The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 30, 1928, Page 6

— SS Ee eee Page Six a se aechacimeehanere—r ee tees THE DAILY WORKER, NEW Daily Central Organ of the Wo Published by Daily Worker As’n., Inc Except Sunday, at 26-28 Union Square, New York, N.Y. Tel Stuyvesant 1696-7+8. Cable Address “Daizoork” al Publishing hone, ROBERT MINOR WM. F. DUNNE Editor Assistant Editor Union Scabbery On Albany News- papers The strike of members of the Interna- tional Typographical Union against the news- papers of Albany is one of the most disgrace- ful examples of the weakness of the craft form of organization, combined with official treachery and_ plain It was apparent as early as last procrastination, stupidity. May that the union had to conduct a fight against the Albany publishers in order to maintain union conditions. Instead of waging a fight at that time the reactionary officials spent months in obviously futile negotiations, thereby giving the publishers an opportunity to. prepare to import scabs to man the composing rooms when the strike wa finally forced upon the union. Already, after a few days’ strike, the pub- lishers announce that the places of the strik- ers are filled. In an official statement, signed by all the Albany publishers, occurs a paragraph that is a damning indictment of the leadership of the printing trades unions who have consistently fought against the de- mands of the rank and file for amalga- mation of the craft unions into a powerful de- partmentalized industrial union embracing all these employed in producing printing. The Albany strike-breaking and scab-herd- ing publishers declare: “Stereotypers, pressmen, engravers and mailers, all organized union men, remain at * their posts under wages and working conditions against which the printers struck.” Let Charles P. Howard, president of the International Typographical Union, explain why his so-called progressive machine abandoned the resolution passed at the Quebec convention in 1921 for amalgamation. Let him and the other fake progressives, who have proved to be as viciously reac- tionary as any leadership the printers ever had, explain to the membership why they ap- prove separate contracts with the employers, which really mean approval of one craft scab- bing upon another. | If there were amalgamation in the print- ing trades the publishers would not be able to produce newspapers, but would be forced to yield to the demands of the workers or Sos — A <2: Worker | YORK, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1928 rkers (Communist) Party SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By Mail (in New York only): $2.50 three mos. $8 a year $4.50 six mos. By Mail (outside of New York): $6 a year $3.50 six mos. $2.00 three mos. Address and mail all checks to The Daily Worker, 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. of the ner new unions. Hence the whole power of the capitalist state is brought into action against those whom the rank and file of the new unions have entrusted with leadership. Let no one think for a moment that the arrests in Pennsylvania and the wholesale arrests and the indictments in Massachusetts are separate events. They are part and parcel of a deliberate nation-wide drive against the new unions and against the organizations that furnish relief for strikers and defense for class war victims of capitalist “justice.” Even though the New Bedford strike is over and the mine strike has long been be- trayed by the reactionary officials, the fight has developed into a new stage, is still raging, and the embattled miners and textile workers need the help of the rest of the working class more than ever before. The heroic strikers of New Bedford who fought on the picket line and faced the com- bined assaults of the militia, the police, the thugs and gunmen and who now are threat- ened with prison for their loyalty to their ¢ n ass must be defended. The leaders of the ew unions now being held in jail must be berated to again take their places in the ront ranks of the fight and those indicted nust be defended with all the resources of e class conscious workers. te oe The masses of American workers who en- abled the miners to hold out for long months of struggle and who aided ‘the textile work- ers in their strikes must now again rally their forces to resist with all their power this drive to crush the new unions. Cheaper to Bribe Inspectors Than Make Ships Seaworthy The exposure of the fact that Edward Keane, assistant United States steamboat in- spector, deliberately lied in his report that the ill-fated Vestris had been properly inspected and found safe for a sea voyage, again emphasizes one of the most murderous practices of capitalist political tools. A job as inspector of anything from plumbing and rooming houses to passenger boats and factories is a certificate to obtain ON GUARD - Stalin on Right Deviations | (NOTE:—The following is the continuation of the speech delivered hy Comrade Stalin at the Plenum of the Moscow Committee and Moscow Control Committee of the C. P. S. U., held on October 19, 1928. The article published under this title early this week, threugh an error, |was not the continuation of Com- jrade Stalin’s speech, but a state- |ment entitled, “The Central Com- _mittee of the Communist Party of the So Union to all Members of the Moscow Organization.” The fact that the two documents were on the |same subject caused the error in the printing shop.) j # H As you see, comrades, both these | dangers, the right and the left, dan- ger and beth these deviations, to |the right and to the left, respec- |tively, though starting from differ- | ent points, lead to the same result. Must Stress on Right Danger. And if you ask me which of these Speech of Secretary of All-Union Communist Party on Left and Right Dangers And seeing that all efforts must be directed towards their elimination | and that perseverance and fortitude | are requisite to this end, qualities which not all of us possess in a suf- ficient degree—either owing to tiredness and exhaustion or else be- |cause of a preference to live quietly, without trouble or unpleasant inci- |dents—it is just here that vacilla- ition and hesitation set in, a ten- )@eney towards adopting the line of ileast resistance, towards playing with the idea of a slowing-down in the rate of development of industry, towards contemplating facilities for the capitalist elements, towards op- posing the foundation of Soviet and collective farms andseverything else which the tendency towards devia- tions té the right is reflected be- | yond the shadow of a doubt, are} well known, and it will be remem- | bered that mention was made of them in the stenographic protocol of | \the July Plenum of the Control ; Commission. ;proached the question of the dis- missal of one of the leading Party- members of a district, to whom the Tarty-workers of the district in question objected. That is altogether wrong. I might remind Comrade Eersin of certain episodes of the years 1919 and 1920, when certain members of the Control. Commis- sion, who had been quilty of cer- tain, I believe not very weighty, istakes in connection with Party ectives, were punished with ex- emplary severity at the suggestion of Lenin, one of them being sent to Turkestan and another being all but By Fred Ellis Brookwood -- Is It Communist? By BERTRAM D. WOLFE. ROOKWOOD LABOR COLLEGE is under attack by the bureau- eracy of the American Federation of Labor. The usual charge that is levelled by Woll and Green against everything they attack has been lev- elled against Brookwood Labor Col- llege, the charge of “Bolshevism.” Some workers may be misled by this jinto believing that Brookwood La- |bor College is a Communist institu- tion, or at least one which bases it- self on a clear class struggle pro- |gram. This would be just as erron- |eous as to believe that John Haynes |Holmes or Jane Addams or the | League for Industrial Democracy are Bolshevik, just because the D. A. R. labelled them so. The Executive Council’of the A. F. of L? has pretty well choked out of existence the Workers Education Bureau, yet no one would charge |that organization ,with being tinged | with Communist leanings or class | struggle character. Brookwood also |falls under the ban. | Brookwood Anti-Working Class. | repeatedly Yet Brookwood has made common cause with the trade union bureaucracy against the work- ling class. Thus, we have the ex- ample of A, J. Muste, director of the institution, trying to establish the supremacy of the WU. T. W. in |New Bedford after it had betrayed the New Bedford strike. We have the example of this same gentle- man’s actions to stifle discussion at the Youth Conference called by Brookwood, when the viewpoint of the revolutionary youth was put for- | ward in the form of resolutions for |adoption and when genuine efforts were made to have ‘some results in the organization of the unorgan- ized youth on a class basis come out of the conference. What Brookwood Teaches. As to what is taught in Brook- ‘wood, my experience with students who have graduated from the insti- jtution and my study of the school’s {outlines lead me to the following conclusions: 1.—The teaching is such that it leads the students to see two sides jof a question, even if it has only | one. | 2—The teachings of the school tend to have a paralyzing effect upon the fighting will of the left wing workers who have gone there. 3.—The “inquiring mind,” which, within the limits of investigation for the sake of effective action, is a |good thing, is developed in such If we continue the search yet excluded from the Control Commis- | form that the graduates tend to con- \higher up and consider the Control Commissicn, we must admit that even among the ‘members of that body there are some, albeit alto- | |gether insignificant, elements who | ertertain conciliatory sentiments to- | jwards the representatives of. the \vight deviation. The stenographic protocol of the July Plenum of the | Control Commission is the best proof it right of Lenin I believe it was alto- The position of the sion. Was to act thus? gether right. Control Commission was not then} what it is now. At that time half the Control Commission supported Trotsky and the attitude of the Control Commission was anything | but stable. At present the Control Commis- tinue inquiring when action is nec- jessary and becomes permanent feeble question marks. 4.—Much material on the labor movement from bourgeois acaademic |sources is used uncritically. | 5.