The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 20, 1927, Page 6

ae \ Page Six THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1927 Tsix DAILY WORKER Published by the NATIONAL DAILY WORKER PUBLISHIN Daily, Except Sunday 83 First Street, New York, N. Y. Cable Address SUBSCRIPTION RATES By Mail (in New York only): By 1 (outside of $8.00 per year $4.50 six months 6.00 $2.50 three months. Phone, Orchard 1680 “‘Daiwork’ New York): months 50 six year $3.50 s months. three Address and mail out o THE DAILY WORKER, 33 First Street, New York, N. Y., under Revolution and Counter-Revolation in China---Support the Workers’ and Peasants’ Struggle for Power Chinese workers and peasants, organized and led by the Com- munist Party, have taken power in Canton and other districts, es- tablished a Soviet government, fought heroically to maintain it, have been defeated temporarily and are now being tortured and butchered by thousands. From a ( have progressed to a struggle for proletarian power. great importance of the struggle. One of the greatest events in the history of the class struggle has taken place. 1b, The counter-revolutionary weapon of reaction in China is the Nanking nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek. It has gone over to imperialism without reservations. ; ‘ The Nanking nationalist government is celebrating its sur- render to imperialism by massacres of workers and peasants, la- bor union leaders and Communists. Even in the cabled stories of the capitalist press correspond- ents there is a subdued note of horror underlying the satisfaction with which they state that “Communism and Sovietism are wiped out.” The bloody and sadistic ferocity with which the massacres are carried out stamp tHem as the acts of a class which is rising to temporary power on the bodies of the masses and which is the instrument of world reaction—imperialism. Counter-revolution in China takes its place as a monstrous companion of the butchery of the Paris Communards, the 1905 massacres in Russia, the mass murders which took place in the invaded districts of Russia during 1917-18-19, and the wholesale extermination of Bulgarian‘workers and peasants in 1923. Like these systematic and deliberate blood baths perpetrated by a ruling class fearful of the mass power of workers and peas- ants organized and led by Communists, the Chinese counter-revo- lution is supported by the great powers. Without the aid of the imperialist nations the Nanking government would fall before the onslaught of the masses. With the Nanking government as their instrument, the rulers of the imperialist nations, America and Great Britain especially, are slaughtering thousands of Chinese workers and peasants, tor- turing and butchering their leaders, in order that the robbery of the 400,000,000 Chinese toilers may be carried on without inter- terence or interruption. The role of the Nanking government is that of executioner and slave-driver for the imperialist powers. The ruthless suppression of the mass liberation movement in Ch na is also a blow at the Soviet Union and is a major part of the imperialist offensive against the workers’ and peasants’ republic. As the imperialists watch their murderers at work, they see thru the bloody haze over the corpses of the Chinese toilers and their leaders, a vision which they are trying to make reality: The valley othe Yangtze becomes the valley of the Volga, the tattered tunics of ihe slain Chinese revolutionists become Russian blouses, the Canton workers’ fighting corps becomes the Red Army of the Soviet Union, faces of the dead lose their Mongolian features and take on those of the Slav. It is the massacre of millions of workers and peasants in the Soviet Union which the imperialist rulers visualize as they watch the rivers of China run red with the blood of workers and peasants. The program of the imperialists is made clearer by the fact that Chiang Kai-shek denounces the only equal treaty. China has —that with the.Soviet Union. The imperialist treats China as a colony and her population as slaves. Only the Soviet Union of all the nations makes no other condition than relations on the basis of equality. This is the treaty that the Nanking government spurns while the gunboats of the imperialist powers are in every Chinese port and their troops strategically placed and entrenched in Chinese cities. The government of Chiang Kai-shek is not even a nationalist government—it is a creature of the enemies of the Chinese libera- tion movement. Rather than see workers and peasants rule, the Chinese cap- italist and middle class, like the French ruling class in 1871, pre- fers the shelter and aid of its conquerors. It murders thousands of workers and peasants to prove its fear and hatred of Commu- nism and its ability to serve its imperialist masters. It joins with the imperialist powers in attacking the first workers’ and peas- ants’ republic and apes Great Britain in breaking relations with the Soviet Union. The recent events in China have increased immensely the danger of war on the Soviet Union. They have shown more clearly than ever before that counter-revolution in China has its base in world imperialism, that the suppression of the mass liber- ation movement is now the center of the imperialist program to be followed by war on the Soviet Union. American imperialism is playing a leading role in China. American warships and American marines are part of the armed forces of imperialism which back the counter-revolution. Support of the Chinese revolution, compelling the withdrawal of all armed forces, preparations for resistance to imperialist war and defense of the Soviet Union-——these are major tasks which the heroic struggle of the Chinese masses, the capture of power by the masses in a number of districts, the establishment of a Soviet government in Canton and its bloody suppression by im- perialism’s hangmen, place first on the order of business of the working class. 