The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 11, 1929, Page 4

ned by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., Inc., , New York City, N. ¥. Telephone Stuyve Address and mail cks to the Daily Worker, all che y, except Sunday, at 26-28 Union 6 Cable: “DAIWORK.” are, New York, N. Y. SUBSCRIPTION By Mail (in New York only): $8.00 a year; By Mail (outside of New York): $6.00 a year; RATES: $4.50 six months; $3.50 six months; $2.50 three months $2.00 three months Central Organ of the Communist Party of the 1. S.A SPARTY LIGg. West Coast Defies Splitters Nuceus No. 4, San Francisco, after hearing the report of the DEC representative, Comrade Ettlinge, reaffirms its whole-hearted endorse- ment of the CI address and of the actions of the CEC in the Enlighten- ment Campaign. The discussion of the Tenth Plenum thesis and the results of the International Red Day proves eonclusively the correct political lines of the address, while the latest actions of the renegade Lovestone and Company shows their opportunist and their open Anti- Party line. We endorse the latest decision of the CEC which states tha tany further support, open or covered to Lovestone and his asso- ciates, is incompatible with Party membership. We greet the action of the DEC in adopting its last resolution and in enlarging itself and drawing in additional comrades, who, re- gardless of their past factional standing, are for the unification of the District and on the basis of the CI line. We welcome the fact that those comrades who are part of the factional situation were disciplined, are back in the Party carrying on active work to make up for the great damage due to the past unprincipled struggle. We are aware of the difficulties before our District. The un- doing of the results of years of factional struggle, the getting back to normal Party work, the elimination of suspicious and bad feelings cannot be done in a day’s time. It requires sincere effort and hard work on the part of every comrade, and we call upon every member of our nucleus to do his utmost for the building of a strong unified Party in San Francisco and California as a whole. The same resolution was passed unanimously by: Nucleus No. 1, S. F. nee 17 votes | Nucleus No. 5 22 votes Oakland 31 votes LOVESTONE’S LABYRINTH OF CONTRADICTIONS By MAX BEDACHT. The third period of post-war capitalism intensifies and concretises the revolutionary tasks of the Communist Party. This concretisation presupposes a real understanding of the revolutionary tasks of the Party. In turn, it improves it revolutionary quality and is in itself an important element of the bolshevisation of the Party. It is only natural, therefore, that all influences of bourgeois ideology feminating within the Communist International and its sections would mobilize against such revolutionization. In our American Section, this mobilization is carried on at the present time by the renegade Lovestone. His aim is to prevent an acceptance and execution of the Sixth World Congress theses, and to secure the rejection of their further development in the thesis of the Tenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist Interna- tional, Lovestone is fully conscious of his mission and knows the difficulties of his task. He applies the time-worn trfick of crying “Stop thief” as the only method promissing success. He fights against the line of the Sixth World Congress. But he fights against the line of the Communist International in the name of the Communist Inter- national. He fights against the line of the Sixth World Congress in the name of the Sixth World Congress. The Internatoinal, according to Lovestone, is deviating from the line of the International, and he, Lovestone, is the annointed saviour. The whole International, all of its sections and its Executive Committee, all are out of step, according to Lovestone; only Mother Bourgeois’ angel-faced boy Lovestone is in step. “For the line of the Sixth Congress!” With this phrase Love- stone thunderingly closes his documents. An investigation of the “line of the Sixth World Congress,” as put forward by Lovestone reveals as its essence the formula of the “primacy of external over internal con- | tradiction.” However, one searches in vain the Theses of the Sixth | World Congress for any phase or formulation that could be interpreted | as meaning “primacy of external controdiction.” But what is involved | here are not phrases and formulations but represent very concrete political contents. The Sixth World Congress thesis declared that post-war cap- italism has, in the present period, exceeded its pre-war productivity. It has thus intensified its most fundamental problem—rapidly in- creasing productivity confronted by a steady contradiction of markets. For this problem, capitalism knows only one remedy: the redistribu- tion of the world among the imperialist powers; but the capitalist remedies for its ailments turn into its worst disease. The only means by which capitalism can attempt