The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 12, 1932, Page 4

om Pe } IBth St, New York City. N. ¥. £ Published by the Comprodatiy Publishing Co, Inc, daily except Sunday, at 50 East Telephone ALg@onquin 4-795¢. Cable =! Adéress and mail afl ehecks to the Dally Worker, 56 Mast 18th Street, New York, N. ¥. “DAIWORK.” Dail Par TO THE ENTIRE MEMBER D Comrades: The District Committee takes this occasion to iress to you @ special letter In order to take ) the problems confronting the Party, the work- ass and the Negro masses in your section. events of August 3rd and 8th placed our Unemployed Council at the head of t Negro and to some extent white in your section. Between four and five sand workers were recruited into the branch- f the Unemployed Council, organizing 50 ck committees, and approximately 350 mem-~- into the Party, building a Party of 20 units, g @ unit in the stockyards. This indi that the masses look towards our Party ship and guidance in their daily strug for the final struggle against capitalism. 2 territory is the most important and industrial section of the city. In m there are approximately 200,000 Ne Important industrial establish- as stockyards—Crane and many are located there. In the recent few weeks a slackening in activity of the Party he unemployed movement—there are even ome elements of disintegration, not because of the masses not being ready to follow the lead- ¢ p of our Party, but because of the lack 1 and bureaucratic, formal methods ship, Our movement is not consolidated in the re- cent period. The inner education of the Party the mass agitation did not assume a broad and during the events of January 11, when the Negro and white workers wed their militancy in the struggle for te relief and against police brutality, ection Committee did not participate in truggle; the Section Committee did not leadership. It eliminated itself from e struggle by its inactivity. In m. January 11 on there was practically leadership given to the fighting masses 's on the South Side. The reason for that the section leadership is not repre- the masses of workers on the South t even of the Party membership in It is isolated from the masses, poli- does not understand what it taking place there and how to react to the situation. The Section leadership reduced itself to a tech- nical body and showed resistance to politicalizing the struggle and to raising it to a higher plane. seeing only difficulties in every-day work and understanding how to overcome them, for- ng that difficulties exist for the Bolsheviks for the purpose of being overcome and 1is situation, which the Section of the Section is primarily responsible are @ group of comrades such as Ross, Houston, etc., who are utilizing this situation for one purpose—to undermine the Party leader- ship and attempt to discredit the Party. Against both of those tendencies and expressions, the sharpest struggle must be stated and organiza- tional measures taken. The Section Committee did not react to such events as white-chauvinism on the South Side ty Recruiting Drive January 11 - March 18, 1932 orker Party US.A. By mail everywhere: One y of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: » $6; six months, $3; two monthi Foreigng one year. $} cepting Boroughs six months, $4.50, f HIP OF SEC. 2 IN CHICAGO at the Polish Workers’ Olub, did not react to the death from starvation of the former stockyard worker—Whittenberg—and many other problems. Also, the drop in average weekly dues paying Members in December to 168 shows that the inner situation, as a result of the lack of po- litical perspective, is very bad. In view of all this, the District Committee instructs Section Two to call a special section convention to which eache unit is to elect delegates—on the basis of ome delegate for every five members or major frection thereof. The election of delegates is not to be a mere mechanical affair. At the unit meeting where the election will take place, !t must very thor- oughly examine its own work and the work of the section. Instruct the delegates to bring pro- Posals before the convention and wherever neces- sary, re-elect the unit buros of the given unit. ‘This must be considered together with a rep- resentative from the section or district committee who will speak at the unit meeting when the election of the delegates takes place. We must elect the best fighters in the units to the Sec- tion Convention—comrades who pafticipate in the mass struggles, who are members of the mass organizations. The Section Convention must result in outlining immediate political, or- ganizational tasks in the section, above all, the following: 1. Developing struggles around unemployment. and raising these to a higher stage, spreading the movement of the block committees and the committees in the flop houses, bread lines and uniting these struggles with the struggles of the employed workers. 