The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 16, 1929, Page 4

ee Published by the Comprodally Pu hing Co., Inc., t Sunday, at 26-28 Union dy SPOy peeps in PON Res sz oa SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Four Square, New York City, N. Y. Telephone Stuyve Cable: “DAIWORK.” Baily Workers \ = By Mail (in Néw York only): $8.00 a year; $450 six months; $2.50 three months Addrers and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, Square, New York, = 2 a By Mail (outside of New York): $6.00 a year; $3.50 six months; $2.00 three months C. 1 Organ of the Communist Party of the U. 8. A. The Economic and Political Situation in U.S. and Tasks of the Communist Party Thesis Adopted by the Central Executive Committee Plenum, October 6-8 By Fred Ellis. | WHEN THIEVES FALL OUT. OF BREAD Reprinted, by permission, from “The City of Bread” by Alexander Neweroff, published and copyrighted by Doubleday—Dora: sae TRANSLATED FRO? THE RUSSIAN (Continued from Page Three) revolutionary movement in India despite the efforts of the British bourgeoisie in the Meerut trial to suppress the struggle of the workers | and peasants, and is still further attested by growing r tance of the | toiling masses of Latin-America against the invasion U. S. capital | (the strike movements in several Latin-American countries reaching the point of mass revolt in Colombia, the ggle of the mass: ainst the Yankee dominations in Cuba, the revolutionary movements in Nic- aragua, Venezuela, and growth of new forms of the Latin-American | working class movement (Latin-American Confederation Labor), . R., which is one of the main factors tion and which is revolutionizing the working cl pidly with the suce: of th tion and especially Social figures of the first y mate previously giver (Continued) GAIN the mujiks in the street were talking about Tashkent, letting maximum esti- he uninterrupted productive week (in w off) gives "~ their thoughts play about the city that none had even seen, picturng possibility of accomplishing and has | its vineyards, teasing their fancy with stories of two kinds of wheat strikingly dem ed th Right op- | growing at once. position w Soviet U | Prices were low. A paradise! But getting there was hard: you had | to have a ticket, you had to have a pass. SECTION II. | That did not trouble Mishka. THE THIRD PERIOD IN THE U.S. A. ! As in a fairy tale it stood before him—Tashkent, the City of | Bread. Vineyards—Oho! Easy to cram your pockets full of apricots. American capitalism is not isolated from the sharply accentu- If you crawled along on your belly, no one would see you. ated is of world capitalism. American capitalism is an integral part | The mujiks sai dit was very hote there—you don’t breathe—but | of the world capitalist system; and, having become the world’s economic center of gravity, is not and cannot be exempted from the effects of the inexorable laws of the decline and the downfall of capitalist society. But on the contrary this becomes one of the powerful factors accentu- | ating this general crisis. The Pepper-Lovestone theory of exceptionalism, according to which there is a crisis of world capitalism, excepting American capitalism, a radicalization of the masses, excepting those in the United States, a general necessity of struggle against social reformism, except in America, a task of struggle against the Right danger, except in the American Party, has been completely proven false by the whole course of events which show that the United States becomes ever more deeply involved in the general crisis of world capi- talism. that didn’t frighten Mishka either. Certainly there must be rivers there, as here. And where there were rivers, you could always go swimming. ’ When Serioshka began to talk about the Kirghiz that they must pass on the way, even then Mishka did not lose his courage. “Well, aren’t the Kirghiz people too? What is there to be afraid of 2” “But perhaps they aren’t people at all. ..?” “We'll see when we get there. Every one talks such a lo tof non- sense these days.” * * * VER the fields silence. High in the blue heavens larks were singing. Nearer earth stretched the buzzing telegraph wires, advancing from pole to pole in long-drawn-out ranks. Beyond the poles was the sta- | j tion, at the station—the train. Mishka had seen it twice, when he had The index figures of the Federal Reserve Board shows the volume |] ponding with the increased quantity of energy extracted from the | been to Samara with his father. A curious affair! It stretches along of industrial output ni the first period of 1929 as 117 to 122 per cent, | worker by rationalization. The additional expenditure of labor power | for a hundred yards, smoke comes out of the chimney, it is heated like the figures of 1923 to 1925 being taken as a basis. Foreign trade demands a corresponding additional supply of energy for the workers | a stove, it blows a whistle. shows the contniued growth of import and export. (Foreign trade in the form of a raised living standad. In many instances, this addi- Mishka was wearing his father’s coat, belted in with a soldier’s in the first five months of 1929 was as follows: tional expenditure of energy of the workers cannot be replaced at all | leather belt. He swung his stick as he walked along. Over his should- and simply contributes to the shortening of their lives. Not only have | ers was slung the pood sack with the other sack, made of his mother’s All of the main features of the third period of the post war cris of capitalism as revealed in the analysis of the Sixth Congress of the Communist International, are manifesting themselves—some of them even more sharply than elsewhere—in the present situation in the United States. These features include the rapid development of tech- nique, the growth of the productive forces, the accelerating growth of combines and trusts, the increasing tendency toward state capitalism, the increasing contradiction between the rapidly growing productive 1928 1929 Surplus wage rates not increased, but save for small sections of skilled organ- | red smock, inside. In the red sack was a tin cup, the rag with salt fi s and the much more slowly developing markets, the struggle for si ized kers hi tually (declined in’ sadist fier dndunt fb 'd baked h h 4 rad - He 4 a orce: vly dev 5 r we Si 3 . 