The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 10, 1929, Page 4

COM Four SDAY, APRIL 10, 1929 MUNIST PARTY BUILDING DRIVE APRIL 15-JUNE 15 For the Line of the Open Letter! For the Strengthening of the Party! TO ALL PARTY ORGANIZATIONS, TO ALL PARTY MEMBERS: of the United States of America ng Drive on Monday, April 15th 1 This dr a very necessary ure to give life and vitality to cer ions laid down in the Open Letter of the Comintern and y adopted by the Sixth National Convention of the small portion of the work ons of the Open Letter. e general and complete treat- h has been decided upon. The Central y outline for guiding the ation of the provisions of the Open Letter. ote certain ons of the Open Letter in connection with the Party building ist be done in fu ast not be conf Open Letter wh It n f the anc wish to ¢ be s in the struggle for w material through- election of Hoover as | ism is resolutely em- 1 wars of occupation angel The aggress kets and the r the world is t m which leads to colon ray n of the st ist position in more and more in- m and comes more and tability of world capi- American world ecor rowing mination in world politics drives one hand, towards brutal capi- jlerable sections of the reme overstrain of to a colossal growth to a general worsening of On the other hand it leads e striving towards d impe sm, tk s on m wt n) and “ towards tremendous grov burdens onto the shoulders of the toiling ma: the menace of the terrific calam f uncertainty and insecu: All this and ates a state of It is on sses. ican working class is inc defend itself, which in some places to assume the offensive, is developi This drift towards the Left does not develop evenly in all parts of the working class. It now embr: the unorganized workers, especially in those industries which have not reached their previous level after the depression of the first half of 1928.” The correctness of the line of th verified by the increasing strikes in rts of the country among | the unorganized workers, and fp y in the growing wave of | strikes in the South among the textile workers, against the effects of | capitalist rationalization, and points out the possibilities and tasks of | the Party in the present period. The Open Letter also states: “The Workers (Communist) Party is obviously still unpre- pared 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 numer- ically small propagandist organization into a mass political party of the American working class. “This, however, is the task which the whole objective situa- tion in the United States, the entire post-war development of American imperialism places before the Party. This is the chief, yundamental and decisive task to which all other tasks must be | entirely subordinated.” | In order that the Party shall be able to measure up the present objective situation, it is necessary to achieve the following: Organizational Tasks. 1. To improve the composition of the Party membership. 2. To orientate the Party completely towards the fac- tories and reorganize the Party completely on the basis of factory nuclei. 8. To strengthen the Party apparatus. 4. To build up and proletarianize the leading committees of the Party. 5. To build fractions and control their activity unions and other mass organizations. 6. To carry on more systematic organizational work in con- nection with all Party campaigns and activities. 7. To build the Party press. Open Letter has already been in the trade 8. To increase the work among Negroes. 9. To increase the work among women. 10. To build up the Young Workers (Communist) League | and the Pioneers. : 11. To raise the ideological level in the Party, to establish a real democratic centralism and Party discipline. 12. Education of the Party to the real meaning of the World Party in connection with the 10th anniversary of the Comintern. The Party Building Drive will have for its concrete im- mediate aims: 1. The recruiting of 5,000 new members. 2. The establishment of 100 additional factory nuclei. 3. The establishment of 35 additional factory papers. 4, The securing of 5,000 additional readers for the Daily Worker and increasing the circulation of the entire Party press. 5. The activization of the Party nuclei. 