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

Page Four pt Sunday, at 26-28 DAIWORK.” + York Unton Ny By Mi By M SUBSCRIPTION RATES: fail (im New York City only): $8.00 a year; jail (outside of New York City): $6.00 a year; $4.50 six months; $3.50 six months; $2.50 three month® $2.00 three months FACE TOWARDS THE SHOPS IN RECRUITING e with worker who The sk has turned if the is no ble to > our b there ‘§ kers is a day nev that our h g f he Party t B 1 calls attention to the iting cam- get on the lis atention ‘of few shop ve been established more than 1.300 cruited to date. This t ork is being done in the s must be rectified once. When i are formed politically develop- be attached to the new units aclei_ and shop } n the ¢ members shows t shops. tion properly. ections must take steps take the course in the in the Party, unism s and to We wish to call attention particularly one phase of the question and that is that very p nuclei have been established in the d where they have been established rpen- | | they do not function properly. ‘This will con- tinue to be the case unless the Section Com- mittees attach politically developed comrades to teach the new recruits how to function and to help them along generally in the work. However, referring to the question of shop nuclei, the very fact that the district has formed very few shop nuclei in the campaign indicates clearly that instead of the Party members working in the shops, recruiting from améng their shop mates, they have been doing their work at meetings of organizations, mass meetings, etc, This will not establish the Party in the shops, which is absolutely necessary at this period of the struggle, especially when the Party faces every kind of an attack from the government, extra legal organizations, ete. The Party will not become a really functioning, deeply entrenched Party of the masses unl it has its in the shops. This can take place only if every Party member working in the shops makes it his daily task to approach the shop mates who are sympathetic to the movement, gi him literature, talks to him, ete. and in this way recruits these workers into the Party. Once a shop nucleus has been established, being that the recruits are new and do not understand our Party function, it will be ab- solutely necessary for the Section Committee to attach well developed comrades to the shop nuclei. The shop nucleus is of extreme im- portance to the Party and every Section Com- mittee is duty bound to see to it that the slop nucleus not only continues to exist but learns how to function with effectiveness. One of the first tasks of *he shop nucleus under the guidance of the Section Committee is to issue a shop bulletin. This shop bulletin must not be established as a one-time issue but must be so organized that it will appear regu- larly, so that the workers in the shops will know that there is a. Communist nucleus in the shops and will be attracted towards the activities of the Party. We wish to call to your’ attention that the uiting drive is notly a sudden concentrated ity of the Party. The recruiting drive is every day activ There must be no re an relaxation, but on the contrary, full concentra- tion in order to cai out this work and build up the Party, not only in the District but throughout the country. The International Day of Struggle Against Unemployment By LEON PLATT. Lovestone and the American right wing think that it is wrong, that it is “Putchism” when “the Cor tern adopts an estimate of the present situation, comparing the present crisis with the world war and its consequences. In other words, it is also wrong, according to Lovestone, for the Comintern and for the revo- working class to think that the pr ent crisis in its consequences for capitalism, could be compared with the world war. Ac- cording to Lovestone, it would therefore be wrong to think that the present economic cri and the shattering of capitalist stabilization is ly lead capitalism to its downfall, as s demonstrated by the consequences of the world war. It would be wrong, says Love- stone to suppose that the struggle of the un- employed is a political struggle which is chal- lenging the very existence of the capitalist s Lovestone sees nothing new in the capitalist economy, which and to the lutionar on of present-d ents to the Communist P: working class in many countries the great task of struggle for power and the complete overthrowal of the capitalist system. This rejection of the ana Sixth World Congre not only and rej the Comintern, capi of nt position of world nective of struggle, very Leni pital tical views, lieve in the aturally, having such poli- it would be wrong for one to be- analysis of the Communist Party that war i n immediate problem facing the working s, that the proletarian revolution is on the order of the day, and that the gen- eral system of capitalis today presents in itself a decaying social structure which is no lpnger able to solve its contradic- tions and maintain itself. Lovestene is here taking the course of the social democrats and the bourgeoisie, cusing the Communist Party for having the idea that only through an im- perialist war can capitalism be destroyed, that only through war can we bring the social revo- lution. ' The opportunism and social democratic ideology which is seething in the brains of the American right wing, becomes best evident when analyzing their position on the present political economic situation in the nited States. In the same February 15th issue of the “Revolutionary Age,” Lovestone states: “All the factors which