The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 29, 1929, Page 4

Page Four —- e aily HIS MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM by the Comprodaily y, at Union § $2.00 a year $6.00 a year Adress and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 2 New York, N. ¥. x If the editorial page of the Gastonia Daily Gazette is any indication of the sentiment of the mill owners and their henchmen, as it surely is, the most interesting topic of con- yersation in that city over the past week end was the sus- snsion of the Daily Worker for one day on last F: y. The Gazette publishes our appeal for funds and com- ments ollows: “Here 1s the appeal sent to its subscribers by the Daily Worker, indicating the desperate straits in which it finds itse!: carrying on a losing game.” In a news story relating the burning of a “fiery cross” near the strikers’ tent colony, the Gazette relates how the prosecution is 1 busy “gathering evidence” against the ed strikers and strike leaders, and announces that ‘al will probably take place the latter part of July. eludes with comment on the suspension of the Daily Worke “Much interest was created in the city by news that the Daily Worker, the Communist newspaper which is supporting the leaders ayl organizers in Gastonia, had been forced to sus- pend publication of one issue on account of lack of funds. The newspaper announced in its Saturday issue that unless more money were contributed, it would have to discontinue publica- tion permanently. It is making a frantic appeal for one day's wages from workers all over the country for a $50,000 Com- munist-Daily Worker fund.” The one y's suspension so preyed upon the mind of the editor of the mill owners’ rag that he again referred to it in a special editorial paragraph, saying: Daily Worker, the Communist organ which is support- e of those in jail here on the charge of murder, is zied appeals for money to keep geing another day With its or two. This newspaper is on its last legs. it seems. collapse will go much of the ballyhoo that has helped the cause along.” nia Gazette rejoices over what it thinks collapse.” Speaking for the enemies of and the hangmen and lynchers in the ll owners of the South the Gazette real the tremendous power and influence wielded by the Daily the workers. When it that our sus- says pension wou spose of much of the “ballyhoo” that has “helped the cat along” it means that without the Daily Worker it will be easier to carry out their campaigns of extermination against the working class. The employing class knows only too well the impor- in the class struggle of a Communist daily publication. know that it was the world-wide publicity emanating fro. the columns of the Daily Worker that initiated the demonstrations of millions of workers in every country in the world in behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti. They also know that the masses of the world, still infuriated at the Amer- ican ruling class because of its dastardly torture and mur- der of Sacco and Vanzetti, will act in such a decisive man- ner that the hand of the executioner will be stopped, if they learn the facts in the case. And they know the Daily Worker, as long as it exists, will furnish those facts against the capitalist class butchers. e The Gastonia Gazette is rejoicing at our difficulties. It is up to the workers who realize the significance of the Daily Worker in the class struggle to rally to the support of their revolutionary paper and make the Gastonia Gazette editor and other pen prostitutes of the mill owners zh out of the other corner of their mouths. ie Relations Between Soviet Union and Britain. The Pravda, official organ of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in its issue of June 8th, views the relations between the Soviet Union and Great Britain, as follows: tions underlines one of the most acute questions of inter- national politics, i. e., the question of the relations between Great Britain and the Union of Soviet Republics. The question played no small role in the parliamentary elections, and the Labor Party which emerges victorious from the elections and which extracted no little political capital out of criticizing the aggressive anti-Soviet policy of its predecessors, will, in all probability, be compelled to honor the electoral promises in the question. The re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Great Britain and the Soviet Union is not only of interest for the two countries immediately concerned, but is also a matter of great international significance. Recently, the capitalist world has begun to show more and more interest for the Soviet Union, for by this time even the bitterest enemies of the Soviet Union have realized that their hopes for a “collapse” of the Soviets are illusory. On the contrary, the last Party Conference and the great plan of socialist reconstruction adopted by the Soviet Congress; must