The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 14, 1929, Page 6

Page Six DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, THURSDAY, MARCH 14, 1929 Baily S2e Worker Central Organ of the Workers (Communist) Party New York): x months ths checks to Union 28 Address Dail NOR «+ How the U.S. Government “Helps” Mexico The United States government is engaged in the present warfare in Mexico. Ten thousand rifles, one million rifle cartridges, many machine guns, war planes and aerial bombs are being sent to Mexico for the use of the Portes Gil government against the present uprising, and Mexican aviators are receiving emer- gency training by U. S. army officers in the handling of the new planes. On the border the United States forces are co- operating with the Mexican federal troops for the suppression of the uprising. This does not mean that the present uprising is a “rev- olution,” as it is so often called by the capitalist press. It is an insurrection of largely the same character as those military outbreaks of several months ago. Large sections of the feudal aristocracy and the catholic clerg e supporting the insurrection, which is an effort to move history backward and not forward. The uprising has a marked fascist char- acter—which counter-revolutionary under all circum- stances. is The working class cannot support such a movement, but has every rgason to fight and destroy it. But is this reactionary uprising the only enemy? ‘And is the United States government “helping” Mexico? On the contrary, the result of the whole course of events in regard to the apparently unsuccessful upri sing in Mexico is the tightening the hold of Yankee imperialism upon that republic. The blame for such results lies upon the Portes Gil government. Conscious workers and peasants of Mexico must know that there is not and cannot be a worse enemy of Mexico than the imperialist government of the United States. On one hand the feudal-clerical reaction raises its armed hand against the masses. On the other hand United States im- perialism “moves in” on the pretext of “helping” Mexico. Does anyone imagine that the costly munitions of war that Hoover is sending to the southern republic are sent with the intention of helping the Mexican workers to struggle against the yankee oil and mining ¢oncessionaires? Or to aid the Mexican peasants to drive away the yankee land-holders? It is impossible to ignore in this connection the struggle now going on between the United States and Great “Britain on a world scale—the two giant imperialist systems strug- | TO LIGHT THEIR WAY B y Fred Ellis Economy of Moscow By UCHANOV. Our Party is pursuing a deter- mined course towards the complete reconstruction of our backward technic and economy. We have at the same time set ourselves the task of developing agricultural produc- tive forces on the basis of a refor- jmation of our extremely backward Jagricultural technics, to be accom- strictly to the class standpoint. In|farms in 192 agriculture we have been chiefly|nomic year just elapsed). socializa-|cialized sector interested in developing 26 to 476 in the eco-} The s of agriculture will tion and giving aid to the village|this year supply 12 per cent of the poor. We have promoted to a wide | commodity share of agricultural pro- extent the houses in the factory districts. The chief care of our’ communal economy has been to serve the work- ing class districts and the working | population, ete. This does not mean building of workers’| duction, as compared with 6.7 per cent last year. The number of work-! ers employed in industry has in- creased by 55,000, and today totals alme-t half a million. : During the last two years the and vegetable gardens covering an area of 525 hecta: The collective farms are accorded far-reaching support. . It suffices to mention that in the current economic 84 per cent of the capital in- d in collective farms has been covered by our credit system, and only 18 per cent by the members of the collective undertakings them- understand me: | is going .to improve the condition of purely the skilled | workers, but I mean we are going to get at the mass | joining the organization. The Progress of the Communal Copyright, 1929,. by Publishers Co., Inc. Internation: BILL ‘HAYWOOD’S BOOK | Haywood Discusses Skilled and Unskilled Workers; He Organizes the Broncho Busters and Range Riders All rights rese,ved. Republica- tion forbidden except by permission. In previous chapters Haywood told of his early life as miner, cow- boy and homesteader in the Old West; of being @ union man in the Idaho mines; his election, finally to head the Westren Federation of Miners; its strikes in Idaho and Colorado; the events leading up to | | | | orga tion of the I.W.W. at Chicago in 1905. He is speaking now of | that first convention of the 1LW.W. Now go on reading. By WM. D. HAYWOOD PART 59, | A‘ the ratification meeting whcih followed, six delegates spoke, among them myself. I said in part: “The organization which has been launched recognizes neither ‘race | creed, color, sex, or previous condition of servitude.’ We came out of the West to meet the textile workers of the East. We | men of the West are getting more wages per day than these men are getting. We recognize the fact that unless we bring them up to our condition they of necessity will drag us down to theirs. We propose that this industrial movement shall provide, for every | man and woman that works, a decent livelihood. Is | that something worth working for? “Now understand me—or rather, do not mais- I do not mean that this organization I do not care a snap of my finger whether or not the skilled workers join this | industrial movement at the present time. When we get the unorganizec of the workers and bring them up to a decent plane of living. and the unskilled laborer into this organization the skilléd worker wil of necessity come here for his own protection. As strange as it may seem to you, the skilled worker today is exploiting the labor beneatt him the unskilled man, just as much as the capitalist is. “To make myself better understood, the skilled worker has organ ized for himself a union recognizing that in unity there is strength He has thrown high walls around that union which prohibit men fror He exacts that a man to become a member | of the labor union must of necessity serve an apprenticeship to develoy | his skill. What for? For the benefit of the union? No, but for thc | benefit of his employer who is a member of the Citizens’ Alliance anc who is trying to crush out of existence the same union.... The skillec mechanic, by means of the pure and simple trade union, is exploiting the unskilled laborer. “There are unions in this conutry that exact an initiation fee, somc of them as high as five hundred dollars. There is the glass blowers union, to be specific. How long would it take a man working for : dollar or a dollar and a quarter a day and providing for a family t: Save up enough money to pay his initiation fee into the union?... Th« unskilled laborer’s wages have been continually going down and thc skilled mechanic through his wnion has been able to hold his wages a a price and upon a scale that has insured him, even at these high p a reasonably decent living, but the laborer at the bottom who is working for a dollar or a dollar and a quarter a day has been ground into < state of destitution... . | “Now, don’t get discouraged, you folks, you of the working class | because here in Chicago you have lost some strikes. Remember tha you never could have lost those strikes if you had been organized in facicwe 4 5 acai | dustrially as the workers in Russi: i i i \plished by extensive socialization Bn oes na veerben dave: been bomen teil Se ee Aaja iis bp cana gling for the possession of the major portion of the world for colonial exploitation. The United States is trying to make Mexico—and all of Latin America—into outright colonial pos- sessions under yankee rule and yankee slave-driving. British imperialism, severely weakened in comparison, holds on des- by Fal Heino . oe toate! ith respect to the class line in some agricultural undertakings of the’ individual cases, for instance in the oor end Huddle Dene |distribution of agricultural credits Our economic .policy is directed towards strengthening every aspect strictly enough to the directive en- of the Socialist sector of our econo-| and in the frequent failure to adhere | have risen by 21.5 per cent. 1926-27 we expended 16 milli rubles for unemployment benefit, in 1927-28 over 25 million rubles. In| the, course of the two years under | javerage wages of the Moscow worker | the village poor to the amount of| © 4 Th about one million rubles, and have| ‘dustry. For instance, ir 4 on |organized the comassation (redis-| tion was one of the best in this country, tribution of several scattered hold-| ings of an individual by exchange | with those of others so as to bring | organization that takes every man, woman and child working in ar in the packing plants, the butchers’ organiza reputed to be fifty thousanc strong. They were well disciplined, which is shovmn by the fact tha when they were called on strike, they quit to a man. That is, the butchers quit. But did the engineers quit? Did the firemen quit? Dic report we spent 185 million rubles 2 A . |acting that 70 to 80 per cent at least my, and. we sre: attacking the capi- on the erection of dwelling houses, M 7 + of the newly erected houses should talist elements all alofig the line. | h6 occupied by workers, ete. Such Hand in ‘hand with the Teconstrue-| errors must. be gorrected with the |tion of our economy, we are PYO-| utmost energy.” ceeding uninterruptedly—in contra-| We. have; set; ourseleaa the. tack |all his holdings together into one or| the men who were running the ice plants quit? They were not in thi las few as possible areas—Ed. note) | Union, not in that particular union. They had agreements with thei 148 million wubles of which were al-| of 40,000 poor peasant farms free of | employers which forbade them quitting. The result was that the butch lotted to the city of Moscow.’ This beta | ers’ union was practically totally disrupted, entirely wiped out. enabled. us to provide housing ac- | The that every man around the packing houses, fron perately to its colonial possessions and its spheres of influ- ence, while the Wall Street empire, with the most voracious imperialist appetite and virtually no colonies, presses Great Britain on all fronts, and two imperialist giants prepare for “Now, presuming development of our com- the oncoming inevitable war. Capitalist control of sources and means of transmission of news does not permit much detail of fact to come to public knowledge in respect to the part that British imperialism is playing in the events in Mexico today. But the struggle be- tween British and yankee imperialism is the decisive factor in the world arena. Latin America as a whole is a scene of sharp conflict between the two. The existence of civil war between the yankee-enslaved Mexican government of Portes