6. The building of the Young Workers (Communist) League. The Party Building Drive must be conducted principally in the factories. This is true about our Party more than about any other Party, practically in the entire Comintern, because the bulk of the American working class—practically all semi-skilled, unskilled and Negro workers—is unorganized. Our Party Building Drive, therefore, is not merely a matter of recruiting Party members, but it is to re- cruit them primarily in the factories among the workers in the basic industries. In this recruiting drive, a great deal of attention must be paid to the recruiting of native-born and Negro workers. The Comintern in its Open Letter has the following to say on the question: “The Party can become a mass proletarian party only on condition that it widens its base by creating its main strongholds in the ranks of the American workers, especially in the most im- portant branches of industry, and also among the Negro workers, while at the same time retaining its positions among the revolu- tionary immigrant workers.” This drive should be approached in a concrete manner, every dis- trict concentrating upon the most essential industries in its territory; as for example, the following should be the industries for each district in which they must primarily concentrate: District 1—Textile, shoe, metal. District 2—Waterfront, chemical, metal. District 3.—Mining metal textile, ship building. District 4.—Steel railroad, shoes, textile, metal. District 5.—Steel, mining, electric. vistrict 6.—Steel, mining, rubber, auto. District 7.—Auto, furniture. District 8.—Mining, metal, packing house, electric, building, etc. District 9.—Metal, mining, packing house, flour mills, automobile, ete. District 10.—Packing house, mining, steel, etc. traction, needle, building, | Party organization in the Southern territory. | Building Drive Director. District 12.—Lumber, ete, District 13.—Agricultural workers, ship building, etc. District 15.—Metal, textile. District AD.—Agricultural workers. On this basis we aim to recruit: 1,000 miners, 500 auto workers, 500 needle trades workers, 500 textile workers, 200 shoe workers, 1,000 metal workers, 200 packing house workers, 200 railroad workers. The following shall be the quotas for the new members factory ‘nuclei and factory papers in the various districts. (The quotas for the Peity Worker resders bnv2 already been printed in the Daily Factory Shop Members Nuc. papers District 1 (Boston) ......... 400 10 3 District 2 (New York) . « 1,000 10 5 District 3 (Philadelphia . 300 5 2 District 4 (Buffalo) 300 5 2 District 5 (Pittsburgh) 500 a) 3 District 6 (Cleveland) ...... 400 10 3 District 7 (Detroit) .. 400 19 3 District 8 (Chicago) + 600 Vy) 4o\ District 9 (Minneapolis) .... 300 5 2 District 10 (Kansas City) ... 200 5 2 District 12 (Seattle) .... + 200 5 2 District 13 (California) ..... 200 5 2 District 15 (Connecticut) . 200 5 2 Agricultural District 100 5,000 100 35 One of the aims of the drive will also be to establish a district : The Party must, there- fore, particularly in connection with the present strikes, pay attention to the recruiting of new members in the South and pay special at- tention, in this drive, to the drawing of Negro workers into the Party. Mobilization for the Drive. _ 1. The Party nuclei must therefore devote at least one full meet- ing to the discussion of the Open Letter on the basis of the outlines submitted by the Central Committee as well as to the discussion of the organization thesis and the call for the Trade Union Unity Convention. ie principles of the Party, its methods of work, duties of Party mem- bers, ete. The Agit-prop shall draw up the outlines for these courses based upon the Open Letter, the C. I. program and the organization thesis. There must be systematic assignment of work to every Party member. Districts and sections must pay special attention to new units formed, assigning some experienced comrades to work in these new units. Publicity for the Drive. 1. Every Party paper shall have a “Party Editor” and he must consider one of his major tasks the Party Building Drive. 2. The Party press shall carry a special Party Building Drive column, in which the Party members shall record the progress of the drive in each district and section, exchange of experiences, etc. In addition to the slogans dealing with the various mass cam- paigns of the Party, we must put forward the following slogans: “Join the Party of your class! Join the Communist Party of the U. “Join the American Section of Slogans for In addition to these slogans, v “Every Militant Worker a Member of the Communist Party.” the Communist International!” the Drive. we must raise the following slogans within the Party to mobilize the Party membership for the drive, 1. Carry into life the line of the Open Letter. Prepare for the big struggles that are coming, by building our fortress. Build factory nuclef. e factory nuclei. | 2. | the Party. 3. Every member an active member. 