The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 14, 1931, Page 4

Published by the Comprodatly Publishing Co., Inc lath Street, New York City, N. Y. Telephone Algonquin 795: Address and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 50 East 13th Street, New York, N. Y. Page Four ° ally except Sux 7, Cable: “DAIWORK.” day, at BO Bast Dail orker Borty USA SUBSCRIPTION RATIn. 4y mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; excepting Boroughs ef Manhattan and Bronx. New York Ctiy. Foreign: one year. $8- six months. $4.50 By ROBERT MINOR (Head of the Negro Dept. of Central Committee.) lea auuTe oT the organizing of th paign des! Old habits and the weaknesses of propaganda party g of the lives the ment which has not been stirred into motion be- fore. Your inder ‘oug! the camp: ments a: violatic mittee. It e on th have report ted to sub-depart- ions in direct tral Co Buros 2 the full Dist Committee, as am and most important duties must t charge and put the machiner Party itself into this campaign, utilizing its departments and involv ing all mass organizations, but Committee directly in char vising and directing the whol which is second to none. on May Da cities show the been obtained for the Scottsboro defense in the sphere of agitation and demonstration although in many cities there was very bad neglect of the important task of reaching the Negro masses drawing these into the demonstrations as ac! organized participants. On the whole, the a ational work considered as a beginning, has been good and to the credit of our Party, and has already made possible the first small legal vic- tory for the Scottsboro defendants—the securing of a change of venue. But what of the organ- izational work. The organization worl not being done. The practice of confining our Scottsboro campaign, aside from demonstrations, etc. to the visiting of organizations is an opportunist error of the worst sort. Our only connections with the masses would be through the supposed “good will” of officials who could deflate the whole defense campaign at the most critical moment The visiting of organizations and in this way securing their participation in the United Front Conference is important work and must be con- tinued; but the united front in this case, as in all others, must be primarily and at all costs a united front from the bottom—a united front of the rank and file masses of Negro people and black and white workers for the purpose of sav- ing the Scottsboro boys. This mean the or- ganization of masses in support of this cam- | paign, even if at first only in a more or less Yoose form for the duration of the campaign. Without this there can be no success in this campaign no matter how “successful” the agita- tional side of it may otherwise be. Your first attention must be given to the form- ation of Neighborhood Committees of the L. S. N. R. for the Scottsboro boys. The following instructions for Neighborhood Committees must be immediately put into effect: 1, The District Committee through the Bu- reau takes full responsibility, and itself directs an dchecks up on the work. 2. As the means of day-to-day execution of directives the regular departments of the District Committee will function, not separately ,in a routine way, but under close and constant guid- ance of the District Organizer and Org. Secre- tary. very weak, it must immediately be strengthened and must become the strongest possible depart- ment that the District Committee can form. ‘The District Organizer or Org. Secretary must be a member of this department from the mo- ment of receipt of this communication and must attend every session. 3. The District Committee and Section Com- mittees to allot to very Unit of the Party a certain selected territory, bounded by certain specific streets in Negro and white working class residence districts. 4. The special meeting of every unit in your District must be devoted solely to the Scotts- boro case, and primarily to the organizational work of building neighborhood committees of the LS.N.R. for a united front to defend the framed-up Negro boys at Scottsboro. This first meeting must open with a report on the case by a comrade familiar with Negro work. 5. A general outline of the case will be sent you within two days. To this the District Buro must add a short section giving a local adapt- ation of the meaning of the case to the Negro masses and white working class, black and white, concretizing on local activities as well as local issues of persecution of Negroes. 6. A simple popular leaflet of the LSNR will be sent you very quickly, and this, together with an ILD leaflet, must be carefully distributed to every apartment within residence neighborhoods assigned to comrades as shown in following di- rectives. (Also to workers in factories, as later specified). 