The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 5, 1932, Page 4

Page Four f 13th St. New York N.Y hed by the Comprodaily Publishing Co., Inc., daily except Sunday, at 60 Hast . Telephone ALgonauin 4-7956. Cable * ae “DAIWOLK." Address and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 50 East 18th Street, New York, N.Y, —S—= SUBSCRIPTION RATES: New York City. Foreign: vne year, By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, §3; two months, $1; excepting Boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx, $8: six months, $4.50, Party Recruiting Drive January 11 - March 18, 1932 RESULTS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY COM.-| PETITION BETWEEN NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA AND BOSTON MAJOR POINT OF COMPETITION: Sor every miner recruited in Philadelphia, one metal worker to be recruited in N. Y., one textile worker in Boston. rom Jan. 11 to Jan. 1ited 11 miners od 6 metal workers Philadelphia rec New York recr Boston recruited 7 textile workers Philadelphia is in the lead New York leads in percentage recruited. New York leads in the number of shop nuclei organized. Recruited Recruited District Quota Dee.1-Jan.11 Jan. 11-Jan. 27 Total Bostot ee 300 20 35 55 New York 2000 609 234 843 hiladelphia «+ 450 89 50 139 LOUBNS ooo tial nae miners Sisients 1037 Shop Nuclei No. of Members Re- cruited from large | No. of shopsas basis | Quota Organized Members for shop nuclei | EEE iS Ese 6 1 4 3 New York ..... eeecee 15 By 11 | PRUAGelP RIA: ©... s.00 oczie cee 8 15 | Philadelphia—no shop nuclei organized. Philadelphia: better wake up—organize shock brigades—take up the organiza- tion of shop nuclei at the Org Department iand District Buro. | Philadelphia leads in recruiting Negro workers into the Party: | Philadelphia recruited s | New York recruited | Boston recruited - | New York: Harlem is supposed to be one of your concentration points—poor results. Industrial composition of the new members recruited from Jan. 11 to Jan, 27 | Boston New York Philadelphia | Metal W A 6 5 | Mining W. BIB Aare = 1 1 | xtile Workers j nee . 7 1 | ensportation Workers 4 A | Needle ades Workers Ribisions 1 34 | RESPIR VPORIWCPA. gis °s's's 0icigs ove'e, a0c-0 eae 3 A 6 Pemuer WOEKEING (occa cersere wanes A A Building Trades Workers . Seawens 2 31 | Steel Worke seeee i | Farmer. ; 1 a4 | Auto Work 3 BOG WODMGYS: :c 5/0: sie sie <4 wis oe Dace Jisieieia ays 21 TOTAL RECRUITED IN CHICAGO, MINNEAPOLIS, PITTSBURGH CLEVELAND AND DETROIT — 1254 TOTAL RECRUITED IN N. Y., BOSTON AND PHILADELPHIA — 1037 TOTAL RECRUITED UNTIL JAN. 27 ay — 2291 ILLUSTRATIONS BY BILL GROPPER This is the cover of a 32-page booklet issued for the Recruiting Drive of the Party. Send in your orders immediately. The price is $15.00 a thousand, postage prepaid. Send all orders to: Org. Department C. C., C. P., U.S. A. SORE, Box 87, Station D, New York City. DIST. SIXTEEN CHALLENGES DIST. SEVENTEEN | the cut at one mine at a time. Although late in starting the drive for new members, we herewith raise the challenge of revolutionary competition with District Seven- teen. Our challenge is based on the following Pledge: That That et the we will hi on the struge) we fill our quota first end of the drive (March 18th d more new c de'/elor than District 17 We recognize that District 17 at present is eonducting the Kentucky miners’ strike, which Presents s fertile field from which to recrnit | new members. Not only is this a fertile field, but one af the best schools that the Party can ‘ | trict 17 that we w use to build an army of cadres for the class struggle. Viewing the advantages of District 17, the Dis- trict Committee of District 16 sets itself’the task of filling the quota not only of new members but also in the building of new shop units, issu- ing shop papers, training new ‘forces throtsh | cixcic 1e Daily W In “ker drive, We challenge Dis- ill beat them in-all phases of Party work. t The Party District will support the Young Communist League in its challenge to the Bos- ton ¥.0.L, DISTRICT COMMITTEE, ‘ DISTRICT 16, Charlotte, N.C. By BURCK The Danger ot Wage Cuts in the Pittsburgh District By VY. KEMENOVICH, National Board Member, N.M.U. (Written in Pineville, Ky., Jail.) INCE last June, when the Pittsburgh Ter- minal-U.M.W.A. strike-breaking agreement was signed, there has been continuous scheming on the part of this coal corporation and the U.M.W.A. to reduce the wages to new low levels. Last October the U.M.W.A. fakers tried to force the miners to accept a 15 per cent cut. When the force was of no avail, the U.M.W.A. ttied pleading, using all kinds of demagogic pleas. Their plans were