The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 2, 1929, Page 4

Fs Page Four Baily cas Worker ral Organ of the Communist Party of the U.S. A. Daily, City, N. except AIWORK, 0 three months By Mail (outside of New York) $3.50 six months 1 checks to th 2.00 three 28 Union $6.06 & months Adéress and year Few Believe Disarmament Talk. Senator David I. Walsh, of Massachusetts, with more , places the label of “bunk” on hopelessness than franknes the disarmament talk that has been peddled by capitalist NOW FOR THOSE GASTONIA STRIKERS! | 1 ee DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, JULY 2, 1929 SS should have been concentrated mpage ie for the working class of Amer- the tasks of building new age pea : eres rene ee gate is we devoted pages of our paper an i esrgecd af * s ete wasted barrels of printer’s ink, dis-| that we were engaged in th ; ; cussing that question, which first|ing of new unions in a number o arose in the form of a controversy| industries. between Comrades Foster and Bittel-’ ‘The disgraceful performances that man. None of the comrades parti-| characterized the Party convention cipating in that discussion gave a/ was continued in Moscow, when the correct analysis of the question,' delegation from the convention least of all the majority of the Cen-|came to appeal against the organ- tral Executive Committee. Especial- jzational proposals. ‘The position of ly wrong was the final benediction) Lovestone and Gitlow is ‘known to of the Central Committee in sum- ming up the matter in a page-and-a- half statement. The CEC said: -“For Comrade Foster social re- | formism is in a rapid and full decline and the whole future is crowned with company unionism. Foster sees only bourgeois re- formism and fails to see social reformism. Bittelman, on the other hand, fails to see bourgeois reformism, he does not take the all members of the Party; their re- fusal to accept the Address, their threats to try to mobilize the Party against the decisions of the Com- intern, their charge that the organ- |izational measures were not justi- |fied by the political line of the Open | Letter. But a word must here be said in regard to the attitude of Comrade | Wolfe who, in his speech before the | American Commission at Moscow, es ‘ ; : : aga further development of ¢ompany |“™* : a j statesmen since the ending of the world war. In a radio | iinionism into’ equaiderahi@e cand Repay Pe the Comintern ar eg speech delivered at Washington he declared: sees only the A. F, of L. as the | attitude toward the American Party. A sole agency of bourgeois corrup- |pyis ig precisely the language used “Much of the disarmament talk in the last ten years, I fear, tion menacing the working class. by people who ‘are on their way out i as been largely for political consumption and advantage. I “Comrade Foster is fascinated - “ few people in the world believe that the disarmament talk statesmen has been sincere.” Then, to show that he belongs to the same cl. of bunk ians, Senator Walsh calls for an- pedc g capitalist politi of the Comintern and Comrade Wolfe will do well: to openly and publicly repudiate his speech that he, as the representative selected by the majority of the Central Com- | mittee to the Comintern, delivered by his so-called discovery of cap- italist efficiency socialism, and refuses to see anything else. Com- rade Bittelman, on the other hand, fails to see the whole complex of a “ ey bourgeois schemes, welfare plans, * counay thar “fon done ble chine Cin a " ng . e var E . ’ debates preceeding the other asonable trial fora moral campaign” to end war. cititieney exits hand *hrgaiies: cae eh ee te To be sure, in his estimation, the only country that can tions which play a certain role, as carry on this “moral campaign” is the United States, seek- ing to place every other capitalist land in the sole cate- tions with an appetite for war. This shows Walsh seeking to continue the war game he claims to denounce. He does not even seek to discuss the program for com- gory of n plete disarmament and world peace proposed by the Soviet i Government, which the imperialist nations all reject. Walsh declares, however, that: “The conference for the limitation of armaments of 1922 and the various peace treaties promulgated since the World War have made practically no advance toward disarmament. Nations signatory to such treaties have been appropriating more money |lusions of both the contending dis- What was the appeal of the dele- gation? It resolved itself to the question of the immediate return of So the Central Committee, in its| Lovestone. The comrades who were profundity, was able to see both. It}sent as delegates had been told that had very good sight for things that the organizational proposals were did not exist. the result, not of the situation in the Instead ofa correct analysis the American Party, but of the situation Central