The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 6, 1930, Page 4

F Page Four shed by the Comprodail: Squxres” New York City, N. Address and mail al y Publishing Co., 1 Y. checks to the Daily Wor Telephone vy, at 26-28 Uni “DAIWORK ” New York, N. Baily > Central Organ of the Co. “PARTY RECRUITING DRIVE. | ¥oucanoes: recruited during the trict 3—-incidentally, ited in any single week Bkoent one since the drive started—were dis- mated as follows, Philadelphia 8, Anthracite, 46, Chester 6, Trenton 6, Baltimore 4, Wash- ington, D.C. 1 and Wilm 1 members in PRE. 2 new seven tthe lowes Buffal reports that although they have recr ew members, only 25 per cent of t ip is engaged in the drive. While we regre progress being made by be satisfied until the entire ‘membership is involved in the drive. Cl , one of the districts making the best ng during the seventh week, came in with 63 new members—all from centers of heavy industry follows: Cleveland, 37; Youngs 3; Akron, 4; War- ren 7 District six is still weak in the t was assigned has more than 2 steel workers. The Party in these steel towns to lead workers. must ent the batt ave gone over their quota, Section 2 and 4 The first had a quota of 60 and has already reached 65 and the second had a quota of 35 and has already reached 48. Some more Sections will have to intensify vity so that the Chicago hicago two Section ac —_— District, as a whole, can reach its quota within the next few weeks, * * © in recruiting coal miners than Ohio. Already 65 new members have been recruited in South- ern Illinois. Of the total recruitment of 379 in District 8, 243 came from Chicago, 27 from St. Louis, 26 from Milwaukee and 18 from Gary. | Chicago District is making a better showing | | Detailed reports have been received of 44 of the 52 shop nuclei organized during the Re- cruiting Drive, The industries in which these of the orientation of the Party. ty, 5 nuclei; leath- er, 3; shipyard, auto, 8; auto accessory, 2; steel, 6; metal, 3; car shop, 1; wire, 1; coal mines, 4; metal mines, 4; furniture, 1; rubber, 1; glass, 1; quarry granite, 1. Thru these shop nuclei the Party will in- crease its influence and activity, manifold and exercise a determined influence on the workers of these factories—provided, that each District Committee, devotes the closest attention to each nucleus individually. In the past, during the Lovestone regime, reports were sent to the Comintern of over 400 shop nuclei existing. This was mere factional bluff. Such reports had to be exposed sooner or later, because these non-existent nuclei would act as a boomerang on such a leadership. Today we want no bluff reports. Each of these shop nuclei reported organized, must become functioning and active nuclei, or the District Buro will be called to strict accountability for this failure by the Central Committee, are located, are indicati Textile indu: Development of Russian Revolution of 1905 From a speech on “Mass Strike, Party and Trade Unions” delivered by Rosa Luxemburg in Frankfort on Maine on April 17, 1910. ig present, so to say, official period of the Russion revolution rightly dates from the rise of the St. Petersburg proletariat on the 22nd January, 1905, from that procession of 200,000 workers in front of the Tsar’s palace which ended in a fearful bloodbath. As is known, the bloody massacre in St. Petersburg was the signal for the outbreak of the first gigantic series of mass strikes which, within a few days, swept over the whole of Russia and carried the fiery cross of the revolution from St. Petersburg to every corner of the ry and to the broadest strata of the pro- letariat. The St. Petersburg rising of January 22 was, however, only the highest point of a mass strike already entered on by the proletariat of the capital town in January, 1905. This January mass strike in St. Petersburg undoubtedly took place as a result of the immediate impression of that gigantic general strike which had broken out shortly before, in December, 1904, in the Caucasus in Baku, and for a time held the whole of Russia in suspense. The December events in Baku were, however, nothing but a final and powerful offshot of that huge mass strike which in the years 1903 and 1904 shook the whole of Southern Russia like a periodical earthquake and whose pro- logue was the mass strike in Batum (in the Caucasus) in March, 1902. This first mass strike movement in the un- broken chain of the present revolutionary erup- tions is only separated by five or six years from the great general strike of the St. Peters- burg textile workers in the years 1896 and 1897, and if this movement appears outwardly Notice of Central Control Com- mittee Decision on the Expul- tion of John Owens February 3, 1930. By action of the Central Control Committee of the Communist Party, John Owens, of Los Angeles, Calif., has been expelled from the Communist Party of the U.S.A., because of a vicious anti-Party