The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 7, 1928, Page 5

J i j NEA RING ANALYZES CHINESE REVOLUTION F WHITHER CHINA: An Economic In- terpretation of Recent Events in the Far East. By Scott Nearing. In- ternational Publishers. $1.75, Reviewed by CY OGDEN. great many books have been writ- ten about China within the last few years. Very few of them, how- ever, have treated the revolution from a Marxian standpoint and these few have been gendered out of date by the rapid progress of events. The very important developments during 1926-1927 have necessitated a rewrit- ing of Chinese history and a recon- sideration of the direction in which the Chinese revolution is going. The need of a clarification of Chinese events is all the greater for those who have relied for their information on the distorted accounts in the capi- talist press. Many of these persons have become so confused by the ups and downs of the past two years that they have entirely lost their bearings, Scott Nearing has cleared away the confusion by presenting a concise logical statement of what is happen- ing in China. He prefaces his story with a short sketch of imperialist penetration beginning with the Opium War of 1840 and extending to the lat- est aggressions by foreign gunboats. His indictment of the imperialists is backed by a wealth of data and is capped with a fine description of the city of Hongkong which sums up in graphie form the essentials of foreign Aggression. Close on the heels of this indict- ment comes a discussion of the rela- tions between the Soviet Union and China, The contrast is striking—the imperialists on the back of China, “booted and spurred and riding mad- ly"—the Soviet Union extending the hand of friendship, giving up czarist concessions, and joining forces with the Chinese to fight the common enemy, the imperialist exploiters. * * The events of the Chinese revolu-| tion are divided by Nearing into three | cycles, the first from 1894 to 1912) ending with the reaction under Yuan! Shih-kai, the second from 1913 to 1927 ending with the reaction under Chiang Kai-shek, and the third begin- ning in the summer of 1927. The com- plicated developments of the second cycle are clarified by Nearing’s lucid account. He traces the growth of the mass movement in this period un- til its culmination in the Northern Expedition of 1926-1927 and then analyzes the forces which led to its breakdown. His analysis of the third | China written. It is this fact which probably explains his overemphasis on thc Japanese demands on Chang Tso Lin in August, 1927, which are described as the opening act of a new wave of revolution. In his analysis of the economic forees which are revolutionizing China, Nearing estimates the role be-’ ing played by the local bourgeoisie, the peasants, and the "proletariat, His discussion of the role of the peasan- try is not entirely satisfactory. There is no data on the size of Chinese farms or the extent of farm tenancy. There is no thorough analysis of the intense class struggle going on in the villages, and no mention of the role played in village life by the mer- chant-usurer or the land-owning gen try who are the Chinese equivalent of the Russian Kulak. The fact a large class of Kulaks is interwoven with the poorer peasants explains the bitterness of the struggle within the Chinese village while the absence of a class of feudal land owners against whom all classes of the peasantry could unite prevents the common up- rising of the entire peasantry such as took place in Russia at the fall of the czar. * * The treatment of the proletariat is much more satisfactory. The transi- tion from hand industry to large | seale manufacture is described in de- tail and is backed up by statistics on the size of the manufacturing popu- lation, the number of trade unions and the yearly growth in the num- ber of strikes. Nearing shows that | the proletariat has become the hasic factor in the revolutionary moyement and that it was the fear of the prole- tariat and of its influence among the peasantry that finally swung the Chinese bourgeoisie into the camp of reaction, That Nearing does not think that the last word has been said on China * jis evident in his concluding chapter | where