The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 2, 1933, Page 6

rage 2 —_ Daily Worker—May Day Supplement, 1933 Lenin’s Leaflet to Russi an Workers This leaflet was written by Lenin | for May Day, 1895. This direct ap- | peal reached many worker though | the leaflet had to be dist uted | secretly because of the close watch | by the czarist secret police. Com- | rade Lenin points here to the need | of united struggle against capital- ism. By V. I. LENIN Comrades, * let us consider our situation carefully; let us contem- | j’ Plate the conditions under which we lead our lives. What do we see? We work hard, we produce countless riches, gold and tissues, brocade and velvet; we haul iron and coal from the depths of the| earth; we construct machinery. All the riches of the world are created | |/ by our hands, are produced by our sweat and our blood.’ What,com- pensation do we get for our forced labor? If we had our desserts, we ought to live in good houses, wear good clothes and, at any rate, not want for our daily bread. Never-| theless, we all know that our wages | hardly suffice to provide us with a bare existence. Our masters re- @uce the rate of wages and force us to work overtime, they impose unfair fines on us, briefly, they op- Press us in every possible way and if we are dissatisfied, they turn us out without more ado. We have often convinced our- selves that all to whom we apply for protection prove to be henchmen and friends of the masters. We workers are kept in the dark; we are given no education lest we should want to fight for the im- provement of our condition. We are kept in bonds, we are driven out of work, we are forbidden to fight; anyone who resists the op- pression is deported and arrested. Darkness ‘and bondage are the| means by which the capitalists and the government, which does every- Shing for their advantage, hold us | ®aptive. What means have we for im- proving our position, for raising our | Wages, for reducing our hours of work, for enabling us to read in- structive books and for protecting eurselves from insult? Everyone’s| @and is against us; that of the masters, who live all the better the Worse off we are, and that of their | fackeys, of all those who live on | the crumbs which fall from the | capitalist’s table, and who keep us in ignorance and bondage for their advantage. We cannot look for help from any quarter, we can only de- pend on helping ourselves. Unity 4s our strength; our weapon is firm, Bnanimous and unrelenting re- sistance to the masters. They themselves have known for a long time in what our force consists, and use all efforis to keep us dis- united and to prevent us from real- izing that the interests of us work- ers are common interests. They re- duce the rates of wages, not all at once but one step at a time; they introduce foremen and payment by piece-work, even reducing the rates of wages arbitrarily, laughing. in their sleeve when they see that we wear ourselves out at our work. Every dog, however, has his day, patience wears out in the end. Dur- ing the past year, the Russian workers have shown their masters that the submission of the - slaves has been replaced by the steadfast courage of those who do not yield to the insolence and shamelessness per vate Hi pect the factory inspectors to notice mismanagement in the factories of such influential people Thornton or the shareholders of the Putilov Works? We have given the gentlemen plenty to do, here in St. Petersburg. The strike of the weavers at Thornton’s, of the women cigarette makers at Lagerme’s, of the spinners at Lebedev’s, at the factory for the mechanical produc- tion of shoes, the movement of the Vv. I. LENIN, workers at Konig’s Voronin’s and at the docks have shown that we have ceased to be callous sufferers, and that we have thrown ourselves into the battle. As is well known, workers from many factories and works have formed a fighting union for the liberation of the working class and with the object of disclosing all abuses, of doing away with mis- management, of fighting against the insolent tyranny and oppression of our unscrupulous exploiters and at- taining complete liberation from their rule. The. union distributes pamphlets, the very sight of which freezes the blood of the masters and their lackeys. It is not the pamphlets which they dread, but the possibility of our united resist- ance, the demonstration of our tremendous force, which we have shown them more than once. We workers of St. Petersburg and members of the union call upon all our comrades to join our union and |to promote the great work of the union of the workers in a fight for their own interests. It is tire for us Russian workers also to burst the chains ‘with witch the capital- ists and the government have bound us, to join our brothers, the work- ers in other states, in the ‘fight, for us to march under a common banner on which is written: “Work- ers of all countries, unite!” In France, England, Germany and other countries, in which the workers have already united in strong unions and have conquered many rights for themselves, they are inaugurating a general day of celebration for labor on April 19th (in other countries this is May 1st). They forsake the stuffy factories, march with music and banners in serried ranks #hroug&k the main the masters their ever increasing strength; [ae of the town, thus showing as Mr. | MAY DAY UNDER FASCIST RULE ‘Experiences from Warsaw, Poland | (By a Worker Correspondent) | NEW YORK.