The Daily Worker Newspaper, November 5, 1931, Page 4

Page Four THE UNITED FRONT AND OUR WORK IN ILLINOIS COAL FIELDS By JACK STACHEL e Daily We Comrade the Illinois the N.M.U.” In this r Joe October Program of for le Comrade Tash attem 4 s to “explain” and to * wer” some critic directed against the ne carried through by our comrades in the Ill nois coal fields. But Comrade ‘Tash by his ver: wers and explanations has more than cor med the criticisms made at the meeting of the tional Committee in Pittsburgh recently to which his article has reference OUR CRITICISMS What was the main line of the c sms di rected against the mistakes in the ois coal fields? ‘That the comrades wete abandoning the policy of the united front; that they had’ the most narrow understanding on how to build the N.M.U.; that they did not realize that the mass of the miners are inside the U.M.W.A.; that the to build the N.M.U. was not to see anly the dangers of united front at the time when there exists no N.M.U, there; that we can not place the question of United Front or N.M.U.; that we can not place the question of building the N.M.U. first and then united front; that the question must be put the development. of the struggle of the miners, the building of the N.M.U in the course of the struggle through the policy of the united front and through work inside the U.M.W.A. organized. where the miners are at present OUR POSITION IN ILLINOIS, What is the situation in the nois coal fields? We must state there exists no .U, there. All miners belong to the U.M.W.A. no matter to which wing their leaders adhere, Walker or Lewis. True not all miners belong to the U.M. W.A. through their own choice. The check off em compels them to belong to the U.M.W.A. hey wish to retain their jobs. But the fact remains, nevertheless, that they DO belong to the U.M.W.A. On the other hand the miners have revolting against this leadership time and again. It was necessary to make many ma- neuvers on the part of the operators and: the U.M.W.A. leadership in order to keep the miners chai-cd to the U.M.W.A. and to prevent the growth o! a real militant movement. This took the shap? first in the organization of the Howatt union. through the Edmunson movement, etc. Through all these schemes the Walker and Lewis machines representing different groups of rators succeeded to misdirect the mili- if coal 0} tant mood of the masses back into the channels of the U.M.W.A. The rec Edmunson move- ment was nothiny more than a Lewis maneuver. Wi was it possible for these misleaders to be- head the movement of the miners again and vain? Precisely becatse we were outside the UM. and precisely because we either did not bring forward at all or in the most narrow sec- tarian manner the united front of the miners. HOW MUST WE PUT THE QUESTION OF UNITED FRONT? With no N.M.U. at all in the Illinois District our comrades were busy carrying on agitation to convince the miners that the N.M.U. is a better union than the U.M.W.A. But this method did not and can not result in winning the miners. We must not place the question before the min- ir union or the U.M.W.A., our leaders’ as e leaders of the U.M.W.A. We must ‘e the miners with the united front of inst the bureaucrats. Only by ion in this manner and mobil- izing the mass of the miners to fight on a pro- gram of struggle expressing their immediate needs can we unmask the bureaucrats and catry on a struggle against the offensive of the coal operators. And certainly we must reject the point of view of Comrade Tash that the reason we.can not develop the united front is because “the union (N.M.U.) is weak.” Precisely this necesst- tates the development of the united front and only through the united front policy can this weakness be overcome. come befor the miners a: placing the que: NO UNITED FRONT WITHOUT WORK IN THE U.M.W.A. Can we develop such a united front from the vutside? Of course not. The miners are inside the U.M.W.A. There exists no N.M.U. in Illinois. How then can we develop the unity of the miners against the bureaucrats? Only by building our opposition inside the UM.W.A. This opposition of the miners in the U.M.W.A. who are willing to fight for the program we put forward, or a mini- mum program they adopt, which may not be the full N.M.U. program, is the united front. This Gpposition on the basis of a program must strive to rally the mass of the miners behind it and to dislodge the local and District officials who are the agents of the bosses. This opposition ,organ- ized in every local together with the organiza- tion of mine committees in every mine is the means for the