he answers the question of where China is going. He shows that the continuation of the struggle is inevitable and that it will not end until the final emergence of new social order. When that happens, in alliance with the Soviet! Unioh, will dominate the world eco-| nomically and culturally. “Whither China” is a book that is well worth reading. It is certainly the best description of the Chinese situation that is to be had at present and should have a wide sale among | American workers. A postscript on the December up- risings in Canton has beén added by | | ative, than in “October,” which shows | something of the stiffness of a work THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 7, 1928 of Soldiers By ROBERT WOLF HAKESPEARH, let me point out for the benefit of Comrade Gold and Comrade Lawson, was not en- dowed by Mr. Otto Kahn. He was a hard-working hack-writer, a poet when he could get the time, who had to earn his living as a theatrical manager re-writing old plays. Eisen- stein is a nine to five (nine at night to five in the morning, because the studio is quieter then) employee of Scvkino, whose business management is almost as soulless in its insistence upon cor.mercial profit as that of any American trust. I do not want to prove too much by these analogies—-I too have taken glad to get them again if I could. where he was nearest to pleasing from pleasing his immediate audience, and Eisenstein did a much better Line,” undertaken at his own initi- undertaken at command. But the point of these opening paragraphs is that out of the hokum of Hollywood, and not in spite of that hokum, but because of it, has come the first really great American film- | drama—a movie, it seems to me, quite “The Crowd,” First Really Great American Production Page Five Revolution This is one of the strik-| ing posters issued by the “Rote Hilfe” which serves the same function in Ger- many as the International Labor Defense in this coun- | try. Both organizations are | members of the Interna-| tional Red Aid, which cel-| ebrated its fifth anniver- sary recently. The I. R. A, devotes its entire activities to giving assistance to! workers thruout the world who are victims of class persecution. Thousands of workers and their families have been aided by the I. R. A. in Germany, Hungary and Poland during the years it was organized. The activities of the organiza-| tion are the subject of an article by Max Shachtman in the current issue of the “Labor Defender,” illus- trated with many photo- graphs of I. R. A. work, By EDWIN ROLFE. (The Faetory.) a little city just north of New York. When the busy season is in full swing, the clock at eight o'clock in the morn- ing, and eight hundred punch the clock again at six in the evening, Between these hours no breath of air is allow- ed the workers. They bend over their monotonous stint for hours without looking up. One is not permitted to converse with his neighbor at the next machine; Mr. Bright, the owner of the plant, calls this efficiency. At half past twelve the bell rings, and the pale deformed mannikins who work in the factory file through the dusty passages down into the cellar. | Here they eat. Silently, for the most | part, with only an oceasional word {exchanged, Here they emoke, with these two are woven on the warp of |their fatigued bedies sprawled over ;economie problems. the sublimation of triteness, but it is | bles like the piles of cloth on the tables an artistic exprwssion so detached, so skilful, so restrained, that it is ficult to find words adequate to praise | “The Crowd” is|ihe dirty oil-cloth-covered wooden ta- of the cutting room upstairs. And when the bell rings again at one o’elock, the men smother their half- endowments in the past, and would be \ Shakespeare’s best play was Hamlet, ; it. If the history of John and Mary | had been produced by a pair of intel- | lectuals for an audience of intellec- | tuals, the result might have been| intolerably snobbish and pretentious, as so much of our left-wing art unfor- tionately shows, but it was done for an audience of these same Johns and Marys by King Vidor, the man who in “The Big Parade” turned the war into an impossible mess of sentimen- tality, and by John V. A. Weaver, the