attitude and un-Communist, petty-bourgeois conceptions regarding Party work and policies. This he has plainly shown in two letters addressed to Comrade Otto Hall, of the Negro Department of the Central Committee of the Party, which contain repeated attacks and charges against the Party against the Negro work and against its leadership, attacks and charges so vicious and absurd as can be made only by a bitter enemy of the Party. The petty-bourgeois conceptions of Owens, which previously expressed themselves in senti- mental praise of brotherly love and individual efforts show themselves more plainly now in his statement that the Party is only an aggre- gate of the individuals who make it up and who occupy leading positions in it, as well as in a general ranting against “multiplying hatreds,” while he himself gives vent to hatred against the Party. Unswerving loyalty to the working class struggles, undying hatred against the ex- ploiters and oppressors of the working masses, and the submergence of the individual to the class interests and purposes of the Communist Workers! Join the Party of Your Class! Communist Party U. S. A. 43 East 125th Street, New York City. I, the undersigned, want to join the Commu- nist Party. Send me more information. NAME 2... cc sscccccccessscrseecccesscensses Address ety. sccecece PRMAMBTION sass svensceccccceses AZ@l cies Mail this to the Central Office, Communist Party, 43 East 125th St., New York, N. Y. to be separated from the present revolution by | some years of stagnation and reaction, never- | theless everybody who is familiar with the in- ner political development of the Russian pro- letariat up to the present level of its class- | consciousness and revolutionary energy, will recognize that the history of the present per- iod of mass struggles begins with that genera! strike in St. Petersburg. They are important for the problem of the mass strike because they contain in embryo all the chief features of the subsequent mass strikes, The phantastic and vague reports of the general strike in Baku had not yet reached all parts of the Tsarist empire when, in Jan- uary, 1905, there broke out the mass strike in St Petersburg. Here also the immediate cause of the strike was trifling. Two workers in the Putilov works were discharged on account of belonging to the legal Subatov Union. This victimization call- ed forth a solidarity strike on January 16th, of the whole of the 12,000 workers employed in this undertaking. The social democrats used the occasion of the strike in order to begin a lively agitation for the extension of the demands and put forward the demand for the eight-hour day, right of combination, freedom of speech and press, etc. The ferment of the Putiloy workers quickly spread to the rest of the proletariat, and in a few days 140,000 workers were on strike. Joint consultations and stormy discussions led to the working out of that proletarian charter of civil liberties, headed by the eight-hour day, with which on January 22, 200,000 workers, led by Father Gapon, marched to the Tsar’s palace. The dispute over the two victimized workers had beepme in a few weeks the pro- | logue to the most powerful revolution of the new time. Party—these principles are foreign to Owens’ petty bourgeois ideology. Owens was also a friend of the scoundrel Jackson, who roomed with him in New York, and with whose expulsion from the Party Owens did not agree. Some of Jackson’s sur- reptitious attacks against the Negro work of the Party, which he has prepared for sale to the Negro bourgeois press,, appear also in Owens’ letters. By expelling John Owens the Party is get- ting rid of another of the renegades, who ex- pose themselves in the fire of sharpening strug- gles and increasing difficulties that confront the Party today. Central Control Committee of the Com- munist Party of the U. S. A. Mexican Capitalism Is Not Consolidated While Ortiz Rubio, the choice of American imperialism for president of Mexico is taking office amid great festivities and banquets of the Mexican bourgeoisie, the misery of the Mexican masses increases daily. Due to the world crisis affecting the price of silver, and the precipitate fall of the Mex- ican silver Peso, the silver mines of Mexico are closing. The other day there were 400 miners thrown out of work from the closing of the silver mines at Pachuca, capital of the State of Hidalgo, adding to the reported enormous army of 700,000 jobless in the Mexican colony of Wall Street. The Mexican capitalist regime, affected like all the world besides, by the sudden onset of depression in the United tSates, is not consoli- dated, and every symptom shows that instead of consolidation the economy of the country is being shattered to pieces, Naturally, because of this very lack of con- solidation, the bourgeoisie is in fear of increas- ing mass unrest and is attempting to consoli- date its forces of repression, to