The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 25, 1928, Page 3

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1928 To the Plenum of the Central Committee, on the Tasks THE TASKS OF THE PARTY IN THE PRESENT SITUATION THE WAR DANGER The present, third period of post-war development of world capi- talism, is the period of so-called capitalist reconstruction. “The third period, which, in the main, is the period in which capi- talist economy is exceeding the pre-war level and in which the econ- omy of the U. S. S. R. is also almost simultaneously exceeding the pre-war level (the beginning of the so-called “reconstruction period,” the further growth of the socialist forms of economy on the basis of a new technique.) For the capitalist system, this is the period of rapid development of technique and accelerated growth of cartels and trusts, and in which tendencies of development towards state capital- ism are observed. At the same time, it is a period of intense develop- ment of the contradictions of world capitalism, operating in forms determined by the whole of the preceding process of the crisis of capitalism (contraction of markets, the U. S. S. R., colonial move- ments, growth of the inherent contradictions of imperialism.) This third period, in which the contradictions between the growth of the productive forces and the contraction of markets become particularly accentuated, is inevitably giving rise to a fresh series of imperial- ist wars:—among the imperialist states themselves; wars of the impe- rialist state against the U. S. S. R.; wars of national liberation against imperialism and imperialist intervention, and to gigantic class battles. The intensification of all international antagonisms, (antagonisms between the capitalist states and the U. S. S. R., the military occupa- tion of Northern China,—which is the beginning of the partition of China—, the mutual struggles between the imperialists, etc.), the intensification of the internal antagonisms in capitalist countries (the swing to the Left of the masses of the workingclass, growing acuteness of the class struggle), and the wide development of colonial movements (China, India, and Syria), which are taking place in this period, wil inevitably lead,—through further development of the con- tradictions of capitalist stabilization,—to capitalist stabilization becoming still more precarious and to the severe intensification of the general crisis of capitalism.” (Thesis of the Sixth World Congress of the Comintern). The highly sharpened rivalries between American and British Imperialism which constitute the central point in the present world political situation, are leading inevitably to a new world war. At the same time imperialist rivalries are sharpening between the European imperialist powers, (England and France against reviving German imperialism, Europe against the United States, etc.) World imperial- continues to press for the further partition of China, generating in this process sharp conflicts between America and Japan, America and England, (Anglo-French bloc), the developing Anglo-Japanese alliance against U. S. imperialism, etc. The betrayal of the Chinese revolution by the Chinese bourgeoisie produced a temporary setback in the further development of the revolution in its present higher stage under the leadership of the Communist Party. New forces are accumulating for a fresh successful attack against the imperialists and its agents the native militarists and their bourgeoisie in China. Revolutionary struggles against colonial oppression are fast maturing in India where the oppressed masses of peasants led by the working class are coming more and more to the foreground as the main force and leaders of the revolution. Unrest among the colonial peoples of Latin America, Africa, etc. is developing at a fast rate under the heavy pressure of imperialist aggression. At the same time world imperialism continues to sharpen its teeth against the Soviet Union whose economic growth on a Socialist basis intensifies the contradictions of imperialism. The danger of an imperialist attack against the Soviet Union is becoming increasingly more actual. Thus the present third period of post-war capitalism ushers in a period of highly sharpened imperialist rivalries chiefly between America and England, intensified imperialist attacks upon the colonial peoples against imperialism (China, India, Latin America, ete.), inten- sified preparation for imperialist war against the Soviet Union and sharp class struggles of the working class and the poor peasantry against the capitalists within all the imperialist countries, 1. TOWARDS A MATURING ECONOMIC CRISIS The Present Economic Situation in the United States The curve of industrial development which in the middle of 1928 took a turn upward, is again beginning to show downward trends. The persistence of the present industrial depression, aggravated by the critical situation in such basic sections of economy as coal, tex- tile, shipping, oil and agriculture, points to the maturing of an eco- nomic crisis with the consequert misery and suffering for the toiling masses. Only a few industries have shown increasing production in recent months. These are automobiles, steel, farm machinery, and