The Daily Worker Newspaper, January 31, 1934, Page 5

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1934 Page Five OPEN LETTER REMAINS BASIC MEANS OF APPLYING 13th PLENUM DECISIONS c Continued from Page Four) the 13th Plenum thesis points out Se main centers of the ff the war danger, the first of these ‘eing the Pacific. In the Pacific are nvolved all the main contradictions f the capitalist world. There is the ontradiction between the imperialist s and the Soviet Union, be- the metropolis and the revo- y movement in the semi-co- countries, especially sharply epresented by the Soviet territories { China, the antagonisms between i Japan and the United States, be- tween the United States and Eng- lend, between France and the others. It is there also where the aggressive policy of all of the imperialists finds its most extensive concretization at the moment—Japan’s seizure of Manchuria, Inner »_ the moving of French forces from Indo- China into the Province of Yunnan, by the extension of British occupa- tion of parts of Sinkiang from its base in Tibet, by the exceptionally \ strong and persistent efforts of | United States imperialism to make use of the government of Chiang Kai | Shek to strengthen its foothold on he imperialist giants of the world, hetw Japan and England, between the Asiatic mainiand. PACIFIC IS CENTER OF WORLD IMPERIALIST CONFLICTS In the Pacific, we have the sharp- snd most immediate threat of against the Soviet Union, com- ted by the inner-imperialist an- sms. It would be a mistake for us to think that the immediate janger of war in the Far East ainst the Soviet Union has been emoved or softened by the latest lopments in world politics. Any- ing may happen in the Far East, id ngthened position of thi iet Union and its more favorable plomatic situation have not re- moved the threat of Japanese initia- tion of such a war, There is a dis- tinet ossibility that the opposite may result. Japan is completely con- trolied by a semi-feudal military clique which bases itself on monopoly capital and landlord classes, which are closely interwoven. The policy of this dominant ruling group in Japan cannot in any way be forecast according to what we might consider “rational” polities for a ruling class. The very nature of the position of this ruling class, the extreme insta- oility of its foundation, and the srowing threat of revolutionary ‘ces, compels this ruling group into & position of adventurism in politics, If the militarists. consider the alter- vative to launching a war against viet Union to be their own loss of power, then no matter whet the pects of eventual outeome of such , they will launch it. If they this war must come, the ening of the Soviet Union not deter them, because they that is going on in the Five-Year Plan, nstruction of Socialism and the ‘dation of the new collective and they know that if vorabie for them now, it will be twice as un- very threat of United st their seizures in f to decide the mili- to hasten the war with the Dn nd we must not think Roosevelt, who ean exchange uch nice felicitations with the So- viet fatherland, would be displeased if Japan would be weakened by a war the Soviet Union, which at Th w the same time would weaken the Socialist system which is the great- st_menace to world capitalism. Our previous analysis of the Far Eastern policies of Hoover—that he was interested in precipitating war between Japan and the Soviet Union, remains true also of the Roosevelt | Policy, although his policy is much |More complex. | On the Western front, that is, in rope, the war danger is sharpening also in both respects—against the Soviet Union and among the impe- Tialist powers. The rise of fascism |in Germany has certainly not been a | pacific influence, The tuling regime jin Germany is offering the service | of its entire war machinery, which is being rapidly increased, for a war of j-ntervention against the Soviet Unien, it is peddling its services to | cVery war office in Europe and is at | present conducting very serious con- | Versations with Great Britain. The ‘elations of Great Britain and Ger- | Many. at the present time are revo) |mg around the question of a war | sgainst the Soviet Union initiated by Hitler. At the same time, the rise of | fascism has completely opened up the \whole question of a re-division of | territory. revision of national fron- | ti throughout Europe, a question which can only be settled- by armed | conflict. The very opening of this jquestion has so strained relations throughout Europe, that it is a com- | Micnplace for the capitalist press to |speak of the European situation be- jing more explosive than it was in | 1914. Aside from these two main centers of the sharp development of the war issues, there is the faet that British and Ainerican imperialism are pre- paring for @ decisive struggle Uhroughout the world for world hege~ mony, in the Atlantic and the Pacific. | With relation to the war danger, the developmenis of the past year show further Social democratic support of the war prepara- tions, 2 more slavish reproduction of the policies of each imperialist bour- geosie by its own Socialist parties, and this, in itself is an indication of the imminence of tife war danger. | “BOURGEOISIE WANTS TO POSTPONE THE DOOM CAPITALISM | OF BY A CRIMINAL IMPERIALIST WAR” We have reviewed