fascisize the state and tighten its machinery of control thru the yellow unions, but the semi-colonial capi- talist regime is weakening basically with every passing day. ‘Laisve’ Supports Daily Worker The shareholders of the Publishing Associa- tion of the Lithuanian organ of the Commu- nist Party, “Laisve,” at their convention adopt- ed a resolution, urging all their members to become subscribers to the aDily Worker and constantly to support it in every way. They sent their revolutionary greetings to the Daily with a check of $25.20. Dz Worker By Mail (in New York City only’ BY Mail (outside of New York Ci TION RA’ wee $4.50 Seana six month: $3.50 six months; ae $2.50 three months $2.00 three months y of the U.S. A. B Six Months of Crisis and Its Perspective - By HARRY GANNES. U. S. imperialism is entering the seventh month of the present severe crisis. What are its prospects? What is the present extent of the crisis? In spite of the current reports of some rise in steel production over the extremely low point of 388 per cent of capacity in the last week of December and the first week of Jan- uary, there is no sign of fundamental upturn in this basic industry of American capitalism. The steel bosses during this period purposely curtailed production and shut down some of their plants, in order to begin with greater momentum later in January, hoping that this would take them out of the black slough of sharp decline. This was foreshadowed in the statement of Iron Age, organ of the steel bosses, when they said, “The very severity of the 4th quarter decline in production is re- garded as the best promise of early recovery.” Steel production is reported to be now at 75 per cent of capacity, as compared with’ 85 to 90 per cent in January of 1929. The Future of Steel Production. But there are certain fundamental facts that indicate that the steel industry cannot push up its production by pulling at its own boot- straps. Steel is not produced for purely orna- mental purposes but forms the raw material for such basic industries as automobile, build- ing construction, railroad equipment, farm ma- chinery, etc. The automobile industry absorbs 20 per cent of the entire steel output, and the building con- struction industry at least 15 per cent. In the first place, “reports of the improvement (in the steel industry) have been exaggerated.” | (Journal of Commerce, Jan. 21, 1930.) Sec- ondly, the current orders for steel in the most important industrial centers show there is no basis for a continuation of the increase in steel—in fact, everything points to a further sharp decline. Says the Journal of Commerce, (Jan. 29, 1930): “The volume of business being received by the steel jobbers in the New York metropo- litan district is nothing to become boastful about. The aggregate of sales is poorer than was December (which forced the cut to 38 per cent of capacity), and is probably lighter than January of last year.” What is the state of the crisis in the auto- mobile and construction industries? Referring to these two industries, the Annalist (Jan. 31, 1930), states: “Of the two industries which are admit- tedly the main supports of prosperity, build- ing and automobiles, the former presents this week a retrogressive record.” Building Work Down. The total of building contracts awarded the first twenty business days of January, 1930, was 15.8 per cent below the value of contracts awarded in the first twenty business days of January, 1929, and 21.9 per cent less than the total for the same number of days in 1928. And this sharp drop comes as the Annalist puts it, in spite of the fact “that a full two months after President Hoover's business ¢on- ferences for the resuscitation of business, par- ticularly in the construction field, no upturn is visible on the fact of the returns.” | The building indi basis for a rise in sharp reductions. does not promise any steel. Plainly it indicates Automobile Overproduction. The drop in automobile production was the sharpest experienced by any industry in the present cri In September, 1929, output de- clined 17 per cent; in November, it dropped another 44 per cent, and in December, still an- other 45 per cent—a total drop for the eight months since April of 81 per cent. At the present time, even with the sharp decline of 81 per cent over a period of eight months there is admittedly huge overproduction in the automobile industry. Explaining that there has been overproduc- tion in automobiles, and that to attempt to increase output would be the “height of folly,” the Commercial and Financial Chronicle writes (Jan. 25, 1930): “Evidently there had been overproduction. It hence would have been the height of folly to add further to the surplus stock of cars (autos), and the case serves to illustrate how difficult it is to comply with a blanket re- quest that industrial activity be maintained on the old scale.” The most optimistic automobile capitalists