The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 7, 1932, Page 4

& Seviiohed By the Gomprodaily Publishing Ca, Oud, Gnlly Gusept Gundey, ot 0) Bast rk City. 1 all checks to the Daily Worker, 60 East 13th Street, New York, N. Y. w VPage Four 38th St. Address and THE N. ¥. Telephone ALgonquin 4-7956. Cable “DAIWORK.* By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, § e@ Manhattan and Bronx, New York City. SUBSCRIPTION RATE two months, §1; excepting Bororghe Foreign: one year, $8; siz months, $4.50. = “REVOLUTIONARY MASS STRIKE OF THE POLISH PROLETARIAT By W. STASSJAK 1s 2 new important s e revolutionary 1m tep forward on the w ~ camp utionary f 40,000 eady lasted a m lovicz s, etc ewise made ready for ecisely at this moment, the of the bourgeoisie, the P.P. forward with a new manoeuvre. The imed for the 16th of March a one strike against the new law: government aiming at liquidating the t of the social achievements. at was the aim which the soc’ eaders set out to achieve by mea anoeuvre? The central organ e “Robotnik,” in its issue 2 plain answer to this question “Contrary to all rumors which called forth so much concern and excitement among our authorities, we declare that our strike was only to express the feeling of solidarity of the working class, that it was to be only a pédce- ful demonstration.” The P.P.S. has already repeatedly employed this method of the “one-day protest strike.” s the case, for example, with the one- rotest strike of the municipal workers prc med by the P.P.S. on March 1 last. This e was to give vent to the accumulated dis- content and revolutionary energy, and thereb, prevent the inevitably longer strike of the mu nicipal workers in the whole of Poland. ‘The proclamation of the general strike ot March 16 by the P.P.S. had also this time a similar aim. It was a clear expression of tt feverish preparations to fulfil the historical role of the social democracy as chief saviour of cap- talism from the threatening revolution. The Communist Party of Poland immediately saw through this manoeuvre and called upon the masses to frustrate it. The counter-revolutionary and preventive character of the manoeuvre of the P.P.S. was learly exposed already during the preparatory campaign for 16th of March. The P.P.S. en- deavoured in every way to keep back from the strike every important category ef workers, in order in this way to break the back of the gen- eral strike. The P.P.S. bureaucrat Podnesinski declared to the Warsaw tramwaymen that the P.P.S. would agree to the tramway workers participating in the strike only if the workers themselves prod- uced 800 signatures in favor of it. At factory meeting in the “Parovos” factory the delega- tion of the P-P.S. brought forward a resolution against taking part in the strike. At the meet- ing of the workers of the State tobacco factory in Warsaw, the cretary of the Central Com- ion of the social fascist trade unions, Sda- ki, proposed that passive resistance should be practiced. He thereby wished to keep back the workers from street demonstrations. But his Proposal was unanimously rejected and con- demned. In Upper Silesia, in nearly all the big pits and foundries, the traitors in the P.P.S. likewise op- workers would follow the slogan of the Com- munist Party calling for the continuation of the posed the strike resolution out of fear that the strike of the metal workers and the miners in the coal basin until victory is achieved. We have not yet any complete reports on the events of 16th ef March in the whole of Poland. But the reports on hand and the information published by the bourgeois press justify us in saying that in a number of centres the plans of the P-P.S. were frustrated and that there, under our leadership and partly under the elementary pressure of the magses, the strike assumed a revolutionary character. In Warsaw, apart from the State arms fac- tory, the stronghold of the P.P.S., the Paravoso and some other works which did not take part in the strike, nearly the whole of the metal in- dustry (29 factories, including one munition fac- | killed and many were arrested by the police. | i | \ th the Lilpop and Norblin fac- id, where the leading role of the Party was clearly evident. in the Norblin and Lilpop works was the nent sharply directed against the PPS reply to the decision of the P.P.S. in the P: 30 factory not to take part in the strike, the workers in the two above-mentioned Ss on their part adopted a decision to pro- ceed to the gates of the Paravos factory and not low. the workers to enter. On the morning ch 16, 400 workers from Lilpop and 200 blin, in spite of the fact that the lead- workers among the staff were arrested, did ually march to the Paravos factory but were fore dispersed by the police. In > of the treacherous attitude of the P. workers of the railway workshops in tk East Warsaw and also in Lemberg, Novij, Cont- PS., he, Re Radomsk and other towns joined n the strike. Although the Communist Party did not succeed in