2. Further penetration into the stockyards and the method of such penetration, and the further building of the Party and the unions in the stockyards. 3. Struggle for Negro rights in all forms and against the elements of white chauvinism. Pen- etration into the mass organizations of the work- ers on the South Side, and mobilizing the work- ers for struggle against police terror and oust- ing of Stege and Barker. 4. The building of the Party and the mass organizations. These are some of the points we want to in- dicate as the immediate tasks of the Section Committee, together with the election of a new Section Committee which must be the expres- sion and will of the membership, and the estab- lishment of collective leadership in the section. We are confident that thé Section member- ship will fully agree with the District Committee on all the problems raised in this letter and will support it unanimously. The District Committee was aware of this situation for many weeks, but did not act upon it, and in this respect under-estimated the situation on the South Side, which resulted in the collapse of the section leadership there. i Forward to a mass Bolshevik Party oh the South Side of Chicago! Comradely yours, DISTRICT COMMITTEE, COMMUNIST PARTY—DISTRICT 8. RECRUITING IN THE SOUTH We will briefly review the work of the past two years in District 16, We can sum up the short- comings in the following two points: (1) Failing to develop new forces and depending on the center to supply organizers. (2) Following the line of least resistance, i. e—for the past two years we had practically deserted work among white workers and devoted our time to work among the Negro workers, who are practically all unemployed and none of whom are at the point of production. So that we were unable to carry out the teaching of Lenin, to make “every factory a fortress of Comunism.” Neither have we, as Comrade Stalin said, built our transmis- sion belts. The National Textile Workers Union, the In- ternational Labor Defense, the Workers Inter- national Relief are practically non-existent in the district. The District has now taken the following steps to correct the situation: In the Pinoco mill we had last year what we called a shop unit. This consisted of three comrades working in the same department. The unit was finally dessolved be- cause thre was no work for it to do, The com- rades in the mill were not given the proper guidance and were allowed to turn every meeting into a discussion on the Soviet Union and other topics that did not interest (because they did not understand) the workers of the shop. The com- rades finally found themselves isolated from the rest of the workers and the boss was able to weed out the Reds by shutting down part of the mill. But by getting one member here and one there from various trades, we established a unit; not a shop unit, but a unit which was known as the village unit. One comrade lived in this village and we decided to pick one mill for concentration. ‘This is one of a chain of seven mills owned by the same company. The villiage unit began to draw workers from the village which covered two of the mills. This unit began to issue a shop paper and covering the two mills with it each month. Finally we es- tablished contacts in each of the two mills. And when the unit was too large to meet at one place, it was divided up into two units. Neither is as yet a mill unit, but by bringing the workers to a unit meeting, they became acquainted with the activity of the Party comrades. We did not assign new comrades to the task of bringing new workers into the Party—their task was to get the address of the workers who they thought would be good material for the Party. The comrades from the unit, who were not working, would visit the contact and bring them to the unit meeting; after the meeting the new workers would be asked to fill out the ap- plication card. Not only one comrade would visit the contact, but two comrades would visit one night and two different comrades would go the next night and the worker would begin to wonder if he was the only one that would not belong and would then promise to come to the meeting. The night of the meeting some of the comrades would go and see that the worker came. For some time we had tried to draw the white workers from the shop into the week-end class that was held every Sunday morning at 10 o'clock. This was practically a failure, so was the open forum in the afternoon at 3etaoin shr the open forum at 3 p.m. But with the launch- ing of the national recruiting drive the Dis- trict Buro took steps to change the forum and have the class in the afternoon. This drew prac- tically 100 per cent attendance of the white com- | tades to the class. By this method our Party | units were able to bring some of the young workers to the, class. And in less than two weeks the ¥.CL. had its first shop unit in the District which will issue the first Y.C.L. shop j paper by