The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 6, 1929, Page 4

Unacceptable--Even As a Gift. ee Rome ws fave be pb te kent tree Having received a mailed receipt and the counter-revolutionary, so-called “Revolutionary Age,” the receipt purporting to show that I have subscribed to this lying sheet, I hereby wish to state that I never had and have not now anything to do with these renegades from Communism. I denounce this attempt to frame me up, and their cestructive counter-revolutionary schemes. wea (Signed) ALEX KORN. The Trade Union Policy of the Communist Party By JACK STACHEL Qne of the comrades at the recent plenum of the Central Committee hegan his remarks “on the Trade Union Report with the following statement: FOR THE FIRST TIME IN SEVEN YEARS I AM IN AGREEMENT WITH THE TRADE UNION POLICY OF THE PARTY. This comrade was referring particularly to the Party policy of building new unions. He no doubt thought that this statement of his would bring a general rejoicing and thunderous applause on the part of the Central Committee. But what this comrade really did and it was so understood by the Central Committee was to state that he does not understand the present Trade Union Policy of the Party and fur- thermore that he does not understand the real meaning of the third period of post war capitalism. This comrade in other words maintains that Kucherism (or as,it was known internationally at the time Schumacherism) which was condemned by the 4th Congress of the Communist: International was correct and that the Comintern and the Red International of Labor Unions were wrong. It is worth while to mention for those who do not remember or who were not in the Party during this period that Kucher who was the leader of the then termed “dual unionism” tnedency never retreated and was finally expelled from the Party. To confuse the present position of the Comintern an‘ the RILU with Kucherism is to substitute a petty bourgeois secterian policy for a Leninist policy. The Party policy on the trade union work was in the main correct during that period. When the Party really began to have a right wing policy on the trade union work was immediately prior to and particu- larly after the 4th Congress of the RILU when the Party did not see the changes that have taken place thruout the world and in the United | States, in particular with reference to the importance of the unorgan- jzed and the role of the American Federation of Labor. Up to that time the Party merely deviated from time to time from the correct policy laid down by the Comintern and the RILU and which this comrade was bitterly opposed to. | What is the basis for the new line in our trade union work, In order to answer this question correctly it is necessary to bear in mind the main manifestations of the present third period of post war capi- | talism, the changes in the composition of the working class, the trans- formation of social democracy into social fascism, the growing to- gether of the reformist trade union apparatus with the state, etc, This does not mean that prior to this period there were not situations in whole countries or in given industries within a country where new vnions were both necessary and possible. But to put the question as our friend did at the plenum is to betray a iailure to understand we new period. The present period of post war capitalism is the period of the liqui- dation of capitalist stabilization. We are before a new revolutionary situation. The growth of the radicalization of the masses is already. the beginning of the oncoming of the new revolutionary tide in the labor movement. Capitalism knows that it is approaching this phase of its crisis ,and is making every effort to solve it thru an offensive at home (rationalization, wage cuts, etc.) and preparations for another imper- jalist slaughter, first and foremost an attack against the Soviet Union. Rationalization an dthe extensive introduction of machinery in the past period has brought about a change in the composition of the working . class. .In the United States millions of young workers, women, and Negroes are being and have been drawn into the process of production, Millions of workers who were formerly skilled workers are today in the ranks of the semi-skilled and unskilled. The A. F, of L. has been reduced from a mass organization of 5,000,000 including large sections in the basic industries (mining, transport, metal, etc.) into an organ- ization of no more than 2 million, mainly skilled workers—the aristo- cracy of labor. The A. F. of L. has given up every pretense of being a class organization and has become openly the inaugurator and execu- tor of the rationalization and speed-up plans of the employers in com- mon with the engineers and technicians. The A. F. of L. has become an open appendix to the bourgeois state apparatus in the attacks | against the workers and in the preparations for imperialist war. The A. F. of L. bureaucracy is the deadly enemy of the Soviet Union. The A. F. of L. today enters into the struggles of the workers on the side of the employers in order to defeat the workers. The A. F. of L. fights against every attempt of the unorganized in the basic industries to organize. The A. F. of L. fights every attempt of the young and women workers to become organized. The A. F. of L, fosters white chauyinism, and persecution of the foreign born, The A. F. of L. has become purely an organization of the aristocracy of labor fighting on the side of the bosses and the government against the workers. The masses are moving to the