The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 18, 1929, Page 4

Published by the prodaily Pub! ¢ I Square, New York ( N.Y. 2 S Addrers and 1 to the Daily PARTY LIFE Page Four On the Expulsion of Renegade Hankin The following is a resolution of the District Control Commission of Dist. 4, on the expulsion of Max Hankin from the Par The District Control Commission vf District 4 receiving the information from the C.C.C. of the expulsion from the Party of Max Hankin, wishes completely to identify itself w C.C.C, and who heartedly approves of the action of the Con Commission in ex- pelling the renegade Hankin from the Party. Max Hankin, a former D. O. of this district and personal emissary of Lovestone at the time, was member of the Party in this district up ty official. The district follower of to his expulsion, has perhaps the blackest record as a Ps He is a master of irresponsibility membership is not at all surprised that he has become a the arch-renegade Lovestone; we have long since decided to get rid of such types as Hankin, and the sooner the better The Bolshevik line of the C. I crushing defeat to all the opportunist movement. recklessness. for the American Party is elements in giving Americ a an tl the How Party Members Must Not Act At the time of the Cleveland Convention of the Trade Union Unity League, proof was given that the Amer n prolet C struggle. And the proletariat is more than ever te organize their struggle under leadership of the ishing as if may seem, some of our own Party membe to be called Communists, are not so advanced. ady to struggle and -U.L. But aston like This was shown at a meeting of a new union of Building Service Workers last week. A motion was ma to affiliate the union to the T.U.U.L. and only three opposed it. motion was overwhelmingly carried. Almost all the workers felt y should that some- thing good was done toward the unity of the working class. But a member of the Communist Party, and not just an ordinary member, but a member of the District Committee of New York, thought it neces- sary to postpone the unity of the working class, and on the some trivial technical objection about “getting more informati ceeded in convincing the union membership to postpone affi the T.U.U.L. Of course, he said he “was in favor” of the affiliat But he just wanted to “postpone” it. Although he is on a leading ‘ty com- mittee, he himself did not know enough about the T.U.U.L. to furnish the information he said was lacking. But was that the reason? Well, after the meeting, when his sabotage of the T.U.U.L. was protested by other Party members, he gave another excuse: That affili- ation had “not been decided at fraction. meeting.” This comrade has to have a decision on everything—to get up, to eat, to go to be Communist Party long ago decided to support and build the This comrade hasn’t yet heard about it. He needs another The Party must give him one. he I as th feel, use of ”” suc- ation io PARTY RECRUITING DRIVE Socialist Competition in the | Party Recruiting Drive | By LEON PLATT. Since the receipt of the Comintern Address, it was clearly demon- strated’ how much more our Party can accomplish after factional regime was abolished. Instead of factional struggle the energies and efforts of the Party are now being absorbed by constructive mass work in which the entire Party membership is to be involved. However, as a prerequisite for more intensive activity of the Party, it was necessary first to give the Party a correct political line, so that it can utilize the | growing radicalization of the American working class and the sharpen- ing contradictions of American capitalism which is today entering into a period of crises. This task was definitely accomplished by the October Pienum, following the political decisions of the Sixth World Congress and the Tenth Plenum of the Comintern, and the merciless struggle against the renegade Lovestone group which is today uniting with om most bitter enemies in a common struggle against the Party id the Communist International. Going thru this proc: of consolidation and bolshevization, the Party is now in the most favorable position to take energetic steps and seriously carry out its task of winning the major- ity of the American working cla: The first prerequisite to omplish this task is to establish a mass Communist Party that will ume the leadership of the mass struggles of the workers. The Party Recruiting Campaign initiated by the October Plenum must receive ful] attention of the Party and its organizations. In the past, the Party initiated recruiting campaigns and the campaigns brought excellent results. The Party gained mem ship, broadened its influence and strengthened itself among the wor ers. However, in spite of these partial succes: we must state that the Party membership drives of the past did not achieve all they could have accomplished. The main reasons were: first, the factional situa- tion; the comrades failed to carry out the everyday work of the Part Secondly, the membership did not grasp the full meaning of the recruit- ing drive; the lower units of the Party and the Party organization as a whole, on the main did not even discuss the drive. The general plan of the campaign remained a dead letter and very little effort was exert- ed by the Party organization to apply the general directives of the Party to the concrete situation existing in every district and in every unit. The accomplishments in the past recruiting campaigns were primarily due to efforts of only a certain section of our Party membership, while the bulk of the comrades remained inactive. They