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

Page Four oot the ‘Party in ihe Race WHEN FOOD IS FATAL Industries By JACK STACHEL. \ e was the situation for a recruiting campaign morc at the ation of the nt time. The growing radical furnish nere: the favo obje mass struggles the recruting of t of the most militant worker the Party. Also the subjec rs—the internal Party s r the first time in many years really furnishes a sound bas uiting and the keeping of the new members. Heretofore the ng policies of the Part the bad internal life and particula ional re ime prevented many workers from com ) was the cause of their brief stay in the Party. ing campaign this time must be conducted along dif an in the past, Ti ing must center in the In the past the ri s conducted with out a plan and without real concern as to the n of the working class. One of the chara the J is the fact that the s -skilled and unskilled w orkers n the basic ies of decisive force in the working class. The bulk of the workers in the basic industries are sem killed and unskilled. It is kers eebe are today suffering greatest from ri atior intensification of labor) wage cuts, unemployment and in andard of living. It is membe u fered a lowering in the s that the Party mu ing drive. Workers thu secure cured from the factories, Ss new activity, through our campaigns to organize the not be drifters or “visitors” to the Party but aided by norm, ty life will become the best Bolshey The Party recruiting must therefore center in the basic in- dus , recruited through the struggles that are taking place and are developing. he present ulk of the workers are in the workers, transport work: » are practically none in the chemical industry and ¢ ndustries of war and war preparedness. Among the miners, rkers, while the influence of the Party is greater, compared with rs-in these industries, the number is small membership in the Party light indu the rs in e number of worl nt vf the Central Committee has ou aign along the correct line of centering the activity of s drive in the factories and in the basic industries. The so far to state in what industry each district must ities. This will be a great aid in the keeping of main line and not adopting the line of least resistance e in the old manner. For most d icts this will be ded against. We in the Detroit district are in avorably situated. We can not help but cortcentrate in t s the main industry, and which is one of lization Departm The lenges the Detroit District, in the spirit of Socialist Competition, Pittsburgh District to secure more new members basic industries than Detroit will. AN | AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF GERMANY mmur Party of G an was laid down in the decisions Young P The main passages of the rty congress lution of the congress which formulates the Bolshevist ipoint to the reparations problem, read as follows: ‘ n is above all the result and the r of the instrument of the imperialist prepara- nst the Soviet Union. upon the payments mean a double Jen placed international finance capital and by the sie. The reparations problem is one of the mai e class struggle and for the inevitable situation in Germany. ulation of the reparations problem leads tc s contradictions in Germany. The bour to place all the reparations burdens upon ss and to make up for its foreign debts possible increase of internal accumulation, introduces nethods of exploitation and oppression against the working social convulsions thus caused are leading to a revolu- In view of the double burden placed upon the shoulders an ex eign capitalism, the revolu- $ e is being speeded up. The vA imperialist slogans such as freedom of arma- mandates, the revision of the Eastern frontiers, Austriar h imperialist Germany, ete The Communist Party fight ¢ ¢ ry solution of the reparations problem: the compl nnuiment of all war debts. and the liquidation of the Versailles Treat, ne overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the establishment of a Soviet the conclusion of an alliance with the Soviet Union.” al attitude shows clearly the only way in v can free themselves from the yoke of international 1 and Phis German wor! capital. politic inance ommunist Party is the only Pa’ the only organized political Germany which fights for the interests of the proletariat and less struggle against all the exploiters and oppressors class, both the native and foreign capitalists and their force in conducts a me of the we nt The bourgeoisie coalition parties, led by the German social demoe- racy, have betrayed and sold the working masses in the interests of profit for the German bourgeoisie and for foreign capital. The bour- geois social-democratic governmental block has condemned millions of workers, peasants and petty bourgeois to misery and privation in order to ensure a profitable arrangement with the American, British, French and Italian imperialists. The Young Plan served at the same time the formation of an imperialist united front against the Soviet Union and for the preparation of a murderous war of intervention against the