Feb. 1. With these two units working day and. night in the village, we have had several letters from workers for the shop paper which contained news directly from the workers in the shop. After the distribution of the January issue, the workers openly announced that had it not been for the shop paper they would have had another wage- cut this month. Here I will add a challange handed in today by one of the unit members, after a lengthy discussion in the unit on the recruiting drive: “1. We, the members of Unit 1, of Charlotte, upon hearing and discussing the Revolutionary Competition between Districts 16 and 17 in the recruiting drive for new members andthe build- ing of new units, mill committees, ete— “2. Hereby challenge Unit 2 in a competitive drive for new members, of 20 new members on or before March 18, 1932. “3. The unit getting its quota of 20 new mem- bers first will be declared the winner, and the joser will be taxed a fish fry for the-member- ship of both units and their families. “4. We also challenge Unit 2 as to the best attendance at the unit meetings and the week- end class, and here send our representative to present same to Unit 2 for acceptance. “Comradely submitted, “MEMBERSHIP OF UNIT 1.” Both of these units are located in the mill village, and through these two units we will be able to show our Negro comrades that we are not only organizing them, but that we are really rooting ourselves in the shops. -Workers! Join the Party of. Your Class! P. O. Box 87 Station D. New York City. Please send me more information en tha Com- munist Party. NOME ..sccvecscccsecese Address OCCCUPAHON Lceccceccsesecsesesseenss ABC sucess -Mail this to the Central Office. Communist Communist Party 0. 8. A P.O, Box 87 Station D, New York City, “AT YOUR SERVICE, MR. GREEN.” Mr. Green and 100 A- F. L. fat boys march 1 of the unemployed. ros. Bae te By BURCK CARE oe “ones & ee By MYRA PAGE Ww learned Comrade Polovina Ivanova’s story quite by accident. It was one of those for- tunate occurences to which life in the Soviet, Union is frequently treating you. This is how it happened. While waiting in the office of the patty committee at the Electric- zovad factory for a comrade, we got into con- versation with Comrade Ivanova, who chanced t6 come along. (Altho it was her free day she has the good of the plant so at heart that she must run in to see how things go, and if need be lend a hand.) She wore a little red cap pulled down to her eyes which darted about, seeming to take in everything. The fur collar of her Bray coat was buttoned tightly at the throat. Her hands, with their blunted, worn fingers, made occasional, vigorous gestiires as she spoke. I think it was these which prompted us to draw her away from the subject of new feeding and housing schemes for the plant’s 21,000 workers and to ask her to tell us more about herself. For a moment she hesitated. “All right then, if you wish it.” , Told simply, spontaneously, with humor as well as pathos. Her story proved to be an epic —one of those countless epics in which the Sov- iet land now abounds. An epic of the upward struggle of Russia’s 160 millions. An epic of the gradual evolution of a backward working wo- man to—well, read the story for yourself. Sewing Silks and Satins for the Rich From early youth, Polovina Ivanova worked under the shadow of the Czar’s Kremlin, in dark shops, sewing silks and satins for wives of the rich. She soon became a skilled worker, making the finest clothes, sewing, basting and stitching for fourteen hours a day. Yet her Pay was @ scant thirty-five rubles a month (about seventeen dollars and fifty cents.) It was hard to live, A room which she shared with another girl cost each of them eight rubles. Coal for the samovar took another five rubles apiece, but their hot tea and black bread was all that kept them alive through the cold win- ters, so they couldn’t do without that. In the workshop they had to be well-dressed, or lose their job by offending the gaze of the rich ladies when they camé for fittings. ‘Three months a year the place closed down, © one had to skrimp all the other months to in order to exist thru this period until the rich ladies came back from their travels and ordered more gowns. Sometime before the world war started Polo- vina’s eyes gave out on her, and she lay ill for eight months. She sold everything she had, except the clothes on her back. Even her shears and other work tools had to go for food and doctor’s bills. Her brother helped her all he could. But for him she probably would have been forced on the streets, like many other work- ing girls. Moscow at this time was full of pros- titution, of girls too sick or unable to get work who had been forced to register with the czar’s police and get a Yellow Ticket. Polovina moved out of her room and rented what was known as a “corner” for three rubles a month. Her landlady, who lived in style with her husband in six