The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 29, 1931, Page 4

SS = [ Party Recruiting Drive | January 11 - March 18, 1932 DIRECTIVES ON THE RECR UITING DRIVE ISSDUED RY THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE, ( eomtinmed) 3. ORGANIZATIONAL AIMS. ‘The recruiting campaign shall be a national @ampaign commencing January 11 to March 18 —with the following organizational atms: 1) DOUBLE THE PARTY MEMBERSHIP 2) ESTABLISH 100 NEW SHOP UNITS *} ESTABLISH 30 NEW SHOP PAPERS EXPERIENCES IN RECRUITING OF MEMBEF The Party valuable experie! nection with our recruiting drives in especially with the results of the s in con past, and recruiting in the last few nths carried on in nearly every Distris ‘The common experiences can be sum marized as follows: D) The recrniting campaign isolated from the eral campeign of the Party. » ifficient orientation to the shops and factories according to the plans of concen tration. Major concentration upon recruiting from mass meetings. A numerical approach to the recruiting cam paign without considering the quality of the brought into the Party (from shops mines). On the other hand, ten- to place too high a standard for mem nvolving sufficiently every ¢ dividual memb: in the unit drive well as members for the building of new ting shop by only a few mem nizational pr of new members of new members the organizational apparatus in hse course of ae Cees. drawing in of ment of w member: elopment of vity of fractions in dr ers of the mass organizat Tn this recruiting drive all these defects must ped out and right from the beginning the ust be on the correttion of these active z in 5. THE MAIN EMPHASIS IN THIS RECRUITING CAMPAIGN ablishr 5 chemic al, this 2 house, to be adapted to the situa- ng etc), al poli a1 in the districts es concretely specified 3 the existing shop units, eir membership. %) Incre ero and wo deration of uance of shop papers @ unit wl easibl of aualit The shop papers rs and base themselves on the the linking them up with we ha © this the and th of the ent con shop. ust. be on the necessity of u the empl mon struggle ziven to the em: ited. front ed and unemployed in con: ed. Councils and members of cor Part evolut of fractions ry un the in A revo. the build opposition needle, etc.) F. of I of fractions in the mo: the fraterna s organizations, IL... building up of these WIR basir ons. 1 In the course of our mass camps and particnlarly in this membership drive, the Party must have in view thi our frac to pe te into. the broadest mas utherto not touched by ou reate a wider legal base s to make our Party ille the approaching actual member throug jon of our units, work with the campaigns of connect t of collective leadership methods of w the drawing 4 in of more capabl: ere into all leading bodies a: tention be given to the dra and women workers. Ths intensification of the training of shor workers on special methods of legal and Wegel wor! the shops and m tives on how to carry on this w= found in Inprecorr No. 1930, Work”) The betterment of our inner Party at ratus, Unit Buro, Section Committee, Dis- trict Departments, ete., especially Org. De- partments, and particularly in Districts of ¢ .centration. ‘To utilize the membership drive to increase the circulat‘on of the Daily Worker and other Party press, LET membership | All Party members are urged to shall ‘we approach workers in the heavy industries to join our Party, how shall we better our organization to keep new members. . P. U.S. A 6. METHODS IN THE CAMPAIGN. The main method in this campaign must be the development of struggles of the workers in the shops, mills and mines, against wage cuts and speed-up, lay-offs, and the development of struggles of the unemployed for immediate re- Bef and unewployment insurance. Special sitention must be given to the unity of the employ.d and mempicyed workers in the struggle for common demands. In order to carry this through 1) Check up and intensity the plan of concen- tration on the shops. Unemployed Councils, local unemployed com- mittees (block, etc.) Strengthen the unity of the employed and unemployed workers through: a) The raising of immediate demands affect- ing the unemployed and employed (seven hour day, without reduction in pay; against wage cuts, against over-time, organization of resistance to leaving the factory when layed off, full wages for part time workers, unemployment insurance for part-time workers, reduction of rent for part time workers, etc.) ) Through a systematic organization of mass action around these demands, The organization of strikes. Mass struggles against lay-offs through de- monstrations in front of factories. Conferences of workers in the shops, with representatives of the unemployed and vice- versa, etc. All these struggles, and especially in the pre- parations for the National Day for Unemploy- ment Insurance (February 4) recruitment for the Party must receive main emphasis. The shop and street units, the fractions, must be fully conscious that recruitment into the Party must go on in the preparation of the struggle, during the struggle and after the struggle (See Polburo Resolution published during the strike, on the recruitment of the Pittsburgh District). 