The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 4, 1930, Page 4

SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Ruuare* New York Clty, NY. Teter i : M New York Ci : $4.50 six months; $2.50 three months Page Four acaaes New : k ¢ ty eS mele ne Baily ” “4 att Helealiad aoe ay cole 7 $3.50 six months; $2.00 three months Address and checks to i c : Central Organ of the Commu.uoe saccy of the U.S. A. By Fred Ellis JOW A COLLECTIVE FARM IS ORGANIZED IN THE USSR The Fall of the Old Oak Fascist Liars Can Figure} LENIN AND THE POLITICAL - MASS STRIKE | Important tor May Day Tasks er ii ] + ORK i rations—presumes the most energetic and OR centuries the oak stood at Tolba and | pending upon the low cultural level of the vil- | By PAUL MERKER (Berlin). | —. prornied He naa rae) aad haw: St han fallen: « ” lag ncreased their resi: » to the new | the increasing revolutionary development, | faasses for the fight for the seven-hour day These were the words uttered by a poor | Measures in every possible way. which in all countries received a fresh and | 27a higher wages, against the wholesale dis- peasant of the Ancient Orthodox Church, in In the village of Klucheva, the elders of the | effective impetus as a result of Saka missals, for unemployment benefit, ete. Strike the village of Tolba, Sergatchsk District, as _ church gathered the kulaks together ostensibly | the United States of America, the proletarian | + ecles for the realization of these demands the individual disappeared into the vealms of the past. The fall of century long hatred and unbelief to all that is new a signal for unheard-of activity in the villages of this district. Day after day, until dawn, the peasant meetings questioned city workers and other forerunners of collectivization, what is this “collective farm’? They questioned th with an at- mosphere of unbelief, not passing th slightest detail, or omitting the slightest con- tradiction in the words of the agitators. And when they had finished questioning, the villagers took thought and decided. Thus for instance, in one far away hamlet, where for months at a time no one from the district or even from the village ever comes, they kept the speakers going till 3 o'clock at night. Then, having let them go, the elders sat till morning, trying to solve the problem— “to be or not to be” in the collective farm. After thinking it over, they demanded speakers, questioned them anew, and after this they announced their verdic join en mass, Thus was the collectivi But, having been born its life it broke off from its old country lation, and displayed a tremendous creative energy, which had been hidden up to this time under a bushel of individual farms. On January 15th, the district economic meet- ing of peasants decided on two years as the date for the full collectivization of the dis- trict. On February ist, 25 per cent had been collectivized, and on February 10th, 70 per cent! These figures became possible only because the poor and middle peasants of the district took in hand the matter of collectivization. In Tolba, 600 women voted to enter the col- lective farm against 17 supporters of the kulaks, and they immediately sent a delega- tion to the Plenum of the village Soviet which was in session at that time, with the demand “Mujiks, all into the collective farm.” In another part of the village, there were peasant sledges decorated with red ribbons and red kerchiefs. The sledge stops at the door of the village Soviet, and an old man in a Cossack coat bangs his palm down on the president’s table: “Time you woke up! Call a meeting! Our village challenges your village to a con- test to join the collective farms!” One Tartar hamlet is suddenly decorated in an unusual manner. At every gate and on the corners of the huts, red kerchiefs are hung out. “These are our neighbors from other vil- lages who haye come to a re-union. We are all collective farmers now.” Socialist contests, the dispatch of mutual delegationg and individudl propaganda were the means by which the peasants of Sergatchsk buried the old village and undertook the con- struction of the new socialist life. v these days, days in which the century old foundations are being uprooted, the quiet of the nights in the district are very often broken by the words of proletarian songs. They are sung as never before in the village. As they come to the words, “We are the in- heriters of the earth,” the voices of the col- lective farmers take on a special expression. And not without reason. No sooner ‘have the villagers begun to discuss collectivization, when the kulak, together with the priests, de- for choir practice, but in reality to discuss the best ways of breaking up the seeding cam- paign. Rumors and slander are the best weapons in the hands of the kulaks, and they under- stand well how to use them, Here is an exam- ple: A hospital train with wounded soldiers from the Far stern Army passed through