7. | ized workers have actually declined in industry after industry. a piece of bread baked with grass, and his grandmother's old skirt that sources of raw materials, the intensifying rationalization, enormous | Import Export Surplus Import Export Imp. Exp. | he was taking along to aall th the city. 5 (structural) unemployment, the growing class antagonisms and conse- | January ......338 411 - 73 369 488 119 | 10. The further development of agricultural machinery (tractors At his side trotted Serioshka, barefoot. Big mujik sandals and quent sharpening of the class struggle, the obviously accelerating pro- | February ....351 371 20 369 442 73 | combines, cotton sled, corn husking machine, ete.), while sharply limited | Jong women’s stockings dangled down over his shoulders. Two tightly cess of radicalization of the working class, the intensification of the | March 380 421 41 384 490 116 | in application by the inability of finance capital to overcome the anarchy | yolled sacks were made fast to the sandals. international antagonisms and the consequent feverish preparations | April +345 364 20 409 427 18 | inherent in capitalist farming, is yet exerting a disproportionately As they went along they made a pact that neither would abandon for a new imperialist war. | May ...s0eee.854 423 69 401 387 14 | ieee influence in intensification of labor on the farms, and in thus | the other. If one fell ill ,the other would look after him. And what an ae Bs eh Bs lowering the living standards of the agrarian toiling masses, both wage one received would be shared by both. The rapidity of growth of the productive forces Dee Total ..... ..1,768 1,990 223 1,932 2,934 14 326 | laborers and small “independent” producers. The penetration of finance u outdistances that of any other capitalist country. When the little station came into sight, Serioshka said: the socialist economy in the U.S.S.R. successfully challenges the rate of growth of the productive forces of American capitalism.* * Comparative figures of the first half of 1929 concerning basic products illustrates this. PRODUCTION OF STEEL, PIG IRON AND COAL (For the first half of 1929) (NOTE: The figures are expressed as a percentage of the first six months of 1928 taken as 100.) Steel Pig Iron Coal Import Export United States «6417.1 116.8 106.8 112.2 110.5 | Europe (without -R.) 108.0 103.3 104.5 100.5 102.4 World (without U.S.S.R.) 112.8 109.9 105.5 103.9 102.2 MURS els) ose ct ocnesecees 113.3 122.8 113.7 75.9 122.0 6. The continued and accelerated growth of concentration and centralization of capital exemplified in the recent merger of the giants Standard Oil and Vacuum Oil and of the National City Bank and the Corn Exchange Bank and of many others; the growing economic ex- pansion and the aggressiveness of American capitalism, especially in the Latin-American countries, are typical features of the third period of the crisis of post war capitalism. These features are more obvi- ously demonstrated here because of the unequal developmnt of Amer- ican capitalism compared with other capitalist countries and because of the characteristic historical features of American capitalism. But | they cannot be considered as something peculiar to American capitalism anly, nor can they be claimed as signs of an independent devolopmet of American capitalism, differing in its nature from the development of the disitegrating capitalist world. On the contrary, because of the very intensity of the economic developments of American capitalism, all the fundamental contradictions of the present crisis of world cap- italism express themselves in many respects even more sharply here | than in other parts of the capitalist world. The very rapidity of growth of the productive forces in the United States becomes in it- self a powerful factor for the intensification and acceleration of the general crisis of capitalism. As a result, American capitalism reproduces most sharply the funda- mental contradiction of the third period—the disproportion between the growth of the productive forces and the market. Thus the prob- lem of the market does not only not disappear, as the international opportunists maintain, but it actually dominates the economy and the policies of American imperialism. The effects of this main contra- diction manifest themselves in all sections of American economy. Even now the productive capacity of American industry as a whole exceeds actual production by from 20 to 25 per cent, while in basic industry this disproportion is far higher. The permanent agarian crisis and | the structural unemployment which diminish the buying capacity of | the toiling masses widen the gulf between production and the markets. No tonly wil the so-called Farm Relief Bill not diminish the agarian crisis nor help the small farmers but being a financial aid from the State to big capital it will accelerate