The Daily Worker Newspaper, June 15, 1932, Page 4

Page Four 18th rk City. onquin 4-7958. Cable inc, daily except Sunday, at 80 East “DAIWORK.” SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By mail everywhere: Une year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; excepting Boroughs of Manbattaz and Bronx, New York City. Foreign: one year, $3; six montha, $4.50, AN INTERVIEW WITH COMRADE STALIN BY EMIL LUDWIG Soviet Power Rests Upon Millions ot Workers and Peasants (Second installment of interview given by Stalin to the German biographer Emil Ludwig) behind you decades You had to bring in arms, Ludwig—You have of underground wark. many etc, by. underground ways. Do you fink it possible. that. the mies of the et power may borrow your experience and fight the Soviet power with the same methods? le Stalin—That is of course quite possi the reason for th f your power in its si Ledwig—Isn't and nercill enemies in—No, that is not the chief reason. san give some examples from hi Bolsheviks came to powe: One When ti and pub lutionaries also continued ta exist legally and published their newspapers. Even the Cadets (Constitutional-Democrats, Ed.) continued to publish their newspaper pape. The When General Krasnov organized a counter- attack against Leningrad and fell according to the conditions of least have kept him in prison or more than that, we might have shot him. But we let him go “on his word of honor.” And what happened? It became apparent that such mild- fess only undermines the fortress of Soviet power. We made a mistake to show such mild- Mess to enemies of the working class. If we had further repeated that mistake, we would have committed a crime against the working class; ‘we would have betrayed its interests. This soon became clear. It was very soon obvious that the milder we were towards our foes, the more they resisted us. Soon the right-wing Social Revo- lutionaries, Gotz and others, and the right-wing Menchevik organizations organized in Leningrad the counter-revolutionary “Junkers” uprising as t of which many of our revolutionary sailors perished. That same Krasnov, whom we let go word of honor,” organized whiteguard Cossacks. He joined Mamontoy and for two years carried om armed struggle against the Soviet power. It soon became clear that behind these white tood the agents of the western capital- 's—France, England, America, Japan inced that we had made a mistake nowing mildness. We understood from this you can cope with those enemies only if you use the most ruthless policy of sup- press: Ludwig—It seems to me that a large part of tre population of the Soviet Union has a feeling of fear towards the Soviet power, and that to a certain extent the stability of the Soviet power resis-on that feeling of fear. I should like to know what your own inner reactions are when you know that in the interests of streng.uhening power it is necessary to instill fear. For in relations with your comrades and friends you work through entirely different methods, not the methods of instilling fear, but fear is instilled in the population. Stalin—You are mistaken. However, your mis- take is that of many persons. Do you really think that for fourteen years one can hold power and gain the support of the million-masses by the methods of fear and terror? No, that is impossible. The tsar’s government knew better than anyone how to terrorize. In that respect they had a great and ancient experience. The European bourgeoisie, especially the French, helped.tsarism in this and taught it to terrorize the peopic. In spite of that experience, in spite of the help of the European bourgeoisie, the policy of terrorizing brought the downfall of tsarcom. Ludwig—But the Romanovs lasted 300 years. Stalin—Yes, but how many uprisings and re- bellions took place in those 300 years; the up- rising of Stcnka Razin, of Emelian Pugachev, of the Decembrists, the Revolution of 1905, of February 1917, the October Revolution. Let alone the fact that the present conditions of political and cultural life in the land are radically differ- ent from the conditions of the old days, when darkness, lack of culture, submissiveness and political downtroddenness of the masses made it possible for the governments of that time to stay in “power for a more or less extended period. As for the people, as for the workers and peasants of the U..S. S. R., they are by no means So meck, submissive and scared as imagine. Many persons in Europe imagine that old pat- riachal conditions prevail in the Soviet Union; thinking that in Russia '/e folks who are, first, submissive and, second, lazy. That is an old and radically mistaken idea. It arose in Europe from the days when the Russian landlords began to go to Paris to squander in