The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 4, 1929, Page 3

a ae ie nila een ie thee a il he ed a dla ie Pa ea Rae al ame Ra ese DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, MONDAY, MARCH 4, 1929 Page Three OPEN LETTER TO T HE CONVENTION OF THE WORKERS (COMMUNIST) PARTY OF AMERICA FROM THE E.C. C. I. Dear Comrades: _ _ The VI Convention of the Workers (Communist) Party of Amer- ica marks an important stage in the great change through which the Party is now going. From a propagandist organization, uniting chiefly immigrant workers and having an insignificant influence among the native work- ers, the Workers (Communist) Party is now beginning to turn into & mass Party of political action guiding the political and economic actions of the most advanced and the most militant ranks of the American proletariat. The VI Congress of the Comintern empha- sized in its resolutions this important new feature in the develop- ment of the Party, declaring that “a number of stubborn and fierce class battles (particularly the miners’ strike) found in the Commu- nist Party a stalwart leader.” Precisely in the period following the convention of 1927 the Party has been acting with increasing frequency as the stalwart leader of mass actions of the American proletai“:t and has increased its in- fluence among the native workers. The furriers’ and garment work- ers’ strikes, the miners’ strike, the textile workers’ strike in New Bedford and Fall River and the silk strike in Paterson—such is the series of battles in which the Workers Party of America has for the first time appeared in the role of a Party of political action capable of linking up the economic struggles of the proletariat with its poli- tical aims. The struggle for the organization of new unions which the Party had to carry on under circumstances of fierce terrorism on the part of the State apparatus, the murderous bands of powerful triists, the yellow American Federation of Labor and the most stubborn resis- tance of the socialist party, is one of the best pages in the history of the work of the Party during the last year. However, the Party is now just making its first steps on the new path. It is now just on the threshold between the old and the new, it has not yet passed the turning point. It has as yet done little to shift its base from the immigrants to the native Americans em- ployed in the basic industries. It has done still less in relation to the millions of the Negro proletariat. Meanwhile, the conditions which will impose enormous tasks on the Workers Party of America, and will compel it to take the lead in gigantic class conflicts, are developing ever more rapidly. The aggressiveness of the United States in the struggle for mar- kets and the most important source of raw material throughout the world is growing swiftly. The election of Hoover as president means that American imperialism is resolutely embarking on a course which leads to colonial wars of occupation and to an extremely rapid accentuation of the struggle between the United States and its chief imperialist rival—Great Britain. American imperialism is striving for a monopolist position in world economy and polities and is be- coming more and more involved in the universal crisis of capitalism and comes more and more into the orbit of the growing instability of world capitalism. The striving towards domination in world politics drives Amer- ican imperialism, on the one hand, towards brutal capitalist ration- alization which throws considerable sections of the proletariat out of production, leads to an extreme overstrain of labor without cor- responding compensation, to a colossal growth of unemployment (3-4 million) and to a general worsening of the conditions of the working class. On the other hand, it leads towards tremendous growth of armament which puts ever heavier burdens onto the shoulders of the toiling masses, All this and the menace of the terrific calamities of war creates a state of uncertainty and insecurity in the entire working class. It is on this basis that the tendency towards radical- ization of the American working class is increasing; that its activi- ties, its will to defend itself, which in some places transform itself into a will to assume the offensive, is developing. This drift towards the Left does not develop evenly in all parts of the working class. It now embraces chiefly the unorganized workers, especially in those industries which have not reached their previous level after the de- pression of the first half of 1928. The Workers (Communist) Party is obviously still unprepared for the great class conflicts which will inevitably arise on the basis of the sharpening class relations in the United States. Its past still weighs upon its present. The relics of the previous period of its existence form the greatest obstacle in the path it has to travel before it successfully passes the turning point and develops in the shortest possible time from a numerically small propagandist organization into a mass political party of the American working class. This, however, is the task which the whole objective