7. A good number of the best members of every Unit to be mobilized for work, and each of these to be given a specific number of eve- nings (if working in day time) or must be given specific hours during day time if unemployed, and each must report: promptly, under the di- rection of the Unit executive, and each member must be assigned personally to visit tenants within territory and apartment houses allotted. According to the strength of the Unit and the local conditions the Unit executive may send the members singly or in pairs (perhaps one Negro comrade and one white) to make these visits. 8. The District Committees must see that all Units are promptly supplied with copies of the Liberator an dother literature to be left with the families visited. 9.. Each comrade must talk with and request all ‘whom he visits to enroll himself in a “Neighbor- hood Committee’ for the defense of the Scotts- boro boys under the auspices of the League ‘of Struggle for Negro Rights. 10. Very important. From the very beginning, fhe comrades visiting both Negro and white _ Working class families must seek to get mem- ~ bers of these families, men, women or youths, _ themselves to go out, as you are going (pre- £ % i; Organizati must be resolutely | In all Districts the Negro Department is | ferably with a Party member or more exper- ienced LSNR’ member) and to visit their neigh- bors, as representatives of the LSNR to get their ‘s also to enroll. Comrades, this is the to obtain self-activity of the masses them- se It will mean a break with bad habits of the past. In the past we have too much itted the masses to be passive while de- ing upon our own members alone for ac- tivity in leading and doing work of mass move- ments. Now we must make this break, and onal Aspects of the S must really draw into active, organizational work non-Party men, women and youths of the work- ing class and of the Negro people. Don’t leave the masses merely “enrolled,” but inactive. Meetings must be held in the homes of Negro and white workers, of these Neigh- borhood Committees, and they must be made to understand the case, to feel that it is their own case, and at the same time they must be encouraged to bring forward their own creative proposals—in short, in the non-Party masses we must find leading forces to help organize the mass ‘movement. 11. The functions of the Neighborhood Com- mittees are: (1). Mobilization and organization for the United Front Conferences; (2) Organ- izing rank and file groups of persons belonging to mass organizations, to work in an organized way within such organizations to secure support by such mass ‘organizations for the Scottsboro united front campaign and against bourgeois leadership, developing minority formations with- in these organizations; (3) Sale and distribu- tion of the Liberator for that end (each Neigh- borhood Committee to order bundles of Liber- ator and assign members to sell and distribute; | (4) Correspondence with the Liberator; (5) Un- dertaking collections for the Scottsboro defense, under guildance of the ILD, although these Neighborhood Committees are part of the LSNR; (6) Giving organized participation in all dem- onstrations, organizing their own local meet- ings and demonstrations, and; (7) Organizing and holding affairs. (to be supported by the Party and mass organizations) for benefit of “AT LAST!—AN HONEST PARTY LIFE | Conducted by the Organization Department of | the Central Committee, Communist Party, U.S.A. }) Resolution of Section 6, Dist 2. on Lenin Recruiting Drive May 8, 1931. | 'HE Section Committee in analyzing the re- cently concluded Lenin Recruiting Drive, brings to the attention of the entire membership, | that in spite of the improvements in our meth- | ods of recruitments, there are many outstanding shortcomings in our work. 1. For the first time the Party in Section 6 has succeeded in recruiting workers in its ranks, from the section and unit territory, through a concentrated effort on the part of the units. 2. The Party has made a step forward in the linking-up of the every day activities with the | bringing of workers into the ranks of the Party, | by recruiting 12 proletarian and militant workers | from the Boro Hall Unemployed Council, and 15 others from our mass organizations. 3. By the use of the Daily Worker as a means of gain- ing contacts of workers in the unit territory, and by constant canvassing of the unit Daily Work- er readers and sympathizers for the Party, which has brought the rest of the workers recruited into the Party during the drive, The Lenin Recruiting Drive has strengthened the section, by improving its proletarian com- position. The workers gained in the drive being from the building trades, metal, food, printers, unskilled laborers, office and needle trades workers, In view of the objective situation in our sec- tion for the Party, with increasing of unem- ployment, increasing of evictions, continuous wage cuts infli cted upon the workers, the de- veloping of strike struggles almost every week in different shops, and the growing militancy and response of the workers to the Party, the re- cruiting of 55 workers into the Party in this drive cannot be considered a success. The Section Committee itself failed to cor- rectly estimate the crystallization of the Party influence among the workers, by