The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 24, 1930, Page 4

the Cor prodaily York N, Page Four City, PARTY. Sean DRIVE The Spirit of New Bedford of the Party in New Bedford are a fighting spirit for the Party. ther places complain about ting connections w the comrades in New sw they do not need any end. The membership dford consists of young proletar- , exploited to the utmost and working for the revolution and 1 their connections in the shops units eis h work Bed s to that Whe a few weeks ago, we heard in si istic voices about the new i too high, the opinion of the dues ford comrades was expressed by a “The new dues are a in the rker saying: ) bring in 7 d remember t n ly ha and the members at the ve wages nan comrade speak- Pub ing has a family to support with such starva- tion wages. The revolutionary competition in New Bed- is going on not only between the units but also between dividual comrades, And when the New Bedford section committee con- dered challenging another section in District One they decided to challenge in revolutions competition not one other section but all three sections of the City of Boston. And no doubt they will win in” this competition—and the victory will be carried off by New Bedford on all fields; new members, new shop nuclei; new shop papers; Daily Worker subscribers and in general strengthening the Par ford Portiand Challenges Seattle The Portland Section’ of District No. 12 issued a challenge to the Seattle Section that they recruit more new members pro rata than Seattle. The Trial of the Chernovetz Forgers in Berlin ALBERT NORDEN (Berlin). the Berlin Court in which etz forgers is being is being dis- f oil concerns Te r of world histor The names mittees, international trust ates German nationalist leaders, of politicians and adventurers of all possible na- tions nually being mentioned in the proc aceused in the dock are only criminal They are hirelings of the type of The tools. Weber, Bell and Becker, who cannot refrain from the work of murdering work They are the henchmen of Colonel Ehrhardt, and se famous nationalists!) are frequent in- German prisons on account of es- There is only one (th mates of pionage against Germany. of them who is at all marked out from the rest: Shalva Karumidse, bourgeois-Georgian parliamentarian and “fighter for freedom till d incidentally a sheep breeder, hide dealer drawing high com- my dea banker rt and ns. The president of the Court is a man of ex- is made of Kress then he If any mention Deterding, of General General Lossow treme modesty. Ehrhardt and Von Kressenstein or is painfully embarrassed and becomes as the grave. For these gentlemen “behind the scenes oceupy high positions in bourgeois society and,therefore no slur must be cast on on the other hand, the them. All *the more, Gourt allows the accused and their defending counsel to: give free vent to their tirades against thé Soviet Union, their ex ions of hatred aga’ Bolshevism in R ia and in Germany. A stout well-fed gentleman appears who describes aself as the representative of the legendary Georgian Menshevik Government in Paris. German class judges know what is due to such a ecffee house government, and so Mr. Achmetelli is given a seat in Court set apart onl} or officials close beside the repre- sentative of the Foreign Office. An interpreter fails to put in an appearance. Who shall take his place? A bourgeois who emigrated from Ru after the revolution and who in the meantime has managed to ob- tain the position of editor of the extremely reactionary “Deutschen Zeitung.” there already begins the chorus of uld like to turn back the wheel of history e newspapers of the Second In- ternational begin to bestir themselves and suddenly display a newly found love for demo- i. e., in Georgia. The times from 1918 are conjured up again, when Georgia vet “suppressed by the Bolsheviks,” ill existed in Tiflis the govern- cond International, of Messrs. schvilli and Zeretelli, when still, allegedly, independent. We will destroy the legend before they can build it up again! When on the 22nd of April, 1918, the Mensheviki made use of the conclu- sion of the Brest-Litovsk peace as a pretext nl now those who crac to 1 was not wh ment ¢ Jordania, Georgia was n the | peoples, | to destroy | man emperor. | oil derricks of Geor; for proclaiming the independence of Trans- caucasia, they converted the country into a scene of war between the variou: into a labyrinth of trench completely the young called the Sultan, revolution, _ They called the Ger- When both of these were over- called for the troops of the En- tente and converted Georgia into a plaything They thrown they in the hands of the imperialists. And all this solely in order to fight against the Soviet power in the North and to keep down the city and rural poor in Transcaucasia itself. “IT would prefer the imperialists of the West to the fanatics of the East!” exclaimed Jor- dania on the 14th of January, 1919, in the Constituent Assembly in Tiflis. And so, along with the imperialists of the West, he replied to the land movements of the small peasants by burning down whole villages; he pitilessly combatted with blood and iron the strikes of workers which continually broke out. While the workers and peasants were shedding their blood for the rights and the the liberty of the from Baku w: flowing of the Entente. For