left. There is a growing activity among the unorganized. The unskilled and semi-skilled who are prac- tically all unorganized have become the decisive force in the working class. It is impossible to capture the trade union apparatus of the A. F. of L. This apparatus is part of the capitalist machinery of oppression of the working class. It is all this that forms the basis for the present policies of the RILU thruout the world and place on the order of the day the organiza- tion of new unions in the United States where 90 per cent of the work- ers are unorganized. What is the danger in the viewpoint expressed by this comrade at the plenum? First of all this comrade does not understand the third period and therefore does not understand the changes that have taken place. His approach to the question of building new unions cannot therefore be the same as that of the RILU. His approach will be the eld secterian “dual unionist” approach. This comrade will become frightened at the first defeat, at the first difficulty because to him the policy of building new unions does not flow from the present period of the oncoming of the revolutionary tide in the labor movement. Second- ly, this comrade will not apply the new forms and methods which are indispensable in the present period. He will not realize the importance of the unorganized, of the formation of shop committees, committees of action. He will not understand the necessity for a struggle against ali forms of bureaucratism. He will not understand the importance of the development of the initiative of the masses. And finally this com- yade will not understand the importance of the struggle against all brands of social reformism. He will not understand the importance and the possibility of converting every partial struggle into a general strug- gle and every economic strike into a political struggle. And certainly he will not understand the necessity for intensifying ning away of the masses in these unions (a large number of whom are daily being robbed of their skill) to the policies of the Red Unions. ’ In a word unless this comrade revises his position and really tries he will continue to live in the past. He will not succeed to organize the messes. unions and not revolutionary industrial unions. methods of organization and will not develop the mass struggles of the workers. The resolutions of the 4th Congress of the RILU and the resolu- tion on the Economie Struggles adopted by the 10th Plenum of the ECCI, as well as the Trade Union Resolution of the Party Plenum and be studied and mastered by every Party member. Furthermore, the decisions of the Sixth World Congress and the 10th Plenum should be studied by every Party member. Only the thorough understanding of the present period will guarantee that our trade union work as well as » all our mass work will proceed on the correct revolutionary line. Just as the Party must carry on a struggle against the liquidatory position of Lovestone and Cannon who are more and more adopting the standpoint of the Musteites so must the Party carry on a struggle i this Kucherism which still finds an echo in our ranks. Nothing #, of the Leninist policy of the Cgnmunist International will guar- ‘success in our trade union w tk, : 4 to understand the present Party trade union policy and the basis of it | the Program adopted at the Cleveland Convention of the TUUL must | LIVE N.Y. CHAMBER | COMMERCE | Southern Fascism Meets Resistance By Mai! (in New York only): $8. By Mail (outside of,New York): SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $2.50 three months $4.50 six months: $2.00 three months 00 a year: $3.50 six months; $6.00 a year; By Fred Ellis. By BILL DUNNE, Open fascism has been legalized, especially in Gaston County and likewise in Cabarrus County, by the failure of the state through its grand jury to bring in an indictment against the murderers of Ella May in Gaston County, the songstress of working class revolt in the south- ern textile industry, and by the dismissal of charges against the kid- nappers and floggers of Saylors, Wells and -Lell in Cabarrus County. In Gaston County there exists now a regime of murder. It is openly stated in Manville-Jenckes circles that organizers caught in Gaston County will be shot. The spirit of the workers, however, has not been broken. Already a shop bulletin has been published and distributed in the Loray mill and throughout Gastonia since the convictions. The most reactionary section of the capitalist press is jubilant over the hard-boiled attitude shown by the mill owners and their hangers-on and it compliments highly such outstanding hypocrites as Solicitor Car- penter and Governor Gardner, the latter of this precious couple wait- ing until the grand jury had failed to bring in an indictment to offer a $400 reward for the conviction of the murderers of Ella May. SHOWED THEIR HAND. But even in their jubilation, because of the crass manner in which capitalist justice was forced to operate to protect its fascigt policies, there is to be discerned a note of dissatisfaction. The Charlotte Ob- server, for instance, on October 26th states, in speaking of the Ella May case: “Yet there was a difference that in the Mrs. Wiggins case, the elements of conspiracy would have been more difficult to establish, as, in this instance, it was simply mob insanity that dominated. It is only this difference that might have prevented the law operating in the case of Mrs. Wiggins as it had operated in the case of Aderholt. For all that and for anything that might be said by anyone who