rooms, lodged six or eight working people in each of her cheaper rooms. For the masses weren't supposed to be people, but mere work-horses who could be crowded together, turned out and treated any way the rich folks wanted. So Polovina never felt cer- tain of a roof over her head, since any time the landlady might rent her corner to a better customer. Yet, in spite of her hard experiences she re- mained obedient to what the priest told her, believing that it was a law from heaven that some be poor and some rich. Then the war came and her brother was drafted. Because he was in the army she was able to get. work in a munitions factory. Here for the first time she came in touch with mil- itant workers and learned what it meant to stand all together for their rights. There was a strike against the wormy soup and rotting potatoes which they were forced to pay half of their wages for in the factory restaurant. In 1916 Polovina married a Moscow metal worker—a big fellow with a ready laugh but a quiet tongue. He was very active among the workers, and patiently explained many things about the class struggle to his wife. However, it was not until after the March Revolution gf 1917 that ers learned he had bees ® a-anember ef the Bolshevik Party for many years. Before this if had been impo: le to tell ber. The strictest secrecy was necessary because of the spying and murderous terror carried on against the illegal party by the Czar's police, Anna Elected to the Soviet When the first elections for the Soviets (Coun- cils) of Workers and Soldiers’ Deputies tock place Polovina was chosen to her factory in.the Moscow council. Kerensky and then Mensheviks were still in p A fierce struggle was being waged between the Mensheviks who wanted the cld order of things to remain unchanged and the Bolsheviks, who demanded that all power be transferred into the hands of the working-class. Polovina although not a party member, was very active, She explained to her 450 shopmates, “You sent me there to take care of your in- terests. But that is impossible, so long as the Mensheviks run things. Look, they have prom- ised us everything, but what they have done? The evil war goes on, our men suffer and die in the trenches. Here in the fattories, our condi- tions, our masters remain the same. Where are the nurseries we were promised for our chil- dren? What about the increase we were prom- ised in our wages? Where is the chance to go to school?” When Polovina, with her husband's help, started classes at the plant the boss stopped her. “This is no university!” he told her. Even in the street-cars the struggle waged be- tween members of the owning classes and the working population Argumenis and fist fights broke out when the masses muttered against the rising prices and were told by indignant bour- geois ladies and gentlemen, “What! Our country at war and you can think of your wages!” When the decisive vote came, Polovina was able to muster her factory solidly behind the Bolsheviks, who had won similar victories throughout the country. The workers were rest- Jess, ready to go to the barricades this time under the Bolshevik slogans of “Peace, Liberty, Land, Bread.” During the November deys of fighting andthe years of Civil War that followed Polovina was busy in the Sanitary Brigades. These volunteer troops carried stretchers and took care of the wounded. Her husband, of course, was fighting in the workers’ Red Army. As soon as the working class, led by the Bolshevik Communist Party had taken power, things began to change right away. Schools and universities were opened to the toiling masses who were famished for knowledge. Polovina, who all her life had wanted to get more learning, now had her chance. ‘There many more changes. Many laws for the protection and advancement of labor were pasod and nursevies for working mothers’ children were opened. Women who used to give birth to thoir children by their machines, now received two months’ vacation with pay before and two months after childbirth. Also they were taught how to raise their children. ‘The first years were years of great difficulties, of civil war and famine; yet Polovina never fal- 7 berg, For, at laph ‘aba’ ea olonely + new, ahead. Breaking wish the priesis, who were aiding the enemy, she joined the Communist Party in 1919, and was sent on important work to Turkestan and other places. Always, after working hours, she was studying, studying. Her husband was selected by his shopmates to do responsible work. Because of his ability and devotion to the tasks given him he was soon promoted, until now he is chief of an important branch of the People’s Commissariat of Trans- F and Communication, with several metal pla under his direction. Frem Backward Working Woman to Red Director In 1928 Polovina came to the Moscow Elec- torzavod to work. Electricity drew her, she must master this wizard which Comrade Lenin had pointed out would re-make the face