The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 25, 1929, Page 6

———— ee & id Page si Central Organ of the Communist Party of the U. S. A. Published by Sunday Tele the Comprodai except x. $8.00 a year months months Square, $6.00 a Address A Congress to Prepare for War. HE special session of congress now in session that was called under the mask of “farm relief” is finally out in the open as a “prepare for war” congress. This exposes the ectual reason why it was called together so hurriedly after Hoover was installed in the White House on March 4. Chief importance attaches to the proposed legislation the president special powers to draft industry in time This month has already seen legislation introduced iding for the conscription of man-power. Such legislation has already been put on their statute books by the great imperialist powers in Europe. In support of these war preparations, the European socialists have played a special role, sometimes even outdoing the militarists them- selves. The drafting of industry in time of war does not mean of course that a single privilege of private ownership will be abolished. Chief and foremost among these privileges is war-time profit-taking. “Drafting industry” merely signifies the intensive development and organization of all industry on a war footing. Much has already been done in this direction. Intensifying and energizing the Wall Street sector of the “war preparedness” race is part of the job of the present congress. In this connection other matters popping to the surface must be taken into consideration. The provisions to be in- serted in the tariff legislation, banning working class litera- ture from these shores, the heated effort to muzzle the capi- talist press associations that some times reveal business transacted in the secret sessions of the senate, the work of the National Law Enforcement Commission, appointment of safe conservatives to all available posts, revising immigration laws, all these steps link themselves up closely with the war preparations, just as important in many ways as the building of new battleships, increasing the air fleets or the mustering in of new regiments. These activities clearly indicate that the capitalist gov- ernment is fully aware of the imminence of war and strenuously prepares for it. The working class as a whole must be equally awake and alert. It must also prepare, through the creation and the strengthening of the new class struggle trade union center basing itself principally on the organization of the unorganized, through the building of the Communist Party into the mass political party of the working class, through organizing its class resistance to the imperial- ist program of finance capital. This is an immediate task. Against the war preparations of the capitalist govern- ment the anti-war preparations of the working class. Strengthen These Two Fronts, HE American Federation of Labor very definitely de- velops its strike-breaking role on two class struggle fronts; in the textile strike at Elizabethton, Tennessee, and in the building trades war in New York City. In the two courageously fought Tennessee textile strikes, the forces of the A. F. of L., acting through MacMahon’s United Textile Workers’ Union, have acted the role of strike- breakers. Vice-President William F. Kelley now orders the workers back to their jobs, raising the black flag of treason with the declaration that the strike must be called off if the employers will take the strikers back and promise not to dis- criminate against them. Any boss will accept such a proposi- tion. It is not difficult for an employer to weed out active strikers in time, even if they do get their old jobs back again, which seldom occurs in such a situation. The strikers At Elizabethton understand this thoroughly and denounce the MacMahon organization and the A. F. of L. treachery accord- ingly. In New York City the sell-out marches under the old, familiar name of “arbitration.” Supreme Court Justice Crain, who issues the most severe sentences against the striking cafeteria workers, announces that the proposed lockout of the building trades is called off, and that he is a member of the “impartial committee” that will meet the representatives of the Building Trades Council and the Building Employers’ As- sociation June 20. In the meantime the solidarity of the workers is broken through the calling off of the sympathetic strikes in support of Electrical Workers’ Union, Local No. 3, one of the main objectives of the employers, and Judge Crain gets “special congratulation on his abilities as a conciliator” from the New York Times. The employers surrender nothing. They get the ad- vantage of keeping the workers on the jobs during the active summer building season; gag temporarily any exposure of evil practices in the building industry; and Tammany Hall, which is closely linked up with the A. F. of L. trade union officialdom in New York City, avoids an unwelcome and dis- concerting industrial war on the eve of the municipal election campaign. The treachery of the A. F. of L. at Elizabethton offers a new opportunity for the National Textile Workers’ Union to enter this situation, where it has been absent up to the present. It is incumbent upon this left wing industrial union to provide the Tennessee strikers immediately with the class struggle leadership that, they have been lacking. The new betrayal of the A. F. of L. officialdom in the New York building trades should be an urge to