Committee embraced the il-|in the Communist Party of the So- viet Union. The rank and file dele- putants. They thought that if the) gates came to Moscow under the American Federation of Labor fol-| illusion, carefully instilled by the lows a reformist program, that is| majority leadership, that it was not correctly estimated in the election platform of the Party.” social reformism, and if the bour- geois professors, the Tugwells, the Chases, the Fosters and Catchings, follow the same policies it becomes the mistakes of the leadership in the United States, not the factional line they had been following, but the situation in other parties that re- and elaborating larger militaristic programs during this period than ever before. The Republic of France is today maintaining a larger armed force, with Germany disarmed, than it did in | 1914, when Germany was armed. sulted in the organizational propos- als. These comrades were plainly told that those who foster such il- lusions thereby traduce and slander Yet they insisted [bourgeois reformism. Certainly it does not require the analytical mind of a Lenin to realize that the policies of the labor fakirs as well as of the above mentioned university profes-| the Comintern. sors is one piece of the same social that Lovestone, Gitlow and Wolfe and political fabric. Why couldn’t| represented a “stesled” leadership |the Central Committee have pointed|of the Party that had been tested |out that instead of these professors'in the struggle. They indulged in | constituting a special school distinct! the anti-Leninist illusion that the and separated from social reformism removal of one or more factional as practiced by the A..F. of L. they| leaders would wreck the Party. “With Austria and Hungary disarmed by reason of the peace treaties of 1919-21, the succession States, namely, Czecho- Slovakia, Rumania and Jugo-Slavia, maintain today larger armies than was maintained by the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. “Since the Washington Disarmament Treaty of 192 ex- cluding vessels to be completed under the treaty, Great ain has laid down and ‘appropriated for’ naval expansion 288,684 tons—74 vebsels. Enlightenment Campaign on the Comintern Address to the Communist Party opinions for the Party Press. Resolutions of Factory Nuclei also will be printed in this section. Send all material deaf- ing with this campaign to Comrade Jack Stachel, care Na- tional office, Communist Party, 43 E. 125th St., New York City. HE Polbureau is desirous of securing the broadest pos- sible Enlightenment Campaign on the Comintern Ad- dress and the immediate Party tasks outlined therein. All Party members and particularly the comrades active in the workshops in the basic industries are invited to write their | Speaking before the members of the { I “Japan has laid down and appropriated for in the same period 125 vessels with an aggregate tonnage of 361,452 tons. France with 119 and Italy with 83 new vessels, particularly sub- marines and destroyers, have closely followed the example of Great Britain and Japan.” The Massachusetts senator, fulfilling the role of capi- talist statesman, then argues for the “pacific” intentions of Wall Street imperialism, claiming, of course, that the Amer- ican navy was practically a pile of junk, and that little build- ing was being done. At the same time, however, that Walsh was making his radio talk, the navy department announced the awarding of construction/for the first two and the open- ing of bids for five more cruisers of the fifteen-cruiser pro- gram authorized by congress under the Coolidge regime with its declaration for “the greatest navy in the world.” When he gets through discussing his “moral campaign,” Walsh comes to the same conclusion, for the building of “the greatest armament in the world.” That is the aim of Dawes, debating with MacDonald in London, of every Yankee diplomat arguing himself blue and black in the face at every disarmament and naval limitation conference. To expose this imperialist fraud’ is the task of International Red (Anti-War) Day, August First, being or- ganized the world over under the direction of the Commu- nist International. The Blight of Factionalism in the Amencan Party By H. M. WICKS | | ‘The Addiées to all the members lof the Communist Party of the | United States by the Executive |Committee of the Comintern places before us in plain terms the | fact that only through the elimina- |tion of factionalism can we become a real Bolshevist Party. Every Party member mugt recognize the correct- ness of the{declaration of the Ad- dress that “the factionalism of both groups has/been!the great impedi- }ment to the development within the Party of the necessary self-criticism and to the political education of the Party memb>rs in the spirit of Bol- shevist steadfastness based upon principle.” The ideological backwardness of our