4) In addition to the unit concentration on shops and the mass recruitment through struggles, comrades working in the shops shall approach sympathetic workers and try to bring small groups to a meeting in a private home where the Section or District Organizer will talk to them on joining the a Party. 5) In the Unemployed Councils and T.U.U.L., special meetings of sympathetic groups shall be held explaining the program of the Par- y and the role of the Party in the building of these organizations, in addition to indi- vidual recruiting. On the basis of these meetings, a call shall be made to enter the y. N. ¥. Telephone Algonauin 47956 Cable “DAIWORK.” ke to the Daily Worker, 56 Bast 18th Street, New York, N. F. Check up and intensify the building of the | { | Communist Party. i shall be activized to draw into the Party the best elements. Special recruitment meetings of such elements should be held. ‘The dis- trict will be supplied with a list of the sub- seribers lo our press which they should util- ize in the course of this drive, On the basis of the role and activities of the Party in the building of the mass organi- zations and thorough discussion in these or- ganizations, we shall issue the slogan, send the best fighters into the Party. 8) The assi nt of quotas in the recruiting drive to the fractions in the mass organiza- insisting on the District concretely work out the means whereby each fraction eve its quota, to be worked out by ct together with the comrades of raction All contacts obtained in the course of the for the election campaign, aployment Insurance Bill, ete., lized im this campaign. rough an industrial registration athetic mass organizations of orks in the heavy industries. The organization of special meetings in the Negro sections on the subject, “Who are the friends of the Negroes”; among the foreign in their particular language, on the of the foreign born and the role + ‘The isting forums shall be din the campaign meetings in the neighborhoods or- the units, with a speaker on, tions 10) born Indoor zed by Why Eve Militant Worker Should Join the Comr ist Party — and with social features. 13) Organization of factory gate meetings before concentration factories. A system of visiting all proletarian members who have dropped out of the Party by com- mittees of the units, for the purpose of drawing the best elements back into the Party 15) Tours by the Central Committee and Dis- trict Committees shall be organized, sending mrades in connection with the cam-~- to various districts and cities in the out lization of the artists and writers at the recruiting meetings in order to add en- livening agitational features to these meet- ings. The organization of parades with songs, ban- ners, floats, expressing the role of the Com- munist Party. ) The flood of revolutionary literature sale on _ & mass scale, 'To utilize the registration carried through in the Party to assign individual tasks to every Party member in the shops in connection with the recruitment. (To Be Continued.) EXCHANGE EXPERIENCES write on the reeruiting drive; how Express your opinion, itis your task to bring your experiences to the attention of the Party; let the whole Party benefit from your experiences. + Districts, Sections and Units, what are your plane in recruiting of new members? How will you go about in building of new shop units?: What steps ate you taking to challenge other Districts, Sections and Units? know about it. The first tv devoted to the Recruiting Drive » colunins of the of Daily the Let us Worker on the last page will Party. Send in material. All articles concerning the Recruiting Drive and problems of Paity Life and organization shall be addressed to: Org. Department Central Committee, Box 87, Station D, New York City. i ) In the language organizations the fractions | | } | | 4 maf! everywhere: One hattan and Bronx, SUBSCRIPTION RATES: New York City. Foreign: year, $6; six months, $3; two months, one year, $1; excepting Boroughs $8; six months, $4.50. By ERNST THAELMANN (Berlin) The November-December number of “Die In- ternationale”, the theoretical organ of the Communist Party of Germany, contains a long article by Comrade Thaelmann on some mis- takes which have appeared in the theoretical and practical work of the C. P. of Germany in the yeat 1931. We give below, in condensed alae the main contents of this article. Fr we subject the whole practical policy of the Communist Party of Germany in the year 1931 to a thorough Bolshevistic examination, we are compelled to record = number of ideological dev- jations and political weaknesses, and in fact po- litical mistakes. These are: 1) weaknesses in the fight against the social democracy and in ap- plying the united front tactics; 2) mistakes in employing the slogan of the people’s revolution; 3) weaknesses in the fight against national so- clalism; and 4) individual deviations in ques- tions of the outlook for the future and indi vidual terror. Tn all these four main questions, however, it is not a case of political errors which were com- mitted by the entire Party and were the expres- | sion of a political ideology definitely opposed to the decisions of the Cominintern. They are rather mistakes, or ever: only weaknesses and unclear- ness, on the patt of certain sections of the Party, for which, however, the whole Party and the Central Committee in the first place bears full responsibility. Weaknesses in the Fight Against Social Democ- racy and