of old Rus- sia of backward villages into a modern land of science and socialism. In the machine depart- ment where she worked she was chosen for work on the factory committee. Later she was put in charge of the Woman's Department ef the entire plant. In the last few montis she has been freed from all other work in erder to act as an instructor of the factory's party com- mittee. It is her responsibility to see that the Communist line of socialist construction and workers’ welfare is carried out. “In the evenings Polovina is continuing her study. Now she has been chosen to become a Red Director and is taking the year and a half preparatory course. At the end of that time she will be placed in charge of some electrical works. Later in the course she will be leased from all other work and pursue her studies in the daytime. Of course she will receive regular wages, All of her fellow students are former workers like herself, training future directors of Soviet factories. In this way Russia is develop- ing her new corps of specialists, directors and leaders. “So you see, “Polovina Ivanova ends her story saying ‘this is what our revolution has done for us. I can truly say it has made a person out of me. I slaved day and night to no purpose and paid the priest to tell me lies, painted my checks and | wore cheap earrings, imitating the rich ladies. I was es ignorant and unhappy as a person could ko. The Revolution has made me over. It has educated me to think for myself. Now I know what I do and why I do it. I have no worries ebout being turned out of my room or getting my meals; for we have built a society where all who work are sure of a good living. “I am happy, as | never was before. My hus- band and Ihave much in common—our work and the Party, which has been the center of our life for many years. We know that in spite of all obstacles and hardships we have’ already laid the broad foundations cf socialism in our country. We know that our labors and our strugles here point the way for the toiling masses of the entire The Farce of “Responsibilities” (From the “Mundo Obrero”, Madrid, Spain, November 20, 1931.) Yesterday the counter-revolutionary Cortes (parliament) approved the decision of the “Com- mission of Responsibilities” condemning Alfonso the Bloody, for the crime of high treason, to the loss of all his rights. The formula contained in the sentence ap- proved by the Chamber would be picturesque if it did ot constitute @ scandal, a bloody jest for the families of the victims of his grim reign, and for the toiling masses that expected from the republicans and social-fascists a little of justice, But meanwhile the government liberates the Berenguer brothers; meanwhile it protects the reactionaries and persecutes the workers severe- ly; meanwhile it trusts the “defense of the re- public” to Sanjuro, that general who with Primo de Rivera made the coup d'etat of 1923, the Cor- tes carries out the comedy of condemning the idiotic and bloody Alfonso, when he finds himself in foreign parts enjoying the wealth robbed from the Spanjsh people, wealth that the provisional government permitted him to take away when it facilitated his flight. 1 The decision of the oqunter-revokutdonary Gor veh Amira oat simemcélin xiv catenin é In the old days I was a fool, a real fool. * A Hunger - and -War Olympics By EDWIN ROLFE millions of workers throughout oie country continue trying to exist on sterva- tion rations, while thousands upon thousands are absolutely destitute, while Hoover continues t@ stall off all demands for unemployment relief, —the Olympic Games .Committee finds it some- paratively easy and luxurious sailing to prepare its gigantic program of sports events. The latest news from the Olympics front informs us that 1. The dedication of’ the winter sports arena at Lake Placid, built at a cost of $220,000, has been set for January 16; 2. A group of New York business mee, tneimd- | ing Gustavus I. Kirby, Dr, Godrey Dewey ana Senator Warren T. Thayer, will officiate and ée- liver the opening speeches; 3, Representatives of three of the most ge actionary and fascist governments in the wortd —Japan, Rumania, and Italy,—will be presesst at the dedication. These facts have a twofold meaning. They im- dicate both the attitude of the American boss class toward its own jobless owrkera, and the bond which exists between the United States and other “great” boss powers in their hatred of the Soviet Union. The sum of $220,000, a mere drop in the busiest compared with what nas been, (and is yet to be spent in preparing for the track and field events next summer) is sufficient—and repeated—proot that our ruling class cares not an iota about the sufferings of American workers and poor fagm- ers. Bankers and big tradesmen will contritute millions, personally, to an Olympic Games fund, , While for even their own fake “relief” collections they force their underpaid workers to give up