increased activity of the Construction Workers’ Section of the Trade Union Educational League, the militant program of which has already been reviewed in these columns. These two fronts in the class struggle call for immediate strengthening. “4 NDY” MELLON, who has just put $300,000,000 more into the pockets of his family, will be present at the first meeting of the Hoover National Law Enforcement Com- mission, Tuesday, in the White House at Washington. Mellon believes in the law enforcement that will protect his billions. _. Maeans an increasing attack against the working class. aily Sg: Worker THE DESERTER nt How Soviet Economy Functions IV. DISTRIBUTION, COMMERCE AND CONSUMPTION AS the development of the produc- tive forces proceeded and com-| | mercial traffic grew, the trusts as |well as the commercial bodies, proved to be insufficient. In fact, both in the domain of raw | materials and in the sale of ‘manu- \factured products, the trusts inter- | fered with each other. Thus, there arosé the necessity to form bodies which would take charge of directing the flow of the commer- cial activities of the trusts and these were the syndicates. Their tasks were defined as fol- lows: “The syndicates are to direct wholesale commerce and contyol the concentration of raw materials and | the sale of manufactured objects, through the medium of the coopera- tives and of the State stores.” The syndicates are formed by the trusts of a given industry. Belonging to a syndicate is not obligatory, but there is a general tendency'to enter the syndicates. Their functions are the following: Raw materials: (a) concentration; (b) distribution among the trusts composing it. Commerce: (a) fixation of the zones of sale for the different trusts; (b) fixation of the selling prices; (c) direct commercial operations. Credits: Organization of credits to the interested trusts. There are 19 syndicates encircling |the great majority of State trusts. Rat i. ’ RETURN! To ig DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, MAY 25, 1929 Gr oF Lilt ey (In three previous articles appearing in the Daily Worker the de- velopment of the economic forms of Soviet industry, the directing role of the Proletarian State in economy, the development of collective property and the actual’organization of industry were described. The series goes on to take up the problems of distribution, commerce and consumption.) Their capital is constituted by the trust funds, whether in actual cash, or by potenialities of their eventual production, It can be said that the syndicates are “directorates” of which the trusts are members. The administrative councils are named by the delegates of the trusts and the income of the syndicates goes entirely to the State treasury. Retail Commerce. In order to give a comprehensive picture of wholesale and retail com- merce it would be necessary for. us to spend some time on the retail stores of the syndicates, of the trusts and of the Commissariat of Commerce, and the different com- mittees for commerce “Torg” (com- merce) formed by this or that trust. But that would necessitate a study in itself which it is impossible to give here. Above all, however, it is indispensible to explain the political and organizational significance of this powerful network which, more and more, tends to concentrate into its own hands, the distribution of merchandise in retail commerce. Cooperation. | Cooperation in the U.S. S. R. can tive participation of the population in the work of the construction of socialism. What is, in reality, a cooperative? It is a free association of citizens enjoying their civil rights, which has for its purpose to place the citizens in direct touch with all that concerns their material needs: food, ¢lothing, household objects, etc. Cooperation, in its entirety, having the same purpose, forms at the same time a powerful organization, which, steadily in number, assures in the Proletarian State the functioning of retail commerce. Thus, it is the whole populace which is called to fill this important social function. Therefore, the number of coopera- tors and the structure of the co- of the vitality of this organization which replaces the whole army of middlemen in capitalist society. The Soviet system, in that which con- cerns production as well as consump- tion, proves itself to be infinitely superior to the capitalist system. On one hand, the absence of the middle- be considered as a form of the ac-| with the aid of its stores growing | peratives constitute the best proof | By Fred Ellis |man diminishes the cost of mer- chandise, on the other hand, the in. come realized by commercial opera- | | tions are always to the profit of all| the workers. | The income of industry above the actual cost of production are turned |to the development of industry and |to the Proletarian State as a whole. | The income of the cooperatives is | |devoted to the development of co- |operation and to the Proletarian State as a whole, of which it is but a branch. You will read further on about) the wholesale commercial operations | | between the different syndicates and | the Centrosoyous, the central organ- | ization of the cooperatives. | Thus, you will see that, more and | more, the production of the trusts | intended for sale, come to the con- sumers through the medium of their | own cooperatives. | And if you examine the number of cooperators, which according to | the plan of Centrosoyous for 1928-29 | | will reach 28,789,000 members, you | can imagine the