The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 21, 1929, Page 4

PRARTY LIFE | A Further Chapter in the Degeneration Published by the C Square, New York Address and mail all ly Publishing Co. Y. Telephone S to the Daily W Page Four Inc., daily, ¢ Stuyvesant Square, New York, Central Organ of the Communist Party of the U.S. A. By Mai! (in ¥ sw York only): $8.00 a year; By Mail (outside of New York): $6.00 a year; UBSCRIVtiON RATES: no $4.50 six months; $3.50 six months; $2.50 three months $2.00 three months of the Lovestonites | EDITOR'S NOTE.—When the renegade Lovestone and his supporters were exposed for burglarizing the national office of the Party, they entered into a conspiracy with a discredited and expelled adventurer and blackmailer, one Jackson, in an efffort to make it appear that their burglary was committed by agents of the Department of Justice. In a crude concoction of lies they sought to discredit a loyal comrade of the Party. A thorough investigation of the matter revealed the fact that the man, Jack- son, who claimed to have been employed by Department of Jus- tice offices in the Woolworth building, was deliberately lying; that there is no such office at the place designated. The following article deals with this phase of the case. eee . The material submitted to the Party in the ment of the Cen- tral Control Committee shows up the Lovestonei in their utter poli- tical degenerac It is evident that the factional methods of the past days have now been carried by Lovestone into the lowest methods of Tammany Hall. ; The whole detective story concocted by Lovestone and his worthy | ally, Jackson, flows from minds bare of any consideration save one, to | injure the Party. | The two worthies are attempting to improve upon their story and | to supply corroborating evidence. To leave out not even the slightest touch that “experts” may consider in their deceptive mystery stories, Lovestone and Jackson have treated us to two new chapter: A fe wdays ago there appeared in the National Office of the | Party the head of a private detective agency. For a considerable cash consideration he offered to sell to the Party some information con- cerning the theft of documents from the National Office. A few ques- tions and reluctant answers proved that the story he offered for sale was identical with the story which the scoundrel Jackson had so freely volunteered to dictate to a Lovestone stenographer. Investigation brought to light that the detective agency in’ ques- tion was-the very same which, about a year and a half ago, sold a forged letter, purported to come from the National Miners’ Union, to the “Forward” for use against the Communist Party, and then offered to sell to the Communist Party, for use against the “Forward,” proofs that the letter was a forgery. One-half hour after this private detective had been gotten of by a categoric rejection of the offer, the National Office was dis- turbed by a phone call from Morris Nemser, He informed the Central Committee that this was “the last call,” and that, if the Central Com- mittee should refuse immediate action, “they” would act. And “they” did act—by issuing a scurrilous document against the Party. } But that is not all. The last chapter of the story came into the National Office on Monday, September 18th, in the form of a letter, postmarked “Wash- ington, D. C.,” and addressed to Anna Thompson. The letter con- tained an inside envelope, addressed to “Mr. Please forward.” And this inside envelope contained the following letter: September 13, 1929. My Dear I want to thank you again for your valuable assistance in connec- tion with the seizure of the Communists’ records at Party headquar- ters last month. Without your cooperation, we would surely have failed. We have checked up on everything found in the office, from what we have in our possession proves conclusively everything which you have told us during the past months that you have been employed by this office. I have tried several times during the past two weeks to meet you | at our old meeting place in Harlem, but somehow, have failed. That is my reason for not sending your money. I am wondering if Party mem- bers ere suspecting you. , I understand, has had several tilts with the police. Better advise him to go slow until matters die down a bit. You must throw off every evidence of suspicion, hence, you must be careful. I am taking this chance of reaching you as I remember you once saying that you were interested in this Person and that she is reliable. May I ask if you will write me and give an address where I can send | your check. I will also send funds for and X. Yours sincerely, J. J. M. An identical letter, with the same kind of paper, envelopes, post- marks, etc., was received on the