literary voice of the readers of the | Subway Sun. No wonder they lost} | themselves in their material, no won- der they preduced a work that is mov- ing, complete and accurate. Here was smoked butts between their thumbs and them in their vest-pockets, and slowly shuffle back to the machine. forefingers, carefully Outside the smoke surges out of the chimneys into the clear heights of the sky, loses its mundane form and be- comes one with the blue. thump-thump, sssssssssss of the factory merge with the street noises and the noises of men and women, and the sound of the wind embracing the trees, and new Antheils listen and dream of greater Ballets Mecaniques. and Outside the thwirnrr, Only the toilers himself, and most remote, probably, | a subject where all their sentimental- ity, all their limitations, ’ ‘ stupidities even, found their proper job in “Potemkin” and “The General | place. stupidly written or directed—-far from it. sincerity and understanding. merely explaining how this could hap- ren to be so. is almost perfect. itis one of the few times IT have seen genuine character development on the sereen. are stuck fast to the mud, only the toilers have hunched backs and tear- seorched eyes and dull dead bodies. Only the toilers never see the sky. (The Boss.) Years ago Mr. Bright had owned a factory on Thirty-sixth Street, New York. workers who carried little union cards in their pockets and who were paid a few dollars more each week than Mr. Bright liked to pay, union scale was definite and final in all their I do not mean that “The Crowd” is It is produced with consummate | T am Psychologically the film Technic- There he had employed thirty | Bat the | FACTORY SKETCHES { | T is an enormous place, situated in | the steady powerful humming of the | machines can be heard for blocks} around. Eight hundred workers punch | | SLAVES AND BOSSES Sinclair Lewis American author who, it is rumored, will soon begin the writing of a novel based on his recent visit to the Soviet Union, frenzy cf speed when he passes the machines, He is like a Gronner eari- eature, mean and brutal and foxy. His head is like a piece of flesh-colored ivory, completely bald and always oily with the sweat that the exertions of his garbagecan stomach force out of his skin. His eyes, behind his gold mounted spectacles, are tiny and shrewd and uncannily observant. His 1ose is hooked like the end of a freight handler’s pole, and malignant as the snout of a boar. His mouth is a slit cut with a steel edged ruler in his pink skin. When he talks to one he smiles, and you begin to fear that the skin will crack if he stretches his mouth a trifle more. It is because one watches his mouth when he speaks that the snake-like sliminess of his eves and voice are lost to the listener, He is the sort of man who would rape a child and, when caught, smilingly write out two checks, one for the po- lice department and one for the child's parents, and walk on unperturbed. Every Sunday you can see Mr. Bright at church, raising his pious voice to god in a hyper-religious “Gaudeamus igitur.” (To Be Continued.) A Labor Novel | By a “Friend” | of the Workers DAN MINTURN. By M. H. Hedges. Vanguard Press. $.50. Reviewed by SENDER GARLIN. ROR one thing there is entirely too much “pretty” writing this book, “Dan Minturn” is the story of a worker’s son who studies law at night, is admitted to the bar, becomes a “friend” of labor, a member of the state legislature in the Middle West, falls in love and marries the niece of an old-party political boss, and ulti- mately becomes a conservative gov-' ernor of the state. This is one of those novels that takes the labor movement as @ “theme.” It eontains the inevitable monastic philosopher who. conducts a basement bookshop, the bumptious “Marxist” reporter on the Daily Telegram, and the beautiful young woman of the white house who has such tender feelings for the workers. Contemporary literary tolerance |dictates that an author should not be |held responsible for the opinions arth |sentiments expressed by his protagon- |ists in a novel. But where the narra- \tive, as here, is an obvious cloak for |the expression of the author's politi {cal, social and economic opinions this \dictum becomes quite silly. “Dam