—During April, 1930, | I was on a visit to Warsaw, whicl: is my home town, the capital city of | | Fascist Poland, where the dictator, | | Pilsudsky, rules with an iron hand. The terror against the working masses in Poland is known over the world. The Polish Communist Party is il- legal, the revolutionary unions are semi-legal, the enormous spy sys- tem is the chief institution of- the government. In spite of this reac- tion, the impoverished working masses rally to the call of the Com- munist Party of Poland. While walking the streets of a workers’ neighborhood, I suddenly saw a red flag with the inscription, “Down With Fascism,” “Long Live the First of May,” appear in the air, attached to a trolly car wire. A crowd gathered. No one had seen where it had come from, but many workers took their hats off. Other: applauded. The police arrived on the Scene and seeing the waving red banner, they dispersed the crowd with anger, and called an emergency wagon to unhook the Red Flag from the wires. No one was caught—that’s how skillfully it was done! The next time I saw a Red Flac was in the “Polish Defensive” (the Political Police headquarters), after I was arrested for visiting the Nee- dle Trades Red Union. I was taker into the cross examination room. There on the floor was the flar with the sligan “Long Live the First of May.” A fe~ of the arrested com- rades were qa¢stioned by the Po- litical Police. . I spent three days with the Polish comrades in the “Defensive” who were arrested on suspicion of Com- munist activities. Most of them were young, awaiting years of imprison- ment, but that did not kill their spirit. Th@ revolutionary songs ech- oed far out into the open. This sc angered the police guard that they threatened to isolate us, but we kept on singing. For three days ten of us were kept in a little room, incommuni- cado. They fed us on black bread | that tasted like clay and soup mixed with flies. We slept on bare boards called “noras,” piled one on top of another, We were fingerprinted and photographed and cross-examined a few times a day. - In spite of the hundreds arrested before May First, in order to check the demonstrations, there were thousands of workers’ demonstraf- ing on May Day, raising thelr pro- test against the fascist terror. —Clara. other countries, that their fight may very Soon result in the desired vic- tory; that the time may soon come when there are neither masters nor Slaves, neither capitalists nor work- ers, when ail will work equally and all will enjoy life reasonably and on equal terms. Comrades, if we act unitedly and harmoniously, the time is not far distant when we also, in firmly weld- ed ranks, shall be able, without dis- tinction of race or creed, openly the workers of all countries against the capitalists in the whole world. Our muscular arm will be raised and the shameful chains of slavery will fall; the working people of our From “Memoirs of __ A Revolutionist” This is an excerpt from Piatnit- sky’s recently published book, “Memoirs of a Revolutionist.” Here we have a description of the early May Days in Russia and the heroic struggles of the Russian working class against czarism. It was these links in the mighty chain of class struggles that built the Bolshevik Party which was to lead the toiling masses to the victorious revolution —to the establishment of the Dic- tatorship of the Proletariat, “Memoirs of a Revolutionist,” by Osip Piatnitsky, can be bought at the Workers’ Book Shop, 50 E. 13th St., New York. Price, $1. * * * “Once, at the end of February, 1889, or perhaps 1900, I was in- | formed on the exchange that some- one was waiting for me in a certain house on the outskirts of the city. I went there immediately. A meet- ing, consisting of representatives of the unions and one comrade intel- lectual, was in progress. The ques- tion of the First of May celebration was being discussed. The point at issue was: should they gather on the First of May in private houses, ir the woods, or in the street? After a long debate, it was de- cided to organize a demonstration on the main street. Each union was to organize a meeting of all its members before the First of May, and put the question of the demon- stration before them. At each of these meetings an “intellectual” was to be present. Discuss May Day I summoned a big meeting of the members of the union. We waited a long time for the intellectual who was to be the speaker, but he did not put in an appearance. I was therefore obliged to explain the meaning of the First of May and why we ought to demonstrate on the streets on that day (until then the First of May had been cele- brated either: in the woods or at home.) This was not so simple; for at that time our work was confined to the econome struggle