The Daily Worker Newspaper, August 30, 1929, Page 6

ee Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Co. Ine... Daily, Sunday, at 26-28 Union Square, New York City, Telephone Stuyvesant 1696-7-8. Cable: “DAIWORK.” SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By Mail (in New York only): $4.50 six months $2.60 three monthe By Mail (outside of New York): $6.00 a year $3.50 six months $2.00 three months Adéress and mai! all checks to the Daily Worker, 26-28 Union Square Y. New York, N. except ¥. $8.00 a year The Coming New Trade Union Center Of the industrial workers in the United States, estimated as high as 28 @ union, the rest absolutely untouched by organization. But worse than that—the ninth man, who in formal fact belongs to a trade union, has little or nothing to do. with the labor movement in any real sense (unless he is in the new revolu- tionary industrial unions). His “trade union” in most cases operates more or less openly and frankly as an agency for collaboration with the bosses. The collaboration is between the bosses and a thin upper layer of the most skilled and relatively highly paid workers as against the great mass of unorganized, or at times it has more the character of “b ness” between the bosses and the trade union officials (also “business men”) for the more effective exploitation of the workers involved. The American Federation of Labor speaks through the mouth of Matthew Woll, William Green and other officials invariably and solely in favor of the interests of the employing class and its institutions, and against every- thing that even slightly resembles a movement for struggle against the capitalist class. No bones about it. They say so themselves in a boasting tone. si- Nor is it a matter of words. The “official” trade union movement of the United States is every day more openly functioning as a strikebreaking institution. If it is a strike in the coal mining industry, the offcial machinery of the United Mine Workers Union is no less at the disposal of the mine operators than is the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, and if the “union” is not called in for strike-breaking service | Unorganized Are Main Problem as frequently as the detective agency it is only because of the inexpediency of their using a fake union in cases where the strike can be broken, or organization prevented, by the use of undisguised instruments. At the present time the United Textile Workers Union is one of the instruments for breaking up strikes and halting the wave of real union organization | and struggle in the Southern States. The International Ladies Garment Workers does the same, and the Amalga- mated Clothing Workers “union,” an “independent” union, is trying its best to outdo the A. F. of L. in service to the employers against the workers; the I. L. G. W. and the Amal- gamated are operating solely on the basis of arrangements with the manufacturers for keeping the workers in check. And so on down the line. In short, the small fraction of workers that are in the A. F. of L. and in the “respeetable” unions are organized under the theory and the practice supporting the capitalist class against the working class. In this period of concen- tration and centralization of capital, accompanied by the growth of State capitalism, the reformist bureaucracy of the trade unions tends to be welded into the machinery of the capitalist class state. The forced drive of capitalist “ration- alization” finds the trade union bureaucracy working hard, and with brazen openness, to put through the bosses’ system of “Rationalization,” the essential characteristic of which is not to make the labor process more “rational” from: the standpoint of the human worker, but to suck the last ounce of strength from the workers by automatic machine control and intensification of the speed of labor. For generations it has been a commonplace that the offi- cial labor movement of the United States disowns and de- nounces the historical revolutionary mission of the working class—that of taking political power and transforming the wage-slave system into a society of free men. But the spuri- ous claim of the Gompers-Greén bureaucracy upon the sup- port of the workers has always been upon the “practical” basis of defence of the immediate interests of the workers in wages, conditions, etc. But in the present period the A. F. of L. bureaucracy does not and cannot defend a single imme- diate interest of even the smallest sort of any significant group of the working class. On the contrary, it operates every day in open attack against every immediate interest of the working class, as well as committing more and more transparent treason to the general and ultimate interests of the working class. This bureaucracy is not only the most venomous propagandist for imperialist war against the Union of Socialist Soviet Republics (and therefore for the world- wide, catastrophic defeat of the working class and the de- struction of the labor movement by military-fascist means), but it has even become the speed-up drill-sergeant of the capitalists over the workers who are driven to unbearable strain in the “rationalized” industrial plants. It is only inevitable that in this period the tendency is for every struggle of the workers to fall under a new and ‘genuine working class leadership. The Trade Union Educa- ‘tional League, and in the center of the front line the Com- munist Party, assume a bigger part each day as the radicali- zation of the masses increases. The great Trade Union Unity Convention