The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 26, 1928, Page 9

Sem rN M Rate iors MAXIM GORKI WRITES TO ROMAIN ROLLAND “Pravda” 1928.) Sorento, January 29, 1928. March 23, literature among the peoples of the , Caucasus, among the Circasians and | Osetins as well as among the Tartars {of Kazan. Yes, a beautiful literature x My Dear Friend: ‘flourishes and is developing today in ay x jthe Soviet Union. I am enthusiastic JI gett Ri oe eee oe Rus- jabout it, and regret that Europe pays 2 os hte elie ges 3 i ter 5° little attention to this great liter- doubt very much whether the et ee ary movement and takes no interest Bihees arpa Mine loa bie) in these creative forces; it is more in- | said that the “classics are forbidden aaa roads ae, aunive eo (Published in in Russia.” Only recently the State) ow the good which is there. Publishing House issued a splendid | It’s possible (I recognize it my- edition of all of Dostoevsky’s works, | |self) that the good does not yet exist including even his counter- -revolution- | 4. extensively as we should like to ary “Demons”; as well as the whole | coq it; but one must not forget that of Pushkin and Gogol. They are pre- Russia is a country of 150,000,000 paring for publication the works el cathe that only ten years have Turgeniev, as well as a complete edi- | passed since the Russian people sud- tion of Tolstoy’s works in ninety |genly began to live a cultural life volumes (edited by Tolstoy’s friend, |. nq began to grasp the idea of cul- Chertkov). Today there are published |(uye, There are already in the Sov- in the Soviet Union the selected |ie Union villages which have only works of Bunin himself, as well as of |49 inhabitants and subscribe to 32 Kuprin and Shmeliev. Nor have they | publications. Newspapers, magazines, F forgotten old writers like Mamin- pamphlets and scientific publications Sibiriak and Garin-Michaelovsky. From the reports of the public li- braries, where Tolstoy and Dostoev- sky occupy leading places, thé*Rus- sian writers know very well that the classics are not forbidden in Russia. Every year young Russian writers visit me. How could they be “dy- ing of hunger” and yet take distant journeys abroad? It seems to me I have the honor of enjoying: the full confidence of these writers. In in- timate conversations with them I have asked them: What group of Russian writers could have made such charges against the Soviet Govern- ment? For reply I received only a skeptical shrug of the shoulders. You say you have been informed that Russia has no literature. What a strange statement! I am astonished at the tremendous fertility of the new Russian literature, of the new writers, of whom there are hundreds and whose number is increasing. This confirms my deep faith in the crea- tive powers of my Russian people. The Russian people are beginning to acquire self-consciousness, are begin- ning to understand its right to the free development of its creative pow- ers in all walks of life. * * * This year alone has brought us sev- eral talented writers from whom one ean expect good work. These are: Fadeyev, who has written a novel called “Destruction”; Leonid Borisov, Nina Smidoyna, and the: poet N. Tichonov, who has written a fine book. I could also mention a long list of important new Russian writ- ers. There are, for example, Leonid . Leonov, Babel, Vsevolod Ivanov (who at present edits the magazine “Krass- ny Nov,” munist), niche for themselves; as have also Constantine Fedin, Vladimir Lidin, Boris Pilniak, Serge Semenov (a worker gifted with an original tal- ent and influenced by Knute Ham- sun); Zoschenko, who wastes himself on short stories, but none the less has talent; there is no doubt that he is gradually progressing from humor to satire. Then there is also Kataev, the author of “Wastrels,” who writes in the Gogol manner; and the rapid growth of Jakolev and Kaverine; and ; so on and so forth. It is not necessary to list all those who deserve not only to be mentioned but also to be praised. Of non-revo- lutionary writers I could mention a whole list: Sergeev, Tsunski, Michael Prishwin, Constantine Treniov, Nika- drov, Veresaiev, Ivan Volgov, Olga Forsh, Alexi Chapigin (who recently published his splendid novel “Stenka Razin”) the poet Serge Klichkov (who writes much and well); Alexi Tolstoy (who works sincerely and remains a marvelous story teller) and Ivan Nov- ikov (who has just issued a volume of stories). In my opinion there are now at the head of Russian literature two extraordinary artists: Serge Tsenski and Michael Prishwin. The latter has sent you his novel, Happiness.” Undoubtedly I have omitted to mention many other tal- ented authors. I have not had a are issued in thousands of copies. jmost infinitesimal details, the minu- although he-is not a Com- ; book market. Its style is straightfor- All of these have made a} ward and sustained, its