convince the whole world that we are carrying on reconstruction in deeds and not in words, to an extent unknown in any capitalist country. At the same time the capitalist countries are faced more and more urgently with the question of obtaining new markets. Under these circumstances the presence of an impor- tant delegation of British industrialists in the Soviet Union was no accident, just as it is no accident that a delegation of American business men will visit the Soviet Union in the near future. Great transactions like our agreement with the General Electric Company and our agreement with the Ford Com- pany which has just been made public, show that our rela- tions with the United States-are being placed upon a more and more secure basis. It is therefore by no means surprising that the forma- tion of a Labor Government is causing lively comment in the whole international press, including the American press, ‘concerning the expected re-opening of diplomatic relations ‘een Great Britain and the Soviet Union. We, of course, are well aware that in its negotiations th the government of the Soviet Union, MacDonald’s gov- ment will defend the interests of capitalism with the otion that any oy bourgeois government would ( HE Polbureau is desirous T dress and the immediate Part, A Necessary Indictment of Factionalism and Opportunist Errors | | By JACK JOHNSTONE. The Open Letter of the Com- munist International to our Party Was a necessary, severe indictment of a series of right wing errors that, | if eontinued, would have led us into a bog of opportunism—a series of right errors that were hindering our Party from taking its proper place as the leader of working-class strug- gles. It was a necessary, severe in- si dictment of the paralyzing factional | e The victory of the Labor Party at the British elec- | walls that had divided our Party into| quickly proving the correstness of | two part: Minority, Majority, each operating as a separate political party—an intolerable situation that we were not able to overcome, not willing to overcome, and could not assistance of the Communist Inter- | have overcome without the rigorous |assistance of the Communist Inter- national. I say “rigorous” because the Communist International on all too numerous occasions has corrected right wing errors making concrete proposals for the liquidation of fac- tionalism that we had built, which factionalism made it impossible for us to see and fight against the main danger confronting our Party: the Right Danger. since the factional fight began in our Party six years ago, the former grouping has really been smashed, and the Party as a whole is working determinedly to destroy the last rem- nants of factional walls, and to ap- ply the new line laid down by the Communist International for us. It is only factional blindness or rank opportunism that can keep one from seing’the correctness of the decisions of the Sixth World Con- gress and the Address of the Com- munist International to our Party. Gastonia, South Carolina, Elizabeth- ton, the Boston and Haverhill shoe strike, the series of New York, strikes, the movement in the packing houses in Chicago and Kansas City, in the railroads of the Middle West, among the steel workers in Indiana, |in the auto industry, the wide re- For the first time, | DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JUNE 29, 1 929 Enlightenment Campaign on the Comintern Address to the Communist Party of securing the broadest pos- sible Enlightenment Campaign on the Comintern Ad- y tasks outlined therein. All Party members and particularly the comrades active in the workshops in the basic industries are invited to write their {quickly turn peace industries into} war industries, the reviewing of the| cadets at West Point by Green and the Executive Council of the A. F. of L., the united front between “At-| terbury of the Pennsylvania Rail- road and Wharton of the Machinist Union to jointly mobilize the skilled workers in the railroad shops into the Machinist Union, rationalization: speed-up, war to the death against} the new revolutionary unions, are all preparations for war. History is the Open Letter and the decisions of | the Sixth World Congress, demand- | jing of us to quickly readjust our-| | selves from factional to Party con-| | duct and by a Bolshevik process of |merciless self-criticism, unite the} |Party on a basis of the Communist | | International line, so that the Party | an assume, unfettered by factional ies, the leadership of the movements |that are developing right now, and which are developing into great mass battles. The proposed visit of. Ramsay! MacDonald to Hoover, is a war man- | eu¥er. It is a fake imperialist olive branch of a peace gesture, a pretense used to gain a breathing spell under cover of which war preparations be- come intensified. The antagonism between British and American im- perialists has been growing rapidly | in the past few years and