with our employers, who had the police on} their side. This was all that the members of the unions of that day knew. As far as I can recall, the reasons I gave at that meeting for the ne- cessity of demonstrating on the Streets were that the strikes of the last two years had accomplished nothing as far as we workers were concerned, and that it was now nece essary to show the highest govern- mental authority in our town, the governor, that the workers were dis- satisfied. with their conditions, and that they were protesting against them. Vhe meeting unanimously de- cided .3 participate in thé demon- stration, Then and there’ captains of squads of ten men were appoint- ed who, on the evening of April 18 (corresponding to May 1, new style), were to be, after work, in one of the side-streets near the ‘Bolshaya St. (the main street :of Vilna), where the demonstration was to take place, together with the ten desonstrators for whom each cap- tain. was responsible. First Baptism of Fire ‘At the appointed time I was there with nine comrades. When the mo- ment arrived for our entrance into the Bolshaya St. every body was as- sembled. The main street was im- mediately filled with men and wo- men workers, who mingled with the bourgeois promenaders. The mount- ed Cossacks and police scented the presence of unusually large numbers of persons in the streets, and they were on the alert. Suddenly the red flag was displayed. The crowd be- gan to sing disjointedly in various places; great confusion ensued. The shops were hastily closed and the promenading public scurried to cov- er. The Cossacks and the police threw themselves upon the demon- strators and lashed out with their whips right and left. This was prob- ably the Vilna workers’ first baptism of fire. A year later the May Day demon- stration was held on a public holi- day. The meeting place was in a park at the end of Bolshaya St. When the demonstrators came out of the park the Cossacks fell upon them, and a great many were in- jured. Numerous arrests were made. The year between the first dem- onstration and the next had not passed in vain. There was no ques- tion now of discussion wh-re to meet on the First of May: in the woods, in private houses, or in the street. Now there was merely an announce- ment in all the unions that there would be a demonstration, and each union was given directions as to the meeting place and time. That was all. A great many people came to the demonstration even without our having taken the preparatory mea- sures we had taken a year before. Communist Party Manifesto (CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE) must be ne united front of struggle against this new tyranny of the big capitalists and landlords. It is these leaders, who, like Norman Thomas and Morris Hillquit in this country, went to Roosevelt to con- gratulate him on his bank-mora- torium which was an act of rob- bery directed against the masses. It is these leaders, who like Julius Gerber in the city of New York, in a letter to the Police Commissioner Bolan “congratulates him and wish- ed him success.” It is these leaders who are opposed to a Unitd Front of all the workers as proposed by the Central Committee of the Com- munist Party and by the National Executive Committee of the ‘Trade Union Unity League. Weld the Unity of All Toilers Against Capitalism—for Socialism. As against all these traitors of the working class, the workers and farmers of country, whether belonging to one organization or the other, must forme one powerful uni- ted front of struggle. Workers and toilers, Negro and | white, of city and farm, unite! Unite in the struggle against the Roosevelt hunger government — the government of finance capital for: Unemployment and social insur- ance at the expense of the state and loyers. —s and self determination in the Black Belt. Against capitalist terror; against all forms of suppression of the po- litical rights of the workers; for the immediate release of Tom Mooney and the Scottsboro boys. Against imperialist war! For the defense of the Chinese people! For the defense of the Sovict Union— the base of socialism! -» i Weld firmer the international sol- idarity of the workers against fas cist reaction! Solidarity with the German workers for the struggle against the Hitler fascist dictator- ship! : Workers and toilers, the way out for the capitalists from the crisis is by way of war and starvaiitn. Forward along the road of strug- gle for the overthrow of capitalism— the breeder of starvation and wars. The dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union has shown the way for the American workers! It has abolished unemployment, re- duced working hours, raised the ma- terial conditions of the workers and peasants, marching forward on the path towards a classless society! Only the destruction of capital- ism in the United States will abolish unemployment, wage cuts and wars. Against capitalism and the dic- tatorship of the bosses! For the dio- tatorship of the proletariat and the building of a classless socialist so- Unite for- the revolutionary way out of the crisis, for the victory of