1917 followed 1905 in Russia and the revolution swept away This is the ruggle for national liberation the Chinese masses | the czar and capitalism as well. The Chinese revolution is not dead altho thousands of its leaders are. The Chinese revolution is based firmly in the needs of the 400,000,000 workers and peas- ants, it has been steeled and tempered in armed struggle against the imperialists and their lackeys. “+ The Chinese revolution lives. It is the duty of the working class the world over to aid in every possible way the Chinese workers and peasants in their lib- eration struggle which is now a direct struggle for power against counter-revolution supported by the same imperialist forces which ”. rule and rob the workers of the world oti Weagitan’ | | | | | | | THE DRAGON OF TREACHERY of foreign imperialism. Swimming in the blood of Chinese workers and peasants, Chiang Kai Shek, traitor to the Chinese revolution, makes his prayer to the big guns MRADES: Before coming to my main theme, I am compelled to say a few words regarding the report of Com- rade Menzhinskv. At the commencement of the Ple- num, we requested you to insert as a special item on the agenda, the question of the so-called ,““Wrangel. Officer.” You refused us this, but, as this question has aroused great in- terest and indignation in the Party. it would have been more natural if you elected a commission to examine the matter, so that the Party could see whether there really was any plot at all. But what did you do instead? You waited until the question of exclud- ing two members of the Central Com- mittee was raised, and by way of an “intermezzo” Comrade Menzhinsky was put in with his report. I ask you, comrades, would it be necessary to resort to such methods if the right cause were being defended? Does not } this method go to show that the peo-| ple resorting to it are defending a! cause that is profoundly wrong? | What did the report prove? It! proved that there was no plot at all, and that at any rate, as was to be expected, not one of the Opposition- | ists had any relation whatesoever to it. I will now come to my theme. We are accused here above all of fractionalism. On the question of fractionalism and of the right with programmes, I first of all want to refer to Lenin. Fractions Justified. T the time of the Tenth Congress Lenin contended that if there were radical and profound differences of principle they would justify the most sharp and fractional attacks—pro- vided, of course, that the deff: rence were really extremely profound, and | that an incorrect policy of the Party | or working class could not be recti- fied by any other means. Lenin wrote at a much earlier date: “To the question ‘What should we not do?’ (What we should not do in general and what shall we not do to) cause a split), I would first of all reply: Do not hide from the Party any imminent or growing causes for a split, do not hide any of the cir-} cumstances or events which consti- tute such causes.” Only yesterday I cited to you) Len speech at the Tenth Party | Congr in favor of allowing voting | on programmes. “We cannot deprive the Party and | the members of the Central Commit- | ee,” he said, “of | to the Party if a fundamental prob- | lem causes differences. The present | Congress cannot bind any voting to) a future Congress.” field Stalin's passive balance is as By Fred Ellis WHAT THE OPPOSITION HAS TO SAY Speeches. Made.at the Soviet Union Communist Party Executive ZINOVIEV, TROTSKY — AND STALIN I. Zinoviev’s Speech (Today The DAILY WORKER publishes the stenographic re- port of the speech made by Gregory Zinoviev at the plenary meet- ing of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union last October, on the subject of the opposition of him- self and Trotsky against the Party, their violations of discipline and their work against the Party. Tomorrow The DAILY WORKER will publish the speech made by Leon Trotsky on the same occasion. On Thursday morning, December 22, The DAILY WORKER will publish the speech of Joseph Stalin, Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in reply to the calum- nies and inaccuracies which are apparent in the speeches of Zinoviev and Trotsky. jit, but thi —EDITOR.) Three Obstacles. HREE sets of obstacles have so far preverited the Opposition from get- ting a majority in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union by normal {means. (Commotion in the hall.) In the first place, the Party mem- bers are not properly informed as to our real differences.. The apparatus is donig everything possible and im- possible to distort the meaning of our differences. You have only to look at the bibliography of Congress material in touay’s vravda. Theres is not a single Opposition pamphlet, (Laughter.) The only Oppositionist is Lenin, and even he is only presented | |in versions and extracts. Secondly, there is the repression and prevention of freedom of expres- sion to Party members. Before you can say a word you are threatened with expulsion from the Party or the sack from your job. Thirdly, there is a section of con- scientious party members who, just because they do not know how to foi- low the main substance of our differ- ences, regard the matter merely from che point of view of forma! discipline, which they think is being infringed by the Opposition, They sometimes complain of our hostility to the ma- jority on the Central Committee at our printing and distribution of docu- ments against this majority, think it is detrimental to our international situation, etc. Discipline is a fine thing. There can be no proletaricn party without is only when’ the Party’s policy is corr { will quote a few where he says that iscipline can only jousness of the its capacity to masses