The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 15, 1927, Page 6

JOHN REED (Continued from Page One) it. On his photograph, John Reed wrote, “To my publisher, Horace Liveright, who nearly ruined him- self publishing this book.” This book was only one product of his literary activities in connection with his propaganda of the truth about Russia. The bourgeoisie, naturally, wanted none of this truth. Hating and fearing the Russian Revolution, they tried to drown it in a flood of lies. An endless stream of dirt and slander poured from the political platforms, the moving picture screen, out of the columns of newspapers and maga- zines. Magazines that once were begging for his articles, now refused to print a single line he wrote. But they couldn't close his mouth. He spoke before numberless mass meetings. He created his own magazine. He became editor ° of the left wing socialist journal, “The Revolutionary Age,” and afterwards “The Communist.” Article after article he wrote for “The Liberator.” He travelled up and down America, participating in cenferences, filling and firing everyone around him with facts, enthusiasm and revolutionary spirit, and finally organizing in the centre of American capi- talism the Communist Workers Party—exactly as ten years earlier he organized the Socialist Club in the heart of Harvard University. The “wise men” as usual had made a mistake. John Reed’s radicalism turned out to be anything but a “passing fancy.” Contrary to prophecies, his contact with the world had not cured him of it. It had only confirmed and buttressed it. How strong and deep that radicalism now was they might find for themselves in reading “The Voice of Labor,” the new Communist organ of which he was editor. The American bourgeoisie now understood that in their country there was a real revolutionist. This very word “revolutionist” now makes them tremble. True in the distant past there were revolutionists in America and even now there are societies enjoy- ing-high honor and respect like “The Daughters of the American Revolution,” and “Sons of the Amer- jean Revolution.” Thus the reactionary bourgeoisie paid tribute to the memory of the revolutionists of 1776. But these revolutionists long ago had passed into the world beyond. John Reed gvas a live revolu- tionist, an extraordinarily live one—a challenge to them and a scourge. One thing only was left for them to do with him— lock him up. So they arrested him—not once or twice, but twenty times. In Philadelphia the police closed the hall refusing to let him speak in it.. But he mounted a soap-box and from this rostrum ad- ‘dressed the great crowd that packed the strect. So successful a meeting and so many sympathizers that when he was arrested for “violation of order” it was impossible to get a verdict of guilty from the jury. There was hardly an American city that felt altogether right. if it hadn’t arrested John Reed at least once. But he always manages to be liberated on bail, or to have his trial postponed and straight- way again took up: the battle on some new arena. The western bourgeoisie acquired the habit of a By ALBERT RHYS WILLIAMS ascribing all its evils and misfortunes to the Russian Revolution. One of the most henious of its crimes .was that it had transformed this talented young American into a flaming fanatical revolutionist. So thought the bourgeoisie. But in reality not quite so. It was not Russia that made John Reed into a revolutionist. From the day of his birth revolution- ary American blood flowed in his veins. Yes, though America. is always pictured as fat. self-satisfied, capitalist and reactionary, still in its arteries runs rebellion and revolt. Recall the great rebels of the past, Thomas Paine, Walt Whitman, John Brown and Parsons. And John Reed’s comrades. and fellow- fighters of today, Bill Haywood, Robert Minor, Ruth- enberg and Foster. Remember the industrial wars at Homestead, Pullman, Lawrence and the fighting I. W. W. (Industrial Workers. of the World). All these—leaders and masses—are of pure American origin. And though at present it is not very evident, still in the blood of Americans runs a strong strain ef rebellion. Consequently, it cannot be said that Russia made a reyolutionist out of John Reed. But it did make out of him a scientific thinking and consequential revolutionist. That is its great service, it compelled him to load his desk with the books of Marx, Engels and Lenin. It gave him an understanding of his- teric processes and the march of events. It com- pelled him to substitute for his somewhat hazy hu- manitarian views, the hard rough facts of economics. And it impelled him to become a teacher of the American labor movement and to try to place be- neath it the same scientific foundations