only workers and peasants State in the world. for The bourgeois right-wing parties (the German Nationalists, the Landbund, the Stahlhelm, the German National People’s Party, the so-called National Socialists, ete.) are conducting under the flag of “national opposition” a demagogic and lying policy allegedly against “the recognition of the Young Plan,” The fraudulent agitation of the fascist right-wing parties in favor of the “people’s referendum” aims at deceiving the working masses and detracting them from any real struggle against the Young Plan and making them willing tools of their own exploiters. The German Nationalists who are now appealing for a people’s referendum voted in favor of the predatory Dawes Plan Their votes assisted in passing the Dawes Plan in the Reichstag with the nei ry two-thirds majority. The German Nationalist Deputy h French governmental represéntatives during and The Hague with a view to concluding a Franco-German milita alliance against the Soviet Union and carry- ing out the Young Plan. The fingers of Hitler and the national fas- cists have more than once handled the money of the French and Italian imperialist the conferences in Pa wing parties cannot prevent the carrying out of the Young Plan and its real aim is to prepare an open fascist dictatorship in Germany. The ma. are to be intoxicated with nationalist and monarchist phrase in order to prevent them fighting against German capitalism for their own revolutionary interests and for the improvement of their condi- tions of life. The Communist Party fights against both camps of the bourgeois veaction with the same deadly enmity. The working masses of Ger- many can only win political and social freedom in a merciless struggle against both the social fascist coalition bloc and against the right wing fascist bloc. They can only break their chains if they overthrow the existing bourgeois state power and set up. their own proletarian dictatorship. The reparations problem can only be solved by a violent and Bolshevist abolition of all predatory treaties, in other words, Shrough the proletarian revolution, The people's referendum introduced by the bourgeois right | | Horthy By Mail (in New York only): By Mail (outside of New York): SUBSCRIPTION RATES: $8.00 a year: $2.50 three months $2.00 three months . $4.50 six months: $6.00 a year; $3.50 six months; y, the bloody butcher of Hungarian workers, is killing off hundreds of militants who hunger strike by forced feeding. Struggle Against Right Danger in the Pittsburgh District By PAT DEVINE. Since the timely intervention of the Communist International in the affairs of the American Party every sincere revolutionary fighter, not looking for an easy way out of the struggle, has buckled his belt and set himself the task of carrying out, what has been shown in action, as the correct political line. Tn using the scalpel to unearth the social reformism, personified by Lovestone, the Comintern did-the only thing that could remedy the situation and place our Party four square on the Leninist path as the advance guard of the working class. The most crass example of Lovestonism, “the second industrial revolution” the South has been smashed by living reality. Whilst our Party in the pre-address period. smugly talked about militant working | class action, but actually hid behind its wrong analysis of “exceptional- ism” the workers everywhere were in a seething mood of discontent. Our wrong analysis prevented us from fearlessly taking the leader- hip in our hands. New Orleans, Marion, etc., are examples of our lagging behind the masses. In the Pittsburgh district the Lovestone ideology whilst organiza- repudiated by the membership, existed, and still exists in a g of pessimism, permeating a large section of our Party. This pessimism showed itself in the preparations for International Day and on IRD itself. The Party prior to I.R.D. had consistently | refused to hold outdoor demonstrations unless granted permits from the city administration. This resulted in no such meetings ever being held in the district. ° Red When the Young Communist League insisted on holding meetings without permits the Pa: leadership criticized them severely and at times positively refused to allow’ the meetings to be held. Th reasons given for this were that we did not want to havg all our membership in jail. This was only the objective’reason. The real re: the workers and were afraid to risk small meetings. * On I.R.D. itself the Party showed the Lovestone tender tion. Seven e per cent of the membership did not parti the demonstrations. An especially important feature of the demonstra- tion was the actions of the only open Lovestoneite in the distrist, Tom Myerscough. At six o’clock on the evening of August First hundreds of police- men were patrolling the scene of the meeting. The entire capitalist press carried big seare headlines advising all and sundry that the police would not allow the Reds to meet. Thousands of workers, however, ig- nored the terrorism and atter.ded. When making last minute preparations for the meeting it wal covered we were short of speakers to carry out the plans nec i. e., hold four or five meetings instead of one. As district organizer I instructed Tom Myerscough to’ speak at one of the meetings.’ He absolutely refused to do so on the grounds | that he was a suspended member and could not do anything until reinstated. dis- SAryy | Myerscough was carrying out in practice the Lovestone policy of sabotaging the meetings. He actually subscribed to the social demo- cratic theory that the I.R.D. was adventurism. The results of our demonstration proved conclusively that instead of being adventurers our Party lagged behind the masses. Lovestonism, the expression of the international right wing danger in the U. S., was shown in action to be the antithesis of Commyunism— to be a brake om the working class instead of the advance guard. Despite his evident desire to get out of the fight Myerscough could not very well do so after the militant workers by their action had shown the Comintern and CEC analysis of the third period to be cor- rect. He repudiated Lovestonism in an open statement shortly after- wards. Having as a major part of its campaign against Lovestonism, the saving of all possible forces for the Party the Buro accepted Myers- cough’s statement and put him into Party work. As a former leader in the mining field he was assigned special work as southern orga - Despite great efforts to assist him in every way he failed miserably to measure up to the situation. There were many difficulties to be met and overcome. A mijitant conscien- tious Communist would have squarely met them. Myerscough, follow- ing the counter-revolutiqnary ileologies of ‘Lovestone despite his seem- ing repudiation of them, capitulated to the difficulties. Still determined to give him an opportunity of coming into work as a fighting member he was sent to the Anthracite. In this important field the Lovestone renegades led by Vrataric are doing their best toward wrecking the miners’ movement. Miners all over the Anthracite are looking for organization, but the Vrataries, et al., Instead of helping the work are persistently sabotaging it. When Myerscough went there, he immediately, connected with the renegades. Instead of going out to organize miners he caucused with the enemies of the movement and neglected the work. In face of the rising fighting spirit of the miners as expressed in Mlinois and spread- ing throughout the entire mining field Myeescough capitulated to dif- i ficulties and left the field, on was that our comrades had no confidence in the militancy of - i .of our Party. Myerseough has not gone to Lovestonism again. He never left it. He has proved by his action that the intensified struggle of this third period is too much tor him. He has gone the way of all superficial Communists. He has gone the way of the right wingers everywhere who have lost their faith in the workers. The movement will march on with increasing rapidity now that he has gone. In our struggle against Lovestonism as the personification of the Right danger our Party needs much guidance. First of all we must not fool ourselves that we have eliminated the Right danger from the Party. This can only be done by hewing to thé line of the Communist International which was unanimously endorsed at the October Plenum The third period is something more than phraseology. It is a living thing. It expr itself in the ever growing discontent of the workers as expressed by the response to the I. R. D.; by the strong movement among the miners; by the great Cleveland conven- tion; by the left wing drive into the South. 7 Our membership in order to fortify itself against the right wing danger must carefully examine every phase of activity. Whilst fighting Lovestonism we must never forget that the tradi- tional pessimism of Lovestone is still to be found in our ranks. Mere organizational repudiation of the Right danger is not enough. This was sharply brought to the fore in the municipal elections in District Our comrades hesitated about registering Communists; less than fifty per cent of the members went out to get the necessary signatures to place the Party on the ballot; in the highly industrialized sections of t Pittsburgh, Ambridge and Monnessen our members, in- cluding many leading comrades grossly neglected to put the Party on the ballot although only a few signatures were required. In Central Pen ania our Party, which is very weak organiza- tionally and ideolog' y, made some very fundamental mistakes. In- stead of going out to place our Party clearly before the workers as the only leader they flirted with candidates who had been successful in winning the nomination on the combined republican, democratic and labor tickets and tried to get them to run on the Communist Party ticket. After long discussions with the district bureau the above mis- takes were to a great extent liquidated but they nevertheless show the danger. Another fundamental mistake was made in East Pittsburgh and Monessen where halls controlled by our Party*allowed advertisements for capitalist candidates in the primaries to appear on the