seconded by Samuel Pursglove of the Pittsburgh Terminal. A fake referendum was attempted, but the miners, un- der the leadership of the National Miners’ Union, exposed all the schemes and smashed the 15 per cent cut. This cut, if it went through in the | Terminal mines, would have been a signal for a general cut in the entire Western Pennsylvania District. The defeat of this cut, was actually a deféat of a general cut in the whole of Western Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh Terminal and the U.M.W.A. then proceeded in a new manner to put over the wage-cut. Instecd of a general cut in all the mines, they chose the weakest mines to put over In the Coverdale section, where the Terminal corporation has four mines, they chose Mine No. 4 at Horning to try the first cut. This was the first mine that returned to work in June. The U.M.W.A. had its strongest local machine at Horning. The National Miners’ Union, however, was on the job. Immediately, as soon as the company announced a 10 per ceni wage-cut, the N.M.U. called upon the miners to strike. When Horn- ing struck, the N.M.U. organized membership meetings in Mines No. 2, No. 3 and No. 8 to mobilize them for a strike in support of the Horning miners. The Pittsburgh Terminal and the U.M.W.A. found themselves faced with a general strike in these mines. Knowing the pol- icy of the N.M.U on spreading the strike, they saw a danger of a new strike in Western Penn- sylvania. Such a strike coming at the time of the Kentucky-Tennessee strike, had too many dangerous possibilities and the Pittsburgh Ter- minal again retreated in face of the determined stand of the miners, under the leadership of the National Miners’ Union. This retreat dees not mean that the Terminal and the U.M.W.A. will stop scheming. On the contrary, they will redouble their efforts to cut the wages by one means or another. There is nothing that they will not stoop to. Bribing of local officers and leading and active | elements, laying off and blacklisting of the best fighters, worsening of the local conditions and lengthening of working time, cutting of the ex- Penses on supplies, increase of prices in company stores, etc. This will be some of the methods. At the same time thé Terminal and the U. M. W. A. will concentrate to cut the wages in one mine, at the same time holding over the heads of the miners the threat to shut down the mines. What shall the N. M. U. do to defend the in- terests of the miners? 1. Establishment of a broad United Front Committee, composed of all the miners. The election of this committee to be undertaken at specially called meetings of the N.M.U. and U.M.W.A. locals in the Terminal mines. The purpose of this committee is to unify all the Ter- minal mines and prepare them to act in support. of any individual mine upon which the coal com- pany is concentrating. 2. The broad committeé is to draft the local demands on working conditions and develop struggles for these demands. 3. The committee will fight against any at- tempt of the coal company to shut down one mine and starve the workers into submission. 4. The committee shall support the unem- ployed movement in the section and the strug- gles of the unemployed for their immediate re- lief and unemployment insurance. 5. The committee will support the Kentucky- Tennessee strike to the extent of collecting a sum of not less than 50 cents a month from each employed miner. The committee will sup- port all W. I, R. plans for the Kentucky-Ten- nessee strike. 6. The committee shall see to it that all the miners are mobilized for the struggle to free all arrested and sentenced miners for their actiyi- ties in the strike: All locals must support the International Labor Defense campaigns to free all jailed workers. ‘These are some of the main tasks of the United Front Committee. ‘The N.M.U. members and sympathizers in the United Front Committee must be the moving force, always on guard against the fakers which will try to come into the committee in order to wreck it. One of the main tasks of the N.M.U. will be to popularize the United Front Mine Committee and proceed with the definite setting up of this committee on the basis of the N.M.U. program, ‘Some Experiences in Municipal Elections in Steel Trust Towns By M. KARSON PART 2. (Conclusion), Our Program % These Eiections What must an election campaign program of the Communist Party in our mining towns be like? Our program must breathe with the every day life of the worker. It must take a stand on every important demand and need of the work- ers in this town. Our program must, of course, point out that capitalism breeds all sufferings of the workers, and that