The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 8, 1930, Page 6

Published by th Square, New York Page Six ¢ Comprodaily Publ: City, N. ¥. Telephone Stuyvesant 1696-7-8. Cable: ishing Co, Inc., Gaily, except Sunday, at 26-28 Union “DAIWORK.” Baily = Address and mail all checks to the Daily Worker. 26-28 Union Square, New York, N. Y. Central Organ of the Cou HOW TO KEEP OUR NEW Race, No Bar to Starvation PARTY MEMBERS! By MAX KITZES. HE present organization campaign of the Communist Party is bound to be a hundred per cent success because the united energies of the entire Party is concentrated on con- structive work and systematic organized re- cruiting. It is also bound to succeed because the present internal conditions in the Party are in such healthy state as has not existed in the last six years. With the eradication of the inner Party factional fight from our ranks, and thru direct participation in the workers’ daily struggles, the Party is attracting new proletarian elements into the Communist Party ranks. The organization campaign must~not end with the acceptance of these new members. Recruiting must be our daily duty. All Party acti s, all the time, must be to help the organized and unorganized workers, as well as the employed and unemployed in their con- stant class struggles, and must inevitably re- sult in the extended growth of the Communist Party. After we have agitated,educated and won the workers into our ranks, what will we do in order to keep these new and desirable pro- letarian elements in our Party? What will we do to cut the inexcusable large turn-over in the number of our members? Leading comrades have pointed out that sections and districts, in the past have begun a membership drive, doubled their membership, and when they made their final recount at the end of the year, they found a large turnover. Where do these lost members disappear to? And why? Are they the old Party members? Or are they those recently recruited? Does the Organization Department of the Party know the answer? It is very probable that in the past a major cause for the loss in membership was the in- cessant factional fight. It is also probable that the units are too large and too noisy, and most likely too inactive. Or was the element re- eruited such that would not remain for fear of the tasks placed before them? Whatever the reasons, it is about time that the Party knows what they are. Just as the Party’s leading bodies worked out concrete organization plans and gave definite instruc- tions on how to get members, just so must they work out definite plans for knowing how to keep these new members, The Agitprop De- partment must do its share. The Organization Department must make an investigation and must study the various causes for this avoid- able fluctuation. We must learn the causes, The cure will suggest itself. Now in the midst of the Party’s growth must we take notice of this important problem of “How to Keep Our New Members in the Com- munist Party.” Bolshevizing the Party By TOM JOHNSON. yas degree of Bolshevization of a Communist Party may be determined to a large extent by its ability to react immediately and cor- rectly to. changes in the arena in which it oper- ates and to instantly throw its full forces into action in the changed situation. Our American Party is today facing such a revolutionary test. After much hesitation, aft- er a severe internal struggle which involved scrapping much of the old leadership, the Par- ty has at last made the turn and come to some realization of the present situation in America, and the tremendous tasks and responsibilities developing on our Party from the changed conditions of the class struggle. This process has been helped considerably by recent develop- ment’s. Lovestone’s phantasy of a “Victorian Age” for American imperialism has been shat- tered by the realities of life, The “industrial recession” of which Lovestone only yesterday spoke so hesitatingly, has turned out to be a seyere economic crisis which is shaking the structures of American imperialism to its depths. The analysis of the 10th Plenum of the Com- intern and of the October Plenum of our Party has been fully substantiated by the whole course of events. The struggles in Gastonia, New Orleans, Illinois. The great movement of the unemployed developing throughout the country under the leadership of the Party. The tremendous mass demonstration of 50,000 New York workers, ready to battle with the police for possession of the streets, at Steve Katovis’ funeral. And finally the success already regis- tered by the Recruiting Campaign, and the in- creasing momentum of this campaign as it draws to a close. These living facts must open the eyes of the most backward Party member to the new situation. These facts give the lie once and for all to Lovestone’s rav- ings of an “exceptional” American imperialism, of a wrong Party line, and of a disintegrat- ing Party. Still Lagging Behind. Under the pressure of these developments the Party is going forward, is developing the forms and methods of work necessitated by the changed conditions. But this very fact proves thatour Party is not yet a Bolshevized Party, quick to grasp the essentials of the new situa- tion and to mobilize its full forces for action. The fact of the matter is that in many of the lower Party organizations this change is made only under pressure of the masses of workers outside of the Party. The Party in some cases is not the leader, the initiator of the change, it lags behind the masses and only makes the change under the instant demand of these workers for leadership in the struggle. This was brought home vividly to the writer at a recent mass meeting at Toledo. This meeting, a protest meeting against the Ohio Criminal