Party can largely be accounted ,plenum and to place responsibility re it belongs. It was at that plenum that the minority first raised the question of radicalization of the working class of the United States and proposed measures to meet the new situation as they saw it. It is true, this question was raised in an exaggerated form; the process of radicalization was considerably over- emphasized by the minority But the reaction of the maj to the new proposals of the minor took the worst form of fi Instead of dispaSsionat and analyzing the pro: ization and reaching a correct esti- mate of it, the majority went to the opposite extreme and developed a theory of the impossiblity of general radicalization in this period. The spokesman for the majority on that question was Comrade Pepper. In ; Although both the majority and the minority developed the same er- roneous analysis of the basis of radi- calization, they arrived at different conclusions, with the result that the majority underestimated the process of radicalization and the minority overestimated it, Thus the very starting point of the last and most vicious stage of the long factional struggle in our ‘ty resulted in both factions be- ing in error on a basic theoretical question, Certainly here is justification for! the observation of the Executive Committee of the Communist Inter- national, in its Open Letter to the Sixth Party Convention that: “At times it (the factional struggle) assumed the appearance ef a struggle based on principle, but in reality it was not entirely , no influence among the masses of} ‘workers in this country. Yet the | majority of the Party leadership, by | persisting in magnifying the impor- tance of that renegade group helped the Trotskyites gain what little in- | fluence they have. In this connection we of the for- mer majority must take the respon- sibility for the disgraceful happen- ings at the December plenum which paved the way for the development of a factional Party convention in March of this year. | Instead of utilizing the plenum to develop a correct political line for future Party work, instead of discussing the important develop- ments throughout the whole world that had proved the correctness of | the Sixth World Congress analysis, of the third post-war period, instead of discussing the lessons of the Lodz | countries and explain it to the Party of the labor leaders.after they are, American Commission, most of them an accomplished fact? Instead of) members of the Executive Commit- standing at the head .of a special, tee of the Communist International, | movement, as some of our comrades| the delegation from America talked have thought, these professors sim-| about the tried and tested leadership ply act as theorizers of the betray- of the American Party. They didn’t als of the reactionary labor leaders.;seem to perceive the irony of the Why didn’t our Central Committee | situation. Certainly the paltry strug- analyze the special development of| glés we have had thus far in the this school in America, and contrast| American Party are not such as to it to the development of the social-| develop a “steeled leadership.” Such democratic labor movement in other| talk must have sounded exceedingly empty to the ears of the members membership and the working class? |of the American Commission, all of I.am convinced that the reply is; whom have participated in revolu- to be found in the six years’ history | tions and many of whom have led of almost total absence of self-cri-| revolutions. ticism. With collective leadership | Here it is necessary to dissipate and self-criticism it is possible to|the fairy tale which is being assidi- develop the theoretical, understand-| ously spread by the Opposition in ie oe Party so it. can snslyse ees neice pasty, bees ae ee such phenomena. | Worl ongress had referr to It was the obvious task of the | Lovestone-Gitlow-Wolfe as “stalwart Sixth Party Conyention to have leadership.” The thesis of the Sixth taken up the shortcomings of the! Congress never referred to indivi- oaks ae ae out in ‘he Oa ae ee actual ee Bae etter of tHe Communist Interna-|in the theses was: “A number ot tional and correct them in a Bolshe- | stubborn and fierce class battles vist manner. All the questions | (primarily the miners’ strike) found touched upon in the letter as well in the Communist Party a stalwart for by the almost total absence of}. yenly to Comrade Foster, the a struggle of principle; principles | strike and the Ruhr lockout, the|as the wholesproblem of factional-| leader.” self-criticism during the six-year 1 soyi spokesman introduced the’ served chiefly to camouflage the |™ajority staged a factional slaught-| ism should have been carefully ana-| As a result of the appeal and the E . A period of the factional conflict. So siority position, by stating that it| struggle for supremacy in the |€t against the minority. lyzed