The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 2, 1928, Page 5

WORKERS PROTECTED IN THE SOVIET UNION LABOR PROTECTION IN SOVIET RUSSIA. By George M, Price, In- ternational Publishers. $1.25, Reviewed by ROBERT W. DUNN. | et is a very valuable book. To those who may think that the Van- guard Press fifty cent series covers the field for the workingclass reader, Dr. Price’s book will come as a plea- sant surprise. For he handles many subjects referred to only briefly in the other books, He gives us a par- ticularly interesting introductory chapter on the.conditions of the work- ers under the open shop era of Czar- dom. * * * One can get more out of this com- pact little volume than out of the flood of highly selected statistical and descriptive material on Russia that has emanated from the Interna- tional Labor Office in Geneva during the last few years, Indeed it is a fact, admitted by the agents of this League of Nations enterprise, that the Russian “experts” who write these reports are little more than open enemies of the Soviet regime. Such American economic scientists as Paul H, Douglas of the University of Chicago have expressed themselves very forcibly on this subject. Writ- ing to Albert Thomas, director of the International Labor Office, some months ago, Professor Douglas point- ed out that “in many issues of the International Labor Review (issued by the International Lafor Office) Iifind articles on Russian coopera- tives, housing, wages, trade unions, ete., and I always find that the cri- ticisms are stressed very strongly with very scant attention paid.to the constructive accomplishments of these movements.” Douglas told Thomas that he had’ read over the large vol- ume, “The Trade Union Movement in Russia,” issued by the International Labor Office in 1927, and found “that it presents a very misleading pic- ture.” Douglas also ‘wrote: “I am informed that the men who are in charge of the Russian section (Wf the International Labor Office) are former members of the social democratic party who cannot new return io Russia and who feel quite bitter at the present regime. With- out wishing to disparage their hon- est intentions it would nevertheless seem to me to be highly undesirable ‘that on a matter so delicate as this and one upon which the world needs accurate information, the agency for its distribution should be men who have a quite apparent bias. It would be better, I think, for the International Labor Office to close its Russian section and to publish the material which it has in the past.” Dr. Price is not the League of Na- tions type of reporter on the Russian scene. His impartiality is recognized in all political camps, His compe- teney is undisputed. He has grasped the true significance of the work of labor protection carried on by the Soviet government and the Soviet unions, He tells his story simply and clearly. re Pe | Since Dr. Price wrote this book word comes from Moscow that in ad- dition to the general outlay for the protection of labor required by law and collective agreement in Russia, the industries of the Soviet Union will thi’ year set aside an additional 25 million dollars for special measures designed to improve the conditions of work, This will include expenditures for special safety appliances, ventila- tion, and many sanitary méasures. Dr, Price describes what the indus- tries have already done to provide for the safety, health and comfort of the worker. : During the present period of unem- ployment in the United States it will interest workers here to know some of the facts pointed out in the chap- ter dealing with social insurance—for example that the unemployed worker in the U. S. S. R. receives about 50 per cent of his regular wages while employed. Also that “sick benefits are paid from the first day of sick- ‘ys ness and the rate of payment is full wages.” Also that the rate of social insurance contributions from indus- try “is larger than in any other coun- try, for while in other countries it ranges from two to four per cent of the wages, in Russia it amounts on the average to not less than fourteen per cent, thus giving three and a half times as much protection as other countries.” And by other countries Dr. Price means the more progressive European countries. The United States is the most backward “civil- ized” country in the world in its so- cial insurance and labor legislation. The Soviet Union is easily the most advanced. The worsted workers of Passaic, where women work nights at the spin- ning frames, might be interested in this statement on page 74: “As a rule, women are prohibited from working during the night between 10 p. m. and 6 a. m. No women un- der eighteen years of age, or preg- nant or nursing women are permitted to work at night under any circum- stances,” * * * What is the effect of reading such an adequate and unbiased book as this? Dr. Alice Hamilton of Har- vard University states it in her ‘in- troduction to the volume: “Through his sober, critical though sympathetic language, we gain the impression not of a ‘Paradise of Workers’ but of a country: that is definitely committed to St, Paul’s principal, ‘If a man will not work, neither shall he eat’ and to the principle that the worker has a right to health and the pursuit of happiness.” Muller and His Choral Society in the Factory By EDWIN ROLFE. 