Syndicalist Law, was not a large one, only 125 workers being present. However, most of those present were new faces to the comrades—they were workers who had never f&ttended our meetings, with whom we had had in the part no contact. At the conclusion of the meeting 13 workers joined the Party, 5 of them workers in the huge Willys Overland auto shops. Furthermore, after the meeting’ the local organizer informed me that the day before, a delegation of 3 Willys-Overland work- ers had come down to the Workers Center to find out how they could organize in the Auto Workers Union. This delegation stated that they represented some 80 men in their depart- ment, whom they had lined up to join the union. Why did these workers join the Party? Why did this delegation of auto workers come to the Party asking to be organized? They came be- cause the Party in Toledo had been forced un- de. the pressure of events, to engage in mass acavity, to appear before the workers as a jJe:der and organizer of the working class in ite struggles. The mass unemployment situa- tion in Toledo had drawn the Party into action. A splendid Council of the Unemployed had been fo‘med, 700 workers had participated in the muss demonstrations of the unemployed de- manding work or wages of the ecity govern- ment. The Party had come forward as a leader of the Toledo workers, reaching hitherto uatouched strate of the Toledo working class with out program and propaganda. Largdly as a result of this new activity the Party made tontact with Willys-Overland workers, and 2 weeks succeeded in issuing a shop paper in this plant. Kor 4 years the District Committee has been trying to get the Toledo comrades to issue a shop paper in Willys-Overland. This the Toledo comrades have in the past failed to do, due to the fact that they had absolutely no contact with the workers, in this, the largest snd ment Penortant chon in the city, As a re- sult of the mass activity forced on our Party in Toledo by the workers, our Party there has increased its influence with the workers tre- mendously and for the first time is playing the role of actual organizer and leader of the mass- es of workers in the struggle against capital- ism. Activize Every Member. Unfortunately not all of our Party members are actively participating in this activity in Toledo. At a time when the Party needs all its forces, to the last man, mobilized for im- mediate action, some of the members fail to respond to the call of the Party. This shows that the Party has not yet fully made the change—that some Party members are yet liv- ing in the old period and are either not ready or not willing to meet the increased demands the Party must make on each member in this period of mass struggles. We must strive by every means to draw such members into the Party work, but failing in this we must ruth- lessly weed the mout of our ranks. The Com- munist Party of the United States has no place in its ranks for inactive “card-carrying Com- munists” today. Never has the situation in America been so favorable for our work. Never have we faced such gigantic class struggles as we face today. To take advantage of the opportunities for work, to carry out the great tasks facing us, we must have every member at his post. Every lower Party unit, every individual Party mem- ber must understand this new situation and all it means to the American working class and to our Party. No longer must our Party lag behind the masses of the workers, Our Party must be the vanguard of the working class, and never, even in isolated circumstances, a tail of the action of the workers. The new line we have endorsed so enthusiasticaly in in- numerable resolutions, must become a living fact, must be carried out and put into effort in every action of the Party. Then, and only then, will our Party be well along the road to Bolshevization. For the Release of the Anti- Fascist Prisoners! From an Appeal of the Trade Union Federation| its experience in its. struggle against. the re- | of Italy. sea Confederazione Generale del Lavore (General Trade Union Federation) of Italy which was abandoned by the reformists and illegally continued by the revolutionary work- ers, has issued to the proletarian organizations of the whole world an appeal, from which we publish the following extract; #, “For many ‘years thousands of. proletarians a ve been imprisoned in the Italian fascist jails, given the utmost penalty the law can inflict, condemned to isolation and so slow but certain death by starvation. They were in the front ranks of the struggle against the regime of exploitation and reprisals established by fas- cism. The tortures, privations, the suffer- ings, provocations and threats have not bent them. They remain, in spite of everything, the strong and courageous fighters for the prole- tarian cause. For this reason they were ex- cluded from the amnesty which the fascist gov- ernment recently granted on the occasion of the wedding between the “democratic” Belgian monarchy and the monarchy of the black shirts. This class amnesty which pardons and releases the thieves, forgers, bankrupts who are the friends of the fascist dignitaries, coincides with new mass arrests of proletarians in all parts of Italy. 