The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 8, 1929, Page 3

DAILY WORKER, NEW YOR K, FRIDAY, MARCH 8, 1929 EGRO WORKING © VOMEN MUST BE CLASS FIGHTERS ysses Will Try to Use| Them for Slavery (Continued from Page One) izing to improve their condi- as and fight the employers, Race sciousness must be replaced by | ss consciousness. Negro women rkers must broaden their outlook the labor movement and must n a conception of the class strug- as a whole and the international | uggle against capitalist imperial- 1, led by the Communist Interna- nal, Negro Women and War. Persistent effort must be made to relop in the Negro Woman worker | eal working class ideology, espe- | lly now on the eve of a new war, | * in the coming war, as in the t world war, Negro women will! drawn into industry in large mbers and also into political sup- ‘t of the war-making imperialist | vernment. Today, Negro working! men thruout the United States) » better trained in industry and| ve a wider political experience | 1 knowledge than ten years ago| d are therefore a more weighty | stor in the great struggles that 2 developing, With the growing SS consciousness and political akening of white women workers » capitalist bosses will seek to use gro women as strikebreakers on greater scale than before, while argeois politicians will use all ans to win their support for cap- lism in the imperialist war. The duty of the class conscious | rkers, therefore, is to teach the pressed Negro women workers > true nature of capitalism and perialism, and to show them that stirs is a struggle of class and t of race, that the working class America is composed of black and tite together, that imperialism is 2 common enemy of all workers, d that in case of war, black and 1ite working women, must stand sether firmly organized and united the end of strangling imperialist wer. At the same time, they, th their white sisters, must give sistance to the capitalist oppres- cs everywhere, in the shop, in the mes, in political campaigns, and ist fight together under the lead- ship of the Workers (Communist) itty, the only defender of the op- essed colonial and racial minor- es. The class struggle is one eat struggle in which all the orkers are involved together, and which the Negro women in Amer- 1 are a factor of prime impor- nee, (ORKING WOMEN ACTIVE IN FIGHT lay Leading Role in Labor’s Struggles (Continued from Page One) | rrtant role in the establishment of e new Needle Trades Workers In- istrial Union. | The success of the present dress- akers’ strike, which is under the adership of the Left wing, will ean a great deal toward the de- lopment of the future labor move- ent. As in 1909, so now Local 22 | the dressmakers’ ‘union is fore- ost in the fight to organize the organized and to bring back union nditions. They are not only in- rested in organizing the dress- akers, but their aim is to organ- e all the needle trades workers id bring back the union conditions hich were destroyed by the Right | ing leadership. The proletarian women (wives of e workers) are burdened at home, +a result of the wage cuts, speed- ) system, unemployment, ete. hey are faced with the high cost ' living, poor housing, high rents: | 1 order to make ends meet, thou- inds of workers’ wives are forced » leave their homes and children ad to enter shops and factories, ere they are compelled to work ider the most horrible conditions, ith the result that their children |work they are part of the mighty| |most terrific speed of the efficiency | Sysfem. Little do most of them sus- jconsist of deadly gase: |Working and Peasant Women of Soviet Union at the First Con gress | see A gathering of women who participated in the first congress of working and peasant women of Soviet Russia held in 1918. Not content with merely passing law: granting women full social and economic equality, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union organized a Department for Work Among Women, which has as its task the raising of the cultural level of the hitherto oppre ed. mass of toiling women. In the foreground are, from left to right, Moyrava, head of the Interna- tional Women’s Secretariat of the Communist International, Ulya nova, sister of Lenin and in charge of Worker and Peasant Correspondence, and Artuchina, head of the Department for Work Among Women. Women and Children in the Next Imperialist War By EDITH RUDQUIST. | —— A new mass slaughter is being prepared. Otherwise why should the imperialists ratify Kellogg “peace” pacts, pass the cruiser bill, get dis-| turbed over the British influence in| our Federal Reserve Board, etc.? also the workers, the women and! These acts and many others fend to girls who slave away in the factories, | and at the same time attempt to shield the plans for the bloody mas- sacre of workers. Workshop Cities. Chieago’s