The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 1, 1929, Page 13

SOUND BOOK ON THE USSR By JANE WOODS SOVIET RUSSIA IN THE SEC- OND DECADE. A Joint Survey by the Technical Staff of the First American Trade Union Delega- tion, Edited by Stuart Chase, Xobert Dunn and R. G, Tugwell. The John Day Co., $4. + 8 ok HEN Albert F. Coyle and the trade union delegation returned | from the Soviet Union in the fall of 1927 and turned out a sound and readable report called After Ten Years, of which over 30,000 copies have already been distributed in this country, they had not shot their last bolt. The next step was to authorize the technical advisors of the delega- tion to do their stuff. They were ordered to prepare a volume contain- ing their special studies, a book that ; would “stand up” as a permanent record of the detailed findings of this pioneer group. So the several technical advisors unlocked their trunks full of notes and Soviet pamphlets and forthwith produced 15 chapters on industry, agriculture, education, trade unions, cooperatives, finance, the C. P. and so on, The result is somewhat “spotty,” but it can be said that this volume contains in most of its chapters very careful research and writing, indeed some of the best that has been done on the Soviet Union in any language. Sound and Detailed. Bourgeois journalists by the dozen have visited the Soviet Union and have set down their “impres- sions,” glimpses and gossip. All sorts of street scene close-ups and snap shots, packed in with much nonsensical moralizing, has been in- cluded in this chatter about Russia. And most of it has been marketed in America for a neat profit. oviet Russia in the Second Decade” is not in this class. It has not been heralded in high-pressure advertisements. But it remains one of the fairest and most comprehen- sive surveys of Russia by an Amer- ican group, and will doubtless be consulted long after the more “color- ful” works have gone the way of all one-season novels. (Incidentally the book has a very adequate index.) Most of the, chapters seem to have | been prepared with scrupulous ac- curacy. No one, not even the White Guard sympathizer who reviews Russian books for the New York Times, has challenged even a deci- mal point in its nearly 400 pages. Yet the net picture presented by these primarily academic writers is that of a vigorous federation of nations run by honest, competent and practical Communists. “Audacity and Courage.” Those who would understand the “peasant problem” on which so much | depends will find it treated by Tug- well; while Stuart Chase sketches the “planned economy” of the coun- try which hate-blinded Herbert Hoo- ver once called an economic vacuum. Chase, the apostle of standardization and the foe of waste, says he can only “stand bareheaded” before the “audacity and courage” of the Gos- plan experiment which he believes will succeed in achieving a com- summing up the effect upon the clock, etc, efficiency systems used By ROSE BARON. . May Day always brings to my’ mind a great and stirring contrast— the May Days that I knew in czarist | Russia and the May Day that I saw in Moscow in_1926. The May Days under the czar were filled with danger. Terror stalked throughout Russia. Demon- strations of workers were ruthlessly suppressed, workers were beaten and thrown into jail, all protests were pletély cooperative society in the U. S.S.R. J. B. Brebner of Columbia presents one of the most fascinating chapters on the interplay of town and country forces, taking Poltava, a typical pro- vincial community, as the microcosm for his study. He says, “We left Poltava feeling that town and coun- Peasants and workers were co- operating according to Lenin’s plan. When I saw this assorted group of professors and research students at work in Moscow in 1927 it was clear to me that Paul Douglas was | the hardest worked in the gang. He! now tells us that he lost 30 pounds | in his tussles with soviet statistics, | Kremlin interviews and the tons of literature which he digested before writing his chapters in this book. And after all this study he finds, among other things, that the real ix. come of the Russian city worker is now from 40 to 45 per cent above that of pre-war. In other words, the revolution has paid “tangible divi- dends” to the workers and they will fight to maintain it. He also shows | that the Soviet Union has gone for- ward not by the abandonment of so- cialism, as the light-brained Ivy Lees contend, but by a wider and wider extension of socialism. CAFETERIA Solidarity, Sone of By BENICE MICHAELSON. “All you worry about are the workers. You don’t give a damn about the employers.” A florid, fat