that was the meaning of the alliance between the Men- sheviki and the imperialis' The latter set up a wall of bayonets against Bolshevism in return for which the Mensheviki gave them the eagerly-desired oil, this most important raw material of modern industry. proletariat, into the oils In the meantime some historic events took place. The Georgian proletariat drove out their Menshevist tormentors along with the Entente troops. The red flags waved over the The suppressed na- tionalities became free peoples, who in the exercise of completely unfettered right of self determination, have joined the Soviet Union. Industrialization is making tremendous head- way, and with it the electrification of the country. The peasants are uniting in collee- tive farms. But just as little as the workers of Georgia have forgotten their former oppression and are prepared to defend themselves against all imperialist penetration, so the former private | capitalist exploiters are equally determined to | along with the regain possession of the oil wells. Between the American Stanfard Oil Com- pany and the Royal Dutch Shell a fierce com- petitive struggle is raging. The German gen- erals, the Georgian Menshevik emigrants and the fascist associations of Germany—these, econd International, were the But cards on which Deterding set his stakes. these cards proved to be no trumps. By dragging out the case for over two years, by placing the prosecution papers in the hands of the accused, it has been possible to let the men behind the scenes disappear into the kind- ly darkness, out of which no judge or public prosecutor will drag them. But they are and remain at work. It is therefore doubly neces- sary that the international proletariat re- mains on the alert, in order to thwart the de- signs of the document and money forgers and their principals, the capitalist war mongers. College Sports Commercialized HE papers ve been full in the last few weeks exposing the hundreds of thousands of made by college teams. Bosses’ sports in the factores, colleges and settlement houses are not only used to divert the atten- tion of the working youth from their miserable the already College sports dollars conditions but also to increase heavy profits of the bosses. today have become professional sports, bring- ing in ever greater receipts every year. Yale University made 1,119,000 last year and expects to increase it during this season. Workers! Join the Party of Your Class! Communist Party U. S. A. 45 East 125th Street, New York City. 1, the undersigned, want to join the Commu- Send me more information. atst: Party. Name ... Occupation Mail this to the Central Office, Communist Party, 43 East 125th St., New York, N.Y. The Harvard football gains will be more than 500,000. celled in athletics subsidized by the colleges and given definite sums of money to play on the college teams, but highly paid coaches and professionals are hired for the teams. The college athletes not only get actual returns, but they get special privileges in their stud- ies—they are not required to take certain sub- jects or reach the grade required to pass. Thus, the “institutions of learning” have become money-making institutions. The young workers must recognize that under capitalism sports is not used to develop healthy young workers, but is use] in the interests of the bosses. The young workers must stick to- gether, not only in the factories where they fight for better conditions, but on the sports field. Build your own sports organization— THE LABOR SPORTS UNION, which is the only working class sports organization which sides with the workers in all their struggles and stands 100 per cent for the working class. Oor own age. the vourgeotn ane, ts distinguished by thinthat tt y is eplitting grent hontile campa. Into two great and directiy conten poned classes: hourgeniale nad o letariat—Morx. eciorye seieyensuied Not only are students who have ex- | rationalization. | especially ert amis Worker Central Organ of the Communist Party of We U.S 8. A. By Fred Ellis| By Mall (in New York City only): By Mail (outside of New York Ci SURSCRIPTION: RATES: $8.00 a year; 6.00 a ye $4.50 six months; ; $3.50 six months; n ~ $2.50 three months ' $2.00 three months By BILL DUNNE. THE present industrial crisis was preceded by a process of merging and trustification of industry without parallel in American history, There is hardly a sphere of capitalist indus- trial and financial enterprises that has not been the scene of giant mergers of giant cor- porations—retrustification on a huge scale, The belief that the concentration of capital and control tends to prevent economic crises is partially responsible for this. But the main idea is the lowering of “labor costs”—the se- curing of more production with less workers— The whole process of trusti- fication and re-trustification which has been marked in the last three and carried on systematically and rapidly the crisis of 1 1, must be regarded as decisive part of the whole rationalization drive first, and second as one of the main factors in both sharpening the imperialist struggle for world markets and preparing for it. Forced by the momentum of the drive for a larger share of the world market, American imperialism’s program of trustification has produce] new contradictions. Lenin, writing on this subject in his “Imperialism” said: “The claim that cartels forestall crises is a fairy tale of the bourgeois economists, who try to defend capitalism at all costs. On the contrary, the fact that monopolies, aris- ing in some branches of industry, increase and accentuate the chaos characteristic of the capitalist mode of production as a whole. The incongruity of the development of agri- culture and industry, characteristic of capi-, talism in general, is increased still further. The privileged position decupied by the most strongly cartelized, the so-called heavy in- dustry, especially the coal and iron indus- tries, leads to more ‘intensifie1 planlessness’ in other branches of industry. . . . In- crease of risk is, in the last analysis, linked with the huge increase of capital, which, so to speak, overflows its banks, flows abroad, ete, At the same time, the remarkable speedy development of technique brings in its wake more and more elements of incon- gruity in the development of the various branches of national economy, more and more elements of chaos and crises. . 5 Crises of all kinds, especially the economic ones, but not only these, in turn increase greatly the tendency to concentration and monopoly : In such avalanches of liquidation of mort- gages on the future profits of industry as oc- curred in the recent stock market crash, thou- sands of middle-class elements lose their hold- ings in big an] little corporations. The entire ownership of corporations changes hands and for the most part passes into the possession of the most powerful capitalists—the banking house of Morgan and its associates. Putting the Burden on the Workers. The crisis in the stock market, itself a re- flection of the growing gap between the vol- ume of production and the market, lays the basis for a still more rapid concentration of capital and new mergers. The rulers lose no time in putting the bur- den of the crisis om the workers. Already _ mass unemployment puts millions of workers a The Economic Crisis, the London Naval Conterence and the Sharp- ening Class Struggle and their families on the bread line. This mass unemployment in turn becomes a weapon with which to beat down the wages and standard of living of those workers still employed and to set a new and lower economic and social level for the entire working class, The mechanics of this process are about as follows; we cite a concrete instance: The American. Locomotive Company con- trols 31 other corporations like the American Car and Foundry, the Ames Spring Company, the Heat Products Exchange Company, ete. Control is secured by the purchase of 51 per cent of the stock of the smaller company and the reorganization of its board of directors. (The deal may be carried out by the American Locomotive Company itself or by an_ inside clique of officials.) Once control is secured, 50 per cent of the profits of the smaller cor- porations are paid to the A. L. C. before the stockholders of the smaller company receive a single cent of dividends. It is quite clear that under these circum- stances the pressure upon the subordinate of- ficials of the “daughter” company for in- creased profits is tremendous. This pressure is transferred to the shoulders of the workers in its factories in the form of speed-up and | wage-cuts The workers are driven at top speed by the organizational momentum of the | capitalist process, One particular subsidiary of the American Locomotive Company last year did $7,000,000 worth of business. The directors of the A. L. C. have ordered the head of this company to do $15,000,000 worth of business in 1930— when business conditions are much worse. What will happen? The directors of this subsidiary company, and its engineers, will endeavor to underbid all other companies in their field. Contracts will be taken at figures at which dividends can be had only if the workers’ wages are cut still further and they submit to be driven to the point of exhaustion. New labor-displacing machines will be installed, new technical pro- cesses will be developed. Unemployment will increase even though this particular company does twice the amount of business it did last year. é It is in this manner that the piling of mer- ger on merger and the extension of bank con- trol to all fields of industry (the house of Morgan controls the American Locomotive Company), a process intensified by the pres- ent crisis, places additional burdens upon the working class. It is plain that the whole Hoover plan, in which mergers an heads of mergers play so large a part, is organized for this purpose. Trustification and the War Danger. | Without “cheaper production” enforced by gigantic mergers with the government power at their disposal American imperialism cannot carry on an effective struggle for a bigger share of the world markets and sources of cheap raw materials. The wave of re-trusti- fication is therefore an integral part of the program for world conquest and a further un- | deniable sign of the growing war danger. This danger is not mitigated by the fact that from time to time the imperialist powers | come to agreement as a whole on this or that LENIN ON THE ROLE OF A COMMUNIST PARTY NOTE: The excerpts printed below are taken from Lenin’s famous brochure, “What is to be done?” which is included in Volume IV of the Collected Works of V. I. Lenin, just published by the International