The Daily Worker Newspaper, March 26, 1930, Page 4

hed by the Com New York C are Page Four RENDERED GIDDY BY THE > prodaily Publishing @o., T ity, Y. Telephone v" s te the Daily W SUCCESSES By J. STALIN, g ecor , Even our enemies « pelle r that considerable suc- These al fact successe: ‘acti that on I . already fifty per This at on the € if 130, we had more t n 200 the Five-Year Plan. It is on the 28th of Feb- c iy furnished more g seed corn, does ard the defi- as already all these importa tha eatest ole working class in our country, and fi e direct im- training of with the spirit S own powers. f of the working T y lead the task of ady achieved them for the ¢ alr ally making use of ner advance, successes es, however, also have their when they are, attained succe especial! y “unexpectedly,” so to s successes produce at times a s » and arrogance: “We can do ing is a mere trifle for often intoxicate people, they lose all sense of pro- to grasp reality; there the tendency to overestimate one’s nd to underestimate those of the turist attempts are made to is of socialist construction e of the hand.” One can no longer with consolidating the successes systematically making use of 1 for further advance. Why should we lidate the successes achieved . - we ll hastily do everything with “a wave of hand” until the complete victory of so- n. “We can do everything.” Every- mere trifle for us. , our Party has the task of taking mined fight against these danger- which are harmful to the cause, licating them from the Party. Tt cannot be said that these dangerous , which are harmful to the cause, have ny noteworthy extent in the ranks They nevertheless exist, and ing that they to there is no rea: will not become stronger. And if these moods should find root among us, then there can be no doubt that there will take place a con- le weakening of the collective economy nent and the danger of a destruction of this movement can become real. It is therefore the task of our pr ically to expose these and similar nist moods. stem- policy is based upon the prin- luntariness in the collective econ- and takes e of the conditions in the var- s of the Soviet Union. Collective cannot be established by force. Such a would be stupid and reactionary. The @ economy movement must be based upport of the main masses One cannot transplant the collective economic construction as 1: e advanced districts, to such a course would be ” would at one stroke dis- lea of collectivization. In deter- tempo and the methods in the building up of collective farms we must care- fully take into account the varied nature of the conditions obtaining in the different dis- tricts of the Soviet Union. In-the collective onomic movement the grain districts are ahead of all the other districts. What is the reason for this Because we have in these listricts the greatest number of Soviet Estates and collective farms which are already in a strong position, thanks to which the peasants had the possibility of satisfying themselves as to the power and the importance of the new technique, of the power and importance of the collective organization of economy, and be- ‘ause these districts have had two years schooling in the fight against the kulaks dur- ine the grain campaigns, and further. because hese districts have, in the last few years, been provided to-an increased extent with the best cadres from the industrial centers. Can one say that these specially favorable conditions ist at present also in other districts, for in- stance, in the corn importing districts of the ‘ype of our Northern provinces, or in the dis- ricts where there are still backward nation- alities, such as Turkistan? No, one cannot say that, It is clear that the principle of aking into account the multifarious conditions n the various districts of the Soviet Union is, together with the principle of voluntariness, one of the most important preconditions for a ind collective economy movement. What, however, actually taking place with us? Can we say that/the principle of voluntariness and of taking into account the ocal peculiarities is not being infringed in a aumber of districts? Unfortunately no. It s, for example, known that in various North- n parts of the grain-importing areas, where the conditions for an immediate organization of collective farms are relatively less favor- thle than in the corn growing districts, there s a frequent tendency to substitute the prep- aration for organizing collective farms by ureaucratic decrees, paper resolutions on the srowth of collective farms, by organizing col- ective farms on paper, which in reality do not ist, but regarding whose “existence” there * a huge quantity of boastful resolutions. Let anti- | into aceount the | us call to mind some districts of where favoi diate orga xist exist Turkistan, ble preconditions for the imme- tion of collective farms do not to the same extent as in the Northern parts of the grain-importing districts. We know that in numerous districts of Turkistan attempts were made to “catch up and pass” the advanced districts of the Soviet Union by threats of military force; that the peasants who do not for the present wish to enter the collective farms are to be deprived of the use irrigation