we must do away with capitalism, But the main emphasis must be laid on how the workers can get immediate relic’, and im- prove their immediate conditions by mass pres- sure and mass struggle. Does our program in Chisholm or in Gilbert live up to this?? No! Our main slogan in these programs is “Fight Against Hunger—Vote Communist—Elect Communists.” But from the beginning to the end of these programs with special empsasis, and in bold type, we ask the workers to wait until after the revo- lution to better their conditions. “At the same time the Communist Party de- clares that unemployment, wage-cuts, misery, eta: ses’ are a part of the vem, on'y ts abolishment of the yetem and the es‘a>lichment of a 23 d Tarmers’ Government will do away with the misery of the workers.” And, “Vote ‘or the above demands and the abloshment of the entire capitalist system, etc.” Thus runs our pro- gram. “Ot course, it is correct to stress the final aims of owr party, te point out that uncmploymemy Li war, etc., is part of the Capitalist system itself, and that with abolishing Capitalism the workers will thus free themselves from all misery. But it is a question of proportion and proper emphasis, The way it is proportioned and emphasized in your leaflet, the worker is practically told to wait until after the revolution, and all this will be accomplished.” (From the criticism of our. program by the National Agit--prop. Dept.) Do our demands reflect the immediate needs of the workers in the towns for which these pro- grams weve made up? No! Some small local is- sues are raised. But in general, they are the same old demands used on a national scale, Where Social Demagogy Is Used Most. Did we expose social fascism, social demagogy, in our program? Not to speak of. We say in the beginning of our program for Chisholm “the steel trust candidates and their liberal support- ers” and we leave it go at that, for the workers to guess who and why they are liberal support- ers, Then we say “the Republican, the Demo- cratic, and now the Farmer-Labor administra- tions have proven to be the tools of the bosses.” And we Icave it go at that, not showing how the Parmer-Labor Pa*ty is using social demagogy to cover up the fact that it is a tool of the bosses. The rosul! was, that the Chisholm “liberals” came out with a bride-building proposition, and jobs for the workers, just one day before the elections, and the Communists did not even have time to take a stand on this proposition, Never before in the history of Chisholm elections did any of the candidates propose anything con- crete for the workers. Because the Communists ya Presented a program, they had to use this dem- agogy. In Hibbing, Minn., where the labor fak- ers are using all sorts of demagogy in the eco- nomic fiedl, they did not use any of it in the elections because there were no Communist candidates in the field there. Where the activities of the workers, under the leadership of the revolutionary organizations are intensifying, the tools of the bosses are forced to intensify their left phraseology, but it is the Communist Party, with its revolutionary theory and practice, which has the task of exposing these fakers and their demagogy. Underestimating Role of Communist Elections In order to successfully carry through the pro- program of the Communist Party in such elec- tion campaigns, it is necessary that our own members and our sympathetic organizations be ideologically clear on the importance of the Com- munist elections, Were our units ideologically prepared and clarified? No! In this connection, our section leadership was instrumental in confusing our membership on the importance of this issue. An outstanding example of opportunism in our cam- paigns in which our section leadership Played an important part, is the following: In Gilbert, we could only secure one Comrade to run on the Communist platform, so we de cided to run him for mayor. We prepareg for meetings, etc. On the last day before the filing date, the comrades from the Gilbert unit came to the Section Bureau with a request, “since we have @ co-operative store in Gilbert, and since this store is not yet a left wing store in the full sense of the word (we only have a majority of one vote in the board), and since the sympathizers of the store are supporting a Finnish business man for mayor, therefore, we must change our candidate from mayor to trustee, or we will surely lose this store to the right wing.” Thus, argued our Gilbert comrades. They further argued that we can carry on just as good a campaign if our candidate is for trus- tee instead of mayor. After a discussion, the majority of the Section Bureau voted