assigning itself @ quota of only 40 workers for the entire period of the drive, which has been surpassed by 15. The main shortcomings of the entire Party in this drive have been: (1) failure to recruit work- ers from shops where our Party members are working. (2) Failure to recruit workers from shop concentration points. (3) Failure to link up, through an intensified effort on the Sec- tion Concentration Point the Lenin Recruiting Drive. (4) Failure to recruit workers from the three shops where we have Party Shop Nuclei. (5) Involving of only 12 per cent of the Party membership in the recruiting drive. (6) Failure of the participation of the old Party members (with few exceptions) in the drive. The gaining for the Party of only 3 Negro workers, 3 young workers for the YCL and 6 women workers, considering the large Negro population in our section and the large plants with women and young workers, must be con- sidered as an impermissible situation which the whole Party must analyze and correct in its fu- ture work, : ‘The failure of the Unit Buros to immediately connect the newly recruited workers with the Party Units. We have still 11 recruits, who are not yet connected with the Party, some of whom may be completely lost for the Party. | also not peculiar to one industry, but are fairly | well distributed in various trades and industries LIVIN By BURCK Recent Strikes in New York By JOHN STEUBEN. ‘OR the past several weeks we witness a wave | of strikes throughout the city of New York. Most of these strikes are spontaneous. They are in the city of New York, as for example, shoe, food, metal and building. Most of these strikes are a result of direct wage | cuts, the introduction of the stagger system, the installment of new rationalization schemes, the breaking of agreements, or refusing to renew old agreements. ‘The total number of workers involved in these strikes, is comparatively a small one. In many cases these are departmental strikes, because of the clever maneuver of the bosses not to cut wages of all workers at once, but rather depart- ment by department. The significance of these strikes, however, lies in the fact that they de- cisively prove the readiness of the workers to struggle against wage cuts, no matter how dif- ficult the circumstances might be. It is also very important to note that the bulk of the workers involved are young workers. This is quite natural. The young workers al- ready receiving a low wage, and when still fur- ther cut, it becomes almost impossible for them to exist. With the result that they either quit en masse, or strike. A few concrete examples of these movements are highly necessary: In one large print shop a wage cut was in- troduced. Not having any organization inside the shop, not being connected with any organiza- tion from the outside, these young workers got together and decided to quit en masse. Eighty-five workers of the Feifer Slipper Co. went out on strike against a ten per cent wage cut; it was an open shop. The workers came to the Shoe Workers’ Industrial Union, calling upon them to lead the strike. The rest of the workers did not come out on strike. The work- ers decided to go back in an organized way, most of the strikers joined the union. In the Empire Spring Co., 12 boys and girls of one department walked out, as a result of a wage cut. These young workers refused to ac- cept leadership of any organization. They went, back after the boss agreed to take them back on the basis of the wage cut, Over two hundred upholsterers struck for the taining in its ranks the already recruited work- ers along with the old Party members. The Unit Buros have the task of developing these new members into Party leadership and in mass workers’ organizations, (1) by establishing classes, study circles, etc., whereby the new recruits can get some training on the Fundamentals of Com- munism; (2) by assigning an old member to work with and explain our approach to the workers to the new members, thus better pre- pare them to carry on their tasks. The recruiting of new members into the Party, did not end on May First. Our Party member- ship must be made aware of the importance of recruiting workers from their place of work, With the intensification of our work in the concentration points, Gem Razor, Kahn & Feld- man, among the unemployed and Negro work- ers, greater numbers of workers must be re- cruited into the Party. By overcoming the past shortcomings, the Party in our section will be able to root itself into the shops and mills and among the workers ‘The task of the Party Buros, is that of main- as the leading Party of the working class in all is strugeles renewal of the agreement, twelve shops were involved. The strike was led by the A. F. of L. Upholsterers’ Local 76. The strike resulted in a crushing defeat for the workers, all the shops were lost. In Newark, N. J., the A. F. of L. called a fake strike of 800 painters against a proposed wage cut, from $12 to $10 a day. The strike was sold out, by the A. F. of L. fakers, Space does not permit to describe many more strikes, but