The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 26, 1929, Page 3

DAILY WORKER, 'W YORK, SATURDAY, JAN PARTY PRE-CONVENTI By EMIL GARDOS. To solve successfully the problems | ahead of us, the keynote of the! coming convention shall be a “ruth- less exposure of our defects” in or- der to correct them and to overcome them in the future. If there is a single section of the Communist In- ternational where the slogan of self- | criticism must be a living reality, it | is certainly our Party. The diffi cult conditions under which we work, the power of Americar im- perialism and the backwardness of 'and the Party apparatus as in a |“deplorable condition.” Statements of this kind do not | ‘lead to the raising of the Party’s| level, to the developing of its fight-| ing spirit, but (to use the famous| sentence of the Dec. 3 statement! against its writers) they “have the! steps must be taken to help the Par- effect of paralyzing the fighting/ty organization, through the send- ability of our Party and will lead|ing down of organizers, circuit to. . . the weakening of the work-| teachers and mostly through sys- ing class and the strengthening of| tematic colonization. its enemies. The colonization in the past was The draft thesis on organization’ gone mostly in an anarchistic, hap- the working class, the history of |™USt be hailed as a great step to- our Party, the different streams of | Wd overcoming many of our short- the labor movement from which it originated, our ideological and or- ganizaticnal weakness, the long- drawn-out factional struggle, ete— all this necessitate thorough self- criticism, for “the candid acknowl- edgement of error, the exposure of its source, the analysis of the situa- tion in which the error arises, the careful consideration of the best means to remove tge error and finally, its correction—this is the characteristic of a really serious party,...” (Lenin: Left Wing Com- munism.”) The theses of the Central Execu- tive Committee, the resolution on the |comings. It means that we are be- |ginning to realize that the correct |poliey is not enough for reaching land leading the masses, it must be jalso put into practice. When con- sidering our achievements, we must say that while we have made real headway since 1925, when the Party was reorganized and the present Majority took over the leadership, | still bigger success could have been |recorded, hadn’t it been for (1) our [organizational shortcomings, poor |social composition and the low ideological level of our membership jas a whole; (2) the destructive and | unprincipled factional struggle. With |the latter evil eliminated through | hazard way, without proper coordi- nation between the national, district and local organization, without mak- ing sure that the right man gets to the right place. Vefy few com- rades went out as colonizers and | still less made good, either because they were not fit for that work or because they couldn’t support them- selves financially. It is absolutely necessary that the district Org. Departments of the Party and the Y. W. L. pay special attention to the sending out of sel- ected comrades into the field and that they make it possible for them to get to the place and to support themselves. The large cities in the Organizational Problems Before the Party hardly speak English. How can we expect, for instance, that our Party make real progress in the anthracite, | where we have only 2-3 native members and very few American- ized comrades? Beside colonization and increased attention to the youth, special efforts must be made to reach the American-born workers, to give them literature or Daily Workers, to get them closer to us, In this connection the importance of the Daily Worker as a medium | to reach the native workers cannot |be emphasized too much. The drawing in of proletarian ele- ments into leading Party committees cannot be done mechanically, for the sake of the record, as it may be/ the case in some instances. Care must be taken to select the righ! material who has a chance to be de- veloped and once he is in a higher committee, special, personal atten- tion must be paid to really train various districts must take care of{him, to really draw him into the jeven these nuclei don’t function in a satisfactory manner. In the smaller industrial towns the dropping of the language branch and the forming of nucle was—and to some extent still is as much a revolutionary change as the transformation of the Left wing into the Communist Party several years ago. The shop-nucleus, the acid test of our membership, is met by a covered, or, in some instances, tance of the weak mater- Our experiences in the anthra- ‘cite, where the entire membership of proletarian s elements, fully bear out this fact. The formal reorganization of 1925 id not create much changes here. In st of the places they changed |their name from language branch into a sireet-nucleus and kept on functioning as before. The efforts |to organize nuclei ted about one year ago and even today, we have to admit that less than one-third of d Right danger passed by the last C. E. C, Plenuin, most of the discus- sion articles and speeches point out a number of errors, of policy and organization alike, giving concrete p yecommendations on how to over- | Org. thesis. On the other hand, the come them. This self-criticism must Convention must definitely repudiat be continued in increased measure |the complete denial of our achieve et the conyention and afterward. We | ments and a tear-dropping overem- must do it in spite of the present | Phasis on our shortcomings. While factional