failed to connect this drive with the everyday struggles of the workers and the major political campaigns of the Party. To guarantee the success of the present recruiting campaign, the entire Party membership must be involved. Every unit and every Party organization must within the next month have the recruiting campaign on the order of business. In this connection, the Party proposes to utilize the method of “socialist competition” in the recruiting drive. The experiences of “socialist competition” not only of the Soviet Union but also of the Parties in the European countries must be applied to our recruiting drive. ++ In the past we used certain forms of competition: the leadership of one district challenged another district. This method of competition has nothing to do with our present conception of competition. The pre- requisite for “socialist competition” in the recruiting drive or other campaign of the Party is the participation of the entire membership. When this competition is initiated on top and the membership has no knowledge, or fails to discuss the tasks in the contest, the competition becomes mechanical and looses its value. What must be the form and method of the proposed competition in | the present recruiting campaign? It must involve the entire member- ship and every Party organization. It must be organizedly connected | with the general political work of the Party. One Party Unit com- | petes' with another in the same city, the same district, the same in- | dustry or with another unit in another district. One shop nucleus chal- | lenges another nucleus existing in the same industries or in other in- dustries.. One section or district challenges another district. The same is also to be applied to individual comrades. The competition shall be expressed in agreements between these units of our Party, in securing new members, subscriptions for the Daily Worker, increase the Negro membership, increase the number of shop nuclei, shop, papers, secure subscribers to the Daily Worker, establish new Party units in cities where the Party organization does not exist, establish League units and Pioneer groups. Competition.can also be introduced in our struggle against imperialist war and the defense of the Soviet Union, building the revolutionary trade unions, etc. One Party unit or other Party organization can challenge another one, in holding anti- meetings, in establishment of anti-war committees, in printing and distributing of anti-war propaganda, etc. In fact, this can be introduced in all fields of activity. . How shall this competition be initiated? We must guard ourselve. against mechanical introduction of competition. The leading body of » Party unit, section, district, fraction in fraternal or trade union organ ization must discuss at one of its meetings the task of introducing com petition. This leading body will have to survey the situation under which the Party organization carries out its work. It must take into , snsideration its organizational strepgth, the indusivies in the wisiiviy | > ta Fa > of | themselves are supp: | conditions as they arise. er By Work SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Matt Gin New York only): $8.00 a yea: By Mail (outside of New York): $6.00 a y ie $2.50 three months $2.00 three months $4.50 six months: $3.50 six months; By Fred Ellis A Chunk of Soviet Life — How the workers in the Soviet Union are pressing forward on all fronts in the Five-Year Plan of industrialization, can be understood better by the following article, translated from the daily paper of the Railway Workers’ Union—“Gudok” (The Whistle). In order that | this article, which tells how bureaucratic laziness and incompetence is being cleaned out by the “Rabcorrs” (worker correspondents who write for the papers on everything about the work) and the “shock (groups of worke ho undertake the job of digging out to who is responsible for bad work and cleaning them out). The “actives” mentionel, are those workers who, engaged on*the job d to keep an eye on everything and correct bad The article in “Gudok” of October 16, is run under the following headline and introduction: “The Fighting Tasks—Already in Ten Days of October 21,000 Car Loadings Will Tear Sunday Out of Our Calendar—Loading Must Go On Day and Night, Without Interruption Throughout the Week—The Union Organizations Are Not Mobilizing the Masses for Struggle Against Difficulties—Facts Without Adornment— The Union Bureaucrats Are Sore at the Danger Signals of the Rabeorrs—What the Raid On the Kiev Junction Disclosed.” * of freight cars, loaded and empty, the switchmen rushing wildly around, complaining: “There's none of this to be had,”—or—‘“There’s nothing of that!” “Well, I simply can’t make it out! We’ve got money to build the big electric power project of Dnieprostroi, but no money for whistles!” Along the sidings from which daily are sent dozens of made-up trains, the work has been slowed down tonight because of lack of proper signal equipment . . . Whistles were needed. There were no brake shoes. % The “shock troops” were bumping into disorganization in the yards, among the conductors, in the station, and even in the operating department office. The exact schedules, charts, complicated rules—which must be carried out with precision—were being violated by everybody. The schedules for making up trains were given out by the office only just before they were due to leave, whereas, according to rule, they should have been given out not later than 6 p. m. The regular schedule of trains was violated both ia d’spatching and arriving. The crews