to put into effect its remedy is war, A new world war. The present period, therefore, is the period of immediate war danger, the period in which the contradictions of cap- italism have led to an extreme sharpening of the class antagonism. It is the contention of Lovestone that the Sixth World Congress desired, at the expense of the importance of the antagonisms between the proletariat and the capitalists, to stress especially the importance of the immediate danger of the antagonisms between the imperialist powers. He does this, first, in violation of all rules of Marxism and Leninism, and, second, in violation of the Thesis of the Sixth World Congress itself. The Sixth World Congress very definitely points to the general shrapening of the class struggle. It points out the sharp- ening of the internal antagonisms in the different capitalist countries and shows how this leads to the radicalization of the working masses everywhere. Since Lovestone cannot eliminate this specific feature from the Sixth World Congress Thesis, he at least makes it inopera- tive for America and denied its application on this point here. But the mere fact that he has to resort to that subterfuge should be con- clusive proof of Lovestone’s unwillingness to accept the thesis of the Sixth World Congress. The decisive point involved, however, can be brought out only with the aid of a Marxian analysis of the problems of the third period. Are the inner or the outer contradictions prevalent? This question can be answered only after we have a clear understanding of what the inner or outer contradictions are. As long as we do not fix their exact meaning, we cannot answer the question and these terms can be used to cover up almost anything. Therefore, what are the inner and what the outer contradictions of capitalism? | Capialism starts out with ont basic contradiction—the contradic- | tion between the abstract social aims and the concrete capitalist pur- poses of production. The abstract social aim of production is to satisfy the needs of society; the concrete capitalist purpose of pro- duction is profit. This capitalist aim of profit prevents the distribu- tion of products precisely in the instances where the social need for these products is greatest. This basic contradiction is the motive power of the class struggle. Out of this basic contradiction grows the contradiction between the interests of the workers on the one side and the capitalists on the other. Private ownership and control of the means of production and distribution is the form in which cap- italism forces its production for profit upon society. It forces the worker to sell his labor power on the market as a commodity. Out of this basic contradiction also grows the antagonism between groups of capitalists themselves, primarily in the form of a struggle for markets; competitive struggles of individual capitalists against each other in the earlier periods of capitalism, gigantic world wars for the procession of the world’s market in the later imperialist epoch of capitalism. All of these antagonisms and conflicts grow out o fthe basic and inherent contradiction of capitalism as stated before. The international right wing, and especially its American agents, the Lovestone clique, presuppose silently that the outer contradictions are the antagonisms and conflicts between imperialist groups and the inner contradictions are the antagonisms and conflicts between the -working class and the capitalist class. While for the sake of distinc- tion between these two manifestations of class struggle the terms of outer and inner contradictions may be acceptable, yet if used unqual- ifiedly, these terms became inacceptable when applied to the inter- pretation of the Sixth World Congress decisions. This incorrect dif- ferentation starts out with an already clearly perceivable wrong theory; that the class struggle is one thing and war another; according to this theory, certain forces in capitalist development may make for the one and not for the other. This is a fallacy. Although the revo- lution is the highest, yet a world war is as intense a form of class struggle as a world revolution. The difference between the two is that the class divisions in the war are unclear; that in the war, the class interests are most intricate; and that because of these intricacies the working class cannot see its real class interests in the war and is fighting against itself because one group of workers fights against the other group in the interests of their respective capitalists along national lines. In the revolution, on the other hand, the intricate class relations become more and more simplified, the class interests become clarified and the division of the battle line becomes a division along class lines. The struggle of the Communists against war is precisely the prob- lem of clarifying the class divisions and of simplifying the intricacies of the class antagonisms for the workers, thefeby turning the in- tricate and seemingly chaotic