women workers should! know that each day when they go to industrial army turning out material for the killing of other workers, In this city and its vicinity are cen- tered some of the most important industries from a war point of view. Steel, electrical, chemical industries, light manufacturing and assembling | plants, to mention only a few. These factories are modern, equipped with the latest patented devices for “la- bor saving” and speed-up. Here toil thousands and thousands of work ers, a great percentage of which are women and girls. They are experi-| enced, every nerve keyed up to the! pect that the work they turn out each day is part of the United| States war machine, these girls) working at the drills, the lathes, punch presses, the assemblers, etc. We must not forget the other fac- tories that can, almost overnight, be| transformed into full-fledged war| production plants. “No ‘Civilian’ Population.” “Chicago is a citadel of the Amer- iean imperialists. It must be speci- ally protected from the enemy,| within and without. The next war will not be fought mainly in trenches: there will be no Hinter- land in the old sense, no “civilian population,” no women and children, no non-combatants to take into ac- count. Slaughtering devices now fumes, all easily stored in bombs, ete., ready to| be dropped from aeroplanes. A few} of these will exterminate a whole| city in a few hours. The whole popu- lation is the enemy. To stop the production of war necessities, to pxe- vent the feeding of the population, to exterminate the working masses that is the job of the modern str tegists. Not only the men who an- swered the “call to the colors” but the men in the workshops, these are the enemies, the gases will be re- leased to kill them. Conscripting an Industrial Army. Will the workers stay in these workshop cities? The imperialists are preparing to keep them there, making it unlawful to leave. The na- |tionalizing of industries, whereby the| @gainst_ them. like soldiers to man the factory is |being undertaken’ in every indus-| Wading in blood and di | |trial country. The Defense Act of filth, thus capitalist society stands.|should learn how to govern the |1916 in United States: the change Not as we usually see it, playing country.” of the Trades Union Act of Great Britain: the law drafting the women | °rder, of philosophy, of ethics, | cons \for industrial work during “times of | need” in France, etc., these are of- ficial acts, and the unofficial acts are being agreed upon each day by the imperialists, the industrial mag- nates, the lawmakers, the labor union bureaucracy. The foreign-born workers are already being registered and changes are being made to the status of every person of foreign birth. The imperialists need the workers in order to carry out their bloody slaughter in the name of profits, and they are using every} means in their possession, the whole political, economic and judicial ma- chinery is being tuned in harmony to their designs. Working Women! What Is Your Duty? Working class women, are you prepared to build a sinte, ‘ * ers will endure forever? Then join | eur ranks, become a member of the American section of the Communist International, the Workers (Com- munist) Party. alive! Turn the imperialist war into civil war! Turn the guns on the enemy of the working class, the imperialists! Not a gun, not a cent, not a man, woman or child for imperialist wars! and homes lack the proper care. Such conditions prevail in the rich- est country in the world, the United States of America. These proletarian women have re- alized that their interests are closely connected with the men and women in the factories and shops. The workers as a whole are beginning to realize that in order to be able to better their conditions the prole- tarian women in the shop and fac- tory and in the home must be drawn into the class struggle. Progress Shown. ‘In the past few years we have witnessed great activities arhongst working women. We find that working women are gathering at conferences for the purpose of dis- cussing the problem of organizing the unorganized ‘working women into trade unions and of building shop delegate conferencés. This is an indication of progress amongst proletarian women in the class struggle. The Communist International plays a leading role in the activi- ties of proletarian women in the class struggle. The Russian Rev- olution and the establishment of the Workers’ Dictatorship in the U. S. S. R. is the only example of real | emancipation and equality for work- ing women. where | |bread work and peace for all work- Make our slogans] ROSA LUXEMBURG FOUGHT BOSS WAR Exposed Treachery of | Social-Democrats (Continued from Page One) ingly called and known to the Ger- man ma among whom she worked most of her life, realized full well the treacherous role played