Gil on the one hand and a fascist-reactionary uprising on the other, cannot but be connected with the struggle between the Wall Street imperialists and the British imperialists. Mexican workers and peasants cannot depend on such Mexican leaders as they have had in Calles, Obregon and the present president, Portes Gil. Gil has proven himself a weak- kneed flunkey of yankee millionaires. He takes his orders from Hoover’s and Morgan’s ambassador Morrow even more slavishly than did Calles and Obregon. The reason for this is not to be found in varying personalities, but in the class basis of the present Mexican government. The Mexican re- public is now under a government of the petty-bourgeois na- tive elements completely tied up in their dependence upon the big imperialist capitalism of the North. It is absolutely im- possible for such a government to preserve the independence of Mexico—not to speak of the completing of the Mexican rev- olution, of which the Obregonistas so glibly and hypocritically speak. The government of Portes Gil is itself to be blamed for the present predicament of Mexico; it has made itself a weak and slavish overseer for yankee imperialism. Instead of fighting yankee imperialism as the most. dangerous enemy of Mexico, it has licked the boots of Morrow and Hoover. It has ‘obeyed the commands of Washington in counter-revolu- tionary activity against the workers and peasants in the in- terests of yankee bankers and oil and mining concessionaires, In such a situation it is inevitable that fascist revolts arise over the masses who are bound and gagged by “socialist” and “Crom” leaders in the service of the petty-bourgeois govern- ment and the yankee finance-capitalists. The toiling Mexican masses must at last learn from the repeated reactionary insurrections of clericals, feudal land- lords and fascist militarists. The Mexican workers and peas- ants must learn that they themselves are the only possible liberators of Mexico. The bourgeois-democratic revolution of Mexico cannot be carried through by the bourgeoisie of Mexico—but only by the armed workers and peasants in spite - of the bourgeoisie, in spite of the petty-bourgeois bootlicks of Wall Street Messrs. Calles and Gil. The armed struggle of the masses of workers and peas- ants alone can put an end to the chess-game of the United States and British imperialists. In this the hegemony of the industrial working class, which implies the leadership of the _ Communist Party, is indispensable. “The Mexican workers must take the lead in the fighting bloc of workers and peasants, in the struggle for a workers and peasants government of Mexico. The threat of United States intervention is acute. In the distinction to the capitalist countries —with the improvement of the ma- terial position of the working class and of all toilers. Growth of City Economy. What have we attained by means of this policy? First of all a gen- eral and considerable growth of our economy and especially of our indus- try. The rate of development of our industry is increasing from year to Iyear. In the course of the economic year 1926-27 the production of our industry increased by 18 per cent, and in 1927-28 by 22.7 per cent. This rate has been made possible only with the aid of extensive capi- tal investments. During the last three years (including the present economic year 1928-29), the capital \freshly invested in the industry of the Soviet Union has amounted to 4 billions of roubles. The level of our technics ¢s rising, jeven if not so rapidly as is Actually |necessary and as we might~ wish. |The productivity of labor is also growing. In 1927-28 it increased by \14.5 per cent, and a further rise of 17 per cent is to be attained in the present economic year. Agriculture Progressing. | Agriculture has also made prog- ress during the last few years, al- though the speed of its development lis insufficient. We must accelerate this development, in order to en- sure our success in the continued {rapid industrialization of our econ- omy. The rate at which our grain ‘production develops is especially in- | sufficient, For the purpose of accelerating the development of agriculture, we are giving support at the same time to the individual farms of the poor and middle peasants. We must, how- ever, never forget ‘that a radicab imptovent of agriculture, and its technical reformation, can be accom- plished only on the basis of collec- tivization, on the basis of the devel- opment of large-scale agricultural undertakings. x Everyone knows that our work, besides its great successes, reveals numerous faults. All these ‘faults must~be subjected to the severest self-criticism, This is the only way to remove them, In our work we Have adhered s it has already begun. to resist to the extreme of the’ Our greatest enemy is the Empire. less imperialist ruling class and governm |of the cultural revolution in its ful- llest extent. At the present time the jcultural revolution is the most im- portant link in the chain of our con- structive work. And now to the results of economic development in Moscow and the Mos- cow Gubernia (province or govern- ment). | During the past twe years we have invested 970 million rubles in| have |the various branches of economy., this year than last. commodation for 150,000 persons. 