and corrected. The convention | facts brought out regarding the Par- U.S. Recognition of the Soviet Union. oppressive ‘aoa aed “fie ie ae was impossible to conceive of radi-| Party.” The minutes of the Political could have been of tremendous value ty Convention the Comintern Ad- When the New York Herald-Tribune (July First) pub- |, ‘aencrmaictt het cubnormnal, One $l@88 unless there are favorable ob-) there was a rapid degeneration to-|S¢rutinized and indexed by the] intern had been accepted. But in-|intended to give the Party such di- lishes an editorial viciously attacking recognition of the Soviet Union by the government of the United States, it is a sure sign that there is a developing sentiment and grow- ing pressure in this direction. The Herald-Tribune is against recognition. It declares that the British resumption of re- lations with the Soviet Government cannot be expected to af- fect the Russian policy of the United States. This is, of course, a childish argument, especially in the present period of growing Anglo-American rivalries. There is no denial that there is an intense development of relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. American technical advice is being utilized increasingly in the building of the economy of the Soviet Union. These Soviet-U. S. relations were carefully reviewed by Alexis I. Rykov, chairman of the Council of People’s Com- missars of the Soviet Union, in reporting to the recent Fifth Soviet Congress. He said: “We have not only to place on record that the engineer, Cooper, collaborating as consulting engineer in the building of the water power station on the rapids of the Dnieper, greatly furthered that undertaking, but we can report at the same time that a large number of other competent and well-informed Amer- ican engineers have aided our builders with their advice, and have enabled our technicians to gain an insight into industries and methods of production of the United States. “At the ‘present timq negotiations are being carried on with large American firms with the purpose of securing further ad- yisory collaboration on the basis of agreements. “Our relations with the United States being developed to this extent, THE ABSENCE OF DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS BE- COMES AT THIS STAGE MORE THAN A MERE HIN- DRANCE, IT IS A UNIQUE INCONGRUITY. “Any further development of our present relations will naturally be hampered by this obstacle, for it will not only be merely inconvenient for us to carry on extensive economic and trading business without the possibility of diplomatic and legal protection. It wili probably prove that the risk is too great.” This clearly indicates that the.Soviet Union is in no sense begging for recognition. It is felt, however, that poli- tical recognition grows inevitably out of economic relations already established and increasing in scope. The Herald- Tribune, however, strives to hide this fact, or to forget it, in the very period when the United States is strenuously seeking foreign markets for the mighty production of its in- dustries, the least let-down meaning a tremendous increase ‘ in unemployment as Great Britain has thoroughly learned. Neither the Herald-Tribune, nor the Hoover government _ itself, has the least command over the powerful economic forces that inevitably drive toward recognition of the Union who remained aloof from any group was doomed to be relegated to noth- ingness in the Party, regardless of his previous record or his qualifica- tions. Many proletarian elements with good training in the class struggle were stifled in such an at- mosphere. Group leadership was maintained, not by ability to respond to the problems facing the working class and to lead the class struggle, but by dexterity in discovering real or imaginary errors in the ranks of the opposition group and ignoring or concealing the errors of one’s own group. He who had no adaptability for such trifling. with the revolu- tionary movement was, at best, merely tolerated. zealous factionalists were permitted, \under such conditions, to hold lead- ing Party posts, It is questionable if there has ever been a more disgraceful exhibition of factional degeneracy in any Party in the world than that manifested by our Party between the May, 1928, plenum of the Central Executive Committee, and the Sixth Conven- ton of the Party in March of this |year. As a member of the former majority and one who shared respon- sibility for this situation it is neces- | sary to state very clearly and em- phatically, that the chief responsibil- ity for the events leading up to the Only the imost’ | jective conditions. So far, so good! That was a banality that anyone could accept. But the remarkable part of the majority position was its conception of what constituted o jective conditions. The majority contended that radicalization of the Americay workers