The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 4, 1932, Page 4

Page Four Asth St, New € Published by the Comprodaily Publishing Ce. Inc. daily except Sunday, at 60 Fast f York City. Address and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 50 East 13th Street, New York N. ¥. Telephone ALgonquin 4-7956. Cable “DAIWO SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Foreign: one year, $; By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; excepting BereugnD of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City. siz months ¢ FEBRUARY 4 IS ALSO A DAY OF STRUGGLE FOR THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS By J. LOUIS ENGDAHL. ral task in our mass defense activities ttsboro il still remains the building of the Sc ‘ This is more true than ng of the appeal before Alabama the | is court, no less a court lynch | w ju than the lower tribunal at Scoits- ro itself where the judicial lyr was car- ed ugh to the tune of “Th be a Hot in the Old Town Tonight,” supplied by town’s brass band while the holiday mob red here are special reasons why the Scottsboro should and must be brought into the cen- of the demo.strations held on the Day of iggle for Unemployment Insurance, February Boys Jobless Workers. has almost been forgotten, in the general of the Scottsboro issue, that the Scotts boys were, at the time of their arrest, un- 1 youth workers on the road seeking be remembered that the Alabama n or out of the courts, are not pi i in the question of the of the Scottsboro boys. Their major an example” of the § to terrorize the whole working especially Negro workers innocenc nterest boro boys nd poor are croppers, into accepting the submitting in silence to the outrages whole ruling class. e Scottsboro persecution, therefore, is es- an oppression developed against the ly ifferers, in industry and on the land, the economic crisis. It is intended as a to the unemployed starving masses, neh terror is one of the weapons of the adlords and industrialist: in main- neir ‘‘white supremacy” against dis- workers and farmers, Negro d This is the meaning of tre rising wave contente which, in the courts of capitalist , has recently returned the death Willie Peterson in Birmingham, Orphan Jones, in M and. allels the Mooney Ca oles” of the Scottsboro boys is than “making an example” of in California, where every shred st Mooney has been torn away sence of Mooney unchallenged zen front of his bo: class ‘alifornia profiteers, clutching ay even admit that Mooney re that Mooney nple to other workers that them if ey dare raise g class militancy. There- in prison, they declare, and | as a warning. This open ruling class defiance of and chal- lenge to the working class should help further te any reliance in the “fairness” and the ‘{mpartiality” of boss class justice and pave the way for ever greater and broader mass protest. The Scottsboro, the Mooney, the Kentucky ues—the struggle for the immediate and un- conditional release of all the class war prison- ers—must not be raised merely as incidents in the February Fourth Demonstrations. They must be outstanding features dramatized before the whole working class. This was in part suc- cessfully achieved, especially in the Mooney pro- test, during the Hunger March Demonstration in Washington in December. The I. L. D. Organizes Pageants. The International Labor Defense undertakes to raise vividly these issues on February Fourth through pageants, bringing home to the workers the real meaning of Scottsboro, Mooney, Ken- tucky. Mass protest is the dread of the ruling class. This was clearly shown again on the opening day of the Scottsboro appeal at Montgomery, Alabama, in the very structure that once housed the “Confederacy” of the Southern slaye-hold- ing aristocracy. Judges and prosecutors alike joined in their rage against the protests that had poured in by mail and wire from the world over. The paralyzing grip of legalism develops strongest during appeals to the higher courts. This was true in Gastonia, the Sacco-Vanzetti and numerous other persecutions, and for years was true in the Mooney case. There must be a definite break with these past bad traditions in the Scottsboro case. Against Legalism’s Dead Hands. There can be only one perspective—greater, broader struggles. Every indication is that the Alabama Supreme Court will reject the appeal. This will mean a fight to the. United States Supreme Court in Washington, in the citadel of the Wall Street-Hoover Hunger Government it- self. Even if the Alabama lynch law courts seek to hide their real, hideous face behind the mask of “impartiality” and grant the appeal insofar as some of the boys are concerned, this will mean that the fight goes back to the lynch- ing courts of Scottsboro—a new trial in the same mob atmosphere that prevailed during the hideous March and April days of last year. | Continue—develop the protest campaign. In- crease the flood of protest demands for imme- diate, unconditional, safe release of the Scotts- boro boys, hammering at the doors of State Su- preme Court, Montgomery, Alabama. Raise the