story simple I am convinced that the hundreds of writers in prose and verse who are now functioning in the literary field will within five or ten years be- come brilliant stylists, M, GORKI. P. S—The “Letter of Russian Writers,” which has created such a furore in the foreign press, has been repudiated by the trade union of Rus- sian writers. In the ranks of this organization are all the writers of all the nationalities in the Soviet Union. With the exception of my- self, there is not in Russia, as far as I know, a single writer who is not a member of this trade union. —M. G. i Giahons in Fiction of THE DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1928 LIBERTY AND OTHER CHARMING ILLUSIONS LET FREEDOM RING. By Arthur { Garfield Hays. Boni & Liveright. | $2.50. Reviewed by SENDER GARLIN. OUNDIGNATION boils my blood,” writes Hays, “at the thought of the heritage we are throwing away; at the thought that, with few ex- ceptions, the fight for freedom is left to the poor, forlorn and de- | fenseless, and to the few radicals | and revolutionaries who would make use of liberty to destroy, rather than to maintain, American | b J ve 0) institutions.” The author of this book with its | ironic title is a busy New York law- | yer.* He files briefs for inf} uential corporations, supervises the wr | Be of last wills and testaments for aged | b and wealthy clients, and negotiates | ARTHUR ¢ & ARFIELD HAYS the transfer of valuable real estate |/to permit str in various parts of Manhattan Island. | pany-owned He is quick-witted, fluent and per-|cording to a bi the hunt against the Jews in lof averting the workers’ and pe revolution. “You are poor be Page Nine 7] Antisemitism and the World Proletariat Lge of the worst forms of enmity is antisemitism, th: say, racial hostility towards tt who belong to the Semitic w hich the Arabs form anothe: ranch). The Czarist autoc h ews fleece you,” said the mem the Black Hundreds; and they endea ored to direct the discontent o ppressed workers and peasants a from the landlords and the bourgevisic and to turn it against the whole Jew. lish nation. Among the Jews, a mong the other nationalities, there are different classes. It is only th ourgeois strata of the Jewish race ich exploit the people, and. these rgeois strata plunder in common h the capitalists of other mation- In the outlying regions of Russia, where the Jews were ed to reside, the Jewish workers Nice Details THE CLOSED “GARDEN. By J Julian Green. Harpers. $2.50. Reviewed by EDWIN ROLFE. IN this, his second novel publi8hed within a year, Julian Green defin- itely proves herself to be a master literary craftsman. Written with a tireless realism that takes in the tiae of its characters’ lives, the book attains in its wholeness a certain power and dignity which places it above the literarious miscarriages which are continually flooding the and complete. The author limits him- self to a definite narrative, and ex- ploits the characters and situation of that narrative to their utmost. He affects no pseudo-esthetic poses; he indulges in none of the petty meth- ods of so-called modern sophisticates. When the story ends, he does not continue and embellish it in a weak ROALD AMUNDSEN; ored list headed by the names’ of Henry Hudson, Sir John Franklin and the other seekers of the Northwest Passage, Shackleton, Scott and Amundsen him- self and the conquest of the North|¢, and South Poles. ers have been a peculiar race. sarily they were nearly all naval of- ficers and fairly jingoistic, and their expeditions bore to a certaint extent a militaristic stamp. GREAT ARCTIC EXPLORER Roald Amundsen Deflates Some Braggarts My Life As} An Explorer. Doubleday, Doran & Co. $3.50. : Reviewed by N. SPARKS OALD AMUNDSEN is the last of the true Arctic explorers, the hon- down to Dr. Nansen, The Arctic explor- Neces- For the most the American propaganda machine visiting the trenches and lecturing in America. * * * Amundsen deals at length with the flight of the dirigible “Norge” and the attempt of Mussolini and Nobile to turn it into a propaganda scheme for fascism. To-get the* full impu- dence of the fascist braggart Nobile one must read the account in detail “It is now clear,’ says Amundsen “that their offer was a deliberate ef- years 1922 and 1927. later; the murder trial of Dr. Ossian H. Sweet, Negro physician of Detroit, who shat in self-defense following an attack on his home by a gang of Nor- dic rowdies who objected to his mov- ing into an “exclusive” neighborhood; the suppression of the play, “The Captive,” and the attempt to ban The American Mercury in Boston. Intense and dramatic are athe chap- ters dealing with the activities of the coal and iron police in the coal re- gions in Pennsylvania and the elev- enth-hour attempts to save Sacco and Vanzetti from the electric chair. * * * Hays naively divides the world into two classes: “tyrants” and “lovers of liberty.” He quotes copiously from the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, and ringing words from the dissenting judicial opinions of Justices Holmes and Brandeis. The author’s chief argument is based upon the theory that “those in power have so little faith in our in-| stitutions that they fear that Amer- icans would be corrupted by radical | propaganda to a point where they would rush to overthrow their insti- tutions.” Hays likes the capitalist system. He complains ruefully that “radicals would make use of liberty to destroy American institutions.” Of the ex- istence of a fundamental class rela- tion Hays seems not to have the slightest suspicion, however. Coal operators in Pennsylvania who refuse fogt on the part of their government to”gain for the present Italian poli- tical regime . . . a world-wide ad- vertisement.” In every way Nobile showed him that he had modelled himself on the arch-bully Mussolini Tremendous in words, Nobile proved hime }f useless in action. Three part, however, they were true scien- “Rewards” of Genius Under Capitalism They include }learn that Hays actual the notorious Scopes Evolution trial'a number of Pen where W. J. Bryan crooned his great |men and |: faith in obscurantism, made his heav-|former) with the pr enly valedictory and died several days |branch of the Ame! ties Union in order to fight for “free |speech” for the terrorized coal min- ers? to Page 316 of his own book and read carefully the following paragraph: business chiefly centers in corporate and commercial matters.” (Page 120.) | title. suasive, Also, he gets lots of pub-| judges, unive artisans lived in terrible pid licity in the newspapers. |millionaire governors degradation, so that their ¢o1 “Let Freedom Ring” narrates some | the murder of two forei gn-born work-|tion was even worse than that of the half dozen cases with which Hays |ers are “intolerant.” rdinary workers in other parts of happened to be connected between the | Does it seem surprising, then, to The Russian bourgeoisie raised the hunt against the Jews, not only im |~ the hope of diverting the anger of the xploited workers, but also in the hope of freeing themselves from competit~ ors in commerce and industry. approached vania business- ners of the 1 to form a an Civil Liber- vyers ( Of late years, snitt- Jewels feeling. has increased among the bourgeois: classes of nearly all countries. The bourgeoisie in other countries besides Russia can take example from Nich- olas II. in the attempt to inflame anti-Jewish feeling, not only in order to get rid of rival exploiters, but also in order to break the force of the revolutionary movement. Until re= cently, very little was heard of enti+ semitism in Germany, Great Britain, and the United States. Today, even British ministers of state sometimes deliver antisemitic. orations. This is an infallible sign that the bourgeois system in the west is on the eve of a collapse, and that the bourgeoisi@. is endeavoring to ward off the work- ers’ revolution by throwing Rothschilds and Mendelssohns to the workers ag sops. In Russia, antisemitism was im Responding to “hundreds of de-|abeyance during the March revolu- mands from schools,” Standard Oil|tion, but the movement regained has obligingly put the “facts of the) strength as the civil war between the, oil industry” into a booklet which re- | bourgeoisie and the proletariat grew frains, however, from using oil as aj fiercer; and the attacks on the Jews “Petroleum” is mailed free for} became more and more bitter in pro- use in schools, following the example) portion as the attempts of the bour- of National Electrie Light Assn.,| geoisie to recapture power proved which sees to it that pupils have de-| fruitless. sirable information on the power trust (From A. B. C. of Communism, and its activities. | Workers Library.) * * * I suggest to Mr. Hays that he turn “Sacco and Vanzetti were real- ists. They were not deluded. To most of us, the trial was a farce; the result an atrocious miscarriage of justice, To them, it was a logi- cal outcome. They were victims in class war....” * “T am a New York attorney. My Propaganda For Schools (Federated Press) “The Magazine for Rebels” == “The Pursuit of | tists, deep students of the technique of travel over Arctic ice, and physic- ally perfect specimens, ready to en- dure incredible hardships for the sake of science and whatever honor they could get. Air travel, however, and the general decadence of capitalism, have put an end to the line. In place of Nansen, Amundsen and Scott, the “heroes” of the present expeditions are the upstart Byrd, a naval aviator who knows nothing whatever about the Arctic, and the fascist monkey- on-a-stick Nobile who knows still less. Expeditions by such as these represent little more than great ad- vertising schemes for their respective military machines. The present book