were standing by the semaphores. Every half-hour the engine wh'stles were shrieking for the station master. The pressure of work now demands from every worker on freight transport a high tempo in the execution of his duties. On the night of the raid on the Kiev Junction this was not to be found. One could hardly take, as an example of proper effort, the work of the junction superintendent. Twice the staff had to get him out of bed. He had to give orders about repairing the semaphores for in- bound trains on one of the switching slopes, but—after five hours the | semaphore was still not repaired. Due to the fault of the junction superintendent, the telephone com- mutator connecting the switches serving the movement of trains had remained out of order for weeks. And the operating department? It would be far from passing an examination on good work. Fifty deficiencies discovered by the work- ers’ control in one night is convincing proof. The “Actives” themselves, at a meeting of the Railway Workers’ * * Kiev—In the room of the chairman of the Railway Workers Union. Tobacco smoke like a morning fog hovers over the long table covered with a red cloth. The chairman firmly insists: “You think you’ve helped? You come; you go away. think it’ll be y better afterward?” And do you “How else “Look at the facts!” “What fact? I know The chairr sore because there has appeared a note in the paper about the terribly rotten preparations of the railway workers to confirm the agreement on socialist rivalry. Now loudly, now softly, We've given the push, It’s got to move.” Re my onions!” he talks: that achievements have been made that “they cannot be for- | Union, evaluated the work as bluff, favoritism impermissible loose- gotten: 2 ness and disorganization. We would add—lack of determination in the “Why, twe months ago the Presidium had a special report on it.” struggle with deficiencies and short-comings which interfere with de- velopment of work in a fighting fashion. The work was badly carried out not only by the rank and file workers, but by managers and superintendents. These “locomotives,” now put out of commission or “turned in for repairs” because they couldn’t make the grade, were found—on investigation—to be drunk— soused. . The chairman is merciless in his He hurls thunder and lightening on the heads of the “Gudok” committee, who have arrived to help the unions consider and confirm the agrements on socialist rivalry in the transport of autumn freight and in the working out of a general agreement. P Therefore, our first battle took place with thé chairman. And now let us go on—to where there are thousands of living people, where there is real, unadorned life. A few days ago, in the midile of the night, 30 Rabcorrs took a genuine picture of the Kiev Junction. . . . THE RAID. At 9 p. m., eleven sections of “shock troops” occupied a strategic post, and at the signal from the staff went forward to attack. ... During the night they covered a tremendous territory, occupying all stations of the junction. Out along the tracks they met long trains rage. THE MASSES NOT PREPARED. All these facts, like the rays of a searchlight, throw a sharp light on the trade union organizations which should have mobilized the masses for a clear fulfilment of the tasks of moving the autumn freight. We will not deny that the question of freight has been discussed at the meetings of the general and loca] committees. They even made not half-bad decisions. As far as this goes, all was 0.K. But the masses were not brought into military fighting trim, their eagerness was not aroused for the struggle against difficulties, their proletarian initiative was not organized. socialist rivalry wa snot used. Even Comrade Luchenuk, a member of the union presidium and leader of the economic work, had to admit: z “We didn’t know how to organize mass opinion around the diffi- culties.” But this isn’t all yet. The increase in the number of accidents, of derailments of cars and locomotives, of collisions—discloses the un- fitness of the union committees and organs to organize the masses for struggle with these “sick spots.” The results of the raid of the Rab- corrs, a score of statements ‘from the “shock troops,” all is a bitter verdict for the Kiev Junction. , of its operation and other objective conditions. Then special mobiliza- tion meetings shall be called where the plan of “socialist competition” in the recruiting campaign applied to the concrete conditions shall be discussed and everyone assigned a certain definite task, this to Apply to other Party organizations like industrial fractions, etc. Methods of systematic check-up on the success attained shall be instituted on a unit, section, and district scale, with regular conferences and reports in the Party press. : We could cite here very many interesting examples and successes achieved in “socialist competition” introduced in Party campaigis: The greatest success was achieved in the Soviet Union. However, the ex- periences of the German Party will serve as a good example. The Lower Rhein district entered into “socialist competition” with the Ruhr district of the German C. P. on the basis of strengthening the Commu- nist Party and increasing the circulation of the Party press. The Lower Rhein district made itself responsible to organize 20 new ter- ritorial units, 20 shop nuclei, 15 new shop committees in the largest enterprises, recruit 3,500 new members into the Party, get 6,000 new subscribers for the Party press, collect 50,000 marks for the election campaign fund. The results of the first three weeks of this competi- tion