walls. However, it is well to note that despite all of the above right wing mistakes our Party made remarkable progress which dramatically tes- tifies to the correctness of the Comintern analysis. We were on the ballot in Pittsburgh, McKeesport, Pdrtage ’and Arnold for the first time in history. The votes in each place are larger than was cast for Foster in the presidential election on the Workers Party and labor ticket combined. We widely distributed a Communist election program dealing with local issues. We had innumerable fac- tory gate and street meetings attended by thousands of workers. We were able to smash the capitalist ban on Communist open air meetings and win the right to speak during the campaign. Of course this does not mean we can now meet without police interference. It means, how- ever,,that our fight for the streets was gaining so much working class suport that the bosses had to temporarily allow us to speak in order to maintain the illustrations of free speech. Despite all our shortcomings our party is making progress. The slowness of this Lys hire is due to the slowness of the party to com- pletely smash the etone ideology and orientate itself towards the third period of intensified class struggle. Our members must fight Lovestonism with all the proletarian vigor aud enthusiasm they fight capitalism. We must prepare ourselves for the leadership of the masses, e In this period of intense class struggle . . . with the class lines very sharply drawn... with the Socialist Party, American Federation of Labor, the fake left wing Musteites and the renegades.from Com- munism, all aligned on the side of the bosses, the task of our Party is much more important. } We must relentlessly wipe out all vacillating elements from our ranks. The time has passed when “paxt time” Communists can find a place in our Party. No longer will factionalism be allowed to give license to some in- | dividuals to do as they please without fear of diciplinary action. “Hik- ing and fly by*night’ Communists must be weeded from our ranks. Another extremely important requisite for the correct application of the line of the Communist International is the liquidation of the “degenerating leadership” propaganda. majority excuse their inactivity by pointing to certain leading com- rades and saying the Party is still in a period of factional manipulation, On the other hand some comrades of the former minority hinder the consolidation of our Party by saying that not enough of the previ- ous leadership has been weeded out. Both tendencies are eating at the very vitals of our Party. The member must speak in no uncertain fashion to these elements who them- Some comrades of the former | THE CITY.---"---- OF BREAD Reprinted, by permission, from “Ihe Ct Neweroff, published and copyrighted by Deoubleday—Doran, New York. PRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN (Continued.) Mishka carried the big loaf against his heart, clasped tightly to his breast. His eyes shone with joy, his lips twitched with impatience. Right there in the market place, at the store where he bought it, he would have liked to sink his hungry teeth into the big loaf, to gulp down huge lumps of it unchewed. But it would not be wise to start eating there in the market place: all around starving fugitives had gathered, and stared at the bread with ravenous, sunken eyes. They might snatch it from him. Mishka and Trofim, richest of all now, went off to eat beyond the station, out on the steppe. ‘The sun shone brightly in the lofty sky. Round about gleamed the white tents of the Kirghiz. Dogs barked harmlessly. % And above all—bread! Soft, still warm, the bread lay on Mishka’s knees—and that was what made the wide Kirghiz steppe, the sky above the steppe, the little spirals of smoke rising in the distance, the white Kirghiz tents, seem soft and warm and peaceful too. “Come on!” said Mishka resolutely, plunging his sharp knife into the soft bread, ‘“Here—eat to my health!” He crossed himself joyfully before he fell to, and looked, wonder- ingly at his comrade. | » “Don’t you pray? “No more.” “Why not?” “Oh, . . . don’t feel like it... too much—less than that. some for later.” They ate slowly, taking ver; give me another ‘piece! Thats We don’t want to eat it all at once, keep small bites. Their famished bellies calm, with sweet langour of satiation. They felt like lying down and sleeping in the sunlight, forgetting, thinking of nothing. Mishka stretched out his legs in their wide sandals, and lay for a long time, his arms outflung. Then he sat up again, eyed the diminishing loaf lazily and cut off a morsal. Trofim reassured him: “You don’t have to care about your jacket! keep alive—things will be better . After their meal they went over to the station, and drank from the water tower. They held their mouths under the pipe for a long. time, then began to wash themselves. “We'll tidy ourselves a little!” said Trofim, looking down at his dirty belly. “Let's scour our hands with sand.” | “My head itches so,” said Mishka, squirming. Sites “Uh-huh.” “Better leave them alone, or they'll