'AR back in a corner of the cutting room, near the window through which the light of the sun shines in the afternoon, is the table at. which Muller works. The silk motes dance like goblins on the fiddle of a Sara- sate, in the dazzling sun. Through the window, the bottom of which Muller raises gbout a half inch every day, the wind steals and plays with the silk stretched on the table, raising the edges of it in a tiny ripple that tra- verses the length of the cloth. And Muller goes about his work, some- times whistling to himself, singing old German lieder, sharpening the knife he holds in his pudgy fingers, cutting the silk with deft long-ac- customed strokes. Does the knife sometimes slip and cut Muller’s hand? Does the wind sometimes penetrate his body sending chills through his frame? Muller does not mind. The bell starts his cutting in the morning. The bell ends his cutting at evening. So has it been for the last thirty years; so, Muller thinks, will it be till he dies. Muller has a terrible cough. It is dry and convulsive, and the sound of it is like the twang of a bow string after the arrow has leapt into the air. Muller is a quiet man. (Before Ted, the student, came, he was never known to speak to anyone, in spite of the fact that the taboo on conyer- sation was not applied to those in the cutting room.) Only now and then at intervals of amazing length, can one hear Ted speak to Muller and Muller answer. Ted: “You’re always singing, John. Why don’t you organize a choral so- ciety in the factory?” Muller: “Choral society, hell! I tell ya, Ted, the best thing for me to organize now is an emergency fund to defray travelling expenses to Den- ver, Colorado, There’s nothing else left for me in life. All I hope for is to see Denver before I die. Yep, that’s the best place for people like me to die in.” Muller: “May this lousy country burn to the ground together with the men who first put me into the cut- ting room! Kid, take my advice. Get out of this stinking factory as soon as you can if you ever want to enjoy anything at all in life. I know, kid. Tkmow, .....°” Thus does Muller talk when he talks. The rest of the time he works, counting the strokes of the knife, counting the pieces of cloth, counting the breaths of air that he takes, counting the minutes, the long pound- ing minutes of his life. LIBERATING LITERATURE Revolutionary Writers Meet in Moscow THE rallying of all proletarian literature, struggle against the scornful attitude towards -the old cultural inheritance and to- wards masters of the artistic word, development of Marxian criticism, development of literature which by its form must be national, by its sub- stance proletarian—these were the main tasks outlined by representa- _ tives of 30 nationalities attending the first congress of the All-Union As- ‘sociation of Proletarian Writers _ which has just closed in Moscow, ‘Within the past two years the or- ‘ization, which has 4,300 members, ‘rown into a large literary and lic organization wielding consider- influence not only in literature also in cinematography and the forces of] The members of the association have enriched Soviet literature with a series of artistic works on modern life, including The Rout, by Fadeyev; Calm Don, by Sholhov; At the Open Hearth Furnaces, by Shvedov; How the Steel Was Tempered, by Bussy- guin; Nathalie Taprova, by Semenov and others, The congress decided to reorganize the association into, an All-Union Federation of Associations of Prole- *sarians of RSFSR, Ukraine, White Russia, Transcaucasus, Uzbekistan and Turkeministan, This federation has been joined al- so by the writers’ association, “The Forge,” which had in its ranks a number of the best-known writers, such as Gladkov, Nikoforov, Liashko Sh ia From the cover Seid Soci ons “New Masses” by Hugo Gellert THE DAILY WORKER. Labor and the Machine REBIRTH OF “NEW MASSES” Gold Now Editor; June Issue Is Lively NEW MASSES. June, 1928. $ .15. Reviewed by A. B. MAGIL. HE New Masses died in April and has been reborn in June—a lusty infant. The fact that few people real- ized that the New Masses had ceased to exist shows how feeble its voice had become during its declining days. Starting a little over two years ago with loud fanfare and an enthu- siastic crowd of proletarian intellec- pear ne ers—ready ‘Tom. ind, the New Masses soon began hitting the rocks. Too much water had flown under the political bridge. Ten years ago, even five years ago, the orienta- tion of the