idleness the money they had stolen. Those were really people without will, and Worthless. From them wes assumed this Russian “laziness.” But this does not in the least apply the Russian workers and peasants, who won and win the means of life with their own toil. It is strange enough to consider workers and peasants submissive and lazy who have in a ‘short ‘time made three revolutions, destroyed jtsarism ‘and are now victoriously building so- cialism. ‘You have just asked me, whether one person + ‘decides matiers for us. Never, under any condi- tions, would our workers now endure the rule of one person. The ‘highest authorities among us are turned to nothingness, as soon as the working masses cease to trust them, as soon as they lose contact with the working masses. Ple- khanov had among us an exceptional standing. ‘Well?’ As soon as he began to waver politically, ‘the workers forgot him, left him and forgut him. ‘Another example, Trotsky. Trotsky also had Great standing, though certainly far from that of Plekhanov. Well? As soon as he left the , Workers, they forgot him. ‘What the Workers Think About Trotsky. Ludwig—Entirely forgot him? Stalin—They remember him sometimes with bitterness, Ladwig—All of them with bitterness? Stalin—As far as our conscious workers are toncetned, they remember Trotsky with bitter- bess; with iri tion, with hate, Of course there is a certain not very large fpetion of the population which really fears the ev power and fights against it. I have in ih the remnants of the dying classes now Ceeauidated, and above all a negligible part —the kulaks. But here, how- ly @ question of a policy of fc§g intimidation which really exists. Everyone knows that we Bolsheviks do not limit ourselves here to intimidation, but go further, to the li- quidation of these bourgois strata. But if you take the laboring population of the U. S. S. R., the workers and the toiling peasants, who represent not less than 90 per cent of the people, they are on the side of the Soviet power and the overwhelming majority of them actively support it. And they support the Soviet Power because it serves the basic interests of the workers and peasants. In this lies the ground of the stability of the Soviet pow and not in any so-called policy of terrorizing. Ludwig: I am very grateful to you for this answer. I beg you to excuse me if I will ask you a question which may appear to you strange. In your biography there are moments of so to speak “predatory” acts.- Has the personality of Stenka Razin been interesting ‘you? Do you think of him as an “idealist robber”? Stalin: We Bolshevists were always interested in such historic personalities as Polotnikov, Razin, Pugachev and the like. We saw in the acts of these people a reflection of an elemental spontaneous indignation on the part of the gp- pressed classes, of an elemental mutiny of the peasantry against the feudal yoke. To us it was always of interest to study the history of the first such attempts at uprisings on the part of the peasantry. But one cannot of course draw here any anology with the Bolsheviks. Isolated peasant mutinies, even if they are not so unsor- ganized and brigand-like as in the case of Stenka Razin, cannot bring any serious results. Peasant uprisings may lead to success only in cases when they are coordinated with workers’ uprisings. Only a combined uprising, headed by the working class, can lead to the goal. Be- in speaking of Razin and Pugachev, one never must forget that they were Czarists; they rose against the landowners but on behalf of a “good Czar.” Such indeed was their slogan. As you see, the anology. with the Bolsheviks does not apply at all. Ludwig: Permit me to ask you a few questions concerning your biography. When I visited Masaryk he told me that he had felt himself to be a Socialist at the age of 6. What has made you a Socialist and when? How Stalin Became a Reyolationist. Stalin: I cannot say that at the age of six I already had an urge toward Socialism. Not even at the age of 10 or 12. I-entered the revo- lutionary movement at thé. age of 15, when I became connected with underground groups of Russian Marxists living at that time in Trans- Caucasia. These groups had a great influence COMRADE STALIN THE ARMED STRUGGLE IN NICARAGUA By A. SOLIS OT a week passes without news of recurrent clashes between the Nicaraguan National Guard officered by members ‘of the U. S. Marine Corps in Nicaragua and armed groups of work- | ers and peasants forming the bulk of the Army of Liberation which is led by Sandino continues to wage a heroic armed struggle against the armed forces of Yankee imperialism and its native lackeys. Recently a New York Times dis- patch informed that in 1931, 137 encounters took place resulting