The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 28, 1931, Page 10

Page Six DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1931 -Persecution of Negro and Foreign-Born Workers By CYRIL BRIGGS As the workers move forward to} the struggle against the hunger | system of capitalism, the ee and their tools attempt every trick | to split the ranks of the working-| class and divert the struggle against | unemployment and starvation into | fights among different groups of} workers: whites against Negro! workers, Negroes against the for | eign born workers, etc. Discrimination Against Negroes | In the South, unemployed white | workers who have bten thrown on; the streets to starve by the bosses, | are told by boss agents that the! few Negro workers still holding j some miserable underpaid jobs are } responsible for their plight, not | that the bosses who have cynically | thrown them on the streets to die| | , ers of the Negro masses, carry out } the manouver of splitiing the working-class and continuing the isolation of the Negro masses under the guise of a struggte for jobs for the tens of thousands of unem- ployed Negro workers, They do not demand that the bosses and their government provide jobs for the unemployed. They give no support to the demands of the unemployed for unemployment insurance, for work or wages. They treacherously oppose these demands with the us- ual hypocritical phrases. They do not demand that the bosses cease their discrimination against. Negro workers, that the Metropolitan In- } surance- Company, the New York Telephone Company ‘and other big concerns discard the deliberate cap- italist policy of confining Negro i Negro worker lynched + and burned at stake. of starvation and cold. The boss agents declare that the Negroes are holding jobs that should be held by the white unemployed, that the Negroes have no right to hoid jobs when white men are unemployed. This is the boss policy of maintain- ing the Negros in the class of mar- ginal laborers—a surplus labor sup- | ply to be kept at starvation level even in “good times.” In the South, this vicious manou- ver is lead by the Ku Klux Klan, the Caucasian Crusaders and other fascist organizations supported by the A. F. of L. bureaucrats and the social-fascists. In the North, we have another phase of this attempt to. split the working-class to the detriment of the struggle against} unemployment and hunger. Here the attack is centered on the for- eign-born workers. And among the most active of the boss tools carry- ing out this maneuver are the Ne- gro reformists. ; In Harlem, Chicago and other cities, these misleaders and betray- By Jack By 0. W JUST OFF THE PRESS COMMUNIST CONTENTS EDITORIAL—AN ADVANCED STAGE 1N THE WAR DANGER ON THE QUESTION OF TRADE UNION DEMOCRACY By William Z. Foster COMING STRUGGLES AND LESSONS IN STRIKE STRATEGY WOMEN IN MASS WORK GROWTH OF THE FASCIST DICTATORSHIP IN GERMANY By Ernst Thaelmann ‘A CHARTER OF SLAVERY FOR THE INDIAN PEOPLE THE COLLAPSE OF THE THEORY OF ORGANIZED CAPITALISM 4 By Sam Don NEGRO NATIONAL OPPRESSION AND SOCIAL ANTAGONISMS By B. D. Amis SOME RURAL ASPECTS OF THE STRUGGLE FOR THE RIGHT OF SELF-DETERMINATION By Jim Allen WHY THE PEASANT REVOLTS IN THE) PHILIPPINES? By Harry Gannes og bey THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE DECEMBER: UPRISING By M. Pokroysky workers to the roughest, most me- nial and ill paid work. No, they demand that the foreign born workers who may still receive oc- casional employment be denied the right to hold & job. The “solution” of the Negro re- formists in the North is identical with the “solution” proposed by the white fascists in the South. Only in the South, this “solution” is di- rected against the Negro, whiie in the North the Negro. reformists seek to direct it against the foreign born. Negro workers! White workers! Fight this vicious manouver to split | your ranks and weaken the strug- gle for real relief, for work or wages. Unite your ranks, Negroes, native whites and foreign born, and let us move forward with irresis- tible force in the struggle against mass hunger and misery, in the struggle for the overthrow of the starvation system, and for the es- tablishment of a workers and pea- sants government. March Issue Stachel Kuusinen || months the pay is rai By ELLA WINTER* It is not called a reformatory or an industrial school, nor does the stigma attach to it which those names carry with them, It is called a “Rehabiliation Colony,” and it is run by the Ogpu, a sol- dier at the head and a doctor as assistant, But Kusnazore, the director, looked little like a soldier and less