same date, addressed also to Anna Thompson, but at another address, where it would come into the hands of Negro comrades—with inside énvelope marked the same, “For . Please forward.” It has also been ascertained that one of Lovestone’s been in Washington over the previous week end. | “We are hesitant, not knowing whether we should laugh at, or pity this most obliging “secret service chief.” One of his tools, the worthy Jackson, offers to sell the secrets of the government to the Communist Party. He offers to unmask a most valuable under-cover man of the government in the Communist Party. And Jackson’s chief, watchful | for the interests of his employer, the United States government, uses | the surest méthods imaginable to help his treacherous agent. He sends # letter to his valuable under-cover man and addresses the letter to the office of the Communist Party, against which this under-cover man is alleged to be operating. And to make sure that there can be no slip-up, he addresses the letter to an expelled member, Anna Thompéon. All mail, coming to the National Office is opened and then dis- tributed according to its contents. But the “chief” did not know that, of course he did not. In any case, he wrote into the letter everything that Lovestone’s man Friday, Jackson, had told Comrade Markoff. In a letter addressed to the National Office of the Party, he obligingly says: (1) We, the D. of J., raided the National Office; (2) —— was our instrument in doing this; (3) I meet him regularly in Harlem; (4) I will also send checks for and X, a couple more of my agents. (5) And all of this is read in very exact Party language. He only forgot a P. S. urging us to, please believe everything that Jackson told us. We feel that further comment on this letter would be an insult to the intelligence of the Party membership. This letter is the final link in the chain of evidence which points an accusing finger at Lovestone and his scoundrelly friends, fairly shouting: You are agents of the bourgeois who employ even the basest of tricks in an attempt to undermine the morale and to disrupt the forces of the working class and its organizations, and to play in the hands of their class enemies! CENTRAL CONTROL COMMISSION. agents had THE GASTONIA “INVESTIGATORS” BETWEEN INVESTIGATIONS. By Fred Ellis The Economic Struggle and the Tasks of the Communist Parties THESES UPON THE REPORTS BY COMRADES THALMANN AND LOSOVKY 1, CHARACTER OF MODERN CLASS BATTLES. 1. The period since the Sixth Congress of the Comintern and the Fourth Congress of the Red International of Labor Unions is char- acterized by an incessant and increasing growth of class contradictions and by a widening of the front of the class struggle. Not a year has passed since these two gatherings, and already the working class of Germany has experienced, apart from a series-of great economic battles, the tremendous movement among the proletariat of the Ruhr; Poland has witnessed a powerful general strike of 100,000 workers of Lodz; in Franee there have been extensive economic conflicts which in recent times spread from district to district (constituting lately at least 100 strikes per month); Austria experienced for the first time a strike against capitalist rationalization and against the fascization of the factories and works, and in the United States there has been a spon- taneous mass strike movement (especially in the Southern States). Of significance are the numerous small strikes in Great Britain since the beginning of 1929, where the depression since the defeat of the working class in 1926 was greatest as far as strikes are concerned, and also the numerous strikes of agricultural laborers throughout Europe (Czechoslovakia, Poland, France), which have assumed an acute political character. A characteristic feature of the present strikes is also the tremern- dous growth in the number of small and partial strikes which have their roots in the increased pressure of capitalist rationalization and involve separate factories or even separate workshops. Finally, a pe- culiarity of the present phase of development lies in the fact that the growing strike wave also involves the colonial and semi-colonial coun- tries (a strike of 140,000 textile workers in Bombay, the General Strike of the workers on the banana plantations of Columbia, the dockers’ strikes in the French colonies), and have assumed such dimen- sions and desperate forms hitherto unknown in these countries. All this implies that the working class is being radicalized at an acceler- ated rate and that this radicalization assumes an ever wider interna- tional character. 