drawing the municipal work- ers and the majority of the railway workers into the strike, the bourgeois press estimated the total number of workers who took part in the strike in Warsaw at 30 to 35 thousand. Stormy demonstrations and open air meetings took place throughout the whole day in Warsaw. Already early in the morning, about 3,000 workers gather- ed in the Theatre Square, and as they did not suceed in consequence of the concentration of police forces in holding a demonstration, they went to a neighboring square where a meeting | took place. A Communist speaker and a num- | ber of other participators in the demonstration spoke, and in the workers’ quarters demonstra- tions lasted the whole day. > In Upper Silesia, before the 16th of March, against the P.P.S. and.on the proposal of the Revolutionary Trade. Union. Opposition,. resolu- tions. were adopted and: strike pickets. organized in 9 pits, in order to secure the carrying out of the strike. In all, 13 pits and 3 smelting works took part in the strike. Here one can definitely say. that the strike was carried out thanks to activity of the Communists and their leader- hip. In the Dombrova coalfield, where the general rike of the miners ds still.going. on, the work- crs in all the big factories and the Jewish work- ers in the small undertakings went on strike. The strike embraced also the whole of the oil industry, about 60 per cent of the workers in Lodz and the neighborhood, in Bialystock, Cra- cow, Teschen (Silesia), Czenczochau, Vilna and many other towns, all transport workers in Gdynia and, what is particularly important, the workers in the munition factories in Staracho- | vitea, Ogtrovete and other towns. - | An important new feature of the. political ait- | uation which became apparent:on 16th of March was the participation of Polish social democratic workers in the street demonstrations of the Com- | munist Party, the elementary striving of the | masses, in spite of the terror of the government and the prohibition by the P.P.S., to go on the streets. Thus, for instances, in Warsaw, the workers circles of the P.P.S. of the Lilpop works | adopted a decision regarding participation in | the demonstration, whilst the Warsaw Confer- | ence of the P.P.S. youth on March 13, by a great | majority, pronounced against the treachery of the leaders of the P.P.S. ‘The social democratic workers of Cracow de- monstrated withthe Communists against the fascist government and drove the P.P.S. leaders off the speaker's platform. The united front was strengthened by the joint stubborn fight | against the police, during which one worker was | In Saybusch the demonstrating masses forced their way into the town hall. After a long and | fierce fight with the police, who were also aided by the military, three dead and many wounded lay on the ground. In @ number of localities the peasants from the neighboring villages also took an active part in the demonstrations. The leading role of the Communist Party of Poland in the strike in Warsaw, Upper Silesia and other districts, the street fights in Cracow, Zyviec, Lipiny, etc, as well as the fact that about 200,000 took part in the political strike, prove that the movement was raised to a higher stage of the revolutionary mass strike, that the revolutionary mass strike confronts the Polish proletariat and its Communist Party as an im~- mediate practical task as the most important instrument in the present stage for mobilizing the broadest masses of the people under the hegemony of the revolutionary proletariat for the fight against the fascist dictatorship, for drawing the masses into the armed insurrection, for decisive fights for political power. By ROBERT DUNN (Labor Research Association) on Dec, 6 and 7, 1931, a great National Hunger March of 1,670 delegates converged on Wash- ington. It not only carried enthusiasm with it, but its leaders carried « folder full of facts which they intended to present to Congress or to Hoover. The police were ordered to keep them out of both the capitol and the White House. ‘The facts the workers’ delegates had to pre- sent covered in careful detail the starvation of workers, the slops, flops and charity hand-outs, as well as the concentration of wealth in the hands o? the class that Hoover, Garner and the others serve. The undelivered speech of the unger March contsined data on the exploita-~ tion of workers, on Wage-cuts, on suicides, on increase of disease, on lay-offs, on war expendi- tures during as well as before the crisis, All this Yemained unsaid on Dec, 7, But later the National Committee of Unem- ployed Councils of the U. 8. were able to break into the hearings being held by the Committee on Manufactures of the U. S. Senate. Herbert Benjamin, the secretary, made a speech which scorched the congressmen in their comfortable seats. His broadside, directed at the parliamen- tarians, included most of this material that had been intended for use on Deo. 7. It was recoge nized as authoritative stuff