like a member of the secret police. | He was young, kindly-faced, smil- his uniform unbuttoned at the neck and his cap on the back of his head. As he sat in the summer- house telling of the colony, about men and a few small children hung intently. They were the prisoners with their wives and children and they were listening to their war- den tell of the arrangements for their training and welfare. Every | now and then they would corrobo- rate his account with nods. “I did not want to come here at first,” the young soldier said. “I | did not know anything about boys or about criminals. And I. knew it } would be very hard work. I had never been anything but a soldier. But now I have been here two years and I shall stay. This is my life work.” Quite simply he said this, as the Russians do say and pompousness. ° A few years ago, in 1924, a small group of prisoners were brought to work of organizing shops. Out of this handful the present colony grew, till now there area thousand and more men and women, from 18 to 26 years of age, being taught | mission, made up of prisoners Union? ... trades and a new slant on life. The | colony is about two hours from | Moscow, deep-in the woods. One sees no guards, no cell blocks, no convict uniforms, no bent heads. The men have their shirt sleeves rolled up, working. The girls mix freely with them. The buildings, dormitories, din- ing rooms, workshops, are low, white-washed bungalows of cot- tages. Doors and windows are wide open, there are neither bars nor fences. The single men sleep in dormitories, the married couples have separate cottages. Any pris- oner may marry, either another prisoner or a girl from outside. f So far there are only 100 women} in the colony. “We are combing the prisons for more,” said our guide, “but there are not many women in our prisons now.” Trades are taught and the chief articles manufactured is sports goods. This is a new industry for the Union of- Socialist Soviet Re- publics, since Russia was never a sporting country. The boys enjoy making these goods; there is a sense of adventure in turning out racquets, skates, skiis, footballs | and boxing gloves. The occupa- tion is far from being routine “hard labor.” And, as with other social institutions in the Soviet Union, the. practical objective is not lest sight of. “We have two policies,” said the director “one to re-educate thieves who were forced into stealing by unequal conditions existing in the Soviet Union, the other to satisfy the market for sporting goods.” The further practical scheme is to create a town around the colony so that those who want to stay after their sentence has expired may settle there permanently. “They will have their wives and families here, they are bound by long ties to the commune, and they can earn their livelihood here, in the country, away from town and temptation,” said the director. “In- deed, so popular is our colony be- coming that thieves have come here and given themselves up and others have taken up crime in order to be brought here.” Nevertheless, the ordinary con- ditions o* life are rigorous. The first year they come out the men are confined to the grounds; they are “pupils,” and are paid very little—just enough to cover food, lodging, clothes and the cost of in- struction. A the end of three a thief likes to dress himself in flashly style on the proceeds of his imeg,and to get drunk,” ing. It was a hot day and he wore | forty boys and young men and wo- | i “ys . . | over the wooden railings, listening | do things—simply, without pose or | a summer resort and started at the » but any. 1 ad during the! first] three months are deducted, “Since { tal and medical attention and holi- | days are free, as everywhere else jin the Union. During the second year at the colony all bans are removed. The colony has its own club, | little theatre, cinema, creches, | schools and-other of the cultural adjuncts so important in Russia today. Vacations are a fortnight a year on full pay, and the men go away without guard or escort. “But don’t they stay away?” one | asked incredulously. “There are not more than 8 to 10 per cent of | departures,” answered the Ogpu man, “about as many as_ the escapes from an ordinary prison. We never follow a man. He will ; either come back to us—most of | them do—or he will earn his liveli- hood honestly somewhere, or he will fall into a life of crime again, and then he will have to go to prison.” A man who takes to stealing again cannot return to the colony, though a few who were caught begged so hard—and their relatives begged for them—that they were accepted a second time. One man