—The inquiring spirit is especi- ally applied to the life and death question of class struggle or class that surpasses the limits of or- collaboration. The B. and O. Plan, lof this fact. As to the Political dinary, every-day work. Bureau, there are deviations neither to the right nor to the left, a fact Myst Be a Real Fight. qakeuldeedah Se ae ; But s s rward |+ should wish particularly to under- Mt we *cannot tove forward | iin) (it de “high ive that sw end without overcoming the difficulties ) |” aoe h i : before us. And to this end we must “@S Put to the rumors, Soread jabroad by oppositionists and by in the first place attack the right *, ‘ danger and Peder the right devi. [such as are anything but friendly |two dangers is the more serious, I cannot but answer that they are both equally so. From the stand- |point of their successful combat- jing, the difference between these two deviations consists in the fact [that the deviation to the left is more suspend publication. But then, under such | graft. ’ conditions there would not be jobs enough for the Howards, the George L. Berrys, the , Matt Wolls and other officials. Such people 4 are among the worst enemies of the work- ing class. They place their personal interests sion proceeds far more cautiously. | |Gan it be that we desire to be kinder |the general theory of worker-man- \ghan’ Lenin was? No) ‘that is’ not (seetany Coomemation, “ete: keceive the nucleus. of the matter. ‘The rea-|Philosophic investigations’ from json is rather that the situation| Which no conclusion is derived, or within the Control Commission is|*he conclusion is that “Maybe this for more stable today then it was |is a way out.” |then and that the Control Commis- This sort of thing is inseparable from capi- talism, where profit is the sole motive of the owners of property. It is cheaper for own- ers of fire-trap factories to bribe the in- 6.—A point of view that in tech | and textile as misleaders of labor above the interests of the membership. They are agents of the publishers and the quicker they are kicked out of office the sooner the rank and file of the workers in the printing trades will be able to put up a real fight against the employers. Resist Drive to Crush New Unions! Goaded to fury because the new unions in the mining and textile industries are rally- ing masses of workers to a struggle against wage-cuts, speed-up and union-wrecking, the employers are using the power of the state governments of Pennsylvania and Massachu- setts in an effort to destroy ‘these unions. The attempt in Pittsburgh to railroad Pat Toohey, secretary of the National Miners Union, to jail; the arfest in the anthracite region of Anthony Minerich, national board member of the new miners’ union,,on framed- up charges of dynamiting a colliery and a church; the “conspiracy” indictments in New Bedford against Albert Weisbord tary of the National Textile Workers Union; Fred Biedenkapp, secretary of the Interna- tional Workers Relief, and Paul Crouch, of the International Labor Defense; the trial of some 600 former striking textile workers in New Bedford, constitute the main features of a ferocious drive against the very existence of the new unions. The mine owners and the textile barons relied upon their friends at the head of the American Federation of Labor unions, the United Mine Workers of America and the United Textile Workers, to aid them in fight- ing to prevent the realization of the demands of the workers in these industries. But the servile labor leaders could not deliver the goods. The response to the appeals of the new unions proves to the employers of labor that although they can bribe and corrup: reactionary labor officials these officials are not able to deliver the workers bound and gagged. Instead of supinely submitting to the treacherous demands of the reactionary lead- _ ers, many thousands of workers in the mining industries hav4 rallied to the ban- cre- ! spectors than it is to provide fire escapes and other safeguards against holocaust. It is cheaper to bribe agents of the labor depart- ment than it is to provide safety devices for hazardous machinery. Any owner of a dilapidated tenement house can avoid con- demnation proceedings .by contributing to the inspector. Likewise it is possible for such a hulk as the Vestris to obtain a certifi- cate for seaworthiness by the same expedient. It is a plain business proposition. It costs much more to provide water tight compart- ments that will enable a damaged ship to float than to pay a government agent to make a lying entry in his report. Likewise it means a real saving of money to have an inspector report that he examined and tested life boats and found them sound, than to have to scrap those with holes in the bottom and replace them with boats that will float. Even if the boat does go down there is assurance that the cargo is insured. There is seldom any danger of having to pay for the loss of life because “experts” can be bribed to testify that the boat sank because of “an act of god,” or from some other equally convincing cause. Federal, oe and municipal inspectors are appointed bec#use someone in power owes them a political debt. The appointment enables the beneficiary to cash in on the game of capitalist politics. Such wholesale graft is another reason why the capitalist class and its henchmen hate and fear Bolshevism. It would spoil their game. In the Union of Socialist Soviet Re- publies the government exists in order to defend the interests of the masses who toil. It is a class government whose reason for existence is that it safeguards the lives of workers and peasants. At the other extreme of the pole is the government of this country that exists for the benefit of the capitalist class. Its reason for existence is that it pro- tects the profits of the capitalists at the ex- pense of the lives and health of the workers. Profits are placed above human life by the government of the United States. In the soviet Union everything else is subordinated to the welfare of the workers and peasants. Take your choice! Defend capitalism, a system that exploits and murders you or join the Workers (Communist) Party and fight for a Soviet government