which began on October Ist, 1929, were the followin, The Lawer Rhein organization had organized 11 new territorial units, recruited 517 new members and 1,140 new subseribers for the Communist press, and collected $5,5000 for the election campaign fund. The above example shows what a stimulating factor “socialist com- petition” is when it is fully understood by the membership, introduced in ; every unit and followed up carefully by recording the achievements and experiences and correcting the shortcomings. This method of “socialist i competition” must be introduced in our American Party and in the pres- | ent reeruiting campaign. | | PANAIT ISTRATI, AN AGENT OF THE RUMANIAN POLICE. The bourgeois and. social] democratic press is publishing violent and slanderous attacks upon the Soviet Union from the pen of the Rumanian author Panait Istrati. The following char- acterization of Panait Istrati is taken from an article in “!’Humanite.”—Ed. It would be sufficient to republish the article written by Panait Istrati for “L’Humanite” immediately after his arrival in Moscow. On the 13th of October, 1928 Panait Istrati wrote an enthusiastic letter to Comrade Colomer, the secretary of the Friends of the Soviet Union in France, who had requested him to contribute to the organ of the Friends. In this letter Istrati declared that after having spent a year in the Soviet Union he could tell the Friends of the Soviet Union the triumph of socialism” as a result of the dictatorship of the prole- tariat in the Soviet Union, he also expresse] admiration for the great activity of the Friends of the Soviet Union. All his articles published in the years 1927-28 in “L’Humanite” and the Soviet press were written in the same spirit of enthusiasm. A little while after his letter to Colomer, Istrati returned to France from the Soviet Union where he had restored his health at the cost of the workers and peasants there. He was immediately bombarded with interviews, photographs, offers of work for large and powerful news- papers and publishing houses, etc. This recognition was too much for Istrati and turned his head so that he forgot all he had previously, This campaign will give the Party an opportunity to activize its | entire membership, to gain native American workers into the Party, and | to establish real Bolshevik self-criticism that will expose all the short- | comings of the Party oravization and political work. A successful re- cruiting campaign whic’ oli bring 5,000 new members, 5,000 new sub- seribers to the Daily ' 100 shop nuclei and 50 shop papers, will be the biggest blow ( » venegade Lovestone and his open counter. | revolutionary activities. [t will more definitely put the Party on the | road of a mass Party that will assume the leadership of the coming struggles in which the majovity of the American working class will be \ involved, “ thought about the Soviet Union and all that he had seen of its achieve- ments. ¥ Istrati went to the Rumanian Embassy in France and promised to write against the Soviet Union, if he received permission to return to t in France that they might “fight with conviction in the certainty of | | OF BREAD ity of Bread” by Alexander leday—Doran, New York. ANSLATED FRU THE RUSSIAN e (Continued.) They had not been allowed to board the train at the station, they had been driven off the car roofs. Now they were going on foot, con- fidently, with short jaunty steps, unafraid. They thought the mujiks might turn at any moment and say: . “Where are you going?” And they would Answer: “To Tashkent!” The muijiks did turn, but they did not ask where the boys were going, it was no concern of their aes The soldier limped along, taking big uneven strides with his wooden leg, and recounted in a loud voice: : “The water in Tashkent, you know, is very cold, and everything is mirrored in it as in a looking-glass .. . All kinds of berries grow there—God’s truth-—whole acres of them. You can walk along for a whole day and see nothing but gardens, gardens, gardens . . . The houses have no roofs, and everywhere there are little ditches to water the gardens.” “And how much is bread?” “Bread is cheap. If you work for a Sart for two weeks, you can make twenty poods to take along, besides your board . . .” The old man, the little girl, the women, the three mujiks, and Mishka and Trofim were heartened by the cheerful voice of the lame soldier. They looked trustfully at the blue mountain tops and trudged on, an uneven, straggling triangle—toward the cold, clear water, toward the cheap bread, toward the green, endless gardens, Broad and vast lay the steppe, bathed in a hot red haze. Here and there a hillock. Above the dead gray salt deposits the steppe- vultures circled, solitary, then settled on the ancient graves of the princes of the steppe; then sat there like faithful sentinels, their black heads motionless. Chains of immense virgin burdocks descended into the hollows, mounted the hills, ghastly in their deathlike loneliness, in their century-long unbroken silence. The sun mounted to the zenith, and began to sink; the noonday shadows grew shorter. The soldier with the wooden leg had ceased to tell his tales of cold, clear water, and gazed with hatred in his red, inflamed eyes over the dead spaces of the steppe, and said hopelessly: “We won't get to the station. We won’t be able to hold out... .” The women and the little girl trudged along with parched, famished mouths gaping crookedly. They clung to each other’s hands, and wept silently with the dread that weighed upon them. Only Sidor the barefoot mujik, and Yermolai, with the stiff un- kempt