The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 27, 1929, Page 6

ARE reenter ¥ A i i Published by the » Sunday, at Telephone § Co, Inc,, Daily, except y York City, N. r, > “DAIWORK." By Mail iy): a year $4.50 six months $2.50 three months ; By M (outside of New York): six months $2 8 to the Daily Worker, New York, N. ¥. $8.00 three months 8 Union Square, = $6.00 awyear A@dress and mail all chec A New Period Opens in the Communist Party of the United States : V sweeping away of all the accumulated obstacles inherited from the past—the heritage of ITH a ruthles: narrow traditions which grew out of factional methods in the unventilated, stifling atmosphere of factional group for- mations—the Communist International has sent an Address to the membership of the Communist Party of the United States which will not soon—in fact never—be forgotten. This Addr of the Communist International, published in the Daily Worker of May 20, unquestionably marks the opening of a new period in the life of the American Com- munist Party, and—because of the role and the vital connec- tion of the Communist Party with the working class—this will bring a real and lasting benefit to the working class which de- pends for the effectiveness of its struggles upon the leader- ship of a healthy, strong, Bolshevik Communist Party. HE very radical action of the Communist International in dealing with its American section cannot be under- stood out of connection with the time and place. The time is one of rapid approach té a second imperialist world war and the inevitable flaming of proletarian revolution and colonial wars of liberation in a series of countries. In this of all times the Communist Party must at any cost in the quickest possible time accomplish the transition from a nar- row propagandistic organization to a mass party of thorough- ly sound Bolshevik character. The place is a capitalist im- erialist country unexcelled in the arts and means of debauch- , ing the labor movement with the imperialist ideology. It is not an accident that the serious mistakes made by and in the ‘American Communist Party are of an opportunist or Right charaeter, expressing the reflection within the Communist Party itself of the influence of capitalist imperialist ideology upon the working class in which the Party functions. It is not an-accident that the chief impediment to the development of the Communist Party of this country into a mass party is found to be precisely that morass of unprincipled factionalism which has no place in a Communist Party and which is, in fact, an ear-mark of what the Comintern so aptly styles “petty- bourgeois politiciandom.” The Address of the Comintern to the members of the American Communist Party is a devas- tating exposure of the mistakes and the false methods which spring from the pervading influence of bourgeois and petty- bourgeois ideology—an influence which reaches not only the non-Communist workers, but also penetrates into the Party itself. Unprincipled methods ‘which clearly bear the im- print of petty-bourgeois politiciandom” are non-Communist methods from which no good can come to a Communist Party, and the Communist International is going to see to it that -~®guen Anethods are ruthlessly crushed out of its American section. J is necessary to mark well what the Comintern says is “the ideological lever of Right errors in the American Party.” The “ideological lever” is the theory of “exception- alism.” When once the frame of mind is reached where the inexorable laws of capitalist development and decline and of proletarian revolution are somehow subject to “exceptions” in regard to the particular country which the capitalist system tries to teach us is “our own” country—then the floodgates are dangerously near to opening to let in the whole flood of imperialist chauvinism. In refuting the common error of both groups, the theory of “exceptionalism” the Address restates the Communist analysis of the position of American imperialism, in a para- graph which will compare for brevity and clarity with the best documents of Communism. It declares that: “With a distinctness unprecedented in history, American capitalism is exhibiting now the effects of the inexorable laws of capital- ist development, the laws of the decline and downfall of capitalist society.” All shades and varieties of the “excep- tionalism’” theory are “a reflection of the pressure of Amer- ican capitalism and reformism which is endeavoring to create among the mass of workers the impression of absolute firm- ness and ‘exceptional’ imperialist might of American capital in spite of its growing crisis, to strengthen the tactic of class collaboration in spite of the accentuation of class contradic- tions.” ‘¢ Bi BSIRR Ree The address undertakes to correct the line of the Amer- ican Communist Party in a most fundamental fashion, set- ting the Party on the road to becoming a real Bolshevik mass party. Taken in connection with the Open Letter to the Sixth Convention of the Party, of which the Address is a perfectly consistent extension and amplification along the same line (which the American Party failed to understand), it gives » the