liberals was towards the revolutionary camp. But class distine- tions have become sharper. The at- tempt to run the New Masses as a coalition between liberats“andrevolu- tionists~with the revolutionists” pul- ling the confused and spluttering liberals desperately to the left, ended in disaster. A compromise was ef- fected which was in reality a re- ductio ad absurdum: Egmont Arsns who was not fervently on either side —neither fish nor fowl—became sole editor. And to prove that he was redder than any of the Reds, Aren went in heavily for Hoch-Politik. And he began to sway unsteadily between open counter-revolution (Dorothy Wong on the Chinese Revolution) to concealed counter-revolution (the neo- revisionism of Max Eastman). Re. sult: worse disaster and complete estrangement of the New Masses from its only real reading public— “the intellectual vanguard of the workingclass.” Personally, I was praying fervent- ly during those last few months that the thing would die and would stay dead. It died. It didn’t stay dead. * ae Te new editor of the New Masses is Michael Gold. This is Tikely to mean~certain-things. One of them: that the New Masses will have more than a nominal connection with the} American _workingclass. Another: | NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 2, 1928 FIGHTING THE POLISH Si va von Five A Visit to W. K. TERROR-A N ARRATIVE® llings, Victim By S. KAEMRAD. ERA is fire and flame for her work. | Enthusiasm and energy breathes | from her letters. Her letters are more than personal, their significance is that of human documents of great) power and interest. In order toj counter the dangers of the post cen- sorship, Vera wrote her letters in the language of Aesop: “What shall I write about myself? I am living as before. Life rolls by and I taste of it with eagerness and enthusiasm, Now as before I am tremendously happy, but side by side with the happiness there is pain, so much pain. The circumstances of our existence are so hard, so strict! Lit- tle consideration is paid to the plans, intentions and wishes of individual people. Life has become terrible dif- ficult. The emigration which was al- ways considerable has now taken on a tremendous degree, Those near to us and those far away are going, re- lations and friends are amongst them. They are going in groups and as in- dividuals. It is particularly pain- ful when whole groups go at one time. Life then becomes much more difficult “The emigration is particularly strong amongst the youth. With the energy and activity of youth, it is particularly difficult for them to re- main inactive and wait for better times. They therefore leave us, prob- ably for a long time “For the present I have no inten- tion of leaving myself. With all my energy and my hunger for life I want to overcome the unpleasant ex- terior circumstances. I want to live just where I will, and to do that that I want to do. Well, we shall see...” It is not difficult to understand that with “emigrants” Vera means those comrades who have been ar- rested. And that she is referring to police raids and arrests and other misfortunes so well known to all those who have ever worked illegally. The Polish secret police were searching for Vera for a very long time. They were only waiting for the opportunity to settle accounts with her, As though she had a presentiment of her coming capture she wrote in a letter: “Our life is now more stormy and joyful than ever before. Our days count for months and the months for years. Not according to their length, but certainly according to the fulness of the events contained in that the liberals have finally been! them. Think of it, we are already tossed over the wall into the waiting | in August 1925. arms of Oswald Garrison Villard and feat means. Herbert Croly. Still another: that in the course of time the New Masses may lose a few of its classy wise- cracks and acquire something else. The most strategic reform insti- tuted by the new editor has been the cutting of the price from 25 to 15 cents. It makes a world of difference. That dime is a healthy shove towards the only reading public that matters —the workingclass. The new New Masses is still a hybrid. Building upon ruins is a} tough job. I move that a society be | formed for the suppression of Alfred | Kreymborg. And Ezra Pound’s con- tribution to Leninism is idiotic. Sen- | tences contradict each other, ideas | with a specific gravity below zero gape in midair. Pound should stick | to his cantos, x * ‘ But there are other things that offer hope and point a way. “An ef. fort will be made to enlist the great submerged unpublished voices of | America,” says an editorial note. Mike Gold makes good this promise in the first number under his direc- tion. There is an entire page of the first published poems of Martin Rus- sak, a young Patterson silk’ weaver, There is the remarkable Poorhouse Anthology by an inmate of one of these