fist of the whole working class against this per- secution on the day of the Unemployed Demon- strations, February 4th. Sth Session of the Central Council) ot the Red International ot Lessons of the Strike Struggles of the Past Year and the Tasks of the R. I. L. U. Speech of Comrade Kuusinen (Comintern) o. eee e question now is no longer whether strikes can be carried on during a period of crisis. Ex- perience has shown that strikes can and should be carried on. The question is how they are to be prepared better and how more correctly to carry them out, and how on the basis of the struggle to extend the united front from below and to win a majority of the working class. From this point of view, every strike is valuable for us, regard- less whether it had a material success or not. The necessary condition, however, for the success e, not only from a material but also ical point of view, is that a serious s to be carried on for the every day de- is of the workers, however small. Naturally, we learn by the experience of victorious strikes the strategy and tactics of the struggle. But, side by side with this, we must study also the experience of lost strikes, so as not to repeat the akes and so as to correct the defects which ve come on the surface. The strike of the Warsaw tramway workers has shown us that it is necessary to formulate the demands of the workers and the slogans of the struggle. We know of many strikes which re unsuccessful because much too general de- were put forward. The Warsaw comrades organized a number of meetings at which the workers of the corresponding factories brought forward and discussed the demands of the struggle. In particular, a demand was put for- ward to discharge an engineer, who had become notorious for his rationalising innovations, which were aimed directly against the workers. This demand was unanimously supported by all the workers and served as the starting point for the development of the struggle. On the experience also of this strike it is pos- sible to convince oneself of the tremendous role played by the strike committees, elected by the masses of the workers themselves, in the struggle. It would appear as though this was clear and that it required no proofs, But do we not know of such cases, as in South Wales (England), where huge masses of miners were on strike, and where the “central strike committee” was elected at a conference of adherents of the Mi- nority Movement at which 40 persons were pres- ent? This shows that not all the adherents of the R. I. L. U. have given sufficiently deep thought to the question or to that of how the appropriate decisions of the V. Congress should be applied in practice. Another important question: how and when to take into our hands the initiative of the struggle. It is true, this does not always depend upon us. We know of cases when comrades do not even attempt to seize the initiative, as was, for instance, the case in France at the time of the great strike of textile workers, or in Great Britain at the time of the miners’ strike in South Wales. The strike of the Warsaw tramway work- ers teaches us how a strike must be prepared and how the initiative must be teken into our hands in time, For this object they held not one but several meetings and were able to rouse the warkers for the struggle, The workers felt that poli \ they have leaders who will be able to carry this strike through. Finally, still another essential question is the extefision of the struggle. At the time of the same strike of tramway workers, the majority of the members of the strike committee were arrested notwithstanding all the measures of precaution. But the comrades at once put for- ward the demand of releasing the prisoners. This demand was wholeheartedly supported by the strikers and served as a basis for the ex- tension of the struggle. Such ‘tactics entirely and completely conform with the decisions of the V. Congress which pointed out that new demands, especially political slogans, must be linked up in the closest manner with the struggle. | We have the experience of the heroic struggle of the French textile workers during which our comrades showed that they are also able to fight. They formed barricades and ably organized picketing, The fact that they carried out this work not badly is proved by this that they suc- ceeded in winning for the C.G.T.U. 3,000 new members. But this notwithstanding, they were not able to achieve decisive political successes because their contact with the masses was still exceedingly weak and they had not yet learnt | how to lead the masses. | On the question of the struggle against the reformists. Comrades, it is wrong to declare, as is often done with us, that the reformists never take part in strikes. In Germany, for in- stance, the reformists took part in the ‘strike of the Berlin metal workers, the Duisburg port | workers and others, as the pressure of the masses was very great. But does this mean that the reformists want to lead the workers into the struggle? Not at all. And we make a mistake when we say that the’ reformists