the station of Sergatchsk. Right along the track, the population enthusiastically greeted the Red heroes. Even in the little Sergatchsk, where the train arrived at night, the station was full of workers, tossing pres- ents to the Red Army men. nd on the next day kulak rumors began to creep through the village: “Have you heard—they are bringing in wound The war isn’t over. The Soviets will be defeated, and the kulaks will’ smash up all this collective business.” In the settlement of Kozhino, when the de- cision was taken to enter the collective farm en masse, all the men voted for the collective farm and the. women against, even raising two hands. And how could it be other e, for the “holy pilgrims” who are wandering from village to village, are talking of the end of the world which is at hand. It is impossible to repeat all the rumors, each sillier than the previous one, which the kulaks and priests are sending around the villages, And after the rumors come actions. The collective farms are gathering seed. At the same time the church elders announce a registration of believers. The church “bri- gades” go round the peasant houses, and 30 collectivists immediately apply to leave the collective farm, But what is more dangerous is the fact that the kulak, as he sees the approach of seeding time, and sees that the collective farms will be ready, indulges in active destruction of property. . On February 20, in the village of Pogi- blovsk, the barns of the collective farms with all their seed valued at 4,000 roubles were burnt. 300 Communists, 800 YCLers, non-Party peasants. Th the advance guard of the 85,000 army of collective farmers at Sergatchsk, this is the cement which binds them together in the struggle for the socialist reconstruction of the villages, We have something to learn. Fi shock work. daring. All the best forces have gone into the vil- lag Since January they have been contin- ually working in every village and hamlet, and whole brigades of propagandists and organ- ers are immediately sent to help them in weak places, The struggle against waverers had to be carried on very fiercely in the first period. One day the peasant will be in a collective farm, and the next day he will leave it under the influence of kulak propaganda. The next day he will again decide to join the collective farm. And so on for several times on end. In such cases not a single application to leave the farm is left without investigation, Some one goes to the peasant at his own home, talks to him, discovers the reason that he wishes to leave, and in 99 cases out of 100 the peasant returns to the collective farm. The work is difficult, heroic. But it bear: fruit, Instead of taking two years, the dis- tuict has already been fully collectivized. As a result, a big district collective farm has been 600 active tly, tempo, Secondly, unity and revolutionary | formed with an area of 100,000 hectares. The Workers Relief Organization in the South By CAROLINE DREW. NE year ago the Workers International Re- lief entered the South. This was a new field The W.I.R. had no committees, no branches, and was unknown to the Negro and white workers, Two thousands workers in the Loray Mill, Gastonia, vot:d to strike April 1, under the militant National Textile Workers Union. Their vote was a fight against the eleven hour work day, the unbearable stretchout-out and miser- ably low wages in the form of coupons in the company store which were spent by the workers in advance before the end of the weck. The strikers were penniless the day they came out. The W.LR. was called upon to care for the strikers and their famili and immediately established a relief station, Can’t Be Stopped. One night the relief station was raided and the food thrown upon the streets. The W.LR. answered by distributing food from a truck on the streets. The bosses next move was evicting the work- ers from the company houses. The W.LR. responded by establishing a tent colony. It was this tent colony which was raided on June 7 and which resulted in one strike leader he- ing wounded, three policemen wounded, the chief of police mortally. The ‘W.LR, was the first organization w ye establish itself after the terror. It built a new tent colony and rallied the workers. All the forces of the state, the militia, the hired’ thugs, the stool pigeons, which were used against the strikers and against the strikers’ organizations could not stop the militancy of the workers. The strike opened a new life for the Southern textile workers. This new proletariat fresh from mountain farms was not used to indus- trial life. They had very little organization experiences, The speed up and lowering of wages by the mill owners a year ago resulted in a wave of strikes throughout the South and the struggle against their bosses quickly de- veloped in them the need of combined action. Through the efforts of the W.I.R. calding socia! gatherings as propaganda centers