and even the capl- talist press reports were forced to quote from it. This material was prepared tn collaboration with the Labor Research Association, end its has been checked ® number of times, In its final shape ss @ pamphlet called Poverty “Midst Riches—Why We Demand Unempioy- ment Insurance it gives on well-rounded pice ture of the Hoover Hunger years just passed, as well as the beginnings of the current year of “ee Unemployment Insurance? SE still more acute starvation and terror against the working class. Not only the facts about malnutrition of children are given, but also the most up-to-date material on bank failures, speed-up, capitalist profits, “relief” systems, un- employment among women, lynching of Negroes &nd increases in accidents during the crisis. ‘This illustrated pamphlet of 46 pages is permanent record of the great hunger march, ‘The message it carries to the smug congress- men and the millionaire cabinet is that capital- Sree SP, because it starves the working it is & good pamphlet to use in answering the block-asiders, the reformists and the pin-pricking Programs of the various misery, growing unrest and presidential elec- tions. It is ® pamphlet for the political eam- paign, 8 pamphlet indispensable in the cam- paign for social insurance and immediate relief for the unemployed. Tt sells for five cents, to organizations in bundle orders of 100 or more at 314 cents, and should be ordered from the National Committee of Unemployed Councils, 16 W. 21st St., Room 402, New York City. ‘The War Policies Commission reports that it @isappreves any constitutional amendment taking private property in war time without compensation. o.e e@ A new bill has recentiy been introduced in Congress authorizing an appropriation up to $15,000,000 to be spent for the construction and installation at military posts of necessary build- Cog end etitiee needed fe (iho cumming werk | cutting down relief. of the unemployed and part-time workers was | “There is JHE MY FORD RESOLUTION OF THE DETROIT DISTRICT COMMITTEE HE Daily Worker publishes the main sections of the Resolution of the Detroit Party Com- mittee on this important struggle of the auto workers; ‘The Hunger March on the Ford plant arose out of the terribly worsening conditions of the unemployed workers of Detroit and vicinity. Unemployment in the automobile industry has been rapidly incteasing in spite of the much- advertised “revival” following the automobile show and the spring models. Ford issues sen- sational “of employing 30,000 workers ahd spending $300,000,000 on wages and ma- terials, and ever since has been steadily laying off workers. Steady lay-offs in other auto shops was ac- companied by sharp wage-cuts. Those that re- mained working received one or two days a week. The Murphy administration, in co-opera+ tion with the Wall Street bankers, was steadily “The poverty and hunger reaching a breaking point. The program of, re- lief and work drawn up by the Unemployed Councils and the Auto Workers’ Union was re- jected by the Murphy administration of Detroit. ‘This Hunger March demonstrated the readi- ness of the unemployed and part-time workers to struggle for jobs and relief in spite of the sub-freezing weather and the great distances from their homes to the Ford plant. ‘The savage attack on the Hunger March with tear gas, police clubs, cold streams of water and finally with revolvers and machine guns manned by Ford’s private police, Dearborn police and the Detroit police unmasked the real policy of Henry Ford and the city administration of De- troit and Dearborn, the police of Hunger and Terror.” Out of the bloody massacre at Dearborn per- petrated by the armed thugs of Ford, Clyde Ford and Murphy, the heroic and militant defense of the hungry and desperate workers stands out as the shining example of the workers’ courage and determination to fight against great odds for their rights. ‘The gunfire at the Ford River Rouge plant mowed down the marching ranks of the unem- ployed workers and murdered in cold blood Joe York, the District Organizer of the Young Com- munist League; Joe Bussell, active member of the Young Communist League; Coleman Lenz, a member of the Unemployed Council, and Joe Deblassio, active member of the Communist Party.. But it also destroyed the masks of hypo- crisy and exposed the liberal pacifist phrases of Henry Ford, the “humanitarian,” and Mayor Murphy, the “liberal friend of the workers.” ’ The Ford Massacre has shown dramatically to hundreds of thousands, to millions of work~- ers, how’ the profit-greedy capitalist class pro- poses to answer the growing movement for re- ef, fobs and unemployment insurance and the methods the capitalist governments are prepar- ing to crush the rising resistance to wage-cuts, hunger and the hectic war preparations. ‘The Ford Massacre stands as a part and parcel of the national Hoover program of starvation and mass murder slready being put into effect in Kentucky, Scottsboro, Cleveland, Chicago end other