for chang- ing the candidate, and since it was too late to consult with the District Bureau (we are 220 miles away from the District Headquarters) the Section Bureau decision was carried through. AS @ result of this vaccilating and opportunist de- cision of the Section Bureau, the Gilbert com- rades went one step further into the swamp of opportunism. A few days after our candidate filed for trus- tee, our Gilbert comrades found out that the Slo- enian sympathizers of the co-operative store, were supporting a mine boss for trustee, and therefore, came to the Section Bureau demand- ing that we withdraw our candidate entirely. And when the Section Bureau refused to do any- thing of the sort, the Gilbert comrades decided that the Section Bureau was not consistent in their line, and “they didn't know what they wanted anyway”, so our Gilbert comrades pro- ceeded to outline their own activities for sup- porting the mining boss against the Party can- didate, They even went as far as leading the Finnish Workers’ Club in giving official endorsement to the mining boss as candidate for trustee. The Section, of course, sent in forces to Gilbert, and with the help of some Party members there, car- ried on the campaign, but the result was 13 votes for the Communist candidate, and now these same comrades admit that these 13 votes were not from our members or close sympa- thizers, but from workers who probably had read Communist literature for the first time. This example is an exceptional and not a typ- ical one. In the Chisholm elections, we did not have such a situation, but even there one of our old Party members withdrew from the Party slate at the last minute. What does this prove? It proves first of all, that our units were not ideologically prepared for these campaigns; and secondly, that our Section Bureau greatly un- derestimated the role of Communist election campaigns, and therefore, the bureau let things slide to the last minute in spite of repeated warnings from the district against this danger. Value of Self-criticism in Communist Analysis Due to the timely criticism given us by the District Bureau and the National Agit-prop Committee, our Section Committee was able to analyze these campaigns in a Bolshevik manner and draw the proper lessons from them. We are now to a certain extent, putting these lessons into practice. We are now carrying on an election campaign in Virginia, Minn. Here we have avoided the mistakes made in the previous campaigns. First, we have held educational meetings with our Party units and mass organizations, and have drawn them into the campaign not only ideo- logically but practically. ‘The Finnish mass organizations have endorsed 4 For a Sharper Fight on White Chauvinism in the Revolutionary Unions R= Prejudice in the ranks of the working class will go on trial on Sunday afternoon, Feb. 7, when Joe Birns, a white furrier and member of the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union, is called before a jury of twelve workers at the New Harlem Casino, 100 W. 116 St., N. ¥, Birns must answer to charges that he recently entered the offices of the Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union and used abusive language to a Negro woman organizer, and that he holds ideas detrimental to the interests of the working clase and of the Negro workers in the trade, Birns re~ cently stated that “It would be better if we had no Negroes in the trade at all.” If Birns ts found guilty of these charges he will be expelled from the union. ‘The trial of Birns recalls the trial by the Com- munist Party last February of August Yokinen, @ Party member, who refused to associate closely with Negroes, because he had swallowed the boss's bunk about the superiority of a white skin, ‘The trial of Birns, however, will be in some ways even more significant than the trial off Yokinen. It will be the opening gun in a eam~ paign to root out from the ranks of the revolu+ ee trade unions the remnants of race preju« ce. How race prejudice in the unions plays inte the hands of the bosses is clearly shown by thé Present situation among the needle workers, There are in New York aout 45,000 needle work~ ers, of whom at least 15,000 are Negroes. The consistent policy of the bosses is to pay these Negro workers a half or a third of the wages paid to white workers on the same job. Negro Pressers, for example, get from $12 to $15 a weelt for jobs that bring white pressers $35 or $40 ‘This lowering of the wages of Negro workers i# helped by a vicious system of sub-contracting im the shops, white pressers hiring Negro presser@# at low wages. ‘This super-exploitation of the Negro worker in the needle trades has not been fought with sufficient determination by the members of thd Needle Trades Workers Industrial Union. White workers in the union have failed to take thei? proper place in the front ranks of the strugglé for the rights ef Negro needle workers. Wowse2 swallowing whole the vicious propaganda of the bosses and the bureaucrats of the Internationa Ladies Garment Workers Union, certain whit® workers—as, for example, Joe Birns—have ey taken the position that “it would be better there were no Negro workers in the trade at all.