2. These peculiarities of the present upward swing of the labor movement are a reflection of the further accentuation of the basic contradictions of world capitalist economy. The basic contradiction between the increased productive forces and the contracted markets, is growing and becoming sharper. The entire economic policy of the capi- talist states is now directed towards the capture of markets for the export of capital, markets for manufactured products and sources of raw material, the intensification of exploitation of the proletariat through the medium of capitalist rationalization. At present every ef- fort of the workers to improve their living conditions is resisted by the entire capitalist class which seeks to stifle the labor movement at its roots, Capitalist rationalization has not only proved incapable of eliminating the contradiction between the productive possibilities and the absorbing capacity of the markets, but on the contrary, this prob- lem stands out now more sharply and has become more insoluble. Ra- tionalization has increased output, but at the same time, has given rise to greater unemployment, profound structural changes in the so- cial composition of the proletariat, a further lowering of the standard of living of the proletariat and the share of wages in the product of of terror and of the state machinery of coercion, even to the extent of dissolving the revolutionary trade union and strike committees, dis- persing strikers’ meetings, wholesale arrests, and the utilization of the military appartus of the bourgeois state as a strikebreaking force (the agricultural laborers’ strike in Czechoslovakia), It is particularly necessary to mention also the direct participation of the reformist trade union apparatus in the crushing of the struggling workers and in the development of factory fascism. 5. . The broad masses of workers, for whom the capitalist offensive throughout the world means growing exploitation, increasing exhaustion under hard labor conditions in the present day rationalized capitalist factory, the early discarding of the “worn-out” slaves of capital, grow- ing unemployment, a longer working day, a lower standard of living and rapidly growing insecurity, are showing more stubborn resistance to the onslaught of capital and are more frequently and more boldly passing over to the counter offensive. The new characteristic of the économic struggles lies in the fact that they are assuming more arf more the nature of mutual encounters, and in a number of cases even taking the form of a proletarian offensive. This is true of almost all the economic battles which have taken place in the last half-year, especially the Lodz strike, the Ruhr lockout, and the general textile workers’ strike in Bombay. . 6. A very significant feature of the present economic battles is the fact that, in spite of the blacklegging role played by the reformist trade union apparatus, to an extent hitherto unknown; in spite of the treachery of the Rights and the undermining efforts of the conciliators; and finally, in spite of the mistakes of the revolutionary trade union movement and the Communist Parties themselves, which have not yet fully learnt to lead the strikes independently, how in spite even of a number of defeats, the militancy of the proletariat has not diminished. In the Ruhr, for example, though the locked-out workers did not actually gain what they wanted, at the same time, the militancy of the workers has by no means diminished and the experience of that great conflict has stimulated the further mobilization of the masses. All this de- finitely refutes the theory, of the reformists and the ight wing liqui- dators that all recent battles of the proletariat, even those in which wage demands, etc., were set up, are exclusively defensive struggles. 7. But the most characteristic feature in the appraisal of the contemporary economic battles bearing witness to an upward surge in the labor movement, is the ever growing activity of the unorganized workers. This is due particularly to the profound structural changes which have taken place in the composition of the working class as a result of rationalization. The number of skilled workers constituting the principal elements of the reformist unions is rapidly declining. During the lockout in the Ruhr, the unorganized workers constituted three-fourths of the participants in the movement. In Lodz, 80,000 textile workers struck, only a little over 4,000 of whom were members of the union. In Bulgaria out of 30,000 tobacco workers on strike there were 95 per cent unorganized. In France over 90 per cent of the workers in general are unorganized. Even in Great Britain where strikes have so far been of a local character and of the nature of partial movements, the most striking feature is the participation of large numbers of unorganized (the strike in the automobile industry). Reprinted, by permission, frem published and copyrighted by E, P. Dutton & Cow oy It Myself” by Heart Bar! AND WE WERE CELEBRATING PEACE. 