it is this! | antagonism that is bringing Mac-| Donald here—antagonism that can- | not be overcome within the frame- work of imperialism but antagonisnr that can temporarily be subordinated for the purpose of British and American imperialism jointly wag-! ing a war of aggression against the | Soviet Union, The vicious attacks now being carried on in the capitalist and re- |formist press of the world against the Soviet Union, are an expression of growing imperialist contradiction that thinks it sees a way of over- coming these contradictions in a war opinions for the Party Press. also will be printed in this section. Send all material deal- ing with this campaign to Comrade Jack Stachel, care Na- tional office, Communist Party, 43 E. 125th St., New York City. the evolution of saner economic principles.” And in the concluding paragraph of his speech, the New York Times further quotes: “I am firmly convinced that the cooperation of England and the United States in the solution of the Russian problem is the thing. which matters most, and it is my fervent hope that the forthcoming visit of Mr. Ramsay MacDonald to Washington will bring about. a friendly cooperation in this ques- tion for the good of the whole world.” This should bring home clearly to our Party the sound Bolshevik logic of the Communist International Ad- dress to our Party: the menace of the war danger, underestimated by both groups, should and is rallying the members to the smashing of all remnants of factionalism as a prerequisite for the carrying out of the new line laid down by the Com- munist International for our Party. To be able to properly understand and earry out the tasks of the Party, we must liquidate past errors. In the past we had an easy way of doing this: if the errors were made by both ofthe former groupings, we either liquidated them by the silent process of letting them drop, or we tried to find out who made the motions and started another stage in the factional fight or we accepted the criticism made against those whom we were in political struggle against, and made factional instead of political-capital out of it. It be- came a group victory used against the Party, instead of being a politi- cal victory and used to strengthen the Party. Fountain Head of Errors. The error of “exceptionalism”: an error committed by both groups, is pointed out in the Communist In- ternational Address to the Party as follows: ' “The Executive Committee of the Communist International points out expressed in many forms, the pas- of aggression against thé Soviet Union. The New York Times. quotes sponse, in spite of practically no preparations, to the call for the or- ganizing of a new revolvtionary union center, the Trade Union Unity Convention, are only a few examples of the sharpening of the class strug- gle, the wide-spread radicalization that is taking place among the workers, y The frantic preparations for war, Urquhart of anti-Soviet fame as fol- lows: “The réal and only solution in my opinion,” he continued, “is common international economic ac- tion of all Just as com- mon action ‘ctween the United . States and the allies in the war to the British industrial king Leslie! that not only the mistakes of. the Majority 1=:t also the most impor- tant mistakes of the Minority were based on the conception of American exceptionalism—is the fountain-head from which flowed the major right sage of bills, giving power to the {president for‘the mobilization of all i drawing up | man-power for of plane down militarism was necessary, so common economic action of all na- . tio is ve be necessary to cure errors of the Party. The Minority while correct in drawing attention to the growing inner contradictions of American capitalism as a primary factor, did not understand fully and By Jacob Burck Resolutions of Factory Nuclei all its laws; that these accumulated contradictions were battering down |the walls of American imperialism; | that the very strength of American imperialism was creating new con- tradictions, hurrying chaotic world jcapitalism into new imperialistic | wars. This confused approach was bound to lead to other right wing errors and especially to an under- estimation of the War Danger.” The minority based its campaign | the theory of exceptionalism put for- ward by. Pepper and Lovestone, but the weakness of this struggle, which had some real political merit, was that the minority did not realize that it, too, suffered from the theory of exceptionalism. True this was not a conscious line with the minority as it was with Lovestone-Gitlow and Wolfe which finaily drove them to their present position of opposition to the line of the Communist Inter- national and therefore much easier to correct, nevertheless, it increased the right danger rather than strug- gle against it. “No New Cruisers.” The minority also carried thé banner, “Fight the Right Danger,” but the right danger to the minority was contained in the