Minturn” is crude without being pow+ erful. It reveals a naive adoration for |the world of parasitic ease and dis- |plays no insight into human charae ter. : in 'rof, John Dewey and Committee Planning Visit to Soviet Union Plans for a visit to the Soviet Union by leading American educators headed by Prof. John Dewey of Columbia, were announced by Dr. Stephen P. Duggan, of the board of directors of the society, at the annual meeting of the American Society for Cultural Relations with Russia. Reports on past activities of the society were presented by Lee Simon- son of the Theatre Guild, for the arts committee; Mrs. Norman Hapgood, on the Russian exposition held last February, and for the book committee by Ernestine Evans, who read a re- port prepared by Floyd Dell, : The officers and directors of the society were re-elected. ‘ Harry. Freeman . who collaborated | with Nearing in the gathering of ma- i terial. There are also several inter- esting maps by Ann Coles, ' ally it is equally admirable—with kicking up the least fuss about its modernism it borrows the latest tricks from "Variety’ and “Ballet Me- worthy to rank with “Potemkin,” ! “Variety,” “The Last Laugh,” “Bal- let Mecanique,” the best of Chaplin, ‘and the other few first-rate achieve- New York, and those who did not be- long to the union numbered less than n hundred in the entire trade. “Go, argue with a pack of hoodlums!” Mr eycle is necessarily very sketchy as the trend of events had manifested itself at the time the volume was Masterwork one SS Bi jments of the screen, eanique”—but only whenever it needs | Bright sed to shout, “America, the ° Of All | ‘i them, and its style is eonsistent f freedom, and a poor contractor Id t how “T) a” D y! land of freedom, Pi i W ILHELM . LIEBKN ECHT et gin Sy - aie patent thruout, And through and through|who makes less each week than his erie The Great eee } both the intellectuals and the radicals|the whole film is shot a fine and| errand boy can’t de as he pleases!” Players i, aes . wit imost imperceptible glint of irony, 3 ° . here. As late movie critic for|® . 7 fti ix years of “Sovi ; that proves its creators were not such| But Mr. Bright, after six yea Tribute to a Great Revolutionary Leader “Sovietskoe Kino” of Moscow, I eeeitate after all. do sesh se AREE “making less each week than -his er- By KURT KERSTEN. jtimes have changed, other methods|will make a sensation there. ES Lae Hollywood tradi- eee Be i tierce would like to know, if there,are more ead a ae 4 jare being used, we haye new tactics, | it failed to make a sensation with the ‘1" it is possible to put a kick so sar- : ipetcl, picanti orders. We would like to hear from them, and in , ‘T is now more than a quarter of a iel Pt hi Had seh : Joni i fi ers and started again on a gigantic aaa ead, ; vertisement in the Peer gisaliNe cdocie cat a Even Licbkneebt himself had occasion | public is an easier problem—its own. @Mic that it almost lifts you from ceale of production. Now he is a mil- to us, This would enable us to keep our advertisem helm Liebknecht, the great leader of he German workers. The name of Liebkneeht is so close- ly associated with the German work- ’ movement, and with the revolu- ‘lonary movement in Germany in general, that no other name. can be compared with it, For the history | of revolution in Germany has its; tradition, has its forebears, as well’ as the history of revolution in other countries. it his A . ; ; By Albert Sammons, REL Weeks es vietion that the great struggle be-|¢ehanged or cut in the meantime you "in Sour Parts. on wo, TE ipeh Pouble Disc Records, Nos movement, we find the name. “Lieb tween bourmaoisie and proletariat | will find yourself witnessing the first knecht” emblazoned on all its pin- nacles, Ags in Seen Ainge hy open| For “The Crowd” in a quiet and 20022 V'dol_po Piterskoy. (Dubinuehia) g cw war, Liebkn«cht’s attitude toward | unassuming way is so revolutionary 200718 Marseilinixe (& Tchorny) Voi ly closely asaneated in his mental ;rpersliom and militarism, toward |that if tne vlice knew thelr busines Rebel Poems HELE Bios, Sout wees teil Gationeh muity clonal associated in his mental jtaxation and toward the class justice|they would arrest King Vidor and | er bedninga (&Korobushka) makeup with the unhappy leader of | of the bourgeoisie, Liebknecht’s as-| John V. A. Weaver. Its moral is: te at Soeee) ; the Hessian movement for freedom— 7 ae iy 4 Weidig, who was driven to insanity cht fighting in the years follow- ing after 1848, on the barricades in! Southern Germany; restlessness, il- legality, police chicanery, numerous arrests, trials, sentences to fortress detention, regular imprisonment, | ‘lieht and tribulations are the con- | t accompaniment of Liebknecht’s | they recur in a rapid series and! give evidence of the blessed path of thorns pursued by every true revo- 7 4 ry rather than Communist machine guns. if hd o] Ie —Tchubtchik kutchert lutionary. For a great portion of his { The speeches delivered in the heydey | White-collar. slaves do make Com- | Boi Peper in Wasskleh Pikeeh Part 1-8 pt ena life, Wilhelm Liebknecht spent peri- | of the German movement coincided | munist revolutions ‘aha “The Crowd” An Excellent Gift From One Rebel to Another 7222 Dubinushka—Chorus of “Russian Izba"—Vniz po matushkie pe ods in the same prisons in which s0- | with the turnin a PR Va sak ard ; ; 7 ee i * a ; ig points of Lieb | is the story of a disillusioned white- 7 7 cial-democratic ministers and police knocht’d life and reveal the entire collar pace. Out of the vast mass of | pee ae ce Mele) SM ap UKRAINIAN WORKERS’ SONGS ON RECORDS Fears are va! incarcerating the | essence of .this revolutionary: his ¢ommereial workers that is downtown Seen at eaiee Nit fae 27119 HOW I CAME TO AM revolutionary workers, |Nigor and clarity, his eritical acumen|New York, Vidor and Weaver have ULAR EDITION—$1.00 PER aig tone Se Tt was Ferdinand Lasalle who and dazzling eloquence, his boldness pieked two, John and Mary, any two COPY. Words by awakened the German workers; it and irony, his readiness ever to take was Wilhelm Liebknecht who gathered and organized them and led them in two great crises: in the Franco-Prus- sian War of 1870-1871, he guarded them against rationalism; in the! period of the socialist law, he saved) the very existence of the German workers’ movement—it was at that time that the energy inherent in a firmly built class-conseious party for the first time became apparent. Wilhelm Liebknecht, the creator of the German Workers’ Party, a champ- ion of the proletariat, never con- sented to be misled into the aber- rations—not to mention the outright treasons in which his successors have now been distinguishing themselves for decades in their attacks on the German workers’ morenent: There aye many points in which we can 9 longer agree with Liebknecht; to note that one’ must scmetimes | change one’s tactics. No doubt Lieb- t ngs and speeches already contain certain germs which were destined later to receive disastrous development, But who will under- take to prove that Liebknecht would not himself later have extinguished these germs? * * IEBKNECHT’S struggle against parliamentarism, Liebknecht’s con- * must he fourht out outside the Reichs- sertion of the necessity of a proletar- conquer power, overthrow the bour- geoisie, and create an entirely new world—these are points of contact be- tween us and Liebknecht. And while the hor rgcoisie of today is once more fleeing hack to the “glories” of Jan- nary 18, 1871, because it no longer feels any creative power in its veins, we shel! slso return to the revolution- ary Liebknecht of those years, the Liebknecht who at that early day out- lined the forms of the bourgeois state. the offensive, his fearlessness, his faith in victory, and his unconditional determination to fight to the utmost. He never permitted himself to be in timidated; his was an indestructible nature; his words flowed smoothly from his lips; his sentences were sharply turned and flashed like rap- iers; yet he was always ‘perfectly easy to understand, without ever descend- ing to vulgarity. Any sentence pro- duced by Liebknecht can be recognized at once, and his sneeches remain to this day as living, as fluent, as vehe- ment and as rich in topic interest, as if the speaker's voice could still be heard in our ears. The spirit of this dead man is so close to us, the truth cf most of his words is still so un- impeachable, that there seems to be ® secret point of contact somewhere between him and those who still live, predict that if Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ever sells it to the Soviet Union it ers were afraid of it and soft-ped- alled it, after a few weeks they com- bined it on the program with patriotic film of Lindbergh, and al- though it was playing to crowded houses it has been banisl.ed before its time from the Astor Theatre, and withdrawn altogether from circula- tion. It will not appear again till the week of April 23, at Loew’s State, 45th and Broadway. Go and see it when it comes, and unless it has been revolutionary American film. Can anybody make a suecess in the great capitalist myth. This in it- self is so startling as to be almost un- Lelievable. Napoleon, in “The Man of Destiny,” said that when he read | | Rousseau he heard the tumbrils of the revolution. To go to the Astor | | Theatre and see an attack there upon | {the foundation of capitalist morality, is to hear the rattle of machine guns on the streets. Perhaps to be sure these are fascist of the clerks ond stenographers that you would hit at the noon hour from a Broadway office-building window with a brick, They go through their ordinary domestic joys and sorrows, nothing that is not utterly trite, banal, and | sentimental—and did I hear the New Playwrights talking about economic determinism, and the influence of the job a little while hack?—go see how love and life and domesticity for a point that does not touch, however, those who call themselves his heirs, (the social-domocrate—Ed.) but are no longer interested in his work, and in whose ears each one of his words must sound like bitter irony, (srom Introduction to “Wilhelm Liebky scht.” Voices of Revolt Series, Anteraptionel Publishers, New York.) happy ending—see how within the your seat. But in any case, go and see the film, cheer for it, discover it, Don’t wait till it comes back with the recognition of Germany and Russia. Though perhaps that would be no mcre than just. Even “Potemkin,” I was told in the U, 8. S, R., played to almost empty houses, until it had re- rand boy,” acquired sufficient capital lionaire many times over. The workers grow uneasy in his presence and whip themselves into a | ceived the acclaim of Douglas Fair- {banks and our crities over here. Are you a “DAILY WORKER” worker daily? A Book of “MINOR MUSIC” By Henry Reich, Jr. MANY OF THESE POEMS HAVE APPEARED IN THE DAILY WORKER AND OTHER RADICAL PAPERS. Order from; WORKERS LIBRARY PUB- ’ LISHERS, 39 East 125 St. NEW YORK. Beethoven: Leonore Overtur Si By 67350-D, Tartini: La Trifle du Diable Russian Potpourri & Songs an state, and his unconditional de-| America? Ye-e-e-es try and do | Polianushka & I was there 1 and death by a demented police magis-' termination to hav . : rt Sip ES Neji i | On the Volga « She Stood in the Field } . ave thi 2 at | it? S ” | Byes; scene of the Volga Boatmen. te—but we find the young Lieb-| e proletariat | it! It is the first dircet attack upon Black Eyes; scene of the Volga “Bolshevik’ Poet & Peasant—Overture Light Cavalry—Overture Ukrainia: Diadka L Kirpitehiki—Dwa A Dolia 27117 SONG OF HAYC 27110 REVOLUTIONARY Words by ivan Franko We have pretty good results from the “Daily Worker.” “Daily Worker.” MASTERWORKS SET NO. 75 Beethoven: Quartet in D Major, Op, By Lener String Quartet of Budapest. In Six Parts, on Three 12-ine’ $4.50 Complete. No, 3, ir Henry J, Wood and New Queen's Hall Orchestra. in Foye Parts, on Two 12-inch Double Disc Records, Nos. 67349-D {The Devil's Trill), Sonata. 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TICKETS 25 cents; Children's 15 cents, at Young Pioneers’ Office, 108 BD. 14th St.—Send Greetings to the Pioneer Journal—Individual Greeting 250, HERBERT ZAM and 103 AVENUE “A” (Bet. emo ,\ Radios, Phonographs, Gramophones, ROWER Odeon columbia, victor ing Accepted.-We Sell for Cash or We will ship you C. 0. D. Parcel Post any of the above Masterwork Series — or we will be more than glad to send you complete Catalogues of Clasale all Foreign Records. Surma Music Company ALWAYS AT YOUR SERVICE Ane EeNINAS. MSE AAin yh amarcam ab + 6-7th) NEW YORK CITY Pianos, Player Pianos, bat Records,-—-Piano Tuning for Credit-—-Greatly Reduced