4, Every member get a new member. 5. Let us make every factory 6. Activize and politicalize th & | Fight the Right danger. | the Party. | 8 Improve the social compesition of Help build a powerful Young Communist League. | ORGANIZATION DEPARTMENT—CENTRAL COMMITTEE, COMMUNIST PARTY U. S. A. REPUBLICAN POLITICIAN SOBS NEGRO TENANTS IN “HIGHER CLASS” HOUSES This discussion must be conducted in the spirit of the letter sent to | all Party units signed by the individual members of the Acting Secre- tariat and countersigned by the CI representative, Comrade Frank. 2. At the n:obilization meeting there must also be distributed application blanks, literature for the drive, etc. 8, Every shop and street nucleus must discuss the various meth- ods of recruiting, what factories to concentrate upon, the issuance of factory paper, issuance of leaflets, the assignment of new members for work, the training of new members, ete. | 4. Every shop and street nucleus should divide up among its mem- | bers the various lists of sympathizers, connections, ete., with a view of definite and concrete recruiting to the nucleus. 5. The executive or bureau of the nucleus shall ive or ; s prepare -the agenda for the Mobilization Meeting so that as much routine as pos- sible can be done away with and all the business transacted at the nucleus meeting. 6. Every district, section and nucleus must appoint a special Party Basis of Drive. 1, The campaign must be based upon and organically connected up and the achievements result from the activities of the Party in the present time, principally the campaign to build the Trade Union Unity Convention to be held in Cleveland on June 1st, which is part of the cam- paign to organize the unorganized. 2. The May Day demonstration that the Party will organize through- out the country and which shall be preceeded by deep-goin; ‘itation i the factories for the slogans of the Party. tide aaa 8. The campaign against imperialist war and war preparations. 4. The campaign for the defense of the Soviet Union, In the every day agitation in the factories, we should bear in mind the following advice from the Comintern in its Open Letter to our Party: “To place in the centre 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 sys- tematic 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.” It is self understood that these tasks must be connected aims with the final aims of the Party, and a merciless campaign conducted by the Party against all brands of social reformism and the reflection of it in our Party. The fight against the Right danger must not remain an ab- straction but every Party organization must expose and correct all right errors committed by the Party. Methods of the Drive. a) FACTORIES— 1, As already mentioned above, the main center of the Party Build- | (Continued from Page One) in some rich man’s house, rents out most of her rooms to lodgers. In these seven rooms there live at least 10 persons. Mrs. X. prob- ably s!/:ps in the “parlor.” The only rooms which have access to the open air are the front and back rooms. The intervening rooms have small windows opening out on a narrow shaftway. The shaftway is only about a yard wide and you can step across from the window of one apartment to the room of the apartment next door. Imagine all the air that can steal into these rooms, by hook or crook, thru a shaftway that runs the length of five stories, True, the law says that there must be adequate ventilation, and it also says that | there must be adequate fire percautions, but that law is only a scrap The landlord is the real boss. * * of paper. * HERE is an “improvement” here over the tenement houses we took you to yesterday. This “improvement” is a dumbwaiter—a dumb- waiter which has not worked for years. We saw the dumbwaiter fas- tened at the top of the dumbwaiter shaft when we went up on the roof left there like so much junk. It costs too much to fix it, says the landlord. The tenants are forced to throw their garbage down the dumbwaiter shaftway. You can hear it rustling and bumping its way down past the whole tier of apartments, slop spilling and cans rattling. By the end of the day it reaches above the second story. As a result the house is smelly and infested with rats and other vermin—just the place for disease. No wonder there is such a high rate of infant mortality in Harlem and so many deaths from con- | sumption. ing Drive must be the factories. Every district section and nucleus must | survey its territory and assign comrades to concentrate in each of the factories, where the campaign is undertaken. The factories selected must be in line with the line of the Party to concentrate in the basic | industries with special attention to war industries. There must be held factory gate meetings. Special issues of the existing shop bulletins should be issued and where no factory papers exist every effort must be made to establish Communist shop papers even if at the beginning it is in the form of a two page leaflet. 