The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 11, 1932, Page 4

| ys DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, MONDAY, JULY 11, 1932 s fat Daily, 2Worker Contra wet Porty US.A Vublished by the Comprodally Publishing Co., Inc., daily excxept Sunday, at 50 E, 18th St., New York City, N. ¥. Telephone Algonquin 4-7956. Cable “DAIWORK.' Address and mail checks te the Daily Worker, 50 E. 13th St., New York, N. ¥. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: By mail everywhere: One year, $6; six months, $3; two months, $1; excepting Borough of Manhattan and Bronx, New York City. Foreign: one year, $8; six months, $4.50, ‘Socialists’? and Anti- War Demonstrations In his column in the World-Telegram y, the night club light of the Socialist Party froths at the American workers are demonstrating before Japanese tes.in angry protests against Japan’s robber war on China and He’ WOUD BROUN is provoked. drive for armed intervention against the Soviet Union. these demonstrations are organized by Communists. Com- the only ones organizing and leading the revolutionary fight st united front against the imperialist war ‘ar east and for the defense of the Chinese People This leads Mr. Broun to make the ridiculous ar- r joint struggle against the present robber war ir Far East d the Socialist Party particualrly do not ¢ that these demonstrations exposed the Wall Street Gov- ainst. the jalists” in attacking the anti-war demonstrations in front of the Japanese Consulates are thus trying to disarm the workers and to get them to place their faith in the “neutrality of the U. S. Government.” It is not the imperialist struggle over loot, but the Communists, who are endangering the peace of the world argue the “socialists.” Broun calmly tries to cover up the fact that imperialist war has al- ready begun, that the Japanese militarists have been conducting a bes- tial, robber war against the Chinese people for many months past—at Shanghai as well as in Manchuria, and that this war is daily threatening to plunge the whole world into a new imperialist slaughter, on the one hand, as an armed quarrel among the imperialist themselves over the division of the loot in China and for a re-division of the world. Broun ignores this menace to the toiling populations of the world. Nor has he any protests against the frightful slaughter of tens of thousands of Chinese workers and peasants at Shanghai and in Manchuria. Broun’s attack on the American workers who are fighting against imperialist war and for the defense of the Chinese people and the Soviet Union, is quite in line with the activities of the leaders of the Second (Socialist) International. For a long time these social-imperialists have attempted to distort the firm peace policy of the Soviet Union with the slanderous cry that the Soviet Union wants war. This, precisely at a time when the imperialist press itself is constantly forced to admit the peaceful aims of the U.S.S.R. What these betrayers of the working class are trying to do is quite clear. In their efforts to help the imperialists cover up their war pre- parations against the Soviet Union, these people are attempting to pre- sent imperialism as peaceful. “It is not imperialism, not capitalism, that promotes war but the workers. Capitalism is peaceful. It is the workers who are aggressive. It is the workers who are the militarists.” This is what these gentlemen say in effect. The Soviets are red imperialists, they say, fighting over railroads. This even though, the Soviet Union hhas refused to be provoked by the Japanese attempts to seize the Chinese Eastern Railway. The imperialists, on the other hand, are trying to disarm. ‘The New York Forward an official organ of the Socialist Party has given fulsome praise to the sham “arms cut” proposal offered by Hoover, al- though it is clear to everybody that this proposal merely seeks to strengthen American imperialism. The Socialist Party convention in Milwaukee has endorsed the war-making League of Nations and the “Disarmament” Conference as instruments of “peace”. Norman Thomas has called upon the Hoover Huner and War Government to exercise its. “pacifist” role, thus attempting to trap the masses into the dangerous belief that the Wall Street Government is above the constantly sharpen- ing fight of the imperialists for new loot. In 1914, the present leaders of the Second (Socialist) International betrayed the toiling masses into the slaughter of the imperialist war. History repeats itself. Today, when the Japanese are raping China and acting as the spearhead of world imperialism for armed intervention against the Soviet Union, the socialists are strenuously striving to disarm the vigilance of the masses, to trap them into a new world war. In Japan, the socialists have already come out openly in support of the shameful robber war