are supposed to have brought prosperity a year ago remain, ve a very severe economic depres- country.” (My emphasis.) Are the buying capacities of the masses to- day keeping up the same pace with the in- crease in the productivity of American indus- try as a year ago? Even the bourgeois econ- omists recognize that they are not. Even the Hoover commission on recent economic changes brought out the fact that the consumption of vital energy generating commodi declined. Workers! Join the Party of Your Class! Communist Party U. S. A. 48 East 125th Street, New York City. I, the undersigned, want to join the Commu- nist Party. Send me more information. of « NAM! 2... ccs ecseccccsescccccsscesstcsmsces PAOATOEB 2c cessiecemevees Ult¥sssccoves 43 Eost 125th St., New York. N. Y this to the Central Office, Copimunist ay To Lovestone the periphery of capitalist ex- ploitation and the source of super profits of American imperialism remain the same and untouched. Any one who has the slightest understand- ing of the 6th World Congress analysis of capitalist world economy, knows that the fac- tors which a year ago brought prosperity, were the same factors which brought the present crisfs, which Lovestone a year ago refused to recognize. It is true these factors remain, but they now play the role of still further ag- gravating and sharpening the economic crisis. The main feature of these exi therefore is not renewed pros widened and deepened crisis. However, if one is to ask the question what, according to Love- stone, is the perspective of the present crisis, he would have to come to the conclusion: that since the faetors which brought prosperity a year ago still exist today, therefore no one ean speak of an economic crisis but of pros- perity that will be continued as a result of the existence of these factors. Here we shall examine if the major factors that brought prosperity a year ago still exist today. Is not the competition with the American products on the world markets becoming fiercer and sharper? Did not the agricultural crisis in the United States and internationally grow larger in scope than a year ago? Did not the potential value of products of Amer- ican farmers decrease by $1,225,000,000 in the last year? Are not the contradictions be- tween the imperialist powers today much greater than a year ago? Is not the resis- The Crisis Hits the South By CLARENCE MILLER. (Gastonia Defendant.) HE general crisis has affected the South sharper than any other section in the coun- try. This is especially true of the textile in- dustry. Certain branches of the textile in- dustry that are dependent on other industries, such as the Loray mill that produces tire and automobile fabri are completely shot to pieces and the workers almost completely out of work. © Out of 2,100 workers in the Loray Mill, only about 130 are employed on both shifts at the present time. Certain mills have been so hard hit with unemployment and star- vation that in three counties, Transylvania, Henderson and Burkham, the county author- ities and business men were forced to call a conference to take up the situation resulting from the unemployment and the erisis. The fact that a large number of farmers, crop sharers and farm laborers are actually starv- ing makes the lot of the Southern textile work- ers much harder. * The Southern bosses have developed a “cur- tailment plan.” The curtailment of produc tion is forced upon the mill owners by the act- ual shrinking of the market. The obiect of tance of the American working class and its readiness to struggle today greater than a year ago? Is not the success of socialist con- struction in the Soviet Union today uner- | mining world capitalism, including the U. S. more sharply than a year ago? However, these very fundamental factors in capitalist economic and political life and in the working class had certain definite relations to the mag- nitude of capitalist prosperity, and the col- lapse of American prosperity was undeniably due to the radical change of these factors existing in capitalist economy. Not to see the change in the factors that brought “prosperity” a year ago, not to see that these factors do not remain the same, is to shut one’s eyes to the sharpest expression of the third period of post war development of capitalism. It is a rejection not only of the idea of the present underminel capitalist sta- bilization, but it is a belief that capitalism will never be undermined. This is the only poli- tical conclusion one can draw from the present line of Lovestone. Even the bourgeois econ- omists are more fundamental in their analysis concerning the present economic crisis. Even the bourgeois economists frankly recognize that all the factors which have produced pros- perity a year ago have not remained the same. The furthest Lovestone could go after the “Victorian Age” theory. was shattered to pieces, was to accept Hoover’s and the Cham- ber of Commerce propaganda: “America, noth- ing can stop you. Business is good, keep good,” and declare that all we have in the United States today is “a severe economic depression.” From the above the American working class must learn that the only ones who understand the present position of American. and world capitalism, the only ones capable and deter- mined to lead the struggles of the unemployed, based on unity of action of the employed and unemployed workers, are the Communist Party and the revolutionary trade unions. All the lip service of Lovestone, the socialist party and the A. F. of L. are only means to mislead the workers, to prevent the