The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 16, 1932, Page 4

by, the | Comagodatly ,Pubbiubing., Gk, tus, Sally emcept Rego Feur ts, Wew ork City. N.Y eacept Santsy, at 56 Kast Telephone ALgonguin: 4-7958. Cable “DAIWORK.” ‘and mail all checks to the Daily Worker, 60 East 13th Street, New, York, N.Y. By mall everywhere: One year, $6; siz months, $2; two months, $1; excepting; of Manhsttan and Bronx, New York City. Forsign: one year, $! (Boroughs siz months, $4.50. M aan GUN FIRE IS THE THE BOSSES’ | BLOSSOM TIME IN THE SUNNY ANSWER FOR BREAD By BILL GEBERT of LROSE PARK, northwestern Chicago, is a town of 12,000 which 90,per cent are workers, the n, of of reentage whom are unemployed. A large F of these workers own little homes, bought on payment a few years ago. Now they are ng them. This alone over 100 workers. lost their houses. The largest’ factory in the town is a factory branch of the American Can C Ww previcusly employed about 00 men and wo and at present only about 200 are working th Up Ist they worked 8 hours a till. May ving 30 cents an hour. On Ma 10 per cent took place and to 9 hours a day. Th two days a week. Th which employs 100 men and som yuoying about 50 worke idustry in Melrose Park. workers in Melrose Park are shey began to S elves will Ss-te give them relief. On April 20th meeting of unemployed was held. The auid-Legionnaires came to the hall and Ber! and Griggs were The workers did not irom the hall, but marched to the jail mand: tie release of the arrested s Unde' -ressure of the workers the Chief of Pcticc rced to release the spea On i!*27th another meeting of m= ployed was called. Over 600 workers, American, Germ: “lian and others, crowded into the hall aaires also came to the meeting, ato; of the Village Board were present ‘fhey ice! the floor trying to tell the workers not to listen to the speakers from the Unem- ployed Ueuncil—that it is the American Legion uhat will teke care of the unemployed. A woman from ‘1.2 cnarities spoke in the same light. The siarving-nethers answered them that up till now nothin, Had been done by the village adminis- tration and bosses. That is only now, when the Unemployed Council begins to organize workers, the bouses and village authorities speak about giving relief to the workers. But the workers would net believe the Legionnaires and charity workers ¢ vould not leave the Unemployed Counci this meeting, relief was given to many \/or' , especially those who showed any signs of activity in the unemployed movement, in an ettempt. to bribe them. Workers who were previdusly denied a penny were given checks from 10 to $20 and were told that they needn't worty, that the Legionnaires and char- ities would take care of them. The workers well knew the meaning of this policy of the bosses. The president of the village told the committee of Unemployed: “I know that there is misery and starvation in our village. But we will not. tax the rich. We will not allow the Communists People. ‘The workers in Melrose Park prepared for the May Day démonstration. They sent a commit- tee to the--chief of police, Arthur Leeseberg, informing lim that there will be an open air meeting on the'streets. The chief of police answered the workers that the police will not interfere with the meeting of the workers. But on May Day, when hundreds of workers gathered on: the streets, the meeting was attacked. Ber- man, an unemployed carpenter, was taken from the streets by police and Legionnaires, beaten up, taken for..aride and then thrown into a ditch outside the--city, skull fractured. A railroad to come here to agitate these ~ Cain and Legionnaires, Dr. Brust in Jail When Cain Was Beaten Leading up to May Day the police, Italian priest Legionnaires went from house to house of the workers, terrorizing them and tell- ing them not to come out on the streets, and giving money to some of them. But in spite of is, more than 300 workers broke through the terror and came to the meeting which was b up. e workers in Melrose Park called an indoor meeting on May 1. They rent a Socialist ned an dcontrolled Lyceum Hall. A deposit was taken for the hall by the Socialists, but a day before the meeting the Socialists sent a 1 to the committee in charge, informing was also beaten up by the police ma own telegr them that the hall had been cancelled for the In answer of breaking up May First the workers of Melrose Park called an meeting, indoor meeting on May 6th at Eureka Hall. The nute the hall was closed. rs began to assemble around the hall on a vacant lot a few blocks away from the hall. It was about 2.15 in the afternoon when about 200 workers assembled in and around the lot. 7 were surrounded by a gang of police, nnaires and Capone gangsters, armed with ma chine guns. They made a circle around the lot and started lining up the workers againnst a wall, and then opened fire. The machine guns