developmnt of the independent leadership of the miners. With the bulk of the miners inside of the U.M.W.A. any tendency to build the united front from the outside or to limit this work merely to developing of the mine committees will not be possible. ON TH! UNITY COMMITTEES. On July 16 there was held a conference of the miners in Pittsburgh, The backbone of this con- forence was the Rank and Filé Strike Committees of the Pittsburgh, Ohio, and West Virginia min- ers then on strike. There were also delegates from Kentucky, and minority delegates from I- linois and the Anthracite. A National Unity Committee of Action formed. Such com- malttees were subsequently set up in the Districts (Mlinois, Anthracite, etc.). These committees pro- vided an entering wedge into the U.M.W.A. locals ere the N.M.U. could not do it. Where this was undertaken we met with some success. In iMine’s where the N.M.U. did not exist, it is clear that these committees consisted of members of the U.M.W.A, only and some few who secretly yore also members of the N.M.U. The Unity Committees could have been utilized in Mlinois to much ter extent to come before the minors and lo present th issues of the Penn O>i9 strike, the role of Lewis, and at the same t-ne, of course, connecting these issues up with the issues of the Illinois miners, The Unity Com-~- mittees there on the basis of a local program «ould become a force among the miners. But dees Comrade ‘Tash see the problem? He oie comrades in Illinois coal fields went ti ontremes. They laid too much emphasis on Unity Committees and ignored the, building of | the N.M.U.” Comrade Tash evidently ha’ the | opinion that the trouble in Illinois is that there is too much united front. He does not see that | the united front policy is either completely ab sent or being wrongly (narrowly) applied. Com- | rade Tash believes that the way to build the | N.M.U. is to place the question as one of united | front or the building of the N.M.U. Comrade | Tash does not understand that the united front | is the key to the building of the N.M.U. And it is interesting to note that in this whole article there is not one word on the necessity to work inside the U.M.W.A. and to build the opposition movement within the U.M.W.A. | approached } Comrade Tash further states: “\We the miners in the unity committee wh the prob: lem, made it clear that the N.M.U. had to be | built, The result was when we asked the miners to join the union all of them in the Unity Com mittee did so, and when this was reported to | the T.U.U.L. board meeting we were accused of changing the policy.” Comrade Tash evidently thinks that we h: achieved a great victory in Illinois. Certainly it is very good that there are miners who recoghize that the N.M.U, is the only union that stands for their inte But w many joined the N.M.U.? The Unity Committees are supposed to be committees of representatives of the miners. How many miners did these com mittees mobilize behind them? And how many of these joined the N.M.U.? And how many mem bers did these locals represent? And how many miners are in these U.M.W.A. locals? If Com- rade Tash would give all the facts the situation would be much clearer. These members of the Unity Committees were representativs of a num ber of locals having thousands of miners. These thousands of miners remained in the U.M.W.A. And the miners who joined the N.M.U. numbered only a few dozen. And even those, of course, in order to retain their jobs, have to be secret mem- bers of the N.M.U. and maintain their member- ship in the U.M.W.A. What did Comrade Tash and the other comrades accomplish? They trans- formed the Unity Committees of a few dozen miners into N.M.U. groups. But they at the same time time liquidated the Unity Committees that stood for the united front of the miners and un- der whose banner the work of winning the rest of the miners was to be carried on. In other words, Comrade Tash succeeded only in carrying through in practice the narrow sectarian policy of liquidating the united front and telling the miners to come and join a better union. But so far the miners are not doing this and they will not do it in that manner. UNITY COMMITTEES AND OPPOSITIONS INSIDE THE U.M.W.A. -osts. It is true that theré is quite some unclarity as to the role of the Unity Committees and the building of oppositions {inside the U.M.W.A. Unquestionably Comrade Tash is correct that the Unity Committees in Illinois were wrongly conceived as merely instruments through which we raise questions of the miners’ strike in Penn- Ohio and not the lever for the development of the struggle