workers from militant struggle against unemployment, against the system of society that breeds un- employment—capitalism, (The kind) the plan is simply to start a new offensive against the workers. Several of the leading manufacturers have expressed this clearly. J. E. Hardin, secretary and general manager of the Proximity Manufacturing Company of Greensboro, N. C., stated the following in the January issue of “Cotton,” an organ of the cotton manufacturers: “The ecverage plant is spending entirely too much for labor which is not efficiently employed, and with proper study and plan- ning, this can be largely corrected and great- ly improved.” Marshal P. Orr. nresident and treasurer of the Orr Cotton Mills of Anderson, S. C., ex- pressed a similar sentiment in the same pub- | lyeation: “The next greatest step is replacement of obsolete machinery and methods.” Another object of this “curtailment plan” is an attempt to smash the rising militancy of the textile workers and the organization of the textile workers into the National Textile Work- ers Union. The offensive against the union is assuming several forms such as the laying off of workers in the mills where there are a large number of union members, laving off of union members under the guise of “curtailing,” and blacklisting. Terror Inckeasing. Not only are the bosses fiehting ovr union with this “curtailment plan,” but they are resorting to the sharpest terroristic methods. The murder of Ella May, the murder of 6 Marion strikers, the kidnappine of our organ- izers, are some of the instances of this open fascist terror. This terror is going to increase now because our union is h-eomine stronver and is preparing for a real fieht aeainst the attacks of the bosses, neainst the living condi- tions of the workers. Not only the white work- ers, but a large number of Negro workers are going to organize and participate in the strug- gle. Some have already been organized and more are being organized alongside the white workers. There ts no cuestion bug that the. offensive of the bosses will become sharper. The sentencing of the seven Gastonia de- fendant= to lone nrison terms proves to the bosses the possibility of their using not only open fascist terror but also their using “legal” terror. An active campaign is being pursued to “legally’ outlaw militant unions and other working class organizations, and this is going | to be taken up at the next session of the North Carolina legislature, as well as the passing of anti-strike and anti-labor organization laws. This move initiated in North Carolina will un- doubtedly be followed in the legislature of the other Southern states. In this period of sharpening struggle, when the conditions of the workers are becoming un- bearable, the A. F. of L. has arrived to the rescue of its masters. The main slogans of the A. F. of L. as summed up in a leaflet dis- tributed in Charlotte are “Cooperation and Con- ciliation Through Orgarfization.” Mr. Green has gone so far as to tell us that the A. F. of I. has no connection whatsoever with Marion. “Were we in Marion at the time of the un- fortunate incident that took place there last summer it would not have happened,” stated a recent newspaper report of Mr. Green’s speech before the Virginian State Federation of Labor. At the January 26 “mass” meeting called by the so-called Piedmont Organizing Council. only about 65 people attended who registered as teachers, nreachers, policemen, lawyers and a few skilled workers, most of whom were of- ficials of the A. F. of L, The onlv unskilled workers present were members of the N.T. W.U. This meeting was a combination of a “mass” meeting and “conference.” When the textile workers dared to ask for the floor, the officials running the fake conference had the workers thrown out of the hall and arrested. The next morning the A. F. of L. officials through their testimony on the witness stand tried to impose prison sentences on the tex- tilee workers who dared to ask questions at their meeting, but the whole case was so ridicu- lous that the judge was forced to dismiss it. Grand Fakery of A. F. of L. The fact that the organizing headquafters of the A. F. of L. was moved to Birmingham, Alabama, away from the textile struggle, shows clearly that the organization content of the A. F. of L. is nothing but a fake to confuse the workers and to help the bosses fight the militant trad~ union movements. The A. F. of L. has definitely stated th&t it does not beliaye in any strike connection with their campaign nor is it going to take up the matter of wage increase. It has further stated that it is not going to organize the Negro workers alongside the white workers. The facts of the organization campaign so far, the policy as outlined by the officials, clearly shows that the whole activity of the A. F. of L. in the South is to strengthen the at- tack against the N.T.W.U. and other militant unions. « (ies The task before the Southern workers is to unite and organize under militant leadership in the strueele against their miserable conditions. The T.U.U.L., the N.T.W.U, and other unions affiliated with the T.U.U.L. are now develop- ing a systematic campaign to organize the South and brine the Southern workers into the ranks of the militant labor unions, Fight the Right Danger. A’ Hundred Proletarians for ‘Every Petty Bourgeois Rene- gade! ‘i, STARVE OR FIGHT! A Challenge to the Unembloyed - By GRACE M. BURNHAM, Labor Research Association. (Continued) is A. F. of L, Betrayals. Te policy of the American Federation of Labor on unemployment plays directly