would be inclined to defend the grand jury finding, THE OUTCOME QF THIS PARTICULAR INVESTI- GATION WILL BE CAUGHT UP AS MORE FUEL TO THE COMMUNIST AGITATORS.” (My emphasis.) So carelessly has the new southern capitalism and its state exposed itself, not only in the whitewashing of the murderers of Ella May, but in the trial of Fred Beal, Louis McLaughlin, Clarence Miller, Joseph Harrison, George Carter, K. Y. Hendryx, Wm. M. McGinnis, and the vicious sentences amounting to life imprisonment handed out to them, that even certain middle class elements are becoming more outspoken. For nstance, in an open letter to Governor Gardner, officers of the Na- tional Housewives, the Women’s Progressive League and the Interna- tional New Alliance, make the following statement: “Taking into consideration that Clyde R. Hoey, state prose- is related to you; that you are a mill owner; that Major inkle, state prosecutor, is also a special attorney for the mills; the verdict was to be expected.” The Raleigh News and Observer, more “left” and therefore more conscious of the weapon that new southern capitalism has placed in the | hands of our Party by the class verdicts states (Oct. 25): the work of the Communist opposition in the old unions and the win- | He will at best if at all build the old narrow secterian dual | He will use the old | “A half dozen wild-eyed Communists came preaching that all capital is the brutal, relentless enemy of all labor, that the organized state with its system of laws and justice is the chief tool of capitalism. Some of us went crazy with fear. “What are we going to do if a great part of our population, overworked, underpaid, and underprivileged folks of little learn- ing, little imagination but good memory for wrong, recalling the striking contrast of state action in Gaston County, conclude that these wild-eyed radicals were right? “What is the state going to do about it then “More important, what is the state going to do about it now?” What is to be especially noted here besides the admission of the manner in which capitalist democracy has exposed itself before the workers as a class instrument, is the suggested proposals which, taken in connection with other editorial utterances, indicate the launching of a campaign for certain forms of c#mpany unionism together with the introduction in the first legislative session of a criminal syndicalism law. FOR OPPRESSIVE LAW. While the Charlotte Observer, the Gastonia Gazette, the Charlotte | News are more open advocates of suppressive legislation, there is nevertheless to be observed practical unanimity in all the press for a law similar to the California syndicalism law, ani only recently the Charlotte Observer urged the adoption of the California criminal syn- dicalism law as written with only such formal changes as would make it legal in North Carolina. The Atlanta Constitution in a recent issue stated editorially that “the Communists would find it dangerous to | | advocate their program in the South” The Southern Textile Bulletin, the organ of the mill owners, announces, after a long denunciation of the Communists, that “they cannot be bought.” The mill owners would like to have the United Textile Workers’ Union save them. But the murdeg of six workers in Marion, where the U. T. W. had secured a small base, and the wounding of many more after a strike had broken out following the usual formal and treacherous settlement by U. T. W. officials, kas convinced the more intelligent mill owners that the mass of mill workers cannot and will not be defeated by the A. F. of L. lead- crs, that cnce organization is secured, the struggle takes on rapidly a militant and political character. INTENSE EXPLOITATION, In previons articles we have emphasized the al oi (the stretch-out process) and the thrrible co : 0 bigns, Aeptorimesting tn, many sec! we intensity of ration- working me nd living | cisive stratum of labor aristocracy in the machinized industries—cot- | masses, but is actually being broken down in mass struggles. | the first time November 7th Anniversary Celebrations will be held in | the South. This in itself indicates that the struggle of the southern | much camouflage necessary? | leave out, by what he chooses to emphasize, by his judgment of rela- | tive values in the Soviet system, we can trace the full program of in China and the starved workers of India, and the absence of a de- ton, textile, rayon, chemical, ete——on which new southern capitalism is based. The rapid rise of these industries into which have been re- cruited both black and white workers from the countryside, has tended ‘with more rapidity than ever before to eliminate racial differences. It is to be noted that so far the demands of our Party in the South for social, economic and political equality for Negroes, culminating in the inclusion of two Negro workers in the Labor Jury at the Charlotte trial, and the big part played by Negro delegates in the two Charlotte conferences, has not resulted in a single violent outbreak in which any workers have taken part. Racial prejudice not only is tending to dis- appear under ‘the intense pressure of southern capitalism upon the REAL REPRESENTATION. While it must be remembered that our Party and the left wing is just beginning to place its program before large numbers of south- ern workers, the two Charlotte conferences, that of the National Textile Workers’ Union and that of the Trade Union Unity League, were eminently successful and could be held without interference, legal and extra legal, only because of their representative