situation in the United States, the entire post-war development of American iniperialism, now places before the Party. This is the chief, funda- mental and decisive task to which all other tasks must be entirely subordinated. The Workers (Communist) Party of America has been for many years an organization of foreign workers not much connected with the political life of the country. Owing to this immigrant exclusive- ness two leading groups arose, took shape and became consolidated within the Party. For six years an almost uninterrupted struggle for supremacy in the Party has been going on between them. The struggle was in the main not based on principle, and, at times, it assumed an unprincipled character. At times it assumed the appear- ance of a struggle based on principle, but in reality it was not en- tirely a struggle of principle; principles served chiefly to camouflage the struggle for supremacy in the Party. Whenever the struggle be- tween the groups was centered more on principles (the attitude to- wards the Labor Party, the question of trade union tactics), the dif- ferences could have been settled without a factional struggle. The absence of substantial differences on points of principle be- tween the combatant factions has been recorded many times by the ECCI as well as by the Party itself. e Thus, in 1925, all resolutions at the IV convention of the Party were adopted by both factions unanimously, notwithstanding the acute factional struggle prior to the convention, But when the convention was over the factional struggle became even sharper than before. Further, the resolution of the presidium of the ECCI on the American question adopted on July 1st, 1927, states: “The objective difficulties, the weaknesses of the Workers (Communist) Party and its inadequate contact with the masses of the native workers, are factors complicating the inner situa- tion of the Workers (Communist) Party. An insufficiently strong Party life, as the result of an insufficient mass basis, the inadequate contact of many members of the former language groups with the specific problems of the class struggle in the United States favor the development of groups and factional struggles, the existence and intensity of which WE SEEK IN VAIN TO EXPLAIN THROUGH SERIOUS DIFFERENCES OF PRINCIPLE.” No less indicative is also the fact that both groups adopted unanimously in February, 1928, extensive theses concerning all vital political problems of the United States, as well as the fact that both groups prior to the VI Congress committed in common Right wing errors, ? Finally, the VI Congress of the CI declared that the factional struggle of theeWorkers (Communist) Party of America “is not based on any serious differences of principle.” Nor can the ECCI find such serious fundamental differences be- tween the convention theses of the Majority and the Minority of the CEC as to justify a struggle within the Party. The differences be- tween the Majority and Minority of the CEC do not go beyond those limits which would make it impossible to settle them without a fac- ional struggle. : The Majority has shown a tendency to underestimate the process of radicalization as well as the process of differentiation in the ranks of the working class, which finds its expression in the attempts to point out the conservatism of the American working class in a static form without giving a class analysis of the causes which underly its backwardness and without a sufficient consideration of the further prospects of development of its political consciousness. - The Minority, on the other hand, overestimates the degree of radicalization of the American working class at the present time, interpreting the vote for Smith of a part of the workers during the presidential elections as a sign of the radicalization of the prole- tariat, This is wrong, just as is the reference to Lenin’s letter of 1912 which refers to the Roosevelt vote, because Roosevelt was a _ candidate of a third party, something which did not exist in the last elections. Both the Majority and the Minority entirely underesti- mate the Leftward trend of the working class in the other capitalist Groups there is no attempt to ovalu- ~ ] ate such important facts as the Lodz strike and the Ruhr lockout; they are not even mentioned. In estimating the character of American Trotskyism, the Ma- jority does not draw in its theses a clear line of division between the out and out Right wing opportunist deviation and Trotskyism, which is opportunism disguised with Left phrases. The failure to under- stand this difference objectively lends to a weakening of the struggle against the main danger—the Right danger, as in reality it limits the struggle to the task of the struggle against Trotskyism. The Minority, however, not only underestimates the Trotskyist danger, but, on the one hand says nothing in the theses about the fact that such extreme Right wingers as Sulkanen and Askeli, who do not even hide themselves behind Left phraseology, belong to the Cannon group, or that the latter has concluded a bloc with Lore and Eastman; and, on the other hand, it states