ard mas . the workers got to know each other, Life in each mill village is the same, pa- ternalistic, carefully guarded over by the mill owners and their hirelings to see that their slaves are “contented.” The mill owners stop at nothing to enforce their rule. This was proven by the onslaught Sept. 14 in Gastonie when workers attempted to attend a mass meet- ing called by the National Textile Workers Union and were shot at and Ella May was killed, There were strikes in Pinéville, Bessemer y Charlotte, Pinoka, which the Workers In- ternational Relief took care of. Thousands of men, women and children learned the meaning of Solidarity. There have always been Com- munity Chests in these mill villages, to which the workers are forced to contribute. They usually are not asked—just docked. When the | strike came on, the workers learned in a hurry the money they contributed was used against them to break the strike, Throughout the strike the relief committee was trained to take a leading position and rally the workers for the fighting policy of the W. I.R. The mass meetings held by the W.I.R. stressed the fact that strikes can only be won through larger picket lines, on which not only the men but the women and children should take their places. The strikers were told that workers in W.I.R. branches give relief to strikers only on the basis that they are militant and help to win the strike. Relief committees in the South collected some funds among those who were working. But the Southern workers live so near starvation they have very little to give, All winter, the W.1.R. has been working to- gether with the T.U.U.L, and N.T.W.U., or- ganizing the workers in preparation for the gigantic strikes in the South which will es- tablish a 7-hour day an a decent living wage. Towards this end the W.LR. branches have been rallying the workers in the South on an educational, organization, and social program. “A Trip to the Soviet Union” has been shown in many Southern cities, and the workers have had a chance to sce some of the advantages achieved by the Russian workers. This summer the W.1.R. expects to estaMish a Southern camp for workers children and ot town of | By MAX HARRIS. HE textile indu: more than any other in- crisis which is rocking the boat of American capitalism. Wage cuts, longer hours, speed-up and all other forms of rationalization methods, are being used by the mill barons to a stiil further extent in textile, than in any other in- dustry. The Lehigh Valley section of the textile in- dustry, where approximately 131 silk mills are | located, has been somewhat immune in the past | from the crisis so seriously affecting other sec- tions. While the work in the South are forced to slave anywhere from 12 to 13 hours | a day for a minimum wage of $12 per week, and whilst the conditions of the mill workers in Paterson, New Bedford, and other important textile centers, are gradually being brought down to the level of the southern mill work- ers, the silk workers in the Lehigh Valley were still able last to maintain a wage scale of $85 to $40 for a 50-hour week. But Now It Starts. Recent developments in the Lehigh Valley silk industry have proven conclusively that the workers here are not immune from the general crisis affecting the textile industry today. These developments fling back the lies of the mill barons and the labor fakirs, that the con-, ditions will continue “ to remain reasonable.” In the Adelaide Mill, which is the largest in Allentown, wage cuts were imposed continn- ously for the past six months, until the total reductions amounted to approximately 50 per cent. At the same time the hours of labor were increased from 50 to 70 per week. The workers were recently informed that they would have to work overtime without receiving any extra compensation, and would also be required: to come in on Sundays. |The owners of the mill were able to force ffe wage cuts, and other rsened conditions upon the workers by resorting to a trick which is now being put into wide practice by the mill owners here. Beforc installing a wage cut, they announce that theis plant is compelled to lay off all hands. The following week when they report back to work, their jobs have other workers hired for ten per cent less. Keep Trying the Trick, Precisely the same thing is now occuring in the Maxwell, and has taken place in the Edna. Arcadia, and other important mills here. The bosses know and understand that with the j present radicalization of the workers it would be impossible to impose a direct wage cut, with- out having the workers fight back, Where the mill barons wage cuts and further rationalization methods, the workers have replied by walking out on strike and militantly fighting back. At the Arcadia Mill (which was recently located in N. Y. City and moved to Allentown in order to produce more goods at the expense of the workers) the workers in the knitting depart- ment were informed