The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 20, 1929, Page 3

— | for struggle against factionalism was secured at the Convention. arcu = DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, MONDAY, MAY 20, 1929 Page Three TO ALL MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF UNITED STATES ers An Address by the Executive Committee of the Communist International EAR COMRADES: The Executive Committee of the Communist International together with the delegation of the Sixth Convention of ‘the Communist Party of the United States has very carefully dis- cussed the situation in the American Communist Party. Having given to all delegates the fullest opportunity for expressing their views and| for making, proposals, having carefully examined all material pre-| sented and having considered the question from all aspects, the Execu-| tive Committee of the Communist International deems it necessary to place in all seriousness the situation within the Party before all mem- bers of the Communist Party of the United States, The Open Letter of the Executive Committee of the Communist International to the Sixth Convention of the American Communist Party, « which placed before it the fundamental tasks arising in connection with the accentuation of the inner and outer contradictions of American im- perialism in the present period, pointed out the necessity of the Party’s converting itself as soon as possible from a numerically small propa- gandistic organization into a mass political party of the working class, which particularly at the present juncture is indissoluably connected with. the intensification of the struggle against the right danger. This Open Letter declared categorically that the fundamental prerequisite for the successful carrying out of these tasks is the cessation of the un- | principled struggle of many years standing. The Executive Committee of the Communist International is com- pelled to record that at the Convention itself and after it not only was there no appreciable result achieved in the matter of doing away with factionalism, but on the contrary the factional struggle has become | still more accentuated. Due to the unprincipled factional struggle the Sixth Convention of the American Communist Party failed to produce the results which it should have produced in regard to bolshevization and the establishment of a healthier condition within the American Com- munist Party. Many of the most important political questions and tasks confronting the Party were not discussed by the Convention. The errors of the Majority and of the Minority of the Party were not ex- plained at the Convention as they should have been as a matter of Bolshevik self-criticism. The Party was not mobilized for the struggle against the right danger. No consolidation of all forces of the Party On the contrary this Convention, which was composed of the best proletar- fan elements of the American Communist Party who uphold the line of the Comintern, became an arena for unprincipled maneuvers on the part of the top leaders of the Majority as well as on the part of the leaders of the Minority. The Convention was forced off of the line proposed by the Comintern and was mobilized for purposes of further factional struggle by both groups. A gross distortion of the line of the Comintern was the theory inoculated into the Convention alleging that organizational proposals of the Executive Committee of the Communist International were in contradiction to its political letter instead of being a necessary guaran- tee for carrying out the line of the Open Letter to the American Com- | munist Party. A clearly factional distortion of the meaning of the or- ganizational proposals of the Executive Committee of the Communist International were also the efforts to interpret them as handing over the leadership of the Party to the Minority, which was not and is not and organizational proposals of the Executive Committee of the Com- munist International to the Sixth Convention was the consolidation of the Party on the basis of the line of the Comintern in the direction of the struggle against the factionalism of both groups. The Minority ofthe Central Committee of the Communist Party of the United States endeavored to make the Open Letter and organizational proposals of the | Executive Committee of the Communist International an instrument for getting the leadership of the Party into its own hands. The Execu- tive Committee of the Communist International condemns these attempts of the Minority which show that it factionally distorted the meaning of the Open Letter of the Executive Committee of the Communist In- | ternational and its organizational proposals and that certain leaders of the Minority have shown themselves unfit to play a role of a uniting factor in the struggle of the Party against factionalism in conformity with the directions of the Executive Committee of the Communist In- ternational. It is the factional leaders of the Majority with Comrade Lovestone at the head that are mainly responsible for making use of the Convention for factional purposes, for misleading honest proletarian Party members who uphold the line of the Comintern, for playing an unprincipled game with the question of the struggle against the Right danger in the Comintern and in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, for inadmissable personal hounding of the delegation of the Comintern at the Convention, for the