fpajority group. We failed completely to see the op- portunist character of our own errors. “No New Cruisers.” Now |was it possible to accept such a petty-bourgeois pacifist slogan? This error was an error of the min- ority and not merely of Comrade Bittleman, yet Comrade Bittleman considered by some leading minority comrades as a leftist. And strange as it may seem, it was com- rade Bittleman who was the most in- sistent that the right danger, the main danger of the Party, also ap- plied to the minority. The most serious aspects of the right danger within the minority was the thought that the right danger was to be found only in the majority. Hence, the failure to carry on an ef- fective struggle against right tend- encies within the minority ranks. It became a factional rather than a political struggle. All of the min- ority participated in these errors. True, some of the young comrades of the minority fought against the error “No New Cruisers,” and con- demned it in the Youth League. “Trotskyism.” « On the question of Trotskyism, e | this brings to the surface the rotten- pra a, Subject to ness of factionalism. The errors made by the in the strug- gle against i was not be- By FEODOR CEMENT cisprov Translated by A. S. Arthur and C. Ashleigh All Rights Reserved—International Publishers, N. ¥. CHAPTER XI. IN THE VICE x - THE MASTERS’ HANDS UNTIL sunrise Gleb was visiting one dwelling after another, per- sonally directing the work of the detachment. Their rifles slung on their backs, the vigilant silent figures of the workmen stood in the streets. In the streets, which were half- vanished in the darkness, the tramp of heavy boots filled the night with terror. Already the air shimmered with the blue dawn, and the stars, paling, seemed near and spring-like. Shuk was on guard. This was not the same Shuk, the loarmnp, suspicious buffon and slouching disturber, who now stood before Gleb, but a strong, menacing soldier. As Gleb approached him he did not break into his usual flood of exclamations; he kept his rifle firmly grounded. From the open doors of a detached villa with big bay win- dows, the mewing hysterical cries of women were issuing. “Who’s working here, Shuk?” “They’re searching here, friend. Can you hear how the woman’s shrieking! Savchuk! Saychuk, your wife, Serge and the two Chekists. Go and have a look at them stripping the bourgeoisie!” “Well, and how’s your work in the Ecqnomic Council getting on, Shuk? Have you caught many fleas?” “Ho, ho, friend... Just pay a visit to Shibis! I felt like standing them all up against a wall today. You can’t imagine what scoundrels they are. And as for Shramm, I’d stand him up first, or I don’t know my own mind! Imagine, they’ve been starving all the men who are felling timber in the forest, and themselves getting as fat as rats ina granary. How I hate to see the working class cheated like that! Just wait a bit, friend: we'll give them such a smashing, they won’t know where they are.” . RED SOLDIER, with his rifle, stood in the half-light of the cor- ridor with its great windows. Through the open door, among the shadows, one could see a dishevelled woman, stretched on a sofa, sob- bing and wringing her hands. A hard, hurried job was being carried out there: the furniture was groaning as it was shoved about: voluminous bundles fell softly to the floor; heavy boots trampec. and slid. Gleb entered, brusque and military, boldly trampling this cultured intimacy. He had no eyes for the woman on the sofa who, half-clothed, with tearful swollen face, looked with terror at these men’ with rifles who stood guard, and at those who were emptying the drawers, ward robes and chests. Most likely she didn’t notice beside here a litt bare-kneed girl, who looked inquisitively at these unknown people w had so suddenly and noiselessly descended upon them in the night. A man in. slippers, braces and shirt-sleeves, with gold pince. and a long pointed beard, stood bewildered by @ large writing-ta’ Lonely and proud, he shrugged his shoulders and smiled convulsively. With the skilled hands of a good housewife, Dasha was carefully putting aside all that she could find that was plain and most useful among the linen, clothes and household utensils. She was placing them on sheets which were spread out on the ground, or into travelling baskets. “This is for the Children’s Homes .. . for the little ones. This for the Maternity Homes. Ah, this is good stuff! They’ve got a lot piled up here! This means clothes for such a lot of children!” | |in the last Party discussion against! cause the former minority had Trot- skyist tendencies, but the errors made were due to factional consid- erations. How was it possible that such a political degenerate as Can- non could be housed within the ranks of the minority and not exposed un- | til the moment he chose to come out | openly as a Trotsky supporter? The | only answer to this is a proof of the political weakness of