cafeteria owner, well-fed and hoarse- voiced, was complaining to union. The union official smiled. “Of course we care about you. We want to help you as much as we can,” winking at one of the organizers. Slightly soothed, the cafeteria boss continued to pour forth his “griev- ances” about the terrible manner with which the union treated him), and all cafeteria owners. “And while we’re discussing this proposi- tion, call off your pickets in front of my restaurant. They’re spoil- ing my business,’ he complained petulantly. The union did call them off, but not before he signed the agreement. E peiee: okad Forty picketers, released from jail, marched to union headquarters, singing songs of solidarity. Inside, they were greeted with cheers, shouts, and more songs. “We got a suspended sentence.” “How many more shops are sign- ed up, ha?” “How’s it going with the other pickets? Any more picked up?” ‘Come on, boys, let’s go to the cafeteria. I’m ready for a meal!” A Scab Wants to “Belong.” “They sent me here to join the union.” “Where do you work?” “In the. . Cafeteria.” | ‘Why, that cafeteria settled. How is it you didn’t come out with the other boys?” “T was working.” “You worked all strike?” “Yes,” | “Well, you wait a while .before you become a member.” “How’s a man to make a living? Don’t I want to join the union through the the | SIDELIGHTS, “—D; 39| Arrested “Pickets | A Worker Wants to Belong. The strike is in Manhattan: but a Brooklyn dishwasher, stirred by the struggles of his fellow-workers, came to union headquarters. “Y’m working in a cafeteria in |Brooklyn, and I want to join the union.” “Say some of the other fellows | there want to know about the union,” he said, filling out the ap- plication card. “They want to know about the fees. Got any leaflets I] jcould give them? ... That’s fine. | Jess They can’t join up until pay iday. .. . But they'll be around just as soon as I give them the dope.” ARTHUR HOPKINS esents HoripaY Comedy Hit by PHILIP BARRY Thea. W. 45 St. Ev. 8.50 PLYMOUTH irate, Thurs, & at, eee MOROS THERA., W. 45th St. Evs. 0 (CO oo, Mats, Wed.&Sat.2:30 JOHN DRINKWATER’S Comedy Hit BIRD HAND |Chanin’s MAJESTIC Theatre| 44th St, Weat of Broadway | Eves, 8:30; Mats.: Wed. & Sat. 2:30 The Greatest and Funniest Revue Pleasure Bound “The Betrayal” A British May jeco. SPEclaL EMIL JANNINGS in a Burlesque movie “THE APACHE'S REVENGE” 5th Ave. Playhouse now?” he whined feebly, as he slunk from the registration window. 66 FIFTH AVENUE, Corner 12th St. Continuous 2 P.M, to Midnight Daily The “Stretch-Out” System A graphic nicture, in terms of medieval instruments of torture, WAYCY WORKER, NEW YORK, WED? workers of the doubling-up, loom by Southern textile mill barons in their attempts at further rationalization. Greet May Day by Aiding International Labor Defense brutally crushed. May Day was a general signal for renewed ferocity on the part of the czarist police, Czarist May Days. One of my earliest memories is of police coming to our house and pull- ing up the boards of the floor in the hunt for illegal literature. In the small Bessarabian town where I lived it was impossible for the workers to come out openly and demonstrate on May Day. Small groups of us, mostly young people, would gather in the dead of night in the room of some comrade and there behind closely “shuttered windows, with one of us guarding the door, we would hold our meetings and talk ardently about the day when the Revolution would come and the work- ing class would be free. Few of us realized then that the day was not far off. Some of us never lived to see that great. day. Thousands of try were working hand in hand.”| the unknown heroes of the Revolu-| tion perished in the dungeons of the czar. It was with memories such as these that I awaited May Day in Moscow in 1926. And what a con- trast! Words cannet describe my feeling on that day. As I stood on the Red Square watching hundreds of thousands of workers from every factory in Moscow march past, their faces aglow, marching with such pride and assurance, I knew that this was the May Day we had been dreaming of in those dark days be- fore the Revolution. One of my greatest thrills was when the Red Army marched past. One hears a great deal about thi wonderful Red Army that is ready to defend the Soviet Union against all attacks. But one must see this Red Army in the flesh to appreciate how wonderful it really is. These are no mercenaries filing by or do- cile sheep blindly obeying their masters. These are the workers and peasants of the Soviet Union — themselves the masters—ready to lay down their lives for their pro- letarian fatherland. Thousands of marching workers, a