American Communists a complete reorientation, which it is already clear opens up a new and higher stage of Com- munist development. a Address deals mainly with the inner-Party situation, because it is this which has been the main obstacle to the development: of the American Section of the Communist International. Here the dominant note is the demand for liquidation of factionalism—complete and unconditional— addressed to all members and former groupings in the Party. How deep the poison of factionalism had entered our Party is shown when the Comintern Address establishes the indisput- able fact that the Minority as well as the Majority had been guilty of unprincipled factionalism, leading to a “gross dis- tortion of the line of the Comintern.” It is absolutely true, as the Comintern Address says, that the Sixth National Convention of the Communist Party of the United States was of splendid proletarian composition representing the best qualities of the Party. But factional ership caused the convention to fail to accomplish its purposes, and “this convention which was composed of the best proletarian 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 léaders of the Majority as well as on the part of the leaders of the Minor- ity,” - =. In the morass of factionalism both the Majority and the Minority saw, not the aims of the Comintern to cure the American Communist Party of its illness and to enable it re- lease its powers for healthy growth, but an effort to hand over the leadership of the Party to the Minority. This was not and is not now the intention of the Comintern. Yet the Majority flew into a furious factional struggle to defeat this J} DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, MONDAY; MAY 2 | NO PICKET LINE WITHOUT THEM! | giving the reasons, is as follows: “To all adherents and members of the Trade Union Educational League: “The National Committee of the Trade Union Educational League at its meeting hela May 25, 1929, care- | The Trade Union Unity Conven- | tion, called by the Trade Union Edu- |cational League for June 1-2 in | Cleveland, has been postponed until} | August 31, and Sept. 1 and 2. This | postponement was made necessary | by the extraordinary success of the | fully reviewed the whole question of |Convention Call, which opened up| the organization and political jsuch new vistas, and secured re-| preparation for the Cleveland Trade sponse from so many previously un- | Union Unity Convention {organized groups, that it seemed ad-/ «Reports from all sections of the oe to give more time to the! country and from many basic in- continuation of this drive, and secure | dustries show a tremendous response a far wider base for the new mili-|+, the Convention Call, far exceed- tant Trade Union Center than had) ing expectations. | hitherto been expected. vi | Learn By Struggle. Furthermore, the T. U. E. L. a | i sets “The experiences of the workers preter, the mach larger convention in their recent economic battles, to- | th, rye : | fhan was anticipated, raised a corre- ase ei 3 | sponding financial question, making gether with the ue demand aon |the expenses greater, and more time | "S@nization among the unorganized, is needed to sell the convention | the growing realization of the need | stamps, which all members and ad- 0T building a new trade union oe |herents of the T. U. E. L. are urged |t unify all class struggle unions an \to push with the greatest energy. to.give central direction to the work T. U. E. L. Statement | The official statement of the Na- | tional Executive Committee of the | Trade Union Educational League, | speed-up system, wage cutting, long | | during recent strikes as open agents | of building and strengthening the | Call exceeded also our financial re- | new unions and co-ordinating all ac-| Sources with insufficient time to es- tivities on the basis of a common/ tablish an adequate class struggle | class struggle program; the growing | fund to insure the stability of the resistance of the working masses to| new Trade Union Center. | announcing the change in date and capitalist rationalization, against the! Date of Unity Convention Is Set for August 31 sas City, Detroit, Cleveland, Phila- delphia, Buffalo, St. Louis, New Haven,. Minneapolis, Denver, Pitts- burgh, and many other cities have already established district Trade Union Centers representing thou- sands of workers in each locality. hours, with the attendant permanent army of the unemployed; the grow- ing realization of the strike breaking | role of the American Federation of Labor bureaucracy, their exposure of the bosses within the labor move- | ment; the increasing demand of the| workers for militant left wing in- dependent leadership in all their struggles—all. this has created so large a response to the Convention Call as to make it necessary to post- pone the date of the convention, originally set for June 1-2 to August 3l. 3-Day Meeting. “The Trade Union Unity Conven- tion which will be held in Cleveland, August 31 and Sept. 1 and 2, will be strengthened by the intensive or- ganization campaign which will be carried on during the next two months and by the machinery al- ready set up