24 per cent of the workers of Moscow are catered for by the com- munal kitchens. It is expected that this number will be increased to 35 per cent in the current economic year. The newly erected mechanical | large-scale central kitchens will play a great part in promoting this. | The public health service has also | its successes to record. The clinics | served 30% more patients | The number | mercial activities is characterized by the decline of the small trade centers by 18 per cent (of the private sales centers by 30 per cent) and by the 50 per cent extension of the network of the co-operatives. In the course of the coming year nearly all work- ing class districts will possess large and well equipped department stores. Mechanized Bakeries, We have taken up the reorgani- zation of bread production, our aim |Of this sum 370 million rubles have | of clinics has increased by 19 per | being to replace the small-scale un- economic year 1928-29 alone provi-| per cent. sion has been made for capital in- vestments to the amount of 670 mil- |lion rubles (260 million rubles for | industry). These capital invest- |ments have been utilized as follows: Doubles Output. In the course of two years the |production of the industry of “Mos- |cow and its environs has increased by 51 per cent. The industry con- trolled directly by the Moscow com- munal “administration (Moscow Eco- nomic Council) has shown especially rapid’ progress: It has doubled its output in two years. During the last economic year (1927-28), the production of those branches of industry (in the city and gubernia of Moscow) which are manufacturing means of production ‘manufacturing articles of consump- tion by 25.3 per cent. The capacity of the power stations has been in- creased by 30 per cent. In spite of bad crops, the total agricultural production of our gu- bernia has risen by 6 per cent and the proportion of this output form- ing a commodity by 14 per cent. The area under cultivation has been in- creased by 4.6 per cent, 84 per cent of the total arable land is already being tilled on the multiple course system. In 1927-28 five times as much fertilizer, yas distributed as in the year before, but even this quantity failed to satisfy the whole demand of the peasant farms? The mechanization of the peasant farms has made considerable progress. Collective Farming Increases. The number of collective farms has more than doubled during the past two years (from 225 collective sense of diplomatic manoeuvering and the shipment of arms, Yankee intervention for any purpose can only mean imperialist war against the masses of Mexico. The class-conscious workers of this country rfast be prepared ‘ir power the imperialigt crimes of the United States government in Latin America. same—the bloated, cruel, ruth- ent of the Dollar increased by 81.5 per cent, those| Private Trade Being Wiped Out. How is the task of developing the socialist sector being solved? In| 1926 the share taken by private) trade in the retail trade of Moscow was 33.5 per cent, in 1928 22 per) cent, and in 1929 (see our prelimi-| nary estimate) it will be 17.9 per| cent. 79.9 per cent of the total pro- | duction of the “census industry” | (undertakings employing more than 16 workers) has been supplied by | socialized industry. | It need not be said that here too} there are weak sjfots. The degree| of socialization among the smail| and home industries is only 44 per! cent; this percentage is however | double that of 1926 (22 per cent). | The membership of our co-opera- | tive societies increased by 71 per, cent in the two years under report. The corresponding increase in the agricultural co-operatives was 67| per cent, in the productive co-opera- | tives 87 per cent. Only 43 per cent of the peasants farms, however, are organized in the co-operatives. Taken all in all, the following conclusion must be emphasized: Our economy is growing yearly, not by a few units per cent, but by dozens per cent. This is a distinct symptom of the colossal achievements of our socialist construction. The main tasks of industry in the immediate future are rationalization and the reduction of the costs of production. Seven Hour Day. We shall introduce the seven-hoyr day this year in a number of under- takings, not only in textile factories, but in the metal, leather, tobacco, ready-made clothing, and other trades. In the course of the cur- rent yecr 25 per cent of the work- erg employed in the state industry of our gubernia will go over to the seven-hour day. The proportion of our agricultural production reaching the market is still extremely small: from the peas- ant farms 18 per cent, from the col- lective undertakings 33 per cent, and from ‘the Soviet farms 54 per cent. Horticulture is comparatively feebly developed., It will be promoted in * fallen to industry, For the present|cent, that of the hospitals by 12|dertaking by the mechanized large- | scale one. In Moscow we have erected two new bread factories, and within a very short time two others now in course of construction will also be completed and set going. These factories will be able to meet moré than one half of Moscows bread requirements. Speculation in bread is being combated by the introduc- tion of tion and flour distribution, This control has already been able to record considerable success, but it niust be increased. The population of Moscow has in- creased by 204,000 persons in two years. 