electric power and equipment. This fact and the further industrialization of the south (coal, iron, textiles) explain the slight upward turn in the last several months, This, however, produced no notable improvement in the general depression. It prevented, however, a sharp drop and the opening of the economic crisis. The intensive application of farm machinery to agriculture is worsening the condition of the small farmer and is cisplacing farm labor. The growth of electyic power is aggravating further the crisis in the coal industry. The continued industrialization in the south is accelerating the decline of the industries in New gland. While the growth of technique, efficiency and general rationalization is further displacing labor from industry and increas- ing the army of “superfluous” workers. From a record output of 91.3 per cent. of capacity in October, steel production has fallen to 79 per cent. in the third week of Novem- ~ber. The average for November is estimated at about 82 per cent. while the output for December is for a rate of about 80 per cent. The automobile industry, which was the main buyer of steel in recent months, is itself slowing down production. The October output of automobiles shows a decline of nearly 4 per cent. from the output in September. Building permits and operations are on the decrease. The same is even’ more true of the industry producing agriculture machinery. The tendencies of decline in U, S. agriculture are continuing. Its specific gravity in American capitalist economy is decreasing. At the same time the buying capacities of the masses are falling. Pro- ducts of manufacture are progressively taking the place of food- stuffs and raw material in U. S. export trade. The recent intensive introduction of high modern technique into agriculture is accom- panied by concentration of land and agrarian capital in the hands of big bankers and farmer capitalist, the further worsening of the con- ditions of the small, so-called independent farmer, and the expropri- ation and proletarianization of large masses of working and tenant farmers. This further undermines the home market and accelerates the maturing economic crisis. Further expansion of some of these key and other industries or the steady maintenance of the present rate of operation, drive the capitalists to imperialist war to secure new markets and to ration- alization measures to cheapen production for competition on the world market by further attacks upon the standards of the workers. _ The time of a large yearly expansion of automobile sales in the U. S. “has gone forever,” declared Milar V. Ayres, a prominent capi- talist economist. The present producing capacity of the steel industry jis about eight million tons above the present volume of home con- sumption plus export. U. S. export of commodities is increasing but the rate of increase js declining showing highly intensified world imperialist rivalries. In the two years, 1925-27, European capitalism gained 10 per cent. in export trade, while American capitalism gained 5 “per cent., that is, a rate of increase of 2% per cent. pear year. But in the nine months of 1928 the rate of increase of U. S. exports was only 1.4 over the corresponding period of 1927. In Latin America, United States export of capital is continually increasing, but the export of commodities is meeting the increasingly sharpening competition of European capital. Hence the intensive offensive of American capitalism against labor at home and for impe- rialist expansion abroad. Hence the present concentration of Ameri- can imperialism to subdue and conquer Latin America, The highly inflated speculative condition on the stock market, while reflecting a stil existing surplus of credit facilities, which the federal reserve board places at the disposal of Wall Street, to main- tain the show of “prosperity,” and to enrich the big bankers, is greatly contributing towards the approaching economic crisis. Credit inflation which is at the basis of the feverish speculation on the stock market, is an important characteristic of the present economic situation. This speculation which is in total disproportion to either present or prospective expansion in industry, while divert- ing the surplus credit from a more dangerous industrial inflation, is a one of the contrbiuting causes of the approaching crisis. | We herewith publish the theses of the Foster-Bittelman Opposition presented to the Plenum of the Central Executive Committee Dec. 15. It was rejected by the Central Executive Committee by a vote of 28 against 7, with one abstention. The efforts of big capital and the Federal Reserve Board controlled by | it, to deflate somewhat the situation on the stock market without seriously effecting the industrial situation cannot succeed, in the face of the tremendous disproportion between the rate of accumulation of capital and the rate of industrial expansion. The enormous accumulation of capital by the monopolies, the industrial corporations and banks, resulting from mounting profits and super profits, continues to be exported in increasing quantities. the export of capital, which is stimulating the growing aggressiveness and war preparation of U. S. imperialism, while tending to promote the expansion