in all important indus- trial centers throughout the country. “Meanwhile all adherents of the Trade Union Educational League should push the sale of the Conven- tion Stamps and build up a big class struggle fund, continue the work of organizing the unorganized into new unions, and thus lay a firm basis for the Cleveland Coonvention on August 31, Need More Funds. “This is made necessary in order to take full edvantage of the favor- able objective situation and to give sufficient time to build as broad a base as possible for the Convention | and the new Trade Union Center. “The response to the Convention (Signed) “NATIONAL COM- MITTEE OF THE “Boston, New York, Chicago, Kan- T.U.E.L.” imaginary intention, while the Minority just as wildly and | Address and the entire machinery of the Party is in motion as factionally struggled to make the actions of the Comintern an instrument for taking the leadership of the Party into its own hands. Certain leaders of the Minority showed them- selves unfit to play a role of a uniting factor in the struggle of the Party against factionalism in conformity with the directions of the Comintern, and yet it is the factional leaders of the Majority with Comrade Lovestone at the head who are mainly responsible for making use of the convention for fac- tional purposes. ape illusion of some former Minority comrades that their own mistakes were of a left character, as contrasted with the “series of gross right errors” of the Majority, is ef- fectively destroyed by the Address, which traces these so- called “left,” but in reality Right opportunist errors to ex- actly the same roots as the errors of the Majority, namely the theory of American “exceptionalism.” The Communist In- ternational establishes, as well, that it is “a factional exag- geration” to say that the Majority as a whole is a bearer of the right tendency, just as it is a factional exaggeration to say that the Minority group represents the Trotskyist deviation. : It must cause our Party most drastically to readjust itself when it reads of “rotten factional diplomacy” in regard to the Comintern being used in the American Party which has always and correctly prided itself upon being a “Comin- tern Party” in the special sense of having never in its previ- ous history found itself in serious struggle with the Comin- tern line. The bright light of day now being thrown by the Comintern Address upon these most unhealthy developments will have the result of purging the Party completely from the germs of this disease. E It is now the task of the American Communists to secure the full and unconditional acceptance, endorsement, and car- rying into effect of the line and the decisions of the Comin- tern. HE Address to the American Party membership is sharp, but its sharpness is necessary to stir the Party out of its factional self-satisfaction of the groups into which it is di- vided. On such occasions of open criticism in the revolu- tionary party, all enemies of the working class delightedly sneer and jeer at the Party of the Revolution. But the critic- ism is necessary, and we care nothing for the opinions of the socialist party and other traitors to the revolution. Do our enemies want.to know how we will react to the criticism of our Communist International—to this “interference of Mos- | cow?” Let them have their answer in the unanimous decision | of our Political Committee, made on the same day on which | the Address was received, accepting and endorsing the Comin- | tern Address and already taking the first steps for carrying out its decisions. Let our enemies ponder over the fact that within a week after the Address was received (barely enough time for it to rgach the far-away districts) every district or- ganizer, every fParty editor, every language bureau has al- ready accepted and endorsed the Communist International's a ll all Ml to put it into effect. The Communist International is correct in considering that, whatever its faults, the Communist Party of the United States is bound by unswerving loyalty to the Communist International and is full of confidence in the soundness of its leadership. But it would be the most grave mistake to ignore the fact, pointed out in the Address itself, that opposition exists and that it exists among some members of the delegation sent to Moscow by the Sixth Convention. This opposition has taken such dangerous forms that the Comintern has thought necessary to characterize it as “a direct attempt at preparing the condition necessary for paralyzing the decisions of the Comintern and for a split in the Communist Party of Amer- ica.” The Communist Youth International, in the course of its duty in guiding the Communist Youth League of this country along the same line as that of the Communist Inter- national, has cabled to the Youth League in America that it must struggle “against the splitting policy of Lovestone and Gitlow.” The Party must and will without the slightest hesi- tation repel every splitting attempt, and must proceed with a firm hand against any and every sign of response to or sympathy with such an anti-Comintern policy as that pointed out and condemned in the Address. And