sea of banners, the Red Army, the Young Communist League, the Young Pioneers, leaders of the Com- munist Party and of the govern- ment, hundreds of delegates from the revolutionary workers of other countries, all of them filled with the spirit of the great international holiday of the working class—this was the new May Day that I saw in the new Russia. Some day the American workers will also have such a May Day. But meanwhile we have work to do to make such a May Day possible. Many of our comrades languish in the jails of this country. Many others are in imminent danger of joining them. The international Labor Defense is fighting to free all class war prisoners. On May Day, 1929, in capitalist America, we send no better greeting to our suf- fering comrades than by helping the International Labor Defense in- tensify the fight to free them. ‘Theatre Guild Productions CAMEL Zisueht Needle‘sEye MARTIN BECK THEA. 45th W. of 8th Ave. Evs. 8: Mats., Thurs. & Sat. 2: tied Man’s Estat by Beatrice Blackmar and Bruce Gould BILTM Theatre, W. ORE “hen Street Eyes, 8:50; Mats, Thurs.&Sat. A Comedy by Sil-Vara CAPRICE GUILD ‘hea. W. bend st. Eves. 8:50 Mats. Thurs, and Sat., 2:40 LAST WEEKS! EUGENE O'NEILL'S Strange Interlude John GOLDEN, Then, §8th . of Blway EVENINGS ONLY AT 5:30 The working class cannot simply Iny hold of the ready made State for its own Were Mark, THE MAIN STAGES IN| HISTORY OF MAY DAY' By FRIEDLAND | The history of the May Day cele- bration is very instructive. The his- ‘tory of May first is the history of the struggle of tendencies in the ranks of the international proletar- iat. It is the history of the develop- ment and collapse of the I. Inter- national. It is the history of its transformation from the revolution- ary vanguard of the conscious pro- letariat into a pillar of capitalism and bourgeois rule. The Origin. At the Paris Congress in 1889, the representatives*of the French syndi- cates proposed that May First be |recognized as an international pro- letarian holiday. May First was to be a day of demonstration wHen the | demands for an 8-hour working day and for extensive social labor legis- lation were to be advanced. May | First was to be a day of rest, i. e., | day when the workers of all coun-| tries stopped their work. The last! paragraph of that resolution read:| |“The workers of the various coun- |tries organize their demonstrations in accordance with the given con- ditions of the given countries.” This was the starting point which gave j Tise to an opportunist interpretation of that resolution in the immediate | future. | In 1890 and 1891, the prepara- | tions for May Day were regarded by the bourgeoisie as the approach of | the terrible moment—the social rev-| olution. But the Social Democrats were proud of the fact that May Day) |passed by quietly. To them this | quietude demonstrated the strength |of the labor movement. May Day| began to play a new role which con-| sisted in drawing the balance of the) successes of the organized labor | movement. Such was the first period in the history of the celebration of | May Day. Fighting Character. The Paris Congress which was | held under the slogan of social 1 |lution ascribed to May Day a def | ite fighting character. But soon after} | that a struggle ensued in the ranks | of the II. International for the adop-| | tion of May Day to the interests of | the peacefully growing mass labor| movement. That was the second period in the history of May Day.) | At the Zurich Congress in 1893, the} delegates had to record that in most | of the countries and particularly in | Germany, the May Day celebrations are being celebrated on the first! | Sunday in May, and that everywhere | | there is an inclination to avoid con- | flicts with the capitalists and the \capitalist governments, and that | May Day is assuming the character of an ordinary bourgeois holiday. The revolutionary wing of that Con- gress declared war against such an |interpretation of the resolution of | 1889, No other than Victor Adler ap- pealed to the Germans to fulfill their ‘revolutionary duty. He was opposed by A. Bebel. The speaker insisted ou preserving the purely class jnature of May Day and on repudiat-! ing any attempt to convert May Day into a day for conciliation with the; |bourgeois pacifists and reformists. He proved that if there is no pos- sibility to celebrate May Day in Germany, it is the duty of the Social Democrats to fight to bring about such possibilities. May First is a} day when the energy of the proletar- iat must be stimulated for the strug- gle—such was the fundamental idea ‘of Victor Adler. That is why he de- |manded not only the realization of |the