class struggle of an imperialistic world war into the mose clearly defined class struggle of a revolution. THE SALESMAN. By Ered Ellis U.S. British Rivalry Comes Into Open as Result of Hague SNOWDEN, LABOR FAKER, LEADS WAR MONGERS By PAT DEVINE. “Some day a statesman will arise who will repudiate the American debts—into which the all other debts run—but wil openly denounce. their injustice, and demand their cancellation. And if it is to be done some day, why not sooner than later?” So writes Alexander MacPher- son, British jingo in the Pittsburgh “Sunday Post” of September 8th ! in an article commending Philip Snowden, Labor Chancellor, for his | expression of “genuine national British feeling” at the Hague. The tone of the whole article is one of bitter attack upon Mr. Owen D. Young as the personification of U. S. Imperialism who is “as sly as Wall Street usually is” and a glorification of Mr. Snowden’s stand “as a wholesale and most welcome revolt against this state of things and as showing the country with a mind of its own. Even the humblest of us enjoy from time to time showing that we have a mind of our own and that we can say ‘Yoube damned!’ ” Continuing the article says “I had no doubt that Mr. Snowden’s resentment of the settlements (made by Mr. Baldwin during the last | months of his parliament) extended right back to the American set- tlements and that if he saw half a chance he would smash up that alongt Lwith the rest.” In discussing the Young Plan the leader writer says “it may be mere coincidence, but there is room for suspicion tha tthere is a good deal more in the fact that on each occasion the settlement reached was admirably contrived to suit American interests. On each occasion the plan projected was a conduit to ensure that the reparations should safely reach Washington.” To show that no illusions exist as to just what Snowden’s stand at the Hague meant the article continues: “When Mr. Snowden trounced the Young Plan to bits he was, of course, thoroughly well aware that it was an American plan he was smashing, and my own view of the incident is that it is not the preludetoa final settlement, but the first of the series of assaults on the whole bedevilling fabric of international debts originating in the war. . some plain speaking on that sub- ject is called for, and the day it is spoken from the right quarter will see the beginning of the end... .” BRITISH SUPREMACY AT STAKE. The article runs the whole gamut of Anglo-American rivalaries and should effectively smash those “optimists” who say that all talk of War Danger is only so much sabre rattling. When th Lovestonian Right Wing counter-revolutionaries call the August first demonstra- tion “adventurism” they openly assist the imperialists in their war preparations, and endeavor to blind the workers to the ever-increasing danger of another blood-bath. With one fell swoop the above article exposes the diplomatizing of the international capitalists. It shows that Britain was well aware of the purpose behind the many visits of American financial experts to Europe “for the purpose of stabilizing that continent and helping to overcome the depredations of the war.” The roll of Mr. Morgan, king pin of Wall Street is clearly shown even though his name is not mentioned. The U. S. perspective in visit- ing Europe is very well put when the leader writer says.......” on each occasion the plan projected was actually a conduit to ensure that the reparations would safely reach Washington.” The recognition by the British imperialists of the vastly superior resources of U. S. imperialism, alongside their British) determination to fight to the last ditch is pungently put in the. .. . “you be damned” ejaculation at the end of the praise of Snowden. Unquestionably the long delayed conflict between the two major imperialists is coming closer. The leading voices of U. S. imperialism are editorializing against any softenuing of the attitude of Uncle Sam towards Europe. The visit of Ramsey MacDonald to Washington is not the beginning of the end of all wars, but is a continuation of the shadow boxing that has been going on for some time. LABOR AGENTS OF IMPERIALISM. The role of MacDonald and Snowden, leaders of the British Labor | Party, stands out more closely Imperialistic than even the role of the late open capitalistic agents Baldwin and Chamberlain. Whilst not so organizationally powerful as their prototypes in Europe, the Socialist Party of the United States and the American Federationu of Labor are idealogically carrying on the same imperialistic game for their U. S. masters. When Mr. Green and Matthew Woll extol the virtues of the West Point military academy, and demand a Monroe Dostrine of Labor for Latin America they play the same game for American imperialism as MacDonald and Snowden play for British imperialism. In this period of increasing class antagonisms the capitalists re- quire a more subtle means of propaganda than the openly chauvinistic method of the big navy men. PACIFIST