of proletarian vanguard link up with the toilers, and the correctness of politi- cal leadership by this vanguard. Without these ‘tonditions becomes more empty. phr The Stalinist “leadership” has made wwemendous political errors during the last two years. On the international ology. discipline And you are doing just the opposite | follows: 1 The loosing of the Chin- in regard to the Opposition prot | eS revolution. as The bankrupt pol- earn | icy of alliance with the traitors of ee? ithe British General Council; 3. The The objective causes of the present hastening of the break between Eng- events in the Party may be summed] jand and the Union of Socialist Soviet up as being the growth of the bour-| Republics; 4. Semi-rupture with geoisie, the increased class struggle,| France; 5. A step nearer to recogni- the economie and political difficulties |iion of pre-war debts; 6. Beginning of working class dictatorship in a|of a split in the Comintern; 7. Hand- country with an overwhelming peas-|ing over of a number of Communist the Soviet Union. |tion has slowed down, ant majority, while the world revolu-| Parties to right wingers. (Great * commotion and interruption and a voice: “You earthquake.”) The Home Field. EXT we come to the home field. 1. Delay in improvement of workers’ conditions. 2. Coolness of the work- ing class towards the present policy of the Central Committee. 8. Growth of rich peasants. 4. Increased bad feeling in the countryside and agita- tion for a “peasant league”. 5. Fail- ure of the campaign to lower prices. 6. Increased unemployment. 7. <Ac- centuation of the food problem. 8. Increased economic and __ political strength of the new bourgeoisie— private traders, rich peasants and bureaucrats. Besides defeat after defeat and pol- itical bankruptcy, Stalin’s leadership has only brought the Party to the verge of a split. We have had heated platform strug- gles before Congresses even in Len- in’s time, but we never had the ex- pulsion of such fine Bolshevik work- ers a8 Preobrazhensky, Sharov, Sere- briakov, Sarkis, Vuyovitch, etc., not to speak of searches and arrests. Even since the Fourteenth Party Congress discussion of our differences have been repressed and we have not been able to talk with the Party. And you want to prepetuate this for an- other two years. On this basis of fundamentally incorrect international and home policy, the present methods of struggle arise, With Stalin’s fund- amentally incorrect class policy he is compelled to rule by martial law, Hence all the spicy morsels that Stal- in dishes up such as the “military plot”, “former Wrangel officers,” ete. forgot the Crimean It is all very well to talk about “il- legal printing presses,” etc., but Bol- sheviks should ask themselves what are the reasons for these things. Why has Lenin’s will, for instance, become an illegal document? When the GPU has searched Communists this will has nearly always figured amongst the “incriminating evidence”. In 1918, although Bukharin was actually in open alliance with the Left Soviet Revolutionaries against the Central Committee of our Party, Lenin allow- ed his programme to be printed on the rotary machines. But now you are hiding our programme. In hiding our programme all work- ers will say that you. are frightened of the truth. Although you do not like it, let me remind you that the demonstration of Leningrad workers on Oct. 17, 1927, was the most important event in the Party during the last two years. (Noise and roars of laughter.) Usurping Measures. it Stalin had been strong he would not have excluded us from the Cen- tral Committee only three or four weeks before the Congress. We can imagine how the Leningrad workers will react to this “reply” of Stalin to their demonstration of Oc- tober 17. Even if Stalin succeeds in preventing Trotsky and me from at- tending Party meetings and the Con- ‘gress itself, it will only show the workers what usurping measures Stalin is resorting to, how weak he is politically, and how he fears and trembles before our Leninist truth. And after excluding us from the Central Committee you will perhaps turn to excluding us from the Party as you already have done with hun- dreds of our best comrades. Some comrades of the present majority often think that we want to “wind up” the present Central Com- mittee as being useless, that after re- ceiving a majority to form a fraction, ete. This is not true. We do want joint work. Lenin, though pointing out in his will the errors of all of us, bade us work together. We are con- vinced that this is the only way out, In conclusion, the present stage of our struggle in the Party may be summed up as follows: You must either let us speak to the Party and in the Party or else arrest us all, There is no other choice. (To Be Continued.) ARTICLE V. By ROBERT MITCHELL. The Interborough injunction, if granted, will have the effect of legis- lating the American Federation of Labor out of existence, This state- ment, already made several times, is no mere figure of speech, as will be shown in a moment. Earlier in this discussion it was pointed out that only a relatively small portion of the A. F. of L. mem- bership could be mustered in a drive to organize the New York traction workers. Yet the Interborough is seeking to enjoin each and every mem- ber and officer in the Federation. The question was raised at the time: What is the meaning of this appar- ently childish move? i The Unholy Trinity In Traction—Injunction “Yellow Dog” Contract and Company Union The Interborough court action is not intended primarily, to restrain these workers from the specifie acts of organization among its employees. These court proceedings are not a de- fensive but an aggressive action. The purpose of the court action is to es- tablish the illegality of the American Federation of Labor irrespective of its attempts to