lead the struggle of the workers so as to secure a coni- promise from the employers, At the time of the strike of the French textile workers, our coni- rades said to the workers: the reformists fight only up to the moment when they will be abie to come to an understanding with Laval (the Mnnister of Labour.) What did that mean? It meant that the reformists in any case wanted to fight. But this is profoundly untrue. They did not carry on nor do they carry on a struggle; | on the contrary, their object is to demobilise the workers, and they betray them from the very frist steps. This is what we must lay stress upon continuously and what we must explain to the workers. We must expose the treachery of the | reformists even when they, for the sake of ap- | pearances, place themselves at the head of the united front, of the workers in the struggle so as to consolidate their influence. After every strike we must wage a special campaign for | the exposure of the tactics of the reformists. | At the same time, we must criticise also the manifestations of opportunism in our own ranks. Unfortunately, there are still not a few of these manifestations among us. Even at the time of the tramway workers strike in Warsaw, which By BURCK By HARRY GANNES. | Nieaiees paid agent of the coal operators in Kentucky is now engaged in a campaign of howling against the Communist Party. Every pulpit and gutter sheet in Harlan and Bell Counties, and the territory surrounding the strike area, spouts about “Roosian Reds.” Every miner who has the guts to fight against hunger is branded a “Roosian Red,” as if that ends all his reasons for fighting, as if that were a final, unanswerable argument to the major struggles now being carried on by the National Miners’ Union in Kentucky and the Communist Party. The operators can ho longer answer the charge of wholesale, mass starvation. They don’t even attempt it. They cannot deny that the miners do not earn enough to eat on or feed their fam- ilies, even when they work long hours at back- breaking toil, The terror réign is too real to be denied. They cannot hide the upsurge of the miners under the leadership of the National Miners’ Union. It is precisely in Kentucky, where the capi- talist system, through its most powerful repre- sentatives, the United States Steel Corporation, the Ford Motor Co., the Insul utility trust has brought the greatest misery to the workers, kill- ing off by the hundreds their children, mur- dering the most militant, jailing the working class leaders, that the capitalists find it neces- sary to defend themselves by a scurrilous, pre- | judice-inspiring race-dividing ‘and slanderous campaign against the Communist Party, the stalwart leader of the struggles against capi- talism in the United States. Prejudice and Facts. The campaign against the Communist Party, and an attempt to brand every miner a “Roosian Red,” hoping thereby to cover up with a bar- rage of prejudice the real facts behind this issue, began before the present strike. The American Legion in Bell County issued a leaflet and published a full-page advertisement in the Pineville “Sun” quoting from the Fish Committee Report on the Communist Party, us- ing every lying argument it could find to keep the miners from knowing the truth. They quoted the testimony of William Z. Foster, one of the leaders on the Communist Party, on religion. The aim of the coal operators in Kentucky was by this emans of distorting what Foster said, to use religion in an effort to drive the miners back into the mines at lower wages; through the use of religion, and the religious issue, to keep the miners from knowing the truth about capitalism, the hunger system, and the fight of the Communist Party against it. Since the American Legion and the Pineville “Sun” brought up the Fish Committee report and its version of the program of the Commu- nist, Party as contained in this report, it would be well to dwell on it somewhat so the Kentucky miners may know what the Communist Party is, and what the coal operators mean when they call a miner a “Roosian Red.” The Role of the Communist Party. The Communist Party, as was stated through its leaders before the Fish Committee, and as it states in its press, and carries out in its daily struggles, is the revolutionary party of the working class fighting against capitalism and all the miseries it brings to the workers. It leads the workers to mobilize in a final struggle to end capitalism and all its destruction, its crisis, its wars, its periods of starvation, its murderous attack on the workers. The Communist Party leads the struggle of the workers to end forever just such conditions as exist in the Kentucky coal fields where the | capitalists, through the private ownership of the | mines, in order to make profits, drive the work- ers to the lowest level of subsistance and even | | to death. | The Communist Party in every country, which believes the struggle of the workers in every land should be welded into a common fight against | the exploiters, the bosses, unites into a world organization, the Communist