in Illinois on the basis of a local program. Also there was insufficient clarity to the fact that in Illinois where the N.M.U. does not exist, the Unity Committees are in reality themselves the opposition movement of the rank and file inside the U.M.W.A. But instead of working in the direction of clarifying this ques- tion along the lines of more firmly building the opposition movement inside the U.M.W.A., Com- rade Tash wants to liquidate the Unity Commit- tees into the N.M.U., and says nothing about work inside the U.M.W.A., and the building of the oppositional movement within it. OUR MAIN TASK IN ILLINOIS. We must get down to brass tacks in Illinois. The miners are inside the U.M.W.A. The N.M.U. does not exist there. We must build the rank and file opposition inside the U.M.W.A. under the leadership of the T.U.U.L. and the N.M.U. This work must be co-ordinated from the center of the N.M.U. We must unfold a program of struggle that will mobilize the masses of the miners in struggle against the coal operators and the U.M.W.A. bureaucrats. The opposition must take the initiative in the fight for unity of all the miners both in Illinois and on a na- tional scale. We must eve ere support the N.M.U. in its struggles and convince the miners of the correctness of the policies and real rank and file proletarian leadership of the N.M.U. But the N.M.U. in Mlinois will not be built through individual membership recruiting or through the splitting off and isolating a single local. We must first develop the mass movement and the fight for unity, then will come the building of the N.M.U. through the establish- ment of the unity of the miners against the bu- reaucrats. What form this will take, whether through the mass of the miners affillating to the N.M.U., or through large groups of miners affiliating to the N.M.U., or through some other forms, only the course of the struggle will de- cide. But one thing is clear; our main task is to develop the struggle of the miners on a united front basis, to mobilize the miners against the bosses and the bureaucrats. To accomplish this we do not place before the miners the choice, N.M.U. or U.M.W.A., but the unity of the miners against the bosses and bosses’ agents! DISTRICT, SECTION AND UNIT LITERATURE AGENTS See that you are supplied with the following literature: For the Nov. 7th Campaign ‘The Decisive Year, by A.A, Heller-....... Anti-Soviet Lies and the Five-Year Plan, by Max Bedacht.. “Soviet Dumping” Fable, by M. Litvinoy.... 2 Modern Farming—Soviet Style, by Anna Louise Strong . New Conditions—New Tas! * 6 For Unemployment Work and the National Hunger March Unemployment Relief and Social Insurance 2 Fight Against Hunger... PE ar Work or Wages, by Grace M. Burnham 10 Social Insurance, by Grace M. Burnham 10 Comunist Call to the Toling Farmers 3 Race Hatred on Trial.... bcoag . 10 Why Every Worker Should Join the Com- munist Party 10 ‘Those who cannot otherwise supply them- selves should write direct to Workers’ Library Publishers, P. O. Box 148, Station D, New York City. of Manh an and Bronx, SUBSCRIPTION RATES: New York City, Foreign: By mati everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; excepting Boroughs one year, $8; six months, $4.50. _ eee By HARRISON GEORGE ROM Maine to California, from Canada to the Gulf—mil- lions are HUNGRY! They are workers, for, of course, the capitalists are NOT hungry. They are workers without jobs and—the capitalists having REFUSED thus far to pay UNEMPLOYMENT IN- SURANCE from the profits these workers have piled up for these capitalists—they are without wages. They are penni- Jess! Today they are organizing to march to Washington. In scores of cities PUBLIC HEARINGS are being held, the em- ployed workers, who have a vital interest in backing the de- mands of the unemployed just as the unemployed have an interest in aiding strikes of the employed against wage cuts, are supporting the HUNGER MAYCH of the jobless. Further, the PART TIME UNEMPLOYED, who suffer the devilish arrangement of “having a job theoretically” but having NOT ENOUGH WAGES TO LIVE ON in reality, a beautiful scheme of Hoover and the A. F. of L. callled the “stagger” system having created millions of these HALF- STARVED part-time workers—these also are represented at the local PUBLIC HEARINGS on unemployment and are ‘also supporting the NATIONAL HUNGER MARCH! How many millions are hungry the capitalists will not say. Even the capitalists admit 6,000,000 totally jobless. But many million more have been thrown onto the street since the capitalists first admitted that many. And with the PART TIME unemployment