the further penetration of finance- capital into agriculture, impoverishing the small producers with the consequent elimination of large numbers of farmers from the land, and thus hastening the domination of finance capital in agriculture with its consequent accentuation of the crisis. From a country mainly exporting materials and agricultural pro- | duce, the United States has more and more become an exporter of manufactured goods and an importer of raw materials. Between 1920 and 1928, manufactured goods grew from 51.5 per cent of the total exports to 70 per cent. By means of high protectionism embodied in the new tariff bill, American capital attempts to squeeze out of the | internal market all foreign competitors. The effects of the same con- | tradiction in Europe and the consequent intensification of competition of the European countries in the European markets, the dropping out from the world capitalism system of ‘the whole enormous market of the Soviet Union caused the diminution of United States experts | to European countries and the deflection of the mainstream of exports to colonial and semi-colonial countries. But there, too, American cap- ital faces the same problem of restricted markets caused by the de- velopment of capitalism in these colonial countries, and the growing pauperization of the peasant masses. It is this main contradiction of the third period which precipitates American capitalism toward an armed clash for the redivision of world’s markets—toward a war against the Soviet Union, or a new inter-imperialist war. This funda- mental contradiction is also the mainspring of the furiously accelerated rationalization. Both of these dominating features of the present sit- uation in the United States—the feverish war preparations and the ruthless rationalization, are inseparable and mutualy interwoven con- sequences of the same fundamental capitalist contradiction. The present ecopomic situation in the United States contains certain elements of “hoch conjunktyg’”’ (business boom) of capitalism, such, as the growth of the productive forces, as indicated above, the (GP vization and concentration of capital and rapid new accumulation, - | 4,839 millions ni the corresponding period of 15 But side by side with these,elements of a “hoch conujnktur” (business boom) the present economic situation in the United States also shows the clear features of an economic crisis. The crisis begins in the steel industries and found already its expression in the con- siderable fall in stock exchange values. In the automobile industry, now one of the most important American industries consuming not less than 25 per cent of the total steel production in the country, the signs of over production can be clearly observed. Production of autos is 52 per cent greater in the first six months of 1929 than in the cor- responding period of 1928. The over-production of: oil has reached a point where it became the occasion for a conference of state governors who looked for a remedy. The building industry is declining visibly and has reached already a reduction of 9.5 per cent since last year. The chronic agrarian crisis has reached a new point of acuteness. The fall in capital issues is outstanding. From 5,067 million dol- lars in the first six months-of 1927 and 5,681 million dollars in 1928 to Particularly clearly is the immediate pre-crisis situation registered in the wild rush of stock speculation in Wall Street nad the present condition of the money market. The disparity of growth of productive forces and markets and the resulting crisis of capitalism finds another mani- festation in the foct that such commodity productions as, for instance, cotton goods, shoes, etc., which are intended primarily for mass con- sumption do not share at all in the “hoch conjunktur” (business boom). All of these facts lead to the inevitable conclusion that the present economic situation in the United States is that we are before a break in the curve of “hoch conjunktur,” in the beginning of a pre-cr situation. 8. The coming of an economic is will immediately sharpen the contradictions inherent in American capitalism, will lead interna- tionally in an acentuation of the general crisis of world capitalism, sharpen acutely the war danger, intensity the class struggle, hasten the fascisation of the State (fusing of employers’ organizations and reformist trade union apparatus with the bourgeois State). The ef- forts to‘overemoe the crisis by throwing the burden upon the shoulders of the working class (wage cuts, unemployment, breaking down of living standards) will speed up the radicalization of the working clsas and lead to a perspective of big class battles. SECTION III. Rationalization. 9. In an endeavor to overcomethe contradictions with which it is confronted the American bourgeoisie resort to methods of intensive exploitation of labor in the form of rationalization. $ Contrary to the conception of the opportunists of rationalization as being only the mechanization and simplification of the processes of production, rationalization is not a historically progressive but a reac- tionary method of intensifying exploitation, of the working masses, a hopeless attempt of the bourgeois to extricate themselves from the contradictions of the capitalist method of production. By the stretch-out, speed-up, conveyers, group piece-work, raising man-mile averages, etc., rationalization increases the rate of exploita- tion. The immediate effect of the rationalization and the mechaniza- tion of labor is a rapidly increasing economic insecurity of the work- ers. The