of armament and machine producing industries in the U. S., at the same time further undermines the home production of food, raw materials, and those industries generally which produce ar- ticles of consumption. g Thus even the capitalist economists are forced to admit the ap- proach of a crisis. “The philosophical observer with economic history in mind knows, that a turn is ahead, and that the very frevor in the present public belief in increasing prosperity is one of the instru- ments of a future decline,” (Annalist, November 9, 1928). Virgil Cordon, chief economist of the National Industrial Con- ference Board, says: “Next year will go down as a crucial one in our economic life, for in it we shall come face to face with certain new, fundamental and unsolved problems of economic control and adj ment” (New York Times, November 22, 1928). The very optimistic Harvard Economic Society declared that “it is improbable that the 1928 rate of expansion will be maintained” (Weekly Letter, November 17, 1928). | Leonard P. Ayres, a prominent Cleveland financier, says: “We appear to be leaving behind us the wonderful golden age that we have enjoyed most of the time since the depression of 1921, during which prosperity has prorhised to be perpetual, the old-fashioned business cycles with their recurrent booms and depressions have been in abey- | ance, and the trend of stock prices has been almost constantly up- ward.” (Annalist, October 12, 1928). While monopolist capital continues to extract tremendous profits by intensified exploitation of the masses at home and imperialist robbery abroad, the condition of the proletariat and the working farmer are-progressively becoming worse. Trustification of industry, (gigantic mergers) transportation and commerce (notably, chain stores) under the domination of finance capital is proceeding at a tremendous rate, Capitalist rationalization, and the process of the organizations of Big Capital becoming grafted on to the organs of state power, which has received a fresh impetus with the election of Hoover, spells more suffering for the toiling masses. The permanent army of several millions of “superfluous workers,” displaced from industry by rationalization, is continually swelled by new rationalization drives, by the depression, and by the influx into | the cities of ruined farmers. The general index of employment of the Bureau of Labor Statisties (a government agency) for September | 1928, stands at 87.3 per cent., which is lower than in September, 1927 (88), while the index for average monthly employment during the first nine months of 1928 stood at 85.6, about the same as in February. 1928 (85.5) when over five million workers were unemployed. While the demand for skilled labor was somewhat larger between August and November than in previous months, the unemployment situation among the semi-skilled and unskilled has undergone very little change. ‘Wages of the bulk of the working class are tending downward. A small section of the organized skilled workers have maintained the 1927 rates, with slight increases occurring only in isolated instances. At the same time the wages of the unskilled and semi-skilled are continually being cut while the cost of living is tending upward. Real wages and the share of national income that goes to wages are , declining. The physical condition of the masses is fast deteriorating © under the terrific pressure of speed-up and rationalization. The present depression is leading to an economic cris: This is made inevitable not alone by the temporarily stayed cyclical crisis, the sharp outbreak of which was delayed by the growth cf new indus- tries, industrialization of the south, credit inflation, installment buying, etc., but also by the basic structural changes which are taking place in American capitalism. These structural changes are caused by the maturing inner con- tradictions of U. S. capitalism such as the disproportion between pro- duction and consumption, the disproportion between the rate of ex- pansion of productive capacity and the rate of growth of volume of production, structural unemployment, unevenness in industrial develop- ment as between separate industries and various sections of the coun- try, the contradictions of rationalization and of capital export, polari- zation of wealth and poverty, etc. The very factors which have con- tributed to postpone the sharp outbreak of an economic crisis will con- siderably worsen the consequence of the crisis when it comes. American capitalism is about to reach the apex of growth. This means that further expansion in the present period of world capital- ism leads the ruling class of the U. S. to further and more drastic attacks upon the standards of life of the American masses, and to an attempt at an armed redivision of the world market and the spheres of imperialist domination. In other words to rationalization and war. THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE WAR DANGER. | 2. The Present Political Situation in the United States. | American imperialism is preparing for war, chiefly against England to secure more colonies (Latin America, China, etc.) and larger spheres of imperialist domination. But the other imperialist powers mainly England, stand in the