called by the T. U. E. L., opening tomorrow at | Cleveland, inevitable takes up the role of the creation of a new national center of the trade unions of this country, as opposed to the treacherous bureaucracy of the A. F. of L. The Convention marks a new epoch. It means the put- ting of the leadership of the workers’ economic struggles into the hands of the workers and out of the hands of the agents of the employers. It will base itself not upon a small frac- tion of highly skilled, but upon the whfle proletarian mass-of industrial workers. For the first time the organizing‘of the mass of workers can and will be undertaken. ‘ = 2 F ‘ ; The leadership of the bureaucratic traitors -over the workers already organized in the A. F. of L. and other reac- tionary unions will be fought against as never before. The work within the old unions will be systematized under the same fighting center which directs.the great struggle to pull the vast mass of unorganized of our class into a single dis- ciplined front for class strugle and freedom. Hail the Cleveland Convention, maker of history for our exploited class! 000,000, about one out of nine is a member of | By JACK JOHNSTONE. Involved in the question of organ- |izing the unorganized is the whole question of building the Trade Union Unity League. It-is not a separate campaign or detached from the other campaigns of the T. U. \E. L. The war danger, defence of the Soviet Union, the struggle against reformism, for social insur- ance, the defense of the Gastonia victims, for social equality for the Negro, is as much a part of the |campaign to organize the unorgan- ized as is the struggle against ra- jonalization, against speed-up, the struggle for wage increases, better working conditions, the shorter work day, equal pay for youth wom- {en and adults doing the same work. Organizing the unorganized in |this period of tremendous trustified |industries in this period of hectic imperialist war preparation, and | growing class antagonism, brings out clearly the tightness of the class |lines, exposes. bourgeois democracy, \class collaboration, the impotency of |the company union and numerous |welfare schemes, and brings out clearly the tremendous role of the A. F. of L. bureaucracy. It imme- \diately brings the workers into) strike struggle, and even though the demands may be of the most ele- mentary character, the workers find themselves in open conflict with all the repressive measures of the bour- geois state, developing mass class | conscious activities at a rapid rate, | which “is one of the surest guaran- |tees of the building of unions based on the class struggle. | - New Period. - In the United States we have en- |tered upon a new period, a period |cf developing class struggle, and | while we have the old world as a | wonderful school to draw lessons |from, the application of the pro- |gram of the R, I. L. U. has its | peculiar American features in which | we-have no set’ precedent. A small jaristocratic Ikbor movement, a still | too heterogenous working class, a jlarge section of foreign-born work- ers mainly of peasant stock, a heavy | migration of poor farmers and agri- | cultural workers to the city, a grow- ing army of unemployment in spite of increased production, which will | become more acute as winter draws |near; a heavy influx of women and |youth into industry and an indus- | trial turnover, especially in basic | industries that changes the composi- | tion of the workers in many of these l industries every few. years. Clash With Many Foes. inseparable from sharp class strug- ‘gle. This does not mean, however, \that preparatoty organization work | cannot be done; it can and must be |done. It means that we come into | conflict with all forces that are opposed to class struggle: the A. F. of L., the so-called progressive con- ference for labor action, the social- ist party, *the employers and the government. They will not allow any peaceful period or perfection of organization. Struggle will start. the moment a campaign to organize the unorganized has begun and the |only breathing spell that will be al- lowed will depend on the struggle |and power of the workers. | In organizing the unorganized we ‘must consider the world situation. ;{The United States is not working in a vacuum, The sharpening of class terror, Gastonia, Tennessee, New Orleans, Chicago, New York, BE lorker GASTONIA—1929: “AND IF YOU DARE REVOLT .. .!” Cleveland Convention Will Have to Solve It; Leads Immediately to Class Struggle | Gang Philadelphia, Boston, in the mining fields is a part of nation-wide cam- paign to suppress by a terroristic process the rising struggle of the workers. It is at these critical periods that the treacherous role of social re- formism is to suppress and betray the struggles of the workers. This takes many fgrms from open alli- ,ance with the hangmen of Gastonia, the open betrayal of the Tennessee rayon strikers to the more subtle ‘forms of “arbitration.” These developments are not pecu- liar to America. International Scope. Rationalization, speed-up, mechan- ization of industry is the typical form today of deepenihg exploita- tion, driving in its wake the work- ers to the left with the consequent strike waves. The sharpening of the capitalist terror can only be under- stood in relation with the intensi- fication of international contradic- tions—with the intensification of \ TAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, FRIDAY, AUGUST 30, 1929 By Fred Ellis jover the decision of the fourth con- jgress of the