by the social reformists and the labor bureaucrats who betrayed the| working class to their exploiters, | the capitalists, thru fooling them with revolutionary phrases, and |carried on an unrelenting fight! In burning words S | world wi “Shamed, dishonored, | ripping with |the role of peace and righteousness, | but as a roaring beast, as an orgy | of anarchy, as a pestilential breath, ‘devastating culture and humani so it appears in all its hideous nakedness. And in the midst of this orgy a world tragedy has occurred: | the capitulation of the social demo- jeracye It forgot all its principles, | |its pledges, the decision of interna- |tional congresses, just at the mo- |ment when they should have found | their application.” | | Many Follow Her. | Rosa Luxemburg was only one| {example of the brave women fight-| hers which the proletarian struggle , |has produced, And her assassina-| |tion brought whole regiments of ad- | | ditional proletarian women into the| army which the social traitors of Germany sought to destroy by tak-| ing her life. Her last written words are characteristic of the unflinching fighter she was and urge the work- ing class on to final victory in spite | | of defeats which may be temporar- ily suffered by them. “Order reigns in Berlin! You senseless thugs! Your ‘order’ is built on sand. The revolution will rise tomorrow bristling to the | heights, and will to your terror sound forth the trumpet call: “T was, I am, I am to be!’ ” Lesson of Soiidarity. To the working women of the United States this means—must arations of the mightiest imperialist power of all, American imperialism, a firm solidarity with the rest of |the toiling population regardless of race, nation, or sex, a strengthen- jing of the new class unions, organ. ing the ranks of the most advanced S. A., the Workers (Communist) Party of America, in order to begin now the preparation for turning the coming war into a civil war—a war against the employers and for the establishment of a working class government, Form Special '. to Teach USSR Women Labor | By RASUMOVA. Jabout 6,000 in the villages and On the first anniversary of the throughout the Soviet Union. In Bolshevik Revolution the first Con-|late years, there has been devel- gress of working and peasant wo- men was held»in the Union of So- cialist Soviet Republics. The Soviet government, as yet young and not quite strong, had for the first time appealed to the masses of toiling women to take up the defense of the October gains from the onslaught of numerous enemies. The task of the first congress was to arouse the masses of toiling women, to cause them to be active, and to direct their efforts into the channel of socialist construction, In the course of ten years the working and peasant women have been able to furnish many more use- ful and necessary workers in the country than could be dreamed of in the first years of the Revolution. Even the most oppressed, the toil- ing women of the East, were called in to take part in the building of Socialism. The first congress of working and peasant women noted in its resolu- tion that the working women should have no special women’s organiza- tions, because the working woman has the same aim and purposes as the rest of the proletariat. Yet, in view of the backwardness of the masses of toiling women, the con- gress recognized the necessity of carrying on increased agitation and propaganda among the women, To this end there were organized, soon after the congress, the special com- missions for propaganda and agi- tation among the women at the Cen- tral Committee of the Communist Party and at.the local Party com- mittees, In 1919 these commissions were reorganized into departments for activity among working and peasant women, or the Women’s Depart- ments. The Women’s Departments are still necessary today as indis-| pensable apparatus of the Party for the purpose of attracting the work- ing and peasant women to the build- ing of Socialism, and for training them to take part in the government of the country. Now, on the tenth anniversary of the Party’s work among women, we find the full real- ization of the watchword given out workers will be drafted, conscripted |She exposed their role in the last|by Lenin in his speech at the first | and peasant kitchen maid congress of workin, women, that During the past period there were | rable successes made in at- tracting the working and peasant women to all branches of socialist construction. In the composition of the urban Soviets the percentage of women has grown from 5.7% in 1922 to 21.3% in 1927, and in the rural Soviets from 1.5% 2 to @ in 19 11.8% in 1927; in the composition of the Central Committees of the trade unions the increase was from | 4.2% in 1925 to 10.2% in 1927; in| the composition of provincial coun-| cils of trade unions, the increase