4 Ee massacres -were nothing but a systematic display of anti-Jewish and nationalist savagery. No complaints were made: “Filthy Jews!” they said, and that was enough. Petliura winked as this wholesale slaughter, countenanced it. The reserves that he made were of the mildest, and post eventum, to please the gallery’s ears. He de- clared that pogroms were necessary to keep up the spirit of his army. To the survivors of one such wholesale slaughtering, he said: “As for the contention that the brute had no personal interest in these pogroms, it must not be forgotten that in almost every case they were followed by plundering and the imposition of heavy fines, The fact is that the Jewish community was decimated and reduced to beggary too. The assassin, in this case, was a thief into the bargain, . .. Such were the tales told that evening, by a few miserable wretches huddled together in the Jewish quarter, in one of the few households that death had left unvisited. Or eret THE EMBRACE. | «OOD afternoon.” “Good afternoon, Andreas” “Come in.” “How strange your voice sounds.” “Come in.” “Very well. Andreas, where’s Rita?” “I don’t know. Rita and I are no longer friends.” “What's this? You... she... the ideal couple, the loving pair, the delight of all eyes... 7 “We no longer love each other.” “You don’t mean... Tell me, Andreas, is she alive?” ‘Oh, yes, she’s alive.” “Well, then, tell me. . .” 3 “It’s all through the prisons of Hungary.” *T knew that you had both been in prison. But you weren’t there | long.” “Not Iong! Six months...” “Were you beaten, or hurt... ? Andreas? Ah, I can guess; they disfigured her. ‘No. It is not what you think.” Come, tell me, I beg you.” Why do you turn your head Was that it?” “Well, in prison, there was a Captain des Pronay and he hated us so that he went mad when he saw us. ‘You two,’ he said, ‘you’re lovers, very well...” ‘ “You shall be parted. . .:.” q “On the contrary. He said, ‘We'll have you bound together.’” “Yes, and then?” “He bound us one to the other, fully dressed, tightly round the ist” waist.’ “And then?” . e 6 “THEN came days, and nights and days. Do you understand? No, you can’t, First of all, we thought we were going to die together, and the clasp of the ropes was sweet to us, with our hearts beating and eyes glazing, each to each, But it was not for death, that we were bound, but for life.” ‘The more be thanked.” “No, the less.” “That’s beyond me.” i “Of course it is. Before this happened, I would have said the same. You. can’t understand what it was like. The moment you opened your eyes, or stopped twisting your neck to turn away a little, that face breathing in your face! There wasn’t a hand’s breadth be- tween our two faces. At first, it was wonderful, having these two pupils before my eyes, magnified as it were, with long throbbing lashes; that mouth, so close, that when I trembled, I bumped it with my own. But, in time, in time ...then again...” “Andreas, you’re blushing.” “Yes, I am too ashamed to recall it. other, like that... .” “You're hurting my shoulders, Andreas. talons.” “That’s so as you may begin to understand.” “But you moved, you walked about, tied together in this way?” “Yes, but that’s enough. I don’t want to give any details.” “Of course, of course, but .. .” “Enough! Days, nights, weeks, months!” “But, Andreas, pity alone would .. .” “Pity is driven out, like all that is sweet, by such things.” “But, Andreas, your companion was no thing .. .” Bi) ete, ae counterweight, I tell you. We said (that was the first week): ‘Never mind, then. I love you, my poor darling, I love you, Don’t be afraid of me. We'll forget the past,’ and all the rest of it. “Then both pity and love were swallowed up little by little in the certainty that we could not forget, in the horror of it all.” “But even so...” “In the filth, in the smell.” “Enough from you, Andreas: no more!” “And in the horrible satiety of one and the same eternal picture; the knocking together of two faces stamped upon each other—that face, like a hand! “At first, the twin monster that we made could not sleep, Our eyes, enlarged and strained, frightened sleep away. Then we slept. But there was the awakening. “The ropes hurt me to the full extent of her weight, and that weight I gave back in equal measure. The exhaustion of the one was a drag, a load, a scourge on the exhaustion of the other. We struggled, resisted each other. But all that was a trifle. Above all, I repeat...” “No, do not repeat it.” “But I will—above all that coarse contemplation of another body, that relentless communion with its outlines, its life—worst than a post mortem. The breathing, the pulsation, the hideous