R. I. L. U., causing hesitancy in the building ef ‘new | unions. Rule. | Stuffing of ballot boxes, packing | of conventions, wholesale expulsions, revoking of charters, use of gunmen, police terror, culminating in the de- struction of the union, are the meth- ods used by the bureaucrats. The left wing must not fritter away val- |uable time and energy in a death struggle for the control of the ap- paratus. It is because of this phe- nomena which has become general since the world’s war, éxpressing the class nature of the struggle, which makes impossible the develop- | ment of real campaigzs to organize |the unorganized under the leader- ship of the A. F. of L. bureaucrats. Therefore the main task of the left wing minority is to expose these traitors and to win the membership to the support «* and participation in all struggles of the workers and | supporter of reaction. Eight and a} |half million women wage earners, | youth, children, expose the illusion | of the American home, drawing | | whole families into strike struggle. U.S. Labor Always Fought. It develops the traditional mili- tant fighting character of the Ame ican worker into class conscious ac- tivities. It is nothing new for the American worker to shoulder a gun, even against the power of the state | in strike struggle. The early his-| tory of the western Federation of Labor, and the U. M. W. of A., is a history of such struggles. These | early struggles, militant and ag- |gressive, reflected the arrogance of | ja rising young bourgeoise in a world of developing capitalism with the proletarian world revolution in| for the program of the T. U. U: L., its propaganda stage while the pres- | capturing the local units, affiliating ent struggle is conducted in a world| them to the T. U. U. L. at the ap-| of decaying capitalism with the U. S.| propriate moment, thus drawing as an integral part, expressing the|them into activities directly under rage and the terror of the world! the leadership of the T. U. U, L. |bourgeoise in the’growing strength The work of the left wing minori- international contradictions between | of the socialist economy of the first | the imperialist nations that is | Workers’ Republic, the Soviet Union, | threatening to immerse the workers |and the developing leadership oyer ties within the old unions in the campaign to organize the unorgan- Organzing the unorganized in this | |period into revolutionary unions is, in a world war blood bath, It is because of this feverish ac- tivity of American imperialism in its struggle for world begemony that bourgeoise terrorism is increased. A demoralized, disorganized, defeated working class, , with a low living standard at home, that can be used as cannon fodder in an imperialist war for the redivision of the world, or for a war of aggression against ithe Soviet Union, is the-objective of American capitalism as it is the ob- | jective of every imperialist nation lin the world. This driving force in- | creases capitalist contradiction and | rivalries, leading to war, increases class antagonisms, tightens class {lines, but it also develops mass class | struggles in all capitalist countries, and leads to armed insurrection in | the colonies and semi-colonial coun- | tries. These are the outstanding features of the present period. Workers’ Offensive. | We have entered a period of a \new working class offensive, of new jend more brutally frank bourgeois terrorism, These struggles of which 'the Gastonia Textile Strike and mur- der frame-up is the most vivid ex- pression in the U. S., reflect the tense world, situation. The differ- ence of the struggles of the prole- |tariat in each country is the differ- lence of the uneven tempo of devel- ‘cpment. The brutal killing of 28 workers by the socialist police of | Berlin, May 1st, the massacre of the Indian proletariat on the streets of |Bombay, the Gastonia frame-up, | ete., are expressions of the struggles going on between the workers of the world and their imperialist masters, against rationalization, speed-up, wage cuts, against war and the right to organize. Organizing the unorganized in this period is more than a problem of organization, It is the very cen- ter of class struggle. It brings the workers into conflict with the bour- geois illusions that have been ham- mered into them. Especially is this true of the war of division built between white and colored workers, through .@ hundred years of false education. It bares religion as a ia |tens of millions of workers of the {Communist International and the RL. U. It is from this point of view that we must approach the problem of organizing the unorganized. It is the central pivot around which the T. U. E. L. pushes forward all of its campaigns; it is the main prob- Jem that confronts us, a solution of which makes all the other problems easier. Where to Start. The question is how to organize |the unorganized. Where shall we begin? Shall we struggle and build the old unions, or shall we build }new revolutionary unions, and how? This matter, of course, cannot be approached in a mechanical way. We are in‘a transitional period, In some instances we work within the old unions, because of théir mass character, but in working within these old unions we must have no illusions about capturing and using the apparatus in the ‘aterest of the workers, The apparatus of the old unions are an inseparable part of the. employers’ productive machin- ery. They are agents of the gov- ernment. They will destroy unions rather than yield the apparatus to the rank and file left wing leader- ship. The