was from 6% in 1923 to 15.5% in 1927; on the factory committees, from 14.4% in 1923 to 18.5% in 1927; among shareholdres of con- sumers cooperatives we find now |1,382,000 working women and 782,- 000 peasant women. It is with great difficulty that the Eastern women are attracted to the cooperatives, The greatest success has been achieved in attracting the omen to the cooperatives in Uzbe- kitsan by establishing special co- operative stores for women. On January 1, 1927, there were 42 stores with a membership of about 5,000 Uzbek women, In Turkmeni- stan in 1926 there were 7,000 wo- men members, and in 1928 there were already 15,000. The first congress adopted a \series of important decisions on the |question of the emancipation of women. The first concern of the mean—in answer to the war prep-|Soviet authorities was to alleviate |the national border countries in fa- the burden of motherhood, to secure |to the infant the conditions of nor- \mal growth, and to the mother the |conditions for working without im- | pairing her health. The network of institutions for ization of the unorganized, enter-|the protection of motherhood and} childhood in the towns has grown guard of the proletariat in the U.|with the active assistance of the |active part in the building of social- |working and peasant women, so that by 1927 there were 1,838 institutions of this kind. In late years the peasant women have been attracted to the establish- there were in the summer of 1928 THE HERITAGE OF t y a Woman Worker Correspondent EASTHAMPTON, Mass.—As one asses thru this typical New Eng- ind textile town of 11,000 popula- on (Easthampton, Mass.), the first npression will be favorable. Truly, beautiful town. Homes are neat rom outward appecrance, set well ack from the street, with lawns, ‘rees and shruberry around. Most of these homes are the so- alled company houses—property of 1e West Boylston and Hampton ompanies. Though of good out- ard appearance—they are like jeves in winter time, when winds me howling through the thin walls. ost of the houses were built dur- ig the war boom, when the expan- ion of the mills made housing hortage very acute, ‘In these astily-thrown-together homes mill laves live. 7 So amidst this beauty the textile vorkers are suffering from cold, rant and destitution, Recent ra- were thrown out of employment. Textile workers children see no happy childhood, as the mills are only too glad to hire cheap labor which these children furnish. Want at home forces them young, at the age of 14, in the mill. School Children Hungry, Tl. My child often spoke of children in her grade in school being so hungry, that they begged for a bite of lunch or a drink of milk from those that had. Here in school, if one has 35¢ to pay in advance for a 10 days’ supply of milk, a half pint is delivered daily by the milk man during recess period. Naturally the child’s statements were taken lightly until recently when she became ill. Stopping at school to tell the teacher of her ill- ness, I mentioned that she can give the milk due my child to some needy tot. She sighed and said, “Quite%a lot of these children come to school avithout any breakfast. That makes| ionalization has added more to the nffering as many, family hands|my class at least G are tubercular} The ever increasing technical ra-|given a special protection and sci- é ‘ them cross and hard to manage. In| A TEXTILE WORKER'S CHILD children.” She called upon several of them to stand up. They looked like little old men and women. Sal- low complexion, puny of bodies. Though they were 7 or thereabouts years of age, yet one could easily take them for 4 or 5 years old. “I wish the town would supply lunch for those tots,” the teacher continued sympathetically. That this was not the whole solu- tion as yet in this country I did not argue with her. It would have taken a long while to explain to this bour- geois servant the solution of this question. I merely mentioned that there is a country, a Soviet Russia where such matters are taken care of by the state. To think that the ill tubercular children are permitted to be in clas- ses with all the rest, where there is danger of others contracting the dread disease is a crime which only a capitalist state does not see. These children should be sent to institu- tions provided for that purpose un- der best medical care. tionalization is at the expense of health of women about to become |mothers. The living expense forces them to work until the hour of child- | birth, when they are rushed home |to deliver another slave into the |frequent. In the West Boylston | Manufacturing Company a worker gave birth to a child in the mill. | Can such mothers give birth to | healthy children, when their strength | is spent in the mill? Therefore that | accounts for this great number of | tubercular and otherwise