way, hence the sharpening con- flict between the ruling classes of America and England, which is now the central point of world imperialist rivalries. Hence, the Anglo- French Agreement, and the revival of the Anglo-Japanese alliance~ countered by the large naval construction program in the U. S., Cool- idge’s war challenge and Kellogg’s speech on Armistice Day, Cool- idge’s: message to Congress, Hoover’s imperialist mission to South America, ete. The present war conflict between Bolivia and Paraguay, engineered by U. S. and British imperialism respectively, shows the high tension of rivalry between these two imperialist powers. Ideo- logical, political, and military preparedness are the main order of business for the capitalist government and ruling class in the U. S. The election of Hoover, the expansionist and rationalizer, symbolizes the war preparations of American imperialism. Hostility to the Soviet Union continues an essential characteristic of U. S. imperialist policy. American imperialism participates in the efforts of world imperialism to undermine and prepare for military attack upon the Soviet Union, despite developing tendencies to enlarge economic relations with the Soviet Union, etc. This must not lead to the serious mistake of minimizing the danger of U. S. imperialism participating in attacks upon the Soviet Union. (Nearing). U. S. imperialism is further penetrating into China. Under the cloak of favoring the unification of China, U. 8, imperialism is actu- ally laying the basis for further miiltary intervention in and the parti- tion of China. Together with the ex-nationalist government American imperialism is waging war upon the Chinese revolution. At the present time U. S. imperialism is especially concentrating on crushing and subjugating Latin America, Nicaragua giving the key to its policy. As part of its war and rationalization drive U. S. im- perialism intensifies the attack upon the Communist Party, the new, industrial unions and militant working class organizations generally. CAPITALIST RATIONALIZATION AND IMPERIALIST WAR Rationalization and imperialist war are two organically connected parts of the one central policy of American capitalism in its efforts to. overcome its sharpening inner and outer contradictions in the pres- ent period. Consequently, capitalist rationalization and war prepara- tions have become the central issues of the class struggle. This is the issue which in the present period determines class relationships and political alignments. The analysis of the objective situation and the political line form- ulated in the document of the minority “The Right Danger in the American Party,” has been proven correct by subsequent events. The right wing line and analysis of the majority of the Central Com- mittee, which does not see the organic connections between the matur- ing inner contradictions of American imperialism and the sharpening imperialist rivalries between America and England, is now leading to @ serious underestimation of the war danger and to opposition to con- nect the struggle against the war danger with the everyday struggles of the American masses against capitalist rationalization. CLASS RELATIONSHIPS IN THE UNITED STATES Big monopolist capital is leading in the rationalization and war preparation offensive of American capitalism. The strong tendency among the ¢ in the U. S. for an upward revision of the tariff, which the 1; reacracy is supporting (the Wage Earners’ Pro- tective Conference headed by Woll), is part of this offensive. This offensive is supported by the independent capitalists, who at the same time are developing friction with big capital against monopoly pric raw m serve Board, city and much pac ls, against credit discriminations by the Federal Re- ete. This offensive is also supported by the well-to-do farmer petty bourgeoisie, although hesitatingly and with twaddle about disarmament and peace. The corrupt y and bureaucracy of labor is militantly supporting big its war and rationalization offensive, attempting to trans- rm the whole organized labor movement into an adjunct of the American imperialist war machine, (The A. F. of L. convention in New Orleans). But the bulk of the industrial and agrarian working class, the large masses of the semi-skilled and unskilled workers, together with the working farmers and the mass of oppressed Negroes, who have nothing to gain and everything to lose from the rationalization and e of U. S. capitalism, are confusedly but increasingly re- acting against this whole program. As the process of radicalization proceeds further these toiling masses, under the leadership of the Communist Party, will progressively develop stronger and more con- scious resistance. It is upon such a perspective of sharpened class relations and class struggles against war and capitalist rationalization that our Party must orientate its general line in the present period. The general line of the majority of the Central Committee i based upon an underestimation of the maturing inner and outer con- tradictions of American Capitalism. This means an underestimation of the War Danger as well as of the radicalizing effects of capitalist rationalization upon the m: The line of the Central Executive Committee majority does