objective of the left wing in the old u:-‘ons is to win the mem- bers for the class struggle program of the T. U. U. L. and when the majority of the workers learn through betrayals, etc., that they cannot capture the apparatus, they set up their own leadership and dis- card their treacherous bureaucratic betrayers and the apparatus that is used to crush them. This has been borne out by expe- rience. The members of the Nation- al Textile Workers’ Union, the Na- tional Needle Trades Industrial Union, the National Mine Workers’ Union and the T. U. E. L. in general have in various stages of develop- ment suffered from the illusion that the apparatus of the old unions could be captured and utilized in the interests of the workers. It was this error that was responsible for the controversy within our ranks ized is a complex problem. The | question immediately arises, shall |we, as a left wing, knowing the traitorous character of the bureau- erats who will betray the workers jat every turn, bring the workers | into the old unions? While we may |not be able to avc'1 this in some cases, in general we should organ- |ize the unorganized into shop com- mittees under the leadership of the left wing, outside of the craft unions, intensifying our activities within old unions for an industrial union with the shop committees as the basic un‘t, based upon a class struggle program of action, through united front action from below. Thus forcing united action of al] workers, the few that are organized and the many th=t are not under the leader- |ship of the best and most militant elements from among the ranks of the workers. Emphasis on New Unions. In this period it is essential that we strengthen the various national industrial committees of the T. U. U. L. so that clarity of policy and definite national direction can be given to the left wing groups oper- ating to a main degree within the framework of the old union. However, at this period the main emphasis must be placed on organ- izing the unorganize1 into new unions, Here, although the task is a tremendous one and the problems are many, they are simple and easy of understanding, although the exe- cution may be very difficult, We do not always have the choice when and where to start our campaigns, but at all times we should pay spe- cial attention to the basic war indus- tries. Pay special attention to the methods and tactics used in the cam- paign. Successful methods used in one campaign might be runious in another one. There is no blue print that can be used as a step by step chart in campaigns to organize the unorganized. It may be open mass meetings in some industries, it may be secret or semi-secret meetings of militants in another. More Than Propaganda. Today, in our campaigns to organ- | i ize the unorganized we depend al-out departments. The meetings i “ o, ri Barbuape, Repririted, by permission, from “I Saw It Myself” by Hen: published and copyrighted by E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc, New York. & SYNOPSIS While resting behind the lines, the French regiment to whieh Waterlot Francis belongs is surprised in the night by German armored cars, takes panic and retreats to the village of Liaches where the brutal General Bouteguord comes upon the soldiers, denounces them for de- serters and orders seven of them to be shot on the spot. Two officere of his staff try to make him see reason. Cue ea DEAD ALIVE «ALL for nothing. He had seven men chosen by lot, and separated ‘out. He stopped there to see it done. He enjoyed his retribution of master on slave. He also enjoyed saying No to one of the seven who dropped on his knees and begged for mercy, crying out that he had five children. “Apparently he had the law on his side. All that’s needed is for an old campaigner to be taken with a craze for murdering; never mind whether there’s any justifiable reason for the whim, or even no reason at all; up he comes, scoops seven chance men out of a crowd and says: ‘To the stake with them.’ It’s down in the Regulations; and that in a country which pretents to have some respect for the fighting soldier, | where one old fellow who commands some attention has declared that soldiers have rights, and where some funny fools have also claimed rights, actually known as les Droits de l'Homme, for all men. “But if the law’s an ass, well, it’s the lookout of the people who are fools enough to be had that way. What I can’t understand is how a man who's done a job like that can walk about in the street and show his nose anywhere without getting spat at by decent people and getting his head knocked off by someone more decent still. “They packed the seven of them into some old barn, and next day at dawn, a detachment took them out into the fields, to find a haystack to stand them up against. “About a mile from the Village they found one that would do. lined them up.” Av said—or rather moaned out, as in a dream: “How is it that men can always be found ready to kill their com- rades?” Peter merely answered: “They’re found all right, ‘ “Well, they lined them up, asked for their handkerchiefs and bandaged their eyes. The detachment lined up, rifles and all. The command was given: ‘Fire!’ “The squal obeyed because they were miserable worms and hadn’t the pluck to be men. But though they obeyed the order, they felt it, you know, and they shut their eyes the way kids do, as they pulled-the crigger. “After this magnificent salvo, they sat about finishing them off. A regimental sergeant-major, true to army traditions, stepped forward revolver in hand. He blew out the brains of two. One of the victims, the father of five, cried out as his skull opened up. Then the R. S. M, had enough. They say he wept because he couldn’t stick it. So he didn’t go any further. There are fellows like that. They do all the harm they can in their execution of their h———-y duty, then they stop when they’ve had enough. They’re better chaps than the rest, some say. I don’t see it. He ought to have had enough before he began. “When the word of fire was given, one of the seven fell like a log and never stirred again. So he had fallen, as I might say, just a tiny bit too soon, a split second before the bullet came along. The man oppo- site him hadn’t seen him when he fired because he shut his eyes, and the adjutant hadn’t spotted him, either, because he’d only finished off the first in the row, feeling sick. “When the firing squad pushed off, this man was astonished to find he wasn’t dead. He felt himself carefully, and made sure he wasn’t the least bit dead. He crawled away to hide himself for a bit on t’otherside of the stock, just like a miserable stunned bird, then got up on his feet and ran off like mad, straight ahead. They . . . this point, someone interrupted Peter, the teller of the story, and . . . “ ‘AN hour after, those passing saw six bodies instead of seven under the haystack. Five only were corpses; the sixth had simply been wounded—fractured thigh. They picked him up and dressed him. U “As for the hale and hearty one, he ran all night and fetched up next day in some billets. ‘Who's this old bird?’ said the fellows there. His hair had actually gone white (though he was a fair-haired chap and only twenty-seven), which proved to me that this going-all-white- in-a-moment business doesn’t only happen in novels (for once, thenya thing that happened in the war agrees with the stories in books)! t “In the billets, he made a cleam breast of the whole affair—a ° foolish thing to do. But they didn’t hand him over; they took him on in the regiment, as supernumerary. They couldn’t put his name on the roll or give him a number, for by the regulations he was dead, and a “dead: deserter” at that (for that’s what they call them officially). So he was the odd soldier of the 233rd Line Regiment. And he used to shake like a leaf when he thought how they might fetch his case up into daylight and put matters straight by killing him properly. Mean- while he was put with the ensign bodyguard, a job that keeps you safe as you’re never in the firing line. i “He was a miner, and belonged to Montigny-en-Gohelle. He had been mobilised on the 3rd of August, the very day his wife was giving birth to their first-born, but he’d never seen the baby, as it was born in the afternoon and he had to leave in the morning. I know the names of the other six, too, and could tell you them. There were even one or two like Hubert—his relations got a military medal, a military cross and a mention in despatches out of it—for at headquarters they had discovered what a dastardly business it was and wanted to hide it up with ornaments, But I shan’t mention anyone but Waterlot.” * 8 6 ONE of the circle made bold to say: “Don’t you go giving his name like that, old chap. .The less | known about it all, the better for him, eh?” y “Fat lot he cares about it all, the poor blighter,” returned Peter, “seeing as how he was knocked out by a shell later on, and properly, ‘ Don’t you worry. | “It was this way. One day, his new regiment ran across his old regiment, at some cross-roads, He simply couldn’t resist the desire to | go back. Funny thing the way a man hangs on to the number of his regiment, as if it meant something. So once again he did his job asa soldier. And it isn’t in reason that a plain infantryman who does his job from the start of the war in a fighting regiment, should keep on wounded and got patched up and went back to the job that men don’t wounded and got patched up and went bac kto the job that men don’t ask for. But on the 16th June in ’15, during the Artois offensive at Hebuterne, a shell mopped him up for good and all. “And who knows? Perhaps the poor blighters who sent up that shell were poor blighters just like him—p’raps the men in that firing squad were too—although it’s true they were told to do murder, ina Uenguege that wasn’t their own. Anyway, killed he was at last, by his own kind.’ “ “Sure he was,” we all murmured in chorus. (To be continued) Serre Da a a RE a ER eS Ea most entirely on a propaganda cam- | these organizing committees, . in paign, mass meetings, leaflets, | most cases should not be called open- stickers, shop papers, the holding of | ly, although the organizing of them open organization meetings. This|and their growing strength. should is good, but we must also develop|be part of our open general propa- other methods. In most trutifsied| ganda and part of our organizing industries open organizing meetings | campaign. bring immediate discrimination. We must learn to make our contacts in all departments of a factory, and, while intensifying our open organ- izing propaganda, keying the’ work- ers up to the point of struggle, we must build in a more secret way substantial. organizing groups around our connections in the vari- organized may begin with # rush in one industry with the immediate for- mation of shop committees following a lock-out or strike struggle, or the slower process of forming more ele- mentary organizing committees as a basis for the building of shop com- mittees. yal j of : (To Be Continued.) The campaign to organize the un- -