ornaments of capitalist civiliza- tion. And then the Letters from America, from workers all over the country—‘‘a sublimated Workers’ Correspondence.” Dudley Nichols’ description of ani- mal-killing in a Chicago stockyard is superb, Perhaps too well done. The phrases too glittering, their beau- fy too hard and cruel. And best of all: Mike Gold’s chap-4 ter from his book of East Side mem- oirs, Jews Without Money. Work such as this is in the direction of! what may some day be American pro. letarian literature. Tires de Luxe The high power motors purr pleasantly and the pretty ladies purr sweetly in their luxurious limousines, driven by liveried chauffeurs. The limousines glide smoothly on the well-paved avenue so that not the slightest unevenness is felt by the pretty ladics seated within. The limousines move on tires made from rubber grown on the plantations , of South America'and East Africa, gathered by workers worse than slaves (some are old, handless ones from the days of Leopold of Belgium) toiling in the tropic heat , fora bare subsistance, driven by the whip, still tortured and hung up. And the rubber tires of the luxurious limousines seem to be made of the harassed flesh of these toilers, and the pretty ladies seated in the limousines purr sweetly and placidly, and the orchids ¢ . in the cut-glass vases scarcely tremble. HENRY RBIOH, Jr: You know © what And in this month of August I am writing you a letter. I can hardly believe my eyes and ears. How beautiful! How splendid, un- expected and unusual!” The following month of September proved fatal for Vera. The wave cf arrests which swept over West White Russia in the fall of 1925 drew her too into the vortex. Vera had to go not there. where she wanted to go, but there where she was sent by the Polish secret police, in prison. ; But even there, behind thick prison walls and surrounded by a living wall of bayonets she retained the fresh- ness and the laughter of youth. The agents of Pilsudski could not take that away from her no matter how bad the conditions of life in the pris- on were, ‘ On the contrary: “The prison is a bagatelle!”, she writes in a letter to friends outside. “It not only fails to achieve its aim, but it works real wonders in strengthening us all in our determination and bolshevism.” She writes further: “I am happy, I don’t know what boredom is, but I do know what both pleasure and anger are. Sometimes I could grind by teeth in fury. But that is inevit- able, and is quickly compensated for by deep pleasure. The thoughts and dreams for the future are dazzling. But in its way the present is also beautiful. I am living this life and love it as it is, it seems to me more than I ever loved life before.” Thus writes a girl who has spent almost three years in prison. Vera has been sentenced to 6 years im- prisonment in a trial which has al- ready taken place and in the trial of the “133” she is threatened with a further 8 years. And despite this prospect of spend- | ing the best years ‘of her life in| courage | prison she still can find enough to joke: “How I long to see you all again, if only for a moment. Just one little glimpse, but that will come, of that there is no doubt! The time will come and we shall be all together again. I dream of that moment when we shall all meet again and my face is suffused with a great happiness. And then the disturbing thought in- trudes itself: but then you will all have beards and moustaches! You will all be Communists still, but old Communists and no longer young ones! How dreadful! My heart aches with an unreasonably and nevertheless terrible pain, I shall never see you again as I know you see you again as I remembers 55 now, as young Communists, never see you again as I remember you and love you. The idea is silly and un- important, but it hurts me. Very well, grow beards if you like. \ De- spite everything we shall all see each other again!” In those low-lying gloomy build- ings where the windows are barred with iron on the outskirts of the Po- lish towns there are many young » yj girls like Vera. But there are per- haps only a handful who are so de- termined and of such character as she. The others are pale faced young girls from the sewing rooms of the towns or red cheeked girls from the into prison after having taken only the first few steps on the path of the struggle. which holds them together is repre- sented by the tales of the leaders of the working class, and they are never tired of listening to them, “Dearest friends,” they write. “We do not know you well, but a little, and that gives us great pleasure. We have even seen the photos of some of you. In our priso.. came somehow an American magazine, and in this we found the photos of the young poets Utkin, Sharov and Bezymensky, and then ovr pleasure knew no bounds. Many many hearty greetings and kisses for the young fighting and creative guard of our movement, We wish you