not orientate itself upon sharpening class relations (no radicalization process among the masses, no perspective of struggle). Consequently, the line of the Central cutive Com- mittee majority makes concessions to a Social Reformist perspective and conception on the class struggle in the U. S. POLITICAL PARTIES The Republican and Democratic Parties—both political instru- ments of big capital—are proceeding full speed ahead to put into effect the war and rationalization program of big capital. The so- called progressive wing of these parties (Norris, Brookhart, LaFol- lette, Shipstead, Wheeler, etc.) reflecting the grievances of the smaller capitalists are in reality only helping big capital to deceive the masses and to keep them with the old parties. The process of trustification, while creating a new stratum of petty bourgeoisie directly in the employ of big capital, is at the same time worsening the conditions of the petty manufacturers and mer- chants, driving sections of them into the ranks of the proletariat. These elements of the petty bourgeoisie highly dissatisfied with the domination of the trusts, will be able to develop effective resistance against big capital only by supporting the struggles of the workers led by the Communist Party. The reactionary trade union bureaucracy (Green, Woll, Lewis, etc.) has assumed full charge of the political leadership of the cor- rupt aristocracy of labor. It has accepted the war and rationalization program of American imperialism and is proceeding to put it into effect by company unionizing the trade unions and through its so- called non-partisan political policy, which is, subordination to the Republican and Democratic Parties. By this means the reactionary trade union bureaucracy and the trade union machinery controlled by them are becoming ever more organic parts of the capitalist industrial and political machine, that is, organs of capitalist rationalization and war preparations, The Socialist Party continues to decline as a political factor in the class struggle. The Socialist Party has long ceased to be a work- ing class organization. It is doomed to become submerged in any middle class liberal movement that may arise. Its main political characteristic today is a weak brand of progre: m and pacifism, that is, support for capitalist rationalization and war in whith it is hardly to be distinguished from Norris, Brookhart, etc. The Socialist Party is being continuously weakened at one end by the so-called pro- gressives in the capitalist parties, plus the reactionaries in the trade unions, and on the other hand by the Communist Party from the pro- letarian elements, Farmer Labor, and Labor Party movements, essentially fed- erated bodies of existing labor or labor and farmer organizations, with few exceptions, have practically disappeared. This is due to the deepening gulf between the organized aristocracy of labor which is continually moving to the right and the mass of the unskilled and semi-skilled workers who though becoming radicalized are not yet organized, the general decline of the old trade union movement, the negligible organization of the working and exploited farmers, and the growing influence of the Communist Party. The wrong conceptions of the majority of the c&ntral committee, that without a Labor Party we cannot develop mass political struggles of the American workers, that a Labor Party, or Farmer Labor Party is the only medium whereby the Communist Party can promote inde- pendent political action, that the Labor Party will be the emancipator of the working class, are chiefly responsible for the serious right wing errors committed by the Party on these questions. The Party must reject these wrong conceptions and adopt the position that its main task is to build the Communist Party as the political party of the American toiling masses by initiating and leading their every day struggles and by revolutionizing their consciousness. The Party must steject the proposition of Farmer-Labor Parties and advocate*an alli- ance between the workers and working farmers in which the Commun- ist Party must fight to win leadership. In Minnesota, the Dakotas, Pennsylvania, etc., where there exist Farmer-Labor, or Labor Party groupings, it shall be the policy of the Party to bring about a sepa- ration of the workers and working farmers from these organizations, and to direct the awakening political understanding of the masses into the channels of the Communist Party and the mass movements led by it. The Labor Party slogan, in this period, can only be used in a propaganda sense and not for mass agitational campaigns. The Labor Party in the U. S. can come into existence, if it does, only as a by-product of organized economic and political mass struggles in which the Communist Party will fight for and assume leadership. Only Communist Party.is a real Workers Party able to lead the toil- ing masses in their every day struggles and to the overthrow of capitalism. REFORMISM AND PACIFISM Reformism and pacifism are the main enemies of our Party in its task to mobilize the masses against the capitalist war and rationalization offensive. Hence our main fire must be directed against the agents of reformism and pacifism among the toiling masses, The attitude