predict a decline of 20 per cent in automobile output in 1930. This is based on a furious struggle for world markets and an increase of over 100 per cent in exports from the U. S. of automobiles. Against this there is the or- ganization of the European automobile bosses, with their help of their imperialist govern- ments, to fight any increase whatsoever of exports of cars from the United States. With the severe crisis in the European countries, the American automobile bosses will do won- ders if they maintain last year’s exports. Hence a conservative estimate would show that there will be a decline of at least between 25 and 35 per cent in automobile output in 1980. Automobile production is still at an extreme- ly low point. As late as January 22, 1930, the Journal of Commerce reported that in Youngs- town, one of the centers for steel products for the automobile trade, “auto body sheets con- tinue to be the exception (to the general slight rise) with orders still light.” Railroads Reflect Crisis. With freight car loadings steeply below the 1929 figures, the railroads on December 31 (Annalist, Jan. 17, 1930) reported they had 447,141 freight cars in good condition lying idle in their yards. Certainly with the facts clearing forecasting less freight traffic for the coming year, the railroad capitalists will not build many new freight cars, locomotives or track’ to remain idle. The Commercial and Financial Chronicle (Jan, 11, 1930) points out that railroad steel buying, which forms a good percentage of the slight increases, offers no optimistic outlook. They say: “Not too much gratification can be taken in the improvements and enlargements in railroads and certain manufacturers, for these were all planned before the slump.” Agrarian Crisis Severe. Because of the deep-going and sharpening farm crisis, with the drop in wheat, corn, cot- ton and other prices, the outlook for the pro- rraimti| THE ECONOMIC CRISIS AND TASKS OF Y.C.L. Resolution of the NEC Plenum Note: The following is the second install- ment of the resolution adopted by the last meeting of the National Executive Commit- tee of the Young Communist League of the U. 8. A. a The Unsatisfactory Situation in the YCL. Tit, Although the League can record certain achievements in the period since its 5th Na- tional Convention: active participation together with the Party in the struggle against the Lovestone renegades and the complete elimina- tion of Lovestone agents in the League; a cer- tain beginning of the struggle against oppor- tunism in practice as it expressed itself in the daily work of both the Party and the League; the final liquidation of the long standing fac- tional struggle in the League and decided pro- gress in the proletarianization of the League’s leadership; active participation (with many shortcomings) in a number of important strikes and political demonstrations; the build- ing of the League in new sections of the coun- try, especially in the South; a fi beginning at the Trade Union Unity Convention and in some of the new unions in creating the pre- requisite for putting our youth work on a more conerete basis, basically the League situation remains extremely unsatisfactory and entirely out of proportion with the tremendous po: bilities produced by the developing crisis and the growing militancy of the young workers. The YCL still is, as characterized by the ‘YCI and our 5th National Convention, “a small organization largely isolated from the masses of young workers with an unsatisfactory na- tional and social composition—its development strongly lagging behind the growing class con- sciousness of the young workers.” The League failed to show the necessary political activity in connection with the economic struggles of the young workers; anti-militarist work; the struggle against opponent organizations, etc. The struggles of the young workers were often allowed to pass unobserved and when we did participate in these struggles we too often failed to give independent leadership or to de- velop the necessary new forms of struggle, (New York, Boston, Kansas City, etc.), and to build the League. As a result the League fre- quently remained “at the tail of events, lagged behind the general political development.” The League has failed to utilize the good oppor- tunities for the building of the new trade union center. We have very few organized League fractions in unions an{ are very slow in building the youth sections as well as econ- omic youth associations. The League has failed to show sufficient consistency in de- veloping the every day work in the factories or preparatory work in connection with the struggles of the young workers. Along with serious opportunist mistakes, tendencies of isolation and narrow sectarian- ism, encouraged by the historical development of our League as an organization of the im- migrant youth and by its bad composition, have been especially marked. The