that he had put under his own convictions. “But politics are not your forte, Jack!” his friends used to say to him. “You are an artist, not a pro- pagandist. You should devote your talents to cre- ative literary work.” He often felt the force of such words. For in his head always were germinat- ing new poems, novels and dramas, all the time seek- ing to express themselves, to find form. So when his friends would insist that he should throw aside revolutionary propaganda and sit down to write, he would answer with a smile,: “All right, T’ll do so directly.” But not for a moment did he stop his revolution- ary activities. He couldn’t. The Russian Revolution had wrought its spell upon him and possessed him utterly. It had made him its conscript and com- pelled him to subjugate his wavering anarchistic disposition to the stern discipline of Communism; it sent him like a prophet with a flaming’ torch through-’ | out the cities of America; it drew him back to Mos-_ cow in 1919 to work in the Comintern on the fusion of the two Communist parties. i : Recharged withinew facts and revolutionary ‘theory he set out again on the underground route to New York. Betrayed by a sailor and taken from ship-! | board, he was thrown into clitary fontinement a Finnish prison. Then back again’ to Ti ing in the Commu terials for a new book: delegate to t the Peoples of the East in Baku. Stri . Russias: e Con ess of | ‘ken by typhus, ist ‘lsat to the Conde me atte probably picked up in the Caucasus, his constitution exhausted by overwork could make no resistance to the @isease and on Sunday, October 17th, he died. Like John Reed there were other warriors who fought against the counter-revolutionary front in America and Europe as gloriously as the Red Army fought against the counter-revolutionary front in the U. S. S..R. Some fell victims of pogroms, others were silenced in prisons. One perished in a storm of the White Sea returning to France. Another in an aercplane distributing proclamations of protest against intervention was hurled to his death in San Francisco. Ferocious as was the onslaught of im- perialism upon the revolution it might have been still more so were it not for these fighters. They did something to hold back the counter-revolutionary assault. Not only Russians, Ukrainians, Tartars, and Caucasians helped to make the Russian Revolu- tion, but to a small extent at any rate, French, German, English and Americans. Amongst these “non-Russian” figures, John Reed stands out preeminently because he was a man of exceptional abilities, cut down in the very flower of his manhood. When from Helsingfors and Reval came the first rumors about his death, we thought that these were simply the regular lies fabricated in the course of the daily work of the counter-revolutionary lie-fac- tories. But the announcement was repeated, and when Louise Bryant confirmed it we were compelled in spite of all our hopes to believe it. Although John Reed died an exile from his own land, and with the sentence of five years imprison- ment hanging over his head even the bourgeois press paid their respect to him as an artist and a man. Bourgeois hearts felt a great relief—no longer was there John Reed to expose their faisehood and hyprocrisy to chastise them mercilessly with his pen. The radicul world of America suffered an irre- parable loss. It is very difficult for comrades living outside America to understand the feeling of be- reavement caused by his death. Russians consider it altogether natural, and self-understood that a man should die for his convictions. On this score not a bit of sentimentalism. Here in the Soviet Union thousands and tens of thousands have perished for Socialism. But in America such sacrifices have been ' comparatively’ few. If you will, John Reed was the first martyr of the Communist Revolution, forerunner of the coming thousands. The sudden ending of his meteoric career in far away blockaded Russia was’ for American Communists a terrible. blow. : One consolation for his old friends and comrades is the fact that John Reed lies in the one place in all the world where he would like to lie-on the Red: Square, under the Kremlin Wall. Here, as a meme rial in harmony with his character is an un- stat Uigbieas ed boulder, on which are chiselled the words: rg . JOHN REED Delegate to the III International ; 1920 The British Trade Union Congress The following article on the proceedings of the recent conference of the British Trade Union Congress, by Comrade William Paul, editor of The Sunday Worker and prominent British left wing leader, is of unusual interest to American workers at this time when the mast reactionary convention ever held by the A. F. of L. has just concluded its business in Los Angeles. Tho the British labor fakers are not as crude or as bru- tally frank as their American prototypes, there is no fundamental difference in their attitude. Both favor class-peace instead of the class strug- gle and war on the militants in the labor move- ment, rather than war against the capitalists. —Editor. QNE outstanding feature of the Trades Union Con- gress was the plea for “industrial peace.” Needless to say the capitalist press enthusiastically supported the president of the T. U. C. in his plea for closer collaboration between workers and em- ployers. The heads of large industrial syndicates | such as L, Hichens—of Cammell Laird and Co.