The Daily Worker Newspaper, October 10, 1933, Page 5

The John Reed Clubs A | Left Front ‘ The Century of Progress *” WHAT WORLD! By Michael Gold There must be groups that sprang up so rapidly in all 'HE John Reed Clubs have not yet found themselves. some thirty of them now, th the principal cities of America. At first they were intended to be clubs composed only of revolution- ary writers and artists. But, as,was pointed out at a recent midwest con- ference of the clubs, they are,now of three types—those made up solely of writers and artists, and second those in which are centered all the -cultural work of a region, and which admit actors, dancers, musicians, etc. and third the clubs which are’ predominantly political, the centres for intellectuals and white collar’ sympathizers with Communism in a given area. a It has been a running debate, since the first club was organized, as to whether to hew to a strict. line and admit only artist-writer members or to broaden out, But naturesHas: overruled the debaters and the clubs seem to have grown in answet to definite needs. Up till recently the lower middle class allies of Communism have been neglected. This is a powerful elément in the revolution; Karl Marx says somewhere that without a minimum of 10 per cent of this class as allies, the proletariat cannot hope to~take power. John Reed Clubs and the Penvand Hammer groups shows how anxious these elements are to be of reat'service. This winter ought to see. some serious organizational thinking“on this matter, and a co-ordination into an effective national program 6f''all the middle-class allies. euite te . The Chicago Club 'Y REMARKS on Chicago yesterday were prompted by the copy I had received of “Left Front,” the new magazine being published there as an organ of the John Reed Clubs of the middle West. The Chicago club is made-up of writers and artists, and one of its members, lanky Bill Jordan, edits ‘the magazine. This club contains some fine artists. The John Reed Clubs are so badly out of touch with each other that few of the artists in New York know the splendid achievements of their Chicago fellow workers. Gilbert Rocke, of the Chicago club, seems to me about as good an artist as any putting brush to ‘carivas in these states. He has several paintings of Communist demonstrations that display realism, drama, imagination of a high’ order anda really first-class technique. It is about time the New York club held an exhibit of Chicago and Midwest painters. It may surprise some of our provincial New Yorkers. ’ * * is the second issue of the magazine, Left Front. It still has an amateurish appearance, which is the usual defect of most of our revo- lutniaory press, ‘We use only union Pera) and sweat blood to pay the union rate. ‘The printers do their bst, probably; it is our editors who have no make-up ideas or skill, and who make too few demands on a printer. It has to be studied, this technique of making up a paper. writing or art can be robbed of its effect if not well presented. The capitalist press racketeers study the art of make-up very in- tensively and scientifically. Its.an important element in business com- petition. But how many younger. editors in the movement have given five minutes of thought to this subject? . The best [= FRONT leads off with two bits of reportage on that -big Fair still going in Chicago to commemorate a century of Progress—and Poverty. It is good journalism. Eugene Leslie exposes the cheap ballyhoo, sex pandering, white chauvinism and: glorification of Fascism that have been features of this show. Max Axelrod paints an ironic and impressionistic picture of the same event. The rickshaws are pulled by~eollege boys working 82 hours a week on @ commission basis, says Leslie. *Young lady college graduates get’ ten and twelve dollars a week at the numerous souvenir stands, working only 70 hours. Actors get 12 to 15 dollars weekly, and the waitresses at the Century Grill struck for two hours at the rush period August 10, They were getting $6 a week; they had been promised $10. But Rufus Dawes, president of the fair, was glad to assure Bloody Balbo, the assassin of workers and peasants, that in Italy “discipline has replaced disorder, con- trol superseded confusion.” And prostitutes walk the Mpuilevards, says Axelrod, and 1200 school teachers have been fired, and just outside the fair grounds an army of homeless men sleeps in the-@¥ags of Grant Park. * = . The Nut Pickers’ Strike 7" rs Table of Contents John Reed Club of St. TaifS.is proud of one of its new members, Bill Sentner, An artist andawehitect, he joined the club some eight months ago, and proceeded to interest himself in the struggles of the St. Louis workers, At the time of the nut-pickers’ strike he became one of the most popular leaders,.writes Joe Hoffman. So famous did he become, it. seems, that a telegram ordering his arrest was sent to St. Louis employers by no less ‘@ personage than General Hugh (Con- scription) Johnson. 2 Comrade Bill and another “Comrade were held incommunicado in Jail for several days by the federals, but were then released because of fear of unpleasant publicity by,.the Nira bird. ‘You see, according to the report of this interesting strike by John Bronson, these Negro and white workers emancipated by the Blue Buzzard were earning in the nut factories of St. Louis, the marvellous American wage of $1.40 to $3 for;a full 52-hour week. Believe it or not, Comrades Ripley and Roosevelt? | Cs are some first-class books reviews in this number of Left Front by Herbert Klein, William Pillin, Irving Yaffa and John Alroy. There are poems by the talerited and prolific Norman Macleod of the Southwest, and by W. Pillin. -aNot enough poetry, though for a region famous for poetry and hog-killing. There is a stirring report*by Mark Marvin of the conference to or- ganize a United Front Against Hanger and several sketches by Gaspaer Correspondence columns always fascinate me, and there are some interesting letters. John Alroyc:explains how he came to write his article in the American Mercury: 'satirizing the left wing intellectuals. He admits he made a mistake.<-Mencken has tempted many proletarian writers to this kind of thing. H has a specious lure—you are told to be humorous and self-critical, broad and a good fellow by Mencken. The point is, he is glad to print your superficial quarrels with the revolu- tionary movement, but not your,deeply-felt loyalty and understanding of it. Mencken, personally, is @.generous and big-hearted person, but a menace to a young proletarian writer. Comrade Alroy, you are -big-enough to see the trap. Our enemies iM do all the attacking essaty; let us not help them. This is not the time to help the revolutionary movement by rooting out its back- house garbage, Leave that to the Max Eastman’s and Yale Harrison’s and the like, It seems to be their career. a SOON The rapid growth of the | DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1933 Berry High School Students in Rome, Georgia, Organize to Gain Better Conditions The World of the Theatre By HAROLD EDGAR Eugene O’Neill The quality and merits of Eugene O'Neill’s latest play, “Ah, Wilder- ness!” at the Guild Theatre, are easy to recognize. The play is a very slight comedy of middle-class life in the earlier part of this century. It deals with the first loves and adolescent experiences of a senior high-school boy, the more reputable and ordinary problems of tender parents, the mild sex frustrations of so-called average Americans. It is the kind of comedy at its best that is rather infrequent on our stage, al- though quite usual in continental plays of pre-war years, the comedy of simple home-life, of uneventful days in a bourgeois household, of small tempests in & teapot. As such it has its value—particularly in the purely domestic scenes—since Amer- ican comedy tends too much to strain itself toward big scenes and belly laughter. Aside from these gentle passages of reminiscent observation, which take up about three-quarters of an hour of a rather longish evening, the writing and the content of the play are