4. The Party press must be sold at the factory gates and they must be organized special free distributions. The work must be linked up with the building of workers’ correspondents, 5. Special leaflets dealing,with concrete events in the fac’ be issued from tinle t6 time. me ase 6. The factory nuclei must hold special meetings to which trusted sympathizers are invited to participate. 7. The street nuclei must concentrate their activities in one or more important factories. 8. Every effort must be made to build shop committees and draw the most mature workers in these committees into Party. The building of shop committees must be connected up with the TUEL convention. 9. The districts must pay attention to “factory towns” where there is located basic industry and large plants. 3. 10. Everyday agitation directly within the factories, and indi- | vidual recruiting must be carried on, b) TRADE UNIONS— All Party fractions in the trade unions must be mobilized for the carrying on of the drive among the workers in the union, particularly concentrating on the left wing supporters. The work among the mem- bers of the trade unions must be tied up with the campaign for the Trade Union Unity convention, c) FRATERNAL ORGANIZATIONS— The Party Building Drive must be utilized to bring the issues of the class struggle into the workers fraternal organizations. The Party frac- tions in these organizations must bring the Party campaign and slogans into these organizations and recruit members to the Party. d) The Party fractions in the TUEL, ILD, WIR, Anti-Imperialist League, etc., must consider these organizations as a fertile field for the recruiting of Party members. e) All readers of the Party press must be canvassed for Party membership. f) All mass meetings, forums, etc., must carry on Party recruiting. Local neighborhood meetings should be organized. Negro, Women, Youth. Every district, section and nucleus must pay special attention to the recruiting of Negro workers, women workers, and young workers, to the Party as well as to the YWL, Special literature must be published appealing to these sections of the working class. Special concentration weeks for the recruiting of Negro, Women, and Young Workers should be organized. The various Party departments involved will send out additional material dealing with Negro, women and young workers. Training and Assignments of New Workers. 1, All new members taken in in each of the sections shall be called together every week or two weeks depending on the number enrolled and be addressed by a member of the DEC on the policies of the Party and the duties and tasks for every Party member, 2. That every nuclous should organize a discussion group for the new members as well as others to take up for a minimum of 4 weeks the Seventh Avenue is not a bad looking street, but no sooner do you enter the door of one of these tenement houses than you forget there is any such thing as sunshine and fresh air. It is dark and gloomy, disease-festering and intolerably uncomfortable. There is a great deal of garbage lying about in the shaftway separating the two houses and heaped in the back yards. Bells haven’t worked for years and the letter boxes are no more than a series of holes in the wall. At 2323 lives Mrs. Y. We had better not mention her name for she has just received a five dollar rent raise and now pays $57 for her seven rooms. Nine live in this apartment, Conditions are about the same here as in Mrs. X’s place. . *# # F a Negro worker wishes to avoid such a place as East 134th Street, he goes to the west side Harlem, pays higher rents, but has to sublet nearly all the rooms in the apartment. The result is more over-crowd- ing here than in worse located tenements, and more danger to the health of the tenants because of the absolute neglect of the houses by the landlord. Go to a “higher class” apartment and the condition is just as bad. The rent is higher, the worker must work harder, his wife, his chil- dren must work, he must take in lodgers, It is in this class of apartments—those renting at about $10 per room per month—that you will find tremendous overcrowding, terrible housing conditions, rooms*in state of decay and the landlords, creeping