Publish- ers, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York. This vol- ume, published in two parts, includes all the writings of Lenin between 1900 and 1902, and covers the formative period of the Rus- sian Bolshevik Party. Pd IN advancing against “Iskra” his “theory” of “raising the activity of the masses of the workers,” Martynoy, as a matter of fact, dis- played a striving to diminish this activity, be- cause he declared the very economic struggle before which all economists grovel to be the preferable, the most important and “the most widely applicable means of rousing this activ- ity, and the widest field for it.” This error is such a characteristic one, precisely because it is not peculiar to Martynov alone. As a matter of fact, it is possible to “raise the ac- tivity of the masses of the workers” only pro- vided this activity is not restricted entirely o “political agitation on an economic basis.” And one of the fundamental conditions for the necessary expansion of political agitation is the organization of all-sided political expo- sure. In no other way can the masses be trained in political consciousness and revolu- . tionary activity. except by means of such ex- posures. Hence, to conduct such activity. is one of the most important functions of inter- national social-democracy as a whole, for even in countries where political liberty exists, there is still a field for work of exposure, al- though in such countries the work. is con- ducted in a different sphere. For example, the. German party is strengthening its posi- tion and spreading its influence, thanks par- ticularly to the untiring energy with which it is conducting a campaign of political expo- sure. Working class consciousness cannot be genuinely political consciousness unless the workers are trained to respond to all cases of tyranny, oppression, violence and abuse, no matter what class is affected. Moreover, that response must be a social-democratic response, and not one from any other point of view. Tha consciousness of the masses of the workers cannot be genuine class conscioudness, unless the workers learn, to observe from cuncrete, and above all from topical, political facts an events, every other social class and all th manifestations of the intellectual, ethical an, political life of these classes; unless they lea to apply practically the materialist analysis and the materialist estimate of .all classes,’ strata and groups of the population. Those who concentrate the attention, observation and the consciousness of the working class exclu- sively, or even mainly, upon itself alone, are not social-democrats; because, for its self- realization the working class must not only have a theoretical—rather it would be more true to say: not so much theoretical as a prac- tical understanding acquired through expér- ience of political life of the relationships be- tween all classes of modern sociéty. That’ is why the idea préached by our economists, that the economic struggle is the most widély ap- plicable means of drawing the masses into the political movement is so extremely harmful ani extremely reactionary in practice. In order to become a social-democrat, a workit man must have a clear picture in his mind the economic nature and the social and: po tical features of the landlord, of the priest, of the high state official and of the peasant, of the student and of the tramp; he must know their strong and weak sides; he must under- stand all the catchwords and sophisms by which each class and each stratum camou- flages its egotistical strivings and its. real “nature”; he must understand what interests certain institutions and certain laws reflect and how they are reflected. The working man cannot obtain this “clear picture” from books. He can obtain it. only from living examples and from exposures, following hot after their! occurrence, of what goés on around us at aj given moment, of what is being discussed, in’ whispers perhaps, by: each one. in his own’ way, of the meaning of such and- such Sstatis-' tics, in such and such court sentences, etc. These universal pdlitical exposures ate an @s- sential and fundamental condition: for training’ the masses in revolutionary activity. question, or that agreement is reached be- tween this or that group. Such agreements are arrived at temporarily between the Stand- ard Oil and the Royal Dutch Shell for the sharing of certain markets; between the Bri- tish and American capitalist groups in the in- ternational chemical trust; between the steel companies of the various countries, ete. These agreements are not signs that the im- perialist conflicts are being dulled, but on the contrary that the very sharpness of the strug- gle compels such agreentents. These agree- ments give the rivals a breathing spell which all utilise to make better preparations for the next struggle. Every one of these “gentle- men’s agreements” has a shorter life than its predecessors and every one is an attempt to solve imperialist contradictions in a certain field and strengthen the imperialist front against the Soviet Union. The capitalist press hails all these agree- ments as proof of the ability of capitalism to solve its contradictions just as it put forward the “Americanization of labor” as the solu- tion for the basic contradictions of capitalism and the infallible method of liquidating the class