character. Reports from field organizers show that there is widespread response to the programs of action adopted by these two conferences and strong resent- ment against the conviction of the seven organizers and members of | the N.T.W.U. and such open fascism as that resulting in the murder of Ella May and the kidnapping and flogging of Wells, Saylor and Lell. In Atlanta, Georgia; Danville, Virginia; Murphy, N. C.; Ashville, N. C.; Greenville, S. C.; and other centers, concrete organizational re- sults are being obtained even with the small forces at our disposal. For masses has rapidly reached the higher political level. The main task now is to place additional forces in the South, to extend the base of our Party and to connect the struggle of the south- | ern masses closely with those of the whole American working class in this period of sharpening class struggles. MacDonald and _Lovestone By EARL BROWDER. Why are the Lovestone renegades so careful to hide certain points in their program behind vague generalities? Why do they find so It is because an open and frank state- ment would drive away from them even the handful of followers they have remaining, whom they can hold only by lies and deception. But it is not difficult to trace the full outlines of the right wing program in their own documents upon every important issue before the interna- tional working class. This includes the problems of the victorious working class of the Soviet Union upon which Lovestone & Co., solidarize completely with the right wing headed by Bucharin. Beneath his clumsy mask Lovestone clearly discloses in the first issue of “Revolutionary Age” his participation in the struggle against the great forward drive of socialist construction in the Soviet Union, in his article “Twelve Years of the Soviet Union.” This may be clearly established by a few quotations, which cannot be dismissed as “care- lessness,” for on such a subject and at such a time we can be sure that every word he writes is carefully chosen. By the points he chooses to opportunism. Dealing with the building of socialism, Lovestone does not men- tion the characteristic feature of the Soviet and collective farms, the instrument by which the grain problem is being solved and agriculture brought into the socialist economy, and against which Lovestone’s poli- tical friends are ‘fighting. But if this omission reveals the camouflaged program, even more clearly does his treatment of the Five Year Plan and foreign trade. He brings forward—even before mention of the Five Year Plan—the growing participation in the world trade by the U. S. S. R., drawing the conclusion: “This development is to be greatly welcomed. Relatively speaking, those countries participating most in world trade are the most independent.” , This is bourgeois “wisdom” worthy of the New York Times! \ It sees the “independence” of the Soviet Union measured by the degree to which imperialism ailows trade to develop between itself and the | have liked to run around the town, and go to the station toilet, but | kettles over the flames. | the bargain. | thousand rubles. je BE te ALEXANDER NEWEROFF THE CIT OF BREAD Reprinted, by permission, from “The City of Bread” by Alexander Neweroff, published and copyrighted by Doubleday—Doran, New York, TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN (Continued.) Orenburg. Somber morning. Chill wind. Mishka sat in his corner, did not venture out of the car. He would the conversation he had overheard the night before forbade it. All rgiht, he could wait. The mujiks camped near the train, built fires, hung pots and Roasting, boiling, broiling—and everywhere The women peeled potatoes, cut up the penetrating odor of cabbage. This was a prosperous crowd meat, blew on the flames with their lips. in Mishka’s car. One mujik brought four melons, and began to count out the change. He glanced at.Mishka sitting in his corner and turned away. Another mujik brought a bag of tobacco. Tobacco brings a good price on the road, Fiyxe hundred rubels a package. And the Kirghiz don’t know a damn thing about prices. It would be easy to make forty thousand rubels on it, and smoke all the tobacco you wanted for nothngi, into Two others came in carrying samovars and kerosene-stoyes to cook on, boots with stitched tops, three axes. All morning they roabed the market place, and piled up the car from floor to roof with their purchases: leaf tobacco, cut tobacco, sanzovars, pails, iron pots, axes, jackets, women’s shoes, skirts—till not an inch was left to turn round in. Yeropka, a little mujik, also from Buzuluk county, was wearing a watch of “American” gold. Some one had told him you could get good prices for watches in Tashkent—so he had bought one for twelve Every other momen the would cock his head to one side and regard the watch proudly. But then it stopped—absolutely refused to go again. First Yeropka held it to his right ear, then to his left—it wouldn’t go. Twelve thousand rubles thrown out—gone right to hell! oe Either because his watch would not go, or because some other sor- row gnawed at his heart, Yeropka began to work himself into a fury when his glance fell on Mishka. “Who is this boy that’s riding along with us anyway?” The other mujiks too pretended that they had just noticed Mishka for the first time. “Who put him in here with us?” “Where’re you bound for, comrade?” Mishka faced the mujiks, straightened his old cap, and said, like a regular grown-up mujik: “I’m going to Tashkent, my uncle is Commissar there.” “And where are you from?” “From far: Buzuluk