seems to ave been written by Amundsen chiefly with an eye to vindicating himself before the American public after his recent troubles, financial and other- wise. Here he tells how he came to be an explorer, describes his appren- tice trip: to the Antarctic where he served with Dr. Cook, and tells how he finally realized the dream of cen- diminuendo. The bottle filled, he sen- sibly corks it, and leaves it complete. The story concerns itself with the depiction of the decay of an ordinary bourgeois family in a little town in France. Adrienne Meseurat grows up under the tyrannical surveillance of an invalid spinster sister and a re- tired self-satisfied father, who frus- trate her attempts to make contacts with the people around her. Until her eighteenth year she bears the burden of an inhuman solitude, that finds its only expression in morbidity. Then she falls in love with a man more than twice her age, whom she glimpses from a distance in the street one day. Not knowing him, she sus- tains this irrational attraction with a thousand self-illusions. Discovering this, her father makes her a prisoner in the house. The culmination of this | comes when she accidentally kills her father. Then, when she confesses her |love to the man and is told that it is \not reciprocated, she becomes com- | pletely mad. chance to read everything, and be- sides I do not wish to burden you | T have, also omitted mentioning the poets,| with a list of all the writers. among whom there are many well known talents like Pasternak, Tich- onov, Asseyev, Szharov, Kazin, Sel- vinski, Oreshin, and others. * ORO ee. There is also being created a new turies (emptied by now of any econ- omic utility) of discovering and navigating the Northwest Passage. There is only one fault to be found in “The Closed Garden.” The char- acters live in a world completely their times he nearly wrecked the ship over the Polar ice and only the interven- tion of the Norwegian pilot saved them. was danger, Nobile became a lion when the trip was all over and car- ried out his instructions of appropri- ating the glory for fascism. In Se- attle after the success of the flight Amundsen says “The Italian consu) had evidently received instructions from the Italian government to do everything possible to make Nobile’s return a triumph. In-this task his efforts were ably seconded by the local Italian fascisti . .. They had succeeded in creating the impression before our arrival that the flight was largely an Italian undertaking andé that Nobile was, with us, chief ir command of it.” For the Italian me- chanics who helped man the dirigible Amundsen has nothing but praise. The “Norge” expedition marks the close of Amundsen’s career. The dis- coverer of the Northwest Passage discoverer of the South Pole, leader of a flight from Europe to Alaska over the North Pole, and collector of a wealth of scientific material, Amundsen is unquestionably the greatest living Arctic explorer, and own, unaffected and undetermined] There is a short account of the dash the most successful of all. Meek as a lamb while there | “ By HENBY. OU can’t socialize geniuses or in- ventors.” This is one of the pet arguments of the individualists against the pos- sibility of a Communist state of so- ciety. They cling to the idea that the creation of work of art, and the in- vention of new wonders in the realm of science and mechanics, come full- formed from the brains of certain god-like men and women. “Communists cannot change that,” say the defenders of the status quo; and they feel confident they have settled the matter. So it is always interesting to note proofs that, even in our present cap- italist state, inventions are actually communal things, and that most of our world-famous inventors have gained their great reputations not| from their own achievements alone,’ but from having credited to them the | discoveries of countless unknown workers, great and small. For instance, a few weeks ago a New York newspaper printed a story in which it named Thomas A. Edison as the inventor of the stock ticker. June issue practically sold out on New York newsstands two days after being out—don’t be one of those who run around the city trying to catch a copy. Subscribe Now and Be Sure of Yours. Among the contributors in the June issue are: Michael Gold, John Dos Passos, Dudley Nichols, Hugo Gellert, Otto Sog- low, Ernest Booth and many others. NEW MASSES is the only magazine even to the slightest degree by any- thing at all except their own limita- tions. This, actually, is an impos- sibility. But the treatment of this limited sphere is so excellent that the author may be’ forgiven for it. MEMOIRS OF HAYWOOD Autobiography To jg aed bt ae PUBLISHERS, Pettibone case, in which he, together who are preparing for publication in June the memoirs of William’ D.