struggle. But under the cover of these “agreements” further offensives against the working class are prepared and the training of armies, the building of navies and air fleets is speeded -up. “The form of the struggle may change, said Lenin, “and does change constantly, be- ing dependent on various comparatively trif- ling and temporary causes, but the ESSENCE of the struggle, its CLASS CHARACTER CANNOT CHANGE as long as classes exist.” The London Conference. The London Naval Conference is the latest attempt of the great imperialist powers to de- ceive the working class into believing in “peace by agreement.” The world markets that can be secured and kept depend upon naval and military power. The same is true of colonial possessions. A situation now exists where deepening economic crises force each imperialist ruling class to double and treble its fight for a bigger share of the world market. In addition to the attempt to cover the war maneuvers with olive branches, the partici- pants in the London conference are trying to place the blame for the coming imperialist war on their rivals. On one thing, however, they are agfree]—that the existence and grow- ing power of the Soviet Union threatens the existence of world capitalism. On this ques- tion they can sink their differences but they will not agree to sink their own battleships. Trustification and rationalization—the gold dust twins of American capitalism—each car- ried to the highest point in history—have re- sulted not in solving but in increasing class antagonisms and imperialist conflicts. Especially is this the case in regard to the United States—the very country to which capitalist apologists pointed for a decade as the living proof of the confounding of the Com- munists and their world party—the Commu- nist International. “The capitalists divide the world,” said Lenin, “not out of any especially malicious intent, but because the degree of concentration which has been reached compels them to choose that road in order to secure profits. And they divide it up among themselves ac- cording to their respective ‘capital’ and ‘pow- er,’ for under the system of commodity pro- duction and .capitalism the division cannot. bé made on any other basis. This power changes according to the economic and political: develop- ment. In order to understand what is hap. pening now it is. necessary to know. which questions are ‘being decided .by the change of power. Whether these. changes. are ‘purely’ economic or: extra-economié (for instance d to wars) is after all a secondary questio which cannot change. the fundamental vies, on the latest epoch of capitalism. To put fe ward the question of the FORM of the strug- gle and collusion. (peace-time one . day, war- time another, and then peace-time again. among the groups of capitalists in place eft essence of this struggle. and collusions, ,} in lower one’s self to the role of a sophist.’ “Agreements” End W: There is no contradiction” between" “agree- ments. between even the most. bitter, imperial- ist rivals and the preparations for war. AS a matter of fact thede “agreethents” are part, of the war preparations; especially “is this. tine in this period which is the périod of “the hunt for allies” on the part of éach imperialist | nation. While the London naval conference meets and sprays the world with hypocritical Dedce phrases, workers and colonial peoples: are ing shot, beaten and jailed by the thousanc The Communist Parties. of all capitalist’ cou tries are single! out for special, persecution. as is always the case when. the class Struggle’ sharpens and the revolutionary tide rises, Mass unemployment. exists in every imper- ialist nation. Deep crises. are the order of the| day, Trusts and mergers ‘and, eartele | grow larger. The dead wéight of monopoly Prices, wage cuts and speéd- -up threatens to crush the} masses, The resistance of the working Class has grown by leaps and bounds, It is organized and led by the Communist Parties. This alone! shows the high political stage of the struggle today. Only the Communist Parties make: clear to} the masses the connection between monopols and trustification, rationalization, the “peace’ maneuvers liké the London conference, Hoov. er’s grand. council—and the class character: off the whole program for “cheaper, production,” the drive against the Soviet Untie and the im. perialist conflicts. The Hoover-Wall Street program is a pri gram of war on the working Class, on bd ii colonial n:asses in Mexiéo and’ Haiti, of for world conquest against Great Britain a j her allies, of war on the Soviet Union. The reply of our*class to the imperialist program is being made:in thé basic industri by the organization of unions,"based on ¢! class struggle, by the organization of the: un employed and struggle for their demands, b: the militant defense of all class’ war prison ers, by organization of mass protest and stru gle against the oppression of the Latin Am ican workets and peasants, by active partici pation in the world revolutionary movemén| led by the Communist International, by the cruiting of new thousands of wagers Ante | thy ranks of our Party. : The reply of our Party in this viva of sharpening class struggle is the reply ‘made the Tenth Plenum of the Cominte: Fight rationalization! Turn the ‘imperiali war into civil war for proletarian Power! D feni the Soviet Union! —