parts of the country) This Massacre fs s foretaste of what the bosses hold in store for the working class, when war is declared on the Soviet Union. To the millions of workers all over the world the Ford myth of “class peace,” high wages and benevolent paternalism of Ford is expressed in the bloody Massacre of unem- ployed workers, The Ford Massacre has unloosed a mighty storm of angry protests on the part of she working class, This mighty protest movement was the grim answer of hundreds of thousands of workers that murderous terror and persecu- tion of the working class will not be tolerated, and that the struggle for the demands of the Hunger March shall go on to victory. Simultaneously with the mounting mass pro- test and mass support for the Communist Party, the Ford Massacre was followed by a complete mobilization of the capitalist class government machinery, its press and its open and concealed supporters. Over fifty workers, among them the wounded, were arrested, the offices of the Auto Workers’ Union, Unemployed Councils, the Daily mane Gat min, Fore —~a~ 1s eye) THE FORD HUNGER MARCH AND considerable likelihood of considerable difficulty in handling labor.’— From “Important Tear Gas Announcement.” all working-class leaders were sought by the police, the persecuting attorney Toy declared that the Hunger Marchers: and working-class leaders would be charged with murder, criminal syndicalism, inciting to riot and unlawful as- sembly. The American Federation of Labor leaders and the socialist party blamed the Com- munist Party for the Massacre. Roger Baldwin, in the name of the Civil Liberties Union, made a hurried trip to Detroit to absolve Mayor Mur- phy of all blame, the proletarian party repudi- ated the Communist Party, the Hunger March leaders and all revolutionary workers’ organiza- tions, Father Coughlin absolved Henry Ford from all responsibility. ® The Party places thé direct guilt for the Massacre on the shoulders of Henry Ford and brands Mayor Murphy with the responsibility for the Massacre, pointing out that 150 of Mur- | phy’s police were dispatched to the Ford plant | prior to the fatal shooting, that Murphy’s police | turned over the wounded workers to the Dear- born police after cursing and abusing them, that Murphy's police arrested workers collecting | funds for the funeral, that Murphy already in November smashed two unemployed workers’ demonstrations with police clubs and tear gas, that Murphy’s police murdered two defenseless | Negro workers in cold blood in Detroit one week | before the Ford massacre, that Murphy is stead- ily cutting down the relief of the unemployed workers in Detroit, at the behest of the New York bankers and Detroit auto millionaires, that Murphy last year borrowed $5,000,000 from Ford on condition to cut relief and finally that Mur- phy is a part of the capitalist class machine which exploits, starves, oppresses and terrorizes the working class. ‘The Ford Massacre was one of these intense attacks upon the working class which brought into sharp relief the class character and the policy of the capitalist state machinery and unveiled the social fascist agents of capitalism. It dramatically illustrated the consolidation of all fascist and social fascist forces into a united front attack upon the working class. This sud- den and unexpected blow was not an accident, but arises directly out of the imperialist war preparations. The Ford Massacre exposes the bankruptcy of the Hoover starvation program and the collapse of the starvation relief system of Murphy opening a new perspective of strug- gles before the working class. The successfu@ mobilization of several hundred thousand workers in the protest movement at the Arena Gardens, at Ferry Hall at the funeral, at Grand Circus Park, at the Woodmere Ceme- tery, on the streets of Detroit and at scores of protest and memorial meetings is the illustra- tion of the correctness of the Party line in this situation. \ Under the Rotarian headline—‘Smile, You Son-of-a-gun!”—the Los Angeles Times (the devil is said to do it, too) quotes scripture as follows: ‘ “Tell it not in Gath; publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice.” Whether you've noticed it or not, this biblical text is the one the capitalist newspapers which are read by the workers are following. Mass starvation and mass struggles for relief and un- employment insurance are being “cut,” and don’t appeal at all unless someone is killed—as at Dearborn, or are of such size that the local press dare not suppress accounts of them entirely. Further along in the “Times” article, the sen- tentious slogan is given: “The cheerful idiot helps; he lifts the fact, at least.” What a con- fession for capitalism! To be cheerful over its prospects one must be idiotic! Well, the revolutionary worker has no need for idiocy. But he is cheerful because and only because he is revolutionary, and sees how by mass struggle to end capitalism and its idiocy, starvation and lying capitalist