in Employing United Front Tactics. At the XI Plenum of the E.C.CI., Comrade Manuilsky examined the question wherein was expressed the fact that in regard to the ques- tion of fascism, the Communist Parties lagged behind the revolutionary upsurge: He stated in this connection that this lagging behind on the part of the Parties was expressed in the fact that we allowed the social democracy to maneu- ver in regard to the question of the forms of the bourgeois dictatorship. He declared that, in order to undermine the mass foundation of social de- mocracy in the working class, it was necessary to destroy the illusion existing among the masses that fascism and socail fascism are not two varieties of one and the same social buttress of the bourgeois dictatorship. He further character- ized as @ weakness of the Comintern that we had not made the fight agalnst the theory of the “lesser evil’, in all its manifold character, our central task. We must raise the question, whether in our whole policy in Germany we have taken suffi- ciently into account this extraordinarily impor- tant principle. This has not been the case. In- stead of placing the extremely importent his- torical antagonism: dictatorship of the bour- geoisie—dictatorship of the proletariat, in’ the center of our whole agitation and propaganda, leading the masses in the fight against the of- fensive of the bourgeoisie, which is being carried out step by step, in all spheres, and, in the every day fight, showing them the socialist way -out, ‘we have indulged in percentage calculations re- guarding the “degree of fascism in Germany” and such like thines. There have been revealed In our ranks tendencies to draw a contrast be- the Hitler party and social fascism. (Objections among some, even if only {solated tunctionaries of the Party, in regard to the auestion of the Red Referendum against the Prussian government, existence In the ranks of the revolutionary pro- Ietariat—for which we are also responsible- of at Yeast an unconscious feeling, that perhaps Braun end Severing are after ali “lesser evi!” as compared with 3 Hitler-Goebbels government in Prussia.) That is the worst danger for the Communist Party. How great is this danger is to be seen at the present time from the latest ma- neuver of the. social fascists who “threaten” to make a united front with the Communist Party. ‘The C. P, of Germany has not created all the prerequisites 1n order to be easily able to thwart such attempts to mislead the masses. We have likewise undoubtedly neglecte@ to increase our fight sgainst ‘the treacherous centrist plan of , x tween fascism and bourgeois democracy, between Some Mistakes in the Theoretical and Practical Work ot the Communist Party of Germany ty, the “Socialist Labour Party of Germany”. Unless we are victorious in the fight against the social democracy, this main social buttress of the bourgeoisie, we shall not be able to defeat fascism, i. e., to fight successfully against the dic- tatorship of the bourgeoisie which employs fas- cist methods. Unless we make a decided breach in the front of the social democratic party, we shall be quite unable to master the task of defi- nitely penetrating the mass basis of the Center and successfully attacking and. defeating the other buttress of the dictatorship of the bour- geosie, the Hitler party, whose mags basis is the middle classes, Nevertheless, after the Hamburg election vic- tory of the C.P.G. there were those in the Party who sought to belittle the importance of this election victory,basing their arguments on the growth of the national socialist vote. In spite of the election victory in Hamburg, there were considerable faults and weaknesses which were recorded and abolished, Nevertheless the Party in Hamburg succeeded in forcing a breach in the strongest citadel of the German socia’ democ- racy, and this was the decisive criterion in judg- ing the result of the election. ‘Those comrades who have not recognized this undoubtedly devi- ate from the political line, according to which the main attack must be directed against the social democratic party. In spite of this false attitude we must emphatically declare: it will be possible to defeat the fascists only if we expose’ the social democratic party, its alliance with fas- cism and its services to the class enemy, before the masses of the workers and win the latter away from the social democratic leaders. In car- rying out the united froné policy in the fight for their own class interests, we create among the social democratic workers and the proletarian youth fresh confidence in our Party as the only leader of the proletariat, ‘To every Marxist-Leninist 1t must be a matter of course that the first requisite of Communist policy must be the fight to win our own class, the proletariat. Only when we win the majority of the proletariat, for Communism shall we be able to realize the further task or drawing allies of the proletariat from the ranks of the middle classes into the anti-capitalist fighting front and thereby creating the prerequisites for the people’s revolu- tion in the sense of Marx and Lenin. In regard to the concrete German conditions, the XI Plenum of the E.C.C.I declared, with reference to employing the slogan of the people’s revolution that the task of winning allies for the proletariat, must not be opposed to