already it has been made clear that such a strong line will be the line of the over- whelming majority of the proletarian ranks of the Party. pS PARTY is now to be mobilized in its full strength for the struggle against unprincipled factionalism, to be able to carry out the struggle against the Right danger, for the healing and bolshevization of the American Communist Party, for the genuine carrying out of inner-party democracy and proletarian self-criticism. A large scale discussion of the inner-party questions is necessary, together with a discussion of the Party’s political tasks. The Party membership must fuse itself into an organic unity in the course of this discus- sion and in the course of the carrying out of the Comintern line in the daily life of the Party. The Party rhust concen- trate its attention on the most important questions of revo- lutionary struggle of the proletariat of America, the struggle against unemployment, for social insurance, for better wages, hours and working conditions, for building the left wing in the existing trade unions, for the organization of new unions, for struggle against reformism and against the war danger. The Party must realize the words of the Comintern Ad- dress: “It is 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 become the genuine Bolshevik vanguard of the proletariat and will be con- verted into a mass political party of the American workers in the ranks of which inner-party democracy is being unfolded while at the same time an iron proletarian discipline is strengthened, to which all organizations and each individual member uncon- ditionally submits; in the ranks of which is practised the sub- mission of the Minority to the Majority on the basis of the Party’s pursual 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.” a eee ale | | | | | | | | acre mag your peace has been disturbed.” CEMENT cusp Kox GLADKOY, Translated by A. S. Arthur and C. Ashleigh All Rights Reserved—International Publishers, N. Y. Gleb Chumalov, Red Army Commander, who has just returned to his home town, has taken the lead in the reconstruction of the cement factory and of the life of the town on the basis of socialism. He is now trying to get the workers and the committees working on rebuilding the factory and the track over the hills to transport the wood for the town. Engineer Kleist, chief engineer and architect of the factory while it was still under capitalist control, lives in seclusion, It was on his orders that Gleb had been ordered shot and Gleb’s wife, Dasha, was saved. Gleb breaks into his seclusion. * * * ENEMIES. ‘AD an error crept into the logical constructions of “Engineer Kleist, or had life for a while ceased to conform to the laws of human reason? Whichever it was, the closed circle which was the isolated world of Engineer Kleist broke suddenly like a piece of rusty wire. Only an hour before, when Jacob’s customary visit had affirmed the unchangeableness of the unvarying course of time, the scheme of Engineer Kleist’s life could easily be expressed in a severe graphic plan: a circle and a tangent. In moments of blessed repose, safe be- hind many walls, he would sit at his writing-table over the old projec- tions of the factory buildings, and respecting the tradition decorum of his office, drew unconsciously on his English scribbling-pad, always the same design: circle and tangent—a figure that held good for all combinations, Then suddenly everything was exploded and scattered in minute particles. The figure suddenly became nonsense, The tangent became a stone smashing the shell of his exigtence. And as it all happened so simply and quietly, Engineer Kleist was seized by deadly terror. He had gone into the lavatory and had stayed there rather longer than usual. Owing, to the inferior food he often suffered with his bowels. Coming back through the corridor he saw that the door of his room was open. Neither he nor Jacob ever allowed this. * * * Seon De, afger Jacob had left him he had noticed some workers standing outside on the terrace looking out towards the quarries; then they had turned and gazed at his window. Even then he had felt a kind of light electric shock within him, an inquietude which lasted only a moment, and then he had forgotten it. And now his door stood wide open and again he felt the shock. But this time it burned and was accompanied by nauseating foreboding. Preserving his air of frigid importance and accustomed poise he entered the room with even steps. On the threshold he stopped and could not at first grasp what had happened. Assuredly a brutal and unexpected change had taken place in his lonely world. The window was open and the dust streamed over the table and window-sill. Through the airy aperture of the window the copper slopes of the mountain, dappled with spring foliage and piles of stone, could be seen distinctly and appeared magnified. Far away, on the high slope of the quarries, stood a little house with two windows, whose angles and gables were transparently mingled in the air current, A CLEAN-SHAVEN man with a helmet, military tunic puttees, stood by the window, pipe in mouth. cheek-bones and hollow cheeks. “Well, a nice mss you’ve made here in your den, Comrade Tech- nologist!” With his cloth helmet he was sweeping down cobwebs and killing the crawling terrified spiders. 