of the Majority of the Central Gommittee, which is to underestimate the basic importance of struggle against pacifism and reformism, must be rejected decisively, Bourgeois reformism finds it expression in the capitalist ideo- logy of “permanent prosperity,” “capitalism without crisis,” “aboli- tion of classes by gradual diffusion of wealth,” “employment stabili- zation,” ctc., (Carver, Tugwell, Catchings and Foster, Hoover’s fake unemployment scheme, company unionism, welfare systems, etc.) It is based upon the tremendous accumulation of wealth by the ruling class secured through imperialist robbery and intensive exploitation of the masses at home, and is designed to overcome the maturing con- tradictions which are undermining the existing capitalist system. It strives to further corfupt matcbially and ideologically the aristocracy and by ideological corruption, to stem the process of -radicalization and bureaucracy of labor and certain sections of the petty bourgeoisie, and organization among the semi-skilled and anskilled workers. Bourgeois reformism is at present an organic part of the rationaliza- tion and imperialist wer machine of big capital. Social reformism has adopted these illusions and movements ae- THESES OF THE FOSTER-BITTELMAN MINORITY of the Party in Present Situation veloped by American imperialism in its rationalization and its war programs, thereby making itself more directly than ever a capitalist instrument for the exploitation and demoralization of the workers. Through the petty bourgeois and labor agents of big capital the poi- son of bourgeois reformism finds its way into t orking class. There it appears in the garb of “class collaboration,” “the higher strategy of labor,” ‘LaFolettism, petty-bourgeois S ism and re- formism, pacifism, etc. The labor bureaucracy, the the so-called liberal churchman, the liberals and Republican and Democratic Parties, the host of bourge: conomists and efficiency experts,—all these ite the cha through which bourgeois and petty bourgeois reformism—the servants of big capital, are attempting to break the developing resistance of the masses to capitalist rationalization and war preparations. Pacifism and Reformism are as much organic parts of the im- perialist machine for war preparation as are jingoism and open mili- tarism. The Kellogg Treaty and the big navy proposals are but two phases of one war policy. Hence the Party while waging a struggle against jingoism and militarism must concentrate its main attack upon exposing and de- feating reformism and pacifism among the working masses. The Party must reject the wrong view of the majority of the Central Committee that bourgeois zation illusions are not consti dangerous to the development of a re among the masses (Bedacht), that because the S. Ss k is to win the masses away not from reformism but from ¢ cious support of capitalism (Lovestone), that the general C. I. line of concentrating and sharpening the struggle against reformism and pacifism does not apply to the U. S. (Pepper, Lovestone), th condemnation by the C. I. of the open letter tactic to the S. P. did not apply to Wolfe’s instruction to the California D. E. C. to send an open letter to the S. P., ete. Such views lead to an underestimation of the need of con- centrated struggle against Social Democracy (in the U. S. this means struggle against the S. P., union real ifists, progressives in the old parties, liberal churchmen, farn m, bourgeois eco- nomist and efficiency experts ,etc.) It leads to an underestimation of the war danger and to a distortion of the C. I. general line in the THE RADICALIZATION PROCESS AMONG THE MASSES The proceeds of radicalization among the unskilled and semi- skilled workers, the working youth, the working farmer and the Negro masses is continuing. Signalized and evidenced by such struggles and the leading role of our Party in them, as F ic, the miners’ strike, the SaccoVanzetti struggles, New B hill, Perth Amboy, Colorado, Bayonne, etc., it finds anifestation in the foment and dissatisfaction among the automobile workers, rubber workers, steel workers, (the sporadic strikes in Flint, Cambridge, Can- ton, Milltown), the awakening consciousness and militancy among the Negroes, the sympathetic response of the masses to our agitation in the Presidential elections, the formation of n unions under mili- tant leadership in the mining, textile, and garment idnustries, ete. It is these semi-skilled and un-skilled mas who feel the brunt of rationalization, that are becoming radicalized while sections of the labor aristocracy are becoming more bourgeosified. : This radicalization process has not yet reached the high stage of mass political support of the Communist Party. While becoming in- creasingly more dissatisfied with preesnt conditions, more suspectible to Communist ideology, and ready to struggle on the more eleemntary economic field under our leadership, the masses are still politically dominated by petty bourgeois illusio This has been confirmed by the course and r ts of the Presi- dential elections. The communist vote, though considera than was possible to secure in the given situation, has g1 102%. The §. P. vote has declined, imdicating that the conclusion labo? element is goin gto us while the