that Cannon has taken with him a number of workers from the Party, which objectively adds prestige to the Cannon group and weakens the struggle against American Trotskyism. _ _All the enumerated differences between the Minority and Ma- jority could, if the factional struggle would cease, easily be over- come by means of self-criticism within the Party. At the same time the Majority and Minority commit the same mistake in their view of the relations between the American and world economic systems, although expressed in different forms, and both groups make different conclusions. This mistake lies in their wrong conception of the nature of the relationship between American and world economics and the underestimation of the increasing in- volving of American imperialism in the rapidly sharpening general crisis of capitalism. Both sides are inclined to regard American im- perialism as isolated from world capitalism, as independent from it and developing according to its own laws. Both sides do not take sufficiently into account that the approaching crisis of American im- perialism is part and parcel of the general crisis of capitalism. Both sides believe that world economy plays in relation to American im- perialism only or chiefly a subordinate and passive role of a market for the export of commodities and capital. The failure to understand the close relations between American economy and the general crisis of capitalism leads the Majority to a wrong estimation of the role of American capital in the stabiliza- tion of Europe, and to a misconception of the inevitable sharpening of the conflicts between the ever more aggressive American imper- jialism and trustified Europe, which strives to free itself from the economic domination of the United States. It leads the Minority to the conception that the coming crisis of American capitalism is called forth exclusively by its internal contradictions. These mistakes reflect the failure to understand the fact that the roots of the contemporary general crisis of capitalism, side by side with the sharpening contradictions between the development of the productive forces of the contraction of markets, side by side with the existence and development of the USSR as a factor which revolution- izes the working class of all countries and the toiling masses of the colonies, and stands opposed to the world capitalist system, there is also the unequal growth in the economic development of the various countries which has its expression in the transference of the econ- omic center of capitalism from Europe to American and the rapid development of American imperialism which surpasses the develop- ment of the other capitalist countries. The rapid development of American imperialism does not exempt the United States, or any other capitalist country, from the crisis; on the contrary it accentuates the general crisis of capitalism as a result of the extreme sharpening of all contradictions which it leads to. On the other hand a sharpening of the general crisis of capi- talism is to be expected not because American imperialism ceases to develop, but on the contrary, it is to be expected because American imperialism is developing and surpasses the other capitalist coun- tries in its development, which leads to an extreme accentuation of all antagonisms, The failure to understand the nature of the general crisis of capitalism inevitably leads to a distortion of the entire revolutionary perspective outlined in the decisions of the VI Congress in connec- tion with the third period. To consider American capitalism isolated from the sharply accentuated general crisis of capitalism means to overlook the general revolutionary crisis of capitalism which includes the economic crises in all capitalist countries, the imperialist strug- gle against the USSR and the rebelling colonies, the struggle among the imperialist countries themselves, as well as the class struggle of the proletariat in the various capitalist countries. ‘With regard to the fundamental question as to the nature of the contemporary general crises of capitalism, the perspective of its ac- centuation, the further shattering of stabilization throughout the en- tire wo¥ld economic system, the question of struggle against the Right danger, which has of late become the chief and decisive issue in the Comintern, both the Majority and the Minority commit big errors which inevitably lead to a profound under-rating of the revolu- tionary perspectives in Europe and especially in America. The Majority entirely ignores in its theses the resolution of the VI Congress (the point referring to the third period of post-war de- velopment) and the Minority, while quoting that point, was unable to link it up with its own conclusions concerning the American crisis. The VI Convention of the Workers (Communist) Party of Amer- ica must decidedly rectify this mistake and pass resolutions on this most vital issue such as would be in full accord with the decisions of the VI Congress of the CI, This mistake of the Majority is closely related to its great over- estimation of the economic might and the powerful