works and their supplies of in- dustrial goods cut off. What has this Sergeant-major policy in common with the policy of the Party, which > upon the voluntary principle and into account the local peculiarities in g up collective farms? It is clear that they have had and cannot have anything in common. Who benefits by such distortions, by such a bureaucratization of the collective econ- omy movement, such unworthy threats to the peasan Only our enemies! Whither can these distortions lead? To strengthening our enemies and discrediting the idea of the col- lective economy movement. Is it not clear that the originators of these distortions, who themselves to be “radical,” are in nging grist to the mill of Right op- portunism ? Secondly, one of the greatest merits of the political strategy of our Party consists in the circumstance that it knows how, at any given moment, to ascertain the most important link of the movement, to seize it and then at the same time to move all links of the chain for a common aim, the solution of a task. we say that the Party has already ascertained the decisive link in the system of building up collective economy? But we can and must do is. Wh is the deciding link to be found? hance in the societies for common cultiva- tion of the soil? No. Common cultivation of the soil without so- cialization of the means of production is a collective ed. stage of the which is already pas cultural commune? No, not in the commune. The communes are at present still isolated phenomena in the collective economy move- ment. For the agricultural commune as the predominating form of socialization not only of the whole production but also of distribu- tion, conditions are not yet ripe. The deciding link of the collective economy movement, its present predominating form, on to which one must now hold, is the agricul- tural artel. In the agricultural artel the means of production are mainly socialized in the grain production: labor, use of the soil, ma- chines, and other implements, work beasts, farm buildings. What are not socialized are, the small vege- table allotments and gardens, the dwelling premises, a definite part of the cows and goats, of the poultry, etc. The artel is the determining link of the col- lective economy movement because it repre- sents the most practicable form for solving the grain problem. The grain problem again is the determining link in the system of the whole agriculture, because without its solu- tion neither the problem of cattle breeding, nor the problem of economic and similar plants aS the chief raw material of industry can be solved. Hence, the agricultural artel is at present the most important link in the ystem of the collective economy movement. *It is upon this that the “model statute” of the collective farms, the final text of which is now being published, is based. It is from this standpoing that our Party and Soviet functionaries must proceed. One of their du- ties consists in studying the nature of the statute, and carrying it out completely. This is the standpoint of the Party at the present moment. Can we say that this stand- point of the Party is being realized without infringements and distortions? Unfortunately no. You are probably aware that in a number of districts of the Soviet Union where the fight for the existence of the collective farms is not by a long way at an end and where the artels are not yet consolidated, attempts are being made to go beyond the limits of the artel and to spring immediately over to the agricultural commune. The artel not yet consolidated, but we are already “socializing” the dwelling houses, the small cattle and the poultry, and at the same time this “socializa- tion” is degenerating into bureaucratic paper decrees, because the conditions which render such a socialization necessary do not yet ob- tain. One would think that the grain problem on the collective farms has been already solved, nts an already past stage, that sk at the present. moment is not the solution of the grain problem but the pro- blem of cattle and poultry breeding. But who benefits by this crazy “work” of juggling about with the different forms of the collective economy movement? To upset the collectively inclined peasant by socializing the dwelling houses, the whole of the milk cows, the small cattle and poultry at a time when the artel form of collective farms is not yet consoli- dated! Is it not clear that such a policy can be useful and welcome only to our sworn ene- mies? One of the zealous socializers even went so far that he issued an order to the artel in which he prescribed: “to register within three days all stocks of poultry;” to lay down the duties of the special “commanders” for the registration and’ supervision; “to occupy the key positions in the artel;” “to conduct the socialist fight without abandoning the posts,” and certainly to take the whole artel firmly in hand. What is that? A policy of leading the collective farm or a policy of destroying and discrediting it? I do not speak at all of those—beg pardon—“revolutionaries” who be= gin the organization of the artel by removing the bells from the steeple. Just imagine how revolutionary that i economy movement Perhaps in the agri- How