on China. In America and Europe, Norman Thomas, Van- darvelde and other socialist leaders are giving objective support to the Japanese imperialists and supporting their own imperialists in the drive for a “peaceful” transition into war. ‘The workers of America must answer the imperiast hunger and war drive and its “socialist” supporter with a tremendous out-pouring into the streets on August First, International Day of Strugg]> Against Im- verialist War. Doak’s Deportation Drive “(UR little Napoleon,” the Secretary or Labor, Doak, is already enact- ing the Dies-Fish bill into law. Since the passage of the Dies-Fish bill by the House of Representatives, Doak has increased the drive of the capitalist class against the foreign born workers. His agents are now attempting to terrorize the workers in the industrial centers of the country. Unemployed workers looking for jobs at the employment agencies are mercilessly beaten up, arrested and held for deportation by the Depart- ment of Labor dicks. Starving workers are torn out from the breadlines, questioned and held for deportation. Workers arrested in the struggle against evictions, in the fight for relief, in the fight for bread and jobs, are cheerfully turned over by the local authorities to Doak’s agents for the “refined” questioning of the third degree. Every strike ‘is “visited” by Immigration officials. Every strike leader is hunted for deportation on the flimsiest pretext. The extended drive of Doak must and can be stopped. Every case, no matter how small, of arrest and persecution of foreign born workers, every attempt to carry out the provisions of the Dies-Fish bill, must meet the determined and organized resistance of the toiling masses. Mass pro- test has so far retarded the Senate from passing this vicious bill, but it hhas not yet been defeated. The defeat of the Dies bill-can only be suc- cessful if the flood of protests is combined with a determined struggle against pending deportations, against Doak’s extended drive. ‘The local police is extending every “courtesy” and “co-operation” to the agents of Hoover's flunkey—Mr. “Deportation” Doak. The Tammany Hall administration, the Chicago administration of Mayor Cermak, the follower of the progressive and liberal Franklin D. Roosevelt, are only too glad to give a helping hand to their worthy “opponents”—the Hoover Hunger Republican administration. Nor does the Socialist administration in Milwaukee hesitate for a single moment to turn over arrested workers in the struggle for bread to the agents of the Department of Labor. These open actions of the capitalist dictatorship are further covered up by the Socialist Party with phrases about “political democracy”. All three capitalist parties, the Republican, Democratic and Socialist parties, are one in the growing attack against the civil rights of the starv- ing millions. ‘The bosses’ parties in the present election campaign will use dema- gogic phrases to cover up the growing attacks on the civil rights of the workers. Just think of the sham and hypocrisy of capitalist “political de- mocracy”. The Republican platform “reaffirms” its stand for “freedom of speech”. We would not be a bit surprised that Doak himself helped to place it in the Republican platform! ‘The Communist Party is in the front ranks in the fight for civil rights of the workers, in the fight against the persecution of the foreign born workers, in the fight for the unity of native and foreign born, the Negro and white workers, In this year’s presidential election campaign one of the central demands of the Communist platform is “Against capl- talist terror, against all forms of suppression of the political rignts of the |W huge Communist vote will be # powerful blow against the Dies bil. at & \ THE BATTLE GOES ON! Bur eFe. Now that the “Disarmament” and War Debts Conferences are over the imperialist rivalries, threatening to throw the workers into a new yorld war, are sharper than ever, Why I Will Vote “Red” By LOREN MILLER (Loren Miller, until recently city editor of the “California Eagle,” Los Angeles, Cal., largest and oldest of western Negro newspapers. is now en route to the Soviet Union.) ECAUSE it is evident that the coming election campaign is one of the most important ever waged in this nation, I regret very much that I will not be presnt to také an active part in the struggle that Negroes must wage to pile up a huge vote for William Z. Foster and James W. Ford, Communist caniddates for President and Vice- President. The issues in this campaign are so clear that the only thing that will prevent Foster and Ford from polling the vote of every honest Negro in the country is the wave of lies and slander that will be let lose by misleaders of both races fooled by these lies, Long experi- ence has taught me that when white bosses crack the whip, cring- ing and