technical de- velopment of the United States. The VI Congress of the Comintern in its resolution on the report of the ECCI stressed the fact that the great development of tech- nique in capitalist countries virtually assumes in some of them (United States, Germany) the nature of a technical revolution. How- ever, it would be absolutely wrong to regard this technical revolution as a “second industrial revolution” as is done in the Majority theses which on this point. contains the following formulation: “A powerful technical revolution is taking place in the United States, a tremendous rationalization, an increase in the forces of production, which in its effects can be compared to a second industrial revolution.” This is. a serious error. On the one hand, the emphasis on the fact that the remnants of feudalism are being wiped out in the South of the United States (which is wrongly considered in the theses as its colony) and that a new bourgeoisie with a new pro- letariat are being formed, may give the term “second industrial revolution” the implication of a second bourgeois revolution. On the other hand, if we were not to interpret the term “second in- dustrial revolution” in this sense, it could not be explained in any other way but as an uncritical overestimation of the significance and results of the development of technique. Such overestimation would play into the hands of all advertisers of the successes of bourgeois science and technique who seek to deafen the proletariat by raising a lot of noise about technical progress and showing that there is no general crisis of capitalism, that capitalism is still vigor- ous in the United States, and that thanks to its extremely rapid development, it is capable of pulling Europe out of its crisis. However, the development of the productive forces on the basis of the technical transformation and the new forms of organization of labor, leads to increasing antagonisms between them and the limited home markets and, consequently, to a further deepening and sharpening of the general crisis of capitalism and not a diminution or a liquidation of that crisis, as the apologists of American im- perialism pretend. The slightest concession to the noisy advertisers of the growth of technique, the slightest deviation from the decisions of the VI Congress which emphasized the accentuation of the general crisis of capitalism as a result of the technical transformation, the slight- est vaccilation on this question on the part of the Communists, is an intolerable opportunist mistake. A no less important shortcoming both fn the Majority and Minority theses of the CEC is their underestimation of the effect of the technical transformation and the capitalist rationalization, which is closely linked up with it, on the working class. Not only the Majority theses, which overestimates the significance of the tre- mendous technical development, but also the Minority theses leave this aspect of rationalization in the shade and pay little attention to it. The fact ts that the great intensification of labor arising from technical development and capitalist rationalization expressed in the speeding eyor the mo' Y ry, in an extreme crowding of the working day, in a terrific speeding up of the workers by means of the bonus system which leads to the wearing out of the workers and their being thrown out of the factory sooner than was the case hitherto and, finally, the absolute diminution of the number of workers in some industries, which gives rise to a tremendous growth of unemployment, are truly becoming the cen- tral problems of the entire American working class and thus acquir- ing the greatest political significance. This new form of exploitation of the workers is based upon the increase of wages of a very small upper strata and upon the’ lowering of the standard of living, which was low enough hitherto, for the vast majority of the working class (notwithstanding the statement of the Majority theses to the contrary). | The American proletariat does not feel so much the worsening” of its position in any other respect as in the growing overstrain of labor, in the reduction of the period of the workers’ stay in the factory, and in the growing unemployment. . Huge masses of American workers can be rallied to a struggle against the overstrain of labor and the monstrous growth of ex- ploitation. The chief demands capable of uniting them in a common struggle are: 1) the 7-hour day and 6 hours for workers engaged | in industries injurious to health and in underground work; 2) social | insurance (in case of sickness, injury, invalidity and unemployment) | at the cost of the employers and the state. Extensive and persevering agitation for these demands through- out the entire period should be the main task of the Party which must simultaneously proceed also with the organization of the un- employed. By fighting for this program, the Party can unite broad sections of the proletariat, educate them politically, strike deep | roots in the midst of the American workers, and become @ mass working class Party. The revolutionary unions, provided their or- ganizations