hardly superior, though perhaps a little more robust, than the milk~ iest of the Booth Tarkington novels. Indeed, O'Neill's picture of a seven- teen-year-old boy is entirely conven- tional, banal, false. One observes with no little irritation that the play- wright, who is supposed to have broken away from stereotype stage figures, can remember nothing more about his youth than that there’ were fellows who rebelled against their en- vironment through Swinburne, Wilde, Ibsen and Shaw, and mouthed callow Socialist phrases, while there were others who made dates with fast girls in the back of barrooms, and that both were fundamentally genial good Americans! We wonder whether this play, harmless and inconsequential in it- self, is not a clue to much of O'Neill's later work, and a sign of what we may exepct from him in the future. As a youth, O'Neill was surely not like the young hero of his latest play. He must have been passionate, intense, emotionally uncontrolled, im~ patient with the dead forms of life and of art around him, obstinate and questioning. He broke loose, he met real people, he went where life was raw, difficult, painful. And the result was the early plays, which for all their shortcomings, had the beat of life in them, the savor of the soil, the sea, sweat, struggle, misery. During this period, O’Neill, im- mersed in the confusion and dark- ness of the life he saw, tended to- ward a romantic pessimism, intellec- tually immature but creative none- theless because it was close to reality, Then as the leisuré afforded him by suecess permitted him to do some reading he probably dipped into Freud and Nietzsche. Freud fur- nished him with a. sort of scientific chart to individual behavior; Neitzsche, a lyrical way out of chaos, through the exaltation of tragic ex- perience as an end in itself. The result was a kind of half-baked op- timistic pessimism! It was _half- baked in the sense that O'Neill had ceased to experience life except through chauteaux in France, Park Avenue apartments, Georgia country homes, the Theatre Guild and a very limited library. It was a thin pessim- ism since it was based on a concep- tion of life, no longer on any con- tact with it; it was an unconvincing optimism since it could not be trans- lated into terms of human action. In this spirit O'Neill wrote his academic plays, beginning with “Marco Mil- lions” down to the present. These plays were successful, for the most part, because together with an al- ways tangible dramatic talent, their pessimism seemed profound, their optimism, reassuring. But they were mainly dead, demanding no dynamic response from the audience, no posi- tive point of view. For all his sin- cerity and vehemence O'Neill was a safe dramatist. Today a choice must be made, Either one sinks into a suicidal de- spair or one goes forward toward the revolution as envisaged by Marx and Lenin. But there are people who are afraid, and there are people who are protected. In one way or another, they go backward to thoughts of a happy yesterday—to the happy yes- terday which in O’Neill’s, case was not happy at all—to the times when the struggle of Mfe was less acute, when there were not so many dis- turbing depressions, inflations, strikes, and omens of war. They write “come- dies of recollection” not with an alive feeling of today but with a nostalgia for a past that never was. That is why juvenile idyls like “One Sunday Afternoon” are rapturously taken to the bourgeois bosom, and that is why Eugene O'Neill can’t remember the real young man he was. We do not wish to accuse O'Neill of political fascism—he would no doubt scorn or shudder at the idea— but the state of mind which his latest play betrays is a reflection of one aspect of the spirit which makes for fascism. And it is instructive to note, from a cultural standpoint, that the period which led to this newly found bliss, in which O'Neill sings the beauty of autumn and winter while he pats the memory of an un- real youth, produced such puerile “problem plays” as “Dynamo,” such pompous melodramas as “Mourning Caoa! stanpuP muGt Students—Workers’ an d Mountaineers’ Sons— Struck Recently Against Miserably Low Wages; Demand Recognition of Union By DAVE SOUTHERN ROME, Ga.