International. It is this powerful unity of the workers in every land that evokes the fury of the coal oper- ators in Kentucky, as it does in every other part of the counts The coal @perators know that the Kentucky miners have been isolated in the Kentucky motintains, have not had contact with their fellow workers in the steel mills, in | the textile mills, on the railroads, in New Yors clothing industry, and they try to characterize | all these workers as “foreigners.” But the Ken- tucky miners are learning that the workers everywhere are their kin; that it is the coal | operators who are the “outsiders,” the real enemies of the working class. Kentucky Not Alone in Starvation, The Coramunist Party, which is formed of the most devoted section of the working class, built through a long period of struggle, proved through the fire of class struggle and thé Russian revo- lution, points out to the Kentucky miners that the conditions in the coal fields are not isolated or separated from the general conditions throughout the United States, or for that mat- | ter, throughout the capitalist world. Unemployment, which has hit the Kentucky miners hard, has hit the whole working class to the extent that there are 12,000,000 unemployed, with 10,000,000 more on part-time work. The whole capitalist system is in a crisis, a crisis that sig- nifies the coming end of capitalism. In this process, in order to save their profits, and the system which insures their profits, they begin to attack the workers, to make up these profits by starving the miners. It is because the Com- munist Party is the most conscious and best organized weapon of the workers resisting this attack, preparing the workers to act as a class against capitalism, that the coal operators vent | | their greatest anger against the Communist | Party. In Kentucky the miners are flocking to the National Miners’ Union. They have learned through experience, through the test in every day struggle, that this union is the most potent | force in fighting the daily battles of the miners against hunger. In an effort to stop the miners from joining the N. M. U. the coal operaters | | have raised the ery that everybody joining the | N. M. U. is a “Roosian Red” and that the N. M U, is Communist. Communists and the M. U. What is the truth about thi: The N. M. U. | organizes all miners, regardless of ‘color, race, or religion. It carries on an unrelenting fight against hunger and terrorism. It has succeded in building up a powerful weapon for the Ken- tucky. strikers. The impetus to the organization of the N. M. U. was given by the Communist Party, which throughout the United States has taken the lead in fighting agginst wage cuts, against hunger and starvation. Some of the best and most proven leaders of the N. M. U. are Communists. Why is it that the hatred of the coal oper- ators is voiced most bitterly against Communist leaders? Because the coal operators know that ers only to adopt a resolution of protest against the last emergency decree and send it to the Government instead of mobilising the masses for the struggle, A few words on the work in the factories. This is not merely a problem of organisation, it is in the first place, a question of the political content of our work. For instance, we convene in Great Britain factory-shop meetings but the ‘workers do not attend them. Why? Because our British: comrades—and not they alone—do not know the work and life of the workers in the factory. They frequently do not know what question to put forward at a meeting so that the workers mey attend. The question is not merely to rouse the workers for a strike. A strike is not organised every day. One must know the day-to-day struggle. One must live was carried out so well, there was a moment after the arrest of the strike committee when the reformists proposed to send a deputation to the authorities, and our comrades did not know how to oppose them. In the Ruhr, our comrades at present have called upon the work- ya the life of the worker in the factories, must feel where the shoe pinches and understand how to give expression to this complaints and his needs. Only {n that case shall we be able really to win the factories and with them the majority of the working class. in every struggle of the workers against hunger, against all miseries of capitalism, and against capitalism itself, the source of all this degrada- tion of the werking class, the Communist lead- ers have proved most unflinching in their fight, most experienced and capable. Why “Roosian Reds.” The reference to ‘‘Roosian Reds” is particu- CORRECTION Yesterday's PARTY RECRUITING DRIVE colmn gave the results of the revolutionary com- Fetition between Cleveland and Detroit districts. Although it was elearly stated at the beginning sof the article that “Cleveland leads in total members recruited,” the tables of figures in- dicated just the oppsite because the figures were put in the wrong columns. The corzect figures are as follows: Detroit Cleveland “Roosian Reds” and the Kentucky Coal Strike larly interesting. Why “Roosian Reds?” . There