jumped out of the win- dow of his prison, risking his life, In charge of the colony ara seven paid instructors, three sol- diers who have served in the active army and know army discipline, and three prisoners advanced from among the men. There is an un- mistakable tone of equality be- tween men and officials. The men ask the authorities advice about what shirt to buy, how to deal with bothersome relatives, and what girl to marry, as they might ask one another. The colony has self-government; the conflict com- | } By ANDREW OVERGAARD While the Capitalist press howls about the “Sanctity” of the home ; while hypocrites and liars howl about the Bolsheviks “breaking up the home” the number of women and young girls employed in the metal industry increases from day to day. Young girls are working at | break neck speed in Electrical fac- tories 9 and 10 hours a day, at much lower wages than formerly paid to men. In the R. C. A. Radio plant in Camden, N. J., girls are slaving on the conveyor belt | without time to draw their breath. The wages of these girls are con- tinuously being cut. In- many steel plants woman workers are employed sorting tin for much lower wages than for- merly paid to men. The employers are using the women workers to further lower the standard of liv- ing of the workers. The story told by a young worker in a can factory in Canton well illustrates how the bosses break up the homes of workers in this period of rational- ization and speed-up. This young worker was working for six years in a can factory for 50 cents an hour and on the eve of the “Hoover prosperity”, was laid off. After the using up of all his savings his wife went out look- ing for work and finally secured a job in the same factory and on the same machine, But for 25 cents in order to run back to the colony. | Rehabilitation Colony at, Muscow only, sits on all infringements of rules—“hooliganism” (what we would call breaches of the peace), drunkenness, stealing and “de- partures.” The sentences inflicted are very severe and sometimes the authori- ties intervene to advise leniency, but they never command, In seri- ous cases the commission asks that the transgressor be removed from ‘the colony to a prion, perhaps even to have his sentence lengthened. (The maximum sentence allowed in Russia for non-political offenses is eight: years—this for the crime of murder.) Punishments are strict confinement to the room for a period, abolition of all privileges such as days off, use of the club, ete., and exclusion from society. Social disapproval is a form of punishment which plays a large part in all institutions in Russia. The punishment of being out of favor brings many a slacker to heel. The men are free in their movements whle ther behavor s good, however, and there is a vodka hop in the village nearby to which they may go. A number have come home from these ex- peditions drunk and have then raised a row or even run awey; the men’s committee has asked the authorities to have the “pub” shut, but the authorities refuse. The law allows vodka to be sold; they say, and it is up to the men to re-educate themselves, “ not merely to be legislated into good behavior. *The above article is reprinted from the New York Times of its Feb. 15 issue. Mr. Fish, how about “convict” labor in the Soviet —! International Women’s Day an hour. In radio plants as low wages as $5.00—-$6.00 a week is paid to girls working nine and ten hours a day. Unemployment Seriously Affect- ing Women Workers, House Wifes, The conditions among the steel workers are almost indescribabie. When some of the organizers for the Metal Workers Industrial League visited the homes of steel workers in Youngstown they re- ported that actually no food was to be found in most of the homes visited. Children of steel workers go to school hungry and in many cases they can not even be sent to school for lack of clothes. A steel worker after being out of work for over a year was called to work at the Youngstown Sheet and Tnbe Co. and after working half a day dropped dead. The workers in looking into his lunch box found potato peelings which he was try- ing to live on while his wife and children was freezing and starving at home. The Metal Workers In- dustrial League realizes the need ef organizing not only the women in the factories but also the wives of the steel workers who are suf- fering starvation and misery as a result of the economic crisis. The League is preparing to organize women’s auxiliaries in steel cen- ters and unite the wives and chil- dren of the workers in the coming struggles in the steel industry. seonee My ae | ‘ i} ¥