could there arise in our midst such doltish exercitations of “socialization,” such ridiculous attempts to spring over oneself, so to speak, attempts which aim at avoiding classes and the class struggle, but in reality bring grist to the mill of our 'as They could originate only in the atmosphere of our “easy” and “unexpected” suc. : the front of collective economic construction. They could arise only as a result of the anti- Leninist sentiments within a part of the Party: “We can do everything,” “We may do every- thing,” “Everything to us is a mere trifle.” They could only arise because some of our comrades had their bh Re Se nday, at 26-28 Union , DANWORK.” | Atlanta, the Trade Union Unity NY “WE DEMAND!” Baily [D> Worket Central Organ of the Commuiist Parry Ss. A. f the U. By Fred Ellis A Negro T. U. U. L. Organizer in the South By GILBERT LEWIS. 1s bourbon capitalists of the South have been able to maintain their semi-feudal Sway over the millions of brutally oppressed and bitterly exploited Negro and white toilers ; solely because of their ability to keep these workers unorganized and divided. About this | the Southern ruling class has no illusions. It knows that these workers and especially the Negro workers, when organized under the mili- tant leadership of the Communist Party and the revolutionary trade unions can be but a battering ram for the smashing of the entire capitalist system, breeder of all forms of econo- mic, social and political inequalities. Thus they will do all in their power, resort to all forms of terror to keep these workers unorganized. This is shown in the bitter at- tacks upon the National Textile Workers Union and the Communist Party in Gastonia, the In- ternational Labor Defense in Charlotte and Norfolk, the NTWU and Communist Party in League, and ecially the Negro organizer of the Trade ion Unity League, in Chattanooga. I, along with four other workers, two of them U white organizers for the T.U.U.L., were arrest- | ed on March 5, while holding an open-air meet ing. This meeting, the final mobilization of workers for the great March 6 demonstration, was held on the corner where most of the un- employed gather. The police, after a vain at- tempt to drive the workers from the streets and our meeting, arrested us and charged us with “blocking traffic and refusing to move on when ordered to do so by a police officer.” Use of Fascist Methods. From the moment of my arrest until the time of my release open fascist methods were employed against me. “Lynch him, lynch the black bastard!” cried a group, identified as Ku Kluxers, who gath- ered around the police when I was seized. Noticing, however, the militancy of the Negro and white workers who had also gathered around in my defense they thought better of the matter. “You got a helluva nerve,” said one big Southern detective, “to get upon these streets to make a speech. ick up your damn hands before I blackjack -y In the courtroom little effort was made hy the canitalist judge, Martin A. Fleming, to conceal the true class against class issue of the case. I was charged with blocking traffic; the following are the major questions that were asked: “Do you believe in the Christian religion?” “Didn’t you get up in a meeting and advise the workers to stay away from church and stop giving money to the preachers?” “Isn't it true that your organization is try- ing to smash the American Federation of La- bor. “Where did you come from?” “Were you sent here to organize the Ne- groes?” cesses and were for a time deprived of their clear understanding and sober outlook. In order to straighten out the line of our work in the sphere of collective economic con- struction, we must get rid of these sentiments. ‘This is one of the immediate tasks of the Party at the present time, The art of leadership is a serious matter. One must not lag behind the movement, be- cause this means getting separated from the masses. But one must also not hasten on ahead as one thereby loses touch with the masses. _ He who wishes to leal the movement and at the same time maintain contact with the mil- lion masses, must carry on a fitht on two fronts—against those who lag behind and against. those who hasten on ahead. Our Party is strong and unvanquished, be- cause in leading the movement it knows how to maintain and strengthen contact with the "on masses of workers and peasants. | diameter was riveted on each of my legs. These | the blood shot out. “Where did you get that fancy talk from? You didn’t learn it in the South.” An open hand for all terror against me even in the courtroom, had been given the boss- es’ thugs. “Why in hell don’t you stand still before I kick hell out of you!” one big thug said to me as I, becoming tired of the long proceedings, fted from one foot to the other. I was given a fine of fifty dollars cash or 112 days on the chain gang. A cowardly law- yer refused to appeal the case and I was led away to a cell, Southern Lyneh Law. Before reaching the cell, however, several things d to me. Three detectives took me into a private room, locked the door and made an attempt to change my accent. “You're a fresh Nigger,” one of them said. “I am going to change that fancy talk of yours and make you talk like a