will be seriously prepared and their leaders carefully chosen, can be an extremely important level in that work. The struggle against the consequences of capitalist rationaliza- tion should be closely linked up with the struggle against the war danger. | The Party absolutely fails to see the enormous importance of this task and its decisive political significance. Such feilure to understand the significance of the development of technique and | capitalist rationalization entails an underestimation of the revolu- | tionary perspectives and particularly an underestimation of the fur- ther prospects of the radicalization of the working class. | | | There is no doubt that the objective situation as well as the first successes of the Party in leading mass conflicts provide a basis fora | healthy discussion on points on principle within the Party. But the existence of two crystallized leading groups is a decisive obstacle to embarking on this course. During six years of struggle, these groups have become internally so consolidated, they have become so , estranged that they are now cemented not by principles but by strong group ties. So long as these groups will exist in their present | state, group interest will leave no room for a struggle based on principles, principles will be viewed from the angle of: group interest, principles will be used as accessory means in the unprincipled group | struggle. | So long as these two groups exist in the Party, the possibility of an exchange of opinion on questions of principle within the Party, | and hence the further healthy ideological development of the Party | is entirely excluded. } To advance artificial differences of principle on questions con- cerning which no such differences exist would at the present time serve only and exclusively as a means of furthering the non-principled factional struggle. The deep-rooted unprincipled methods of factional struggle are This is the most urgent task of the Party. The VI Convention of the Workers Party must categorically prohibit any further fac- tional struggle, under threat of expulsion from the Party, and lay the foundation of a normal Party life, especially internal democracy, self-criticism and iron Party discipline, based on the unconditional subordination of the Minority to the Majority and an unconditional recognition of the decisions of the Comintern. All Party members must unite their efforts for the speediest carrying out of this most urgent task. The Young Workers League must not be led by any of the factional groups in the Party, its members must fight on the basis of the decisions of the Comintern and the Communist Youth Inter- national for the liquidatior of factionalism and factional groupings both in the League and in the Party. The fact that the Party has increased last year the number of its members employed in big factories by 14 per cent, the ract that it has already come out as a staunch leader in stubborn class wars, the fact that its influence among the native workers has increased and improved, all this shows that the Party has already matured for transformation into a mass organization. But the fact that the Party could not get more than 50,000 votes in the elections shows that its ties with the American proletariat are still weak. The Party can become a mass proletarian Party only on condi tion that it widens its base by creating its main strongholds in the ranks of the American workers, especially in the most important branches of industry, and also among the Negro workers, while at the same time retaining it's positions among the revolutionary im- migrant workers. This course on the American workers and the decisive branches of industry must run through all activities of the Party and must be laid down as the foundation of the organization of the unorgan- ized, the creation of new unions, the organization of the Left wing in the old unions, “laying thereby the basis for the actual realization of the slogan of creation of a wide Workers Party from below.” (Resolution of the VI Congress of the CI). « Four principle conditions are now essential in order that the Party may definitely enter the path leading to its transformation into a mass Communist Party, four conditions, the decisive significance of which neither the Majority, which is responsible for the leader- ship, nor the Minority have understood. These conditions are: 1.—A correct perspective in the analysis of the general crisis of capitalism and American imperialism which is a part of it. 2.—To place in the center of the work of the Party the daily needs of the American working class and especially a) the demand for a 7-hour day and 6 hours for underground workers and those engaged in injurious trades, while exposing and waging a systematic struggle against the capitalist methods of rationalization directed towards intensifying the exploitation of the workers; b) the demand for all forms of social insurance at the cost of the employers and the state. 3.—Freeing the Party from its immigrant narrowness and seclusion and making the American workers its wide basis, pay- ing due attention to work among the Negroes. 