2 6 After seven years of fascist dictatorship and after three years of exceptional law neither the permanent arrests and the sentences of the Special Tribunal, nor the shootings have been able to suppress in the Italian workers the will to fight and to resistance. This is proved by the movements, the mutinies, which are flaring up everywhere in Italy. . . . The trade union federation of Italy appeals to the workers to reply to the contemptibleness of the fascist “amnesty” by strengthening the struggle for the release of the political prison- ers, for the abolition of the Special Tribunal and the exceptional laws, for the overthrow of the regime. The Trade Union Federation of Italy, which continues its revolutionary class action in spite of the terrorist laws of fascism, appeals to the proletarian organizations of all: countries to support their active solidarity by the eman- cipatory struggle of the Italian toilers. Long live the international struggle for the release of all victims of reaction! Long live revolutionary international solidarity! Fight to the death against all Varieties of fascism and against Italian fascism! i All Together as One—“Work or Wages! Worker * of the U. S. A. UK By Mail (in New York City only): $8.00 a year; By Mail (outside of New York é SUBSCRIPTION RATES ity): $6.00 a y $4.50 six month: $3.50 six mon’ 2.50 three months $200 three months rr The Question of Proletarian Detense By L. ALFRED. | Tt organization of proletarian defense is | a practical necessity for the working class in the whole capitalist world. This neces: arises from the intensive preparations for ci war being carried on by the international bourgeoisie and from the more frequent use of civil war methods on the part of the bour- geoisie in its steucw'> co-imst the working class. | These fac mselves; for | the bourgeo >een a machine for the fore veccion of the working masses. Elements of civil war have never been lacking in the regime of bourgeois democracy. Throughout the entire periods of its domina- tion, the bourgeoisie has continually made use | of armed force, of direct methods of civil war, in its fight against the working class. Nevertheless, there is a tremendous differ- ence between the bourgeoisie preparations for civil warfare now and, let us say, before the war. The international bourgeoisie has drawn all the lessons and practical conclusions from volutionary movement during and. after the war. The Capitalists are aware of the fact that the coming imperialist war against the Soviet Union will also signify a civil war against the working class all over the capi- talist world. This gives rise to what is new in their preparations for civil war. After the world war the international bour- geoisie worked out quite new methods to sup- press revolutionary mass movements, to sup- press “internal unrest.” It introduced new and previously unknown forms of organizing its armed forces for this job. There is also something new in the intensity with which this problem is now being handled by the bourgeois war experts who are now trying to co-ordinate the international experience of the fight against the working class and working class organizations. In bourgeois military literature the question of the armed suppression of revolutionary | rich internat mass movements has become a 1 ques- tion, while before the war there was very little written on this subject. In almost all capi- particularly in those where rugegle e occurred, a sive literature has arisen in which the pecialists and police ex- perts of the bourgeo! have examined, enter- ing with great thoroughness into the least detail, the experiences of these struggles and have worked out the methods for suppress- | ing such stru s. in the future. On the other hand, very little indeed has been done to make available to the working cl: the rmed the al experience of class strugg ich has more nee of other capitalist country, this and comprehensive. The civil war strateg- I von der Goltz and fficers Hartenstein, Schmitt ists are Ge Loffler, Police | and their social democratie colleague Schutz- inger and the bloodhound Noske, with his memoir$ From Kiel to Kapp. We must recog- nise the fact that the German civil war strate- ists have formulated the tactical and strate- | gical principles of civil war against the work- ing class better and more clearly than any other sections. Another fact that is new and charact of the post-war period of the bourgeoisie’s civil war preparations is indicated by the spe- cial methods of army organization, the d perate struggle for a reliable army, which is one of the most essential peculiarities of bour- geois militar armies of general defense, the ‘people’s armies,” have shown themselves to be unre- liable from the point of view of the bourgeoisie when it comes to a question of armed strug- gle between the classes. Consequently the bourgeoisie has set up special civil war armies, armies of mercenaries, recruited from reliable or declassed elements. This tendency is ex- pressed more or less clearly in all capitalist The Yankee Mephistopheles and the German Margarita “LOANS!” Magic word! Enough to cause each = Fat-Necked “Socialist” Ruler of « Capitalist Germany quiver with volup- tuous anticipation. For U. S. Loans they Accept the Young Plan, Shoot the German Worl ers aid Rush to Make Ready for War on the Soviet. sm. in the present period. ~The’ --ByFred Ets] “PETE ECONOMIC CRISIS AND TASKS OF Y.C.L. Resolution of the NEC Plenum Note: The following is the final install- ment of the resolution adopted by the last meeting of the National Executive Commit- tee of the Young Communist League of the U.S. A. How to Change the Present Situation. VI. remains the decisive turn to Bolshevik mass work outlined by the Fifth Congress of the Y.G.I. and the Fifth National Convention, and more fully explained by the recent enlarged Plenum of the Y.C.I. It is not necessary to repeat all the decisions of our convention in- volved in the carrying through of the turn, but only to emphasize the fact that the League has neither fully understood these decisions or made more than a beginning in carrying them out. The turn means above all the struggle of the League for the independent leadership of the class struggles of the working youth. It includes all of the