that hereafter tyey would be required to operate 12 machines Srtead of the usual eight. The workers answered this by sportancously walking out on strike, but the fact that they train them as good working class soldiers, It shall also establish Cildren’s Kitchons and Playgrounds, The W.LR., together with other miligent or- ganizations in the South has made #°ress during its year of activity. Negro an@ ~hite workers are being rallied to a progreiifo? or- ganization and struggle. The W.LR. haf come to the South to stay. It grows out of (4g needs of the workers and poor farmers, Mass Struggles Developing in the Lehigh Valley Silk Industry dustry, examplifies the serious economiz | did not fully as yet understand all the neces- sary organization steps the bosses temporarily defeated them. Having increased the operation | of the knitting machines, and also increased productivity 50 per cent the bosses abolished the night shift, firing every worker employed on it. In the Edna Mill a wage cut was also im- posed recently. The workers struck and foreed the mill owners to take back the cut. The bosses then resorted to the same maneuver as in the Adelaide, and got a ten per cent wage cut. Ready To Organize. In the A. I’. Bittner Mill, located in Slating- ton, Pa., a wage cut averaging ten per cent was imposed. Here also, they refused to ac- cept the cut and declewd a strike. Workers imported from the neighboring town, Nortamp- ton, walked out of the mill in a body upon be- ing informed that there was a strike in prog- ress at the plant. The National Textile Work- ers Union organizer upon coming into the town to help earry on a strike, was approached by other workers of mills located in the town, explaining that they also expected a wage cut and were willing to be organized. As one worker particularly emphasized, “What we need n this town is a strong militant union, other. wise these bosses will stop at nothing in order | o drive us into slavery.” These incidents are typical of the general revailing conditions in the Lehigh Valley silk | adustry. We have now wages of $12 to $18 per week ‘or unskilled workers, and an average of $25 to 30 for the very skilled. The prevailing hours f labor are anywhere from 50 to 70 per week. Struggle and Tasks These few spontaneous strikes which have een led by the N.T.W.U. are forerunners of eveloping mass struggle in “Sleepy Valley.” The N.T.W.U. must expose the “lay-off” and revolutionary class struggle. other tricks being used by the mill owners. A systematic campaign must be carried on in all of our leaflets, bulletins, meetings, etc., ex- nosing the role of the Musteites, MeGradys and their ilk. We must especially point to Buden’ eraft organization and class collaboration pol ities in the Nazareth strike. This strike ha been closely watched by the mill workers, ané even the most naive worker has been somewha‘ amused by Budenz’ attempts to enlist the aid o the state troopers to protect the strikers fron the attacks of the local police. Here is a situa tion where the workers went over the head of this Musteite fakir in their militancy by fight ing back against the attack of the police. A wide organizational campaign must immedi- | h ase ac ately be carried on in the entire valley. have resorted to open | 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. NAM ceocsesersccevsccccsnrvoveveesesueees AdUreSS ..eeresssevecceeevess UitYssereceee | OCCUPATION 065 bees vis ee'poes 009,04 ABC er ave Mail this to the Central Office. Communist Party, 43 East 125th St., New York, N. Y, masses are confronted with the problem of the means and methods of conducting the There is being repeated upon a higher basis the disputes be- tween the followers of Marx and Lenin and the opportunists and liquidators, just as they took place in the years from 1904 to 19 garding the form of the proletaria tionary mass struggle, of the unchaining and spreading of the revolutionary mass move- ments. At that time it was before all from the struggles of the Russian proletariat that the international working class derived their ex- periences of the revolutionary class struggle. Today, after the victory of the Russian prole- tariat over the bourgeoisie, it is the strug- gles of the Chinese, the American, German and Indian proletariat and of the working masses of other countries which are being car- ried on in ever increasing number. The decisive fighting methods of the pres- ent phase of the revolutionary class struggle are the revolutionary strikes and demonstra- tions. Strike struggles, organized and con- ducted in a revolutionary manner, mass dem- onstrations, carried out with zest and deter- mination in spite of police suppression, are all important means for intensifying the class struggle and the means for developing the fighting will, the fighting activity and the maneuvering capacity of the proletariat. These are the means for developing the proletarian mass