the task of capturing the majority of the working class; that the task of winning the majority of the working class re- mains the fundamenta! main task, the strategical task in Germany. ‘The C. P. of Germany has not always and everywhere based itself upon this correct tecognition of its policy. We have not always employed with sufficient sharpness the slogan of the people’s revolution as a synonym for the slogan of the proletarian, the socialist revolution, Thus, for instance, in the periodical the ‘Propagandist’ the problem of win- ning allies, which must not by any means be un- derestimated, is made the central question of revolutionary strategy and tactics. Needless to say, the Party must emphatically oppose such deviations and mistakes. (To Be Continued.) Fighting the New Offensive Against the Foreign Born (This is the second installment of the Central Committee directives on the struggle for the protection of the foreign born. The last will he published in a subsequent issne.—Editor). WE Rao By F. BROWN PART 1. IAT are the reasons for the organizational weaknesses of the movement for the pro- tection of the forelgn born? 1, Because our agitation and work is not systematic and concrete 2. Because the movement was reduced mainly to a movement of language mass organizations. The revolutionary unions and rank and file of the A. F. of L. were not involved in the struggle. 3. Because of the wrong tactic in applying the united front we did not succeed in penetrating the hundreds of workers’ organizations led by the reactionaries. Either these organizations were approached from the top, or where our forces succeeded in bringing the campaign before the masses of the organizations that we approached for the first time, it was done in too general a manner, or ‘directly on the basis of.the Party program and not on the main issue on which the united front should have .been established, namely, the struggle tor the protection of the foreign born—on the basis of concrete issues, especially local cases; deportations, ciscrimina- tions, ete. Thus right and left opportunist devia~ tions weakened mass mobilization. 4. Because our propaganda took a too gen- eral character: For example, we said that the reaction against the soreign-born workers and the Negro masses is intended to divide the work- ing elass and in this line create the basis for the lowering of the standard of living, which is ‘the absolute correct assertion and clear to’ us— but we did not explain how this maneuver of the capitalist class works out in practice, We did not explain ils dialectical development so that the workers could see and grasp the cor rectness. of this analysis. 5. Because outside of the struggle conducted bathe Botermational’ Leber Radenea seainat cane organization _ te Se et le ond ‘ether: mass crmardansions, com ot deportation and the agitation conducted by the Party and the Council for Protection of the Foreign .Born in Michigan against the Alien Registration Bill, by the Council for the Protec. tion of the Foreign Born in general, against de- portations, discrimination, etc., no real struggle was conducted on conerete local issues by the revolutionary unions, by the unemployed councils (as in cases of discrimination in mines, mills, shops, discrimination of relief, assignment ot Jobs, etc.) in spite of hundreds of sueh concrete cases, 6. ‘Our Party press (with few exceptions) did not follow up the campaign systematically. We had cases where not one of the protest resolu~ tions voted at hundreds of meetings held all over the country, where not one of the protest telegrams sent by the Council for the Protection of the Foreign Born, by mass organizations with many thousands of members, to Secretary of La~ r Doak, found space in our Party organs. How can the attention of the working class be aroused when the campaign yemains only within the walls of the meeting halls? 7. Because the districts did not realize (with few exceptions) the tremendous importance of this movement, didnot realize that through the development of this movement it is possible to tie up strongly the Party and this section of the American working class, to draw this section of the American working class into the daily strug- gle, to penetrate into the mines, into the steel mills, etc., where the foreign-born workers con- stitute 60 per cent of the employes: Did the Party correctly estimate the impor- tance of the campaign for protection of the for- eign born at the beginning, and take measures on how to conduct it? I believe it did. It is not in the evaluation of this problem—it is in the problem of drawing the masses of foreign-born workers into this campaign, and, in general, into the dnily strugele, thot we are failing, We are failing in the concrete carrying on of the cam- paign—in making the District Committees, the revolutionary: unions, ‘the left-wing -looals’: the By JORGE A Nice Little Example Concerning Hoover's Thanksgiving Proclartme tion that pleasantly reminded us of the image inary “fact” that “education is advancing,” we might cite a little example from Chicago, as told in a clipping from a local paper, the name and § date of which the comrade who sent it—whet will they learn that such details are necéssarye forgot to note, Tt tells of what is happening among the cago school teachers, and specifically one