permanent army of the unemployed grows by leaps and bonuses. The development of so-called new industries (auto, rayon, ete.), are not exempt from nor do they change this process, but on the contrary furnish the most highly developed form of it. This army in turn supplies the basis for the most determined attacks on the part of the capitalist class on the wage and living standards of the workers. It also leads to a premature ageing of the workers. It is accompanied by a marked tendency to increase the use of youth and women workers. As a result of the simplification of labor the number of youth in industry is increasing daily. The youth is suffering even more from capitalist rationalization than the adult worker and is therefore becoming more and more ready to take an active role in the struggle against rationalization (Gastonia, New Bedford, etc.), The simplification of the processes of production gradually but inevit- ably robs masses of skilled workers of the value of their skill, throw- ing them down to the devel of semi and unskilled workers ,thus power- fully aiding the development of homogeniety in the American pro- letariat, At the same time, diminishing the differences between skilled and unskilled, reducing the wages of the skilled workers towards the gen- eral level, and so undermining the economic basis of the Labor Aris- tocracy, a development which reduces relatively and positively the num- ber of skilled workers in industry, raises a number of skilled workers into the categery of technical personnel. undermines the base of social reformism in the United States, The very process of intensification of lor is a mechanical de- terioration of the living standards of the wee, if not accompanied by wage inreases corresponding to the increaSe of productivity or out- put, or if not accompanied by a decrease of the working hours « This whole process gradually | capital into agriculture proceeds in the main not upon the basis of developing technique (industrialization, mechanization) but upon its control and manipulation of the market and marketing facilities where- by the small “independent” producers are forced into bankruptcy and either forced off the farms or brought under the sway of finance capi- tal in the form of martgage indebtedness rather than that of industrial- ization, large scale production, etc. Due to the limitation of capitalist property relationships, technical progress in agriculture is impossible in any degree approaching that for which the material, technical and scientific possibilities exist. Capitalist rationalization on the farms, even as in industry, becomes primarily a process of the intensification of labor, while the development of the machine process plays an even more subordinate role. SECTION IV. Radicalization of the Working Masses in the U. S. 11. The sharply outlined radicalization of the international work- ing class, singled out b ythe Tenth Plenum as the new feature of the world situation ,since the Sixth World Congress, has clearly shown itself also in the United States. In the United States, radicalization is caused by the worsening conditions of the working class resulting from rationalization, by the ruthless fight against the workers’ movement, against strikes, against the Communist Party, carried on by the com- bined forces of the state apparatus, the apparatus of the American Federation of Labor (aided by their henchmen, the “left” social re- formists), in ever closer alliance with the employers’ organizations and with the bourgeois state. The situation in the United States is char- acterized by a deepening of class antagonisms in general; and in parti- cular, the antagonism towards finance capital of the farmers ruined by the broadening of the front of the class struggle, by the tendency of the development of local struggles into mass struggles; by the par- ticipation more and more in the struggle of the unorganized workers, especially the women workers, of the youth and above all, of Negro proletarians; by the fact that strikes of the workers take place without the reformist unions and against the will of the reformist trade union apparatus, strikes in which the workers show themselves ready to ac- cept the leadership of the Communist Party; by the sharp form of the struggles of the working class, by the growing tendency of develop- ment of economic struggles of the proletariat into political struggles. In the United States, class battles are growing over from the bourgeois offensive to the proletarian counter-offensive ,and partly to direct offensive struggles. In appreciating radicalization, it is necessary to start with the historic backwardness of the proletarian movement and the previous level of the revolutionary struggle in the United States, and not with a mechanical comparison with that which appears in cer- tain European countries. The process of radicalization in the United States has already shown itself in a clear form in a whole series of labor struggles, and by a wave of strikes now developing (food workers’ strike, needle trades, miners, truckmen, tunnelmen, bus drivers in and around New York; smelterers, New Jersey; automobiles, Detroit; shoe ; Boston and New York; the sharp and bitter battles in New Orleans, Marion, N. C., Elizabethton, and Gastonia), which exhibit the character- istics inumerated above. The radicalization has furthemore been dem- onstrated by the participation of over 100,000 workers on International Red Day, by the sharp former struggles and by the extension of the demonstrations into localities where for a long time there had beer no