organization of caucus meetings of the delegates of the Majority in direct contradiction with the Open Letter of the Executive Committee of the Communist International and in spite of verbal acceptance of that letter, for hounding those com- rades who departed from the Majority faction and unconditionally ac- cepted the line of the Executive Committee of the Communist Inter- national, for a campaign against certain responsible comrades of the Minority who were carrying out the line of the Executive Committee of the Communist International—for all these methods and intrigues clearly bear the imprint of petty bourgeois politiciandom. Both factions of the American Communist Party have been guilty | of right errors. Both factions show serious deviations to the right from the general line of the Comintern, which creates the danger of an openly. opportunist right deviation crystallizing within the Party. Since the Sixth World Congress of the Communist International the Majority of the Central Committee of the American Communist Party has been committing a series of gross right errors pointed out -in the Open Letter of the Executive Committee of the Communist In- ternational. These errors found their expression in overestimating American imperialism and putting the question of iriner and outer con- tradictions in a wrong way, which led to the obscuring of the inner con- tradictions of American capitalism, in underestimating the swing to the left. of the American working class, in underestimating American re- formism which led to weakening the struggle against it, in underestimat- ing the right danger in the American Communist Party, in substitut- ing in place of the question of the right opportunist danger only the question of Trotskyism, in dealing with the question in a manner which led to the obscuring of the right danger. The Minority of the Central Committee of the American Commun- ist Party was committing, in regard to questions dealing with the crisis which cannot be tolerated in any section of the Comintern and which | of American capitalism and the swing of the masses to the left, “left”, but in reality right opportunist errors; it dissociated the development | of the inner contradictions of American capitalism from its external contradictions and from the general crisis of world capitalism, and in vegard to the question of the struggle against the war danger it was sliding down to petty bourgeois pacifist slogans (‘no new cruisers”— Comrade Bittelman). The Minority of the Central Committee was un- able to dissociate itself at the right time from Trotskyism and did not properly struggle against it. An ideological lever of right errors in the American Communist Party was the so-called theory of “exceptionalism” which found its clearest exponents in the persons of Comrades Pepper and Lovestone whose conception was as follows: There is a crisis of eapitalism but not of American capitalism, there is a swing of the masses leftwards but not in America, there is the necessity of ac- centuating the struggle against reformism but not in the United States, there is a necessity for struggling against the right danger but not in the American Communist Party. And yet the present period, when the process shaking the foundation of capitalist stabilization is going on, signifies for the United States that it is being ever more closely involved in the general crisis of capitalism. In America too the funda- mental contradiction of capitalism—the contradiction between the growth of productive forces and the lagging behind of markets—is becoming more accentuated. way out of the growing crisis by means of rationalization, i. e. by in- | creased exploitation of the working class. The internal class contradic- centuated; there is a feverish growth of armaments and the war danger is getting nearer and nearer. With a distinctness unprecedented in history, American capitalism is exhibiting now the effects of the inex- orable laws of capitalist development, the laws of the decline and down- fall of capitalist society. The general crisis of capitalism is growing more rapidly than it may seem at first glance. This crisis will shake also the foundation of the power of American imperialism. Under these conditions the theory of “exceptionalism” tion of the pressure of American capitalism and reformism which is endeavoring to create among the mass of workers the impression of absolute firmness ‘and “exceptional” imperialist might of American capital in spite of its growing crisis and to strengthen the tactic of class | collaboration in spite of the accentuation of class contradictions, ie Executive Committee of t! ommunist International points out that not only the mistakes of the Majority but also the most important mis- takes of the Minority were based on the conception of American “ex- ceptionalism.” While it records the political mistakes of both groups as well as the growth of the tight sonest in the American Communist Party, the Executive Committee 0: fe Communist International re- gards as a factional exaggeration the claim alleging that the group of | the Majority as a whole is a bearer of the right tendency as well as the claim alleging that the Minority group represents the Trotskyist | deviation. There are in the ranks of both groups elements with strong | right tendencies which either show themselves openly or are masked by “left” phraseology. Neither of the two groups has carried on a proper struggle against