petty-bourgeoisie and backward workers went to Smith, from whom Thomas was not much different. The Smith popular vote is highly significant in the folloging re- spects. Smith’s task and role.in the elections was to decesive the dis- satisfied masses with liberal demagogy and his fake record of a “labor friend” in order to divert the developing radicalization pro- cess among the masses into the safe channels of the Democratic Party where big capital can continue to control them. This task Smith Consciously carried out at the behest and with the*money of big capital. In this Smith was successful. y deception, false pretenses, and trickery, and with the support of a large section of the labor bureauc- racy Smith prevented in this election large masses of workers from accepting the leadership of the Communist Party on the political field as they already accept it on the economic field. We are leading the miners, the textile and garment workers in big economie struggles, in the organization of new militant unions, but Smith succeeded in deceiving large masses of these workers to accept his political leader- ship in the Presidential elections. Th een in Smith carrying New Bedford, the whole state of Massachusetts, and receiving a large vote in the mining centers, and in carrying nearly all the big cities of the east and middle west. f Lenin wrote as follows of Roosevelt’s vote in 1912: “The American proletariat is already awakened and is on the alert. With fresh irony it confronts Roosevelt’s success. ‘You enlisted four million people by your promises of reform, dear charlatan, Roosevelt! Very well. Tomorrow these four million will see that your promises aré deception. And besides THESE MILLIONS FOLLOW YOU JUST BECAUSE THEY FEEL— THEY CAN NO LONGER LIVE IN THE OLD WAY.” (otr emphasis). With even more emphasis, we can apply these words of Lenin to the success of Smith, and for the following reasons: 1. Millions of workers, particularly those dissatisfied with present conditions, have voted for Smith. Smith carried most of the industrial centers in the east and middle west. He received tremendous votes in the textile, mining, and garment centers; 2. Smith’s fake reputation of “labor friend.” Compare this with Roosevelt’s open hostility to labor, his leadership of open shop drives, etc.; 3. The main body of the trade union reactionaries and so-called liberals supported Smith and suc- cessfully helped to deceive the workers into supporting Smith. Com- pare this with the fact that in 1912 the trade union reactionaries and main body of liberals supported Wilson and not Roosevelt; 4. In 1912 the S. P. was stil a working class organization. Its candidate was Debs and not Thomas. Debs received nine hundred thousand votes at that time. Hence, if it was correct, and it was so, for Lenin to write of the Roosevelt vote in 1912 that millions followed him because they felt that they could no longer live in the old way, then this is doubly true today of the vote of Smith. It is absolutely wrong to say, as the Daily Worker says (editorial, Nov. 8) that the workers had voted for Smith because they were satisfied with capitalism. Tomorrow these millions of workers who voted for Smith will see that Smith and thé labor fakers deceived them. The Party must now particularly concentrate its agitation among the masses who followed Smith in the elections to accelerate their disillusionment and to win support for our Party. In order to be able to accomplish this important task, the Party «must decisively reject and condemn the fatalistic, right wing analysis of the results of the elections given by the majority of the Central Committee in the Daily Worker editorial of November 8, and in the article of Comrade Pepper on November 10. This analysis completely fails to recognize the tremendous volume of dissatisfaction be” nd a large s” tion of the Smith vote which our Party must and will direct into the channels of struggle against Capital- ism under Communist leadership. It fails to see Smith’s true role of an agent put up by big Capital, to stem the process of radicalization. It finally pictures a perspective which excludes all possibility of mass pelitical struggle by the workers short of a revolutionary crisis in ‘the U.S. This conception the Party must condemn. The Communist vote, though increased since 1924, is considerably below what it was possible to register, and reflects only a small por- tion of the actual dissatisfaction, and radicalization of the masses, large sections of whom are practically disfranchised. From the point of view of Party poling the main reasons for our small vote are the following: 1. Failure to connect systematically the economic strug- gles of the masses with our political slogans; 2. Failure to link up our struggle against the war danger with the struggle against capital- ist rationalization (wage cuts, speed-up, unemployment) and the fail ure to make these the outstanding issues in the election struggles; 3. The mechanical and opportunist methods of getting our Party on the ballot (the Codkind letter, the continuation of practicing the met! ods of that letter’after the C. I. condemned it) which methods pro vented us from bringing to the masses our oifstion and program; 4. Continued on Net Page r