The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 16, 1930, Page 4

the Comprodatty York C N. mines = Frage Four Sou Publishing Co., cks to {he Daily Inc, daily, excent Sunday, pne Stuyvesant 1696-7-8 Cable: Worker, 26-28 Union Square, New Our Agrarian Tasks: Against Oppor- tunism in Theory and Practice RISON GEORGE Main ally into at (some- F t—the eroup of wage work- not past, is passing. zers will con in one undifferenti- he faint licy in ac- trict of our Party there re workers, poor farm- and rich capitalist farm- t sharply be shown ns on the k farms of 1] to our movement just corn huskers of Nebraska; that | work is not for the Dakotas alone, s, for example, produces alone as kotas, while the im- e South generally is nts than any other inimizing the North, iper for an agrarian an any. r agriculture, pub- of the “Communist,” ies, is our Party’s first ian problem from a Bol- both the such as } s” of Mon- 1e with the old , have found their ver’s “cooperatives,” the ite, Miller, fittingly seek- republican ticket. From r Hoover, these and again to declare ‘olutionary for them! encies of our “Draft it breaks the ice ing down the it could not he comrades hough defects of th ft Program” are altural Depart- ment whict deserves « which ing it that sh r rade Be blished in the Daily Worker aght up two main | The chi le Bert’s first ar- | ticle (D.W. to furnish more lates on the increasing re, his correct con- g those already, Program,” the oorer farm strata, and proletariat in ion. Hence his of the world “will” | 1d,” are correct, al- na different point d fro at of the “Draft Program.” > “Draft Program,” the first s given, in this matter as in “agriculture in general,” of the agrarian popu- lation. Hov ring under the crisis, | are told t apologists that their remedy nize; how they concretely | considered, not even get into debt | enough to , or, if they do, only | fall further into the clutches of finance capi- tal and ultimately into worse misery. Hence, the ft Program,” in using the phrase “if it could be realized,” applied it def- initely to the ‘majority of the farm popula- tion,” and not to farmers in the abstract and in general, with whom Comrade Bert’s tendency to deal places him dangerously near to for- getting the va ons in class categories among farmers. Let us have done with all pedantie but non- existent “agriculture” in the abstract; and let us deal with the forces from which we expect live revolutionists, not dead arithmetical caleu- lations. It is clear from the “Draft Program,” even though it lacks an “integral statement” on in- ereasing mechanization, that the “stagnation of technics” is for the mass of poorer farmers, and that the increased use of machinery is not to be dealt with as affecting all farmers in like manner. Hl. Comrade Bert's crit tor its close ism is to be welcomed But in his article on | ficient as the “basis” of the alliance between ance between workers and f W. 1 24), he shaves the whiskersof reason so closely that blood flows from the veins of a “left” tendency. He quotes from the “Draft am” as fol- lows: Obviou: little or no outlet can be found under capitalism for ever-growing production the reactionary outlet of imperialist If, however, the city proletariat by le can compel the employing class to er wages this would help absorb the ; whil overthrow capi- sed de- xeept ar. ta king the market, gine that the s in the cities have either r to wear. It is upon thi: nee between the poor farm- and the revolutionary city proletariat uid be built for a joint fight against capi- the small farmers aiding the pro- both in wage struggle and the revo- tionary overthrowal of capitalism, the es- blishment of a Soviet Government of work- and farmers.” How does Comrade Calmly ignoring the ren outlet” and also the “ever. he selects the following: “Tf, however. the city proletariat by strug- gle can compel the employing class to pay higher wages, this would help to absorb the Bert approach thi rk of “little or no rowing production,” voreing this from all that precedes and follows it, he takes a wide liberty to de- clare that it means, according to his inter- pretations: “The successful fight of the proletariat for increased wages will help to solve the agricultural crisis within the capitalist sys- tem.” Comrade Bert contends that these two stat ments, the first one from the “Draft Program and the second his own interpretation of it, have the same political meaning. quite s' him. The words “help to absorb the surplus” even standing by themselves, and more espec- ially taken with their conte: y no manner of means can be stretched into meaning “help to solve the agricultural crisis,” and it seems rather gratuitous to add “within the