situation, in spite cf its |Tejecting such statements as “Our being capitalized by the “Militants,” | nuclei are mere ticket-selling agen- the “New Leaders” and the capitalist cies and carry on no political and press, because this will “raise the | 0rganizational work,” we have to level of our Party, develop its fight- | admit the many weak points in our ing spirit, reinforee its power and |Party organization. They will not secure its faith in victory.” |be eliminated with the parrot-like ; the convention, we must concentrate jon the first one. Our shortcomings must be pointed out sharply, as it is done in the How Not to “Self-Criticize.” This freedom of Bolshevik crit- icism, however, cannot degenerate into a license for slandering the Party, its leadership and its achieve- ment, as shown in many writings ond still more in sayings of the Op- position. ° The Right.errors will not le overcome by the constant brand- ing of the leadership as a Right wing C. E. ©. The decision cf the Communist International cannot be enforced by having reservations on it, and we cannot mobilize our mem- bership to fight the war danger when important parades, where scores of comrades are arrested, are called “dinky little demonstrations.” (Hathaway.) There is a lot to erit- icize on the organizational situation, but not by describing it as “chaotic” repetition that the “Right wing line |of the C. E. C. is responsible for all,” but through analyzing their source and working out concrete measures to overcome them. Proletarianization. | The mere stating that less than | 50 per cent of our members work | Solve this most burning question of ‘our social composition. When look- | ing for its causes, we will find that | insufficient attention was paid, even in the past years, to the basic in- |dustries, especially the small indus- trial towns where our membership |is very weak, organizationally and ideologically. It is not enough to | speak about the organization of the | unorganized, the importance of the basic industries, ete., but concrete \in basic industries is not going to} the smaller industrial towns. | “industrial backyards” (New Jersey jin District 2) must be brought out | from the back. | The language fraction bureaus should be forced to stop following he line of least resistance by send- ing organizers only to large cities jand neglecting the basic industries. |The ‘keeping a much closer check jon transfer cards before issuing |them, and by not acepting members |without them, will also help in bringing order into the matter. The | National Organization Department must supervise this work and direct the sending of comrades into other | districts, | And in doing all this, the saying of Lenin: better little, but good, inust be ke; |coordination and control of this | work Will put an end to such glar- \ing illustrations of the present an- archy, as, for example, the “decol- | onization” of black-listed soft-coal miners into various cities, while the hard-coal region where there is a great need for them and where they could well earn their living, cannot | get any comrades from the former | strike-territory, More attention must be given to | |the native or Americanized workers. In some sections, where the knowl | edge of English is necessary to carry ‘on mass-work, most of our comrades lare not only foreign-born, but. they The | work. Otherwise there is danger of \either having a feeling of inferior- lity developed, which may lead to |discouragement, or by going to the cther extreme, without having the proper understanding of problems. Qur experiences, especially in| Only few comrades put up an strikes, make it clear that the bu-| open resistance to the mine-nuclei reaucratic handling of this question | (some who were known as Commu kills the very aim of it. ‘On the | nists by the boss) but when the de- other hand if the matter is done cisions reached at the meeting re- |properly, if great care is given to | garding the work in the mine and the training of these comrades, giv- | local had to be carried out, when an jing them practical work, drawing open fight had to be made at the |them into training schools, estab- union meeting, things did not move lishment of circuit classes, personal So smoothly. The heritage of the language federation days, inactivity, our membership is organized in yaine-nuclei and that half of the nuclei had to be dissolved, mostly because of members leaving the mine, pt in mind. The proper | jcontact, etc., we will witness in a |short time the coming out of real Party-leaders from the factories and mines. More Shop-Nuclei! |. The process of reorganization |from the territorial to the factory- asis was not even an easy matter in the large European Parties, where there is a much bigger and |more homogenous membership on a |smaller territory with less spy-sys- |tem, less danger of losing their jobs, than in the U. S. In spite of this |difficulty we must state that hadn't it been yor a serious neglect of the |entire organization, from the locals up to the national office, we would |not be faced with the sad fact that only 15 per cent of our members are organized into shop-nuclei and sectarianism, fear to fight, all came out at the time, when the Party had to act no more as a radical society, | but as “the vanguard of the work- ing class, participating in and lead- ing the struggles of the masses.” The majority of our comrades welcomed the formation of the nuc- | lei, became more active in the mine and the local, but not so the dead- wood, those who do not understand as yet or don’t want to understand at all the meaning of the