these right tendencies in the ranks of its own factfon and the factionalism of both groups has been the great impediment to the development within the Party of the necessary socetisy and to the political educational of the Party members in the spirit of Bol- | shevik steadfastness based upon principle. A factional lack of principle | intended by the Comintern since the fundamental task of the Open Letter | which is also an expression of opportunism finds its expression in the fact that both groups were putting the interests of their faction above the interests of the Party. On the strength of this the American Communist Party is confronted now in all sharpness with the question tions are growing; the struggle for markets and spheres for invest- | ment of capital against other imperialist states is becoming more ac- | is a reflec- | The bourgeoisie is increasing its efforts to find a | of the danger of the political disintegration of the present leading | cadres which threatens to undermine the whole work of the Party. A characteristic manifestation of rotten factional diplomacy in regard to | the Communist International is the attitude of the Majority of the | Central Committee of the American Communist Party on the question of Comrade Pepper’s conduct. Im spite of repeated decisions of. the Comintern on the removal from work in the American Communist Party of Comrade Pepper who repeatedly exhibited opportunistic tend- | encies, the Majority of the Central Committee violated these decisions | of the Comintern, shielding the political errors and gross breaches of 1. of the Comintern Address, \ 1 by Comrade Pepper. The incon- and lack of princi attitude of the leaders of the of the Central Cc tee in regard to Comrade Pepper found ion in the fact that the Central Committee of the American y expelled him from the Party, pointing out that “the political platform of Comrade Pepper is no doubt the real cause of his cowardly disinclination to do his duty and to go and place himself at the disposal of the Comintern” (decision of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the American Communist Party approved by the Politi- cal Bureau of the Central Committee), whereas a few days later in spite of the political c' i en to Comrade Pepper the Cen- tral Committee reinsta anks of the Party. The Majority as well, as the Minority in 1929 was engaged in inadmissable, un- principled speculation with questions of the situation in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and in the Comintern. If the pene | speculated in the version as if it we: Communist Party sharing the att Soviet Union in its struggle against r discipline whi sistenc ht deviations, the Majority, | » the only group in the American |} of the Communist Party of the |} making use of methods of rotten diplomacy, went to the length of un- principled maneuvering in regard to this question. This has found ex- | pression in the adoption by the Convention at the initiative of Comrades | Lovestone and Gitlow and without the least attempt at informing the | delegates of the Convention about the situation in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, of a resolution which proposed organizational measures in the struggle against the right deviation. And subsequently to the arrival in Moscow the delegation of the Majority in the person of Comrade Gitlow made a declaration which practically dis- ayows this resolution and upholds the slanderous attacks of the right elements on the leadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and of the Comintern, The Executive Committce of the Comintern draws special attention to attacks entirely unworthy of a Communist, which during the Con- vention, Comrade Lovestone permitted himself to make on the leader- ship of the Comintern’ (Comrade Lovestone’s reference to “a running sore” in the apparatus of the Executive Committee of the Communist International). The Executive Committee of the Communist Interna- tional emphasizes that these attacks of Comrade Lovestone represent a repetition of landerous attacks upon the Comintern made by right opportunists, in the Communist Party of America. Thus for example in the resolu- tion of the 5th enlarged Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International in 1925 it is stated: “The Executive Commit- tée holds firmly to the opinion that the factional struggle between the two groups must absolutely cease.” In a resolution of the 6th Enlarged Plenum of the Executive Com- mittee of the Communist International in 1926 on the American ques- tion, among other things it is stated: “To enable the American Com- munist Party to fullfil its historic mission the first prerequisite is complete and unconditional termination of the factional fight within the Communist Party not in words but in deeds.” In its resolution of July 1st 1927 the Executive Committee of the Communist International again reminded the Party that “this demand was not being carried out seriously enough” and that there is still in the Party “an impermissible situation of faction formation” which may lead to “a crisis in the Party.” The Sixth World Congress of the Comintern in 1928, while mention- ing in its political theses that in the Party there is to be “observed a slackening of the long standing factional struggle,” nevertheless found sufficient ground for deciding that “the most important task confront- ing the Party is to put an end to factional strif: which is