ILLUSIONS. Realizing that the international working class is no longer pre- pared to go into war for the defense of openly capitalistic interests the bosses are playing up the various peace plans like the Kellogg Pact and the League of Nations. They can depend upon Mr. Thomas of the Socialist Party and Mr. Green of the A. F. of L., together with the many pseudo liberal organizations, putting up an intensive cam- paign for them. By this method the working class is fooled into be- lieving tha tthe acceptance of such plans is a concession to “liberalism.” MOBILIZATION AGAINST SOVIET UNION. The real purpose of MacDonald’s visit is not so much liquidation of Anglo-Americanisms (he realizes this cannot be done without war) but the attempt to arrive at a temporary understanding with America, and the securing of American co-operation or agreement for the. cam- paign against the Soviet Union. The Social Democrats of all countries are showing themselves as the conscious exponents of capitalism as against Communism. They recognize in the present conflicst between Russia and the world imper- ialists a struggle between the working class and the employing class, and are using their connections with the labor moyement to delude the workers and lead them into the camp of capitalism. INTERNATIONAL RED DAY SUCCESSFUL. Standing out as a rousing challenge to the capitalists and their social democratic agents, the Socialist Party, the American Federation of Labor, the Lovestanites, and Trotskyites, etc., is the militancy of the workers expressed in the splendid response to the International Red Day Demonstrations sponsored by the Communist Party. In every country masses of workers rallied to the demonstrations, defied the polics and expressed their determination to Defend the Soviet Union and to fight against Imperialist War. ‘the Hague negouations, linked up with the visit to the United States of Ramsey MacDonald should very sharply bring before all class conscious workers the necessity of an intensification of the anti- imperialist activity, the sharpening of the fight against Social Dem- ocracy and the building up of a powerful political party. of the work- ing class that will challenge the rule of capitalism, the present war danger. This war danger presents itself not only in the forms of antagonisms between American and British imperailisms for instance, but also and even most strongly in the form of acute antagonisms between the capitalist world on the one hand and the proletarian power of the Soviet Union on the other. Here is a clear manifestation of the class struggle character of the war with very distinct and clearly drawn class lines. This makes it evident that a characterization of inner and outer contradictions as a differentiation between the class struggle and war does not solve the problem. Still more clear does the question become when we analyze the causes of the antagonisms and conflicts. The acute crisis in which the last world war had thrown capitalism presented to capitalist econ- omy with the tremendous problem of re-establishing its equilibrium. While the social democrats performed the treacherous service of sta- bilizing the political rule of capitalism the efforts of the tapitalists themselves were concentrated on the reorfanization of the economic forces. The result was a rapid increase of the intensity and produc- tivity of labor. This was affected by the process of rationalization. Rationalization led to an intensification of the exploitation of the workers and to a relative and positive deterioration of the conditions of labor. Its consequent result is a growing dissatisfaction among the working masses, a growing unrest, offensive struggles on the part of the masses against the results of capitalist rationalization and very evident radicalization of the workers. On the other hand, it was this very rationalization which, with the gradual reorganization of the productive forces of capitalism, has cre- Another clear example of the utter fallacy of a theory of basic ; ated the present war problem of imperialism. It has created the seem- ilfereniTstion between class struggle and war is the very nature of | H 4 — ingly inexhaustible fountain out of which an ever-increasing stream of 4 products flows upon the world’s markets; at the same time it restricts the indispensable markets first, because it saturates these markets more and more with commodities, and, secondly, because the very results of rationalization upon the working class decreases the relative buying power of the masses. Here we find a so-called internal contradiction, the radicalization of the masses, and a so-called external contradiction, the imperialist struggle for markets, flowing from the very same and identical cause: rationalization. The question naturally arises, is ration- alization itself an internal or is it an external contradiction? It is neither. It is simply one of those inherent contradictions of capitalism which make for class conflicts in one form and another. And the very fact that it m@kes for all forms of class conflicts makes it possible for the revolutionists to mobilize the masses for one form of class conflict as the onyl effective method of combatting the other form. Why does the renegade Lovestone attach :uch importance to this formula of “privacy of outer over inner contradictions”? Because he nas turned into an agent of the bourgeoise. He desires to do the treach- erous work of the bourgeoisie in the ranks of the Party by means of opportunist policies. The poison of pro-capitalist policies in the case of Lovestone is condensed into the harmless looking assertion that “the outer contradictions have primacy over the innter contradictions.” This formula allows a formal acceptance of the third period with an apparent special emphasis on the war danger and at the same itme supplies the excuse for not meeting the exigencies of the war preparations of impe- rialism in this third period with revolutionary action. The contradictions of capitalist economy lead to a new world war. The only revolutionary method to meet this imperialist war is the mobilization for the revolu- tionary class war. But, say the Lovestoneites, there is no basis for | tunism and social democracy. Translated by Brian Rhys MY 4 E L E Reprinted, by permission, from “I Saw It Myself” by Hearl Barbusse, — peblished aud copyrighted by E. P. Dutton & Co» Inoy New York. | And after a careful study of the Gospels, it is even permissible to think that the actual teaching of this suppressed Galilean was to some extent known and utilized by the Christian reformers. But every one of them was a Judas; in the use they made of him, they became his betrayers. His living word, so vital and so pure, was used as the prop and mainstay of an articifial creed, so contrary to the profound teaching of Jesus that he is made to say the very opposite of what he said and thought. So this man who said that everything proceeds from God. And having taught that no interceder stands between man and the Infinite, that man’s greatness proceeds and will proceed from man, that the social fabric cannot be built down- wards from above any more than we start with the roof in a building of stone, he is made into the great Interceder for the human race. * oe 8 fe is no longer possibl et osay, then, that he had been entirely for- gotten in the interval of time, since the relics of his thought were unearthed and dressed up in this fashion. The man who said: Do not unto others what you would not have them do unto yourselves, who only appealed to the profoundly vital and logical sentiment of fellowship and cooperation, was turned nit othe sentimental preacher of a kind of mild, utopian love. And there was something finer and nobler yet than the way in which the true humanity of Jesus triumphantly emerges out of the lies and misunderstandings of Christian ritual—which was that the humanity of Jesus himself (thus exhumed and set up in the heart of this mythology) was alone responsible for the extraordinary success of that religion. This Man God who wroked with his hands, who suffered and was persecuted by the rich and priests, was loved by the people, and they took over this religion for themselves. The poor fostered it with their own flesh and blood. They nevgg stopped to think that all this beauty was illusive, being built upon absurd foundations, for the same being cannot at once be god and man. A godwho made himself man would be nothing more than a sham, and his human sufferings mere impostures. “Man only is human.” The people are single-minded, simple at heart; when, rightly or wrongly, they think that they have found a figure or idea proportioned to themselves, as it were into that vessel. Pegs ange §° when the Gospels had been written, the new religion was taken over by the afflicted, the disinherited upon earth. The people of the world succeeded in making Christianity a living, triumphant truth. It was a mass and class movement. And thus Christianity was able to conquer ground in spite of the iniquity ofits fundamental tenets. But when the Church stepped into power, thanks to the masses, it denied and rejected them. It became a reactionary power in the State, and only stepped into the shoes of the Roman Empire by im- itating it slavishly. The true Jesus and those who resembled him became as strangers. For every believer, the bloodstained history of the Church is an outrage. And now, in our times, the same vast tragedy is being enacted once again. There is a world-wide upheavel, a movement towards a new organization of society. This movement is directed against the powerful mechanism of Established Order, against the voratity and cruelty of a Civilization which it tottering, giving signs of decline and decay like those apparent in the ancient world of that day. This movement is in the hands of the sweated and the oppressed. It will triumph under the sign of the hammer and sickle, as t hat other tri- umpred under the sign of the cross. But