The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 1, 1929, Page 10

MAY DAY EDITION eee Ma Day 19 and by arming the bourgeoisie, are systematically and per- sistently continuing to create a counter-revolutionary army, the chief task of which is to crush the revolt of the toilers at home. Today, Indian workers are being murdered with the arms of British volunteers in Bombay, yesterday British guns bombarded Chinese towns, tomorrow soldiers of the fas- cist Reichswehr will be sent to crush the revolt of the Ger- d do not see that the interna- its fascist armies and irregular fas- ', for the extermination of the vilers of the colonie The social dem- of the working class with the help of rm it in face of the bourgeoisie and complete and unconditional surrender. to the front that in the trenches ghting for th 1 and political rights, t on able to r ict the p of capital. The ured the workers that a new era would set in een labor and capital after the war. country in the world today where ry rights of the working cla rampled under k of applying the principle of “economic dem- prived of the right of class struggle. The the Ruhr can throw with impunity a ers into the streets under Muller’s social- the workers throw up their work in the for the piece of bread which has heen , the entire capital: and state apparatus of d against them, and soci sends its Sev- of compulsory The right to ers were told ing annulled with the The capitalists want to led by social-democracy as the “neutral” party destined s between labor and capital. “Economic democracy” ng before our very eyes into fascism. The right of association y in a number of countries such as Italy thers, like Great Britain, it is restricted by law. with America and ending with Europe and the colonies, the bourgeoisie is trying to convert the unions into organs al peace,” into agencies of big capital for the taming of the worke The wave of expulsions of Communists and revolutionary workers from the reformist unions, the disruptive policy now pursued by the reformist bureaucracy, is only a part of the general plan of m to weaken the power of resistance of the working ht-hour day has been abolished. Even the miserable Wash- sement of which the social-democrats boasted as their has collapsed. Whereas in the Soviet Union the workers hour day, in the capitalist countries we see a return <9 Capitalist rationalization intensifies the ex- have a the ten hours and more, ploitation of labor to the utmost. i verts the workers into an inarticulate tool with the help of which sur- e of stubborn struggle in | The blind monster of mechanism con- | The Organizer of the Communist International | Lenin taking notes preparatory to making speech at the Third World Congress of the Communist International. The victory of Fordism before | are grovelling, brings new cala- | are squeezed out of | plus value is created for the capitali which the social-democratic “leade mities to the working class. Millions of wor the process of production and turned into paupers. Fifteen millions of unemployed throughout the world—such is one of the features of the reverse of the medal of the famous “prosperity,” of the Hoover cult to which all the social-democratic magi in every part of the world are kow-towing. This much boomed “prosperity” is bought at the price of such a lowering of the standard of living of the working class, as was known prior to the v It is founded on terrific | exploitation of the colonies, of South America, China and India, on the rags of the starving Asian coolie, on the bones of colonial slaves which | are turned into gold by the international banks. Was this the ideal for which the proletariat was struggling when it consented to be torn | to pieces, to suffer agonies through poison gases during the last war? | Is this the kind of system for which the new generation of workers will die and make war on the Soviet Union with the blessing of the church | and the Second International? When you were sent to war you were told that you were going to May Day Statement of > May Day is the international labor holiday of the revolutionary | working class of the world. It is the symbol of that solidarity of the world’s toilers through which alone the emancipation of the Negro masses of the United States, the West Indies and Africa can be achieved. But for that solidarity and the revolutionary temper of tens of millions of white workers it would be futile to talk of African freedom, of race equality, in the face of the superior armament and organization of the imperialist countries. May Day will be celebrated in every country of the world by large masses of revolutionary workers who recognize their class interests | and their class enemies, and see behind the efforts of the capitalist class, through its press, courts, schools, churches, etc., to divide the ers on linog xf nationalism, race