not based on any serious controversies on points of principle. Finally the Executive Committee of the Communist International, with the object of carrying out the decisions of the World Congress and | in view of the fact that the inner-Party situation in the United States | became anew accentuated, had addressed an open letter to the American Party in December 1928 and demanded from the Convention then pend- | ing that it begin at last really to carry out the decisions of the Com- h intern concerning the liquidation of factionalism. All of this was ab- solutely of no avail so far. The leaders of the Majority as well as the leaders of the Minority of the Central Committee, who repeatedly gave » their verbal pledges to the Executive Committee of the Communist In- ernational that they will carry out the decisions of the Comintern, have systematically violated the decisions of the Executive Committee of the | Communist International and their own pledges. Therefore the Exec- utive Committee of the Comintern, approving in the main the work of » the delegation of the ECCI to the Sixth Convention of the American Coshmunist Party, resolves to adopt the following measures: The Executive Committee of the Communist International draws special attention to the declaration of \ 9th in which Comrades Bedacht, Lovestone and others tried to discredit beforehand the de- cision of the Comintern by stating that “the Executive Committee of the Communist International wants to destroy the Central Committee and is therefore following a policy of legalizing forever the factionalism of the opposition block and is recommending that it carry it on also in future.” The Executive Committee of the Communist International holds that this most factional and entirely impermissible anti-Party declara- tion of Comrades Bedacht, Lovestone and others represents a direct attempt at preparing a condition necessary for paralyzing the decisions . of the Comintern and for a split in the Communist Party of America. The same manifest determination to oppose their faction to the Comin- tern found expression also in a second statement of May 14th submitted by the delegation from the Convention only in more diplomatic form. The assertion of the leaders of the Majority faction concerning their “loyalty” to the Comintern contained in that statement was clearly ex- posed at the very session of the Presidium of the Executive Committee of the Communist International at which the statement was reported, by the refusal of the majority of the signers unconditionally to carry into effect the decisions contained in this Jetter. The Executive Com- mittee of the Communist International declares that in case the authors of the declaration refuse unconditionally to submit to the decisions of the Comintern and to actively put them into practice, the Executive Committee of the Communist International will be forced to adopt all tagasures. necessary to put a stop. to all attempts at splitting the Party, | to secure unity in the ranks of the Communist Party of America and to | realize the decisions adopted by the Comintern. In the course of years the Executive Committee of the Communist International had repeatedly demanded the liquidation of factionalism DECISIONS OF CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE U.S. A. ON THE ADDRESS OF THE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL (Decisions made Saturday, May 18, 1929.) 1. To place the Majority as well as the Minority of the Central Committee under the obligation of dissolving immediately all factions and ceasing all factional work. To call upon all organizations of the American Communist Party to secure the putting into practice of this instruction, not shrinking from the application in regard to factionalism of the most severe disciplinary measures clear up to expulsion from the Party, 2. Comrades Lovestone and Bittelman as the extreme factionalists of the Majority and Minority, to be removed for a time from work in the American Communist Party. 8. To reject the demand of the Minority of the Central Committee in regard to the calling of a special Convention. 4, To recognize as necessary the reorganization and extension of the Secretariat of the Central Committee on a basis of securing real collective, non-factional activity, and to render to the Central Committee every possible help in the matter of putting an end to all factionalism in the Party, 5. To turn over Comrade Pepper's case to the International Con- trol Commission for consideration. / The Executive Committee of the Communist International calls upon all members of the Party to get together for the struggle against unprincipled factionalism in the Party, to be able to carry on the strug- gle against the right danger, for the healing and bolshevization of the \merican Communist Party, for the genuine carrying out of inner- Party demooracy and proletarian self-criticism. With these objects in view the Patty must initiate on a large scale a discussion of the ques- tions concerning the situation within the Party and the political tasks confronting the Party. It is necessary to carry on in all Party and young Communist organizations a thorough enlightenment campaign concerning the decisions of the Sixth Congress of the Comintern, the Open Letter of the ECCI to the Sixth Convention of the Communist Party of America, and concerning the present address of the Executive Committee of the Communist International. In the