—The students of Berry High School are organizing a solid and determined protest against slave conditions enforced upon them by the school officials. They expect tomake their demands and force the school to radical changes ir its procedure. Berry is a school of por white South- ern workers. Most of the students come from the Southern foothills and mountains of the Blue Ridge Range. Stage and Screen Anderson’s “Mary Of Scot- land” Opens on Broadway, Nov. 12; Nazimova Here Nov. Maxwell Anderson’s new play, “Mary Of Scotland,” in which Helen Hayes will play a leading role, is announced as the Theatre Guild’s third produetion, opening on Novem- ber 13 at a Broadway theatre. The drama will have a tryout in Wash- ington beginning Oct. 23. Others in the cast include Philip Merivale, Fritz Leibler, Ernest Cossart, and Helen Mencken. Theresa Helburn is staging the play. Alla Nazimova will return here early in November in a new play, “Doctor Monica,” adapted by Laura Walker from the Polish drama by Marja M. Sczepkowska. Walter Hampden and his company started an extended tour in Pitts- field yesterday in his new production, “Roy Blas,” a modernized version of the Victor Hugo comedy by Brian Hooker. The play will be seen at the Majestic, Brooklyn, the week of Oct. 16 and will open at the Cort Thea- tre on Oct. 23 for a limited engage- ment. Katherine Wilson and Percy| Waram have important roles in the production, Screen Notes The Palace Theatre is now show- ing “Bureau of Missing Persons,” with Bette Davis, Pat O’Brien and Lewis Stone. The stage bill is headed by York and King, in “Tin Types”; Lillian Miles and The Haris Boys. The RKO Roxy screen feature is “The Power and the Glory.” Be- ginning Wednesday the program will be headed by “My Weakness’ with Lilian Harvey. ‘ Ronald Colman in “The Masquer- ader” is the screen feature at Loew's State this week. The vaudeville bill includes Herb Williams’ “Ingenues,” @ musical act; Senator Murphy and Stone and Vernon. “Night. Fiignt;’ with John and Lionel. Barrymore, Helen Hayes and Clark Gable is the new screen pro- gram at the Capitol Theatre. The Paramount is now showing “Torch Singer” with Claudette Col- bert and David Manners. Milton Berle and Saly Rand head the stage show. “Charlie Chan's Greatest Case,” with Warner Oland is the new film at the Seventh Avenue Roxy this week. ‘The school still peddiles its “sob stor- ies” about poor little mountain boys and girls being so ignorant, illiterate and backward. Until two years ago Southern Highlander”—in which it told these crooked tales.and for hav- ing one of these magazines in his pelled. say their conditions are little better than those of prisoners. They are allowed no freedom of expression. And despite the fact that Berry has signed the N. R. A. and flies the Blue Eagle, students are still paid 10 cents an hour for hard laber., They work students 1044 hours a day. They re- fuse to allow students to have a union to express the collective opin- ion of students and for democratic action. On Aug. 28 the entire body of work- ing students protested these miser- able conditions by walking out on strike—refusing to work till prom- ised by the principal that their de- mands would be met. They were striking primarily against the dis- gracefully low wages paid—10 cents an hour. On the excuse of .