bite still worse . ..” They played around, sprinkled each other with the cold water, and were utterly happy. At last, tired of play, Mishka looked at the other mischievously: “Go on, you manage now.” “For what?” “Getting us places on the train.” The one thing is to “It’s all crawly .. . | “And what are you going to do? “I got you bread...” When they came to the station, they found that no one was being allowed on the train. Through the cars, along the roofs, paced sol- diers with their rifles, throwing off sacks, driving out mujiks and women, demanding papers. The peasants ran after the soldiers, bowed their hatless heads humbly. Driven by dull dseperation they crept back on the buffers, from the buffers to the roof; again they would be put off, and again, with the silent stubbornness of oxen, they would go around the train from the engine to the last car trying to board it. Four times Mishka and Trofim were driven away. Four times the soldiers shook their guns at them and shouted threateningly : “Get out! March!” 3 By a wrecked car sat three peasants, two women, a little girl, an old man and a solcier with a wooden leg; they had given it up as hopeless. But when they saw the train about to leave, the three mujiks thought they might. still succeed in jumping aboard, clinging on, leaving this place of horror.’ But when the engine and the cars with their naked, empty roofs came by and slowly moved out of the. depot into the blue steppe, one of the mujiks broke out despairingly: “That means death for us now! We can’t go on, and we can’t go back. What can we do now?” “Let’s go ahead on foot to the next siding,” “We can board the-train there.” “Will they let us?” " “And who the devil is going to ask them?” “We won't make it!” said the soldier; ‘we haven’t the strength.” Suddenly the third mujik arose. “We can’t stay here!” “You're going?” “T’m going alone.” The old man, who was seated apart reais the mujiks, scratched around in the sand like a hen, carefully picked out some of the tiny pebbles, laid them on ‘his palm, and sniffed at them for a long time, with his dirty blocked-up nose. Pyetra, a tall, bent mujik, looked wonderingly at the old man, as if he had just noticed him for the first time: “Where do you belong, grandfather?” “T don’t know myself, dear friend; I’ve lost my gubernya.” “Where are you going?” “Where should I be going? I’m sitting five. days on.this spot already, and I can’t seem to stir from the place. I was trayeling with my son, but he died. I would like to go along with you.” “We're going on foot.. They won’t let us board here.” “All right! I’m not afraid of walking. if only my legs hold out. Seventy versts I’ve put behind me already at a strecth without stopping to rest.” s) The women and the little girl gazed anxiously out over the wide, | awful steppe. They dreaded to go, and they dreaded to stay alone. They stood there, cowed and hopeless, the straps of their linen packs pressing into their breasts. Sidor, a barefoot mujik, clicked his tongue softly: “Are we going. or aren’t we? “We're going!” called out Yermolai. father?” “T’m coming too—slowly, “Think you can do it?” “Perhaps I can, if it is God’s will . . .”- They drew together, a little, forsaken band Trofim looked at Mishka resolutely: “They’re going. You're not afraid?” | “And you?” “Tm going along.” 1% “T’m gotng along too.” “Can you go forty versts?” Mishka patted his stomach: | “Now I can go much further .. .” | Tall, bowed Pyetra, in his tattered cap, took a stride forward, then paused for a moment. He looked up doubtfully at the station bell- tower with its yellow, weather-beaten cross, then swinging his staff aloft, he led the others along the flashing rails out ints the blue, beck- oning steppe with its azure hilltops, to the thin singing of the tele- graph wires, to the feeble, joyless tolling of the evening bells. Mishka and Trofim trailed along in the rear like lambs behind 2 herd of cattle. They had not asked whether the mujiks would take them along They had not even discussed it together . .. They only knew they must get nearer Tashkent, the City of Plenty, the City of Bread, hidden beyond the distant hills. (To Be Continued.) any , sy eNO ARR ea ace EE aes PN ENE selves are a sure sign that we have not yet completely 01 lentated our- selyes to the line of the Comintern, Lovestone and Cannon the “Smith Brothers” of the right wing of the United States welcome the fact that such anti-Communist ideas still exist in our ranks. No Communist wants to be in any way associ- ated with them and their counter-revolutionary ideas. We must recognize our weaknesses and take extraordinary steps to correct them. Our Party is moving forward despite everything, The capitalists recognize this by their current intensified attacks on us. Cur members must. also recognize it and get on the job building the Party; smashing the renegades and making the American Party 8. worthy section of the Communist International. uy answered the second. “What about you, grand- on Where else is there to go? grew heavy after days of starvation; their bodies were suffused with ,