and color. These revolutionary workers»are the vanguard of the proletariat in the struggle to over- throw the oppressive capitalist system, they are the hope, not only of the exploited masses in their own countries, but of the oppressed peoples of Asia, Africa, the West Indies, Indonesia, ete. These revo- lutionary workers will stage May Day celebrations in every European country, in every North and South American country. Cans ee INTERNATIONAL DEMONSTRATIONS. May Day will be celebrated in South Africa by tens of thousands of native and white workers and farmers fraternizing together under the banner of the South African Communist Party and pledged to fight shoulder to shoulder for the overthrow of imperialism. May Day will be celebrated in China by millions of revolutionary workers who will use the occasion of Labor’s international holiday to voice their protests against the brutal exploitation of foreign capitalists and against the treachery of their own bourgeoisie. of working-class solidarity, will bring new hope and inspiration to the embattled proletarian and peasantry of India, where the British censorship tries in vain to hide from the eyes of the world’s proletariat the heroic struggle of the Indian masses against the white terror of British imperialism. To the Indian masses, facing the machine guns, bombing planes and gas bombs of the imperialist murderers, May Day’s message of international working-class solidarity will be a wel- come one. May Day will be celebrated in the United States of Amer- ica by thousands of Negro and white workers who have within the last year achieved a remarkable solidarity under the leadership of the revolutionary vanguard of the proletariat, the Communist Party of the U, S. A., and in open defiance of the capitalist dictum of race sepa- ration and race hatred. In the South, the old stronghold of capitalists stimulated racial prejuddices, thousands of white and Negro textile strikers, under Left-wing union leadership, will join together in May Day celebrations, presenting, for the first time in history, a solid front Metal Miners in T.U.E.L. Organization Drive By PAT DEVINE District Organizer No. 9. Organize the unorganized, particularly the iron and copper miners of the Mesaba Range, is the central slogan of the Minnesota District of the Communist Party on May Day, 1929. Conferences have already been held all over the steel trust territory in preparation for the sending of a large delegation to the T. U. E. L. convention in Cleveland. Miners, young and old, long oppressed and terrorized by the inhuman steel trust spy system, are again showing their militant spirit, which has lain dormant since the last big strike, Rationalization and speed-up has reduced the number of miners from 18,000 to 8,000 in St. Louis County. Wages have been slashed and unemployment is an ever-present club to those who openly challenge the power of the steel octupus, Nevertheless the move for organization is going ahead in a semi-illegal manner. In spite of its boasted power the steel trust has arranged for an R. 0. T. C. military camp in Chisholm, the very heart of the iron ore country, to insure that the Reds will be kept in check. The Young Com- munist League has started a campaign on the camp the results of which will not be satisfactory to the bosses. , _ * @ RALLY TO CLEVELAND CONVENTION Second only in importance to the miners is the campaign recently started in the packing houses of So. St. Paul. Already five issues of a shop paper with an average circulation of 1,000 copies have been dis- tributed. The workers, slaving under miserable conditions, are rallying to the Communist paper and will positively have representation at the revolutionary Cleveland trade union convention. Railroad, automobile, lumber and flour—gigantic industries in the northwest—are, together with the steel trust company town, Morgan Park, Duluth, being given special attention by concentration committees and will probably make heir mark at Cleveland. Only recently 15 Communists were arrested for picketing the open May Day, with its message | millions of Indian toilers are rising. fight for freedom, that you would carry on your bayonets the ideas of democracy to every part of the capitalist world. How much resem- blance is there between this false legend and the harsh truth of the present 4 Half of the European continent is now in the vice of white tervor. The czarist methods have been internationalized. Never have tl.eve been before the war such brutal sentences as are passed now against working class rebels. Members of the Second Interna- tional are working as agents of the secret service. The prisons are full to overflowing. Murder without trial has become the order of the day in the Balkans. Rivers of workers’ and peasants’ blood are flow- ing in China, India and Indonesia. The accentuation of the