made four rounds over the crowd. First they shot below, then in the legs, about the middle of the body and then above the heads of the workers. Nine workers were shot. The boss’ controlled “Chicago American” reports on the massacre in the following manner: “Seven men were wounded, three probably fatally, when Melrose Park police opened fire with sub-machine guns, shotguns and pistols on @ group of 200 Communists attempting an unemployment parade this afternoon, No shots were fired by the Communists.” This attack on the workers was well planned and organized. Information was received by the committee arranging the meeting that- a con- ference of Legionnaires, city police, gangsters, businessmen, under the leadership of the Village President, Brust, was called at which a cry was raised that “the Reds are coming to destroy property” and that the businessmen, “in order to protect their property, had to pay.” They put up a tax on the businessmen and $500 was raised. Then they hired gunmen and thugs, paying them $5 each and giving them machine guns and ammunition and instructed them to be at the meeting Friday. In one case it was de- scribed to the meeting, his mother ran after him, clinging to him and crying that. he should not go and turn against his fellow workers, Such an outrageous murder as took place in Melrose Park by Village authorities headed by Dr. Brust, tool. of the American Can Oo, Am- erican Legion, Capone gangsters by lining up workers against the wall and shooting them, has not been recorded in recent years. Thé workers did everything they possibly could do'to protect themselves and to fight back. They rescued one worker from the hands of the thugs. They tried to group together to prevent being put against the wall and shot at. However, they were not able to assemble and defeat the circle of death which is estimated about 50 or 60 armed thugs against the handful of workers on the vacant ot who were lined up against the wall. This bloody massacre on a peacefully unarmed unemployed demonstration in Melrose Park aroused the indignation of the masses in Mel: rose Park, Maywood, Bellwood, Belmont Heights and the city of Chicago as well as everywhere. Toward Revolutionary Mass Work Hundreds of resolutions and telegrams have been sent to the village board and Governor Emmer- son. Mass meetings are being arranged every- where. So big is the indignation of the masses that some of the capitalist papers in Chicago began to whitewash the police, Legionnaires and Capone gangsters who participated in the bloody massacre of the workers, But these at~ tempts are to no avail. The workers know the true character of events. The “Chicago Daily News” concludes an editorial on the massacre in “The Melrose Park authorities and their vol- unteer aids played into the hands of the Com- munists by breaking up the demonstration and firing upon the demonstrators. They should consult Commissioner Allman of Chicago on the art of handling such demonstrations and retlirn to constithtional processes in defending Constitution of America.” Indeed the Melrose Park authorities and their voluntary aid, the Legionnaires and Capone gangsters have learned the “art” from Com- missioner Allman and Mayor Cermak of Chicago of handling unemployed and employed wokers. They learned from Allman of Chicago who sends his policeto shoot and club peaceful demon- stration of the Chihago workers in front of the Japanese Consulate. They learned from Mayor Cermak and Commissioner Alcock of shooting Negro workers on south side on August 3rd, 1931 when three Negro workers were murdreed by the Chicago police. And it is this “art” that the “Chicago Daily News” advises the Melrose Park authorities to follow. Following in the footsteps of the “Chicago Daily News,” the “Chicago Daily Times” writes in an editorial: “We believe the Chicago police department has been steadily improving in morale and efficiency under the present administration and we hope that nothing happens to mar its record.” The edftorial then proceeds ta praise the martial law of General Wood during the steel workers’ strike in 1919-1920 in Gary, In line with the “Chicago Daily News,” the Chicago Jewish Socialist paper, the “Forward,” likewise praises the Chicago police for its “art © {dealing with the workers.” And it is in line with this that a new police force has been organized in Cook County and under the direct | Personal leadership of Pat Roche, who is a “Chicago Tribune” man. This regional police Police of Cook County is actually the estblish- ment of the Cossacks. Army maneuvers are being prepared in which, according to plans, |. the U. S. Army to capture’ the city of Chicago, On June 12, the Chicago lodge of the Elks, to- gether with the American Legion are organizing & day “to: combat Communism” They attempt to stage @ démonstration in Grand Park or Lincoln Park as Flag Day which is a