could only be based upon a breakdown of Amer- ican economy; that when national economy is still on the upgrade there is no possibility of radicaliza- tion. Then we proceeded to hurl at the oPposition an avalanche of sta- tistics to prove that yankee imperial- ism was still on the ascendency and) was fast becoming the overlord of the whole world. Here was the be- ginning of that theory that. finally blossomed forth into the erroneous conception of American exeeptional- \ism, We ignored the fact of the United States becoming more and more deeply involved in the general crisis of world capitalism. We did | not perceive that the burdens placed upon the workers, the terrific speed- ward factional paralysis. The re- | majority and all the errors or al- sults of the deliberations of the; /eged errors of the minority were stead of accepting the Open Letter | rection as will enable it to overcome honestly and carrying out the or-| the difficulties we have faced in the Fourth Congress of the Profintern and of the Sixth Congress of the Comintern were distorted for. fac- tional purposes, Instead of popular- _izing these decisions before the Par- ty membership and the whole work- ing class there was no serious cam- paign of any kind in regard to the Third Period of post-war capitalism. There was no discussion of the pre- carious and decaying stabliziation of this period and its opportunities for revolutionary struggle. It must be said, however, that the increasing resistance of the working class to the capitalist class in this period placed immediate problems before the Party and that the Party was forced to react to them. But \certainly it cannot be maintained | that the Party was able to take full advantage of the situation. | It ig also imperative to deal with the Trotskyist outburst in our Party.| brought out, while unrestrained self-| ganizational proposals of the Com- | praise instead of self-criticism was | intern the delegates to that conven- aceorded to itself. Instead of self-| tion were subjected to a factional criticism and an attempt to analyze | debauch. The Comintern was openly | the new problems that history had| slandered, especially in the reference placed before the Party, the major-| of Lovestone to a “running sore” in ity permitted the expelled renegade, | the Comintern. Cannon, and two of his supporters! Both factions accepted the letter to appear before the plenum with an| in their traditional factional manner. | attack upon the Communist Interna-| When the minority interpreted it as tional. This was not done because turning the Party leadership over the majority hoped thereby to clarify to their group the majority utilized |the issue of Trotskyism, but solely|that claim, which they knew was because of the hope that Cannon false, to mobilize the convention {would give some “inside informa-| against the organizational proposals. |tion” about the minority caucus) Never, in the history of the Com- | with which he had been connected,| intern, has there been a Party con- so that it could furnish more ammu-|gtess held that was as utterly de- jnition for the attack against the| void of political content as was the | minority. It was precisely from! Sixth Congress of the American | that point of view and that alone Party. Only desultory references ii ii Y were made to the third period. There was no attempt to analyze its mean- |nlon was discussed in the majority | caucus, Thus: factional depravity had |veached such a stage in the ranks |past. It indicates the lines of salf- criticism that should have been ini- |tiated at the Party Convention. It is the imperative duty of every Par- |ty member, especially the leading comrades of the Party, to contribute to this enlightenment campaign, so that never again will any elements |of our Party be able to make even a pretense of fighting against the |line of the world party of the rev- |olutionary proletariat, the Commu- | nist International. Only through Bolshevik self-cri- ticism, only by analyzing every weakness of our Party and correct- ing it, only by building a Party “hewn of one piece, one monolitic | whole,” can we defeat the imperial- ist power of the United States. St intern. | Sixth Convention must be placed di-, rectly upon the shoulders of that | majority. This does not, of course, ‘imply that the minority did not ‘share considerable responsibility, or | was there any indication that the \leaders of the minority faction |would have acted differently had | they been in control of the Party. | At the February, 1928, plenum of our Party, the Comintern noted a | decline of factionalism. The theses | | were accepted unanimously, follow- ing a few months in which faction- | alism was definitely on the decline. But at the May plenum the fac- tional lines were again drawn tight. All important decisions were made behind closed caucus doors, in the narrowest possible circle of