they are similar to the ones described above. Most of these strikes were defeated, be- cause they were not prepared, nor organized in advance and still others were openly betrayed by the A. F. of L. fakers. These small strikes are of utmes+ importance to the revolutionary unions an.! industrial leagues. Many of our unions and leay:'es, in the city of New York, are not as yet prepared to lead mass struggles, they are still propaganda organ- izations. By actively participating and leading these small strikes, our unions and leagues, espe- cially the weaker ones, will acquire a great deal of experience, will learn many lessons in strike strategy and become organizationally strength- ened and thus make it possible to prepare for leading mass movements in various industries. ‘The Food and Shoe Workers’ Industrial Unions are already beginning to work along these lines, participating in strikes no matter how small the number of workers involved. Although, at times this is done at the expense of more important concentration points in the industry, which is very dangerous. However, because these unions participate in these small strikes, they are con- tinually growing and the prestige of the unions among these workers is being definitely estab- lished. Another example of a correct approach towards these small strikes, is the Building Trades In- dustrial League. Forty carpenters of the Green- baum Co. went out on strike against a six dollar cut. Even though ninety-five per cent of the workers belong to the A, F, of L, the shop was not organized and the workers worked under open shop conditions. The Building Trades In- dustrial League succeeded in taking over the leadership. The strike was won and the shop committee recognized. After the strike was over the boss began to discriminate against the most active workers, A second strike was called and the workers were reinstated. All the workers joined the TUUL. The shop committee is at present functioning. ‘The above mentioned experience can serve as an example of how to transform our weaker unions and industrial leagues into organizations that will take up the immediate needs and problems of the workers of their particular in- dustry. It must be clearly understood that some of our unions and leagues, who are still propa- ganda organizations, have either to continue to remain small and insignificant propaganda groups, with a small or no base at all, among the workers. This will lead to a still further de- crease in influence and membership, because even those who join will continue to drop out as a result of “lots of talk and no action.” Or, to get to work in a serious way, building up a base inside the shops and factories, working out together with the workers programs on an in- dustry and shop basis and around these most immediate, pressing and burning issues to build our unions and leagues, as genuine economic sree, Ame mans ae ke ope | Scottsboro defense, 12, Members of functioning shop nuclei are to be given special instructions, to be worked out by the District Committee in the case of each important nucleus on the basis of its own pos- sibilities and conditions at work, for activity in the shops where they are employed, and in visiting during the evenings, fellow workers with whom they make contacts in the shops. The District Committees will give specific directions or non-existence of a shop committee is an im- portant factor. In some cases the beginning of a shop committee can be accomplished for the first time by the rising of amongst the workers in the shop. committees are in existence, the shop committee as willing to cooperate in the Scottsboro de- of the existing shop committee itself, to com- or mine (whether there is a shop nucleus or not) must carry on the campaign of the Scotts- boro defense among the workers in the shop where he is employed, and the District and Section Committees must see to it that the agit- ational work is followed up immediately with organizational measures appropriate to the par- ticular shop. 14. Every meeting of the Buro of District and Sections without exception (for the present) must receive at least an information report on the execution of the campaign for Scottsboro defense. The work in all cases must be work under direction, checking up and correction of weaknesses and mistakes by the leading com- mittees of the Districts and Sections. 15. United Front conference, of which many are occurring in the latter half of this month, are called under auspices of LSNR and the ILD. These are to be followed up by bigger confer- ences. The Neighborhood Committees as well as factory committees must be made a basis for swelling these united front conferences in size and representation and mass support, and in strengthening the class composition of the con- ferences, which otherwise might contain too | large a proportion of artificial and opportunistic representatives not closely enough connected with the masses. 