real Chattanooga Nigger,” and with this he landed a blow on my ji Another came to his aid and the jaw. two of them rained blows upon my head and face. After convincing themselves that my sneech conld not be changed from that of a militant T.U.U.L. organizer to that of a cringing, Uncle Tom tyne of Negro, with his “Yessir” and “No- sir” and abject servility, they turned me over to another, who weighed and finger printed me. Five o’clock in the afternoon, no lawyer hav- ing been found who would take the care. I was taken from the city jail to the workhouse. On entering the workhouse the driver of the patrol said to the guard, (pointing to me): “Here is a fellow who sw s he can’t be made to work, but wants to overthrow the government and believes in social equality for Niggers. (In the South jal equality means only one thing— intermarriage). I guess you know what to do with him.” In the workhouse a steel ring 31% inches in were joined together by a steel chain 14 inches long, the chains are placed on your legs on By Mall (it New York City only): $8.00 a year; BY Mail cade of New York Be SUBSCRIPTION RATES: ity): $6.00 a year; $3.50 s! By JENK HARDY. “@ASTONIA,” wrote a Southerner in a recent magazine article, “is the Lexington from which the historians of the future will reckon the industrial struggle, the war of a thousand battles which will convulse the South during the next decade.” In other words, just as the historian dates the beginning of the struggle of the American bourgeoisie to free itself from strangle-hold of British imperialism from the first shots fired at Lexington and Concord, so will the historian of the future date the beginnings of mass revolt in the South from { the day when the textile workers in the Loray Mill of the Manville-Jenckes Company shut | off the power and walked out of the mill under | the leadership of the National Textile Workers Union and the Communist Party. Veterans of a thousand class battles, the forces which led the recent struggle in the South had already come into head-on contact with capitalism and its apparatus, the state, in all of its ways and methods—police brutal- ity, frame-up, mob violence, murder of strike leaders, etc., etc. The events which transpired during and after the strike, therefore, were no surprise to its leaders. Nor, on the other hand, can such tactics swerve the proletaridt one iota in its march to inevitable power. Just as the new industrial bourgeois brushed aside the old plantation owning feudal baron, so will the working class, under the leadership of the Communist Party, brush aside the mill owning industrial barons of today. the Negro driving gentleman planter of the slavery epoch. It has been well established, as a matter of fact, that the gentry of the old agricultural South, who found themselves de- feated and their plantations broken up by the American Civil War were the very persons who established the cotton textile industry in the Piedmont. What we see in the Southern mills of today, therefore, is the attempt to carry over the ways and the methods of the feudal agricultural era into the newer period of industrialism—the attempt to harness the remnants of feudalism and brutal exploitation to modern machinery. The feudal, slave-owning baron of the pre- Civil War period owned his Negro chattel body and soul. He purchased and sold him, at so much per head, at the market place. He per- mitted him no education, but instilled in him the fear of god. Initiative was to the slave prohibited and unkonwn. His nose kept at whip of a Simon Legree, the plantation baron provided tools, houses, paternal care and per- mitted neither initiative nor responsibility. As long as the slave worked hard, never grumbled at his lot in life, and continued to pile up prof- its for the gentry out of his sweat and blood, he was patted on the back, called by his first name, feasted at barbecues and apparently sub- jected to the kindest treatment. If, on the other hand, he ran foul of his master’s _pleas- ure, he might be beaten, tortured, and under some circumstances even killed. He had no redress of any kind in the courts, where no Negro was permitted to testify against a white man. “In the 1850’s the abolitionist movement was gaining force in the Northern states, where experience had proven slave labor unsuited to the economic needs of the ruling industrial class. Fearing lest the abolitionist propaganda reach the ears of the subjected Negroes, the Southern states enacted a series of “Black Codes.” Negroes might not be out after-dark, except by written permission from their mas- ters. Not more than two of them might con- gregate at one place—with the exception of church, To be found bearing arms was pun- ishable by death. The feudal owning class lived in a veritable nightmare of fear. The Northerners were pic- tured from press and pulpit as “Yankee rats,” demons with long horns, destroyers of order, peace and security, free lovers, and other choice phrases. A Negro who by change happened to be influenced by the “John Browns” was starved, beaten, tortured and often killed as an example to his fellows. When the Civil War had been fought and lost by the South, there was ushered in the so-called period of “reconstruction.” Negroes, vnder the influence of the Northern “carpet- baggers” were given full civil rights and even came into the majority in the legislatures of several of the Southern states, where they were used in the interests of the Northerners. It was then that the Ku Klux Klan came into its original existance—as a movement the ob- ject of which was to stem the rising tide, over- come the power of the Negro and the North- ern “agitator” through force and violence, and preserve the feudal interests of the landed gentry. Such is the heritage of Southern feudalism. entering the prison and are not removed until the day you leave. The next morning, along with 44 other pris- oners, I was taken out to a large slag (rock pole) and-set to work dieing rock with a six- teen pound roygh-handled pick. My hands be- gan to grow blisters. One of them burst and T paused for 2 moment to wine it aw “Go on there, you,” shouted the burly guard. “A little blood of your own lo you Reds good.” ( A little later, while attempting to drive the pick through a three-foot mass of solid rock, I became exhausted and stopped to blow. The guard yelled at me to keep going, stating that Reds would find no picnic on the chain gang as long as he was around. He stood over me, gun in hand, the whole time I was there, watch- ing my every move. About eleven-thirty work- ers and sympathizers came forward and paid my fine. The guard showed his disapnointment in being cheated of the chance to work a “Red” to death or shoot him should he offer the least resistance, These bitter attacks upon the revolutionary organizations of the workers by the bosses is being met with increasing resistance from the workers. On the very day that I was be- ing sentenced to one hundred and twelve days on the chain gang for organizing the workers to struggle for work or wages, workers thru- out the world were demonstrating millions strong against starvation. Right in Chatta- nooga, though all of the leaders were in jail, rank and file workers of the Unemployed Coun- cil held a mass meeting and would have march- ed on City Hall but for a fierce rain storm that made it impossible. The attacks of the bosses are bearing fruit but not the kind of fruit counted upon by these bosses, To what extent is it being carried over by the mill barons of today? Just as the slave dealers shouted the merits of their wares in the market places of the old South, where human flesh was bought and sold, so today the local Chambers of Commerce are praising their goods to the skies. “In our district wages are only a dollar and a half a day. We have a sixty-hour week here.” “You can have eleven hours of night work and no unions.” “In our district you will find the best reserves of female labor power.” “No minimum wage here.” Thus run hundreds of advertisements proclaiming the advantages of the industrial slavery of the Piedmont. Just as the slave of the eighteenth and nine- teenth centuries was regimented at his work and provided with shelter, tools, entertainment and paternal care, so does the mill baron of today attempt to carry on this tradition in his mill village. In this sort of medieval fief every house is owned by the mill baron. He builds every school, draws up the course of study, pays the teacher’s salary, dictates how long the child may stay in school and when he shall enter the mill. He owns the company store, often paying script redeemable for goods at $4.50 siz months; $2.5! The owning class of the present South is | attempting to re-enact the medieval setting of | industrialists of the North as a result of the | his back-breaking toil in the hot fields by the , 0 three months ix months; $2.00 three months his occupation, how many times he has been sick, where he comes from, the room he lives in, the name of his wife, how many children she has had, the number that are still alive, how many of them are too young to work. “ The mill man can, by turning the pages of his book, tell the age of all the people who live in the village. . .. Not even a baby is unre- corded,” (Ibid., P. 41). a As long as the worker went humbly about his tasks he was a good fellow. The boss patted him on the back, provided an occasional com- pany picnic and church festival, moved among his “subjects” as hero and “friend” and at- tempted to maintain the old easy relations of the early plantation period. At the first rum- blings of discontent, ‘however, he immediately attempted to tear his subjects to the economic rack. He black-listed them, evicted them from their homes, cut off their credit at the company store, raided the relief stations of the Work- ers International Relief and tried to starve his workers into submission. The courts became a mockery. Beal, Hendricks, Miller and the other Gastonia defendants were convicted be- fore their trial began, And, just as no Negro was permitted to testify aginst a white man in the feudal courts of the agricultural South, so were some witnesses in the recent Gastonia trial prohibited from even testifying when they professed disbelief in the capitalist god. The modern version of the old Black Codes is also being enacted. Black lists are made up and circulated of all who join unions or take part in strikes. Spies