mobiliza- tion of the fascist froces against the working- class. It is openly declared so, The “Chicago Daily News’reports “Afoused by the outbursts of Communism in Hlinols, the committee, under the leader- ship of J. Horan, hopes to make the demon- eet oné of the greatest in Chicago his- The “Chicago Tribune” organized a fascist organizations, “The Defenders of America.” composed of young students and attempt to draw inyoung workers and on top of all this, we must not forget the instructions given by the general staff of the Illinois National Guard to shoot workers when they demand bread, which was published in the Daily Worker three months ago. DISCUSSION OF THE 14TH PLENUM The Fight Against War Before Its Outbreak The fight the Communists wage against im- Perialist war differs essentially from the “fight against war” waged by pacifists of various shades. The Communists do [not regard the struggle against such a war as being separate from the Class struggle. On the contrary, they regard it as part of the general proletarian struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. They know that imperialist wars are inevitable as long as the bourgeoisie remain in power. This postulate is sometimes interpreted to mean that it is useless to carry on a specific struggle against imperialist war. Indeed, the Social De- mocrats deliberately charge the Communists with. encouraging imperialist wars in order to accelerate the advent of Revolution. While the firstementioned attitude is a mistaken one, the second is.a silly calumny. Although convineed that war is inevitable un- der the rule of the bourgeoisie, the Commun- ists, in the interests of the masses of the work- ers and of all the toilers who bear the brunt of the sacrifice entajled by war, wage a persistent fight against imperialist war and strive to pre- vent. imperialist war by proletarian revolution. ‘Théy strive to rally the masses around their standard in this struggle, and if unable to pre- vent the outbreak of war, they strive to trans- form it into civil war for the overthrow of the bourgecisie. ‘The first duty. of Communists in the fight against imperialist war is to tear down the screen by which the bourgeoisie conceal their preparations for war and the real state of af- fairs from the masses of workers. This duty im- plies above all a determined political and ideo- logical fight against pacifism. es ey In the struggle against pacifism, however, the Communists must draw a distinction between the anti-war sentiments of large masses of the totlers, who are -ready to fight against war, but do not as. yet understand that the revolution- ‘ary way is the only proper way of combatting war, and therefore, become a prey to pacifist swindiers, and the swindlers themselves, the pa- cifists of various shades. The masses must be patiently enlightened as to their error and urged tojoin the revolutiofiary united front in the struggle against wer. -But the pacifist swind- fers must'be’relentlessly exposed and combatted, f ‘The 11th Plenum of the Executive Com- mittee of the Communist International call- ed upon all the parties to popularize the teachings of Lenin on war, and the decisions of the Sixth World Congress of the C. I. on the methods of struggle against the war dan- ger and the danger of military intervention against the U.S.SR. We are reprinting below some excerpts from the Sixth World Congress resolution. Recently the Sixth World Congress resolution was republished. In spite of the great need that exists for this resolution, only one thou- sand copies were sold. This is an indication of the insufficient understanding of the im- portance of absorbing Leninist teachings in the struggle against war. ‘The two pamphlets by Lenin (The War and the Second International and Socialism and War) which were) gotten out by the Little Lenin Library have the smallest circulation of the various pamphlets of the Little Lenin Library. We urge the comrades to study these pamphlets. It is particularly essential to increase the sale of our agitational liter- ature against war. In the mobilization of the masses against imperialist war, the sharpest struggle against pacifism must be carried on. In this con- nection we mention the pamphlet of Com- rade Bittelman. “Revolutionary Struggle Against War Versus Pacifism.” We request the comrades to send in for this column brief articles dealing with their experiences in the mobilization of the mas- ses in the struggle against imperialist war, shall never permit another war,” “no more war,” etc. The Communists must not be content mere- ly to “correct” these slogans theoretically, but must wage an active fight against this kind of propaganda by unmasking those who conduct it, and denounce this phrase mongering as a screen to conceal the preparations being made for war., The same thing applies in many cases today of the slogan: “War against