capitalist system.” We welcome all Comrade Bert says at lc ta prove that any “decrease of surplus” be only relative. No one has said anyth the contrary, certainly not the “D gram”. But he misses the whole point of the program's argument by going off into ahstrac- tion over the statement which he reads into the program but which’ is not written therein. The program’s statement as quoted, from the word “obviously”, is a unit with all that fol- lows down to the “establishment of a Soviet Government of Workers and Farmers,” which I trust Comrade Bert will grant cannot be done “within the capitalist system.” The program comprehends the development of the surplus. yes, but it comprehends also the development of the crisis as it effects the masses of poor farmers whether the surplus grows much or little, relatively or absolutely. Hence Comrade Bert’s inferential definition that a crisis is, at least theoretically, impossible without a surplus, is untenable and a generali- zation which is dangerous because it ignores the conditions which such a situation, hypothet- ical though it may be, inflicts upon the poorer farming masses. IV. Running Away from Facts. Comrade Bert, in his quarrel with the “Draft Program” statement that “higher wages would help to absorb the surplus”, seems dreadfully fraid of a fact. Relatively or absolutely, as ‘ou please, the higher wages wrung by the pro- iat from the employing class would “help ‘orb the surplus”. It is not a Right Wing t, but a fact. And since Marxism-Leninism accord with facts, it merely remained for Comrade Bert to prove that higher wages would not help to absorb the surplus, in order to have put the “Draft Program” out of court. But he does nothing of the kind for the good reason that he cannot. However, being fearful that in the shadow of this fact some demon of opportunism is lurking, he proceeds not only to interpret this fact into a statement (not a fact) of his own, which he ascribes to the program, but calls on Marx to bear witness that his misinterpretation is insuf- poor farmers and the revolutionary proletariat. It appears that Comrade Bert is among those who are opposed to the proletariat winning in- creased wages by struggle, for fear of some supposed coincident strengthening of capitalist economy. This bears a close relation to the “left” nonsense of telling the workers that there is no use striking for higher wages under cap- italism and that, as a consequence, trade un are rather useless and what is wanted, w: right away, is nothing less than a revolution. The dynamic development of the struggle it- self is not mentioned. While a struggle by the proletariat is, by inference, condemned, because the higher wages won might “help to solve the agricultural crisis within the capitalist system”, yet Comrade Bert approves “the general forms of struggle” of the poor farrhers, such as “ten- ants’ strikes,” “tax payers’ strikes”, etc. However, if poor farmers could win — and this, also, is theoretically possible—lower rents | or lower taxes by strike struggles, would we permit Comrade Bert to quote Lenin against this on the ground that this would be (Selec- tions from Lenin, Page 58) “pprotecting their small properties from the pressure of capital- ism” and “uselessly to retard social devzlop- ment?” No. We would have to declare that this quotation from Lenin does not apply to such action any more than Comrade Bert’s quotation from the Communist Manifesto con- tradicts the “Draft Program”—which is not at all. Because such actions develop the revolu- tionary struggle to a higher stage. The struggle, indeed, is the most important factor of social development. The struggle of the city proletariat (although it might not eons- ciously recognize it), is more important as a dynamic factor than,the higher wages won, And it is also more important to social development and hence to the farming masses that they be brought into the class struggle ag allies of the proletariat, than any possible absorption of mers (D. | at 28-98 Unie DAtwe York N But we are | re that no Communist will agree with | Baily S ‘nswer the Fascist Probe of Fish, Green & Co.-by Increased | nst Wage-Cuts, Seced-Up and Unemployment! | Contral Organ ot the Communist Variy ol the 1! 