sniveling Uncle Toms spring up on every hand to defraud the rest of us and bamboozle us into voting for our enemies and oppres- sors. This multitude of liars and lack- eys has every reason to do the bid- ding of the bosses. They profit by Loren Miller, Los Angeles Negro Journalist, Tells of Issues in Present Campaign their treason. Nor do they care that the election of the Hoovers, the Roosvelts and the lesser fry dooms the rest of us to continued misery and want. For themselves, they know that they can continue to decorate swivel chairs, pulpits and classrooms, and add another inch or two to their already fat bellies. The rest o f us can go to blazes for all they care. ‘The Real Issue But the time has come when we must take this matter in hand. The rapid increase in starvation and mass misery in the past four years, when Republicans and Democrats have been in control everywhere, demands that the workers band to- gether to overthrow the system that dooms them to soup lines and fiop houses, while the rich heave pota- toes in the ocean and pour milk down the gutters. A party that refuses to fight this system is our enemy, no matter what the Uncle Toms may say. On the other hand, a party whose plat- form promises us relief is the one which we must support, Here’s A Unit Meeting That Won a New Party Member ME. TIME AGO there was alet- ter in the Daily Worker from a comrade in California relating how he tried to get a worker into the Party by taking him to a unit meet- ing. The eeffct on the prospective member of the bad functioning of the unit was to drive him further away from the Party. This illus- trates what O. A. wrote in his ar- ticle: “How to Regulate Growth in the C. I. Sections”, in the Inpre- corr, No. 22, He writes: “Finally, the nature of the intern- al Party life of factory nuclei plays @ decisive role with regard to fluc- tuations. If the factory nucleus lives a full life, takes part in all the many movements of the work- ers in the factory, stands at the head of these movements, if all the members of the nucleus have Party duties and inner Party democracy makes it possible to discuss all questions of Party life and fight against deviations from the Party line and against bureaucratic and sectarian distortians in. the Party apparatus, members as a rule will not leave, on the contrary the nuc- Jeus will grow and increase its in- fluence on the masses. . .” An Illustration, Here is an illustration of this in a shop unit in District 2, Section 10, in a shoe shop. This shop unit was formed with 4 members in the shop in March of this year. It now has a shop membership of 13, Its work in the shop is first-rate, organizationally and politically. There was a worker in the shop whose whole life was devoted to the left wing movement, but he did not want to join the Party. He had distorted notions of Party discipline, of the heavy bur- den of activity imposed on every Party. member, of the bad func- tioning of street units (which is by no means a secret from non- Party workers), etc., etc. He is excellent material for the Party, and the unit decided to have him visit the next unit meeting, to see the Party in action. The Party was to undergo a real test. The Meeting. He came. He was introduced by one of the nucleus members, a ca- sual word was said about the need for discretion in speaking about anything going on in the meeting, and then the meeting itselm ®ent about its business, It discussed the union and the united front organi- zation in the shop. It discussed the next meeting of the workers in the shop. It discussed literature sales in the shop, It discussed the method of going about the forma- tion of an anti-war committee in the shop. It discussed the method of approaching certain elements who could be appealed to through the I. L, D, but not: through other methods of approach, and it was decided to try the formation of an I, L, D. branch in the shop. In- dividual workers in the shop were discussed from the point of view of union membership, Party mem- bership, etc., etc. “He Smiled .. 2” Before he knew it, the prospect- ive member was taking an ani- mated part in the discussion in full equality wit hthe Party members. He helped plan the union meeting. Hediscussed the virtues of a certain prospective Party member, and when a nucleus member was as- signed to “work” on this worker for the Party, he smiled to him- self, wondering, possibly, who had previously been assigned to. “work” on him, During the meeting he quietly tapped the chairman on the back, asked for an application card in whispers, and without more ado he signed up for the Party—con- vinced by the activity of the unit that his place was there. No Speeches, no agitation, no state- ments—he understood thoroughly, and he took his place as a soldier in the ranks. It was the function- ing of the Party in the shop—in the