into the hands of the employers. The Federation has repeatedly opposed a national system of unemployment insurance. With more workers unemployed than can be counted in the entire organized labor movement of the country, it continues to preach the maintenance of pres- ent wagés as a cure for unemployment. The theory that wages mean spending power and spending power in the hands of the 34,000,000 workers of the country will keep the wheels of industry going and prevent unemployment | is incorrect under capitalism. The employing class wil! continue to withdraw as profits all the traffic will bear, and allocate as wages the minimum that the workers will stand. The millions of unemployed have nothing to spend. Only unemployment insurance taken from the profits of the employers will give the unem- ployed an equivalent to wages while the indus- trial machine attempts to pull itself out of the trough of depression. Even for those workers employed, wages are far below the possibility for decent subsistence. The American Federa- tion of Labor cannot and does not speak for the workers, particularly those 90 per cent of the most exploited whom it has failed to or- ganize and whom it consistently betrays in its dealings with the government and its agree- ments with the employers. John P. Frey, writing in the Bulletin of the. Metal Trades Department of the A. F. of L., describes the participation of the A. F. of L, in the White House Conference, called by Mr. Hoover in No- vember, 1929, following the Wall Street crash: “Those who attended from the ranks of labor, were representative of the nation’s basic in- dustries; the printing trades, the garment trades, the building trades, the metal trades, the railroad shop crafts, the miners, and the railway transportation unions. . . . The rep- resentatives of the A.F.L. and the Railway Brotherhoods made the statement that while the present disturlfed condition existed they would not advocate demands for higher wages. In taking this position they effectively pre- vented any employer from attempting to re- | duce wages.” (Emphasis mine.) This is the new strategy of labor. On the one hand they say wages must be raised to increase purchas- ing power and so eventually decrease unem- ployment. On the other hand they promise the employers not to demand raises. Actually wage cuts were being made at- the very time that the A. F. of L. officials were bragging: “For an employer to attempt a re- duction in wages now would mean the opposi- tion of the president of the United States and all other federal authority.” For the weapon of the strike, for the active organization of the unorganized, the A. F. of L. substitutes peaceful persuasion and cowardly retreat. “It may be too much,” says Mr. Frey, “to expect that all American industrialists will be willing to place this economic doctrine into practical The Collectivization ot Every-Day Life Moscow, End of January, 1930. Yk was recently held here an important conference of delegates from various insti- tutions and organizations, which had for its object to find ways and means for the im- proving the every day working and living con- ditions of the working and peasant women. The necessity to hold such a conference arose from the changed conditions already brought about by the Five-Year Plan in town and country. he development of the rural districts to compact collectivization requires a decisive change in regard to the conditions under which the working and peasant women are still living, who for the greater part still bear on their shoulders the burden of old fam- ily relations and domestic work. The conference was faced by a great num- ber of problems and tasks, of which for the present only the most important ones were dealt with. Among these are the question of children’s upbringing, the question of meals and of the construction of dwellings. Comrade Krupskaya delivered the report on the question of children’s upbringing in the period of socialist construction ani collectiviza- tion of agriculture, She pointed out that the question of establishing rooms and _institu- tions for children must be given much greater attention in the construction of factories and Soviet undertakings. In the collective under- takings an elementary mass movement for the organization of children’s creches and kinder- gartens is developing, and a number of chil- dren’s cdllectives already exist in the rural dis- tricts, In many cases the children express the desire to leave the family and to found spe- cial chilirén’s communities. In the socialist towns the problem of the protection of mother and child is in the fore- ground. The speaker on this item, Comrade Lebedyeva (of the People’s Commissariat for Public Health), stated: In the socialist town the chief type of dwelling is the block of five to six story houses. As in the socialist towns the whole population is engaged in produc- tion, all the domestic functions and the bring- ing up of the children must be socialized. The children must be accommodated day and night in institutions like children’s creches, kinder- gartens, boarding schools for children, etc. This does not mean that the children should be artificially separated from the adults, i.e., their parents. The parents not only have the right but also the duty to occupy themselves with the children. The means for socialized children’s education are to be obtained by the state saving so much by the socialist organ- ization of the life of the population (for in- stance the means for the support of mothers, pregnant women, etc.). The cost of the