in 218 deaths and 198 wounded for the Army of Liberation, and 14 killed and 32 wounded of the National Guards. Worsening Conditions of the Masses. At the root of these growing struggles and eneral mass discontent is the growing misery of the Nicaraguan masses. The prices of the most important products have decreased 60 to 75 per cent (coffee, bananas, hides, wood, etc.); the custom house duties which are one of the bul- warks of the national budget.and the guaranty of the Yankee loans have decreased more than 65 per cent. The conditions of the working class and toil- ing peasants have worsened considerably. The miserable wages which have prevailed at all times have been reduced; in the work of re- building the city of Managua after the earth- quake during months the workers did not re- ceive one penny in wages, this work being done as forced labor; the same is happening in the railway and other public works, there are fre- quent cases reported of workers dying of hun- ger in the course of their working day. In the banana regions in the Atlantic coast wages have been lowered more than. 60 per cent. More than half of the working population is without work. The toiling peasants come to the markets and have to return home with their scant products unsold; the mounting taxes lead to mass ex- Propriations by the Atlantic Fruit Co. and other imperialist enterprises and by the native land- owners, The petty bourgeoisie of the cities, the artisans, find themselves also without a. market for their products; the public functionaries work without payment. At the same time the budget for the national guards has been increased from $700,000 to $1,100,000, ‘The preparation of the United States to par- ticipate ip the growing war in the Pacific against upon me and developed in me the taste for underground Marxian literature. Ludwig: What impelled you to go on the side of the opposition? Was it perhaps the ill treat- ment on the part of your parents? Stalin:.No. My parents were uneducated peo- ple, but: they treated me not at all badly, An- other, matter is the religious seminary which I attended at that time. Out of protest against at the seminary I was ready to become, and really became, a reyolutionist, a follower of Marxism as the one really revolutionary doc- trine. Ludwig: But do you not recognize the positive qualities of the Jesuits? Stalin: Yet, they haye a system and perse- verance in their work, but their basic method is espionage, prying into one’s soul, cynicism and taunting—what can be positive in that? For instance, the spy system in our dormitory; at 9 o'clock there is the tea bell, we got to the mess hall and when we come back to our rooms we find that all of our drawers and closets have been ransacked and thoroughly examined. What cart there be positive in that? About the Soviet Union, Germany, and America. Ludwig: In the Soviet Union I observed an exceptional respect for everything American. I may say an admiration of-everything American. That is the land of the dollar, the most con- sistant capitalist country. These sentiments are present also among your working class, and they apply not only to tractors and automobiles, but to Americans in general. How do you explain it? Stalin: You are exaggerating; we have no par- ticular respect for everything American, but. we do respect American capability in everything— in industry, in technic, in literature, in life. We never forget the fact that the United States is @ capitalist country, but among the Americans. there are many wholesome people in. the spirit- ual and physical sense, wholesome. in their en- tire approach ‘to work, to practical matters. It is this capability, this matter-of-factness that we appreciate. In spite of the fact that America is a highly developed capitalist country, the character of their industry, the habits of pro- Poland Which oannot be said of the old European capi- talist countries, where the lordly spirit of the feudal aristocracy is still alive. ; Ladwig: You do not even suspect how- right you are. | ae oh Stalin: Who knows, perhaps.I do suspect. In spite of the fact that feudalism as a social order has long been defeated in Europe, considerable remnants of it still continue to exist in the mode of living and in manners; a feudal atmosphere continues to préduce technicians, specialists, scientists, writers, who introduce lordly manners into industry, technic, science, literature, The feudal traditions have not been entirely shat- tered. The same cannot be said about America, which is a country of “free colonizers,” without landlords, without aristocrats. Hence the sound and comparatively simple American manners pre- vailing’ in production. Our economic experts who visited America have immediately