handling of his own vital prob- Jems, and the vital problems of his shop mates and of the entire work- ing class—that convinced him, where the Communist Party comes in. Read its platform. ' Here is part of it: Unemployment and social insur- ance at the expense of the state and employers. Against Hoover's policy. Emergency relief for poor farm- ers exemption of poor farmers from forced collection of rents and debts. OUR FIGHT Nobody needs to tell us that we stand in need of unemployment in- surance. The bosses have been lay- ing us off right and left, without regard for conditions. The cities and towns are full of miserable and starving Negroes who want jobs. The bosses won't give us jobs be- cause they can’t m ake profits from our employment. i live on? our portion. Taking advantage of our miserable condition, the em- ploying class has slashed wages to the starvation point. There are many of us who are working for room and board. Here is a party that fights against wage cuts. Ask yourself whether you favor that fight. There are many more of us who are poor farmers. We can’t sell our wheat, our cotton, or our corn. We can’t pay rent or taxes or other bills. Qur place is in a party that fights to get us relief from the hard-fisted rent, tax and bill collectors. Race Question The things about which I have been talking are the prime matters before us. We've simply got to fight starvation. But there is still an- other angle to this election that points us to the Communist Party. That is the racial question. All doubts on that score should be set- tled by the selection of Ford for Vice-President. Any party that nominates a militant Negro worker for Vice-President demonstrates wage-cutting beyond the need for argument that it is against the official Jim-Crow policy of the Democrats, the Repub- licans and the Socialists. However, the Communists go fur- ther. Their platform demands equal rights for Negroes and self- determination for the Black Belt. While the Republicans \and the Democrats have been lying about giving us the vote for the past sixty years, the Communist Party comes right to the front with a bold de- mand for equal rights and, without beating about the bush, the Com- munist Party emphasizes social equality for Negroes. Compare Them Now, the Republicans and Demo- crats have announced their plat- forms. Come to think of it, they don’t need to in order for us to know what they stand for. Their actions speak louder than words. Under their regime, we are starving, we are hungry and naked and homeless. We are lynched, beaten up, denied the vote and Jim- Crowed. They haven't done any- thing about it for all these years. They don’t intend to do anything about it. It is profitable to them. These Republicans and Democrats are the big-wig bankers ,the rich, the plunderers. They had rather dump food in the ocean than feed us, so they can raise prices. ‘They stimulated race hatreds so they can keep the poor of one race fighting against the poor of other races, and thus insure..their own safety. It must be evident to anybody who thinks through the things about which I have been talking that the Communist Party is our party. It. is fighting our fights, warring against our enemies, strug- gling for our welfare. Common sense dictates that we should sup- port our party with every means at hand. Right now, the task is to get out on the street corners, in factories, farm communities, and other places and win votes of the toiling masses for this party of ours. If our party is to triumph, it must have support. REVIEW GAINS OF PARTY IN WEST SAN FRANCISCO, The building of a mass Red trade union movement, and the rapid shifting of the Party to a war footing, were the main themes of the District Cunven- tion of the Communist Party just concluded in San Francisco. - One hundred twenty-seven delegates re- Presenting nearly 1,000 members in California, Nevada and Arizona, took part in the proceedings. List Achievements Among the achievements recorded during the past six months, were the establishment of the Party in Arizona and Nevada, the doubling of the membership in the District, che se- curing of 33,000 signatures -of regis- tered voters in California for the Party, the California state hunger march and the establishment of the Western Worker, which in great measure has made possible the other achievements. i The main weaknesses of the Party, the isolation from the decisive sec- tions of the toiling masses and an insufficient struggle against im- perlalist war and for the defense of the Soviet Union and Chinese work- ers and peasants, were thoroughly analyzed and steps taken to improve our work, Main emphasis was given the or- Banization of the agricultural workers and marine transport industries. The serious let-up in our unemployed work was discussed at great length. The District Committee of District 