™ But the duty of the union in wiping out race prejudice in its ranks is not ended with the trial of Birns. Birns cannot be made a sac~ rifictal goat by those who would wash their hands of all responsibility for the existence of white chauvinism (white superiority ideas) in the union, Rather, the trial of Birns en Feb. 7 must be the signal for the most bitter struggle of all members of the Needles Trades Workers Industrial Union against the cxist- ence of white chauvinism in its ranks. The “Socialists” in the Service of the Capitalists (From the “Mundo Obrero,” Madrid, Spain, Noy, 18.) “Socialist” of today prints some declara- tions of Largo Caballero, the political ima portance of which it is impossible to ignore. The “Sol” of Sunday had published a “sense sational” report, announcing that, once the Con- stitution is approved and the president of the republic elected, power would be given to the socialists, who would govern with the collabora< tion of the “Republican Action” (a capitalist party—Editor Daily Worker). Largo Caballero declares that this is the “core rect” solution, according to the game of parliae mentary machinery, and hastens to preside in the new government. “The moment,” he says, “4s favorable, and not to take advantage of it would be a serious blunder. It is the occasion of selecting a road: that of certainty or of uncer« tainty. Either we go forward resolutely, or we retreat as a defeated army. Which would be absurd after having won in the battles fought until now.” These declarations of Largo Caballero reflect something more than the personal ambitions of the leaders of the Spanish socialist party, whose lack of probity is fully known. These declarae tions of Largo Caballero must be considered from the point of view of the class struggle, of the political end they pursue. ‘Today, after seven months of the republic, the ruling bourgeoisie has not managed to form @ solid instrument of domination. None of t! parties has succeeded in gathering around it the forces capable of inspiring full confidence, from the point of efficiency, of the plutocrats and big landowners. On the other hand, the discredit of all these parties before the eyes of the popula¥ masses 1s obviously growing, and the workers, the peasants, the small, poor bourgeoisie, mule tiply their demonstrations of discontent and protest against a regime that has given no sat~ isfaction to even one of their needs. In these conditions, the Spanish bourgeoisie turns its eyes toward the socialist party. The socialist party, with its demagogic policy, aspires to be the most powerful shield against the wish of the masses for emancipation, against the pop- ular revolutionary movement. Such is the mis- sion that the bourgeoisie has marked out for them. And Largo Caballero confesses publicly to be the principal instrument of this counter- revolutionary policy of the national bourgeoisie, Our mission, the mission of all Communists, of all revolutionary workers, is to denounce vigor- ously this new maneuver of the bourgeoisie and social-fascists designed to maintain the tolling masses of the country, suppressed and starving, and to rally these masses for struggle under the leadership of the revolutionary party, the Com- munist Party of Spain. the campaign and are calling meetings of Fine nish workers. Our program is of a different na ture. We have secured the budget for the city, and are concretely pointing out how we can ape propriate millions of dollars for relief. We ary taking advantage of local issues to a much great~ er extent than in our previous campaigns: Already in this campaign we have built an Unemployed Council which is taking up the de- mands of our program, and fighting for them every day. Our candidates are leading these un- employed workers in this fight, and already we can see the whole town interested, not only in our candidates, but in our program. And we are, of course, expecting different results. But even in the Virginia campaign, we will have many lessons to learn. Only with self-criticism analysis of our expes rences can we put revolutionary tht inte, Bolshewik practice, a IS |