transparency of that soft-wheeled piece of mechanism which we call our body. The human body is a pitiful thing—more pitiful even than a prisoner’s body... . You can only dimly see what I mean, just as my poor devil of a brother, who was religious, dimly visualized hell. You can make guesses, but you really know nothing about it at all.” (To be Continued) Two bodies clamped to each Your fingers are like eA a Ol BS {! ; ‘ rs a u CHAS. DIRBA, Sec’y. C.C.C. labor due to the terrific intensification of labor. In India, in Bombay, out of the tremendous strike which involved an | 9 yesult of a number of circumstances we find the classic expression Particularly striking in this respect is the difference between ra- | Overwhelming proportion of unorganized textile workers, a powewrful | o¢ the contradictions of contemporary capitalist stabilization, these Ss Sst Tt tionalization in the capitalist countries, which falls as a heavy burden | ?@dical union has emerged with 65,000 members, i. e., embracing about | new forms have found their most glaring expression. In other coun- Ms T U. U L ° P : upon the shoulders of the working class, and socialist rationalization | 40 Per cent of the textile workers of Bombay. Finally; the recent | tries, e. g.; Great Britain, where the working class is first recovering b .U.U.L.1n Program of Action in the Union of Socialist Soviet Republies, which is a mighty weapon | ¢°onomic battles were strongly characterized by the sharp turn towards | from the defeat of the general strike and the miners lockout of 1926, b ighty 'p * : for uprooting the remnants of capitalism in the U. S. S. R. and which | the Left and the DE A oacaprabnn eee masts of women | and where the process of capitalist rationalization is still in ae intend A rye Gh Sroahodt ne | ensures the quickest possible rate of raising the*material and cultural | Workers and the youth, the overwhelming majority of whom are'un- | stage (as compared with Germany and the United States), there is ation ddr Pe tabasmalllsavantage a) fern Lavadberra be bare dl sinndard bf.tha\ Soviet: Viton, organized. It should be particularly noted that vast sections of work- | only a prelude to the approaching period of stormy mass conflicts, . » to rs t ‘ings to buil e T.U.U.L. a : Sie is ing women in a number of important industries (textile, machine con- The advent of the Labor Party to power will inevitably lead to the of ps oubpnaring of ene ae in every direction, by strengthening | the The pede a Peat Me the standard of pag of the | struction, electric, chemical, food, clothing, silk, and other industries) | accentuation and sharpening of these conflicts, since the labor govern. i gy and enthusiasm which made the |and organizing new shop commit-| Workers, as a result of the fusion of contemporary trustified capital constitute half and sometimes even a majority 6 ‘ i it 4 pS z é | " ‘i : A jority of the workers. At the tt will to an ever larger extent disclose its nature as an agency Cleveland convention which organ- | tees, local unions, local TULU.L.| Pret me arate ay panatasy, becomes jegnverted ant, a struggle against | same time they comprise very large sections of unorganized labor. aor tie enforcement of capitalist rationalization and a direct tool for C ized the Trade Union Unity League, | groups in reformist trade unions,| the foundations of the capitalist system and against the bourgeois ; Pi ° ; r ike “pete iat nyo yd cab ‘a will p August 31-Sept. 1, has been issued | Local Industrial Leagues, Local state. Contemporary capitalism has already reached the point when This activity of the unorganized has expressed the increasingly | the intensification of the exploitation of e working class, ani wil 4 by the Bureau of the National Com- |General Leagues, ete. “ | property relations have become absolutely incompatible with the raising | StOWing discontent of the masses and has broken through the legal | thus destroy the reformist illusions of the masses. Finally, what is ‘ mittee of the League | Z : | of the standard of living of the working class (although in some cases framework of the trade unions, involving the rank and file of the re- | entirely new in the history of the international labor movement, is the Bi Tc taten “4) The securing of bundle orders | temporary and partial increases in wages are possible), and the working formist unions in a struggle which is with ever greater frequency being | mass strike movement in India, where all these new forms have found Ps “The splendid impetus given by and subscriptions—and &ppointment| class is confronted now more than ever with the task of combining its waged not only without, but even against the reformist trade union | perhaps their sharpest expression. The sharp class differentiation . the