4 A. Worker e Last Message to “Daily” from Death House The Jrom which comes to ", a prison of At 1 revolutionary mes- following letter lton Co Inata, Ga., is the } scge of a worker who is soon to be electrc ou'cd for an alleged crime. The prisoner, true to his class, was mover to greet his comrades on “the outside” upon lecding of capitalist outrage against Joe Serr, H. M. Powers, Ann Burlack, May Dal- on, Henry Storey, and Hérbert Newton, who also face death by electric chair in the Fulton County Tower, Atlanta, Ga. “Pow- and Carr,” says the prisoner in the letter below, “will surely sizzle in the electric chair ? the working class does not give its help land. Otherwise the bosses, under the sanc- ‘ion of capitalist law, will carry out whole- rule mure - Comrades, “F,” a prisoner, who waits for ecath in a stone cell sends his revolutionary greetings: “Down with capitalist and live the Communist organization!” are the words of a worker f sits waiting in an electric chair! ee Slee Atlanta, Ga., June, 1930, “Dear Comrade: “When duty calls I feel that we should be ever-ready to respond. And that is the pur- pose of this article. “Cooperation is the first step to be consider- ed in the situation that now confronts the la- borers. Not only the U. S. A., but the entire world as it stands, corrupted by capitalism, is a world of disgrace, poverty, and sorrow. And until we are thoroughly and fundamentally or sanized we must continue to suffer from the lack of even clothing and food. “The ynder-cover methods of the capitalist in fighting us are gradually leaking out, there by helping many of us to wake up to the real ization that we are being used as slaves. Hov. long must it take us to see that we are slav to capitalists just as the Negro was to his mas ter before he was freed. “Capitalists realize and know that within a very short time they will be displaced by those whom they have for so long exploited. “We must fight a hard battle, dear com- rades! and in so doing be victorious. We can- not stand idly by and see our little ones starve, be reared in ignorance, and deprived of the right to live like human beings because their mothers and fathers cannot make the neces- sary wages to provide them with what they their surplus which might result from the pro- letariat winning higher wages by such strug- gle. It is not only pedantic, but highly perilous, for Comrade Bert to imply that tue Communi: Manifesto supports the opportunist tendency that esteems the poor farming masses as “use- less and hopeless”, as “doomed”, etc. (as the I, W. W. do) by citing Marx on the middle class to support an unqualified assertion that the poor farmers are not only conservative but “reactionary”, and trying to whittle down our Party’s action program to a point where we would have to approach the poor farmers with the sole demand that they subscribe at once to the proletarian dictatorship or we will have nothing whatever to do with them. Comrade Bert can mean nothing else when he leaves unexplained how, in the present and concretely, he proposes to make clear to the millions of poor farmers that they should “not defend their present, but their future interests.” If we consider that, just as the proletariat must take up some position of support or op- position to the poor farmers’ tenant strikes, for example, so must the poor farmers be in- terested, for or against, the proletariat in its wage battles, The bourgeoisie does everything in its power to influence the petty-bourgeois agrarian masses against the proletarian strug- gle, falsely saying that the entire woes of the farmers are due to “exorbitant wages” de- manded by the city workers, Comrade Bert, not the present writer, is responsible for raising this comparatively minor matter to polemical level, But we ask | need. The situation is one that only a revo onary working class can surely and sue: fully overcome. “Two convictions that must remain and be dominant in the minds of the working class | : “Down with capitalism!” and “Long live Communist organization!” “We must stop the forming of chain-gangs | and the building of jails which house only the Never is the rich man placed in j He makes the laws that the poor are governed by. “They built the jails because they knew what nation was looming before them. And I, the vriter of this article, today happen to be one of the unfortunate victims of their persecution. “Although helpless to assist in actual free peech or combat in the outside world, I am a full-fledged Red and proudly voice my opinions through the Daily Worker and to all whom J contact. Anc I urge the workers of America to go on with the splendid work they are carry ing forward. If you, the dear humble workers of America knew, as I know, and had exper- ienced the torment imposed upon me by the bosses you would bail with rage and gladly and quickly say: ‘Down with capitalism and up with the Red Flag!’ “The so-called Solicitors General of the courts do not see themselves as administrators of the law or as dispensers of justice. They have developed such a taste for blood that their eyes’ no longer see clear! This is clearly seen in the case of Powe ind Carr now in the clutches of the bosses’ law—in the Fulton Towe f Atlanta, Ga., where they are waiting for t ie chair, “Of whaf crime are they guilty? They were talking to workers. ‘They were grabbed up by the ‘copper hyenas’ as though they were dogs and charges of ‘inciting to insurrection’ were placed against them. The statute under which they are to be tried is a relic of ‘Civil War’ days, dating back to 85 years ago. It carvies with it the death penalty. If a man has more political ambition than he has judgment he will naturally become over- zealous in the performance of his duties as he sees them. And such a legion of veritable cut-throats are in the courts of Atlanta, Ga., seeking to take the blood of Powers and Carr —even though they must bring to life a dead legal premise to justify their bloody action. The Solicitor General of the city of Atlanta, EY ywhere: One eve ar $6; six months $3 SUSSCRIPTION RATES: E two months $1; eecepting: vian and Bronx, New York City, and foreign, which are: One year $8; six Boroughs of months $4.50 BERS IN N. T. W. U. By W. G. MURDOCH. ITH eight weeks of the membership drive for 5,000 new members into our union already over, it is time to take stock of our standing, and from the examination of our | and shortcomings to prepare the intensive three weeks of work weak point ground for in conclusion. After eleven weeks of the recruiting drive we find that we have not drawn in 10 per cent of the membership assigned to us. The members we have secured come more than 50 per cent from the three districts where the economic cr’ felt where the jous campaigns of our union ar taken most In the three districts of the union where the drive has been most successful we have only a mere handful of Communist Party members, ayd no other branch of the Trade Union Unity League in existence. In New York, with the most powerful district of the Party having headquarters there, we have only brought in fifteen members into the union, during the drive; in Paterson with a strong Party membership in the Textile Union, we have not reached 10 per cent of the quota. In Philadelphia, with big struggles taking place in the district, with the work- ers responding to our agitation, we have only a little over 9 per cent of the quota assigned. In Lawrence with only a mere handful of Communists we have reached 46 per cent of our quota. In Georgia, where the Party is very small, we have secured 22 per cent of the quota assigned, despite the fact that our organizer there was very young and had had no previous experience in organization and this after we consider that our entire organ- izing staff has been in jail for the past few weeks. In Rhode Island, with a very weak general movement, and with union activity practically nil for a long period we have been able to draw in 21 per cent of the quota set the district within one week. Situation Similar To Other Union Campaigns. Our union set itself the task during the re- cruiting campaign of building up Labor Unity as the collective organizer of the union, and creating a monthly textile paper as a supple- ment to the official general organizer of the entire Trade Union Unity League—Labor Unity. Let us examine how the campaign to build Labor Unity has been carried on. New is is ‘Bedford sent in 8 articles; Rhode Island 3 ar- ticles, the South 4, Paterson 3, Philadelphia 1, New York 1 and Lawrence 1. Preparations for the mass distribution of the paper as a medium of making new connections with other workers for the movement have been made only in New Bedford, Rhode Island, Lawrence and the South. rangements; New York complains that 500 copies are too many for a city with 50,000 textile workers. workers are much more poorly paid in the New England and southern districts, they are making a sincere attempt to carry on the campaign, and their activity ih this campaign is being reflected in other work. Red International of Labor Unions. Only the New England and southern dis- tricts have made any attempt to acquaint the workers in their industry with the campaign for the election of delegates to the R. I. L. U. congress and the building of an International Textile Workers’ Union. Paterson district is now beginning to take this campaign serious- ly. In New York when the question of the English General Strike in Woolens was men- tioned as a means of spreading our organiza- tional base among the English workers throughout New England and Philadelphia, one New York worker suggested that the writer was being Nationalistic. Evidently the Philadelphia reports no ar- | most severely and ; Despite the fact that the | international nature of the present struggle is entirely underestimated by our membership as a whole and by the main eastern districts in particular. No attempt