com- rades, up, the wage-cuts, the lengthening| When this danger raised its head in of hours, unemployment and all the|U" Party both factions seized upon burdens of rationalization would) it for purely factional purposes. In- produce radicalization. It is indeed| Stead of analyzing the conditions a sad commentary upon the major- that gave rise to Trotskyism in our ity group that not one of us, regard- Party the issue Dc used as a fac- less of misgivings we might have. tional football, with the result that had, took issue with Pepper on this| Poth factions committed inexcusable question. It is useless to plead that; ©'T0"S- Nowhere else, in aby arty factional pressyre was so strong i” the world, was there displayed so that any criticism was impossible, ™Uch confusion on the question of, A good Bolshevik would have broken ROW to characterize Trotskyism— through the bounds of factionalism | in spite of everything. The theoretical blunder of the | majority had its counterpart in the \illusion of the minority, who ac- cepted the theoretical conclusions of the majority, but did not accept the interpretation placed upon it. The minority tried to prove, by statistics, that American national economy was on the down grade, Under pressure from the majority this conception of the minority was modified and they evolved the famous “apex” theory; the notion that .American imperialism had reached its highest point; then they retreated still further and said we whether it was a right or a left de- parture from the line of Lenin. Both factions at first interpreted it as | the worst form of the right danger. | The minority tried to connect it with the right errors of the majority, | while the majority claimed it was | the logical development of the right | wing line of the minority. In every other Party confronted with Trot- skyism it was correctly distinguished from the open opportunist devi- ations and branded as opportunism disguised with left phrases. Particularly harmful was. the at- titude of the majority which pur- posely overestimated the danger of nority criticism of its own right er- 26 sa aa a a ig ie Trotskyism in order to silence mi-| ti of the majority that we deliberately | trifled with the Trotskyist problem in an effort to gain additional ad-| vantage over the minority. | That .such..conduct is impermis- sible and deserves heroic measures to exterminate it ought to be plain to everyone who wants to deserve the name Communist. This fact alone is more than ample justification for the organizational measures taken by the Communist International to} overcome the factional situation in our Party. | There were many other. instances of factional manouvering on the part of the former majority that are al- most as reprehensible, but they can be and must be numerated by other comrades who participated in’them. One example of the low theoretic- al development of our Party deserves special atterition. - That was- the famous controversy over the relative menace to the working class of so- cial reformism or bourgeois reform- ism. At the very time when Hill- quit started legal proceedings against our principal daily publica- ior ind arrested the editors, at a time when the struggle in the South Tell Gastonia Prisoners You Will Defend Them GASTONIA, N. C., July 1—The fourteen prisoners held on charges of murder, assault and conspiracy, are anxious to hear from their friends and fellow workers outside. These prisoners are suf- fering in the sweltering Carolina summer, cooped up in close quar- ters, and in danger\ of lynching. They need messages by wire and mail from organizations and individuals, to show them that the work- , ers of the world will defend them from. the lynch gai of the mill bosses, and from murder by frame-up and electrocution. ASK FOR BOOKS. These workers want books, especially recent works on economics, politics, geography, biography and the best new fiction. Vera Bush asks especially for Marx’ Capital, a German grammar and German reader, and books in French. One striker prisoner wants a book on chess playing, All communications to the prisoners will be read by ‘the jailor of Gastonia county, in whose care they must be sent. .The jailed workers are: Fred Beal, Louis McLaughlin, Amy Schechter, William McGinnis, Vera Bush, George Carter, Sophie Melvin, K. 0. Byers, a aon | ® * simply rationalize \the. threacheries | q a revolutionary party can be achieved’ , only under the banner of the Com=. © J 5 z ey i | Jt is necessary to analyze the were ab to reach the apex of| rors. Cannon & Co. had little influ-| was rapidly developing, ‘ time| Joseph Harrison, I. C. Heffner, Robert Allen, Russel Knigh: F. jet Bgpict Republics, even by arrocant Yankee imperialism, {main point of conflict at the May| growth of American imperialism, "ence in thie cane of the Party and bi the puns i) eeaaiy and " : ie a ae ; a : ] nd! ‘ 8 of our Party