hair, plodded along stubbornly, black weatherbeaten necks bowed, taking long strides with their torn, bleeding feet. Pyetra, walking in the lead, suddenly raised his wooden staff high, and shading his eyes with his hands, gazed out over the fleeing, glittering rails, and said reassuringly: “Look there’s something dark yonder .. .” But when they came to the dark spot which had filled their eyes with gladness, once again sorrow laid hold on their hearts: it was only an abandoned Kirghiz encampment, heaps of piled-up clay—the heavy, melancholy work of fugitives. Again Pyetra shaded his eyes with his hands and gazed into the distance, seeking the lost station. But there was no station. Only the buzzing telegraph wires, and sometimes the wrecks of railroad cars that had crashed down the embankment, and the broken wheels of gun carriages, the last traces of the civil war that had swept over the steppe from Turkestan to Samara . It was easier for Mishka and Trofim than for the others. They had eaten and drunk and rested, and each of them had a big piece of bread in his pocket. From time to time Mishka would slip a crumb stealthily into his mouth and whisper to Trofim: “Not bad for us, eh?” “We'll make it, all right!” Trofim would answer him. mustn’t be afraid. . . .” The old man went along, his left side thrust forward, dragging his stiff legs painfully behind him. They came to a hillock, and he stopped and breathed heavily through his dust-choked nostrils, smiled wanly with his good kind eyes, and crossed himself, facing the hot red sun above the steppe. “Stop, children, it is all over with me!” The steppe began to sway and rock before his wondering eyes, the burdocks rocked and swayed, the telegraph poles whirled around, the telegraph wires buzzed louder and louder in his ears. “Stop children, I can’t go any farther!” The old man spread his legs and sat silent on the dry hot ground. The soldier sat down beside him clasping his wooden leg convul- sively with both hands. “Stop, brothers, I too can go no farther... .” Sidor and Yermolai halted. With a sudden gesture Pyetra flung his staff from him. “Oh, road, our road, our long road that never ends!” He searched in his pocket and drew out a few grains/of tobacco, lit them and inhaled the acrid smoke to quiet the gnawing of his empty, hungry entrails. After three pulls he grew dizzy and, flinging out his arms, fell on his back. Sidor and Yermolai sat with their foreheads sunk on their knees. The women and the little girl lay stretched full length on the ground. The old man curled himself up in a ball, leaning his head on his hands. The soldier sat staring at his wooden leg, and said dully, in a dead, indifferent voice: “We are lost.” Mishka looked fearfully at the peasant fallen on the road, gazed out at the steppe bare of men and bare of habitations, and his heart sank. It would be all right if the station was near, but what if it was still forty versts away? He broke off a bit of the bread in his pgcket and slipped it into his mouth, that the taste of it might quiet his mounting dread. The old soldier looked at Mishka’s pocket with ravenous eyes. “You have bread?” Mishka glanced at Trofim. ‘ Trofim answered lazily, without losing his “Where is there bread? He’s chewing lim The old man stirred, Sidor and Yermolai raised their heads, the women and the little girl stared at him with tormented eyes. For a moment the whole famished group sat there, aroused and quivering, pricking their ears. Had the joyful word been brought by the wind, or was it the earth that had whispered it to their tortured bodies? “Where is bread?” demanded Pyetra. The soldier pointed to Mishka. “He has it.” Mishka sprang up in terror, ready to battle to the death, for his last hope; his eyes glared like a polecat’s dragged out of its hole. Suddenly Trofim got to his feet too, and took his comrade by the arm: “Come ahead, we know the way!” (To Be Continued.) a ee Rumania from which he had fled as a semi-anarchist from the white terror. Upon his return to Rumania he was received by the Minister of the Interior Vajda-Voivod. The whole press of the Rumanian dic- tatorship methaphorically killed the fatted calf at the return of Ru- mania’s lost son. The Minister of the Interior entrusted him with the task of forming a “party against Communist demagogy” in Rumania, in other words, a counter-revolutionary collection of fascists and white guardists, The character of Istrati can also be seen from the fact that when in 1926 the organization of emigrant Rumanian peasants in the United States requested him to write an article or two for its official organ, he refused declaring that he did not write for nothing. He is venal, He is there for the best paymaster. He can only live in fame and flat- tery and for this he is prepared to prostitute his pen. In the Soviet Union he recovered his health and whilst he was there he told the truth, but when he returned to capitalism he sold himself and began to sully the name of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Republic. The vile campaign of slander organized by the imperialists against the Soviet Union is an integral part of the conspiracy of the imperial- ists of all capitalist countries against Communism and for the prepara- tion of war against the Soviet Union. The international proletariat will form a proper estimation of this unscrupulous agent of imperialism, and his disgusting attacks on the Soviet: Union will only cause them to rally still more closely around the “Only we mposure: , tion | | Soviet Union which stands like a rock in the ocean of capitalist exploita-\ : : *