around like so many slimy snakes sucking the very life blood out of the workers with their continual demand for rent raises and their per- sistent refusal to make any improvements. The worse the houses the higher rents. The more tenants in Harlem, the higher the rents. Laws or no laws, the landlords, sitting on the backs of the Negro workers have made a gold mine out of Harlem for themselves. A Segregation—a virtual prison system, a system of bars and chains —has helped the landlords. Race oppression, added to oppression of the Negroes as workers, means more dollars for the landlords, By forcing Negroes to live in a put-aside section, the value of the land and houses rises out of all proportion. The real estate men and landlords speculate to their heart’s content. To these parasites dollars are the measure of humanity. So, you see that segregation in housing is a matter of dollars for the landlords, just as it is for the bosses of factories, and a barbed- wire fence for the Negro workers, catching and tearing their flesh. by Ok ae Tomorrow we will go into other sections of Harlem, revealing further the persecution the tenants must suffer at the hands of the landlords. ey —_—_————— [Theatre Guild Productions Man’s Estate by Beatrice Blackmar and Bruce Goul M Theatre, W. BILTMORE 47th Street Eves. 8:50; Mats. Thurs.&: SIL-VAKA'S COMEDY CAPRICE ; y Thea. W. fynd Bt GUILD Eves. ren Mats. Thurs, & 8: EUGENE O'NE! Strange Interlude John GOLDEN. Thea., 58th B. of Bway EVENINGS ONLY AT 6:30 dison Sq. Garden NOW! VICE DAILY 2 and 8 ji Special Entertainments Bact Sunday Afternoon and Night Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Combined CIRCUS 10,000 Marveis Including HUGO ZACOHINI “THE HUMAN PROJECTILE” Shot Through Spsce from Monster Cannon — Sensation of Century Admission to all (incl, seats) $1.00 to $3.50 Inc. Tax, Children under 12 Half Price at All Matinees ex- cept Saturdays & Sundays, Tickets at Garden Box Offices Gimbel Brothers ond Usual ‘Meket Agencies. (IVIC REPERTORY 15¢,51n5 50c; $1.00; $1.50 Mats, Wed.&Sat.,2:30 EVA LE GALLIENNE. Director Today Mat. “Peter Pan.” Tonight, “Katerina.” ARTHUR HOPKINS presents DAY Thurs. Mat, “The Cherry Orchard.” Thurs, Vve» “Wtnvitation aw Voy) Comedy Hit by PHILIP BARRY : PLYMOUTH ‘hea. W. 45 St. bv. 8.50 COMEDY Theatre, 41st st, 2 91) ———— Mate. Thurs, & Bat, 2.36 Broadway. FE Inet | | Sun. at 8.50. — Mats, Thurs. & Sat Chanin’s MAJESTIC Theatre RUTH 44th St. West of Broadway Eves. 8:30; Mats: Wed. & Sat. 2:30 ‘The Greatest and Funniest Revue Pleasure Bound Draper Ba —a dramatic situation in the S Volga,” now in its second crowde tyr and His Tarters Rebel The Tartars have cornered the soldiers of Catherine The Great ‘ovkino film “The Flames on the d week at the Film Guild Cinema. | ALL-QUINTERO BILL AT CIVIC REPERTORY. The first performance of the all- Quintero bill, which will be a fea- ture of the annual spring tour of the Civic Repertory Theatre, will be given on Saturday evening of this week by Eva Le Gallienne in Four- teenth Street. The short comedy, “A Sunny Morning,” by Serafin and | Joaquin Alvarez-Quintero will, on |that occasion, replace Tchekov’s “On the High Road” as the curtain |raiser to the longer comedy by the | Quinteros, “The Lady from Alfa- querque. Miss Le Gallienne will ap- |pear in this bill, as she will play | the leading role in “A Sunny Morn- ing” with Egon Brecker. A second erformance of this bill will | ‘iven on Friday evening, April 19, | before the third season closes, | In order to accommodate the pub- | lic demand for “The Cherry Orch- ard,” an extra matinee of Tchekov’s will be given tomorrow afternoon. “seal |New Film of Napoleon Downfall at Film Guild | Cinema Saturday. The Film Guild Cinema announces the American premiere this Satur- | day of “Waterloo,” a German pro- duction of the Emelka Corporation, | depicting the downfall of Napoleon from the English-German angle. Heading a cast of 5,000 are three notable cinema-artists of Germany, France and England who play the |leading roles. Charles Vanel por- |trays Napoleon, Otto Gebuhr, Field | Marshall Blucher and Humberstone | Wright as Lord Wellington. | VATICAN PACT FINAL IN MAY. ROME, April 9.—Final ratifi¢a- | tion of the Vatican accord with Italy, making it effective, probably will occur during the first two weeks of May, it was understood today. a Is w D Farewell PERFORMANCE a” Dancers IN A PROGRAM OF Revolutionary Songs and Dances 18, 19 April 20, 21 Manhattan Opera House TICKETS ON SALE AT DAILY WORKER OFFICE, ROOM 201, 26 Union Sq., New York City and at Box Office. — Popular Prices. adora uncan