political tasks confronting the League at the present time and is possible only on the basis of carrying out the line of the Party in the League and by broadly de- veloping the Communist “Youth Policy.” The turn means transforming the center of gravity of all our work to the shops and fac- tories and mass organizations of the working youth, a decisive overcoming of the sectarian isolation of the League; and can be realized only by a sharpened struggle against the Love- stone renegades and all expressions of the Right deviations, against the conciliatory at- titude tov the Right deviations, against | every manifestation of opportunism in practice both in the Party and in the League and the simultaneous carrying out of a decisive strug- gle against all tendencies of petty bourgeois radicalism “Left” phrases and deviations and the tendency to take a neutral attitude towards them. One of the most important links in the turn is the question of the further political strengthening of the League’s leadership by the development of new proletarian cadres who will be selected in the future on the basis of their proven ability to concretely carry out the Bolshevik mass work in accordance with the political line of the Comintern. The developing economic crisis and the growing leftward trend of the young workers places the question of the turn before us with ever greater persistence and makes it neces- sary to set the following immediate tasks in order that we may change the present unsatis- factory League situation at the rapid tempo An important prerequisite for the y as embodied in the decisions of the last con- vention is the struggle against the formal ap- proach to these decisions—the acceptance of decisions in words and the failure to carry out the decisions in-deeds—since this formal ap- proach which had such a paralyzing effect on the application of our Fifth Convention de- cisions cannot be tolerated in the present situ- ation of a developing economic crisis. Each task must be followed down to its concrete application and the most ruthless self-criticism must be exercized by the whole membership against all hesitancies and incompetency in their execution: 1. Immediate concentration of the entire forces of the League on the work in the large factories and in the most important branches of industry where the decisive masses of the working class youth are concentrated, making it obligatory upon all the leading committees of the League, beginning with the N.E.C. and ending with the D.E.C.’s and unit executives— to carry out a most thorough verification of the conerete work in the factories, making the selection of leading comrades from among those young workers who gave in practice a proof The main task confronting the League | of their abilities to carry out mass work; | assign a certain definite number of leadi | comrades both nationally and in the di | ricts to the concrete mass work among ' young workers as a test of their qualificati to leadership; considering as a compulr: instruction the establishment of functio: | Y.C.L, factory groups in the largest enterp: in the immediate future with changes in 1. ership nationally and in the districts where t is not earried out; and the establishm ematic recruiting activity with the tra ferring of the center of gravity of this w and the present membership drive to the la: factories with greater attention to the probl of retaining the best proletarian elements cruited. 2. Conducting all the work in the factor from the point of view of the struggle of Young Communist League for the independ leadership of the working class youth and c sidering the broad application of the uni front from below as of greatest importance bringing about the turn; the League must mediately collect and study the most import material regarding youth strikes and the r ticipation of the young workers in the gen struggles of the working class, as wel negative and positive examples of the apy tion of the united front tactics, in orde. more effectively lead the struggles of the yo workers. 3. Seriously undertaking the work of ganizing the unorganized young workers ji the new trade unions, we must immedia‘ start a campaign throughout. the League the mobilization of all forces behind the 17 U.L. by the unionization of our members! the building of functioning youth sections the unions; the organization of industrial « ferences in the most important industr and the popularization of our economic tr union demands within the ranks of our Lea and among the broad masses of young work 4. Placing of the question of the establ ment of a weekly Young Worker as a task the first political importance, as an abso! necessity in the performance of the Leagi tasks in the period of developing crisis the sharpened class struggles of the yo workers; the beginning of the weekly Yo Worker not later than May 1st with the regi appearance of the Young Worker as a se monthly up to that date. 5. Building a strong League in the So to be considered a major political task req ing the support of every League district the entire membership, which will be an im) tant factor in changing the national and cial composition of the League. 6. Development of broad anti-imper and anti-militarist-activity and increased s gle against the war danger which becon: such importance at the present time appl new forms of mass anti-militarist work systematic building up of nuclei in the ai and navy and in the war industries. 7. A complete change of the present w of the League in the general mass organizati of the workers and in the mass organizati of the working youth; first by radically cha ing our attitude towards auxiliary organ tions, secondly, by every Y.C.L. member sympathizer working in the factories show the maximum initiative in creating the n varied forms of mass factory youth organ tions (youth sections of the trade unions, D, groups, workers’ deferse, all kinds of yo workers’ clubs, etc.). 