4.—Liquidation of factionalism and drawing workers into the leadership. ‘The ECCI calls upon the VI Convention of the Workers (Com- munist)* Party of America to carry out these decisive tasks. = With Communist greetings, * EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE.. COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL. :, February 1, 1929. becoming a great obstacle in the struggle against all deviations from the correct political line and hindering the development of self criticism or leading to its factional distortion. However, .the decisions of the VI Congress of the Comintern on | the struggle against deviations from the correct political position is of special important to the Workers (Communist) Party of America. ‘The ever-growing economic power and ever-increasing importance of American imperialism on the world arena, the specific method of economic and political oppression of the working class on the part of the bourgeoisie, who use the powerful apparatus of the A. F. of L. as an agency in the working class—all these conditions give rise to the most serious danger of the development of a strong Right wing tendency in the American Party. The fact that both factions were guilty of Right wing errors is most significant and amply con- firms the existence of the danger of the development of a Right wing tendency in the Anferican Party. The VI Congress has already pointed out in its resolutions a series of Right wing errors (the at- titude towards the socialist party, inadequate work by the Party in organizing the unorganized and the struggle of the Negroes, the | insufficiently clear struggles against the murderous policy of the United States in Latin America) and recorded that, “these mistakes cannot, however, be ascribed exclusively to the Majority leadership.” The mistakes committed since the VI Congress of the CI were also of a Right character. é The appearance of Trotskyism in the United States can be ex- plained by the fact that the Trotskyist opportunist doctrines on the question of the Party and its structure, at the basis of which lies the “principle” of unprincipled alliance with all and sundry Right and “Left” groups and organizations fighting against the Comintern, seems to fit perfectly into the scheme of political struggle in the the United States where lack of principle was always the under- lying principle in the activities of all bourgeois parties. Nowhere, jn no other country in the world, have we witnessed so easy and rapid formation of a bloc of the Trotskyist and the out and out Right wingers as in the United States, thus revealing at the very outset its social democratic and anti-Comintern nature. The Right mistakes of the Party helped the growth of Trotskyism in the United States. Notwithstanding the presence of certain temporary premises for. Trotskyism in the United States, the Trotskyist bloc there also is doomed to collapse. The main condition for this is a correct political line of the Communist Party based on clear principles aiming at the elimination and correction of Right mistakes and a decisive fight against the Right danger in the ranks of the Workers (Communist) Party of America. A successful struggle against both the out and out Right as well as against the “Left” Trotskyist deviations, has been hindered until now mainly by the intolerant and unprincipled faction+t strug- gle between the two leading groups. Each faction speculates on the mistakes of the other, concealing or underestimating meanwhile its own mistakes, Each faction hurls against the other accusations of alleged Right and “Left” mistakes. Actual and imaginary errors ere exaggerated for factional purposes and deviations are manufactured out of them. For factional considerations, the Minority of the CEC attacks the Majority on some points more sharply than the Trotskyists who have been expelled from the Party. In its turn, the Majority also for factional reasons, resorts to absolutely intolerable maneuvers (the invitation of the ‘renegade Cannon to a meeting of the CEC, for example). Speculation on deviations (instead of combatting them) and factional manufacturing of deviations, does not give the Party a chance to discover the real mistakes and to establish the actual dimensions and the actual sources of the Right (and also the “Left”) danger. a, ts < The sti le against the Right and “Left” dangers has contend with J factionalism in the Workers (Communist) Party of America and cannot be developed in a truly Bolshevik manner until this main hindrance is eliminated. The CI several times requested the Party in the most decisive manner to put an end to the factional struggle. The VI Plenum of the ECCI demanded from the Party a ‘complete and unconditional cessation of the factional struggle.” Thi American Commission dur- ing the VIII PLENUM confirmed that decision. The Polit-Secretariat of the ECCI declared in April 1928 that: “it is the opinion of the ECCI that themain problem of the Party in the field of organization is to kill all remnants of factionalism.” Finally the VI Congress decided that: “the most important task confronting