are “Reds,” the popular name for Communists in nearly every country in the world. Why do they pick out “Roosian Reds” for the main at- tack? It is because they think that the Ken- tucky miners have not learned of the heroic | Struggle of the Russian workers, because they think that they can keep the truth from the Kentucky miners about ‘the great achievements of the Russian workers, under the leadership of the Communist Party. In Russia the workers haye overthrown capi- talism, ended the possibility of such conditions as exist in the coal fields of Kentucky. In Russia, now called the Soviet Union, the work- ers rule. While in every capitalist country in the world (and the Kentucky miners have the best example of it) workers starve to death, in Russia (the Soviet Union) there is no unem- ployment. On the contrary, the workers build- ing up a new society, without the coal operators’ class, are constructing new industries, new homes, a new life. Congressman Rainey, Democratic leader in Congress, a few days said: “In Russia they ere building more than all of the rest of the world combined. They are constzucting 5,000 atiles of new railroad track. We (the bosses. in the United States) are tearing up ours.” All these achievements are the result of the Jeadership of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the stalwart leader of the workers that overthrew capitalism there and is now leading the drive in the construction of a new order in | Which the workers rule and build. The Communist Party in the U. S. A. In the United States, when the present econo- mic crisis began in the latter part of 1929, the Communist Party was the first to rally the unem- ployed for struggle. Millions of workers followed the lead of the Communist Party. It was through the struggles of the unemployed that some relief was obtained, and it is now the struggle of the unemployed, under the leadership of the Com- munist Party, that is the driving force in the struggle for unemployment insurance. There is not enough space here to take up all the fights against wage cuts initiated under the leadership of the Communist Party. While the United Mine Workers of America and its parent organization, the American Federation of Labor, were making agreements with President Hoover with the U. S. Steel, with Henry Ford, with Samuel Insul, not to strike against wage cuts, the Communist Party, through its membefs in the Trade Union Unity League, and the National Miners Union, was mobilizing the workers for strike struggles. It is as the result of the greatest of these struggles, the strike of the Pennsylvania and Ohio miners that the present organization of the N.M. U. grew up. The N. M. U. led the strike of 40,000 miners in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia against wage cuts, Organizers were sent to Kentucky, and from then on began the or- ganization in the Kentucky coal fields that has brought consternation to the coal operatorgand new strength to the coal miners in their™fight against starvation. : Sheriff Blair end the Daily Worker Why is it, for instance, that Sheriff John Henry Blair vents his greatest rage against the Daily Worker? It is because the Daily Worker is the central organ of the Communist Party, and it has been the Daily Worker which has been one of the powerful instruments in welding the National Miners Union and preparing the present strike, Every miner in Harlan and Bell County who reads the Daily Worker, does not need to be told this is his paper, that it fights his battles, that it has been the only paper that has in- formed the miners about the real state of things in Kentucky and has shown the way out. ‘The Communist Party will continue its re- lentless struggle against the whole pack of starvation-dealing and murderous coal operators and their gun thugs ,sending its best and most tried leaders into the Kentucky, into the National Miners Union, because these leaders are veterans of the struggle of the workers against capitalism. Build the Communist Party in Kentucky The building of the Communist Party will be the best guarantee that the coal operators will meet with the strongest resistance against pro- gram of hunger, will lay the basis in Ken- tucky for rallying the workers for the final struggle against the whole rotten system of cap- Quota 420 450 Recruited from Dec. 1 to Jan, 11 20 113 Recruited from Jan, 11 to Jan, 27 62 73 _ Total recruited 2. 