— welcomed the “suggestions thrown out by Mr. | Hicks.” As the congress began on “industrial peace” se | it ended in the same key. This was seen in the op- | position to the resolution, moved by the Furnishing | Trades Association, against “industrial peace.” | The most distinguished defenders of “industrial | peace” were Robert Smillie and Ben Turner. In his dream of industrial harmony, Ben Turner declared that he yearned for the ending of strikes and lockouts. ; The dreamer of Edinburgh, however, had a \ rude awakening when he reached Yorkshire and H found that the secretary of the employers had notified his union as follows: “I am instructed to inform you that after eareful consideration of the conditions prevail- By WILLIAM PAUL (Editor, SUNDAY WORKER, Londen). ing throughout the wool textile industry, the employers have come to the conclusion that the time has come when notice must be given to terminate the existing wage agreements.” The letter went on to state that the employers in- tended to enforce their decision on November 26th. While the textile leaders had been gaily prattling about industrial peace, the employers had.been busy at work preparing ne attack on 140,000 workers, * * ANOTSEE of the dreamers at Edinburgh was Rob- ert Smillie, who wafted into the debate to at- tack Cook, and to show the advantages of peaceful methods. Unless his slumber is too deep even he must have awakened to realize what is happening in the coal fields. Pe So desperate are.the conditions there—through in- creased hours, reduced wages, unemployment, and ” vietimization—that a band of miners has signified their intention to march to London and make a pro- test when parliament reassembles, * * = * 2 } order to understand why the official leaders of the Trades Union Congress are enthusiastically advocating “industrial peace,” it is necessary to re- member two things. Firstly, the employers are in such a plight—as a result of the increasing chaos af capitalism—that the only way they can see of increasing their profits and expanding trade is to attack the already low standard of living of the workers. S-cor.dly, the workers have retreated so far, since 1921, at the behest of the present Trade Union lead- ers, that they are now determined to make no fur- ORG ther sacrifices to the employers. This determination was heroically revealed when the rank and file stood behind the miners last year, and forced forward the general strike over the heads of the leaders. — The general strike proved the courage and fight- ing capacity of the rank and file. It showed, too, that the employers and their government were pre- pared to use every weapon—from radio lies to tanks --to enforce wage reductions and longer hours upon the workers. It also demonstrated that the official leadership of the Trades Union Congress was afraid to fight for the workers because the new conditions of the struggle—which has passed from the sec- tional to the mass. basis—involves a policy that brings the industrial organization into open conflict with capitalism and its state machine. The present leaders, as the general strike proved, being afraid to conduct a ‘Straggle upon the new mass basis, are compelled to retreat before the em- ployers and their government. This retreat, as the general strike further proved, means the desertion of the workers at the critical moment of: struggle. So apparent has become this tendency for the leaders to run away: that it has become. necessary to attempt to show that it was. being done according to a definite and preconceived policy cailed “indus- trial peace.” Nett} a : i So long as cowardice and ineptitude ‘could be translated into and accepted as a virtue, called “in- dustrial peace,” the leaders were perfectly happy. This was another of their dreams. * * * But the attacks of the employers upon the workers do not cease because the labor leaders dream about “social harmony.” Indeed, the opposite is true. The more the leaders retreat the more brazen and open becomes the attack of the employers and the government upon the workers at home and abroad, (Continued on page 5)