success in your work. Go on, be strong and courageous.” Do these girls lose their own cour- age? No, they do not. of her companions as follows: “If you knew with what impatience we 138 are all awaiting our trial! We shall not stand our trial as repentant sheep. We shall not beg for. mercy, not beg for release, but come with pride, our eyes flashing, our heads proudly borne and we shall declare that not all the tortures of the De- "ensive (Polish secret police) and not all the years in prison can frighten us or turn us away from the struggle in whose victory for us we firmly be- lieve. “Just think how happy I must be. I think of the coming trial as of some day of great holiday. It will be a day of triumph for us although we shall receive many years of imprison- ment. But what does their sentence matter tome! What power have they over us? The day is not far off when we shall pass sentence upon them. And our sentence will be harder than years of imprisonment which come to an end,” They are wonderful words. Words of a revolutionary, words of a real Bolshevik! Think of those words this evening when the dusk falls and the stars begin to show silver in the eve- ning sky, then these young girls sing their revolutionary songs, Let us think of them in that moment when the hateful Polish reaction passes triumphant sentence upon Vera and the other 132 revolutionaries! We shall not be passive witnesses of this process. We shall read the sentences in the newspapers wi hard lips. It will give us greater strength. We shall swing the ham- mer with still greater energy in the ouilding up of the future. We shall carry on the struggle with still great- er intensity not only in Poland but in the whole of the capitalist world! (To be continued) What the WORKERS should Five CLASS STRUGGLE VS PRINCIPLES OF COMMU WORKER CORRESPON POEMS FOR WORKERS, MARX AND THE DAMNED AGITATO. 1871—THE PARIS COMM CONSTITUTION OF THE PSemnsafenr 1 1 Important Questions treated Order country who were arrested and put | s For these girls the bond] Vera writes | | hy Every Miner Should | | Be a Communist | | By JOHN PEPPER stands for and why every miner WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS 89 East 125TH Street, New York Ciry. LITTLE RED LIBRARY Eleven Copies for ONE DOLLAR TRADE UNIONS IN AMERICA. . CLASS COLLABORATION, NGELS ON REVOLUTION IN AMERICA, HOW CLASS COLLABORATION WORKS. JIM CONNOLLY AND IRISH FREEDOM. American Labor Movement. WORKERS LIBRARY PUBLISHERS 43 East 125th Street, New York City. Z, of the Frame-up By JAMES P. |WISITING Folsom P: cilitated or encot I left the stage and the main gate with a depressing feel- jing of loneliness. ed. ked towards Few go ven a seat in the warden’s ting room t out of d to be no sp warden’s secretary The 3 his way to make me comfortable, versation about the weather. d me a copy of the Saturday Evening Post or perhaps it |was Libertv—I didn’t read it. Made a litle co ned soon. Billings ather slight man, edium he! had never ire | know man iile. A warm per- out guile or subte t mixes well and He is thirty- There are lines ally come only to later years, but his manner and ap- pearance on the whole are those of a you man. He was only twenty- three w he was caught with Tom Mooney in the frame-up trap and he has been in prison the whole interven: ing twelve years—all his years of {flush ycung manhood and ripening | maturity. In many ways he sug- three, as gested a youth of twent, though the characteristies which be- longed to him at that age when he |was first imprisonéd had frozen in | him and become a permanent part of his personality. —In the June issue of the “Labor Defender.” Marxist Philosophy nf AE the different forms of prop- | erty, upon the social conditions jof existence, as foundation, there is ‘built a super-structure of diversified land characteristic sentiments, illus- ‘ions, habits of thought, and outlooks ‘on life in general. The class as @ | whole creates and shapes them out of jits material foundations, and out of \the corresponding social relationships. The individual in whom they arise | through tradition and education, may fancy them to be the true determine ants, the real origin, of his activities. (Marz, “Eighteenth Brumaire”) | STHEORY becomes the greatest force | in the labor movement if is in- | dissolubly bound up with revolution- jary practice, for it alone can give to lthe movement confidence, guidance, lunderstanding of the inner relations | between events; it alone can help to imake clear the process and direction | of class movements in the present and |near fu self has mony | times said that ‘without a revolution- ary theory, there can be no revolution- lary movement.’ He understood better than anyone else the extreme impor- tance of theory.” | (Stalin, “The Theory and Practice lof Leninism.”) (Communist) PARTY join it. Cents R AND OTHER STORIES. UNE. U. 8. S. R. by outstanding leaders of the From