teacher, Estelle de Lia, 28 years of age, whe jumped out a window and committed suicide ag tlie home of her sister, Mrs. Shirley, at 5558 Spaulding Ave. because of despondeney desperation at getting no wages for months months. “Tm just a burden to everyone! I don’t warp to live,” she sobbed, and rushing into a room she locked against her sister's entry, she leaped te the street. What a beautiful example of capttalist indif- ference to the suffering of the workers! And to school teachers, whom capitalists expect to hide from the children of the workers that there is one country, ruled by the workers, where there is no unemployment and nobody who works starves to death or lives in individual dependence upon someone who does, where—indeed, school teachers are in big demand and have recently received a big raise in wages. Th Soviet Union, of course! We recommend that schcol kids, especially in Chicago, cut this out and paste it on their teach- er’s desk. | If M’Cooey. ‘Wave ‘Presidane “It was M’Cooey alone among the bosses, who, before the legisiature, admitted himself to be what he was—a boss of patronage and favors.” The above, with some punctuation added te make it intelligible, is taken from the N. ¥ World-Telegram of December 24. {rom an editor ial be it said in which the Scripp-Howard editor laments the very existence of “bosses of pat~ ronage” as revealed by the Tammany grafter M’Cooey, “alone” among the other grafters. One would think from this, that the World~ Telegram, in common with the rest of the cap- italist press, horrified at the idea of “patronage,” which in plain English means the distribution, of well paying official jobs by the politician in power to serve as a kind of brive for supporters. But we have looked high and low and in vain in the capitalist press to find one word condem- ning the punishment openly and officially dished out to McFadden, the Pennsylvania, republican who told Congress whet he thought of Hoover. McFadden is to be “denied patronage” in Hoover appointment to postmasterships, customs collece tors and various other fat and easy jobs like robbing the Indians, We have nothing to say for MeFadden, who probably has some capitalist axe to grind. But if he wants to call Hoover a traitor, we fail to see why the boss press approves the patron~ age pressure of Hoover while condemning the patronage pressure of M’Cooey. The whole afe fair from both the Hoover and M’Cooey angles proves that capitalism: is rotten. But we see further an effort of its press apol- ogists to defend it, rottenness and all, in the virtual acceptance of the feudal axiom: “The king can do no wrongact A New Sort of Hoothdanie It appears that a new brand of bootlegger had shown up, or one we hadn't noticed before, Since states have been taxing gasoline, and now are raising the old taxes, “illict distilleries” and “bootleg” filling stations are, we are informed, selling about one-fifteenth of the totel gasoline used. ‘That makes about a billion gallons a year, it ds estimated, and with taxes at four cents a gale lon, the gas bootleggers are cleaning up $40,000,000 a@ year. And believe us, this is getting the “le< gitimate” oil thieves, the Dohenys, Rockefellers, and Sincliars sore. Hence we and other papers are being supplied with “boiler-plate news” put out by the American Petroleum Institute at 250 Park Avenue, N. Y. City, with all sorts of propaganda against the bootleggers. Some of it says: “When gasoline is selling at the refinery for four cents a gallon and legitimate marketers must collect and pay over four cents a gallon tee a eee law has.” Most amusing, however, is an article appealing to the oil workers: “Need Aid of Oil Workers in Wer on Tax Evasion,” says the headline, and preceeds: Workers at refineries will check the move- ment of gasoline by tank car. Reports wilh _ be sought on filling stations selling at prices suspiciously below established market quote~ tions. Workers will be asked to report the lotation of crude stills and refineries, the movements of ‘blind’ tank trucks transporting: fuel by night over state lines, gasoline pipe tapping and other forms of theft.” Just why oil workers, who are especially the victims of wage cuts, speed-up and poiice brutale ity when they strike against the Rockefeller an@ allied robbers, should lay awake hights beeapce: about collecting taxes to pay the cops that their heads off, is beyond us. ‘Also, we see a grand glorious regime of graft in not only gas, bus everyting sok’ ts bE Tea by the Hoover Hunger government, with bootleg cigarettes and what-not. Tax dodging and smuggling to evade taxes, have, however, 2 patriotic precedent in the ace tions of our “founding fathers” who became rick smuggling tea into the colonies. Was it not John Hancock who was scheduled to be tried for smuggling on the day of the battle of Lexthgton? Anyhow, the Boston Tea Party was staged the smugglers who were sore because the Government had taken the tax OFF of tea, thus ‘putting th smugglers out of business, the carge dumped in the habor being the first one arriving tax free. scious of the necessity to participate in the came paign. This is the major reason that explaing why the whole movement as it now is, toe great oxtent purely a language move on the efforts of a few comrades, active in th language organizations close to the Party, - \ a eee ¢