2 “You were well barricaded in here, Comrade. a place, at the end of all things.” Engineer Kleist walked towards his table with uncertain steps. There had been a time when this man, beaten and battered, had been condemned to death, and had grimaced at him with his bloody mask. And now, unexpectedly, he was here, and se strangely and dread- fully calm, “Yes. . . . I never open the window.” “Right, Comrade Technologist; it’s a poisonous draught that comes from us. . . . These Bolsheviks, be damned to them, have turned everything upside down, ripped the guts out of everything and scat- tered it to bits. The damned fellows!” “Why didn’t Jacob announce your visit?” “We're sending your Jacob to the coopers’ shop to saw wood. We can’t stand flunkeys. You ought to remember me?” “Yes, I remember you. Well, what about it?” “Oh, a devil of a business, In our hands is the dictatorship of the proletariat; but we’re struggling bare-handed against economic ruin. The workmen, the factory and our transportation are all without fuel; the cable-way is smashed; the factory is almost a ruin; and the tech- nologists are hiding in their holes like rats. Why are there cobwebs here? Why are cobwebs covering yourself and the factory? That’s how the question must be put, Comrade Technologist.” “Let us suppose that I have already put this question to myself and have answered it to my satisfaction. What do you want from me?” “Well. . . . I bumped into this barricade of yours, right into this little nook. . . . Let’s turn the place over, thought I. It’s a hell of a habit of mine, Comrade Technologist.” “I don’t indulge in idle conversation. I neither unéerstand nor wish to understand what you are saying. Be kind enough to leave me in peace.” * * * and blue He had prominent But much too lonely * * * Ge stepped to the table, smiling, protruding his lower jaw. He took his pipe out of his pipe out of his mouth and looked intently at Engineer Kleist. Did the reflection of the spiders dance in his eyes, or were threatening spectres standing about Gleb? Engineer Kleist’s face went grey. “7 “Comrade Technologist, doubtless you remember that fine evening when you so kindly picked me out and tanned me all over? It was a pretty heavy dressing you gave me. A lesson like that, if it doesn’t kill you, is good for one, I’ve come to visit you to talk about the good old times. I like to meet old friends.” He stuck his pipe in the corner of his mouth, stretched himself and began to laugh. “Now I’m going to ask you a riddle, Comrade Technologist. Quite a little one but pretty interesting. One spring day there were four damn fools. The god-damned Whites pinched these fools and brought them into this very room. Their faces were hardly faces by that time, but looked like old shoes. The question is: why were those battered things dragged here, and how did four dead fools become transformed into one living one? Just a trifling riddle and the answer is a tough one, eh?” ¥ ry Gleb went on laughing, charmed with his jest. “It’s just a joke I’m telling you—something to laugh at, Comrade Technologist. It’s a long time since we met.” He went to the window and leant out, shouting loudly: “Hi, Brothers! Wait a moment, I’m coming out! ‘T’ve just asked the Comrade Technologist a riddle. A bloody fine riddle—full of wit!” * * * HS voice could be heard far away, making his whole frame shake. And the answering shouts of the workers sounded nearer, although the words could not be distinguished. The sound like water hissing on the red-hot terraces continued, exploding in bubbles and steam. | Gleb cam® back to the table and stood looking at Engineer Kleist with a mocking smile, He was waiting for an answer. But no answer es bai with military step he walked from the room without turning bis head, Engineer Kleist sat there a long while, exhausted after this en- \ counter. Through the open window could be seen the ridges and clefts of the mountains. The open door yawned on to the corridor. Kleist felt sick, miserable and painfully agitated. Jacob returned, respéctfully grave, and remained standing in the center of the room. He seemed lost, and his face was crumpled with alarm. Kleist turned his feverish gaze upon him and asked very quictly and sternly; “Ts it you, Jacob? Can't you tell me how all this has happened, Jacob?” “It’s no fault of mine, Herman Hermanovitch. Nothing is fore bidden to them here, there are no limits—nowhere, and in nothing. Ley, have the might, Herman Hermanovitch, and their strength is aw. The presence of Jacob was pleasant. There was something soothing in his cold devotion. “So it’s really the Communistic Group, then, Jacob?” “Chumalov, the mechanic, has been returned from the front. ‘And now he’s the head. He bosses everything, Herman Hermanovitch, and gets everything into his hands. Is there anything now to be done against them? They've overrun everything, Herman Hermanovitch!” “And you toa couldn’t resist them, Jacob?” 4 “I wasn’t able to, Herman Hermanovitch, It’ peeves