156,000 of these have mi- grated from the country, or from other districts. This great increase in the Moscow population has had the effect of increasing local unem- ployment. Of the unemployed, places can be found fairly rapidly for the industrial workers, who form only 14 per cent of the ungmployed. Housing. We are engaged at the present houses of Moscow from all non- working elements. The whole of the housing accommodation thus set free will be placed at the exclusive dis- posal of proletarians. We are making rapid progress in vombatting illiteracy. During the last five years we have taught 200,- 000 adu'ts to read and write. There Moscow and its gubernia, but these are for the most part new arrivals fiom other districts. I'uring the two years under re- port we have been able to stimulate our Soviets greatly. One of the main tasks of the further development of proletarian democracy must be the broadening and deepening of self- criticism. In this direction we must advance more courageously than hitherto. The main line along which the Moscow district will ‘develop is that of accelerated industrialization. Be- sides this, we have another supreme- ly important task in guiding the great masses of the ptasantry more rapidly into the path of socialization and in accomplishing the technical the current year by new Soviet fruit transformation of agriculture, a control over bread produc- | time im freeing the municipalized | are still about 150,000 illiterates inj the printer to the pig sticker, went on strike the engineers, | all quit; that millions of doll | would tapidly perish, don’ | would have capitulated, Z “Don’t you believe that if today the organized workers in this grea city would not go on strike, but would stay home for two or three days i that the teamsters would win the strike that they are engaged in? On union man is no better than another union man, and any union ma) that will stand back because a company has an agreement with him, an who will seab on his fellow union man, he may be a union man, but i) my opinion he is a scab....” : belonged to one union; that when the; firemen and men who ran the ice plant lars of produce were in a state so that : ’t you believe those packing house compani¢ * tenet: Det£on’s opening speech had, to me, but as the convention progressed he s oe paar aa was elected on the Cons‘ stitute for a delegate who was taken sick. Immediat r adjourn ment he delivered an excellent speech in Minas Gee ea of the I.W.W., whcih was later brought out as a pamphlet. Debs als oe ie ae wore ae organization, and a speech of his at Grand Centra ace, New York, was gotten out We OE at Rial edl er asa pamphlet, These two speeche Sam Gompers, in an issue of the American Federationist, had trie 0 belittle the first convention of the I.W.W., but he paid the organiza ; tion the great compliment of imitating some of its plans, that is, t the extent of establishing departments in the A. F. of L. ; * se been flat and disappointing eemed to get into the swin titution Committee as a sub 0’ our way back to Denver we talked over the work’ that had bee "done and the officials who had been elected.” I expressed my cor fidence in the earnestness and ability of Traut: : _ and f mann, the secretary treasurer of the new organization. Moyer and the other boys thougt | that Sherman, of the Metal and Machine Workers, who had been ciecte president, was a responsible man, and it looked to us, generally speak | ing, as though the work we had been instructed to do had been we | done. There was no misgiving in my mind, at that time, of the po: | sibility of mismanagement or any other kind of trouble atising withi ; the new organization. The fervor and enthusiasm of the delegate were still with me. I felt that the Industrial: Workers of the Wor | had a great future before it. ¥ 3 Hundreds of Cripple Creek miners had left for the new gold cam in Nevada, where strong unions had been organized at Goldfield, Tor opah and other places. The strike at Cripple Creek and Colorado Cit was dragging itself out, with nothing definite as to the future, * * * yet fall there was a Mountain and Plains Festival in Denver, ¢ which one of the features was a broncho-busting contest. M brother-in-law, Tom Minor, was one of the riders. I met many of th cowboys and invited them to the headquarters of the Federation, an * suggested that their wages ahd conditions could be improved if th * were organized. I said: ’ “It seems to me you fellows take a lot of chances riding in the: contests. For this dangerous work you should get at least fifty d lars a day, and much higher wages than you get now while breakir bronchos on the ranch,” As the result of our meeting the Broncho Busters’ and Ran Riders’ Union of the I.W.W. was organized. Harry Brennan, { + champion rider, was elected president and Minor, secretary. Wag for riding in contests were fixed at fifty dollars a day, ‘and fifty do lars a month for broncho busting and range riding on the ranch. The asked me to act as secretary until they were better organized or unt Minor had a permanent address. The seal of the union was a cowb« on a bucking broncho which was branded on the hip B.B.R.R, I ¢ out letter heads and envelopes with the same design, but with the co: boy throwing a rope around the return address, saying: “If not reunc up in ten days return to—.” The union did not grow or even 1 very long, and I had but little time Ad deyote to it. * In the next instalment Haywood writes of his discovery that Moy was playing some game of his own; of the death of ex-Governor Steu enberg of Idaho; a Pinkerton spy makes a visit; the famous kidnappir of Haywood, Moyer and Petfibone which set the world of labor abla with protest in 1906. Readers should not pass by the chance of ge ting Haywood’s book free in bound volume, Wy sending in a yearly su A scription, renewal or satension to the Daily Worker, | a)