formidable power of | | this new form of distribution in this | | new society which is the U. S. S. R. It must also be pointed out that | the tasks of the cooperatives are not only strictly commercial operations and the modernization of its equip- ment such as refrigeration, and the | like, but that it is equally concerned | with social and cultural functions, such as playgrounds, clubs, libraries, educational centers, etc. (To Be Continued) Minor Nationalities in the Soviet Union THE JEWS AND OTHER MINOR} the minor nationalities did not even, Russians themselves in the position NATIONALITIES UNDER THE|have an alphabet under the czars. | of a minority group.” (p. 158). SOVIETS, by Avrahm Yarmolin- sky. Vanguard Press, 50c. Reviewed by SI GERSON. Many American Communists are still in the dark on such a profound | question as that of the national | minorities and oppressed races in general. While the American Party and its. central organ have done much to clarify the revolutionary | workers on this question, there still !yemains much misunderstanding. As j}a matter of fact, to many workers this problem does not exist—show- ing the deep influence of the posi- |tion of American imperialism on | these workers. | Therefore a little book like Yar- |molinsky’s on the minor nationali- | ties of the Soviet Union, their status before and after the Revolution, be- comes important to us, not only be- ‘cause of its content but primarily because of the tremendous lessons | we can learn from it. | Many Nationalities. When we think that there are 30 nationalities in the Soviet Union | that go to make up about 98 per cent of the population, and when we recall that there are about 149 languages spoken—disregarding for the moment the countless dialects— j|we can see the tremendousness of the job of building a unified whole out of what appears to be a national | crazy-quilt. And yet these various | nationalities, both the formerly op- pressing and formerly oppressed na- tionalities, live together in harmony, despite all difficulties of language, culture and economic level. It is a historical fact that the minor nationalities barely existed under the lash of the czar. Many of them were in fact physically ex- terminated. No one will deny that pogroms were the regular lot of the Jewish race and slavery for many of the other nationalities. Many of Today all that is changed. The minor nationalities have just as much chance to develop culturally and politically as any of the major |nationalities. From deep: in the rocky Caucasus a new alphabet may ‘come out, a new tribe may develop, a new autonomous region may be formed. Everywhere the yoke is gone. There is full racial, social and political equality fo rthe formerly oppressed races. | The Jews, whose agony under czarism was epic, are now protected ‘by the Soviet government from the |cruelties of anti-semitism. Even in the heat of the civil war the Red Army was a bulwark against anti- semitism. Says Yarmolinsky (p. 57): “As a rule the appearance of a Soviet detachment meant com- parative safety for the Jewish pop- ulation.” And later (p. 109): “The government is no longer the alien, | hostile power it used to be.” Full Self-Determination. That these statements are not ac- |cidental is evident by a reading of the mass of neatly condensed ma- | terial Yarmolinsky has at hand. He | points out how the Soviet govern- | ment has actually subsidized educa- tion in the language of the minor nationalities, encouraged the growth of a native language and literature, refused to Russify the minor groups —in short, has followed out the slo- gan of Comrade Stalin of putting ‘a proletarian substance into the |form of the national culture. Politically, Yarmolinsky admits that the Bolsheviks have pursued the policy of “self-determination to the point of actual secession.” Al- ways our comrades in the U.S.S.R. have followed the policy of giving autonomy within the union to the formerly oppressed groups, even to the point where “. . .the formation of the republics (Soviet Republics) has in some instances placed the | Social Reformist Viewpoint. | The book has many negative qual- lities. The most fundamental fault lis that the author, with typical lib- eral fearfulness, dares not look any farther than the end of his nose. He | writes well of what he sees, but |does not connect the facts at hand with what has gone before. Yar- |molinsky fails utterly to comprehend |that the Bolshevik policy on the | question of minor. nationalities is organically bound up with the Len- inist attitude on imperialism, the \colonial question, and the question of the relation between the domin- ant. and the weaker nationalities. Yarmolinsky does not dare to point out (for at heart he is a re- formist) that these fundamental changes in status that have come about for the minor nationalities have come about only thru the pro- lletarian revolution. What Lenin said in his “Theses on the National and Colonial Questions” at the 2nd Congress of the Communist Interna- tional (“. . .real national freedom and unity can be achieved by the proletariat only thru revolutionary struggle and by the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. . .”) Yarmolinsky will not say. History has proved that the Eng- lish labor party, being a party of imperialism, could not solve the Trish question—and certainly not the question of the colonial peo- ples. The question of how to solve the Croatian situation is one which will trip up the capitalist dictator- ship of