added, an estimate based even on the figures of the A. F. of L. show that OVER 12,000,000 wage workers are jobless! These workers have wives, children and aged relatives At the rate, which is reasonable, of about three dependents to each jobless worker, it is clear that over 40,000,000 of the working class are HUNGRY! Maybe you think they’re NOT hungry? Look at Detroit, where city doctors state that one worker DIES EVERY Look at New York, where official investigations show SIXTY PER CENT of all work- ing class children SUFFERING STARVATIO: dependent upon them! 15 HOURS OF STARVATION! called “malnutrition”! ing back” LIES! INSURANCE! The capitalists are making every effort to HOLD YOU DOWN on your demands, so they won’t have to give up their BILLIONS OF PROFITS made from your hides! Look at ANY city’s records of SUI- CIDES and hospital cases of HUNGER DISEASES! And what are the capitalists doing about it? Firstly, they are bursting out in a NEW batch of “prosperity is com- But, workers, PROSPERITY IS NOT COMING BACK. The boss papers LIE when they say so. But the reason they lie is to keep you QUIET! To keep you from demanding WINTER RELIEF and UNEMPLOYMENT “fight with the In appeal for bread! No! WASHINGTON! December 7! politely Navy League” COOKED-UP FAKE FIGHT, intended to allow Hoover to Say to you who are hungry: “We are not spending money for war’—meanwhile HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS ARE GO- ING INTO WARSHIPS, PLANES AND POISON GAS, arm- ing for the war already planned,‘against the Soviet Union! ittsburgh, the County has built at the County Farm, a veritable PALACE FOR PIGS! but in Pittsburgh thou- sands of jobless are starving! the “socialist” party, the suicides of starving jobless show that the “socialists” DO, as compared with what they SAY, about unemployment! In the other “socialist” city, Reading, Pa., the “socialist” mayor is ALWAYS “OUT” unemployed call, and when CORNERED, REJECTS their Hoover PRETENDS to “cut” the Navy, but in fact BUILDS MORE WARSHIPS. The big noise about Hoover’s is A DELIBERATE, In Milwaukee, a city run by when the Last Friday, the capitalist press glorified Hoover for his INSULTS TO WORKER, EX-SERVICEMEN, who dared call at the White House to demand payment of the CASH BONUS. Hoover had the fascist heads of the Legion to be’ tray the rank and file demand for BREAD and ask for BEER —then he gave them neither] Hoover has fixed up the “Gifford Commission” to STALL OFF the demand for WINTER RELIEF AND UN- EMPLOYMENT INSURANCE! “Jocal agencies” will give “adequate” relief by collecting © from the employed workers!—about $142,000,000. Take Hoover’s own figure on unemploymnet, 6,000,000. Add three dependents for each, and you have 24,000,000 people that are HUNGRY! get to live on in the next five months. YOU LIVE on that for FIVE MONTHS! DOES ANY CAPI- TALIST LIVE ON SUCH SUM? Hooyer pretends that the Figure out how much each will JUST $5.91! CAN DOES HOOVER? The Hoover program is 2» STARVATION PRO- GRAM! And that is why today, throughout the country the workers are organizing,a great HUNGER MARCH TO It will arrive when Congress opens on It will demand of Congress: Winter Relief of $150 to every jobless worker, $50 more for each dependent; and among other things, UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE AT FULL WAGES, at the cost entirely of the capitalists, admin- istered by the workers! Members of the A. F. of L. who have been betrayed by their officials, members of the Legion who WANT BREAD, farmers who are hungry because they are robbed just as the workers are, employed workers who know that the capitalist program hits THEM as well as the jobless, SUPPORT THE NATIONAL HUNGER MARCH! SOVIET UNION BRIEFS AUTOMATIC TELEPHONE STATION FOR CHELIABINSK The Council of People’s Commissars of the RS.F.S.R. has decided to build this year a new automatic telephone station at Cheliabinsk, in the Ural Region, A commission has been ap- pointed to insure the progress of construction operations in accordance with the program. iia KILN FOR MANUFACTURE OF AUTOMOBILE GLASS COMPLETED A kiln for the manufacture of automobile glass began operations at the Konstantinovka glass works in the Ukraine on August 5, This furnace will produce glass for the Nizhni Novgorod auto- me“ factory, Oo Oe ane, FIREBRICK FACTORY OPENED IN PODOLSK A large firebrick factory, one of the 518 new enterprises to open this year, began operations in September at Podolsk, in the Moscow Region, The plant will haye a capacity of 30 million fire- bricks a year. Silt eyes ce YVOLGA RIVER POWER STATION TO BE LARGEST IN WORLD ‘The construction of the largest hydro-electric station in the world, of, 1,160,000 kilowatts ca- pacity, is to be begun early in 1932 on the Volga River, near Samara. The total cost is estimated at 1,200,000,000 rubles ($600,000,000). In connect-~ tion with the Volgastroy project a large indus- trial combine is being planned which will com- prise aluminum, copper, chemical and other plants, costing about three billion rubles ($1,500,- 000,000). Negro Youth Must Be Mobilized for the National Hunger March By AL STEELE NE cannot exoggerate the terrible misery and destitution of the Negro youth in the U. S. Government figures show that uneniployment is twice as great among Negro workers as among white workers. When working, the Negro youth receives much lower wages. Whon thrown out of work, he has no savings whatsoever to rely on, and from the very beginning is forced to go to the various soup line organizations. Because of small income Ne-ro toilers buy many of their necessities only on the installment plan. Upon losing the job and the possibility of continuing to pay for the stuff, everything is lost, Discrimination, far from decreasing in the present crisis, is being utilized more and more. Those most menial, most difficult and least paid jobs, which at one time were thought to be too Jow for white workers, are being taken away from the Negro workers, and given to white workers, at lower pay. ‘The condition of Negro children is likewise ap- palling. 'The Heckscher Foundation, which jim- crows Negro children, admits that it receives practically as many appeals to take care of Ne~ gro children as for white, and refuses to take care of them. Being faced with these abominable conditions, scores of Negro youth can be mobilized to take bart in the National Hunger March, The masses of Negro workers can and must be mobilized to take part in the great demonstrations of solidarity for the Hunger Fighters, The Urban League, receiving the support of the white and Negro bourgeoisie, as well as definite stratas of the petty-bourgeoisie, is determined to organize jim crow relief stations, as well as jim crow scab agencies (known as Employment Of- fices), in order to divide the white from the Ne- gro unemployed. It is interesting to note that the Urban League caters to the young Negro intellectuals just out of the schools and col- leges. The Harlem head-:arters has some two score youth organizations meeting there, as well 4s many children’s organizations. Our inactiv- ity among the Negro youth, and especially the unemployed, makes it increasingly possible for them to be used as scabs in the growing strike Struggles. ‘This has already happened in the Bos- ton longshoremen’s strike. ‘The Negro youth can and must be mobilized to unite with the white workers in joint struggles for cash relief, and unemployment insurance. No discrimination in hiring, bo discrimination in giving out of re- lef, must become some of the main slogans in all our unemployed work. = Over 11 million unemployed in capitalist America. Unemployment Hquidated in the So- viet Ur:'on. Attend the November 7th Celebra- tlon mass meetings. eS We Overlooked Something? Some comrades have protested that we didn’t say enough about Emma Goldman's book, We spoke about Emina, not about the book—which is running in installments in the Jewish “Fore ward” as the juiciest bit of pornographic writ-+ ing Abe Cahan could dig up. The loving tribute given it (the book) by the N. ¥. Times on November 1, contirms in dis- creetly phrased terms this estimate of our Jewish © comrades and further explains why the Forward (the “socialist” Jewish daily) picked it up as a vulture does a well-ripened dead dog. For the book is not only salacious, but anti-Bolshevik— and how, indeed, could the “socialist” Forward P&ss up such a thing? Emma Goldfan the anarchist was “animated by sympathy” says the Times, “carried away by wild impulses,” but—‘her heart is all right.” In- deed her “heart” was SO all right that she would arouse the envy of Texas Guinan for her standing as “a feminine Casanova.” Berkman, says the reviewer, turned his revolt against authority into puritanism. “In Emma Goldman, who had a passionate nature.. .no such narrowness was possible.” NO, indeed, Emma was the broadest thing on two legs. And she tells how. But, this is only “interesting” to the N. ¥. Times. What really makes her a great woman, a distinguished and respectable person, wa’ her counter-revolutionary attitude toward the Soviet Government. The reviewer says: “It is in the Russian sections of her narrative, indeed, that Miss Goldman rises to her full