the former minority and this alone should be | sufficient to disprove the stupid fac- | tional charge made by Lovestone that the Communist International is turning over the Party to the minority, Reservations at Secret Congress. There are the reservations made by me at the Sixth World Congress on behalf of the minority. The ac- | ceptance of the decisions of the Com- intern with reservations is a major political error. We had proposed amendments to the draft thesis pre- sented to the Sixth World Congress, the essence of which were embodied in the final thesis that was adopted, yet we declared to the Congress that we had reservations. This error in my estimation again showed the political immaturity. of the minority. While struggling against the right danger, we were yet inclined to ac- cept the interpretation of the thesis made by the right elements. Our reservations to the thesis were a mis- understanding of the thesis, but to have reservations is wrong whether you understand the thesis or not, Decisions of the Communist Inter- national are decisions for all'to carry out without reservations. This was not a way to fight the right danger. Our reservations gave objective supports to the right elements. Pepper and Lovestone used them very. effectively in the Party dis- cussion, not to correct this error but to strengthen factionalism. And the minority by making these reservations, helped to confuse the issues before the Party. It was in the New York Active Committee meeting that the. seriousness of this error was brought home to me, even more sharply than the Communist International Address, when a worker from one of the shop nuclei stated that he, as well as the majority of the Party, supported Lovestone because they were of the opinion that the Lovestone groups was the sole upholder of the Com- munist International. Of course, this interpretation is incorrect, but it shows *how Lovestone and Pepper, aided by the minority reservations, were able to confuse a large section of the Party. Speculation on the C. P. S. U. The errror of the minority in speculating on the differences in the C.P.S.U. was also a factional one as the only comrades in the Amer- ican Party that was supporting the Central Committee of the C. P. S. U. which assumption attempted to place the majority of the Party as a whole as consciously opposing this line, a position that was incorrect a position that would have been ridi culed if a discussion on this questio would have been conducted in + Party, or in the convention, a « cussion that would have gone a lo way to destroy the factionalism o. the Lovestone-Gitlow-Pepper group, a discussion that might have torn away the factional glass through which Gitlow was looking when he made a declaration which uphold: the slanderous attacks of the Rig elements on the leadership of t C.P.S.U. and of the Comintern, pointed out in the Address of { Communist International to ¢ Party. Being identified with all the « rors. of the minority, helping to fo: mulate and inculcate them into th ranks of the minority, I want to d what I can to eradicate them. Onl; when we fully realize that our Part; is but a section of the C. L, tha carries out the program of the ( * in the United States, that oppo: to a line ends when a po! adopted, and those who-forn selves in error must not out without reservation the dec of the C. I, but must also exp to the Party by of self-criticism, an errors made, wher ).cse originate. from, and if continued, where they would have led to. This Bolshevi) method is the only guarantee thi our Party is fitting itself to carr) out its Leninist historical task Neither groups had this Communis: virtue in the past. The smashinr of these groups which has been complished in a much shorter than the most optimistic ¢ expected, gives assurance future that the least of err be made; that the policies an ods of struggle will be the c: , work of the Party; that ™m. will be discussed on the basis o. sharp self-criticism, ( » | - It is necessary that the whol Party discuss and andergtand the Comintern line, nop in an abstract way, but how to ‘ol that line t the every-day concrete demands o the workers, The Bolshevization- 0; our Party is not a class-room dis. cussion; it is class struggle, strike struggle, with mass picket lines mass violation of the injunction fight against the war , figh’ for the of the Soviet Unio; for the building of shop nuclei, and shop committees, for th: T.U.E.L., to. draw the Negroes, youl and women into the struggle. 1) other words, the Bolshevization pro that had deep political implications. While the line of the minority in support of the Central Committee of the C. P. S. U. in its struggle fe the Right danger and tendencies was correct, was blind factionalism that. cess means the acid test of develop: ing’ individual as well as Party lead ership in all mass class- . 4o that our Party will quickly « op into a mass Communist Pari the workers.