abnormal children. In many cases the children inherit tuberculosis yet unborn. Many textile children are stunted in growth, and this tendency for un- dergrowth is seen plainly, by notic- ing the youth in the mill town. Where more than one generation have been mill hands the whole family is small in stature. Different Where Workers Rule. In Soviet Russia, the children yet | unborn are booked to be physically well. The working mothers are} world, Here such occurrences are | entific studies of her condition are made free of charge before child- birth. They are provided with spe- cial food and medical care. They receive two months’ vacation before jand after childbirth. Each factory has special day nurseries equipped with best care and are considered part of the factory. The factories there are planned) with best care for the protection of workers, It is their home during the working hours and their welfare is the first consideration. It is no wonder that “Pravda” states that the health and growth of pres- ent youth in Soviet Russia has in- creased to 6 per cent. Women In U. S. Should Awaken. Such are the facts against our mills and factories in U. S. A. They demonstrate the necessity of mobili- zation of working women in the fighting workers unions (the Na- tional Textile Workers Union, etc.), and drawing them politically into the vanguard of the working class | the Communist Party. ANNE ALDEN. ment of summer creches, of which | oped in the large industrial centers the organization of public dini rooms and factory kitchens catering for tens of thousands of workers, , The realization of the general tasks of the country’s industrialization, and the technical progress, will en- sure the further unfolding of the activity for the emancipation of the toiling women, and for the reorgan- ization of the whole of our living conditions, Need Education. A handicap to the greater at- traction of toiling women to the building of socialism is presented | by the continued backward level | her cultural development, by semi-| literacy and illiteracy. Lenin at- tached great importance to the work | of doing away with illiteracy among the working women. He said that an illiterate person stands outside of politics. It is true that during the ten years of the revolutionary period about three million adult women have been taught to read and write; nevertheless, among a total of ten million illiterates throughout the ‘country the women still constitute ;62.9 per cent. Therefore, our pri tical watchword on the tenth anni- versary of the first congress of | working and peasant women should be: to do away with illiteracy, and to raise the cultural level of women | upon a mass scale. The backwardness and conservat- jism of considerable masses of the population hinders the complete en- actment of the existing Soviet legis- lation concerning the women, not only in rural districts, but partly | {also in the towns. Particular diffi- meeting Friday, March 2% culties in the enforcement of legis- | lation concerning the women are | encountered in the economically and culturally backward republics and regions of the Soviet East. The Party’s slogan for the complete equalification of the eastern women | with the men has met with stub-| born resistance on the part of the big landowners, and the which has created further difficulties in bringing about the actual enfranchisement of the women. During the ten years which have! elapsed since the first congress we may register great results in this respect: 1,000 eastern women have |been promoted to take part in pub- lic work. There is a steady growth| in the number of literates among eastern women, whilst new relations | |are being developed that are based upon considering the woman as a comrade. | For Enfranchisement. | In late years the Party’s work ;among the eastern women has been connected with a particularly per- jsistent campaign for the actual en- franchisement of the women, and a vigorous campaign against the se- {clusion of women in the east. In | Uzbekistan the discarding of the veil |by women has assumed a mass |character. Tens of thousands of | | women have thrown off the veil of | bondage to become participants in the life of freedom. This has met) with huge resistance on the part of |the reactionary elements of the population. In some eastern vil- \lages there were cases of murder |and violence over women who un-| | veiled themselves. Rules were issued by the Central Executive Committee of the Socialist Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan and | {by the local Soviets to protect the | women who unveil themselves, and to provide relief for the families of |workers and peasants (chiefly of working and peasant women) who have suffered for taking an active part in the struggle for the emanci- | pation of the women. At the present time