class struggle leads with inexorable consistancy all capitalist governments to civil war methods in their dealings with the toiler In Germany, France, Great Britain, United States conditions of an open fascist dic- tatorship are maturing. Is that the idyl of post-war democracy with which the capitalist and social-democratic press was lulling the work- ers? etic ke V ORKERS of the world, colonial toilers! here are millions of you scattered throughout the world. The capitalists can be counted only by tens and hundreds, but they are organized. You are a great force capable of unchaining a revolutionary hurricane strong enough to wipe out the capitalist order with its ex- ploitation, social inequality, coloaial oppression and war. The Second International has become an orgaization of the petty-bourgeoisie and the numerically weak but corrupted labor aristocracy which is ever more becoming part and parcel of the capitalist system. Outside of it are the masses of unorganized who in many countries are either spontaneously rising against capitalist oppression or are consciously following the lead of their vanguard as represented by the Communist Parties. The extreme accentuation of all capitalist contradictions in the epoch of imperialism, the intensified exploitation of the working | class, the growing repression and unashamed spoilation of the colonies and the menace of war e the militant activity of these masses. A new strike wave ing which illustrates the process of radi- calization within the working class of all countries. The metal workers of the Ruhr, the textile workers of France and Poland, have answered | the revolutionary call of the Indian weavers and the rebellious workers of the Columbian plantations. Following in the foodsteps of China, The recent events in Bombay have opened a page in the history of the Indian revolution to that opened by the proletariat of Shanghai in 1925 in the history of the Chinese revolution. The world is now entering upon the stage of colonial revolutions which, combined with the proletarian revolutionary move- ment of the West, undermine the foundations of capitalist society. Although the new high tide is only beginning, in contra-distinction to the revolutionary movements of the past, it is not merely of a Euro- pean character, its tendency is to become a world movement. Ever grow- ing human reserves are being involved in the conflict on an ever wider international front. The next sharp chisis in the world economy may create a direct revolutionary situation in the immediate future in a number of advanced capitalist countries. If preceding economic crises were a menace to the capitalist system, the new crisis which has set in under conditions when all the contradictions of capitalism have reached their culminating point, when the activity of the toiling masses is growing, may become fatal to capitalism. The toilers will not be awed by capitalist stabilization which reveals ever more clearly its relative and temporary character, they will not wait with folded arms | for war, they will carry a self-sacrificing struggle against war and capitalist rationalization. They are becoming more and more daring and determined in the transition from the defensive to the offensive. Their contact with the Communist Internatioaln will grow and increase in the international struggles confronting the working class and alt toilers. The struggle of the Communist International against the Second International for these vast numbers of human beings will not be simply an ideological struggle within one class, but a struggle be- tween two classes developing into civil war against the bourgeoisie whom the social democrats are now serving. There is no other organ- ization now so staunchly fighting at the head of the masses so stal- wartly defending their daily interests and the great final aims of their movement as the Communist International. Apart from it, there is no other force capable of uniting in one mighty stream the disjointed efforts of individual detachments of toilers in the various parts of the world. It is the bearer of the best traditions of the entire history of the revolutionary labor movement. Only under its leadership and in its ranks, will the workers triumph over capitalism. [eee ae | Comrades! 