16. The Neighborhood Committees must be organized. That is, they must elect executive committees and chairmen for the neighborhoods. | Representatives of the Neighborhood Committees must be brought together in executive meetings under the direct auspices of the LSNR. 17. Every piece of literature issued in the Dis- Scottsboro case, which can be selected from the official slogans already published in the Daily Worker. cil and every meeting of the TUUL or any of its unions and its minority organizations should have the Scottsboro defense kept before its at- tention, with reports of progress, proposals from the rank and file members, etc. 19. This letter deals almost exclusively with the organizational forms which are to be under the L. S. N. R. The District Committee must | resolutely aci to convince any comrades who are reluctant to build up the LSNR through under- ing of its role (see recent resolution of the Cen- | tral Committee on Negro Work published in the Daily Worker March 23rd). 20. But this must not be permitted to cause neglect of the role of the ILD in the Scottsboro case. The ILD has from the beginning played the most prominent role in the case, and the ILD has a relatively strong organization in many places where the LSNR hardly exists, if at all. This strength must be utilized continuously. No one must get the idea that the ILD is confined to the legal aspects of the case. The ILD also is an organization of masses for mass support of the defense. The Neighborhood Committees are LSNR committees. But the ILD continues the work actively in the Scottsboro case and its ap- peal for membership and collections in all meet- ings in which the ILD participates together with the LSNR and other organizations. The two or- ganizations must be made to work harmoniously for the common cause. Mass meetings should continue to be held under separate and joint auspices of the LSNR and the ILD, together with any other appropriate organizations which can be brought not only to participate in the meetings but to share the auspices. 21, Of course these special directives for work to be done through a non-Party organiza- tion (LSNR) do not mean that the Party itself in its own name does not continue and multiply its work of agitation and demonstration in its own name and organization in its own ranks as well as its open leadership of the struggle within the mass organizations. The Party, as such, continues and increases its activity as evi- denced in the May Day demonstrations. Comrades! We have pointed out certain of the more obyious right errors that would en- danger the success of the campaign, The dan- ger of right errors is the greatest danger in this case, involving as it does, mass work among new elements not all of which are of proletarian character. This danger concretely concerns chief- ly the likelihood of falling into the error of “united front from the top” and the failure to win the more healthy elements of the Negro masses and working class, _ However, it is necessary also to warn the com- rades against “left” errors (also opportunistic in fact) which confront this campaign and which would wreck all efforts to get any mass move- ment which alone can save the victims. Com- rades must overcome all sectarian fear of close contacts with the non-Communist masses and failure to do so would be a failure to realize the revolutionary potentialities of the Negro masses and of the working class. The Central Committee calls upon every Dis- trict and every Section and Unit to throw itself with full strength and devotion into tihs cam- paign which can very well prove to be an epoch- making one in the struggle of the Negro masses apd the working class, to each shop nucleus as the organizational forms | 1), 14,poe! and to be accomplished by this work. The existence | *7Y02). Impact, this question | Where shop | fense, as members of the LSNR, and as members | trict must contain appropriate slogans on the | 18. Every meeting of the Unemployed Coun- | estimation of its importance or misunderstand- | must be utilized to enroll workers in the shop | mit itself to cooperation with the LSNR for | this defense. 13. Every comrade working in a shop, factory cottsboro Campaign | Rigen. | By JORGE acces More Psychology Comrade D. L. writes, in friendly dispute, about Think It © r, our column on May 8. She thi timate or “an- alyze too little” the psycho! of the American worker. In fact, she says “There is nothing mysterious about American psychology, but for you to wave it aside ts @ little mystifying. .We do not deny the Com- munist line when we proceed to Americanize the Party, and it was to that end, we believe, that the reader’s comments were made. “Further, we do not under-estimate the ‘third period,’ but may it not be that we do not get better results out of this period because we do not in practice sufficiently Americanize the Party because we do not understand the sources of ‘Americanism?’ To that capitalism «which in principle is the same the world over) is imposed and reacted to in the same manner, , is not to be a Communist creator. The organizer must un- derstand the implications briefly suggested in your correspondent’s letter, if the Communist lever is to be more effective on a large scale, And so will the Party come to the workers as much as the workers will come to the Party.” Firstly, Comrade D. L. overlooked something in our Spark. We did not “wave aside” anything important. We said, and we repeat “We do not mean to question the value of studying the psychology of the masses... . But . . . there is altogether too much nonsense about the special and mysterious mentality of American workers.” Now for something more. Comrade D. L. re- minds us, ctly, of the need to Americanize the Party, obviously not from a chauvinistic view- point, but from an objective desire better to at+ tract the American wor But she overlooks that, at the same time, we are to proletarianize the Party leadership. Why is that? Because the proletarian will not have to spend any time psycho-analyzing the American work He or she will be one of them, bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh. And we sort of shy away from anybody who talks about the “rhythm” and “impact” and other supposed complications of something that is simple. It smacks of an external, social-worker, petty- bourgeois condescension toward the workers that is not in the make-up of a Communist except as a remnant of a conception imposed upon him by bourgeois t: we find about what needs “The Party Organizer” for March “Above all we now need organizers closely con- nected with the masses, devotedly giving them- selves to the cause of the revolutionary organ- ization of the masses, not reckoning with days and hours of holidays and with questions of Personal comfort and well-being.” Leaders with petty-bourgeois limitations can- not qualify on that. But we come to the meat of the argument in a quotation cited (in the article mentioned) from a resolution on the trade unions, written by Lenin at the 11th con- gress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union: “It is essential to have a system of recruit- ing responsible comrades from those Commu- nists who live the workers’ life, know it in- side out, know how to define without making mistakes in relation to any question, at any moment, the mood of the masses, their read desires, the demands of the masses, who knew how to determine, without any tints of fade idealism, the level of their consciousness and the strength of the influence of this or that prejudice or survival of former times, who know how to win for themselves unlimited confidence of the masses by comradely rela- tions with them, by taking pains to satisty their needs.” Comrade Lenin, as will be seen, fully appre ciated the need to know the “mood” of tite masses, their “consciousness,” “prejudices” and so on. And Lenin correctly estimated that to know that, it was necessary—not to pore over books of psychology—but to “live the workers’ life, know it inside out.” Do that and you'll not find a study of “rhythm” and “impact” a necessary part of the curriculum in the Na- tional Training School. In fact it isn’t there now; and indeed it sounds Brookwoodish, or Brookwooden, doesn’t it? hae dee Rubbing It In Among many articles which the Daily would publish if it had space, is a satirical one by Karl Radek, written as an “Open Letter to Sir Henry Deterding,” which you may get by buy- ing the “Inprecorr” (No. 21, Vol. 11). Radek tickles the old Dutch oil imperialist with a sword’s point. He calls Deterding’s attention to the book “writ- ten by two young Soviet workers” on the role of oil in world economy and politics, “You see,” he remarks, “that ‘Soviet slaves, after having performed their ‘forced labor’, still find time to occupy themselves with questions which in your world only scientists write about.” Radek goes on: “I glanced through your predictions regard- ing the collapse of the Soviet power. On the 4th and 5th of January, 1926, you wrote: ‘Your end is very near. A few months more and Russia, under: the leadership of a government, better than was the Czarist government, will return to civilization.” After a pointed description of the advance of the Soviet oi! industry and how it benefits the workers, Radek again twists Deterding: “In your article published in the ‘Telegraaf’ of 10th duly, 1927, you wrote: ‘More important than every~ thing is the complete collapse of the teachings of the dreamer Marx’.” Radek then tells how the increased oil pro- duction will be used to run tractors and come bine harvesters on Soviet farms, adding: “As an oil baron, Sir Deterding, this certainly ought to please you, although it will not bring you any profits. Now as regards ‘dumping’, with which we, in your opinion, wish to ruin the oll market, I am prepared to make a little pro- posal to you. Buy oil from us at a price ten per cent higher than the world market. In this way you will do away with any danger of dump- ing on our part.” Since Deterding claims the Baku oil region as his property, this suggestion is enough to drive him nuts, But Radek proceeds: “We advice you to go to Baku and see for yourself what is going on and what has become of ‘your’ industry. It is no longer there, Sir ee 1.|