struggles up to the arme] insurrection against the bourgeoisie for the establishment of the proletarian dictatorship. Therefore the central question for the revo- lutionary advance troop in the present phase is, how and under what slogans can the prole- tarian masses be most effectively mobilized and | led into the fight. What are the methods for developing the numerous struggles which are taking place into great mass movements. These were the questions for the clarifica- tion of which Lenin and Luxemburg waged the fiercest fight against all opportunists and liquidators; and these questions were answered by Lenin plainly and clearly, in far-reaching agreement with Rosa Luxemburg, so that the present generation possesses in the teachings of Lenin the key to the development of the proletarian mass struggle. Lenin conducted an irreconcilable fight against the representatives of the view of the purely economic struggle, and against those who pay no regard to the struggle of the working masses for wages and bread and characterise it as being incidental. Lenin waged a ruthless fight against those who saw in the spontaneity of the proletarian masses the lever for unfolding gigantic mass struggles, and insisted again and again on the absolute necessity of systematic and comprehensive organization and carrying out of mass struggles. Comrade Lenin followed with the greatest attention every strike struggle, no matter how trifling it might appear, and every workers’ demonstration. He drew impostant conclu- sions from the statistics regarding the extent and duration of strike struggles, regarding the fight for economic demands and political de- mands, and proved on the basis of his con- | scientious investigations the dialectial recipro- cal effect between the struggles for economic demands of the workers and’ the struggles of the working masses for political ends in de- veloping the proletarian mass struggle. “Today it is quite obvious,” wrote Lenin already in the year 1905, “what actually are the reciprocal relations between economic and political strikes: without their being closely linked up a really broad movement, bearing a real mass character, is impossible; the concrete form of this linking up con- sists, however, on the one hand, in that, at the commencement of the movement and in drawing new sections of workers into the movement, the purely economic strike arouses backward elements and brings them into movement, generalizes and extends the movement and raises it to a higher level.” In another passage Lenin repeats this dic- tum. He writes: “Consequently political and economic strikes support each other. The one form of struggle forms a source of strength to the other. Unless these two kinds of strike are closely linked up there can be no really broad mass movement, a movement of nation-wide importance. At the beginning of the move- ment the economic strike is not infrequently capable of awakening and rousing the mass of the backward, of generalizing the move- nent and raising it on to a higher level.” Lenin specially emphasized again and again rat it is the task of the revolutionary advance- uard, to champion the interests of the broad- st, most badly paid strata of the toilers. The ight for the interests of these strata is at the ame time the fight against the bribed and corrupted upper stratum of the labor aristo- ‘vacy, which has been bought by the bour- zeoisie and which tries to represent its fur- therance of its own interests as being the fight for the interests of the proletariat. Lenin said: “For this purpose it was of course neces- sary that under the demands of the workers under the class struggle there should be un- derstood, not the fight for the interests of a small upper stratum, as the reformists too often try to make out to the workers, but that the proletariat really comes forward as the advance-guard of the majority of the exploited, and draws this majority itself into the fight as happened in Russia in 1905 and as it must and will undoubtedly again happen in the coming proletarian revolution in Eu- rope.” (Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 5, page 8, Russian edition.) Therein lies the confirmation of the rev- olutionary policy of the Communist Interna- tional and of the Red International Labor Unions among the masses of the unorganized, for ruthlessly breaking through the trade union statutes and trade union legalism, and for the erystall'zation of the new forms for organizing and conducting the proletarian struggles. Consequently to unchain political mass strug- gles—revolationary mass strikes and demon- have a revolutionary character and can over night be converted into distinctly revolutionary political fights. The connection of the fight of the workers in the factories with the fight of the unemployed, the most ruthless counter- measures against the fascist methods of sup- pression employed by the government, the breaking