12 sent the District Organizer as a fraternal delegate.. He spoke about the struggle against demagogy in Seattle; the fight to win the unem- lpoyed away from demagogic organi- zations such as the Unemployed Citi- zens League (which at present is ac- tive in Oakland), the Producers League, etc. These organizations are designed to put across the Hoover policy for facing the workers te assume the full burden of the crisis of their shoulders, He reported that in the city of Seattle alone through carrying on an inten- sive organization campaign, and ex- posing the fakers of the U. C. L,, etc., there are today 300 block committees of the Unemployed Councils daily fighting against evictions, gas and electric shut-offs, and for relief. Set Tasks The tasks set for the Party by the Convention include the doubling of th Western Worker circulation and the recruiting of 500 new members by struggles of the agricultural workers, November 7, the organization of and the developing of a MASS anti- war campaign, A collection was taken for the Colorado beet strikers and the Com- munist Party of the Is- Philippine lands, over which District 13 has { patronage. The American Trip In America I had seen a lot of Morris Hilquit, who was aiming at becoming mayor or governor of Néw York, and the old man Debs, who had only just come out of prison and was snarling at every- body and everything in a tired and forlorn fashion. I had seen many people and many things, but I had not met a single person who could understand the whole significance of the Russian Revolution, and I felt everywhere that it was regard- ed generally as “a mere incidence of European life” and a usual oc- eurrence in a country “where there was always either cholera or revo- lution” in the words of one “hand- some lady” who “sympathized with socialism”, The idea of a journey to Amer- ica to collect money for the Bol- shevik funds came from L. B. Krassin; V. V. Vorovsky was to go with mé as secretary and organizer of meetings. He knew English well, but the Party gave him some other work to do and N. E. Burenin took his place. The latter belonged to the militant group in the C. C. of the Bolshevik Party; he didn't know the language and began to learn it on the way and when he arrived in the country. The Social- Revolutionaries became childishly interested in my journey when they learnt the aim of it, Tchai- kovsky and Zitlovsky came to me | while I was still in Finland and- suggested that money should be collected not for the Bolsheviks, but for “the revolution in general”. I refused to collect money for any “general revolution”. Then they sent “babushka”* there also, and so two people appeared in America, who independently of each other, and even without meeting, began to collect money, apparently for two different revolutions. The Americans of course had neither the time nor inclination to consid- er which was the better and the more substantial. “Babushka” ap- parently was already known to them—she had been well adver- tized in the past by her American friends—and the Tsarist embassy prepared a scandal for me. The American comrades also regarded the Russian Revolution as a “lo- cal” and abortive affair and treat- ed somewhat “liberally” the money which I collected at'the meetings, and on the whole I collected very little money—less than $10,000. I decided to get some money by writ- ing in the newspapers—but there happened to be a Paryus* in Amer- ica as well, and the American tour was on the whole a failure. How- ever I wrote “Mother” there—a fact which accounts perhaps for the faults and defects in it, After that I went to Italy, to Capri, and plunged into reading Russian books and newspapers—this also increased my low spirits. If a tooth could feel after being knocked out, it would probably feel as lonely as I did, I was full of amazement at the acrobatic skill and agility with which well—known people jumped from one political platform to another. “Everything Lost!” “Everything is lost,” they said. “They have crushed, annihilated, exiled, imprisoned everybody!”. A great deal was ludicrous, but there was no ray of cheerfulness. One visitor from Russia, a talented writer, said that I had been playing something like the role of Luke in “The Lower Depths,”—had come and charmed the young people with amiable words, they had believed me, had got some knocks on the head, and I had run away. Another declated that I was eaten up by “tendencies,” that I was a ‘played- out” man, and denied any signifi- cance to the ballet only because it was “imperial.” On the whole they said a lot of stupid and ridiculous things, and I often felt as if a pes- tilental dust were blowing from Rassia. Then suddenly, as though in a fairy tale, I found myself at the Congress of the Russian Social- Democratic Party. Of course it was @ great day for me! But my festive mood