organize the New York traction workers. Astonishing as this statement may at first appear, it is, nevertheless, the literal truth. The three hundred page injunction document contains dozens of pages in which are quoted excerpts from A. F. of L, conventions, recommendations of its Executive Council, resolutions and speeches of its officers, all tending to prove that the Federation has entered upon a gigantic “conspiracy” to de- | stroy company unions. It will be worth while to reprint some of these | quotations in order to illustrate ex- |actly what the Interborough is seek- | ing to accomplish. | Charge Unions With Being Militant. | First of all there is the attempt to | show that the Amalgamated is a dan- |gerous organization advocating and practicing strikes and violence: “... The defendant Amalgamated Association has conducted a great number of strikes on various rail- roads of this country; ... many of these strikes were without cause or justification, or the causes were trivial and unimportant; that during the years from 1900 to 1926 .. there were at least eighty strikes in which serious disorder occurred, all conducted by the defendant Amal- gamated Association; that these strikes occurred in sixty-seven dif- ferent cities and in thirty different states; that there were upwards of twenty-two strikes in which state or federal troops were called in to pre- serve order and protect life and property ...and the various locals composing said Association do not and have not in the past observed and performed the terms of con- tract entered into between various road companies and said Amalga- mated Association. . . .” There is offered in evidence, on the contrary, the provisions of the Inter- borough Company constitution which declare: “Uninterrupted transit serv- ice to the public, a complete under- standing between employer and em- ployee ... are the objects of this or- ganization. . .” Further testimony is offered that the Company Union has so operated and has preserved that peace and tranquility which the an- gelic Interborough so anxiously craves. Federation Pictured As Declining. Secondly, the American Federation of Labor itself is held up to be an in- efficient and declining organization which moreover has entered during ita last period of decay into a “conspir- acy” by which “the defendants Green, Frayne, Mahon, Fitzgerald, Coleman, Shea, together with one Matthew Woll, and other members of the Amer- ican Federation of Labor, willfully, maliciously and unlawfully conferred, confederated, combined, agreed and conspired among themselves for the purpose of eliminating and wholly de- stroying, and determining upon effec- tive methods and means of destroying, all employee representation plans or so-called ‘company unions’ , . .” Perhaps the most interesting section of sworn testimony is the following: “, .. The said American Federa- tion of Labor is composed of affili- ated organizations covering various trades and occupations throughout the several states of the union... “(And that) .,. the average paid up and reported membership of the American Federation of Labor for the year 1920 was 4,078,740; that during the six year period immedi- ately succeeding the year 1920, such membership gradually and materi- ally declined until, in the year 1926, it had been reduced to 2,803,966 persons... .” Here is a picture not without its lessons for organized labor. This is not the place, however, to discuss that phase of the problem. . Set off against this picture of de- clining strength we have: Company Unions Spreading. . During the same period, and particularly during the years 1924, 1925 and 1926, there occurred a steady growth in the number and membership of independent organi- zations or employee representation plans, providing methods of collect- ive bargaining between employers and elected representatives of em- ployees as to wages, working con- ditions and other problems ... and that in the year 1926 approximately 1,347,000 employees, representing 431 companies, corporations or sep- arate industries, had adopted such independent organizations ... and these were not in any way connect- ed or associated with the said Amer- ican Federation of Labor... .” Here is the quotation from the resolu- tion on company unions submitted and passed at th elast A. F. of L. conven- tion on the 13th of October, 1927: “Your committee believes that “the time is ripe for the American Labor Movement to work progressively for the substitution of union-management cooperation for company unions, ... To accomplish this will require con- tinued effort over a period of time and out method of approach must be based upon careful and scientfic study. , .” Company Union Pictured As Superior But it is the essence of the Inter- borough claim for the company union “ of “union-management cooperatio: which the Federation only now is ginning to advocate; Here we have built up before us the imposing case for the company union, Side by side with it we have presented the picture of the inefficient, decline ing, violent, and illegal movement. In whose favor will the typical American ge decide? In whose favor pars larly, will Supreme Court Justice Wasservogel, Tammany politician and traction tool, decide? And _ even though, if by some force of circum- stances the issue of the Labor Union versus the Company Union is not im- mediately decided by this case, is it not clear that at the next favorable opportunity the capitalist class will seek once and for all to rule out the Federation as an illegal conspiracy? These are the fruits of the A. F. of L, class-collaboration policy! (To Be Continued) (The DAILY WORKER is fighting Labor’s battles on every front. Read the DAILY WORKER daily. Buy several copies for distribution am« the traction workers, HELP ORGAN- IZE THE TRACTION WORKERS!) that it has already secured this “aD \