1 Let May Day be a day of class struggle. Let it be not a holiday granted by the powers that be and limited to a few meetings in hallg after work, but a mass strike of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie is depriving. the workers of the freedom of the street. It is everywhere mobilizing the police and the military in order to prevent May Day demonstrations in the streets. Let May 1st be a day of a self-sacrificing struggle of the workers against war. Do not allow yourselves to be caught unawares as happened in 1914. Convert May Day into a day of mobilization of your forces in preparation for international day against imperialist war which has been set for August 1, 1929. Call upon the soldiers of the imperialist armies to turn their guns against their masters. Fascist reaction must be counteracted by an interna~ tional iron front of labor. Take over the offensive and organize fac- tory guards in the struggle against fascism. Let the bourgeoisie know ; that the cause of the Soviet Union is the cause of millions of workers throughout the world, that the international proletariat will allow no one to interfere with the victorious building up of socialism in the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics. Do not allow any attacks upon the Soviet Union. In reply to the motto of the Indian workers, “Long Live the Soviets,” your May Day slogan should be heard across the borders and oceans— “Long Live Soviet India!” Throughout the World!” Give active support to the toilers of the colonies in their struggle for freedom. Form one militant phalanx of labor in opposition to capi- talist rationalization and demand the seven-hour day. Prepare, extend and deepen your strikes and set up your own strike committees in spite of the reformists. Workers of the world, rally to the banner of the Communist Inter- national in the struggle for the international revolution, Long live May Day, the day of international class war! Down with war! Long live the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics! Long live the international dictatorship of the proletariat! EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL, “Long Live the Soviet Governments ‘the American Negro Labor Congress Watching Moscow’s May Day Demonstration Here is a small section of the great throng watching a May Day Demonstration in Moscow. Here are old Bolsheviks and Red Army soldiers side by side. Rose Baron, Secretary of the International Labor Defense for New York City, is seen standing at the right of the boy in the foreground, a Pioneer, of the white and Negro workers of the South against capitalist op- pression and capitalist attempts to divide the working class. * ° 7 IN THE SOVIET UNION. And, last but not least, May Day will be celebrated by the millions of workers and peasants of the Soviet Union who are now enjoying the fruits of the proletarian revolution by which they won their eman- cipation from the bloody rule of the triune of czar, church, nobility, an destablished the proletarian dictatorship through which they have been able to protect the revolution and the workers’ state from the various intrigues of international capitalism. As the Negro masses of the United States come to realize the class nature of their struggle against white ruling class oppression, May Day will have a special, a glorious significance for us. We have suffered for many years from the treachery of professional leaders shop northwestern bank job in Minneapolis. At the trial, scabs, police and labor misleaders testified on the withness stand and called for con- viction. Such a united front of the forces of reaction only shows itself when there is a fear that something is likely to happen, ~ * * MILITANT ANTI-WAR WORK On the anti-war field our Party has separated itself entirely from the liberal pacifist preachers who formerly dominated the anti-war agitation. Four members of the YCL were arrested for distributing anti-war leaflets at the schools in Superior, The municipal elections are giving us an. opportunity to link up all the above activity and dramatize it before the workers. Our candidate for mayor in Duluth, steel trust stronghold, secured 2,300 votes against the present incumbent and a fake labor progressive. In Minneapolis we have a candidate for mayor and a slate of aldermen running who will undoubtedly secure a larger vote than in the November elections, in spite of the fact that Mr. Hedlund, a counter-revolutionary Trotskyite, has filed for mayor as a Communist. «2 BUILD THE PARTY In all our activities the slogans “Build the Party” and “Boost the Daily Worker” are kept to the foreground and are slowly but surely bringing results. ; With 900 Party members, mostly foreign speaking, and 1000 YWL members, American elements, the outlook for our Party in the northwest is bright, indeed. Not enough by far is being done yet, but progress is being made, On this May Day, with a broader base than ever before for our rev- olutionary xctivities, we greet the international revolutionary workers; we pledge support to the militant Southern textile strikers and resolve to march forward, playing cur part in the struggle for the emancipation (coming from the ranks of the intelligentsia and the propertied class, the bourgeois) who, like condescending saviors and self-appointed Moseses, led us from their offices, not into struggle, but into the camps of our enemies. This leadership, while filling its own pockets and