of the United States that will use all its power to make your life worth living, |tangible to the Party than is that |to the right. The circumstance that | |we have already for some years past |been waging an energetic fight | against the left deviation, could na- turally not be without influence on the Party. Obviously the Party |must have learnt much in the long struggle against the left (Trotsky- |ist) deviation, and that it is there- |fore no easy matter now to employ |phrases such as the left wing was |fond of g. As regards the right |danger, which also existed in former |times and which has now taken a |more tangible form in the shape of |an aggravation of the petty-bour- geois chaos in connection with the grain-provisioning crisis of last year, it is, I believe, not clearly |known to certain sections of our Party. Therefore it is our duty, |without of course diminishing our vigilance in regerd to the left (Trot- |skyist) danger by one jot, to lay the most stress on the fight against the right danger and to bring all efforts |to bear on making this danger as apparent to the Party as the Trot- skyist danger now is. The question of the deviation to the right would not be so vitally im- |portant as it is, were it not con- nected with the general difficulties of our development. But the great evil lies in the fact that these right deviations increase the difficulties of our development and make them) |more difficult to overcome. And it is for this reason that we must con- centrate on <he problem of eliminat- ing the danger in question. Difficulties Cause Right Danger. A word as to the character of our difficulties. It must not be forgot- ten that our difficulties are not dif- ficulties of a standstill or decline. When economy is at a standstill or on the decline, difficulties likewise eceur; then all efforts must be di- |vected towards making the standstill jless disadvantageous or the decline less pernicious. Our difficulties, however, are of quite a different sort. The characteristic thing about |them is that they are difficulties born of progress and advance. If lwe speak of difficulties, it is mostly 2 question as to the precentage in- crease in industry, the percentage | augmentation of the area under cul- | tivation or of the yield per hectare. | And just because our difficulties are such as arise in progress and not the outcome of regress or ‘stagna- |tion, the Party need not consider |them particularly serious. But dif- fitulties they are and remain, ations, which are hindering us in our task of overcoming the difficul- our volition in this direction. In this connection, moreover, the fight riust be a real fight and not only a fight on paper, a campaign of words. There are people in our Party who are not disinclined to preach against the right deviations for the sake of relieving their con- sciences, much in the style of par- sons shouting “Alleluyah,” but who fail to-do, even the very slightest practical thing for the purpose of starting a fight against the right deviations in the necessary way and of effectively overcoming them. | This tendency may be called a con- ciliatory tendency in relation to the right, openly opportunist, devia- tions. It is not difficult to under- stand that the fight against such conciliatory tendencies must form an essential part of the general fight against these deviations them- selves and the danger they repr sent, for it is impossible to over- come the right opportunist devia- tion without a systematic fight against the conciliatory elements which take the opportunists under their wings. Conciliators Defend Rightists. The question as to the represen- |tatives of this right deviation is un- | doubtedly of interest, though not de- \cisive.. In the lower organizations of our Party we encountered such representatives during the grain- provisioning crisis, when a whole number of Communists in the sub- districts and villages opposed the policy of the Party and contem- plated a fraternization with kulak elements, You will remember that such members were expelled from our ranks ‘last wirter, as was ex- pressly pointed out in the well- imown document of the C. C. of our Party in February. It would, however, be wrong to assert that no such elements had remained in our Party. If we search higher up in the re- gional and governmental organiza- tions of the Party and subject the Soviet and co-operative apparatus to a strict investigation, it will not ‘cost us much» trouble to find repre- sentatives of the right deviation and of the policy of conciliation in re- lation to this danger. The “letters,” “declarations” and other documents of a number of funct’onaries of our Party and Soviet apparatus, in ties and attempting to undermine | to our Party, to the effect that there is a deviation to the right or a con- liatory attitude towards such a jdeviation to be found even within | \the Political Bureau of the Control | Commission. Vacillation in Moscow District. As regards the Moscow organiza- tion and the Moscow Committee, it | would be foolish to attempt to deny that vacillation and uncertainty ac- tually obtained in that quarter. The jopen-hearted speech of Comrade Penkov is a direct proof of the fact. Comrade Penkov is not the least of the members of the Moscow organ- \ization and of the Moscow Commit- |tee. As you have heard, he admit-| |ted quite openly the mistakes he \had made in a number of most im- | portant questions of our Party pol- licy. That naturally does not mean’ |that the entire Moscow Committee |was subject to vacillations, That is by no means implied. Such