press. Ce eae ‘To help swell profits of American capital- ists @ bill has been passed in the Senate and House directing the Secretary of War to pur- chase or contract for articles of AMERICAN growth, production or manufacture ONLY, even though such goods cost more, provided the excess in cost is not “unreasonable.” Sim- ilar language appears tm Qhe Army appropria- The most serious weakness in this movement lay in the Hunger March preparations. While the Ford Hunger March was set three months ago, during its entire, preparations it was char- acterized by serious political and organizational underestimation. The Party was not mobilized and electrified with the importance of the March. Public hearings for Ford workers were not held, local leaflets not issued. Only during the last | three weeks, when the Central Committee gave direct and detailed direction and members of | the District Buro personally undertook the carrying out of the preparations, were there signs of improvement. Our inability to develop struggles on local issues as the means to mob- ilize the masses for the Hunger March was the central weakness of the Party in the preparatory work. The central task of the Party now is to con- solidate this vast movement organizationally and direct it into channels of struggle. for unemploy- ment relief, unemployment insurance, against wage-cuts, against the war danger and against the growing terror, especially upon’ the Negro’ masses and foreign-born workers. * The central organizational task of the Party already raised in all the leaflets, slogans and mass meetings is the building of a powerful Auto Workers’ Union, the Unemployed Councils and @ mass Young Communist League, at the same time intensifying the recruitment of the best elements into the Ccmmunist Party. ‘The Hunger March and the protest movement against the Ford Massacre have been powerful instruments in developing the units of the em- ployed and the unemployed. The sentiment for the Hunger March in the ford factory expressed itself in hundreds of letters and discussions in the shop, in the collection of over $350 from the Ford workers, over 500 application cards for the Auto Workers’ Union during the first week and the large attendance of employed workers at the demonstration and the funeral ‘The Party must now help to systematically build the Auto Workers’ Union through all its activities, with special attention to the hundreds of shop connections secured during the Party recruiting drive. Every mass organization must become the center of recruiting for the Auto Workers’ Union. Best of Party forces must be assigned to the Union and Unemployed Council activities. While sustaining and raising the protest movements, the Party organization must intensify the strug- gles against evictions, for relief, for unemploy- ment insurance and thereby continue the battle for demands of the Ford Hunger March. The role of the youth in’ the Hunger March and the heavy losses to the Young Communist League must be emphasized and special assist- ance given to the recruiting campaign and the activities of the Young Communist League. Side by side with the development of local struggles, building of shop groups and organizing this movement the great protest movement must be continued, sustained and directed into con- crete struggles for the Hunger March demands. ‘The main movement must be directed against all efforts to frame-up the workers’ leaders on criminal syndicalism charges, the terror which has slightly subsided into the mass pressure must be broken completely by continuing the offensive against all attacks upon the workers’ rights. The International Labor Defense, which proved so valuable during the most intense ter- ror, must now be built up. into a powerfuf mass organization. ‘The Anti-War Conference will be linked up with the Ford Massacre and the April 6 dem- onstration must become another mighty protest against the Massacre as a part of the war prep- arations against the Soviet Union. The campaign for the Unemployment Insur- ance Bill must become the medium of involving the vast masses in the day to day work of con- tinuing the struggle for the Hunger March de- mands, The Party must decisively combat the sec- tarlan and terrorist illusions of some workers under the influence of the provocative sugges- tion of answering the Massacre with arms, This is the provocative policy of fascism, of Ford, Murphy, Spolansky and their agents. The work- ing class can stop the terror and murderous pol- icy of the government with s mighty and or- @anized mass movement, by a mass defense i rene By Jones pee Via Scotts Bluff A comrade at Henry, Nebraska, sends us pages 5 and 6 of the “Star-Herald” of Scotts Bluff, Nebraska, of March 13, giving a sample of the anti-Soviet propaganda being spread among the farmers there, beet growers of largely German. or Russian descent. From that small burg, you can get “news" that appears nowhere else, Indeed the “Star Herald” should pride itself on “scooping” the