| Haywood, who died last week, were informed by their Moscow representa- his manuscript had been dispatched to New York. The book, upon which Haywood has been working during the recent years, is autobiographical. dascription of his boyhood days in Utah, he tells the story of his ap- prenticeship to a farmer at the age of eleven and his going to work in a mine at fifteen, when he joined the miners’ union, of which he was des- tined later to become the leader. — The struggles states, the famous Moyer-Hayw tive that the remaining chapters of! Starting with a in the western Be Published Soon | with the other officers of the West- ern Federation of Miners, were | charged with the killing of Governor Steunenberg of Idaho, of which they were acquitted, his left wing fight against the officials of the socialist patty in 1912, which led to his ex- pulsion from the National Executive Committee and later from the party, his activities in the I. W. W., the posi- tion he and his organization took dur- ing the war, the trial of the more than 100 members of the I. W. W., his conviction and his joining of the Communist Party, his life in exile in Soviet Russia during the pa‘ years—all these stages in h: activities in the American labor move- ment are intimately described in this |- | book, to the South Pole, of the airplane flight with Ellsworth, and an ex- tended ventilation of the difficulties with Nobile on the dirigible flight Reader Praises immediately they received two letters of protest. One claimed that the tick- er had been invented by a man named Scott. The other claimed that the in this country devoted to prole- over the North Pole. * * * Amundsen takes the time to ex- plode the myth of the “sportsman- ship” of the British ruling class. He recounts how the prize of $100,000 offered by the British Government for the discovery of the Northwest Passage was divided between two Englishmen, neither of whom had ac- tually been thru it, and how Lord Curzon (the author of the famous ultimatum to Soviet Russia) publicly sneered at his discovery of the South Pole at a banquet in London. The uninhabited wastes of the North and South Poles support no people that can be exploited, ‘nor do they contain any known natural re~ sources. Nor was Amundsen a naval officer, and none of his expeditions were sponsored by any navy or gov- ernment. As a consequence he had a constant terrific struggle to finance his expeditions, and had steady uphill going, except during the war when for a time he became a shipowner and sat content to exploit the danger of others, and then in 1917-18 when he allowed himself to become a tool of Burck’s Cartoons To Feature Editor: As a reader of The DAILY WORK- (ER, I was very glad to see that A. B. Magil accorded Fred Ellis the recog- nition which his splendid work de- serves. I believe, however, he was \not quite just to the work of Jacob Burck, who has contributed a num- ber of excellent cartoons to the 1928 book. Burck’s cartoon on the St. Francis dam break was one of the best that the paper has ever run, I believe, both for political content and drawing. Fraternally yours, JOHN RAMBURG. UNCONSCIOUS 4 MONTHS. CLEVELAND, May 25.—Helen Puschmann, 19, a sophomore at Lake Erie College, Painesville, has been un- conscious for more than four months as a result of injfiries sustained when struck by a bus last January. Food is being administered in liquid form. ticker had been invented by one, Cai- laghan. The truth is that Callaghan first patented the stock ticker, and later Scott patented some improve- ments on it. Then about a dozen years later Edison came forth with a ticker which infringed on the for- mer patents, and he was sued by Callaghan and had to pay large dam- ages. But he bided his time, and when the Callaghan patent expired, he slipped in with his own improve- ments and gained control of the pat- ent rights—and, that is more import- ant, control of the market. | And like every other worker the inventor in our present order is given a minimum wage while he ip in his prime, and is discarded in his old age. | The benefits of his genius go to man- | kind and the profits to the capitalists | SUBSCRIBE Editor—MICHAEL GOLD. A Tear this off and NEW MASSES— to the following: who own his patents. Under Com- | NAME ... sesecvoasgcene munism not only would society ben fit by the inventor’s labors, but ADDRESS cia incacusener ted would get all the benefit and not | merely what the exploiters found it! CITY & STATE ..... Be ie profitable to give. Incidentally, the | inventor himself would be provided | for along with his other fellow lai GET IT EVERY MONTH | New reduced subscription price $1.50/a year. NEW MASSES—39 Union Square—NEW YORK CITY 39 Union Square—New York City. Enclosed is $1.50. Please send the New Masses for one year (Sample copies sent on request.) tarian art and lit- erature, NOW AND rt Editor—HUGO GELLERT. ——< a oe send it in today. ete eeeeeeecenns Cente eee ee eee