“de- pression” the school had lowered wages from the old standard of 16 to 18 cents an hour. This cut: has made it impossible for students to make eight months’ tuition in four months as before the cut. Students of Berry School are sturdy working class Southerners. They re- set this injustice. In two different sets of leaflets they have set forth their demands around which the struggle they are waging is to be centered. One of their leaflets states: “We Demand: “1, The recognition of a student organization representing the student body. “2. That a committee within this organization, elected by the students, be consulted on all matters pertain- ing to student intewst, especially the exxpulsion of students. “3. That this student committee be allowed to investigate and publish the actual cost of maintaining a student, and the income derived from products raised by students in the school. “4, That the student committee be allowed to pass judgment on or dis- miss work bosses who curse or in other ways abuse students. “5. That either tuition be lowered or that wages be raised so that, as before, a student can make eight months’ tuition in four work months. “6. That students be allowed to hold two mixed socials every month. And that students be allowed two trips to town each month as set. forth \in the Berry rules.” This is part of a leaflet to the general public in which these fight- ing students asks every person and | organization to help them by sending | protest letters, telegrams, resolutions, incorporating the above demands to the principal, Grady Hamrick; the president, G. L. Green; the director, Martha Berry, and to the Board of Trustees. aie LUT TONIGHT’S PROGRAMS WEAF—660 Ke. 7:00 P, M,—Mountaineers Music 7:15—Billy Bachelor—Sketch. 7:30—Lum and Abner, %:43—The Goldbergs—Sketch. 8:00—Julia Sanderson and FrankCrumit, songs, 8:30—Dance Orch. 9:00—Bernie Orch. 9:30—Voorhees Band; Ralph Dumke, comedians. 10:00—Lives at Stake—Sketch. 10:30—Beauty Talk—Mme. Sylvia. 10:45—Robert_ Simmons, tenor; Sears Orch. 11:00—King Orch. 11:15—Meroff Orch. 11:30—Talkle Time—Sketch. 12:00—Ralph Kirbery, songs. 12:05 A, M.—Davis Orch, 12:30—-Childs Oreb, Eddie East and WOR—710 Ke. 7:00 P.M.—Sports—Ford Frick. 7:15—The Purdy Brothers. 7:30—Terry and Ted—Sketch. 7:45+Grofe Orch.; Jean Sargent, songs. 8:30—Eddy Brown, violin; Symphony Orch. 9:00—Gordon Graham, baritone; Ohman and Arden, piano duo. 9.15—Demarco Sisters; Frank Sherry, tenor. 9:30—Footlight Echoes. 10:00—Organ Recital, 10:15--Current Events—Harlen Eugene Read 10:30—Variety Musicale, Becomes Electra.” They are not the plays of the young O'Neill; they are the plays of the now empty O'Neill, whose symbolic image w see in/the boy of “Ah, Wilderness!” What will this distorted boy—the bastard crea- tion of a young man grown old without having grown up—bring forth in the future? We fear further and more pernicious forms of intellectual fascism, A New Arrest HIM PEDDLING WaL,I CAUGHT LEAFLETS — BUT 11:00--Weather report. 11:02—Moonbeams. Trio. 11:30—Nelson Orch 12:00—Gerston Orch. WJZ—760 Ke. 7:00 P. M.—Amos ‘n’ Andy 7:15—Secrets of Municipal Credit—Morris ‘Tremaine, Controller, New York State Bank; Frank H. Morse, banker; Howard P. Jones, secretary, National Municipal League. 7:45—Dog Chat—Don Carney. 8:00—The Diamond Sepulchre—Sketch. 8:30—Adventures in Health—Dr. Henry Bundesen. 8:45—Billy Hillpot and Scrappy Lambert, songs; Shilkret Orch. 9:00—Alice Mock, soprano; Edgar Guest, poet. 9:30—Beethoven — Musical and Dramatic Sketch, 10:00—Ortiz Tirado, tenor; Concert, Orch. 10:30—Miniature Theatre. 11:00—Leaders ‘Trio. 11:15—Poet Prince. 11:30—Holst Orch. 12:00—Harris_ Orch. 12:30 A.M.—Fisher Orch. WABC—860 :Ke 7:00 P.M.—Myrt and Marge. 7:15—Just Plain Bill—Sketeh. 7:30—Trappers Orch. 1:45—News—Boake Carter. 8:00—Elmer Everett Yess—Sketch. 8:15—Singin’ Seam. 8:30—Voice of Experience. 8:45—Kate Smith, songs. 9:00—California Melodie: 9:30-—Nino Martini, tenor; Symphony Orch. 10;00—Legend of America—Dramatization, 10:30—Boswell Sisters, songs. 10:45—Symphony Orch. 4; 11:15—News Bulletin. we 11:30-—Jones Orch. : 12:00--Lopea Orch. 12:30 A.M.