war” that is ad- vanced by the Social Democrats as a hypocrit- ical means of raising unfounded expectations among the masses, To combat the proposals advanced by the “radical” pacifists for preventing war. Com- munists cannot content themselves merely with exposing these people as phrasemongers, who but they must also point out to the masses that, as framed by these pacifists, these slogans are wrong and childish. They must explain to the masses the real circumstances under which war breaks out, the impossibility of limiting the struggle to certain fixed methods and the need for bringing into action all forms of the class struggle. Energetically to combat and openly criticize all frivolousness in the ranks of the Commun- ist Parties concerning the question of combat- ting war. This is particularly necessary at the present time, in view of the mistakes contained in press articles and parliamentary speeches. Under no circumstances should such mistakes be allowed to pass without: criticism. —From the Sixth World Congress Revolution on the Struggle Against Imperialist War and the Tasks of the Communists. | for Vice-President on | the Communist ticket Workers! | SOUTH By BURCK het 13Us dba, Only the sharpest mass fight and the firm alliance of white and Negro workers can stop the murderous legal lynchings of the inocent Scottsboro Negro boys and Orphan Jones, Negro farm hand. Build the mass defense! Demonstrate! Protest! By J. W. FORD Article 8 N my last article, ap- pearing in the Daily Worker of May 6, I dealt with some of the questions raised in the article by Mr. Cc. E, Richardson, bour- geoisie Negro editor of the Houston Defender (Texas) in the so-called Symposium on Communism in the April Crisis. I return today to that statement in which he represents Communism as opposed to revolutionary methods. That statement clearly proves Mr. Richard- son’s inability to talk in- tellingently on Communism. Like the typical bourgeois that he is, Mr. Richardson is terrified bourgeois that he is, Mr. Richardson is ter- rified at the thought of violent resistance on the part of the toiling masses tothe violence of the ruling-class. Yet the whole history of cap- italism is one of bloody violence against the working-class and the oppressed nationalities. —_—S=S JAMES W. FORD Proposed Candidate More and more openly today, the Negro bour- geoisie admit that they have a stake in the Jim-crow capitalist: oppression of the Negro masses. They desperately seek to divert the Negro masses from revolutionary struggles against this oppression. They violently de- nounce the “violence” of the revolutionary workers at the very time that they defend the murderous lynch terror of the ruling class, as in the Scottsboro Case and numerous other in- stances of lynch frame-ups and class justice, against Negro toilers, They shamelessly bring forward their servile program of “refusal to struggle,” of boot-licking “diplomacy.” They urge the Negro masses to leave force to the enemy, Karl Marx, the founder of scientific Com- munism, once wrote that “in actual history it is notorious that conquest, enslavement, rob- bery, murder, briefly force, play the great part. In the tender annals of Political Economy the idyllic reigns from time immemorial.” Marx shows how the “rosy dawn of the era of cap- italist production” was signalized by the extir- pation, enslavement and entombment in mines of the aboriginal natives of the American con- tinents, by the beginning of the conquest and looting of the East Indies, and the turning of Africa into a warren for the commercial hunting of black skins. He quotes W. Howitt, an authority on the Christian colonial system, who says: “The Communist Party in Action” (By A. Bittleman, Workers Library Publishers, 48 pages, price 10c) By EVA SHAFRAN “The Communist Party in Action” fulfills the need of providing the new Party member with reading material on the Party, what it stands for, its problems and its activities. ‘The demand for such a pamphlet was evident at the time when we organized our Six Weeks New Members Course on the basis of an out- line prepared by the Agitprop Department of the Central Committee. The resolution of the 14th Plenum of the C.C. points out that we have a “hundred per cent fluctuation in membership.” The problem of retaining the new members in our Party is of the greatest importance, In this 48 page pamphlet, “The Communist Party in Action,” Comrade Bittleman has made @ conscious effort towards helping to solve this problem, and did it with much success, The main line of the pamphlet is directed to mak- ing the new Party members Party conscious, strengthening the ties that have brought the worker into our ranks, The pamphlet is divided into eight chapters and sub-divisions. It starts with the discussion of the reasons why the new member joined the Party, The yariouy experiences af the worker in gle