building up personal prestige, has never helped the masses, but, on the contrary, has served to forge our chains the stronger. “The emancipation of the masses is the work of the masses themselves,” Leaders from the bourgeoisie are both unwilling and incapable of leading the struggle for emancipation. Unwilling because they (prop- erty owners, landlords, real estate agents, bootleggers, preachers, col- lege professors, editors of bourgeois magazines and newspapers, heads of various “advancement” associations, etc., etc.) are themselves bene- ficiaries—dependent upon crumbs from the table of the white ruling class—of the capitalist system under which we are oppressed, ter- rorized, exploited and degraded. These leaders are incapable of lead- ing the struggle because they have neither a clear understanding of the nature of the struggle (which is essentially a class struggle, and not as they imagine a purely racial struggle) nor the guts to prosecute it militantly eno..5 to insure success. ret Sie SHARE GREAT TRADITIONS. As part of the working class, we Negro workers and farmers, have a share in the traditions of May Day. In the past we have contrib- uted to the traditions of the class struggle, and as we mobilize our | forces in the present period and enter more and more into the inter- national class struggle we shall h’ \ in contributing many stirring chapters between this day and the ..nal victory of the international proletariat, Already hundreds of thousands of Negro workers and peasants in the Belgian Congo have joined the army of the proletarian revo- lution. Already we see revolts in Egypt, in Tripoli, in British East Africa, in the Sudan, in various parts of French Africa, ete. That the Africans have been defeated in these preliminary skirmishes does not change the final result. Tempered by tradition, aided by the revolutionary workers of the imperialist countries, helped by their ex- perience in these preliminary battles, and guided by the sum of experi- ence of the world revolutionary movement, and inspired by the revolutionary successes of the proletariat of other countries, these African workers will again grapple with their imperialist oppressors, aaa ASIA, INDIES PARTICIPATE In Demerara, in the West Indian islands, as in Africa and Asia, the revolutionary ferment is at work. In Demerara the masses have sharply protested against the action of the British imperialists in scrapping the old constitution for the purpose of tightening the im- perialist grip on their country. Throughout the West Indies archi- pelego we have seen a strong and growing demand towards a West Indian Federation. In Trinidad, as in many of the other islands, there have been serious riots within the last ten years. In every corner of the earth the masses are off the revolutionary march to power. And the Negro masses are playing their part, and will play an increasing part, in this world-revolutionary movement against the imperialists. Negro workers of the United States! Join in May Day celebrations of the revolutionary workers on May First. Negro workers of New York, come out in thousands t othe Bronx Coliseum, East 117th St. and Bronx Park. Negro workers of Chicago, go to the Ashland Auditorium, Van Buren and Marshfield Aves. Negro and white speak- ers will address you at these, and countless other meetings held throughout the country (get the address of other meetings from The Daily Worker), and will deal with your problems. Negro workers! Demonstrate your labor solidarity! Join the ranks of the revolutionary workers! Fight against the speed-up and for a shorter workday! Demonstrate solidarity with the striking Negro and white textile, food and shoe workers! Demonstrate against the treacherous socialist party and the trade union reactionaries and fakers! Fight imperialist war! Build international working class solidarity! Fight for the freedom of the colonial peoples! Down with imperialism! Down with lynching! Down with white ruling class terrorism! COUNCIL OF DIRECTORS, AMERICAN NEGRO LABOR C RESS. May Day Speech by a Russian Worker of the working class, 1 (The following is a speech de- livered by a Russian worker, N. D. Bogdanov, at an illegal meeting held on May 1st, 1892, practically the first held in Petrograd.