course of this en- lightenment campaign, while waging a struggle against all opportunists who want to fight the Comintern, while uniting in that struggle all honest and disciplined comrades who are loyal to the Communist move- ment, the Communist Party must concentrate its attention on the most / The Central Committee accepts and endorses the Address to the American Party membership by the Execu- tive Committee of the Communist International and undertakes to win the entire Party membership for the support The Central Committee pledges itself unconditionally to carry into effect the decisions contained in this 3. The Central Committee pledges itself and its members to defend the Address of the Comintern before the membership against any ideological or other opposition to the Address. important questions of revolutionary struggle of the proletariat of America—on questions of unemployment, struggle for social insurance, wages, working hours, work in existing trade unions, work for the or- ganization of new unions, struggle against reformism and struggle against the war danger. The Communist Party of the United States must strengthen its work in regard to recruiting and retaining in its ranks new cadres of workers that are joining the Party, especially of the working youth. It must widen its agitational and organizational work in the big plants in the main branches of industry and among the Negroes and must secure for the Party an independent leading role in the industrial struggles of the working class that are developing, ‘organizing in the process of the struggle the unorganized workers. 4, The Central Committee calls upon the members of the delegation in Moscow to withdraw all opposition to the Address and to the decisions contained therein and to do all in their power to assist the Comintern and the Cen- tral Committee of the American Party to unify the Party in support of these decisions. 5. The Central Committee instructs the Secretariat to proceed immediately, in agreement with the Executive Committee of the Communist International, to take all measures necessary to put into application the decisions and to realize the objectives, of the Comintern as expressed in the Address. 6. The Central Committee approves all decisions of the Secretariat of the same date, accepting and ordering immediate publication in the entire Party press of the Address of the E. C. C. I. to the American Party membership, and instructs the Secretariat to put these decisions into effect immediately. {°° It is only by relentless struggle against unprincipled factionalism, which is eating into the vitals of the Party, only by consolidating the whole Party for carrying out its fundamental practical tasks on the basis of the line of the Comintern and by more energetic struggle against the right danger that the American Communist Party will be- come the genuine Bolshevik vanguard of the American proletariat and will be converted into a mass political Party of the American workers in the ranks of which inner-Party democracy is being actually unfolded while at the same time an iron proletarian discipline is strengthened, to which all organizations and each individual member unconditionally submits; in the ranks of which is practised the submission of the Minority to the Majority on the basis of the Party’s persual of the line and practical directions of the Comintern, Such a Party will be capable to lead the American proletariat to victorious struggle against capitalism, aca ee With Communist Greetings, —EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE COMMUNIST INTERNATIONAL, WORKERS CENTER RAIDED BY POLICE (Continued from Page One) Russian,.the sergeant declared thet -s did. not but that he heard the “Soviet.” The nine Pioneers who were ar- rested and kept for trial this mor- ning at the Children’s Society are Jéssie Taft, Frank Bailinson, Ber- nard Kaplan, Harry Eisman, George Gorchoff, Abraham Malakin, Irving Shavelson, Saul Wellman, Louis Levy. They are charged with juven- ile delinquency. Lifshitz, 16 other workers and 9 Pioneers were arrested when they protested the police raid on Workers Center. Squads of police, séme of them from Whalen’s parade, broke into the office of the Daily Worker and a neighboring room in which ‘the Young Pioneers were assembled in their Fourth Convention, to tear the sign down, demonstrating the zz. police brutality whieh the sign Booed by thousands of workers joutside the Red Center, and by the | Young Pioneers who sang working- class songs, the police, meanwhile augmented by dozens of more detec- tives and cossacks, arrested the workers and Young Pioneers amidst a great show of brutality. Workers have taken pictures of the beatings as undeniable testimony, The sign, reading, “Down with Walker’s Police Brutality,” was placed on the Workers Center as a protest against the brutalities of the Tammany police against the cafeteria and iron and bronze strik- ers. While the raid on the Red Center was going on, the Tammany police paraded down Fifth Avenue, a block away from the Workers Center. Sev- eral thousand police thugs, many of them fresh from the brutal slugging of cafeteria and iron and bronze pickets, displayed their clubs and other weapons, as a warning to the workers that the cossacks stood ready to swing theit clubs into ac- tion at any time against. workers who are fighting for a living wage. At about 11 a. m. on Saturday the police perens entered the Workers soever, and