are discussed. The current phases of class struggle, miners strike, textile strike, unem- ployment, etc., are analyzed, politically enlight- ened and interpreted. This lays the basis for the presentation of all problems the pamphlet sets out to discuss. Then comes an analysis of the existing poli- tical parties, Republican, Democratic, and So- cialist Party. This is based on the experiences the worker had with the bourgeois parties. In this section the state and its role is taken up. Also the proletarian dictatorship and the role of the State. This is followed with a discussion on the role of the Social Fascists and our struggle against them, From “A Discussion of the present World Economic Crisis and the Revolutionary Way out of the Crisis,” as outlined by the XI Plenum of the Communist International and our own Par- ty, we are taken into the section on the im- mediate Party tasks, The section on the quality of Communist work in the present period takes up concretely the problems of shop work, ‘the “transmission belts,” work in mass organiza- tions, membership in the Comnwnist Interna- tional, and the main lines of struggle. Comrade Bittleman did well to have a special section dealing with “initiative, activity,” with “Become la conscious coach sini =| “The barbarities and desperate outrages of the so-called Christian race, throughout every region of the world, and upon every people they have been able to subdue, are not to be paralleled by those of any other race, however fierce, however untaught, and however reckless of mercy and of shame im any age of the earth.” And Marx summarizes his conclusions in two short but brilliant sentences: “Force is the midwife of every old socicty pregnant with a new one. It is itself an economic power.” Obviously we have here no horrified moralizing and foolish preaching about the evil of violence. Marx -does: not merely judge and condemn but supplies us a scientific understanding of the his- torical and revolutionary role of force. How- ever, Mr. Richardson, apparently never having peered between the covers of a book by Marx, could hardly be expected to know anything about the immensely fruitful and historically illum- inating conceptions of scientific communism. In fact, I believe I am going to astonish Mr, Richardson by telling him of a German Mr. Richardson who lived many years before the present Mr. Richardson. Being a German, his real name of course was not Mr. Richardson, but Duehring. But his ideas on force and vio- lence were just as crude and timid and shallow as the ideas of our own Mr, Richardson in America, Mr. Duehring-Richardson insisted that force is the highest. evil and that its use demoralizes the user. Since Dehring was causing a lot of confusion among the German workers of that time, Frederick Engels, co-founder with Karl Marx, of scientific communism, found it necssary to show the utter hollowness of Duehring’s posi- tion, I am sure Mr. Richardson will not object if I quote what Engels said about Mr. Duehring, especially since Mr, Richardson has been so busy defending his imperialist masters and the Jim Crow interests of the Negro bourgeoisie that he has had no time to read what the Communists themselves have to say. “Acording to Mr. Duehring,” Engels wrote, “force is the absolute evil. The first act of force is to him the first call into sin. His whole con- ception is a preachment over the infection of all history up to the present time with the original sin. He talks about the disgraceful falsifying of all natural and social laws by the invention of the devil. That force plays another role in his- tory, a revolutionary role, that it is in the words of Marx, the midwife of the old society which is pregnant with the new, that it is the tool by the means of which social progress is forwarded, and foolish dead political forms destroyed,—of of that, Mr. Duering has no word to say, only with sighs and groans does he admit the pos- sibility that force may be necessary for the overthrow of a thievish economic system. He simply declares that every application of force demoralizes him who uses it. And this in spite of the moral and intellectual uplift which fol- lowed every victorious revolution. He says this in Germany, too, where a powerful and necessary uprising would at least have the advantage of COMMUNISM AND THE NEGRO abolshing the slavish snobbery of the national mind which has prevailed since the humiliation of the Thirty Years War. And this foolish and senseless sort of preaching is set up in opposition! to the most revolutionary party known to ao | tory.” : The question of force was raised in one of its many concrete ph: ases following the Revolution of 1905 in Russia, The discussion then revolved around the question of partisan war as a form of struggle during the period of revolution. With somewhat of the “moral” approach of Messers. Duehring-Richardson, the