—Ed.) +“ * Comrades, Today must be an un- forgettable day for us. Today we have been successful, for tha first time, in gathering together from every part of Petersburg in this modest meeting, and for the first time we hear the enthusiastic words of our fellow workers, calling upon us to take up the fight against our mighty political and economic enemy. Comrades, this enemy is so powerful, we know so little where his power lies, and our own com- rades are so few, that some of us have not been able to help despair- ing of our victory, and have left our ranks in f>ar and despair. But no, comrades, we must have faith in our victory, We must arm ourselves with that most powerful of weapons, the weapon of knowl- edge of the historical laws of the de- velopment of the human race. Only when we are armed with this wea- pon can we defeat the enemy every- where, No pressure which can be put upon us, no entitded loss of liberty, no prison, and not even banishment to Siberia, can deprive us of this weapon. Wherever we are we shall find opportunity of laying the foun- dations of our victory, and every- where we shall spread abroad our knowledge: at home we can en- lighten the peasantry, and in the prisons we can help our fellow pris- too are human beings’ with human rights, and that they must pass on their recognition of these rights to their fellows, and organize them in groups, + * The following is part of the speech of the worker, Igor Afanasev: Comrades, I should like to speak a few words on this occasion, so solemn to all of us, which we are celebrating after the example set us by our brothers, the,West Euro- pean workers, Brothers, let us enjoy the first bright moments of joy dawning on the horizon of Russian life. Al- though our Western brothers have long been able to celebrate such fes- tivals, whilst we are « ‘7 just be- ginning, and even that illegally, still it is good that we are actually be- ginning. It is good that we are at last awakening from the long sleep which we have slept beneath the yoke of our rulers, of the priests, and of the tsar. We see how the small seeds thus scattered have sprung up, how their fruit is maturing and finding its way into every part of Russia. The truth is spreading, but everywhere, it finds enemies in its path: the great landowners, the priests, the ‘rulers, and the tsar, with their po- lice and their soldiery. A mighty battle is being fought. Tens of thousands of our youth have already perished in the snows of Siberia, in the dungeons of the Peter Paul for- tress and the Schlusselberg, Let us begin to fight for our cause our- selves. The commencement will not oners to the knowledge that they|be easy. Every step we take, every 29 Manifesto of the Communist International small advance, is threatened with banishment and prison, But can we shrink back, comrades, when it is @ question of life and death? Although poverty and misery have already spread far and wide, this has not satisfied our rulers; representatives of the nobility have been appointed as officials, that the workers may be more brutally treat- ed, that starvation and misery, dis- ease and dex‘, may reap a greater harvest among our women and chil- dren, Like leeches they suck our blood; they transform us into a dif- ferent race of human beings, pale, weak, and diseased. And to what end? That a small handful of fac- tory owners, landowners, officials and the tsar, may live in luxury, drunkenness, and gluttony. For these brute beasts the hundreds of millions of the people are to lan- guish in the fetters of serfdom. In these chains we cannot rise, cannot move, cannot breathe, Comrades, at fir: we shall find it difficult indeed to take up this struggle against our enemies, and to fight for our economic and po- litical rights. But remember that at the present moment there are thousands of intellectuals in Si- beria, in prisons, in penal servitude, and that they are there for our sakes, Remember that it has not been easy for our brothers, the workers of Western Europe, to im- prove their position, and that it can- not be easy for us to improve ours under the rule of the despotic reac- tion which dogs our every footste),. Comrades, the difficulties will be great, But science has freed the workers of the West; and it wil also enlighten our minds and fil our hearts with sacred truth anc love for one another. Brothers, we shall fight for justice, without re- coiling one step backwards. We shall fight to the death for truth liberty, and fraternity. We shal teach ourselves and our comrades tc unite; we shall join together in one mighty party. - Brothers, we shal sow this wonderful seed from sun rise to sunset, in every part of our Russian earth. THREATEN MUSICIAN STRIKE. SAN FRANCISCO, (By Mgil).— | Thirty-five musicians of the Marior Davies Theatre here have threatenec to strike if the company insists on orchestra. 3 WORKERS HURT IN FALL, LOS ANGELES, (By Mail Two workers were painfully injure: when a scaffold fell from the fift floor of a Western Pacific Building while the workers were hoisting ¢ 300-pound drum of paint. CUT MOLDERS WAGES DANVILLE, Pa. (By Mail).— Molders of the Danville Stove Works here have received a wage cut of ten and five-eights cents an hour, reducing the wages to 80 cents an hour, i THREATEN: BUILDING STRIKE, CHICAGO (By Mail).—Over 20( carpenters, lathers, etc., threate: a strike because non-union labor wa: being employed on the Centra, Trust Bank Building here. | keeping non-union members in the,