through of the bourgeois legislation regarding collective agreements and arbitra- tion, the employment of revolutionary methods in carrying out the movement, create the pre- sumptions for the coming great revolutionary fights for power. The carrying out of this work, requires the ystematic organization of the workers’ strug- gles. Revolutionary mass propaganda and rev- olutionary mass organization—these are the chief measures of the revolutionary advance- guard for organizing the proletarian struggle for power. “To rouse the revolutionary deter- mination of the proletariat,” said Lenin, “to support it in revolutionary action and to create organizations for work in this direction in ac- cordance with the revolutionary situation,” that is the task of the revalutionary advance- guard in the period of revolutionary upsurge. The Challenge of Bourgeois | Education to the Working Clas: Co PEE Ss has always been a possession of the ruling class. According to the American Labor Year Book, in 1924, 73.7 per cent of those children who entered school at all, stopped their schooling at the 6th grade; per cent entered High School and only 7.7 per cent were found in the colleges. 33. The fact is clear therefore, that the children of the workers are in the public schools dur- ing the first years of their lives. The working class child in the bourgeois educational institution, if he is taught any- thing at all about the labor movement is either actively propagandized against it or, by a cunning presentation of “both sides” of the question, is psychologized into an accep- tance of the ruling class point of view. He is taught to be “100 per cent American”; to view the institutions of the bourgeois state as fixed and unchangeable. He learns that there is no class struggle and that there is equal opportunity for the child of the worker and the child of the boss. The organizers, i ists and others of the worst enemies of g class are trained in these insti- tutions. What is the task of the revolutionary labor movement in this situation? The Communist Party of the U. S. A. has answered this ques- tion by the establishment of a Workers School in New York, with branch schools in many other industrial centers, where education, based on a recognition of the class struggle is offered to workers. In the Workers School both sides of the question are not presented. The workers are taught that there are two sides—the side of the boss and the side of the worker—but it is made very clear to them on which side they belong. They are trained for leading posts in the class struggle. They are taught Marxian economics; sociology from the point of view of the exploited masses, and history in the light of the teachings of Marx and Lenin, English is taught to foreign born workers, not as a course in Americanization, but as the worker learns to read his first sim- ple sentertves he learns in English of the class struggle and its meaning to him. This working class education must be ex- tended, The Workers School is planning to establish a branch school in the South for Negro and white workers. It also plans ‘to organize self-study courses for isolated groups of workers. For this work funds are required. The bourgeoisie supports its educational in- stitutions liberally. It fights the establish- ment of working class schools. The Workers Schools can look only to the working class for their support. The $10,000 drive which the Workers School is making in order to secure funds for the enlargemet of its ac- tivities must be supported by every class con- scious worker. The capitalist propaganda of the bourgeois schools ,must be answered by the establishment of a Workers School in every industrial center of the country. Send your contribution at once to the $10,000 Drive Committee of the Workers School, 26-28 Union Square, New York City, Don’t Feel Sorry; It’s a Bluff! Wanamaker was once caught stealing mil- lions of dollars from the government on fraud- ulent weights on imported sugar. But that isn’t all of it. Wanamaker “loaned” Whalen to New York City as police commissioner. Wanamaker ought to be paid back with in- terest. But he had the job of beating up the workers on March 6, and he did it. But he talked too much about it and has been seeing notices every day in the papers that he w: “resigning.” Then his attempt. to help one taxi trust against another was busted in the eye. Then his goose-step order to make every chauffeur buy a uniform was sat on. The idea is that the capitalist courts are preparing to railroad the Unemployed Committee and have to’make a showing previously that they're above being influenced by Whalen. Don’t feel sorry! There, now, we didn’t think you'd cry ahout it anyhow. But don’t look for anything but class revenge against the Unemployed Committee from the courts, The Daily Werker is the Party’s hest instrument to make contacts among the masses of workers, to Luild a mass Communist Party,