ sixty-fifth | Street, a motorman, was found un- conscious from a mysterious fracture of the skull in the control box of ah east side I, R. T. subway train when | it came to a halt at 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue today. It is believed he fainted and struck his head against one of the stéel controls. The train came to a stop automatically as his hand dropped from the “Dead man’s” button. : Sacco and Vanzetti Shall Not Die! Will theVein or innocent By DAVID BERKINGOFF. In 1655 our forefathers came to Boston to proclaim a new dawn and to publish the gospel of freedom. For this crime they were made to pay five hundred pounds and stripped of their belongings. stopped our fathers. Mary Fischer and Ann Austin kept coming back. Nicholas Upsall, became interested in the Radicals of those days and he paid five shillings a week to the gaoler, to let him feed the prisoners. He was bold enough to defend them publicly, For this he was fined twenty pounds and banished from Boston, * * Mary Clark, a mother of children, left England, came to Boston to be a witness for new ideas and she was answered by twenty stripes on her bare back from a whip with three cords “layed with fury” followed with imprisonment of twelve weeks in the winter. John Endicott, governor of Massachusetts had determined to keep free all free minded people out of Boston. In February,, 1658, he punished John Ross and Christopher But this had not! | An old Bostonian, by the name of} Blood Be Stopped ? Holder with taking off an ear apiece. But young and old kept coming to Boston and openly said to the rulers | of Boston, “We are here to look your | bloody laws in the face and to accom- | pany those who suffer by them.” ; This made the rulérs of Boston more furious and blood flowed over the streets of Boston and the friends | of liberty issued a call to the world; | “there is a vein of innocent blood open, which will run over all if it is not stopped, and it must be done speedily.” With the martyrdom of | William Robinson, Marmaduke Stev- /enson (1659) and William Leddra (1661) the vein of innocent blood had been stopped. So many years ago two men left the sunny Italy to work in our fac: | tories and till on our land. But be- |sides their manual labor they also brought to us new ideas of a better life; and for this, the bloody den of Boston has opened up again ready. to swallow two innocent lives. And before we are ready to write on the pages of American history the two martyrs of 1927—Sacco and Vanzetti —we are calling to the world. “Stop the vein of the innocent blood!” The sun goes down; The whip Stings; And in the darkness We raise our fists to it. At home, a little child cries. Softly, like the wind Over a fresh grave. O you murderers, you judges, editors, And you who sit there, Hidden in the shadows, Smoking so peacefully! —No, it is not To the bosses alone that we shout, But to you, to you as well, —You labor leaders, Who hold the strings, Who have the power, Who can do so much. But you are either too cowardly Or too much of one flesh With the bosses. The whip Shrieks, Down, down. “On your knees,-you Reds! On your knees, Sacco, Vanzetti, On your bloody knees, your knees!” And at home the child cries, The child cries, plaintively, Like the wind through the trees in summer. © It is easy to take a pen And write lines, But those lines will never Express our hatred for you, Judges, murderers, white guards! t For to say how we hate you, How we feel, You would need to Tear out the hearts Of millions of workers And throw them on white paper; And the blood, streaming, this way and that, Might tell of our pain and our hatred, Of our hatred to you!. The sun goes down, Lower, lower. It is so dim. Comrade, but it is dim! And we can hear The whip moaning, Moaning, cutting, “They Shall Not Die!” e We can hear the whip shrieking, Shrieking, weeping. . . The sun goes down, So low; And all we can see Is wide fields, hills in silhouette, Quiet waters. On that hill are two gibbets. Sacco and Vanzetti hang by the hands From them. And two, who are men, Are raising the whips again, Again, again!. At the foot of the hill, ~—Look, comrade, look! Those animals, bearing in their bloody teeth, Fresh strips of leather, To be used on the warm flesh. —New strips of leather. And all around us The huge mass shudders. If we could move this mass, One step, one step-forward, If we could stir this mass To one seething motion, A little child would not cry Today, nor tomorrow; Here, nor anywhere. Workers, they are Your brothers, your comrades! Workers, can’t you feel the whip, You too, Hot with blood? For it falls equally On all of us. The sun goes down, And which is redder, The low sun Or the bleeding bodies, —wWhich is redder, The hangmen know. The hills loom. The judges frown. Two more lashes, One more, then, and soon it Will be all, all over. One resolute step, Fist held high; One sweeping charge, Torches high, Cne clear, thunderous, wrenching cry: “They shall not die! THEY SHALL NOT DIE!” —OSCAR RYAN. The following statement on Ameri- can-Soviet trade was issued yester- day by Saul G. Bron, chairman of the board of the Amtorg Trading Cor- poration, 165 Broadway, New York, which represents here the principal Soviet trading organizations: “During the past month there has been a significant increase in the value of purchases in the United States for shipment to the Soviet Union. It can now be said that this accelerated pace promises to continue. placed with American concerns ‘in July broke all monthly records by over 560 per cent. These orders amounted to upwards of $4,600,000 for the month. The former high fig- ure was about $3,000,000 for May. Orders placed during July, 1926, amounted to $1,400,000. ; “Taking the monthly average of purchases here during the period Oc- tober-March, the first half of the cur- rent Soviet fiscal year, at 100, the monthly average of the succeeding quarter, April-June, was 149 and of July, 267. This gives an indication of the rapid gain. “Orders placed by Amtorg with American manufacturers during the first ten months of the current Soviet fiscal year amount to $22,700,000. The projected purchasing program for the entire fiscal year has already been surpassed by $2,700,000, In ad- dition, orders now in sight, to be con- summated in the United States dur- ing the next few months, under suit- able market conditions, aggregate $11,000,000, “The above figures do not include cotton, the principal item of the iu SOVIET TRADE HERE INCREASING RAPIDLY; AMTORG PURCHASES SMASH ALL RECORDS “The volume of Amtorg’s orders | American éxport list to the Soviet Union. Cotton purchases during the past season effected by the All-Rus- sian Textile Syndicate of 120 Broad- way, were about $45,000,000. “It is worthy of note that the great | bulk of Soviet orders here are for production goods rather than con- sumption goods—that is, for machin- ery, equipment, raw material. This is significant of the upbuilding and con- | structive process in the Soviet Union. | “Probably few Americans, in con- sidering the Soviet market, realize the extent of this upbuilding and the large consequent increase in individ- ual consuming capacity since the war. Before the war the per capita con- sumption of wheat was 4.1 bushels, ‘now it is 4.8 bushels. Similarly, the per capita consumption of milk has risen from 357.4 to 411.5, lbs.; eggs, 82 to 51; sugar, 8.8 pounds to 12.8; tea, 3 ounces to 5.5. An increased demand for manufactured goods is also making itself evident in the Soviet Union. Per capita consump- tion of cotton fabrics, for instance, rose from 9.8 meters to 14.5 meters. “During the past ten months some 75 Soviet technicians and industrial executives have visited the United States to familiarize themselves at ‘first hand with American productive 'methods. These men represent some of the largest economic organizations lof the Soviet Union, including the Azneft oil aa fhe Grozneft ap trust, the Don Basin coal st, the Chemical trust, the Domine eee electric development and tha Supreme Economie Council. Such visitors are in a real sense permanent business- builders of a high order.” \