there is a growing movement |among the masses of the toilers in vor of a special decree prohibiting the wearing of the veil by women, A vast amount of work has to be accomplished by the Party in order to imbue the advanced element of |the working women with confidence in their own powers, and with the understanding of the need to take ism. Great achievements may be recorded in this respect. In many *4AAAAAAAAAAA (eS are eet eterno etored Your Chance to See | Organizations Against Imperialism! ; PAY FOR NEGRO, LAUNDRY SLAVES sé Just as in the days of the Rev- olution, the women of the Soviet Union are ready to fight side by side with the men for the defense of the proletarian fatherland. sbove is Comrade Nesterova, of Sverdlovsk, USSR, who is the best shot in the city. OBSERVE INT'L WOMEN'S DAY (Continued from Page One) into the unorganized fields of work- ing women. Phila, Meet March 22. PHILADELPHIA, March 7.—In- ternational Women’s Day will be celebrated in Philadelphia by a mass 8 p.m, at Boslover Hall, 701 Pine St., under the auspices of the Women’s De- partment of the Workers (Commu- nist) Party. Boston Celebrates March 17. BOSTON, March 7.—Internation- al Women’s Day will be celebrated here March 17 with a mass meet- ing at Robert Burns Hall, 53 Berke- ley St., under the auspices of the New England Federation of Work- ing Class Women and the Workers (Communist) Party. Other mass meetings fn celebra- tion of International Women’s Day will take place as follows: Rochester, N. Y., March 10, 7:30 p. m., at Lithuanian Hall. Warren, Ohio, March 17, 2 p. m., at Association Hall, Youngstown, Ohio, March 17, 7 p. m., 369 East Federal St iGirls, Women Driven Mercilessly By MARY ADAMS. Reprinted from the Negro Champion To “How the conditions in your laund ” T re- ceived a flood of protests and com- plaints from the my question, are Negro girls and womén working in this particular laundry. Conditions are terrible and well nigh intolerable, they all agreed. The pay is miserable. They get on an average about $12 a week. In-addi- tion, they are never sure of what's in their pay envelopes. They are constantly docked and never told for what reason. In fact, they simply get what the boss feels. like handing out each particular pay d: Slave 12-Hour Day “Our hours are not fixed. understand we should go home six. We start work at morning, but often have t til sev at night, and ses we were worked unt had no extra pay for this overt “I have never been able to get a definite agreement about wages,” added a dignified woman, the best worker in the place, I was told “When I came I told the boss I ha been getting $18 a week. ‘All right, come on. I will do the right thing by you.” But at no time have I received more than $: He always puts me off with promises when I approach him on the sub- ject.” We seven in Miserable wages, long hours, over- time without pay, uncertainty of pay and many other evils are the rule in the laundries, Need Leadership. These conditions must be changed. These girls and women show a de- sire to do something definite. They lack leadership. The Workers (Com- munist) Party and the American Negro. Labor Congress must supply this leadership. The Congress has helped to organize and give leader- ship to Negro workers in other in- dustries. We must supply leader- ship and inspiration to the thous- ands of Negro workers who are be- ing exploited under the most damn- able and inhuman conditions in the laundries of this city. factories there are now women red directors, promoted by the working women, who enjoy esteem and af- fection of the mass of the workers. In the villages there is great respect Soviets who have recommended themselves by their efficient work On June 23, 1928, a resolution was 23, adopted by the Party to take a definite course towards promoting women Communis particularly working women, to leading activity. We now have women in the position jtoday for women chairmen of rural | of. chairman ‘of. district executive | committees, members of the boards of the People’s Commissariats, and | of responsible leaders in Party work. International Tomorrow Aft, Tomorrow Night: FRIDAY hy OvVIET USSIA | TOURS FROM $385.00 The Soviet government welcomes its friends and will put all facilities at your disposal to see everything— go everywhere — form your own opinion of the greatest social experi- ment in the History of Mankind at first hand. World Tourists Inc. offer you a choice of tours which will ex- actly fit your desires and purse. Don’t dream of going to Russia— make it a reality ! Write immediately to WORLD TOURISTS, Inc. | 175-Sth Avenue, New York, N. Y. Tel. ALGonquin 6656 haAdadbaAAAAAAAL { PV VV VVVVVV VY VUVVVVVVVVVY Labor Defense Annual Bazaar TO AID POLITIC AL PRISONERS TONIGHT: Hungarian-German NIGHT! 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