to dramatise the activities of the textile workers in Bombay, Sholapur, or Yorkshire has been made and certainly nothing has been done to connect up the struggles of these workers with the strug- gles of the workers in the textile industry in this country. The Atlanta Campaign and Gastonia Week. The determination of the southern textile manufacturers to go to any extreme in an ef- fort to prevent us from organizing the work- ers for struggle does not seem to impress our various districts. Only in Lawrence, New Bedford, Providence, New York, Philadelphia, and the southern districts has any attempt been made to rally the workers. Only in Lawrence and New Bedford has any real at- tempt been made to organize the workers on the anniversary of the raid on the Gastonia Tent Colony to demand the release of our comrades in Atlanta. One prominent mem- ber of the Y. C. L. in New York remarked that it was expected when organizers went South that they would be killed by the bosses. A regular example of petty-bourgeois romanti- cism gone wild. At the meeting held in Brooklyn on Thursday to take up the ques- tion of organization of New York textile workers, the writer was informed that if he insisted on taking a collection for the Atlanta campaign that no more workers would come to our mass meetings. At the demonstration held in New York on Saturday practically all of the speakers came late, no committee was there unti] more than half an hour after the meeting was due to open, no literature was on sale, not even a platform was secured for the meeting. In Philadelphia the Gastonia, Atlanta issues were merely tacked on as an afterthought in the publicity issued in Satur- day’s issue of the Daily Worker. In the cities where our Party has strength they have been too busy evolving thesis and passing paper motions to get down to the work of preparing the Party units and fractions in the textile industry to take up the main task of the Party: The mobilization of the Communist Party forces for the campaign to build the unions, Opportunism in Practice. It is opportunism in practice to talk of or- ganizing the unemployed workers into Unem- ployment Councils and then to allow the ex- cellent beginning made on March 6th to be. frittered away. It is opportunism in prac- tice to make a big talk about a general silk strike and then make no preparations to or- ganize the machinery for strike. It is crassest opportunism in practice to make windy speeches about the importance of the South, and then prevent the New York District of the union from mobilizing for an organiza- tional and financial drive for the South, on the plea that the organizer had not paid a dollar to get the date marked in the district calendar of the Party. It is also opportunism in practice to say that we cannot collect money off the workers in our industry for the purpose of organizing the union. The tex- tile workers are ready to fight. They are ready to pay for the preparation of their com- ing struggles. The textile workers were not in the past, nor will they be in the future, organized on the basis of money collected from liberals, or any other source but the workers themselves. Lawrence, Rhode Island, and Georgia have shown that the textile workers can be organized best where the workers are poorest and where unemployment is greatest. Mobilize the Party fractions in the Red unions and make the drive a living thing in the sec- tions where we have most strength. Ga., John Boykin, starts from the assumption that a man charged with crime has‘ no place in the state and that he, he Solicitor General, is divinely commissioned by fair means or foul, to do the State of Georgia the great service of murdering about one of her citizens each month. ‘Are they guilty?’ Such a question is never d. It is solely a proposition of ‘con- him’ even though we must manufacture He is one of Georgia’s greatest Let others bother with the ‘boll weavil.’ He likes bigger game. Convict them. What does he care if they are innocent. He knows his juries and they know him. viet the evidence, benefactors. “Powers and Carr surely will sizzle in the electric chair if the working class does not give its helping hand. Otherwise the bosses, under the sanction of capitalist law, will carry out wholesale murder. “John Boykin is conscious of the power that is in his hands. Result: he has lost all sense of justice and equality. His judgement is warp- ed; and he is incapable of sound mental ac- tivity. He is !runk with pover. “How long will it take the people of this country to realize that they do not live in ‘the land of the free.’ ‘The land of the spree and the home of the slave,’ is more like it. “Tf John Boykin or any of the bosses elect to make you his victim they will find experts who are capable of turning out the neatest bit of fictitious evidence imaginable. If only a portion of the facts regarding these activities were known to the public, I cannot believe they would be tolerated for more than a day. The wolf travels by night and leaves the rem- nants of his plunder for a flock of scavengers which usually follow him, cleaning up what- ever may be left behind. “The people of Georgia are not aware of the fact that this dangerous beast is prowling among us daily, crouched and ready to spring. The next victim may be you, your son, or hus- band. And permit me to say that once his poisonous fangs are fastened into your flesh you are doomed to die an awful death. So my dear comrades let us get busy and arouse in our working brother, who is not a member of the Communist organization, the spirit to conquer and to control working condi- tions in a better civilization. “Yours very respectfully, ‘F,’ A PRISONER.” ——————————————— eee ee ee anyone who talks with actual farmers, farmers puzzled over why they cannot sell their pro- ducts; we ask the comrades in the South, for example, where poor farmers approach our strike organizers, if they do not explain to such farmers that their products are unsold because the workers are suffering wage cuts, because 8,000,000 proletarians are unemployed, etc. Such an answer is logical, and it is just as logical to add that if the workers won higher wages they would buy more farm pro- duets. Any farmer can understand that, but Comrade Bert shies away from it. He wants us to tell the poor farmer that he must support the wage struggles of the proletariat because, five or ten years from now, the farmer addressed is statistically “doomed” to become a proletarian. He pro- poses that the alliance be formed on the basis that both worker snd farmer have interests antagonistic to finance capital, which is true; but failing to relate this to the living forces of class relationship he implies that the mass of poor farmers require no process of revolu- tionary development, and so far as their sup- port to the wage workers is concerred, he demands that they accept forthwith the pro- letarian dictatorship and at once proclaim that any demand of the proletariat or any struggle short of the direct strug~le for power is an illusion. In short. Comrade Bert lays a basis for a step toward Trotsky’s “permanent rev- olution.” He wants a revolution pure and un- defiled by any petty bourgeois vagaries, al- though the petty bourgeoisie is invited to have a hand in it, He wants the petty bourgeoisie to act with the same clarity and decision as the proletariat. He wants more, in brief, than history will allow. V. Why Poor Farmers Should Support the Workers. Comrade Bert, in criticizing the “Draft Program” on agriculture, attacks it for say- ing that ene wages won in struggle by the city proletariat would “help absorb the sur- plus” and that this serves as a part (and only a part) of the “basis” for an alliance between workers and farmers. He contends, wrongly, that Marx in the Communist Manifesto con- tradicts such a postulate, quoting Marx’ com- ment on the middle class elements who sup- port the proletariat at defending “not their present, but their future interests; they de- sert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat.” There is no contradiction here any more than the quotation cited can be said to con- tradict the “Draft Program for Negro Far- mers” (which Comrade Bert approves) where it says that: “The specific inter-class relationship, with- out eliminating class distinctions, is based on a community of interests against the big capitalists.” If they (workers and farmers) have a “com- munity of interests” it is here certainly in tae sense of their “present interests” which they, neither farmers nor proletarians, are expected to forsake immediately for their common “future interests” as proletarians. Na- turally, it is the role of the proletariat and its party to develop the social consciousness of the poor farmers to a revolutionary out- look equal to that of the proletariat. But Marx viewed this as the end of a process of development, which Comrade Bert apparently forgets. (To Be Continued.) Demand the release of Fos- - ter, Minor, Amter and Ray- mond, in prison for fighting for unemployment insurance. _ Workers! Join the Party of Your Class! : Communist Party U. S. A, 43 Kast 125th Street, New York City, 1, the undersigned, want to join the Commu nist Party. Send me more information, Name . thee ee cena seeenseeae eens ee ceeset Address ..c.cecsceccvcmacees’ Ultyecevceser « Age. Mail this to the Central Office, Communist Party, 43 East 125th St., New York, Occupation ...