noticed this trait; not without a certain pleasant sur- prise they have been telling us that in America it is difficult, in the process of production to tell by outward appearances an engineer from. a worker. They like it of course. In Europe it. is quite different. But if we are on the subject of our sympathies to any ‘one nation, or rather to the majority of any one nation, we must of course speak of our feeling for the Germans. Our feeling to the Americans cannot at all be compared with our sympathy to the Germans. Ludwig: y especially to the German na- tion? Stalin: First of all I state it as a fact, the cynical regime and Jesuit methods practiced | duction, have in them something of democracy | KING CAPITAL’S FLUNKEYS ‘Tetters similar to those of street units. We have ‘taken up many things such as arranging affairs,-picnics, mass meetings, etc. which is aif very important but cannot be substituted for work in the shop. In spite of all these various activities we were not in a position to root our- selves inside of the factory. Units which took some initiative in doing shop work were time and again flooded with other tasks and were ahoked in the beginning. This condition must be radically changed immediately if-our Party is to fulfill one of its most impor tant’ tasks, that is, to make a Communist fort- ress of every factory. To the shop unit, building up of the Auto Workers Union, the shop committee, the anti- war committee, and contact of sympathetic workers in the shop must be of rst and every- thing else of secondary importance. Nothing should be undertaken at the expense of shop work. At unit meetings comrades should report on their activities in the shop such as, con- tacts with individual workers, methods of ap- proach, reaction of the workers towards shop conditions, exchange of- experiences, and collec- tive finding of better unified methods of work. There are thousands of workers who are in sym- pathy with our work and our movement. Many of these workers can be involved in struggles provided we know how to lead them. Our Party units should be live wires which (To be concluded tomorrow.) must, like a good seismograph, record every dis- content of the workers against shop conditions, , the Chinese revolution and the Soviet Union, is leading to. a further intensification of the efforts to smash the fights of the Army of Liberation, to increase the terror against the working class and the discontented peasant masses. Struggles Increasing and Broadening. Due to the growing crisis, the front of the revolutionary struggles have not only increased, but has also broadened and incorporated new sections of the working class and the peasantry. The Army of Liberation, arms in hand, lead by Sandino and his general staff, has heroically maintained the armed struggles against the ma- tines and for their expulsion from the territory of Nicaragua. New sections of the workers and peasants have entered the armed struggles, which in the month of April of last year ex- tended to the most industrialized regions of the country in the Blue Field and Pueto Cabezas region. The workers in the plantations, employed and unemployed, entered into struggle against the Standard Fruit Co., assaulting the com- pany stores, etc. The anti-imperialist struggle in Nicaragua was reinforced with these basic sectors of the Nicaraguan working class, which constitutes the sector that will give the Nica- Taguan struggles for national liberation the con- sistent revolutionary leadership which it has lacked until now. Sandino, while carrying on armed fights against the marines and for their expulsion from Nicaragua, continues to show petty bourgeois in- consistency and vaccillations. While struggling in Nicaragua, Zapeda, his representative in Mex- ico, maintains intimate relations with the Amer- ican ambassadors, sent telegrams congratulating Hoover on different occasions, etc. At the same time his struggles lack any revolutionary pro- gram for the workers and peasants of Nicaragua who are heroivtally supporting the struggles of the Army of Liberation. Growing Discontent In National Guard. The National Guard through which Hoover and Stimson sought to unload on their national “Jackeys the responsibility of keeping “order” and defending the imperialist interests, and to con- solidate in this manner Yankee: oppression, is beginning to show signs of growing discontent. Even the bourgeois press has reported already mutiny which took place in the city of Kisa- Jaya, resulting in the killips of marine Lieuten- ant Charles J. Levonsky, This growing struggle in Nicaragua are taking place at a time of revolutionary upsurge .in Sal-\ vador and Honduras, manifested in mass strikes and demonstrations and spontaneous armed