demonstration of the masses, and by the T.U.U.L. Convention with its proof that the workers understand the need of new forms of organiza- tion and with its large delegation from the basic industries and with its splendid militancy as well as by the revival of struggle inside the old unions on the part of the rank and file. INDUSTRIALIZATION OF THE SOUTH 12, The theoreticians, propagandists and apologists of the Amer- ican capitalist class are loudly singing the praises of the present “pros- perity” in order to drown the cry of misery arising from the growing exploitation and grinding poverty of the masses. This is especially illustrated in the industrial development of the South which is heralded as a source of new life for American capitalism, as a new “industrial” revolution,” but means in reality the laying of a stronger base for the proletarian revolution in the United States. The industrialization of the South is accompanied by the proleta- vianization of large masses. It takes place under the most modern system of production, the most intensive rationalization, and notoriously miserable wages and conditions of labor. Within an incredibly short time, the number of looms assigned to one worker in a southern textile mill was more than doubled and in some instances reaches the number 110. The wages range up to $9.00 weekly for women and $12.00 for men, with a working week ranging from 60 to 72 hours, The struggle in the South symbolized by Gastonia is the best proof of the growing radicalization, of the working class in the third period, The struggles in the South resulting from the industrialization process with its bitter exploitation through rationalization spread from local conflicts to general mass struggles, from economic struggles to political lowering the standard of life on the farms. - ibd (Zo be congluded in tomorrow'e Daily Workerde “Look, Mishka, I see smoke. Isn’t that our train?” Mishka shaded his eyes with his hand. “Every train is ours now. Whichever we reach first, that one we will take.” “Are there many?” “Twenty or so.” “You'll go first?” “Uh-huh!” Serioshka smiled. “But I’m not afraid, either. See how many versts we've gone al- ready, and my feet aren’t tired yet. Shall we count the yards as we go?” “My steps arelonger than yours.” “Tl take longer steps too.” “There’s no need to hurry—you'll only get tired quicker,” Mishka advised him. They sat down on a hummock to rest, and undid the rags with the salt, and spread them out on the grass. “T have more salt than you,” Serioshka said. “But what about bread?” “Mamma put in four potatoes.” “Potatoes aren’t filling, you must have bread.” “Where shall I get it?” Mishka frowned. In his sack lay a piece of grass bread. It would be fine if Serioshka had one too. Then both would have the same. But this way it wasn’t fair. Three bites, and only half would be left. “Why didn’t you take a little bread along?” Serioshka lay on his belly and sucked at the grass blades. His eyes darkened, his upper lip began to quiver, he gazed in the direction where they had left the village behind them—you couldn’t even see the cupola of the church any longer . . . all around only fields and telegraph poles. If you did turn back-syou couldn’t reach the village before evening. Mishka felt sorry for his comrade. He remembered the pact to help one another and broke off a piece of the bread. “Here! You can give it. back when we get to the station. Think I care about a piece of bread?” Serioshka was silent. He could have eaten up more than a pound, and Mishka gave him only a little crumb. If nothing was given them at the station, they would have to wait till morning. If they got nothing in the morning, they would have to wait till evening again. He looked in the direction of the village once more and sighed, “What are you sighing about?” “T just sighed.” “Are you afraid?” “Afraid? Wha is there to be afraid of?” “You couldn’t get back now before night anyway. wolves would jump out at you...” Serioshka looked all about him, and’ Mishka began to torment him with ghastly tales: “When you get to the Yefimov Gulch—thieves lie in wait there at night. A little while ago they stole a horse from a mujik and nearly killed him into the bargain.” Serioshka jumped up from where he was lying, then sat down cross-legged, and looked fearfully at his comrade. “How many days can you go without eating?” asked Mishka. “And you?” i “Oh, three days .. .” Serioshka sighed. “IT can’t go more than two.” “And how long can you go without water?” “A day.” “That’s not much. I can go for a day and another half-day more.” When they had left the hummock behind them, Serioshka announced, quite unexpectedly: “I can go for a day, then a little more, too.” At night the (To be Continued) ership being assumed by the Communist Party as well as by the treach- erous and social fascist character of the A. F. of L. bureaucracy. The industrialization of the South, glorified by the apologists of capitalism has extended the battlefields of the class struggle into the South and has generated class battles of a frequency and intensity hardly equaled in the history of the American working class. The struggles in the South likewise show the rapid recovery of the workers from defeat and the determination to overcome the biter exploitation of rationalization (Elizabethton), At the same time the material basis for a decided leftward swing of the toiling farmers, who are still ideologically influenced by the petty bourgeois “Farm Bloc” politicians, is being created by the chronic agrarian crisis which further impoverishes the poor and middle farmers,