Yugoslavia, These questions, just like all the questions that im- perialism poses, will only be solved thru the proletarian revolution— never thrusbourgedis “constitution- alism.” Inspiration of Soviet Union. Nevertheless, we can utilize Yar- molinsky’s neat presentation of fact magses of the race in America that | suffers from both race and class op- pression—the Negro race. We can point to the living example of the Soviet Union as a place where there is no racial or national oppression. This example should inspire the Ne- gro masses to our slogan of “the right of the Negro to na- tional self-determination in the Southern states where the Ne- groes form a majority of the pop- ulation.” (Communist Interna tional resoultion on Negro ques tion in the U. S. A.) | It should prove to them that only | | the proletarian revolution in the United States can really emancipate the Negro masses, just as the No-| vember revolution emancipation the | scores of oppressed nationalities and racial groups formerly under the iron hel of the Romanoffs, 9 Ae (We print Comrade Gerson’s ar- jticle unchanged. It is necessary, {however, to point out that the solu- tion as presented above gives a very one-sided conception. The* main struggle in defense of the Negro masses still remains the militant fight against white chauvinism and for political and social equality— Editor.) CATAPULT, PLANE FOR MAIL Part cf the liner Leviathan’s mail is expected to arrive in New York 24 hours ahead of the ship on its next westward voyage after being picked up 300 to 500 miles at sea by a huge airplane. A catapult device is being in- stalled on the Leviathan’s deck which is to shoot 25 to 30 bags of mail, one at a time, to lines dang- ling from the airplane. Simultane- ously, according to Lytle S. Adams, inventor of the device, mail from shore will be deposited on the liner. imate aim of thin to aid in the mobilization of great’ soctaty. CEMENT 2:20" GLADKOV Translated by A. S. Arthur and C. Ashleigh All Rights Reserved—International Publishers, N. Y. Back in his town on the Black Sea, now disorganized, its indus- trial life disrupted by the ruin of the great cement factory, Gleb Chumaloy, Red Army Commander, sets about getting things going again. He visits the Party Committee, urges on the factory come mittee, argues with the Communist Group, all to set them to repair- ing the single track over the mountain so as to get wood into the town before the winter sets in. Engineer Kleist, the builder and chief engineer of the cement factory when it was still under capitalist control, stays hidden away in his room, still served by his solitary servant. In the days of the civil wars he had ordered Gleb shot, and had saved Dasha, Gleb’s wife. You are now introduced to him. * * * CHAPTER V. The Hidden Emigrant THE SECRET ROOM. “HE windows in their massive oak frames were never opened, and the dust from the quarries, filtering through the crannies, lay in a velvety pile on the window-sills. In the morning, when the mountains glowed with a violet light, and the sun’s rays slid obliquely between the window-bars and through the panes, rainbow-colored crystals of quarry dust sparkled. The tech- nologist, Engineer Kleist, used to stand long before his window look- ing at these tiny whirling worlds, dreaming of past geological epochs. A tangible thick silence surrounded him. ‘ And as by happy chance this room was lost at the end of a wind- ing corridor, where dreamy silence reigned at daytime and where night brought black emptiness and ragged shadows, the engineer’s study seemed joyfully inaccessible, far away as that quarry in the valley overgrown with wild roses and ivy. After the factory had been abandoned, and the dark blue gaps left by the stolen doors and windows faced questioningly the volcanic masses of the hills and the quarries’ terraced stone steeps with their smashed and rusty ropeway—then life was bound to stop and decom- »pose into two elements: chaos and calm. Why not then be the tech- nologist of a dead factory, when by so doing he was not bound in any way and time passed with steady balance? > The main thing was not to open the oak frames of the window, but to apprehend the profound significance of the spiders’ construc- tions between the double panes, At some unfixed point between past and present, Engineer Kleist had suddenly observed a deep beauty and meaning in the complex architecture of the cobwebs in the airy space between the windows. HE would stand for long periods at the window, round-shouldered, long-legged, with silvery hair en brosse, gazing at the pearly webs, at the multitude of their luminous planes, intersecting and inclined at various angles, the illimitable radiation of ladders, the interlacing and twining, with their power of prodigious tension. No one called at his study. Who would want the technician when the factory was silent as a grave and the cement lying in damp sheds had long ago petrified into blocks hard'as iron, when the cable-ways were damaged, the cables broken, the trucks derailed and flung down the slope, rusted from rain and lying amidst grass and refuse? No one wanted the engineer when the mechanics wandered idly along the highroad and footpaths, around the empty buildings and through the yard, carrying away wood for fuel, the metal parts of machines in order to make pipe-lighters, and the belting from the transmission gear. Down below in the semi-basement, in the half-darkness of the un- inhabited rooms, could be heard the