—Lucas Orch. 1:00—Henderson Orch. Keep Your Party on the ister Communist October 9 Ballot. Reg- to 14. the school had a magazine—“The| Possession a student would be ex-| | Reports from the Berry students | } CLANCY, THAT'S THE SAME AS RESISTING ARREST - WHERE'S YER DIGNITY? SHOW ‘EM WHAT, THAT MEANS TOM MANN on Literature By ROBERT KENT “I am much concerned that workers get the broadest kind of opportunity to read literary works,” said Tom Mann, 77-year old Brit~- ish working * . class leader, in a recent brief interview. gt read literature, and I most honestly wish Marxist-Leni By JOHN RICARDO. THE CRIMSON JESTER, by H. H. that 1 could Dunn. McBride & Co. .33. Bes “tt A story of Emiliano Zapata should than I can.” reveal a good deal that tur- During the bulent period (1910-1917) when Mex- Menu up ico entered the first stage of the went to work bourgeois-demo: revolution. ‘The in the English peasant and the Indian fighters head- ed by Zapata had a central place in TOM MANN ; the agrarian upheaval of this time coal pits at the age of nine, quoted lines from Shakespeare's | | Which actually k blows at the plays. more reactior feudal landlords Authors whose works he admires | | and the Catho Church. include George Bernard Shaw, But, aside from’ the relation of a whom he has known for 40 years,| | few fresh facts (of th John Dos Passos, Michael Gold,| | of which the author d Upton Sinclair. || that he is awa Genera x. little hig! than that of the ordinary adventure story on Mex | after page records the looting | ing, and shooting of the “hi | Zapata. But only in a fe paragraphs is there an ini the social content of this “Even revolutionary workers in| | Jester” our country are inclined to look down on literary works as effective weapons of the class struggle,” I said to Comrade Mann. He shook his white-haired head vigorously. “I am conscious,” he said, “of my limitations because of my lack ine age lated tion of ovement of time to have read deeply and | This content is p: ly suggested in systematically. But we certainly | | the words of an I follower of want men with characteristics| | Zapata, quoted & mn: “This is more varied than ourselves. I look | | the country of ow ople. We come upon revolutionary literary writing | | from the soil. We must have that) as a very valuable asset in our| | soil again. It belongs to us Indians,| struggle.” + not to the wh planters, nor to the half-breed caciques (usurers and| landlords), but to us who have lived| on it. since before the beginning of the centuries.” It is further summed} up in an. isolated paragraph by the author himself: fens of thousands of public papers—deeds, property transfers, titles, mortgages, marriage agreements, birth registrations, death records, maps and other irreplaceable | documents—were destroyed at his or- der or by his own hand, in the belief that the destruction of these records would leave the land free to the In- dians. Titles to more than five hun- dred -hatiendas and to hundreds of smaller farms are lost forever. Their | terrain is occupied but not cultivated by three or four million Indians.” Zapatismo and its fearless chief- tain have come to symbolize for the SOVIET RUSSIA TODAY, published) Mexican masses the battle with by the Friends of the Soviet | feudalism and reaction. This has 10 cents. been the source of never-ending leg- Union. October. bg > end among the peasant and Indian population. Around the supposed ex- plois of Zapata and the heroism of his followers, countless songs (cor- Tidos) and chants have arisen, It is mainly from this point of view that some revolutionary intellectuals By J. K. An effective answer to the current! crop of lies against the Soviet Union| is contained in the October issue of} bile aie ais Shee pel Wiel |have begun to write of Zapata. Henri Barbusse, who figured prom} But the record of the Zapatista inently in the recent U. S. Congress | Against W: movement has several principal and ~* ar, contributes the leading) +. reaching political lessons for the article. Writing on “For a League : : gue | evolutionary ve. s Aatioe WesvcAneiont Pasian and | Troagr in, the. Hirst, place, Cee ‘or ense of viet Union,” tid i ° the great French novelist points out| ‘0 Shatter the demacoric, perigee the immediate and growing menace| (1C PiPsthy eee. the iietiobat of an attack upon the U.S.S.R. Only| nity | of the Calles clique, about the “revo- the organized resistance. of the mas-! jitionary” nature of this government, bec Nis pela madara aerate and its Agrarian Reform of 1917. The i