continued existence of such an unsatisfactory situation in the League despite certain slight but abso- lutely insufficient improvements during the past period—is due to the fact that the turn to mass work correctly outlined for the League by the 5th World Congress and our own 5th National Convention has not been carried out, while the decisions aiming at an improvement in the League situation have not even been popularized or fully understood by the leader- ship or the membership. The Right and the “Left” Danger. IV. The Right danger is the main danger confronting both the Party and the League. It finds its clearest organized expression in the group of anti-Communist renegades around Lovestone and among elements taking up a conciliatory attitude towards these opportun- ists. But the Right danger is by no means confined to these groups. It is ever on the increase as the growing struggles of the work- ers frighten more and more opportunist ele- ments away from the Party and League. It is kept alive by illusions about capitalist pros- perity, by the pressure of reformism and ex- presses itself in a lagging behind the quickly developing events and in the persistence of opportunist mistakes in the practical work of the League and the Party, which must be ener- getically combatted. As expressions of the Right danger in the youth movement which have shown themselves with special clearness during the past period, it is necessary to enumerate the following ten- dencies: underestimation of the radicalization * of the working class youth (underestimation of the crisis and its effects on the young workers) minimizing of the role of the YCU as a militant political organization of the working class youth (the theory that th« League is a non-political auxiliary organiza. tion in which we set up a Communist frac- tion); the detachment of cultural work from political (tendencies to de-politicalize the League in Superior, Massachusetts, ete.); strong expressions of nationalism (refusal to meet with Italian comrades on: the part of Finnish comrades in District 1); strong ex- pressions of white chauvinism (New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston); individual cases of lagging behind the struggles of the young workers; failure to understand the slogan of “self defense” in connection with Gastonia; sentiments of political neutrality (very small percentage of leading comrades in the Party, failure to be sufficiently alert to important political questions confronting the Party); un- derestimation of the importance of the new forms for the organization of the young work- ers (failure to actually build up the youth sec- tions in the new unions); complete underesti- mation of youth work on the part of leading Party comrades in the new unions, (NMU, etc.); overestimation of the strength of op- ponent organizations and unpolitical. attitude of the League members to their tasks in the sport organizations; opposition to the orienta- tion of the work of the large factories and basic industries and complete underestimation of the importance of shop nuclei as basic form of League organization (certain tendencies to orientate the League away from basic indus- tries—Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Chicago, New York); underestimation of the war danger, especially of the danger of war against the Soviet Union; failure to develop concrete anti- militarist work, to link our partial demands for soldiers and sailors with our general de- mands and the presence of strong pacifist in- fluences in some sections of the League. But the Right danger is not the only danger confronting the League. There is also the so- called “left” danger sharply expressed in the tendency of “left” phrase-mongers to substi- tute petty bourgeois radicalism for the neces- sary direct connection between leadership and the masses and mass organizations. This dan- ger which finds expression in “tendencies fo counter-oppose the politics to the organiza- tional tasks,” to separate the “politically de- veloped” comrades from the practical League workers, to draw a line between “inside” League work and mass work, to hold back the | development of these proletarian forces who show ability in mass work in favor of those comrades who can use the longest revolution- ary phrases, in various expressions of van- guardism, etc., exists to a very great degree in the American League due to its develop- ment as an isolated organization of the im- migrant youth and its large petty-bourgeois composition. These tendencies lead to a negation of mass work in economic, sport and cultural organ- izations as seen in the actual contempt for this work shown by many old and leading com- rades in the League, and by the very small number of League members in the auxiliary organizations, L. S. U. (80); I. L. D. (60); ete.; to survivals of vanguardism; and in the failure of the League members to go where the young