resolution of 1889, but that it |should be carried even still further. | He declared: “If we will not go for- | ward then May Day will lose its sig- | nificance.” A Compromise. The Zurich Congress arrived at a compromise between Adler and Bebel. Adler proposed the approval of the resolutions of the former con- gresses on May Day and that it be obligatory for all workers to stop! working on that day. “To the extent that the conditions in the various countries will make May Day dem-! onstrations possible such demonstra- | tions should be held and they should | serve as a demonstration of the firm will of the working class to destroy the class distinction by means of a social revolution and thus enter upon) the true path in line with the work- ers of the world and international | peace.” Bebel insisted on eliminating | the words “social revolution” from) the resolution. The words were de- leted and replaced by “social trans- formation.” He insisted categorically on giving every socialist party the right to decide on the question of the May Day celebrations. This was the triumph of opportunism, the fruits o? which were reaped during the next few years. In 1908 it could have been definite- ly stated that the Social Democrats have robbed May Day of its revolu- tionary spirit. Karl Kautsky wrote in 1909: “May Day is a child of pain of our Party which can neither live nor die.” Some revisionists declared in “Sozialistische Monatshefte” that: “There is no pleasure in writing about the first of May.” Day of Struggle. Nevertheless, May Day prior to the war, although it was not cele- brated in a revolutionary spirit, was a day of struggle. The very fact that it was recognized as a proletar- ian holiday was a demonstration for the 8-hour working day and for peace and for international solidar- ity. During the war, the Social Democratic parties became parties of the class truce and they repudi- ated the celebration of May Day. Only small groups of revolutionaries still continued to celebrate it, en- jleft with economic power in their) “|entiations through social tra: “lation,” i. e., deavoring to draw into the May Day struggles the working against their governments against their socialist traitors. masses and In Germany, Rosa Luxembur: Karl Liebknecht, people who to the war defended thé revolution- ary significance of May Day, and in Russia the Bolsheviks lived up to the, resolution of the Zurich Con- gress of 1 Fourth Period. With the termination of the war, the fourth period in the history of May Day sets in. Here and there the victorious “revolution” in the West attempted to legalize May Day| as a national holiday. T s dene although the propertied classes were hands. What could have been the re-| sult of such a policy? L&t us say Mussolini ordered the Prefects to de- clare April 21 a day of celebration of the “Foundation of Rome.” This was a move to destroy the May Day celebrations. The same thing was done in Poland. But this, it would seem did not depend on the Social Democrats. . It is true the latter did all in their power to strengthen the} Fascist dictatorship in Europe and did a good deal in liquidating the “social ministries.” Now it ‘could no longer be a question of proclaim- | ing May Day a legal national holi- day. Haye the Social Democrats, as a result adopted May Day as a revolu- tionary holiday, as was fixed in the resolutions of the Congresses of the II International? It is characteristic of the fourth period of the history of May Day) that not only the forms and methods of celebrating May Day were dis- torted. May Day was declared on an international scale as a day of strug-| gle for the 8-hour working day and as a demonstration of international | solidarity of the proletariat and its readiness “to destroy class differ-/ form- the social revolution. Even Bebel who proposed to delete the last words only had in mind the preservation of the externally legal character of the resolution and not the departure from the revolutionary class struggle. How does it stand with regard to the May Day cele- brations as they have been estab- lished by revolutionary traditions? | | The Marseilles Congress also, adopted a resolution on “the strug-| gle for peace” in the same spirit as| that on the 8-hour day. The Social ist International sanctioned the League of Nations and declared it an| instrument of peace. | The activities of the II. Inter-! national serve as an excellent illus-| tration as to what they understand | May Day to be. In all the great) class conflicts, the European Social} Democrats declined to render their international aid to the toilers and The Betrayers. |revolutionary masses of the strug- gling