big capitalist dailies on some of the most ree markable lying ye'ye seen. It is a supposed “letter” from a German in the Volga region of the Soviet Union, supposedly received by some German at Scotts Bluff, whose name is cone cealed. “We are. all well but half alive,” are the words which begin the “letter,” and they pretty well epitomize the contradictory nature of it. The supposed writer of it, who can be both “all well” and “half alive,” is, if anything, a rich farmer or “kulak,” or better said an ex-kulak, He complains bitterly that he has to work. And to the small farmers of Nebraska who work themselves, their wives and kids (we know, as our dad was a Nebraska farmer once!) from sunup to sundown, the added complaint is made that in the collective farm, which the writer says he is in, “the women and children work, Somewhat mpe'lty “the buildings in our ve torn down. There are no more buildings’—atier we've heard so much from all sources about Soviet construc- tion. Another mystery is that the Communists “want us to go naked. We have no clothes.” But still worse is told: “There is no food.” When one considers that, according |to such stories, this has been going on for 15 years ons must marvel that anybody is even “half alive” and able to lie so astonishingly. However, all this falsehood and nonsense is not the only thing in the Star Herald aimed to mislead the toiling farmers. On the same page is two and a half columns atout the Lindbergh kidnapping as though the Nebraska beet growers had no kids of their own to worry about feeding, clothing and schooling. " And, on the other page @ big headline says that “The Farmers’ Most Vicious Enemies Are Drought and Grasshoppers.” But if we know anything about farmers, their most vicious enemies—far worse than drought or grasshopers —are bankers, landlords, the sugar companies (in the case of these beet growers)—and, last ] but not least, the prostitute editors of such lying sheets as the Scotts Bluff Star-Herald. The comrade who sent us this asks for the name of German papers to offset these lies. Let him or others write to “Der Arbeiter,” 50 East 18th Street, New York City. From it you can also get many papers and books about the Soviet Union in German and, we think, some direct information put out by the Volga Germans refuting the lies of their kulaks. Coal Capitalists’ Profits in 1931 By Labor i cguceks Association In spite of the serious general crisis, a few coal companies made profits in 1931, The mos¢ recent companies to report are the following: Philadelphia and Reading Coal & Iron Corp. had clear profits of $1 360,295 after interest, de- pletion and other reserves, a sum larger by more than $300,000 than its profits in 1930. It closed the year with cash, accounts receivable, and other so-called “current assets” of nearly $26,000,000 and accounts payable and other immediate debts of only $4,800,000. This very “satisfactory” situation was due largely to the operation of its new giant breaker at Locust Summit and the general campaign of cutting payrolls and other costs. The Locust Summit breaker replaced five smaller breakers. A second one is now under construction which will take the place of six to eight other breakers. All of which promises further profits for the capitalist and greater unemployment for the workers. Lehigh Valley Coal Corp. also had a larger net income in 1931 than in 1930. The 1931 net profits were $957,321. The company also paid $1,655,362 of interest on bonds and other indebt~ edness. In February, 1932, the company closed down three mines, which had normally employed about 1,300 workers. This brings up to five the number of its “high-cost” mines which have been closed down in order to increase profits. The Pensnylvania Coal Co.,.an Erie R. Re subsidiary, which leases coal properties to the Pittston Company for operation, is paying $2,800,000 a year in dividends to the railroad. And the railroad states that the coal company is in a position to continue this dividend for two or three years longer in spite of the “present acute depression of the coal industry.” The M. A. Hanna Co. reports a net profit of $1,377,925, after interest, depreciation, depletion, etc. Westmoreland Coal Co. reports a net loss of $7,315, but there is a joker in this report. This company is owned by another company (West- moreland, Inc.), which was created for the sole purpose of taking over the stock of Westmore~ Jand Coal Co. and the title to coal properties operating by Westmoreland Coal Co. The holding company (Westmoreland, In¢,), which is owned directly by individual capitalists, had net profits drawn from the earnings of its subsidiary and amounting to $252,057. .Workers! Join the Party of., Your Class! P. O. Box 87 Station D. New York City. Please send me more information on the Come munist Party. 4 eee AAATERE socceecccconeeocccecoesesiaocesccccooets] city. Mail this to the Central Office, Communist Communist Party U. 6. A . BO, Box $7 Station D, New York Clty, a } A v