county.” “What village?” “Lopatino.” ft “And what’s your uncle’s name? Mishka didn’t flicker an eyelash. . “His name is not the same as our! Mine is Dodonovy, his is Mit- rofanov. He’s my mother’s brother; a Communist.” Yeropka, the little mujik, said: “I'm from Buzuluk county myself, twenty versts from your village, and I never heard any name like that: you must be lying.” Mishka did not flicker an eyelash. “Why should I lie? Go and ask the Tcheka, they know him there!" “Who?” “Uncle Vassily.” Yeropka shook his head: “Doesn’t look right to me. “Fourteen.” : The mujiks looked at Mishka hard, eyed hi mfrom all angles: “He’s lying, the son of a bitch!” Semyen, with the red beard, stepped up to him and demanded roughly: “Any money?” Mishka didn’t flicker an eyelash: “Yes.” “How much?” “How much have you?” : They all roared with laughter, so unexpected was the reply. “Hah! What a boy! Better not tell him—he’d crawl right into pocket!” Shaggy-headed Prokhor was tremendously impressed by Mishka’s powerful connections. He sat down next to Mishka and started a regular conversation with him: “Has your uncle been workirig long in Tashkent?” “Three years.” “Will you stay there, or go back home again?” Mishka spat lazily past Prokhor’s beard. “Tl see. If I like it there, I'll stay; if I don’t, I’ go home again. Uncle says he'll give me bread to take along, for nothing, twenty poods, enough till next harvest.” “Are you a big family?” ae Mishka enjoyed leading the peasants by the nose—they believed every word you told them. He straightened his old cap on his head and launched into his story ni a warm laughing voice. His family was not large: just him mother and two brothers. His father had served in the Tcheka for a year and a half, been.a Communist. Well, and then the White Guard boorzhui had killed him—so now the family got a pension. The man who had brought Mishka to the car at that station was a comrade of his father’s, and the very highest chief. Mishka had a letter from him to his uncle who was Commiis§ar in Tashkent. And his uncle had sent Mishka’s mother a letter: “Let the boy come t‘ome,” he had written. “I’ll find him a good position, and send you bread at once.” Twice Lopatino mujiks had gone to him. His uncle had given them an official document—no one dared lay a finger on them. Some were stopped on the road, others had bread taken from them, but they just showed thir documents with his uncle’s seal, and no one could lay a finger on them. Prokhor drank in Mishka’s tale and gazed at him with admiring envy. “You seem to be a fine fellow! I’d like to be friends with you...” Mishka didn’t flicker an eyelash. “Certainly we'll be friends! And I’ll help you too, when we mec® in Tashkent.” “How?” “Through my uncle.” ua This prospect completed the conquest of Prokhar. He fussed nad fidgeted about Mishka, and spoke in the friendliest tone. ‘ “That would be fine, my boy ... You know yourself how it goes with us... ‘they take, nad they take...” “If I am there they won’t take anything .. .” (To be Continued) How old are you?” | | your way—“only” over such little questions of “appli a Lovestone’s political friends broke away from the line of the Party! If these questions are so insignificant tliat Lovestone can dismiss them so brusquely, then why was it “necessary” for the right wing to os carry their struggle against the Party right up to the point of a split? be But, of cou: the renegades do not answer such questions. fo Lovestone, like all renegades, protests his love for the Soviet Union 5. and his desire to defend. it. Like Trotsky, however, he interprets this Re to. mean in action, struggle against and slander of the CPSU, and the ur Comintern. It is a fact that Eovestone’s slanders have been printed : with glee by the wi guardist emigre paper, “Ruli,” published in Soviet Union. It sees the fate of the Soviet Union bound up, first of ali, with the growth of market relationships with the capitalist world, and only secondarily with the internal work of socialist construction, and not at all with the Soviet farms! This is the policy of surrender to world imperialism. When Lovestone speaks gingerly of the Five Year Plan, the suc- cessful execution of which has smashed to pieces the position of the right wing in the Soviet Union, he tries to cover his trial by saying: “Whatever differences there may have occurred were only over the method of application.” Ho wnice! There “may have occurred” some differences, but they were only about such “little” things as, whether the Five Year Plan should be slowed down or speeded up; whether to soften with the re- sisting Kulak or to sharpen the struggle against him; whether indus- be curtailed inst Berlin by the remnants of czarism. And now, even in his pose of “de- fender” of the Soviet Union, Lovestone’s highest conception of “our duty to the Soviet Union” is to “crystallize sentiment for the recogni- tion of the Soviet Union’-by American imperialism. Here again Love- stone finds the only hope for socialist construction in withholding the arms of imperialism, in gaining the good will or at least tolerance of the imperialists. » ied If this be defense, the Soviet Union can get along better without “defenders.” It is such defense as Ramsey MacDonald gives—that is, ‘ is ee and parcel of the imperialist preparation for war against e USSR. _ Let the workers of America understand this, as clearly as those of the Soviet Union already do—that Lovestone and the right wing are serving international reaction, and their struggle against the Comin- trial 8 stead articles of con- danger.