food and education of a child is estimated at most at 60 roubles a month, of which about 50 per cent is to be borne by the state. Bhe,auegtion of the constrict | of work as compared with 18 per cent at the application, even though they recognize its © soundness. It is the responsibility of the American trade unionists to give this econ- omic understanding a practical application, to cooperate in every way possible with broad- minded far seeing employers, and to use the organizations they have built up to prevent a continuance of the economic sin of insuffi- cient wages.” It is worth noting that “the organization the employers have built up” in | Frey’s own industry—the metal trades—is the most violent anti-union organization in country. The A. I. of L. “in cooperating in every way possible with the employers,” is helping these employers to introduce the very produc- tion drives and efficiency schemes that make for unemployment and the accumulation of unemployed. Here is one example of this pol- icy. In 4927, about 75,000 machinists, boiler- makers, blacksmiths, sheet metal workers, elec- trical workers, railway carmen and firemen, all employed in the railway shops of the Bal- timore and Ohio Railroad were brought under a scheme known as “union management co- operation.” In 1923, there were employed in the B. & ©. repair shops a working force ranging from some 22,000 men in January to about 29,000 in June and July, the peak pro- duction period of the year. For ten months in the year the working force was well over 25,000 men. After A. F. of L. “stabilization” had gone into effect, the working force fell to 21,000 in January and 18,000 in December, For nine months in the year about 20,000 men were employed. Thus 5,000 workers have been per- manently laid off as a result of the. union management cooperation plan. These are the A. F. of L.'s own figures, published in their Monthly Survey of Business, November, 1929, They had succeeded in “smoothing out the em- ployment curve,” temporarily, for a favored number of workers at the expense of 5,000 less fortunate workers permanently ‘laid off. The organized worker is already sharply feeling the certainty of unemployment. The very fact that capitalist rationalization has no need for skill or craftsmanship makes the A. F, of L. membership increasingly susceptible to unemployment, for the largest proportion of union members are the older skilled crafts- men. In 1928 an average of 14 per cent of the membership of the A. F. of L. unions was un- employed. For many months of the year and for certain trades, notably building trades, the percentage ran much higher. In January, 1930, 19 per cent of union members were out the highest point in the winter of 1928. In the building trades, 38 per cent of the membership was unemployed, compared with 30 per cent in January, 1929. In Chicago the number of union building trades workers unemployed was 45 per cent; in St. Louis 42 per cent; in New York City, 40 per cent. Eighty per cent was the figure given out by a building trades of- ficial in Minneapolis. “In metal trades,” states the February, 1930, issue jof the American Federationist,” 75 per cent more are out of work this year than last, and there have been large increases in 8 cities since December.” (To Be Continued) and the transformation of the houses is a very urgent one. Comrade Loshetchkina empha- sized in her report, that in the next two years already 80 per cent of the new dwelling houses will be communal. houses. _ These houses will not be dearer than the ordinary houses. The communal houses contain a communal kitchen, communal laundry and red corners, Comrade Moirova dealt with the great me- chanized kitchens, which render possible a far- reaching collectivization of the supply of meals, At present there exist only ten such great mechanized factory kitchens, but the fu- ture belongs to them. It is necessary to train the appropriate personnel, the cadres for these kitchens: not cooks who have been trained in “French” restaurants, but trained experts, physicians, engineers, food experts, who are capable of organizing the proluction and dis- tribution of good meals for whole districts of a city. The Commission for the improvement of the working and living conditions of the working and peasant women will now extend its field of activity to the whole Soviet Union and en- deavor to solve numerous new problems which have arisen as a result of the reconstruction of industry and agriculture on a socialist basis. The commission will attract to its support new forc., whicn i __ vticipate in the work of transforming the life of the masses of the workers and peasants and in particular of the women and children in the new socialist society. Stop the Stench Oakland, Cal., Feb. 17, 1930. James P. Cannon: Dear Sir: . are Yours of Feb. 1 at hand and contents noted. I have been for a long time receiving a / printed matter named “The Militant,” have ° looked it over as much as the weak condition of my stomach would permit, and ‘have to finally protest against the continued infliction of what I consider unjust and unmeritted pun- ishment. . This stench from the foul counter-revolution- ary, plottings of a bunch of anti-Communists is altogether unreliable, weak, distorted and inconsequential. The successful working out of the Five-Year Plan in Soviet Russia is the last word in the Trotsky argument, and I observe that the American working class is being convinced by practical demonstration more than by the sree of a group of discredited ex-wob- ies, Yours from the working class of