the Party is to put an end to the factional strife, which is not based on any serious differences, and at the same time, to jncrease the recruiting of workers into the Party and to give a definite stimulus to the pro- motion of workers to leading Party posts.” The existing factions must be resolutely and definitely liquidated. The factional struggle must be unconditionally stopped. Without this no mass Communist Party of the American proletariat can be or- EMERGENCY FUND > Colman $1, Anzi 50c, Jaro *(Continued from Page One) | movies and anything which they could get along without and donat- ing this to that fighting sheet, | the Daily Worker, until it would | have a reserve fund of a hund- red thousand dollars or more. I am 71, not making more than enough to keep afloat. Have had to work Jong hours on a small dairy farm, which means from 14 to 15 hours every day in the year. | Since the Daily. Worker was started, I gave liberally of what I had to build it stronger. If the of a thousand to give one hundred | the Daily Worker. It would seem | so-called “Reds” a thousand who would come across for a good cause of this kind. Undoubtedly, to come across for this amount at one time, Very well, let them pay $10 a month until it is paid. I have not got any such amount either, but I can float my note for a year. I’ll pay it off as soon before or after as it is possible. Hoping the Daily Worker will able to get double quick busy and do what long ago should have been done, I remain, Fraternally yours, AUGUST SCHLEMMER. ° 8 *. Sent in by C. Mugranis, Oak- land, Calif—Collected by J. McRary $3.50; Collected by A. Whitney, Frank Hellani, Montery, $5, Manuel Pereira, Carmel $5; Collected by W. Selas, Richmond, Calif. $2, G. Warwick $2.50. +++ 18.00 Section 5, Branch 6, N. Y. C.. 16.00 \9A, 2A, New York City—A. Hedstrand $1, G. Nelson $1, E. Zarg $5, G. Gross 75c, E. Yarnquist 50c, Eric Horen $1, S. Larson $1, E. Olson $1, M. Johnson $1, A. Nelson $1 Collected by West Side Nuc- leus, Portland, Oregon—H. Kruse $2, E. Bjorkman $1, J. Eleske $10 .......... Workers Cooperative Society, Stamford, Conn. .... « 12.50 4F, 2B, New York City. 10.00 Ukrainian Workers Organiza- tion, Arbor, N. Y......... |Collected by Geo. Helske, Su- perior, Wis.—H. Kaski $1, I. Karppini $1, G. Savola $1, A. Kantala $1, K. Hintakkar $1, S. Mattson $1, G. Hel- ske $1 ...... aoe ’ | Unit 1B, Philadelphia, | L. Don $1, M. Schamer $1, J. Martlinsky $5.......... | Collected by Alex Z. Sagi, New York City—Sieburg 50c, Hinricks 50c, McCarthy 50c, Ravitz 25¢, Sophil 50c, Sympathizer 50c, Dolorest 50c, S. Poydoseff $2, Two Comrades $1 ' Collected by Alex F. Sagi, | New York City—Sagi $i, 18.25 13.00 Daily Worker can find the others | to fill out the list, I will be one | dollars to this Reserve Fund for | to me there should be among the | it would be hard for most of them | 10.00 50c, Wenzer 50c, Wauritzer . $1, N. Aviglon 50c,—$5.00 (This amount is previously listed) M. Stekloff, 1F, 2A, N. Y. C. 5.00 Collected at the First Anniver- | sary of the Women’s Educa- |_ tional Club, San Fran., Cal.. 4.00 |Section 1, International Branch | N 4.00 | Sigfrid Olson, C! 4.00 Section 8, International Branch 2, New York City. 3.50 Unit 2I, Section 6, N. Y 3.50 Wm. Belshok, 1F, 2A, . 38.00 Collected by Vaino Maki, De- troit, Mich—yY. Hill $1, Anonymous $1 2.00 Collected by Archie Young, Mt. Vernon, Wash. ....-++-000 2.76 | Morris Kanovitz, 1F, 2A,New York City ++ 1,00 Marie Herfaut, Tovey, Ill 1.00 P. Petso, Chicago, Ill 50 50 | Walter P. Sukut, Chicago, Ill. USSR Working Women Active in Political and Social Life of Soviet MOSCOW, U. S. S. R, March 3.— |The state of Kaluga, southwest of Moscow, is known as the “women’s gubervia” of the Soviet Union, for there working and peasant women play the most prominent part in the village, town and gubernia Soviets and in the various committees. The president of the Gubernia (State) Executive Committee is Lubeemova, a woman, and the women of the district have demon- strated their energetic political and social activity by raising the par- ticipation of women in the Soviets from 18 to 27 per cent during the |recent elections. There are 120 women presidents of village Soviets in the gubernia, and the women play leading parts in village, town and factory Soviets. The women, likewise, participate energetically in the leading duties of the state, from fighting drunken” ness to fighting the Kulaki (rich peasants), and the women of this state hold the record for being the |most active electorate in the Union. In many districts they have parti- ‘This is especially true of the vil- lages, where the peasant woman is awakening more and more to the possibilities of the Socialist state and is fully participating in the construction of Socialism. British Drug Workers; Will Fight Wage Cut LONDON, (By Mail)—The Lon- don branch of the National Drug and Chemical Workers’ Union has pledged to strike if the bosses at- tempt to force a reduction in wages jof 16 shillings a week. A reduction jin hours from 48 to 44 a week is workigs, cipated in the elections 100 per cent. — being demanded by the chemical.