up- risings. The native bourgeoisie in the service of American imperialism has wileashed the most criminal terror in the hope 4f destroying the growing Communist Parties and ‘continue un- loading the crisis on the toiling masses. The Organization of the Nicaraguan Workers’ Party. In the midst of the sharpening crisis and in- creased struggles, we have also witnessed the awakening of the working class consciousness which have crystallized in the organization in Managua (capital) of the Partido Trabajador Nicaragua. However, since its beginnings, there can be observed the influence of reformist ele- ments, which endeavor to retard its development as the independent class party of the working class, the leader of their struggles and of the exploited peasantry, with a Communist program. These influences represented by some jerade, union bureaucrats of the reformist: unions ani other reformisi ‘organizations, are endeavoring “to revive the old Laborist Party, retard the de- velopment of the independent struggles of the working class and convert it again in an appen- age of the bourgeois parties open agents of im- perialism. More Marines Being Sent One year ago Stimson announced his. new policy of complete withdrawal of the marines. which was acclaimed by all its Latin-American: lackeys, including Sandino’s agent in Mexico, While there are yet more than one thousand marines the State Department already announted on May 3 that from 300 to 500 were to be sent to “supervise the election.” Admiral Woodward who will supervise the election in November is in Washington denianding 1,500 marines more to smash the growing struggles of the Nicar- @guan. workers ‘and peasants. The American Workers Must Support, the. . ‘The American Communist. Party and. reyolu- » tionary unions continue to show an impressible social democratic passivity to the struggles of the Latin-American workers and particularly to the Nicaraguan struggles where American ma-' vines and air forces are daily killing workers Toward Revolutionary Mass Work ( to now our shop unif received some weekly fl and be instrumental in developing it to a higher "making more money and can buy the necessary | the privileged ones, who worked 5 and 6 days DISCU By P. M—Dearborn, Mich. stage of struggle. To show that this is possible Iwill prove by a concrete example. One Example In one of the Ford foundry departments, about three-fourths of all the workers were working 2 and 3 days a week, while one-fourth were work- ing 5 and 6 days a week. This one-fourth were friends of the foreman. Many times some of these workers who worked only 2 and 3 days a week were sent to another department to work on much harder jobs. It was necessary to have gloves, aprons, etc. to work there. Our nucleus issued and distributed leaflets, exposing ali this and urging the workers to refuse to go to work in another department, which they did in the following manner: The next morning the foreman picked out some of them to be sent to that department and everyone refused to go. .Then the foreman called the straw boss and the superintendent. They asked every worker separately to go there and everyone refused. The answer of the workers was that those who are working 5 and 6 days a.week should be sent there, because they are things to work there. The bosses were compelled tc yield to the de- mands of the workers, not only that, they have never asked them to go to another department; but from then on all the workers work 3 days one week and another week 4 days, including a week before. This happened just before Bloody an@ peasants, destroying villages where defense- less women and children are killed. While pointing to the broad masses the vacil- lating petty-bourgeoi character of Sandino’s lead- ership we must mobilize the American work- ing class in support of the struggle of the army of Liberation, in as much as it is an anti-im- perialist struggle against American forces of oc- cupation. By a cor stent agitation and support of the struggles ve will tremendously stimulate tho struggle of the Nicaraguan masses, we will show them the tremendous ally they have in the U. S. workers and expose Sandino’s propaganda to the effect that “all American workers are wolves in sheep's skins,” which endeavors to hide the role of the working class in the struggle. It is necessary to find concrete ways of showing this solidarity, we must be alert to every dispatch of marines and hold demonstrations against it; the Party must win the thousands of Latin-Amer- ican workers in the U..S. and train them, Send American comrades to help carry on this import- ant task, develop cadres that can be sent to develop the Communist Party of Nicaragua, the only foree that will lead the exploited workers and