argument was made that partisan warfare tends to demoralize the revolutionary proletariat by bringing it close to the drunkards and vagabonds, And Lenin re- plied, illuminating in one short paragraph the wretched poverty of a point of view which seizes only on one side of every question and is incap- able of viewing it in its totality. It is true, Lenin said, partisan war does bring the conscious pro- letariat close to the drunkards and vagabonds. “But from this only one conclusion may be drawn, that the Party of the proletariat cannot consider partisan war as the only, not even as the main form of struggle; that this form must be subordinated to other forms, must correspond to the main forms of struggle, must be en- nobled by the enlightening and organizing in- fluence of Socialism. But in the absence of the ” last mentioned condition all, absolutely all, forms of struggle in bourgeois society bring the pro- letarian nearer to various non-proletarian strata above and below it, and, if left to themselves, to the spontaneous course of events, they are bound to get worn out, perverted, prostituted.” Lenin here shows the true meaning of reyolu- tionary force and struggle. He shows that it is not a question of force in the abstract but of a many-sided struggle animated and inspired by the fundamental aim of building a new socialist society, It is the existence and leadership cf a disciplined Communist Party which stimulates and organtzcs the revolutionary energy afd in- itative of the workers and oppressed inasses and prevents them from degenerating and frittering away into a fruitless struggle. Behind all the task of the Richardsons is the philfstine fear that Communism means uncon- trolled force and violence—as if capitalism itself is not the greatest example of untramelled force and violence and dismal chaos But what these’ gentlemen fail to understand is that it is only the existence and revolutionary activity of the Communist Party which raises the inevitable struggle of the oppressed Negro masses and white toilers to the highest level and guarantees that the justified anger and rage of the masses will be organized and inspired with a deep his- torical purpose. + ‘The bourgeois mind cannot understand the tremendously progressive and ennobling role of revolution in the lives of millions of people who. have been degraded, warped and shrivelled up with superstitution and race prejudice. The re- voluntarily activity of the masses inspired by a Communist goal will not only change their cone ditions but will also change their own natures, as the gigantic achievements of the Soviet Union abundantly prove. Party member to prepare himself for leading Party work is outlined. Too often do we un- derestimate these tasks. And we should there- fore remember these lines: ‘ “...The thing that must be emphasized in this respect is that theoretical Leninist educ- ation is a Party duty and task for each in- dividual Party member...” (Page 32). Special effort was made in this pamphlet not to speak about the new Party member, but speak directly to, with the new recruit. It makes the new Party part of the problems discussed, and takes him into the solving of the problems. The pamphlet does not talk over the shoulder or head of the new recruit but “You have joined the Communist Party because you have seen it in action, you Ce realized...” and so down the line. There are of course some shortcomings in the pamphlet. For instance; It deals with the Ne- gro problem only in the first pages where cur- rent phases of the class struggle are discussed. It declares: “.,.The American working class can not hope to liberate itself from the yoke of cap- Kalam, anlew it helps to Hherate-tha oppremed Negro masses from national oppression of this same ruling class...” (Pages -5). These pages also point out the special tasks of the white workers “belonging to the domi- nating nationality” in the fight for the rights of the Negro. masses and for the “final liber- sation... the rights of the Negroes in the. Black Belt to self-determination, inclueing the right of separation from the United States.” Howe ever, in view of the fact that there is a great. deal of unclarity on the Negro question, a special section dealing with the Negro problem is ab- solutely necessary. Likewise the problem of Party organization / and struc.ure, While the pamphlet takes up the most important basic principles, it does not deal sufficiently with the actual workings (or- ganization) of the Party. Even the basic prin- ciples, “democratic centralism” for instance, ara not eiaborated on, ‘Thi: essoniial precisely because it is a pamphlet for new recruits, “The Communist Party in Action” is a real contribution to the training of new Party mem- bers, The pamphlet should be read by the Par- ty membership, As.a text book for the New Members Coursea-it-hag.tha greatest value, |