ordered the sign to be taken down. Ben Lifshitz, acting organizer, of District 2 of the Com- munist Party, demanded that the police show a warrant and explain the reason for their breaking into the building. and a lieutenant ordered the police to arrest Lifshitz. taken to the Twenty-Second Street Court, where he was released on $500 bail for the hearing yesterday. rest of Lifshitz, nearly a dozen po- lice returned to the Workers Center, broke into the meeting hall of the Young Pioneers, and tore the sign down. great demonstration by several hun- dred Young Pioneers who carried signs denouncing the police terror. Thousands of workers filled Union Square, booed the police and sang workers’ songs. Young Pioneers marched back and forth in front of the Workers Cen- ter, between the lines of the police, continuing to carry their signs. En- raged, the police tore the signs, and it any warrants whate_ seized over a dozen of, the, and several workers taking part in| the demonstration, The demonstration was one of the best spontaneous demonstrations held. . . . . A call to young workers to pro- test Tammany police brutality, the raiding of the Workers Center and for the organization of a strong militant union and _ self-defense corps was issued in a statement yes- terday by the Communist Youth League, District 2, The statement follows in part: “This clubbing must open the eyes of the young workers to the role of the government. The police, to- gether with the National Guard ana regular army are always used by the bosses against the workers. In this country of a supposed “democ- racy” the most brutal methods are used by the police to’ break up a peaceful demonstration of young children. The brutality was equal to that employed by the German po- lice controlled by the social-demo- crats. In only one country in the world are the workers the govern- ment, this is ope Russia. In the Pioneers, -Sovisks The police were unable to do so, The latter was About a half hour after the ar- This was the signal for a The entire convention of the t never occur because the police and the army are controlled by the} workers and fight always in de- fense of the workers, “Arresting young workers, break-| ing up picket lines, preventing free speech, torturing and clubbing the workers, young and old, are a part of the imperialist war preparations aimed especially at destruction of the Workers’ Fatherland, Soviet Russia and the destruction of the Communist Youth League of the! U. S. A. which is the vanguard of| the revolutionary and militant young workers, “The Communist Youth League calls upon all young workers: “To protest against the brutality of Tammany police! “Organize into strong militant unions to defend the interests of the young workers! “Build Workers’ Self Defense Corps! “Fight against the war danger! “Defend the Soviet Union! “Join the sro League! “ ai Resa, ‘ae Youth MORE EVICTION OF MILL STRIKERS (Continued from Page One) Room 604, 1 Union Sq., New York City. ° * * I. L. D. Calls for Funds. The national office of the Inter- national Labor Defense has issuec a statement declaring that it wilt continue to support with all resour- ces the workers arrested and brought to trial in Gastonia on frame-up charges, and appealing to the branches of the I. L. D. to collect more funds on coupon books issued for this purpose. The statement says in part: “The situation in the South has made it very difficult for the I. L. D. to conduct its defense work. The} joo} workers live in company homes, which means that no property bond Hat is available for bailing out strikers, * anes | name as shield of the working class, jhas faced the situation and met its| ‘needs. A cash bond of $5,000 has/ been raised with which to bail out strikers. Labor Defender, was sent down at once to conduct defense work and organize I. L. D. branches. A lawyer was put on the job to take care of the numerous cases which BoM arisen, “However, the national office of} the International Labor Defense Is no longer able to conduct this work without the active support of the branches, membership and sympa- tens of thousands thruout the coun- try. Funds are needed. Our cash bail fund is near exh: .stion. More cases are coming up which need at- tention and money for the lawyers’ and other bills. “The I. L. D, has therefore issued coupon books for defense, which contain $4 in 10¢ and 25c coupons. sufficient supply of these coupon ks has been sent to every I. L. . branch in the country, and the ional office urges the branches arrested] throughout the country to begin at once to) place these books in male ee Karl Reeve, editor of the) thizers of I. L. D. which number into} Demonstration, Led by ‘Communist’ Party, in Alaska on May. Day JUNEAU, Alaska (By. Mail).— | May Day was celebrated here quite \fittingly during the afternoon and evening of May 1, 1929, by the local Communist Party, their sympa- |thizers and friends. The gathering was at Salmon Creek, and about 150 persons par- ticipated. Greetings from Clarence Darrow and the Labor Defender was announced, the poem by H. T. Ysiang, a Chinese student of sociol- ogy in American University, was read; the International was recited by Cyril Zuboff, who also made an impressive talk on the significance of the Day. BOSS NEGLIGENCE KILLS SAN FRANCISCO (By Mail).— The total casualty list of workers killed and injured in Califarnia for, four and a half years, from 1924 to 1928, is 1,905, 074, Iver 3,500 were killed, sy ’