unlike the great Christian creed, it does not contain the germs of decay and death. It is not built upon dreams, on the super- natural, on clouds and on death; but on reason and on life, on laws which are as clear and unshaken as the laws which order the forces of nature herself. This time, therefore, in all ‘human likelihood, it w ill s ucceed— not merely triumph for a day, but stand for all future time in the place of the tenacious, oppressive rule of a parasitic order a nd i ts inseparable accomplice, the Church. s * (To be Continued) THE YOUTH AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT By CHARLES E. RUTHENBERG. (From the “Daily Worker” December, 1925.) The older generation in the trade unions is thoroughly imbued with the spirit of Gomperism. On the new generation of workers, which is just learning from bitter experiences the character of the existing system of exploitation, rests the hope of erecting a working class move- ment in which Gomperism will be succeeded by the spirit of class pride, and the consciousness that it is the destiny of the workers to ereate a new social order, that it is their task to take control of the productive forces of society, and so order and organize them that they will serve the interests of those who produce wealth in place of for the enrichment of a small class of exploiters. : The work of imbuing this spirit in the young workers who will be the militant fighting center of the working class movement tomorrow, is the task of the Young Workers (Communist) League. In directing the work of the League into these channels in an effort to reach and influence the young workers in industry, teaching them the necessity of their organizing to fight against the capitalists to make of them militant trade union fighters, the Young Workers (Communist) League is taking up one of the most important problems of the working class movement. It is through establishing contact with the young workers in industry, furnishing them with the spirit of class struggle against the master class, that the Young Workers (Communist) League will become a powerful force in the American labor movement. These tasks are now being taken up by the Young Workers (Com- munist) League in earnest. The work of establishing its influence has been begun. The future promises achievements and success, inspiring the fighting spirit in the young workers, and bringing them under the influence and leadership of the Young Workers (Communist) League. Our Party must give earnest and enthusiastic support to this work of the Young Workers (Communist) League. The task of spreading our ideas and our campaigns among the young workers has not been supported to the full extent that the Party is able to give support. We have not built the Young Workers League wherever there ar units of the Workers (Communist) Party. The energetic campaigns now being undertaken by the Young Workers (Communist) League must receive the full support of every Party unit. The Party members must study the proposals, organization plans, campaigns initiated by the Young Workers (Communist) League and devise ways and means of aiding them in carrying out the campaigns. such mobilization. “The internal developments of capitalism do not make for radi ation. There is too much prosperity in America.” This prosperity stands in the way of sharpening inner conflicts, It makes only for outer conflicts. This is Lovestone’s theory, Lovestone’s formulae denies the all-around ripening influence of imperialism in general, and imperialism of the third period in, particu- Jar upon all of the factors making for the proletarian revolution. It admits these influences only upon the foreign relations of the capitalist governments and thereby approaches Kautskyism which contends that capitalism meets the problems of its inherent iontradictions with the development of a super-imperialism. Under this super-imperialism the chaos of capitalist production is met by organization, and the danger of war is no longer an inevitable outgrowth of this chaos, but the result- of ba dstatesmanship—which problem, according to Kautsky, socialist ministers will solve. These Lovestoneian formulations are purely social democratic. The outer contradictions do not have primacy over the inner, nor do tthe inner have primacy over the outer contradictions, The third period is a period of the sharpening of the class struggles on the whole front. To give primacy to any specific manifestation of this rapid sharpening process means to disregard the correlation of these processes; it means an inability or unwillingness to co-relate activities and tactics in meet- ing the exigencies of these processes; it means a false line and inef- fective methods and tactics in the struggle. The persistent insistence on the part of Lovestone and the international right of which he is an integral part is not merely a mistake but it is a line in itself. It is a line contrary to the needs of the present hour. It is the line of oppor- ; : {) i Pea