peasants into the agrarian anti-imperialist revolution, that will win national liberation for the Nicaraguan pzople, But the Latin-American workers in the U. S. which are part of the American working class, will not join our ranks, unless by daily practice we show them that we support their struggles not’only in words but in deeds. We must make special efforts to win these workers on the basis of their special problems, taking into consider- ation their backwardness and their hatred and mistrust of the American workers. Special or- ganizations must be created to bring them closer to the class struggle in this country. This work will be tremendously helped if the Party understand the need for building a mass Anti-Imperialist League, if it is taken seriously by all districts, and not only by districts with -Gmigrants from.,the .colonial countries. . The Struggle against imperialism. is not .the duty of the colonial workers-alone,. but of-the American working class as a whole. The anti-imperialist work of the Party and building of the League is. 7 THE 14TH PLENUM. SOME EXPERIENCES IN SHOP WORK ; alone. SSION OF Monday, March 7. After that we could not fol- low that up as. we otherwise would, due to in- creased terror in the shop. This was the only department which sent anti-war delegates of one Party and two non-Party members to the anti-war conference. Struggle is the only thing which rallies the workers to our Party and to the revolutionary unions. This was proven right after March 7, when hundreds of workers joined the Party and the Auto Workers Union immediately. We will only succeed to draw the workers and win their following by leading them in struggles against the bosses. According to our 14th Plenum reso- lutions, we must establish better contact with the masses. After all, our Party is not only the Party of those who are members of it, but of the entire working class, Individual Party members should have groups of workers around them, have a meeting with them from time to time. They must give ac- counts of their progress to the Unit buro. These workers should be told that they are welcome in the Party or the union but they will not be forced to join. Through them we can organize bigger circles of sympathizers. This is possible, we have done it in Dearborn, working under- j ground. At one of our meetings where 30 were present, the majority of them Ford workers, we elected none¥ arty Ford workers as delegates to the Na- tiong} Communist Election Convention in Chi- cago. Before the meeting one of these, workers told me that he will only come to the meetings on condition that we will not ask him to join the Party or the union. After the meeting he signed up for the union voluntarily, he also gave one doliar for delegates’ expenses. Up to now/the unit organizer was almost the only connecting link between the unit and the higher Party committee. Since we are to do away with so many letters and burocracy, we must revive other important Party departments and have division of work among the comrades. This will involve more Party members in the work and make them feel responsible to the unit in their line of work, and not only ‘carry out decisions mechanically. This will make the meetings more lively and interesting. Individual comrades shall not, however, carry out work ‘They must see to it that the rest of the comrades assigned are active in the particular line of work: union, agitprop, Daily Worker, Ne- gro Department, etc, A comrade should be a connecting link be- tween the unit and the department he is as- signed to. Comradely attitude of khe higher Party fune- tionaries toward the rank and file members is indispensable, as it is of Party members toward the non-Party workers. One that understands the historical role our Party is to play in coming struggles will not overlook the importance of this question, Relentless struggle of the work~ ers under the leadership of our Party against our enemy will purify our Party and mobilize the best elements of the working class for the battioe. that will overthrow the capitalistic sys- tem and establish a workers’ and farmers’ gove ernment in the U. S, A, [The 14th Plenum and the June Issue of the “Party Organizer” The May-June issue of the Party Organ: izer is a special Plenum issue. It eottainh excerpts from the speeches by the Central Committee members and others made at the Plenum. The present issue of the Party Organizer introduc®s two new features: 1) The shop raper editor—reviewing shop. papers, -giving detail guidance of how to issue shop papers, etc. 2) The Literature section — taking up the question of organizing the mass distrib- ution of literature. ‘The present enlarged issue of the ph }) Organizer should be in the hands of every: