The Daily Worker Newspaper, February 29, 1932, Page 4

@& Padlished Br tes Compredady Publishing New York City. N. ¥. ® Address and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 00 Wast J9te Street, New York, N. T. 13th &t., vage Four g Telephone Algonquin 4-795¢. Cable fee, Gatty encept Sungpy, at $0 Hast ATWORK.” of Manhattan and Bronx, SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, 31; excepting Borough® New York City. Foreign: one year, $3; six months, 34.50. THE PRESIDENTIAL ELEC, By HERMANN REMMELE » four week ye there was only one certain candi andidate of the German working class, the representative of the Communist Party, Com- rade Thaelmann. Complete confusion still reign camp of the German bo! Fo! ks the bourgeois press has been pronounc Ss whether id-Marshal Hindenbu ld or would not agree to stand as car date again, until he has now in @ solemn de- ation, pronounced his readiness to make th (the ther the Kyffhauser Bund ary associations), and the Stahl ssit, defense organization) will support th President Hindenburg or not, whether the urger front under the le: nd Hitler will pui forward t) and for weeks the ¢ e spectacle of the np of the bourgeoisie being unable to an agreement. ora hows more clearly the development s society in Germany from democracy m than the appro: ing Presidential Six years ago Fritz Ebert left Ger freest democracy in the world” ibed by the whole of the II + that time the various be came forward with clearly demarcated At the first ballot at that time the hist-nationalist front put forward as their the German nationalist Jarres, the ic Centre put forward Marx and the n Left put forward the social democrat n. At the second ballot the mona: wing gave their support to Hindenburg, Ist. the social democracy withdrew their can- didate spite of the fact that he polled four t more votes than the candidate of the Centre—and voted for Marx. At the second ballot Hindenburg was elected President of the Repub- lic as representative of the monarchist nation- alist wing as against the bourgeois Centre and st the workers’ candidate Thaelmann. ‘The same Hindenburg who six years ago was the representative of the extreme monarchist nalist wing gathered around Hugenberg, and Seldte, is today the chosen candidate ness of bourgeoi ty itself: the coming to- gether of the “host fronts in the bourgeois camp in a united bloc for the fight against the common enemy—Bolshevism Bruening’s ap) to the various parties to proclaim Hindenburg Reic President without fresh el ns was at once accepted by the so- cial democrats, whilst on the other hand the actual Hindenburg wing refused to agree to this procedure unless at the same time the Centre Reich’s government was replaced by a2 govern~ ment of the pronounced Right, a “national” gov- ernment. As a result of this demand the com- mon national united front from Hitler to Wels collapsed. ‘Thus against the will of the monar- chist wing Hitler’s candidature became neces- ary. But only as a sham candidate. Fdr the arrangers of Hitler's candidature have already de it plain that their candidate will only be ard at the first ballot, whilst in return rther concessions to their original demands are ready, at the second ballot, to set up ted front from Hitler to Wels. ‘The cooperaion of the extreme fascist wing around Hitler and Hugenberg with the Bruen- ing-Severing wing is so palpable obvious to the whole world that there is nothing to conceal. In Germany no political questions are decided by the Bruening-Groener government or by the Prussian Braun-Severing government without the nationalist wing of Hugenberg and Hitler being “consulted” or having a decisive say in the matter. In this connection the Reichwehr group of Groener and Schleicher play the role of co-adjutors of the extreme nationalist ten- dency. It is from this political constellation that there arises the demand by the Hugenberg- Hitler wing that Groener shall be given the of- fice of Reich’s Chancellor and that several Min- istries shall be given to representatives of the extreme nationalist wing. Meanwhile all the big towns and industrial for they the u IN GERMANY en are being covered by a close network of barracks of the fascist storm detachments. The 1urder of fascism are continually or- ve expeditions against working where under the protection and colw ganizing puniti 5 quart and attacks upon the revolutionary prole- In this atmosphere of murder there is as is to be expected, a growing protesé and will to resistance on the part of millions of workers also of those who hitherto have been in the np of the social democracy and of the Reichs- 2 In this atmosphere of active revolu- tionary struggle of the workers against fascism, the soclal fascists set up the so-called “Iron ‘ront against fascism.” with which they are at- tempting, by claiming to fight against fascism, to prevent the workers from going over to the revolutionary camp, This “iron front” is at the same time to be a means with which the s- cial fascists instend to carry out the Hinden- burg election and also the Prussian elections | which are due to take place in May. | In actual fact, however, collaboration in the | fascist united front of Hitler with Groener, and Groener with Severing, Hugenberg with Bruen- ing and Bruening with Otto Braun, finds beiow, | in the fight against the working class its re- flections in the attitude of the police troops, Jead by social democrats, towards the armed storm detachments of the Hitler fascists. For example, after the fascist bands with the sup- port of the police broke up and prevented a number of Communist meetings in Berlin, the social democratic police President Grzesinsky threatened to prohibit all Communist meetings in the future. Here there is clearly shown how fascist united front of the national fascists with the social fascists wishes to destroy the last political rights of the working class. | In sple of the cowardly and treacherous at- tacks of the Nazi bands on the working class, in spite of the social fascist police terror and in spite of the savage sentences passed by cap- italist class justice with the open approval of | the social fascists against workers who have de- | fended themselves against fascist murderers, fas- cism in Germany is encountering the steadily growing and firmly organized resistance of the German proletariat. Throughout the whole of | Germany the red united front is being welded ever more firmly, and red unity committees, led by Communists, are being formed against the offensive of the fascist hirelings in the service of finance capital. In the gathering of the broad proletarian masses in the revolutionary united front in the fight against the Bruening-Severing dictatorship, in the fight against Hitler fascism, in the fight against all enemies and betrayers of the Ger- man proletariat, the million masses of the Ger- man working class are rallying to give their yotes to the representative of the Communist Party, Comrade Thaelmann. The deceitful manouvres of the social fascists whose “iron front” already a few days after its birth proved to be an sickly abortion, are proving of no avail, in the face of the growing power of the revolu- tionary united front against fascism. At thou- sands of membership meetings of the social democratic party indignant protests by social democratic workers are being raised against the support of Hindenburg’s candidature by the par- | ty leaders. In workshops and factories, at the Labor Exchanges and even at hundreds of meetings convened by the social democratic par- ty, the workers adopt decisions and proclaim in resolutions that they will never accept Field Marshal Hindenburg, the peacemaker of fascism as their candidate, but recognize Comrade Thael- mann as their candidate. Thus the candidate of the Communist Party is becoming the real rallying centre of the intensified fight of class against class. | _ In no political campaign or action in the past has the clear open class character of the fight been so plainly revealed as at the present Pre- sidential election. Never was the alliance of all political tendencies of fascism so clearly evident in Germany, The outstanding characteristic feature of the present election campaign is that the class differences, the lass antagonisms are more apparent and more marked than was the case in any political struggle in the past. The Presidential election thereby becomes for the revolutionary proletariat of Germany the start- ing point for rallying all the revolutionary for- ces under the leadership of the Communist Party, for the victory of the working class against the fascist united front. “Chinese Masses Turn to Com- munism As the Way Out” By CYBIL BRIGGS, OMMUNISM is sweeping China, is the ad- mission made by Rev. Richard Ranaghan in an interview with the Hartford Daily Courant Ranaghan,a missionary agent of United Statcs imperialism, has just returned from China. He is field secretary of the Society of St. Columban and a Catholic missionary who spent four years in Hupeh Province where tthe Chinese Red Army is now drawing an ever tightening net around the tmportent industrial and strategic -~ Central China city of Hankow. Ranaghan not only admits that Communism is sweeping China, but he is forced to admit thet the leftward trend of the Chinese masses is based on their actual experience that where the Communist movement has triumphed in China it has freed the Chinese masses from the terrible oppression and starvation which had been their lot under the rule of the imperialists and thelr Kuomintang tools. He says: “Communism, because it is giving the Chin- ese masses better living conditions than any of their governments, isspreading like wild- fire in China.” He speaks of the constant wars between ihe Chinese militarists “over the division of the spoils” and the disgust of the masses with the militarists, whom, he, of course, neglects to ex- plain are tools, like himself of the foreign im- perlalists. He then reviews the growth of Com- munism in China, stating; “In a litte while Communism was rooted People could buy food for one-third of what it, cost them when bought from their war lord governors, The masses were allowed to govern themselves.” Calls for War Against Chinese Soviets, ‘These admissions of the tremendous imprové- ment of the conditions of the toiling masses in the Chinese Soviet districts are followed by ad wie Father” Ranaghan with a call to the impérial- ; ists to crush the Soviet districts. Communism, while admittedly improving the conditions of the masses is also destroying thte influence of the priestly peddlars of religious opium. This ts a necessary tep toward improving the conditions of the masses. So “Father” Ranaghan finds: “In fact, tf 1 were not for the militant atheism of the Communists, if the Chureh were not opposed to it, I would say that Com- ummism has been a fine thing for the Chinese in the interior.” Moreover, the triumph of thte working class in China, @ seml-colonial country, will assuredly give inspiration to the oppressed toiling masses in India, Africa, and the Phillipines And “Father” Ranaghan sees these masses rising to throw off the yoke of imperialism and its mis- slonary agents. So “Father” Ranaghan calle upon the imperialists, in the name of god, to rush gunboats and troops to murder the revo- lutionary Chinese masses who have improved their conditions under their Soviet government, He says: “One thing is probable, though, unless the nations act quickly China will be Communistic throughout, and (ben India, Australia, Africa, the Philippines will follow.” Workers, the Soviets Show the Way Ont ef Capitalist Misery. tn Soviet China, es in the Soviet Union, the living conditions of the toiling masses are being tremendously improved. And this is happening precisely at the time when tens of millions of workers in the capitalist and in the colonies have been sentenced to starvation by capitalism. Both Soviet China and the Soviet Union point for the toiling masses of the world the way out of the crisis of dying capitalism with ite starva- tion and misery for the masses. Workers! Defend the Soviet Union! Defend On the Second 5-Year Plan By V. MOLOTOV. Part 3 Let us take the question of capital investments in indusry, which, as you all realize, is of tre- mendous importance in the carrying out of the Policy of industrialization. In their counter- thesis to the thesis of our C. C. on the Fiye- Year Plan, the Trotzkyists wrote the following: “Do they (the thesis) furnish an independent Plan for the solution of the main question in regard to capital investments in industry? No. And they thereby help to bring about that, in practice, the anti-proletarian tendencies tri- umph more and more in the main question of the relations between the socialist and capi- talist elements in our economy.” It followed from the Trotzkyist platform that the thesis of the Party on the Five-Year Plan led to “the triumph of the anti-proletarian ten- dencies”! Does it not sound ridiculous when one reads this now, four years afterwards? What was said by the Rights regarding the tempo of capital investmenis in industry? They said, true in a somewhat confused form, but nevertheless with a clearly outspoken political tendency, something to the following effect: “One must not view the matter as if invest- ments in industry would increase the whole.. time in geometrical progression until the com- ing of Communist society. A descent in the curve of investments is also conceivable.” Tm a word, the Rights slipped down a curve. Gaaughter.) Let us now take that which relates to the village. What did the counter-thesis of the Trot- kyist opposition say on the policy of ihe Party in the village? It said the following: “The thesis of the C. C. quite wrongly lump together capitalism in the town and capitalism in the village when they maintain that agra- rian capital develops only absolutely. In actual fact capitalism in the village is growing rela- tively as well as absolutely; it is growing with great rapidity and increases every day the de- pendence of the Soviet State and its industry upon the sources of raw material and exports in the hands of the well-to-do kulaks in the It further stated “There is taking place a rapid growth of the capitalist elements in agriculture on the basis of small-commodity production. Hence, there is an increase in the dependence of the State economy on the kulak-capitalist elements in the sphere of raw materials, export and stocks of food.” (Emphasis in the original.) It is not necessary now to occupy ourselves with a thorough analysis of these Trotzkyist declarations. Ask our kulaks now, after three years of the Five-Year Plan, whether we are greatly dependent upon them, or whether they are more dependent upon the Soviet power! (Laughter.) On the other flank, the Rights, it was re- peated day after day that “the most important source of grain will sill for a very long time yet be the individual farms of the peasants, and that therefore one must be more cautious in Proceeding to the attack on the kulaks. As is known, the individual peasants did not agree with the Right deviations, and already in the year 1939 streamed tn masses into the collective Soviet China! Demand the withdrawal of all imperialist troops and warships from China Prevent the shipment of further troops and mu- nitions! Organize United Front anti-war com- mittees in all your shops, unions and organiza- tions! Defend your class interests, your class vic- tories in the Soviet Uniop and S@vlet Chinai Bs farms. We all know quite well how this took place and therefore it isnot necessary for me to say more on this point. But the chief matter finally consists in what the “Left” and the Right opposition said re- garding the perspectives of the proletarian revo- lution as a whole, Let us call this to mind! In the counter-thesis of the Trotzkyists there was elaborated the cowardly petty idea of the “beginning of a ‘double power’, which threatens the dictatorship of the proletariat.” (Emphasized in the original.) It will be remembered that the Trotzkyists charged our Party with developing in the direc- tion of “‘Thermidor”, that is, the downfall of the Revolution. How true this prophecy was may be seen from the facts relating to the fulfilment of the first Five-Year Plan and the tasks which we have outlined for the second. Bocas = ae At the same time, from the other, from the Right flank, we could hear whining voices say- ing “the trguble is that everything we build, all these factories and works, may soon fall into the hands of the whites.” Perhaps some silly“whites hoped something of this sort, but the greater their hopes the greater has been their disillu- sionment. According to its nature this was @ repetition of the Trotzkyist Thermidor, only in another form. As is known, the Rights did’ not even shrink from accusing the Party of “feudal- military exploitation of the peasantry”, there- by repeating the slanders of Miljukov’s foYlowers against the Leninist Party. The above-quoted extracts from documents and speeches of Trotzkyists and Rights indicate the most characteristic elements of their po- litical platforms, The fiasco of these platforms is so obvious that we now answer the declara- tions they made then simply with a smile, but at that time the Party had to conduct the most stubborn fight against the opportunists of the | Left and Right variety. (TO BE CONTINUED) Capitalists’ Profits (By Labor Research Association.) MOUNTS paid by corporations to individual capitalists have in 1931 begun to decline. But the losses of corporations and decline in income .of individual capitalists have been greatly exaggerated by capitalist writers. ‘These losses will increase as the crisis further deepens. But the capitalists will continue to pass on to the workers the heaviest share of the losses. In 1930, for example, corporation pay- ments to the capitalist class as a whole were continued at the 1929 rate, while the income ot the working class declined at least $8,000,000,000. No figures are yet available for a similar broad comparison in. 1931, Background. No true analysis of the present situation as to profits is possible without understanding of pre- crisis expansion, From 192 to 1926, inclusive, American cor- porations paid bond interest totaling $26,353,- 000,000 and cash dividends totaling $36,500,000,000. The yearly payments had nearly doubled: 1922 1928 Interest . $3,069,000,000 $4,581,000,000 Dividends 000,000 . 7,074,000,000 Both . $6,506,000,000 $11,655,000,000 Payments were even larger in 1929, but total figures are not yet available. About three- fourths of the dividends and considerably more than three-fourths of the interest went into the pockets of individual capitalists, the remainder being paid by one corporation to another, (Cap- italists have other sources of income which are not included in this memo—-rent and interest on real estate, mortgages, stock speculation, finan- cial partnetships, etc.) Corporations retained in their treasuries a sur- plus for the year (after payment of interest, dividends, and taxes) amounting to about $1,929,- Daily Worker Fund Growing Suspension danger advances by leaps and bounds. Rush every possible penny to aave the Daily Worker, _* too slowh During the Crisis 000,000 for the year 1928, Each year corporations try to increase their surplus, and the total ac- cumulated surplus reported at the end of 1928 was over $47,.56,000,000. ‘The capital invested in American corporations had been tremendously increased between the 1921 depression and the crash at th eend of 1929, New American issues of bonds and notes, pre- ferred stocks, and common stocks from 1922 to 1929 inclusive had totaled over $33,249,000,000, (This figure does not include securities sold to raise Capital to pay off older bond issues.) An- other $7,300,000,000 had been capitalized from the profits of corporations as “stock dividends” from 1922 to 1928. Big Companies Paid Dividends Through 1930. A group of the larger corporations (represent- ing roughly two-thirds of the total corporation capital) paid interest and dividends that totaled 8.3 per cent larger in 1930 than in 1929. For most companies profits had begun to decline in 1930, but the smaller profits of 1930 were still large enough to cover part at least of the former divi- dend rate and the balance was drawn from un- divided profits brought over from earlier years. A few companies had higher profits in 1930 than in 1929. These were chiefly among electric utilities, tobacco manufactures, and chain gro- ceries, Profits in 1931, Profits (after payment of interest, taxes, etc., but before payment of dividends) for a group of 923 corporations, during the first six months of 1931 had fallen to only $1,030,000,000 (total) as against $1,626,000,000 in 1930. (The comparison unfortunately does not go back to 1929.) 'The rail- roads were hardest hit. The 126 industrial com- panies in the group were on the whole un- changed; some had gained, others lost slightly. Electric utilities had either gained or held their own. The textile companies included had, on the whole gained. . Dividends in 1931, ‘The New York Times reported (September 20, 1931) that of 5,000.companies 50 per cent had continued their dividend payments without re- duction; 20 per cent were paying smaller divi- dends; 30 per cent had omitted payments en- tirely Another tabulation covering 8,086 companies (New York 'Times, July 1, 1931) showed that 375 extra dividends had been declared in the first six months of 1931, and 78 regular dividend rates had been increased. ‘The same tabulation showed 810 dividends omitted and.521 dividends reduced. .. By YoreR False Pretenses | We're late in mentioning it, but as the ims | in question are likely to be going the rounda’ of exhibitors, we wish to dig up the warning! given by the Workers Film and Photo League! late in January, against the so-called “Russian” films called “Troika” and “Ochi Chorni.” The last one means “Black eyes” and we want to give them both .black eyes. This “Troika” film was* advertised im the’ Daily Worker, until we stopped it, as a “Ruse sian film,” and the product of the “Hise studios! in Moscow,” a studio that don't exist. ‘The onty! thing Russian about either of these films is} the actress, Olga ‘Tchehova, who is the White} Guard emigre wife of the actor ‘Tehehott-; Tchehoff. But the male star in “Trofka” is a German, says the Workers Film and Phote League. Quite properly the League warns the Defly| Worker against letting such things get inte ts | advertising columns, “Troika” being nothing, more than propaganda of a “romantic” sort for{ the rule of the Czars. \ This is not the first time that our Business Office has been a little teo business-like and) not enough Communist-conscious, so maybe the comrades there will take a hint that—when in! doubt, consult the editorial department. Or the Workers’ Film and Photo League, which knows all about such things The First 100 Years Are Hardest Some time ago we said something about the Hearst Press Nucleus here in New York. If the nucleus got the swell head over that, we are sorry, because what we said was in support of Lenin, not excatly of the nucleus. There is quite a difference. But anyhow, we learned the other day of the way one of the nucleus thinks he is “making progress” among his fellow workers. He had worked six years by another Hearst worker, when one day h2 saw the other chap with the “New Masses” in his pocket. “So you vead that paper?” he asked. “Oh, sure,” replied the non-party worker, “I've got all Lenin’s books at home, too! Want to come up and see ’em?” The comrade of the Organization Department | Who told us this, says he asked this comrade: “Did you speak to him about joining the Party, or tell him anything on that line to indicate that you might put him in touch with the Party?” , “Well, no,” replied the comrade who had made the great discovery. “I didn’t let on that I was a Communist. But I’m keeping my eye on him.” According to this rate of “shop activity,” both these workers will be doddering old greybeards before the Party member gets as far as asking the reader of the New Masses and the owner of Lenin's books whether he ever heard any- thing about the advisability of revolutionary workers becoming members of the Communist Party. Faith in the masses, comrades! . s tng You Needn’t Be Skeered! Naughty wind, to come along and tear up the Akron just as a Congressional committee was trying to find out if all the millions of dollars Spent on it were wasted! And, also, the idea that was behind the “attack on Hawaii by the Blue Fleet,” which was to “prove” the superior- ity of battleships with landing forces—and boost | the naval appropriations some more, was sort of wrinkled up by the way the Chinese were Jamming hell out of the Japanese at Shanghai! All of which might be used to draw a lesson not to be skeered of the mechanical might of imperialist and capitalist Tepression. This not saying it is not powerful, for it is, To te. nore that and not to take account of it would be worse than foolish, But workers should not get the idea that po- lice and soldiers all covered with gold braid and equipped with all the machinery of death and destruction are superhuman, nor form the con- clusion common to all cowardly opportunists that “there ain’t no use trying to buck the govern- ment.” All the war correspondents are remarking on the way the Chinese at Shanghai, fired by re- volutionary daring in spite of their miserable generals, are upsetting the traditional Notions of warfare. It seems that they’ve forgotten that, according to all the rules, the imperialist in- vaders of Soviet Russia from 1918 to 1922, were far superior to the starving Red Army=but the Red Army licked them and drove them out. Don't be skeered of capitalist “might.” It might not be so mighty as it seems. . * What’s “Important”? ‘The unspeakable vileness of the capitalist Press is something that should be dinned into the ears of all workers until all fully understand that the dictatorship of the Proletariat—which will put the kibosh on all the bosh that press peddles to sidetrack the minds of the masses from things really important to them—will bea tremendous step in enlightenment. The Hearst sheets, dozens of them, in every Sunday edition now, are printing the garbage written (supposedly) by some high class pros- titute of Paris, Mme, Debrigge, or somebody like that, giving in broad detail just how she sold herself to one after another of the Counts and no accounts of the French parasites. \ But our eye was attracted to the half-columa of rubbish sent over the “conservative” Asgocia- ted Press from Vienna, under the date of \Febru- ary 15, telling of the death of an old servant of the Hapsburg royal family of the overthrown Austro-Hungarian monarchy. ‘The enlightening: paragraph we quote: “Johann Loschek, 87, former valet to the Crown Prince, died Saturday. He resisted to | the last the temptation to tell American joure nalists for allegedly enormous sums, what hap- | pened in the Archduke’s hunting box on that cold, foggy January 29, 1889.” You see, the American press, by far more putrid than any of Europe, was willing to pay big money to find out whether Archduke Rud- olph and his sweetie, Baroness Marie, both af a line of royal lice now overthrown, had coms mitted suicide or been otherwise killed—a that is triply unimportant since they are and for forty odd years, and their fate doesn’t mean one darned thing to the 12,000,000 unem- ployed of America, Yet the American capitalist press is eager to pay big money to get such “facts” in order to befuddle the minds of the American masses, to keep them from thinking about wage cuts, their need for unemployment insurance, and the revo- lutionary way out of capitalism, starvation and wart Speed the day when, workers’ rule will ¢ “e