workers are, to mix with the young workers both at work and socially, (in their neighborhoods, on the recreation fields, in mass organizations) and their preference for their own little closed in grouping of League members. It has been a mistake of the League leader- ship that it has underestimated this “left” dan- ger, has failed to sufficiently carry on the struggle on two fronts against the main dan- ger, the Right danger, and against these “left” deviations, has often cultivated “left”? mis- takes by its neutral position and therefore made more difficult the important task of transforming the League from a narrow or- ganization of the immigrant youth to a mass organization of the American young workers. The Enlarged Plenum of the YCI was correct in emphasizing the fact that while “The Right danger in the world Communist movement is the greatest danger, in order to transform the YCL’s into real mass organizations, the lead- ership of the Young Communist International must, without delay, liquidate these mistakes and enter on the path of active struggle with the “left” danger. By this very fact the lead- ing Young Communist members will overcome the main hindrance which now interferes with its entering onto the path of mass work.” (To Be Continued) “ duction of farm implements is indeed extreme- ly black. The production of farm implements is an important feeder for the steel industry. Hence the prospects for increased steel pro- duction based on greater output of farm im- plements is hit on the head by the general crisis of American capitalism. This was graphically expressed by Secretary of Agriculture, Hyde, when he issued a fervid appeal to the farmers on January 26, 1930, to curtail their crops for 1930 because “it is unlikely the demand for farm products in the summer and fall of 1930 will be as good as during last summer and fall . . . The demand for some farm products has been already af- fected by the decline in industrial activity since last June.” No amount of glib phrases from Hoover and his imperialist cohorts can hide the funda- mental facts of the crisis, and that it will worsen in the future. It is impossible for the capitalists to plan their production and the verbal attempts of Hoover to achieve production increases has met with ignoble failure. One of the mouthpieces of the finance-cap- italists, the Commercial and Financial Chroni- cle, very frankly admits that capitalism can- not begin to plan its economy, and this be- comes more or less hopeless in the face of the tremendous factors of the crisis. They state (Jan. 25, 1930): “It may seem strange that such decided curtailment should have occurred, in the face of President Hoover’s request to all the lead- ers of industry, that production, in fear of the ill effects to followe from the stock mar- ket panic, should be maintained as nearly full volume as possible. The fact is, however, that such a*course was simply out of the question.” - in almost equally sharp degree—s' ed ee, Six months of crisis have past. They showed conclusively that the crisis of American im- perialism is not as Lovestone, Hoover and Green analyzed it, a temporary depression of the character of 1924 and 1927, but a funda- mental crisis of overproduction. It is a crisis that effects every phase of capitalist economy te€l, build- ing, automobiles, railroads, agriculture. The “upturns” in steel and automobiles are mere upward, short jogs in a general graphic downward curve of American capitalist econ- omy. The curve was at first preciptiously steep. The farm crisis particularly overlooked by the Lovestonite apologists for American im- perialism, is growing sharper and deeper and -will have the effect of dragging the. general ( crisis of U. S. capitalism into deeper desponds. “Unfortunately, ‘as it happens, renewed de- pression is developing ... in the agricultural sections of the country, despite the efforts of the government at Washington to prevent it, and perhaps because of it, and this may serve to arrest the (industrial) recovery and indeed cause a new set back.”—The Commercial and Financial Chronicle, Feb. 1, 1980.) The crisis of American capitalism'is @ part of the world crisis of imperialism. It tends to intensify the world crisis, and in turn is inten- sified by it. The nearest approach to the pre- sent crisis is the crisis of 1921, with the world objective factors now much less favorable for world imperialism. There is the rapid build- ing towards socialism in the Soviet Union un- der the Five-Year Plan. Mass unemployment throughout the world is much greater than at that time. There is the growing radicalization. of the masses. There is a less favorable con- dition in the world markets than in 1921. The antagonisms between the imperialist powers have sharpened. All factors point to an in- crease of the crisis of world capitalism, eee ~_ PS ee Or (RE EEE ACRE Sore Sy aoe eae aan ek on ees ae adostv & @ @&