lasted only until the first meeting when they began wrangling about “tle order of the day.” The fury of these dis- putes at once chilled my enthu- siasm, and not so much because I felt how sharply the Party was divided into reformers and revolu- tionaries—I had realized that in 1903—but because of the hostile at- titude of the reformers to Lenin. It oozed and spouted out of their speeches like water under high pressure out of an old hose-pipe. Describes Plekhanov It is not always what is said that is important, but how it is said, When Plekhanov, in a frock-coat, closely buttoned up, like a Protes- tant pastor, opened the Congress, he spoke like a preacher, confident that his ideas are incontroverible— every word and every pause of great value. High up over the heads of the delegates he skillfully weighed out his beautifully rounded phrases, and whenever anyone on the Bol- ~ Days with Lenin BY MAXIM GORKY shevik benches utered a sound or whispered to a comrade, the vener= able orator made a slight pause and sent his glance. into him like a needle. One of the buttons on his frockcoat was a great favorite with Plekhanov; he stroked it caressingly all the time with his finger, and when he paused, pressed it like an electric bell—it semed to be this pressure which broke up the flowing current of his speech. Once at @ meeting Plekhanov, rismg to ans- Vv. I. LENIN wer someone, folded his arms and gave a ioud and contemptuous “Ha!”. This evoked a laugh among the Bolshevik workers. G. V. raised his eyebrows and his cheek grew pale.’ I say—his cheek, for I was sitting at the side of the puplpit and could see the orator'’s face and profile, While Plekhanov was speaking at the first meeting, the person who did the most fidgeting on the Bol- shevik benches was Lenin. At one time he hunched himself up as though he were cold, then he sprawled as if he felt hot. He poked his fingers in his armholes, rubbed his chin, shook his head, and whis- pered something to M, P. Tomsky. When Plekhanov declared that there were no “revisionists” in the party, Lenin bent down, the bald spor on his head grew rec and his shoulders shook with silent laugh- ter. The workers sitting next to him and behind him also smiled, and frox the back of the hall a voice called out loudly and mor- csely, “And what about the people sitting over there” Little Theodore Dan spoke like a man whose relationship to the au- thentic truth is one of father and daughter—he has begotten and fos- tered it, and still fosters it. He again, is Karl Marx incarnate, and the Bolsheviks — half-educated, ill- mannered children; a fact which is quite clear from their relations with the Mensheviks among whom are to be found, he said, “all the most eminent Marxist thinkers.” “You are not Marxists he said disdaipfully, “no. you are not Marxists"—and he thrust out his yellow fist. One of the workers asked him “When are you going to tea again with the Liberals?” Describes Martov I don't remembae If it was at the first meeting that Martov spoke. This amazingly attractive man spoke with the ardor of youth and was evidently especially deeply af- fected by the tragic drama of the dissension and split, He trembled all over, swayed backwards and for- wards, spasmodically unfastening the collar of his starched shirt, and waving his hands about. His cuffs fell down from under the sleeves of his coat, he raised his arm high uy and shook it to send the cuff back again to its proper place. Martoy didn’t give so much the impressior of arguiug as of urging and im- ploring: we must put an end to the split, the party is too weak to be divided, the workers must get freedom before anything else, we mustn’t let them lose heart. At times during the first part of his speech he sounded almost hysteri- cal; he became obscure through abundance of words, and he him- self gave a painful impression. At the end of his speech, and without any apparent connection with it, ho began in the same “mi- litant” tone and with the same ardour, to shout against the mili- tant group ghd against all work directed to the preparation of ap armed riging. I remember dis- tinctly that someone from the ‘Bol- shevik be:ches cried, out, “Well, there you ere!” and Tomsky, 1 think it was, said “Have we got to cut our hands off for Comrade Martov‘s peace of mind?” Again, I do not remember exactly if Mare tov spoke at tue first meeting. I only mention it in order to describe the different ways in which people spoke. After his speech there was @ gloomy discussion among the work- ers in the room which led into the hall of the meeting. “There’s Mar- tov fot you; and he was one of the “Iskra’” group!” “Our intellectual friends are changing their color!” “Babushka” Breshkovskaja—The “grandmother” of the Russian Rev- olution, who later became one of the most venomous enemies of the Soviet Union. (TO BE CONTINUED)