reorgani- zation. Some even dropped out of the Party. One of our nuclei, for |instance, lost two members as a result of the bosses’ and the union officials’ terror following the publi- cation of our mine paper. There was |some hesitation even in the rest as Instead of moving backwards, the nucleus kept up the work and today there is a good chance to get back these two members and even some more besides. Another nucleus hesitated much to| publish a mine paper. After it was done, the bulletin created such a hit that both the company and the union officials had to issue statements to counteract its effect (and in the meantime some minor improvements were made, a bigger wash-house built.) This raised the spirit of our comrades and the next issue will not meet any resistance on their part. Beside the small number and ir- regular appearance of our shop pa- pers, there is a criticism, that they are mostly made up in the district offices and don’t deal sufficiently | with the grievances of the factory. This unhealthy situation is greatly due to the lack of comrades who can write English or who have the technical experience necessary for editing the paper, but at the same time it is due to the failure of the district shop paper committees to draw the members into the work, with the aim of training them. Every member must write at least one article or bit of correspondence in any language he can, the mate- rial must be read to the nucleus meeting, criticized before getting into print. paper committee must discuss with every membc= the article he is to e in the paper and once it is written, he must go through with him on the article, pointing out the shortcomings, ete. This will lead to the training of the nuclei members, to the gradual relegating of the District Office to general political advice and technical help. Wherever possible, classes in workers’ corre- spondence must be organized. The lack of articles in the most important foreign languages must be pointed out too. The resolution | of the ECCI Org. Conference, ad- vising the Parties to have articles in other languages, was not carried out just by our Party, where conditions necessitate it more than elsewhere. The turning of our Party’s face to the factories, the improving of its social composition, etc., must be the big organizational question before us. Even if adequate attention is to whether we did not move too fast.| paid to the formation of nuclei, this| The head of the shop § real Bolshevization will be a process, going hand in hand with the devel- opment of our Party, with its in- creased participation in the class struggle, with the drawing in of the ‘ best elements of the American work- ers. This requires a lot of work, the fullest faith in the Party, the cutting out of defeatist slogans (“reorgani- zation must be reorganized” etc.) and complete unity. Party Fractions. The criticism regarding the v poor state of our fraction organ: tion is put all too mildly by the or- ganization thesis. Both in trade union and language fractions, the blame should be put first on the cen- ter, Our poor showing in the reac- tionary unions, the failure to have delegates at various conventions, cannot be only put to the “swing- ing of the pendulum too much in the other direction,” for it is greatly due to the lack of the national frac- tion apparatus, The national language ction bureaus are not merely “direct agents of the C, E. ©.” They are acting too independently, in many instances still catering to the old pre-reorganization spirit, retarding, instead of helping towards the Americanization and centralization of our Party. Most of the C. E. C. representatives to these fraction bu- reaus do not attend to their task regularly, and even if they do, the organizational and financial matters are mostly left to the language bu- reaus proper, the CEC representa- tive acting as a political adviser in- ying out the Party’s line on all the matters. At pres- ent there is no organ of the CEC to supervise and to coordinate sys- tematically the functioning of the national fractions. The federation spirit is by no means eliminated yet, even leading members forgetting the change which took place in 1925. At the last CEC plenum we heard, for instance, a member of our Cen- tral Committee deliver two speeches on the troubles of the Jewish “Fed- eration” without even touching on general Party questions. This wrong orientation is, of course, causing great damage in the lower units, especially in the small- er industrial towns, where we have one-language units. There are many able comrades, who instead of | busying themselves with important campaigns, are getting lost in the language club, fraternal society branch, considering it more impor- tant than the work in the nucleus. | And what is still worse, some or-| jing in basic ON DISCUSSION SECTION ganizers sent out by the bureaus are helping this wrong line. t is absolutely necessary that a cial sub-committee of the Organ- ization Department, consisting of bureau representatives, with a full time CEC representative, be formed which will have full control, the last word, on every question facing the including organizational subject to the Beside mak- ing the language bureaus inte agents of the CEC to Bolshevize and Americanize our membership efforts must be made to coordinate the work of the various bureaus, to eliminate the glaring disproportion between certain relatively not so important language groups which have several papers, many paid functionaries and others which are weak in spite of their strate- gical importance in the struggle (Polish, Italian) rts must be made to establ t manage- press, to poll the of our Party and it mostly ver is needed, The Membership Wants Unity. Comparing this pre-convention discussion to the previous ones, we will find: (1) Because of the im- portant policies involved the mem- bership is following the discussion articles with more interest and the discussion at the units is on a much higher level than ever before, The Party is fed up with gossip, with personalities, and if there is a dis- cussion, it is mostly on issues. (2) Thanks to the higher level of our Party and the fact that unity is mostly established in the ranks, the situation is by no means so sharp, so much hindering the work as in 1925 or even 1927. The membership want work and unity. (3) The re- ports of the membership meetings as printed in the Daily Worker leave out just those industrial cen- ters where our members are work- industries. In these places the vote is 10:1 or even bet- ter for the CEC. The membership wants unity, based upon a right policy, based upon the carrying out of the CT de- cision without reservation. The membership supports the CEC, un- der whose leadership our Party is on the right road to become “a stal- wart leader of many more stubborn and fierce battles of the American working class.” PUT AN END TO FACTIONALISM! By B. KALFIDES. All those who attended the Feb. 1928 Plenum of the Central Exec- utive Committee were impressed by the fact that the Party was on the road to the elimination of fac- tionalism. The Polcom thesis analyzing the lin the July Communist by Comrade | Foster repudiating some of the un- |just criticisms made by Comrade | Losovsky of the trade union work ‘of the Party. | But this did not last long. The Opposition is not homogeneous. It is a united Opposition of different main danger in the Comintern was | differences within the Polcom of the |Communist Party of the Soviet | Union. Our Opposition did not lose the lopportunity to exnloit the situation. political and economic situation in|¢lements fighting the C. E. C., fight-| When it comes to speculation on in- the U. S. A,, as well as all the reso- lutions and reports were adopted unanimously and without any reser- vations whatsoever. After that Plenum the comrades of the Opposition, and especially Comrade Foster, were working har- moniously and without any serious differences in the Poleom and on various committees, with splendid results for the Party. The best proof that factionalism was at its lowest ebb is the article ling to get power, and that is all they have in common, That is their platform—‘“Fight For Power!” On all other things they disagree and fight among themselves in their own group. Opposition in Moscow. When our delegation to the Sixth World Congress arrived in Moscow, the Opposition which itself has been the main source of the Party’s | Right errors, discovered that the \Say Aldermen in Minneapolis Bribed German Police Beat Worker Unconscious; Are Left Unpunished (Red Aid Press Service) BERLIN, (By Mail).—In Saar- bruecken an innocent worker wes arrested by the police and taken to the station where he was so terribly jing in several injuries, has resulted | beaten that he collapsed. The case in the revelation that Minneapolis | was so flagrant that even the public prosecutor felt compelled to inter- vene and four policemen were tried. The prosecutor declared in court that “the officers beat the prisoner _ senseless.” The accused police defended them- seives by saying that they had Leen compelled to use violence in order to break fhe resistance of the prisoner. The judge acquitted the police, but even hé was compelled to declare in his verdict that there was a sus- picion, not supported by tarigible evidence, that the police had ex- ceeded their duty. The verdict is an encouragement to the police to continue in their widespread practise of beating-up prisoners in the sta- tions, particularly proletarian prisoners when the latter are ar- rested for any political offense. A New Pamphlet FOR THE CLASS CONSCIOUS WORKER by Open Shop Firm MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (By Mail) |—The recently purchased America jLa France fire engine, which on its \first trip thru the streets of Minne- ‘apolis became uncontrollable, result- jaldermen accepted bribes from the huge, open-shop America La France Corporation and Foamite Corpora- |tion, whose machinists have been on ‘strike since last June. These aldermen are said to have shared in a huge “pot” distributed by the La France Corporation. The engine proved faulty, A ‘Must Buy Trucks, Says | Boss; Drivers Strike NEW ORLEANS (By Mail).— The 15 drivers amployed by the Oriental laundry went’ on strike |when the owner of the laundry told the drivers, who work on the per- centage basis, that they must buy the trucks either on cash or instal- ment plan. |ner-Party lines they are at their best, especially so is Comrade Bittel- |man. So they went ahead and com- |posed the now famous document, |“The Right Danger in the American |Party.” It is a fine piece of work— lit is a magical piece of work. For when Cannon stands on it, it be- jcomes opportunism covered with Left phrases. stands on it—it becomes a Leninist document. In no Party thruout the |Comintern will you find the Trot- |skyites to have a common platform | with the Opposition in their respec- | | tive Party arfd disagree interna- tionally. Painting Sparrows Yellow. This reminds me of a story of a Turkish Jew, a bird dealer. He went to Constantinople with a cage- full of sparrows. When he arrived jat the market, he found out that there was a great demand for can- aries. So he went to a paint store, bought a few bottles of yellow paint and painted the sparrows in order to pass them off as canaries. When the Opposition , } So with our Opposition. When |themselves with Left phrases to pass as canaries. But as soon as they opened their mouths, it did not take long for the C. I. and the Sixth World Congress to find out what kind of a bird the Opposition is. | Of course they do not agree with the findings of the C. I. And they |have their reservations. Nobody jdenies that the Right danger is the main danger, that many Right mis- takes were made in the course of our struggles. But the mistakes were committed by the Party as a whole, and both the Majority and the Minority took part in the mis- takes. The C. I. categorically declared that the charge that the C. E. C. jis a Right wing CEC is unfounded. |But the Opposition disagrees, and jof the Party, but he was whipped} the Right danger, and that much \they slandered the C. E. C. as be- | into line by the now “Bittelman |Speculation was going on as to the ing the Right wing, they painted | group.” | But this is not all. ‘The letter re- veals furthermore that the alliance of the groups in the Opposition is good until the present C. E. C, is removed. They do not agree polit- i , that is, the “Cannon” wing with the “theoretician’—as they called Bittelman in the letter. They would have a new factional fight for the leadership as soon as they| have overthrown the present Party leadership. In order to achieve this they must have a collective) leadership and unity in the group first and only secondly, an ideologi- | eal and political clarity which of course they need very badly. In the 1927 convention we wit-| nessed the united blow of the Op- position, fighting the present lead- pus, where all the |guided by the “spirit” of Bittel-) ership on the ground that it was a) jman’s “Marxian vineyard,” opens a| Leftist group, and putting forward| |severe factional struggle again. |the slogan ‘of “general ideological Inner Contradictions. The letter of the Cannon wing, recently of the Opposition, sent by the delegation of the then Cannon- lites to their followers in this coun- |try, reveals very clearly the char- jacter, composition and inner con- | tradictions of the “united” Opposi- tion. Comrade Foster refused to fight the C. E, C. as being the Right wing STARTING MONDAY in the DAILY WORKER and material bourgeoisification of the American working class.” Now we are in a fight with a “united” but badly battered Opposition, fighting the CEC, with the slogan} that the CEC is the Right wing of | the Party, that American imperial- | ism is about to decline, and that a| general widespread radicalization of | the working class in all industries is taking place right now. tribution in G press. Send in your DAILY WORKER DISTRIBUTE A BUNDLE OF Daily Worker Order a bundle of Daily Workers for dis- in union meetings and all other places, where workers congregate. This is one of the best means of familiar- izing workers with our Party and our ORDER A BUNDLE TODAY! Comrade Bittelman, the “theor- etician” who in 1925 said that “if gods lived, fell in love with pianos the goddess of power. He was chas- BUILD THE PARTY! Eastman, etc., etc. and plenty of Chimeras from the “Marxian of all the American working class doesn’t ing Juno all over Mount Olympus. | Marxians’”—Comrade Bittelman. accept our leadership, which is the best the working class can get, then the best thing they can do is to organize a grave-digging asso- ciation and bury themselves,” to- day sees radicalization even when the workers vote for Smith and Raskob—<nite a development! Scramble For Power. In my opinion, the Opposition’s political and organizational bank- ruptcy as we witness it today is the unprincipled scramble for pow-, er. They create differences in or- der to have a platform in their fight for power. The same was Ixion in Greek mythology. Ixion on Mount Olym- ancient Greek BILL HAYWOOD’S BOOK—| now running serially in | ‘he DAILY WORKER—is | available in two editions | $3.50 and $2.50 — Order | your copy today from the | Source of All Revolutionary Literature Workers Library Publishers |} 35 E. 125th ST., NEW YORK CITY front of the large factories, Workers Correspondence and But she was very elusive and al-| ways managed to get away from him. But one day Ixion succeeded in getting Juno in his arms. But Juno played a trick on him and changed places with Nephele, the goddess of clouds. As a result of this illicit love they gave birth to Centaurus and Chimera. Centaurus is the monstrosity in Greek myth- ology which is half horse and half man. This fits our Opposition ex- actly. They chased the goddess of power all these years. They formed unprincipled alliances and blocs and they gave birth to such monstrosi- ties as Lore, Salutsky, Cannon, Complete Sets of THE COMMUNIST for 1928 $1.00 Workers Library Publishers 35 Easr 125TH Street, N. Y, C. THE KRASSIN Maurice Parijanine FS WHAT HAPPENED TO MALMGREN? The heroism of the Rus- sian rescuers of the fas- cist explorers—an amaz- I think it is about time to put an end to this uncalled for factional- ism. Smash the remnants of the Opposition and put the Party unitedly into serious work. Fight against the growing war danger and the Rfght danger in the Party. Fight with all our forces against Trotskyism and help build a mass Communist Party in America. Soon Eased by the Genuine Santal Midy Effective-Harmless Sold by All Druggists | Reading Reading and studying if your eyes are in good con- dition is a pleasure. 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