substantial slice of their meegre wages. These same bankers and bosses use all the influence in their power to finance and boost these “games’’—which, as has been pointed out, present a united war front of world-wide reaction and fascism agaist the Soviet Union. Japan, Ru- mania, Haly—the first of these has already, through its advance in Manchuria, begun its preliminary military operations against the So- viet Union, while the other two are cspccially notorious for their persecution of class-cons¢ious workers, The other nations to be represented are Austria, Beigium, Canada, Finland, France, Ger- many, Great Britain, Hungary, Noray and Po- Innd, This international lineup (which of course includes United States in the front rank) could not be more perfect in showing the war line-up against the Soviet Union. If additional proof were needed, one could cite the fact that not one colonial land, not a singie national dominated economically by a stronger, imperialist power, will be represented at these games. In answer to those who may claim that, because colonial countries are for the greater part situated in tropical climates, they would na- turally have tio representatives at a winter sports meet, our answer is: Look through the list of track and field entries since 1896, when the Olympic Games were initiated. Besides one or two Rhodes scholars from South Africa and other British possessions in the South Pacific, and besides a few sons of American concession- aires and business men in South and Central America, the colonies have not been permitted to Participate 1 these “amateur” sports events. Ex- ¢ept for one or two individuals, so outstanding in their athletic prowess that they could not very well have been overlooked, few natives of colo- nial lands have competed at Olympic Games. To the International Workers Mect. Tt is because the class-conscious working class throughout the world realizes the above men- tioned facts it has created its own sports organ izations. Workers can utilize sports as a weapon to counteract the threat implicit in international bosses’ sports. We, as workers, must organize our own broad spcris movement, in opposition to boss controlled athletics. All the efforts of American worker sportsmen will, for the next six months, : be directed toward the complete exposure of the class nature of the Olympic Games, and toward the successful preparation of the International Workers Athletic Meet. In the first case, the ex- posure will be side by side with the conflicts which exist within the structure of capitalist- controlled sports (just as it exists in other capi- talist institutions and in the system itself); the continual rifts in collegiate and international sports concerning “professionalism” are substan- tial proof of these conflicts. In the second objec- tive, the International Workers’ Athletic Meet, we must count on the mass support of all work- ing class organizations in the United States. The National Provisional Counter-Olympic Commit- tee, of which Tom Mooney is chairman, will be the united front of all these American workers’ organizations against the reactionary hunger- and-war front that will be on display at the Los Angeles Olympics. tes against the miserable Alfonso, without de- manding responsibility from those who organized his escape; the pretense of confiscating his prop- erties without putting on trial those who per- mitted his departure with the fruits of his rob- bery of the Spanish, in order that he Hve hand- somely abroad and conspire against the republic, is a downright farce, an affront to the exploited mass¢’, The social fascists and republicans that lead the Cortes must be proud of the result. First, they prepare the escape of the crowned bandit,~ they let him carry with him the product of his rapine, and afterward they mechanically con- demn him. And while they do this, while they condemn him who finds himself safely in another country, his accomplices, the generals that were his right hand, they turn free on whatever pretext or even give honors and trust to them the defense of the republic, As for us, we expected no less from the re- actionary Cortes that let pass in silence the murders of the Maria Louisa Park and the Po- ‘ce Prefecture of Barcelona; from that Cortes that did not protest the action of the Civil Guard in conflicts with the workers, that permitted the Persecution of the Andalusian and Castillian peasants as if they were beasts, that approves and applauds the reactionary policy of the gov- ernment which is leaving a trail of blood and pain throughout all Spain. Cortes that voted the repressive exceptional law of “defense of the republic”, a law that permits the government to organize the counter-revolu- tion, persecuting the revolutionary movement of workers and peasants and favoring the mon- archists, as previously they prepared the escape of the king in order now to play the comedy of “responsibility”,