stature.” She had been in a reclining posture, but now “rises” to fight Bolshevism. That is why the Times “understands all and forgives all.” And Goldman symbolizes in her own bourgeois retire- ment, what the Times says of all anarchists, that is, they “return in the gentle form of peaceful cooperation” —of cooperation WITH capitalism AGAINST the working class. ee We Stand Not Corrected ' Many comrades—and good ones, too—write in telling us how to run this column, and that alse is a good thing. Without this touch with the workers we might be writing blindly. But just as there is good advice, so there is the bad. And often it is mixed. i One such, signed by Comrade B. Stein, who omitted his adress and left, therefore, no way to answer but through the column, is an ex- ample. He writes in so serious a vein that we might doubt whether he is English or whether our column has lost its humorous flavor. He says, in part: “Comrade:—Today I can say comrade; a year ago I could not. Little paragraphs in the Daily Worker, little paragraphs from the mouths of Cornmunists, all similar to one of yours in yes- terday’s (Oct. 29) Daily Worker, kept me away. “I desired a socialized world intensely; the proper approach was not clear to me. I knew Communists; I knew socialists; I knew liberals, And so many Communists would, alas! echo you: ‘A liberal is a jackass in an Arrow collar an@ golf pants.’ : “I failed to see—and I still fail to see—pre- cisely how taste in haberdashery can be used as a criterion for the truth or falsity of a per- son’s political and economic views. In time, independent reading and chance meeting with a few comrades who tried to proceed rationally rather than emotionally in their argumentation, brought me to an acceptance of the Communist position.” ‘The rest of it, to save space, was the con- clusion that we should leave irrelevant emotion and name-calling out. What was this all about? We said: “The definition of a liberal is a jack- ass in Arrow collars and golf pants” was proven by the “gratification” of the Nation over Hoo- yer's “stand” in the sham battle of Hoover and “high officials of the navy” over the naval bud- get. We specified Arrow collars and golf pants a8 defining the class category of the liberal. Be- cause it is obvious that liberalism is NOT natural to the proletariat any more than golf pants are, and where the proletariat is affected by it (as Comrade Stein clearly is) it is imposed upon them by petty-bourgeois influence. Leave aside the Arrow collars and golf pants, however, and the jackass remains. And this is where Comrade Stein's real protest lies. We called a petty-bourgeois liberal a jackass and cited the evidence. Comrade Stein must quarrel with that evidence. He disagrees with our idea that the “naval mutiny’ against Hoover is @ fake. It was said too briefly without explanation, and seems to have put too much strain on Com: rade Stein’s political understanding. We must, explain more, although we did mention that Hoover's “navy cut” resulted in signing contracts — for five more destroyers. Comrade Stein is un- convinced that it was a fake, and with the Na- tion seems to be “gratified” with Hoover. Had Hoover's policy been really to cut the budget, we would be outraging truth to say that — only a jackass would conclude from this that i Hoover is for peace. Absolutely not. Hoover is i not above having the Navy make a big budget estimate, and then gaining fame as a pacifist for “cutting” off what he had put on, And the pact with France as against England was immediately followed by Hoover saying that the navy is NOW big enough. Hoover might afford a small cut if he can gain support of pacifist jackasses and have a cheaper war, or rather one not so expensive—because we must remember that any possible “cut” is off a pro- gram to BUILD warships. Another most decisive reason for all this stage tempest between the “high naval officials” an the Navy League on one side as “agains! Hoover, is the angry demand of the sta masses for food, Winter Relief and ment Insurance. Hoover cannot publicly tend to justify refusal of the Nt lunger Miorchers on grounds of “ Without showing a “fight” for “economy” on other demands of other “oppositions.” It is against the Hunger March, this so-called “fight” with the Navy League. But it’s a fake fight and anyone who thinks it isn’t IS a jackass. If they understood it was a fake and said they were “gratified,” we woula call them a scoundrel—and be using good Len- inist language, too. Comrade Stein ts the vice tim of “emotion,” not“us, and he js also a little to the “right” of “accepting the Communist