swarm, and to be seen even talking on friendly terms with a union organizer is tantamount to immediate discharge. In the murder of Ella May Wiggins and the Marion massacre the ruling class served notice that militancy is henceforth punishable by death. There is also every indication that at their next sessions the legislatures of the Caro- linas will pass syndicalist and anti-union laws. The “Committee of 100” which engage in ter- rorist kidnapping and lynching bees against Northern organizers and local militants are the Ku Klux Klan in dress suit. Press and pulpit howl against labor leaders in the same vein they usec 80 years ago against the abol- itionists. “Alien invaders, reds, racketeers, stick-up men, mad yankee guerillas,”—these are only a few of. the florid invectives re- sorted to by the ruling class and its agents in its bewilderment and terror. But Ku Klux Klans and Committees of 100 can not stay the hands of historical forces. The feudal plantation system of the South had its day—and gave way to modern industrialism. The changes of the past 20 years have spelled the doom of capitalism. The reactionary South represents a desperate ruling class making its last stand. Just as its predecessor met its doom from the armies of American industrial- ism in the Civil War, so does it now find the movement of the working class, organized and led by the Communist Party, striking it like a cloudburst. The strikes at Gastonia, Eliza- bethton and Marion, the growing solidarity of Negro and white workers, the carmen’s strike in New Orleans, the restiveness of the miners— not to mention: many other small, scatered, but extremely stubborn and militant class battles— are all but a foretaste of much more that is is shortly to follow and show that the class struggle is as alive in the South as anywhere. Against the industrial capitalists of the South stands the restless proletariat of the mills, be- ing organized into the National Textile Work- ers Union, the National Miners’ Union and the Trade Union Unity League, and beginning to recognize the Communist Party as the political Party of the working class. The American Federation of Labor will hover in the back- ground and try to lead the workers back to the slavery of the mines, mills and workshops. | But all the forces of reaction stand as much chance in this new era as they would were they trying to hold back the tides. That, asa matter of fact, is the equivalent of what they are attempting to do—and they have as much possibility of success. Growth of Real Wages in U.S.S.R. Guaranteed The workers’ cooperatives of Moscow and other industrial centers have reduced prices on February 1 on articles which play a big part | in the workers’ budget: textile goods, clothing, | underwear, footwear and various food products. | Prices have been cut about 4—5 per ‘cent com- pared with the prices of October 1929. On some goods (ready-made clothing) there is a cut of 10 ner cent and even of 20 per cent (footwear). At the same time there is also a price reduc- tion on bread (at least 0.5 kopeks per kilo), potatoes, vegetables and fruits (from 8 to 15 per cent. At the same time the workers’ cooperatives are taking steps to increase the sale of goods which hitherto the worker has been partly buy- ing on the market (the goods purchased by workers on the market in the Soviet Union amounted at the beginning of this year to about 11 per cent of manufactured goods and 18 per cent of farm products). The role of the private dealer will in this sphere be reduced to the minimum (to about 2—3 per cent). All these steps will guarantee a reduction in the cost of living of the working class family of about 3%4—4 per cent as compared with last year. The worker’s nominal wages this year are raised an average of 9 per cent. Together | with the lowering of the cost of living the average wage will increase at least 12 per cent. Such is the decision of the Party. This decision will have to be unconditionally carried out, * The Moscow enterprises have allotted 4,000 workers belonging to cooperatives to take con- trol over the reduction of the prices in co- operative shops. Workers! Join the Party of Your Classi Communist Party U. 8. A. “the store instead of money wages. He builds the church, pays the preacher’s salary and dictates his sermons. The police are his em- ployees. He undertakes to decide whether or not dancing is to be permitted, etc. In short, every word, every thought is subjected to the dictates of the lord. “They are like children, and we have to take care of them,” is the way one mill owner characterized his employees to one investigator. (Tannenbaum,s., Darker Phases of the South, P. 40). Every mill has its Doomsday Book. “As soon as you are born you are recorded. And after that all your destinies find a place in this long black book. There are written the name of father, his age, 43 East 125th Street, its New York City. 1, the undersigned, want to join the Commu: nist Party. Send me more information, ae N NOME u:5'0 05 645 605000000 bo tie siele-ed us Sulaneel Address .....4.6 mevese City. Occupation . teeereereeeveees ABCreveee Mail this to the Central Office, C Party, 43 East 126th St., New York, ad OLD FEUDALISM IN SOUTH ff | {| y!