8. To pay particular attention to the wi ers’ sport movement, assigning a large 1 centage of leading comrades and of the e membership to this work. Crystallizing in t organizations the basic kernel for (a) s pickets; (b) workers’ self-defense groups; workers for anti-militarist propaganda in ( countries. Another peculiarity is the arming of volunteer bourgeois military organizations, formed from members of the ruling class and from those elements which are ideologically akin and devoted to it. Examples of such organizations are the Heimwehr in Austria and the Steel Helmets in Germany. These avowedly counter-revolutionary, fas- cist military organizations are not the only ones which form part of the bourgeoisie’s sys- tem of civil war preparations against the proletariat; there are also semi-fascist and social-fascist bodies such as the Schutzbund in Austria and the Reichsbanner in Germany. Recent events in Austria show this very clear- ly. The social democratic Schutzbund is de- clared by the leaders of Austrian social demo- eracy to be the proletariat’s only possible de- fensive organization against fascism. But the more openly the fascists attack, the clearer becomes the real purpose for which the social fascist leaders are using the Schutzbund. More and more frequently sections of the Schutz- bund turn out in close alliance with the po- lice against the revolutionary workers. This was the case on July 15, 1927, and in recent between workers and fascists. The Schutz- bund is an organization to make the Austrian workers defenseless, to defeat and suppress their revolutionary activities; it is an organ- ization fighting for the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. It is only differentiated from the Heimwehr in the fact that the majority of its members are workers, who are not fascist and among whom, on the contrary, there ex- ists an honest desire to fight fascism, but who have not yet fully realized the social fas- cist role of the Schutzbund and of Austrian social democracy. These “scientific” civil war preparations of the bourgeoisie are characteristic of the whole post-war period. From a superficial exam- ination they might appear to be an indication of the strength of present-day capitalism. In reality they are a characteristic phenomenon of capitalism in decline. If capitalism felt it- self to be strong, it would have no fear of the revolutionary, suppressed workers; it would and terrorist measures to maintain its suprem- acy. On the contrary, capitalism would use~ other and more refined methods of holding the masses in check. Although the international bourgeoisie’s feverish preparations for civil warfare are a sign of the internal weakness of the capitalist system, it would be a crude error to underestimate their danger to the working class. The preparations show that the capi- talists have decided to maintain their supre- macy at any cost. (To be continued) o months also during the frequent encounters . not think it necessary to take such desperate _ imperialist army, ete. To carry on stubb everyday work to break up the bourgeois sy organizations, the bourgeois youth organ tions (YMCA and HA, ete.), in which the wc ing class youth is concentrated, and the v ning of the young workers in these organ tions to our side through continuous activit; 9. The development of the work among growing number of unemployed young wc ers and the formulation of concrete dema for the unemployed youth and the special tention to the question of winning the mas of young Negro workers through the form: tion of a concrete program for Negro wi considering as a first prerequisite the strug against the serious underestimation of 1 work shown by the League and against expression of white chauvinism in our ra and among the young workers. 10. The solution of the serious crisis ex ing in the Young Pioneers and the strength ing of the leadership of the League to Pioneers through the assignment of a def? number of leading comrades to this work . 11. To develop revolutionary competitic all spheres of activity of the League and the struggles of the young workers as one the basic weapons in raising the initiative revolutionary self-activity. 12. The political strengthening of the L gue leadership through the consistent prop tion of new proletarian forces on the basis their ability to work among the masses in cordance with the political line of the Cc intern, and the systematic political training the entire membership and all leading cc rades through circles in the units, district < national functionaries courses, ete. It is necessary to approach all of these ta: in the light of the economic crisis and its fects upon the conditions of the young work —mobilizing the entire membership of : League for the more rapid turn to mass wi which is so imperative if we are to take vantage of the growing opportunities and oy come the unsatisfactory situation in the Leas, The membership drive must be a point of. mediate concentration in the io crystallization of our growing influence 4mc the young workers in the large Pah Fs out of the increasing struggles. } At this moment when the struggles of 1 young workers are sharpening; when the c: italist class is launching pow attacks agai the young workers and subjecting our mo ment to new persecutions—every member the Y.C.L. and every sympathetic and cl conscious young worker must show a grea’ militancy, a greater responsibility and a gre: er enthusiasm se*that we may lead the gro ing militancy of the young workers along th channels which will make possible the full ment of our historical tasks.