stamping, thundering and shout- ing of the Factory Committee. It seemed to Engineer Kleist that this was a tavern, an evil inn, sheltering rioters and brigands. Through the dusty obscurity of his window, he saw workmen running up or down the concrete steps. He noted their faces: mournful and dusted over greyly with hunger and suffering and stamped with the lines of implacable obstinacy. These men pursued their own frightful and in- comprehensible game and had no care for him. Everything had turned out right for him through his carefulness and cleverness in setting a simple mathematical problem. From his far-away corner he watched the workers with a sneering and febrile hatred. All these creatures exhausted by hunger and lack of employ- ment in their revolt against this condition had produced the revolution, that great tragedy, that devastation. It was they that had ruined his future and burned up the world like a handful of waste; and they had | forgotten the few remnants of the past in this hidden room, Se Slee) sje steps and terraces of concrete outside his window glowed and shimmered under the glaring sun. It seemed as though they were being brought to white heat and were on the point of breaking into flame. One would think that water was flowing over the heated sur- faces and hissing and swelling in bubbles and steam, But these are only the steps of the workers crackling on the loose cement and pebbles on the concrete steps. Down there, they were running about like ants from door to door, in and out of the Factory Committee. Why was a Factory Committée needed now? There was none previously and yet the factory was known around the world? What business could they have to do, these workmen condemned to idleness amidst the remnants of a once highly organized and immense under- taking? Why so much anxious scurrying if tomorrow is the same as today and if afterwards there will follow merely a series of similar senseless days as alike as the infinite series of reflections in double mirrors ? Every day at one o’clock sharp, Jacob, the office-messenger, ar- rived carrying a little brass tray. He entered silently, stern, grave and stooping. His grey moustache with its sharp, pointed ends and the bluish bristles on his red scalp seemed transparent as glass. He would put down a glass of tea and two minute ‘tablets of saccharine wrapped in paper and he would step backwards two paces, and stooping low pick from the floor with his finger tips a couple of crumbs which he would carefully place in a wire basket under the table. The walls were white and clean, and in their oak frames the architectural drawing® looked as severe as in the old times. “One o’clock already, Jacob?” “One exactly, Herman Hermanovitch.” “Very well. You may go. Don’t let anyone up to me.” “Very good, sir.” “Dust the windows, Jacob, but vdon’t open them.” “Very good, sir.” « * INGINEER KLEIST stood at the window with his back turned to Jacob. His silvery bristly short hair gave him a slight air of being vexed; his neck muscles moved like elastic bands, and his old jacket hung from his shoulders in straight folds sticking out below like a little tail. { Somewhere, far beyond his corridor, faint voices were raised now and then, and one heard the clicking of the Abacus, New people had already been sent here by the Economic Council. Who were they? What were they doing there? Engineer Kleist did not know, nor did he want to know. He had his study, forgotten by everyone and guarded by Jacob, where only the past existed, traversed by the present but untouched by it. The present was rushing along the highroad with the automobiles and carts and the masses of men and workers who had broken loose and now shouted and swore senselessly —a thing which previously the management had strictly forbidden. He regarded the round mass of the mountain, striped by the edges of rock strata, clothed with shrubs and juniper bushes. Higher up the slope stood the mansion built of rough stone, standing like a mas- sive block, fiery red from the sun, its towers and arches conferring upon it a sober puritan dignity. “What’s over there now, Jacob? “The Workers’ Club and the Herman Hermanovitch.” : “They’ve brought with them a new unintelligible language. There is something murderous in it like the revolution. Please let no one enter this room, and on no account open the window. You may go.” ng! ea alan *, What do you call that?” Communist Group Headquarters, Te engineer gazed at the house of the director (“Communist Group”) { admiring its strength and great size. by him, Engineer Kleist. On the left, to the side pf the slope, among green patches and . stones the iron and concrete smoke-stacks of the factory shot upwards; from the window they seemed higher than the mountains. He could see the cupolas and arcades of the factory buildings behind the rope- way, beneath the chimneys. These, too, had been built by Engineer Kleist. He could not have fled abroad without having destroyed his creation, The masterpieces of his hands stood in his path more im- movable than the mountains, more indestructible than time; he had be- come their prisoner. This room, with its polished floor, still retained the simplicity and the atmosphere of a workroom. Rough drawings on the wall and on the massive oak desk; the grave dignity of the heavy, carved Gothic furniture, Time had stood still here. and the past had here congealed ard beesme tangible, This house had been built © eS i | —= = —se mse adnan ae eokryauwesd pean ‘aki