a docu- | ment as the appeal of the Moscow Committee to the members of the | Moscow organization in September last shows quite plainly that the | Moscow Committee has succeeded in overcoming the vacillations of all its members. I do not doubt thet the | guiding spirits of the Moscow Com- mittee will succeed in clearing the whole situation satisfactorily. | Some members are displeased | with the fact that the section organ- izations should have interfered in) this matter by raising the question of a liquidation of the mistakes and | vacillations of certain leaders of the | Moscow organization. I do not know how such “displeasure” is to be justified. If certain Party-work- evs of vazious sections of the Mos- cow orgamization raise their voices in favor of a liquidation of mistakes land vacillations, what is there bad jabout that? Do we not carry on |our work on the basis of self-criti- cism from below? Is it not a fact that self-criticism enhances the ac- tivity of the broad Party member- ship and of the proletarian masses in general? What is there bad or dangerous about it, if the Party- members of the sections proved veady for the occasion? . C. C. Intervention Correct. Was the procedure of the Con- trol Commission right, when it in- tervened in this matter? I helieve the Control Commission was alto- gether right. Comrade Bersin con- siders that the Contro) Commission sion has now the possibility of pro- eeeding more cautiously. Comrade Sacharov, too, was wrong in assert- ing that the Control Commission in- tervened too late, obviously because he did not know that the interven- tion of the Control Commission commenced as early as February last. Comrade Sacharov may con- vince himself of the fact that if he is so inclined. It is a fact that the intervention of the Control Com- mission did not at once engender positive results, but it would be strange if the Control Commission were to be blamed therefor. We are led to the following con- clusions: 1. The right danger within our Party is a serious dan- ger, being rooted in the social-econ- omic conditions of the country. 2. The danger of a right deviation is enhanced by the presence: of diffi- culties which cannot be overcome without a victory over the right deviation itself and over the con- ciliatory attitude observed towards it. 3. In the Moscow organization there were signs of uncertainty and vacillation and elements of insta- bility, 4. With the aid of the Con- trol Commission and the Party workers of the districts, the nu- cleus of the Moscow Committee has |adopted all possible measures to- wards the liquidation of these vacil- lations. 5. There can be no doubt but that the Moscow Committee will succeed in overcoming the mistakes apparent in its midst. 6, Our task lies in the liquidation of internal strife, in the uniform consolidation of the Moscow organization, and in a successful execution of the new election of nuclei committees on the basis of an increased self-criticism. Institute for Blind to Fire Blind Workers TORONTO, (By Mail).—Dis- charge of all blind and partially siehted workers over 50 years of age will be made by the Canadian Na- tional Institute for the Blind from its workshops. The dismissals, to take effect Dec. 1, are made on the grounds that “it is not economically sound to keep them.” STOCKHOLM, (By Mail).—The Swedish Boot and Leather Workers’ Union has concluded pn agreement lef rnity end friendship with the Tcather Workers Union of the U. did not act rightly when it ap- 5. S. R. ‘ jnical language might be called |“trade union ideology” is system- jatically fostered. Trade union ideology is the breeding ground of reformism and of a non-revolution- ary viewpoint, and an obstacle to political (class) ideological .devel- opment unless it is definitely out- grown. For most Brookwood gradu- ates, however, the dose seems fatal. | Teaching Liberal, Petty-Bourgeois. | %—The view of the liberal, which is petty bourgeois in its roots, per- ivades the school’s teachings rather |than the viewpoint of the revolution- jist, which is proletarian in its roots. | Liberal ideology is often in form to the “left” of the official viewpoint of the bureaucracy of the A. F. of L., which tends to take its stand on the platform of big business and the extreme reaction in America. Thus, liberals often advocate ‘the recognition of the Soviet Union, but Green and Woll are more anti-Sov- iet Union: in their utterances than the chamber of commerce or the bankers of the Federal Reserve Sys- tem. length into the characteristics of Brookwood “education.” Sufficient to say that if A. J. Muste succeeds in getting a new trial from William Green, and he wants to call in ex- pert testimony, we will be glad to make affidavit that Brookwood is in no sense a Communist, institution. Licorish, Negro Hero of Vestris Exposes White Officer’s Lies An affidavit made by Lionel Licorish, . heroic Negro quarter- master of the Vestris, who saved 20 lives during the disaster, refutes completely the lying charges of Ernest Smith, second refrigerating engineer of the vessel, who declared that it was he and not Licorish who saved the 20 people among who was Licorish himself. 3 The affidavit, made, jt was an- nounced, to halt once and for all the persistent slanders against Negro members of the crew. | Licorish, in his affidavit, points jout that Smith got aboard the boat while he (Licorish) was swimming ‘after a floating sail. He gives the idetails of the heroic rescue which have been corroborated by a number of passengers and seamen, ms Ny It is not my purpose to go at any, f J