18 J) italism which is responsible for the starvation of the Kentucky miners along with their brothers Haroughout the United State, f) 7 Some Experiences in Municipal Elections By M. KARSON Part i a 4 Wea Mesaba Range is one of the strongholds the Steel Trust. From the Mesaba Range the raw material for iron and steel is being shippe@ Hundreds. of millions of tons of iron ore havg been mined out from the bowels of the earth ig this stretch of land. Hundreds of miners’ lives have been sacrificed in the scores of years dure ing which time this land has been exploited. Bile lions of dollars worth of wealth has been ereated for the Steel Trust and the so-called mining companies. Some of the most heroic struggles the history of the labor movement can be coer | back to this Mesaba Range. The Objective Situation. The Mesaba Range, in Minnesota, is compassd) of a chain of mining towns with a of from 5,000 to 116,000 people, plus farming) townships around these towns, - | : Because of the betrayals of the I.W.W. leaders, and @ most vicious spy and blacklist system, the miners here have been terrorized to submit ta wage cuts, speed-up and lay-off. The economia crisis has hit the iron-mining industry as part of the general steel industry, severely. Most of the mines have been completely shut down and thousands of miners were thrown on the streets. The stagger system of wage cuts are the lot of the still employed miners. The ma~ jority of the working population in these min- ing towns are face to face with poverty and hunger. The local governments, all of which are directly or indirectly controlled by the steel trust, are of course doing nothing to relieve the suffer- ings of these workers, \ For the last few years, the Communist Party and the revolutionary unions have been carrying on organizational work here. We are steadily | making inroads amongst the miners and the un- employed. Our meetings and demonstrations are attended by hundreds and even thousands of workers. Of course, there are as yet, many weak- nesses in our w Failure to utilize the situa- tion for building a strong and militant union and unemployed councils, failure to develop local struggles for immediate local demands, eta But about this some othe rtime. What we are now concerned with, are the election campaign ex- periences, e { For the First Time In Local Elections, Although Communist election campaigns are not new here, it is for the first time, however, that the Communist Party participated in local municipal elections in these mining towns, and therefore, the experiences and lessons in these elections will be of great value in our future campaigns. The results of our election campaigns in two of these towns, are already known, and are not S0 good. In Chisholm, Minn., only 52 votes were received, ad in Gilbert, Minn., the Communist candidates received only 13 votes. We distributed thousands of programs, thousands of leaflets, Daily Workers and other literature. We held sev- eral large meetings, and other activities of agi- tational and publicity nature were carried on, How then, can we explain this rather disappoint- ing vote? Some leading comrades in this section attempt to explain it in the following manner: 1. The language difficulties of our candidates in the Chisholm elections. 2. The provincial character of these local elections, where the workers know the candi« dates they are voting for, and are expecting in- dividual favors from these candidates. 3. The theory of the lesser evil, which the j workers still possess, and the social demagogy of the “liberal candidates” in these elections, To make the above arguments the basis of our analysis and to omit self-criticism means first of all, to misunderstand the nature of » Communist election campaign, and secondly, it tends to evade the real political weaknesses and shortcomings in these elections, and thus miss the valuable lessons which we can put into prac- tice in our future work. Firstly, the language difficulties: It’s true, that some of our candidates could not speak English very well, but it is also true, that those of our candidates who could speak English did not re« ceive more votes than the others. In Gilbert, we had an American born worker as a candidate, and he only received 113 votes. I Secondly, the theory of individual favoritism: It is true, that such tendencies exist among the the workers in these small towns, but it is also true that it is precisely these and other illu- sions which the bourgeois candidates will spread among the workers which we must combat, in favor of our program of immediate relief for the starving workers and their families. To the extent that we expose and combat these illu- sions, will we succeed in our campaigns. Thirdly, the theory of the lesser evil: Unfor- tunately this theory does not only exist among the workers, but also creeps into the ranks of our Party, (As it was expressed in the Gilbert elections, where the Finnish Workers’ Club, un- der the leadership of some Party members, cam- paigned for a mining boss against our candi- date.) But here, also, it is to the extent that we must expose and clarify the workers of this bosses’ propaganda, will be able to succeed, ‘To what extent, then, did we expose this boss- es’ propaganda? To what extent did we combat social dema- gogy? ‘To what extent did we clarify the workers in our program for immediate relief? (This will be examined in the conclusion of this article which will appear tomorrow.) 1 To be concluded 4 1 { Workers! Join the Party de Your Class! de. P O Box 87 Station D. New York City. Please send me more information on the Oem- = siti munist Party. Name -Mail this to the Central Office, Communist Communist Party 0. 8. a. BO: Bos M1 Station D, New Tonk city, ¥ alg’