Trade Union Unity Convention of agents and correspondents °f! daily struggles with the struggle against the capitalist system as a | ®PParatus. + | during the strike in the banana plantations of Colombia is also signi- a must be followed up by a program ae snd must be a central point} whole. In the new conditions the economic struggle of the proletariat | 8. Thus the distinguishing features of the class conflicts since | ficant, where the entire military and governmental machine was set in Ps of active work, along the following |° all these activities. | assumes an ever more sharply expressed political character. This | the Sixth Congress of the Comintern and the Fourth Congress of the | motion, and where the bourgeoisie acted in a united front, ti general lines: “5) Every member and sympath-| does not mean that the question of leadership of partial economic | Red International of Labor Unions, which are an expression of grow- 10. The struggle between the Communist and revolutuionary tl “1) Organize meetings of all shop |izer of the Trade Union Unity struggles of the proletariat is becoming of less significance than | ing elements of a new revoluutionary upsurge in the labor movement, | trade union vanguard on the one hand, and the social-fascist trade committees, local unions, Local In-|League should become thoroughly | hitherto. It is precisely in this period that the role of the revolutionary | are characterized by the following: union bureacracy on the other, is no longer being waged exclusively ‘ dustrial Leagues, Local General|acquainted with the program and trade union movement is primarily that of organization of the struggle a) A transition from small partial struggles to larger con- within the unions, but is involving all the workers in general. This Leagues, etc., to hear full reports |constitution of the Trade Union for partial demands from the point of view of the prospective struggle flicts bearing more of a mass character. struggle is primarily a struggle for leadership over the masses in the c from the delegates in attendance at| Unity League, adopted at the Cleve-| for political power. It is in this profound political significance of a) The ever more frequent transition of the workers to the strikes. In accordance with this, new, more favorable conditions have R ; “ sd the Trade Union Unity Convention. |land Convention, in order to under- | contemporary economic battles, that the radicalization of the working counter offensive. arisen for the Communist and revolutionary trade unio vanguard (espe- A . “2) At these meetings, active steps |stand thoroughly the principles and class now finds its expression, . c) An ever growing activity of the masses of unorganized. cially since the May Day demonstrations in Germany) to win the \q must be taken to secure application |the new organizational structure of. 4, The political character of the present-day economic battles is d) Breaking through of trade union legalism. majority of the working class. Hence the tremendous importance of v yi of the convention decisions and to/the Trade Union Unity League.) determined also by the going over of the bourgeoisie in the major e) The growing political and revolutionary character of the the problem of the unorganized. Hence the new tactics in ‘the election " y gi 3 ie i gs Dp y put the League on a dues-paying|Orders should immediately be sent| capitalist countries to new fascist methods for the suppression of the strikes. of factory councils. Hence the decisive importance of independent 401 membership basis everywhere. Mem-|in for these, which are both being| working class. In the sphere of economic fights this fascisation is | f) The international character of the movement, involving leadership of strikes on the part of the Communist revolutionary trade i bership books, dues stamps, and ap-| printed in pamphlet form—the pro-| expressed primarily in the effort to deprive the workers of the right the colonial countries and Great Britain, which until lately has union vanguard without and against the reformist trade union apparatus. P plication cards will be furnished/gram selling at 10c and the consti-| to organize and to strike, thus robbing the economie fights of the lagged behind. Hence the ruthless struggle against opportunistic trade union legalism fi ' shortly by the T.U.U.L. National|tution at Se per copy. Cash must! proletariat of their’ legal positions. Among the methods adopted are 9. The scope of these new forms of economic struggle fs not | in our own ranks and the tactics of the united front from below, i Office, accompan yall orders.” the institution of compulsory arbitration as well as the open weapon | everywhere the same, In some countries, e. g., in Germany, where as 5 (To be Continued) * - rs