ic, | record of the Zapatista movement which carries out a consistent policy) it was solely ‘ 5, shows plainly that of peaceful Socialist construction. | through the revolutionary pressure How criminals built the vast en-) of the peasant masses, whose move- gineering project ‘of the Baltic-White| ment reached its highest fighting Sea Canal, is described by Liston, tages in the activities of the follow-| Oak, editor of “Soviet Russia Today.” ers of Zapata, that the Agrarian Re- Here we see the Soviet policy of form of 1917 came into existence. The} reclaiming its law violators, turning state of Morelos was the center of} them into useful members of society, ruggles of the Zapatistas. In| who contribute to the Socialist con- ate, according to the figures of | struction of the Soviet Union. In- Tannenbaum, (“The Mexi Ag-| stead of leaving prison anti-social rarian Revolution’—Prof. and vindictive, as in the case in the rienbaum), a bourgeoi: capitalist world. the Soviet Union per cent of the popu develops them into builders of the ceived 35 per cent the total new society. | of the state in government distribu- Another important contribution 1s| tion up to 1926. This figure is not ion has “Against Imperialist War,” by Ro-| even approached in other sections main Rolland. Increased war bud-| of the country: gets, the ever deepening crisis, the} The same Professor Tannenbaum | sharpening conflicts among the i states, that for Mexico as a whole] of the more 43 per cent received no clearly Ar ral population | than 2.64 of the nerialist nations show Rolland, that war is near. Si t this chaos and conflict, he states,| total landed area as a result of this only the Soviet Union. pursues a|much-heralded A, jan Reform of steady peace policy. the Constitution 1917. This is to| say nothing of the fact that the Other interesting and timely ar-| 114 distributed was taken chiefly| from unclaimed government reserves | and was not land expropriated from | the landlords; that it was the land| ticles in the October issue are “Sov-| fet Russia in American Fiction” and} “Maxim Gorky, Literary Giant,” by Alan Calmer; “Soviet Karelia,” by i a A of the poorest quality and incon-| iy aay RUE eae ak veniently situated; that under the tre, Oler Russia.” ty Robert| guise of a 15 per cent tax the land| was actually paid for by those who Good, and letters from Soviet farm-| -ccived it: that the poor peasant cetace' Ranehanles | who did receive land had no imple- | Rounding out the issue are or-| ments or any other means necessary | ganizational articles dealing with the| for the working of this land. Such | coming National Convention of the| has been the fraud of Agrarian Re- Friends of the Soviet Union, to be! form in Mexizo which American lib-| held in Necember, the camvaicn ‘cr | erals and socialisis of the brand of | the election of worker delegates from) Upton Sinclair hail as a revolutionary basic industries to visit the Soviet| solution to the agrarian question, and | Union in November. and a variety} which they have the gall to compare | of photographs of Soviet life. | with the Socialist solution which’ is The October issue of “Soviet Russia! being rapidly won Today” is interesting and informa-| Union. | tive. It answWers adequately the flood! Actually, the demagogic agrarian | of lies and distortions in the press| program of the Mexican government and from the White Guardists, Cath-| was nothing more than a means of | olic Church, fascists and imperialists. | trying to pacify the embattled peas- It deserves wide distribution among) antry, to head off their struggles. the large number of people who are Whatever actual concessions were keenly interested in what is taking gotten by the peasantry were not due place in one-sixth of the world, where} to governmental and landlord gen- workers and farmers are building 4lerosity. They were due to the stub- classless society. |born, in fact savage, fight of tens of __... thousands of armed peasants sych as 1 the Zapatistas. That the peasant re- by QUIRT |volt was beaten back and