people. Their attitude to Soviet Russia is another illustration as to what the Social Democrats under- stand by international proletarian solidarity. But the most striking peculiarity of the fourth period in the history of May Day is the rise of the revolu- tionary celebrations in the U. S. S./ R. The social democrats usually de- clare that May Day is in the Soviet Union a national legal holiday and) that hence it has lost its revolution- ary significance. This is a lie. In Russia, May First has become a na- tional holiday of the victorious work- tional holiday of the victorious revo- lutionary character in the first place | because it serves as a mighty dem- onstration of international solidar- ity with the fighting proletariat of all countries. This solidarity does not remain platonic solidarity. It is ac- companied by action. The British) strike and the Chinese revolution are the best proof of that. But the May, Day .celebrations have preserved) their revolutionary spirit in Russia thanks to the uninterrupted struggle | for peace of the Soviet Union. Such} peace is possible only with the vic- torious. revolutionary movement in the East and in the West. May Day} in Russia is a day when the balance of socialist construction is struck. This is the new creative revolution- ary element which the last decade in the history of May Day has intro- | duced. Such was the nature of May | Day in Russia, during the battles at) the front, during the national “Sat-) urdayings,” and such is its nature in| the struggle for the industrialization of the country. | Such, in brief, are the main stages! in the history of May Day. It was! proclaimed as a day of international | class struggle and it was later trans-| formed by the social democrats into! a bourgeois holiday. The Commun-) ist International following the tra- ditions of the revolutionary mass labor movement, resurrects May Day | as a revolutionary holiday which is) to serve as a demonstration in favor | of the 8-hour working day and as! a firm expression of the will of the, working class to do away with class | distinctions by means of the social revolution. Demonstrate your solidarity with the striking miners, textile, food and shoe workers on May Day, and against the treacherous socialist party and the capitalist flunkeys of the A. F. of L. On May Day—mobilize for the struggie against colonal oppres- sion! Long live the revolutionary | struggle for the liberation of the DAY, MAY 1, 1929 Greetings to a Guardsman ee ates: Naa : “< NiGe | attra rt ay’ eye MARCH TODAY! By HENRY GEORGE WE May Day! Labor’s day! ig No Pag Our day! come, ev Made in America! l As American as the Fourth of July And the Declaration of Independence eet Turned out of the crucible spe Of the suffering eee ah t Of working men and women an | (No, my dear useless, silk-clad Madames of the| i ihe se : maak pete D. A. R,, \at canip dhrine the ae And you illustrous fat-headed degenerates of the] Mobilize in May. Civie Federation, the Bolshevik Russia didn’t give May Day to the Amer-| | ican working class, | | | of the young good cannon But the American working class gave May Day to|workers who have enlisted in the the revolutionary workers of the world—| National Guard. Gave the worn Day. But on this International M Red Revolution’s holiday.) Day wien vhe workers al as world are steeling themselves for the final conflic their exploit- O American workers, ers, those of us w 1d $s who Red, white, yellow, black, Come on, lift up your heads, r power " to do all in ¢ Throw down your tools. the Bed Pat Seep To hell with the bos: to bring into our worker= To hell with the factory whistle! soldiers to help us in the overthrow This is Labor Day, our day, made in America— of capitalism. ‘ay ! i ea March! Demonstrate Tmperialist War May E First 2 e Colixeum. DEFEND THE SOUTHERN TEXTILE STRIKERS! AGAINST LYNCH LAW AND BOSSES GFFENSIVE! DEFEND THE NEW UNIONS! FIGHT THE OPEN SHOP DRIVE, POLICE TERROR AND INJUNCTIONS! FIGHT FASCISM AND WHITE TERROR! DEFEND THE FOREIGN-BORN WORKERS AGAINST DEPORTATION, CAPITALIST PERSECUTION! HELP THE VICTIMS OF THE CLASS STRUGGLE! FREE MOONEY AND BILLINGS! Workers, join the International Labor Defense in masses! Use your organized power to protect the work- ing class against capitalist reaction! Organize collective affairs. Build new branches! Win the new members for the International Labor De- fense. Affiliate every workers’? organization—union, shop, club to the International Labor Defense. SEND CONTRIBUTIONS AT ONCE TO INTERNATIONAL LABOR DEFENSE ROOM 402, 799 BROADWAY, NEW YORK CITY Come to the-Shiffrin-Mineola Defense Conference. Send Delegates from Your Union and Your Shop!