that it fell short of changing in any fundamen- ‘tal respect the semi-feudal class re- lations is borne out, however, by the fact that today 10 per cent of the land owners of the country own over 80 per cent of the land, while the remaining 10 per cent own less than 12 per cent. The record of Zapatismo is also the record of peasant vacillation and de- feat, The Mexican peasant move- ment inevitably took this road be- cause it travelled its way separately, isolated from the anti-imperialist struggle and the class movement of the workers, at times even clashing with it. Perhaps the most importan facts to be gate2red from Dunn's ac- count are thosd which give proof o this typical peasant and petty-bour. geois “caudillo” (chieftain) nature o* Zapatismo. This characterization i in the Soviet supported by the fact that Zapate | Page Five a Bourgeois Journalist Shows Little Understanding of Life of Mexican Agrarian Leader Record of Zapatista Movement in Mexico Is Yet To Be Investigated in the Light of nist Analysis 1 nself was of a landlord family, |that his chief adviser was the petty- bourgeois intellectual adventurer, Az- he fact, for ensign of the the anarchists, fot along with the aspi dian masses for 1 robbed from their As has already been contributions of Mr. Di American newspaper corr to an understanding of Zapata ahd hi in the first stages of ‘the democri olution! tr y accidental. Leninism to re and mys- and let hi stand forth as the fully understand- able m. | figure |we have the study of the peasant jleader of the 16th century, Thomas |Meunzer, made by Frederich Engels jin his “Peasant War In Germany.” Conductor of “Daily” Chorus To Speak at Forum on Music NEW YORK.—A composers’ forum under the chairmanship of Henry Cowell will be held tomorrow at 8:20 p.m. at the New School for Social Research, 66 W. 12th St. Among those who wil] take past are Harold Morris, Henry Hadley and Lahn Adohmyan. The latter is conductor of the Daily Worker chorus, and ac- tiv as a proletarian composer. Hadley, a composer well-known in bourgeois circles, will defend the po- sition for nationalism in music, Adohmyan will present the revyolu- tionary approach, WHAT'S 0 Tuesday Chorus, REHEARSAL, of WORKER 106 E. iéth St at @ B, MR Old and new members must coma rs Wednesday MASS PROTEST MEETING sgainst Fas- cism, under auspices of Alfred Levy Branch LL.D, and the Hinsdale Youth Club at 313 Hinsdale St., Brooklyn. Prominent speak- ers. Admission free, Amusements THE THEATRE GUILD presents ~ EUGENE O’NEILU’s NEW PLAY AH, WILDERNESS! with GEORGE M. COHAN GUILD THEA., 52nd St., W. of B’way JOE COOK in e LD YOUR HORSES Winter Garden "rx! is was, Thursday and Saturday at Mat. Thur., Sat. 2:20 H A Musical Runaway in 24 Scenes LAST TWO DAYs “—"—="y “THE PATRIOTS”- A Gorki Conception (English Titles)’ also“MOSCOW ATHLETES ON PARADE” Openning this Thursday “The Passion of Joan of Arc” 14th Street and Acme Theatre ‘"Ynion square’ ew “RADIO CITY MUSIC HALEAy SHOW PLACE of the NATION Direction “Roxy” Opens 11:30 A.M WILL ROGERS in “DR. BU! and a great “Roxy” stage show Be to 1 p.m.—se to 6 RKO Greater § | Lilian Harvey in “MY WEAKNESS” |RKO CAMEO ,feptlst Brice Bway at 42d St. KO Jefferson 1th st. | Now LIONEL ATWILL & GLORIA STUART in “The Secret of the Blue Room” also “HER SPLENDID FOLLY” with LILIAN BOND & THEODORE VON ELTZ “MUSIC ;NEW YORK HIPPODROM! Chicago Opera Co. LA FORZA DEL DESTINO MME, BUTTERFLY Thursday (Holiday ~ CARMEN fhurs. Eve. LA BOHEME Secure Seats Early, Avoid Disappointment 25¢-35c-55c-83¢-$1.10, - PHILADELPHIA, Tonight Wednesday Mat.) r 22 Market St. PHILKINO | on. Pertormance Authentic Romance of Dnieprostroy Written and Directed by Dovshenko LITTL 562 BROAD STREET — NEWARK, N. J. — Last 2 Days First All Yiddish Talkie Made in Soviet Russia “THE RETURN OF NATHAN BECKER” — English Dialogue Titles — _ Continuous Daily & Sunda 1 to 11 P. M—POPULAR PRICES The I. J. MORRIS, Inc. GENERAL FUNERAL DIRECTORS 296 SUTTER AYE. BROOKLYN Phone: Dickens 2-1273—4—5 Night Phone: Dickens 6-5369 For International Workers Order