our tasks in the struggie against war many times. We have further elaborated the basic di- rvectives in the struggle against war which were laid down at the Sixth World Congress. Under the heading, “Immediate Tasks,” we shall speak more about some special features of the struggle against wart. What is new in the question is the immediacy of the war danger, which is much . Sharper than it has ever been. What 1s new is the necessity to combat the tendencies to relax the struggle against war, tendencies which rise out of @ certain feeling of exultation over the victories of our socialist fatherland, the Soviet Union, and the feeling that because of these victo- S all is well, the danger is not so big. These victories are very great; these victories mean very much; these victories strengthen the oppor- tunities for our transformation of the crisis into the proletarian revolu- tion, but in no way do they lighten our tasks in the struggle, and in no way do they remove the dangers in- yolved in the worid situation. To sum up this section, I repeat the paragraph of the thesis which ints out: “The bourgeoisie wants to pest- pone the doom of capitalism by a criminal imperialist war and @ -ounter-revolutionary campaign igainst the land of victorious so- cialism. The great historical task af international communism is to capitalism, Only a bolshevik gle before the outbreak of war, for the triumph of revolution, sare the victory of the revolution that breaks out in connection with war.” We pass over to a brief considera- tion of the tasks of the Parties that ‘ew out of this analysis of the world situation, Thirteenth Plenum id down that the central orienta- tion of all tasks of the Parties is the development of mass indignation against fascism and war, the organ- ization and strengthening of the struggle against fascism and war, The first coneretization of this zenerel against fascist ideology. The thesis points out that the Communists, the Communist Party, must daily and coneretely expose every manifestation of chauvinism, expose this to the masses and oppose this by proletarian internationalism; that in the im- systematically ondependence of the colonies, for the Uberation of the oppressed nations ‘vom all national oppression. In the key points of international uisms, the Communists lutely take a stand against all of imperialist occupation and im- verialist solution of these territorial suestions, counterposing the concep- lion of self-determination of these -ereas, such as Upper Silesia, the saar, Northern Bohemia, the Danzig vorridor, ete.; they must on the basis of the program of self-determination ‘ome out against the imperialist solu- ion of these questions, against the neorporation of any of these dis- outed territories into the sust popularize the solution the national question in the U. |S. 8. R. and the tremendous econo- mic, social and cultural successes by the peoples formerly oppressed by the Czarist empire, as a result of their liberation by the October Revolution. whole phase of the fight against fascis; ideology must become a matter pot of resolutions only, nor of programmatic articles in @ charactiristic feature of the mass work of the Party. Second, is the fight against the fascization of the bourgeois govern- ments and against war. In every so- called dernocratic country the process ot fascization is speeding up. The tasks of the Communist Party, and this expecially applies to the United States, must be first of all to brush aside the fatalist, defeatist concep- tion of the inevitability of fascist dictatorship and of imperialist war, as well as the opportunist undexesti- mation of the tempo of development of fascism and war, The careful ex- planation of the economic and poli- ‘ical enslavement of the masses, that comes with a fascist dictatorship is the first task in the struggle against tascism and war. The popt-srization of this explanation, the bringing of this explanation to the workers in concrete terms of their everyday life, so that it can be readily grasped and tae , is the basic feature of Upon the basis of this broad popular explanation of all the con- crete issues of fascization and war preparations, it is possible for us to arouse the masses to concrete ac- hoary to weld a united movement, to these workers who are in the reform- volved, of organizations, with special attention to the unions. This is our task, and wit this we can- eration of Labor. The recent devel-| opments in the U. 8. which are spe- cific for this country, the large re~- cruitment of the A. F. of L., the special role assigned to the trade unions in the New Deal—emphasize for us the general directives of the 13th Plenum. We cannot develop mass trade union work, economic struggles, nor the struggle against fascism and war unless we make much more serious penetration of the A. F. of L. and the other reform- ist Sociel Fascist trade union or- ganizations. tion requires very serious work among the agricultural population. It re- quires the exposure of the real sig- nificance for the broades masses of tolling farmers of the policies pur- sued by fascism, and thus bring about the class difierentiation between the poor and middle farmers who are the potential allies of the working class, and the well-to-do farmers, who are the class allies of the bourgeoisie, a section of the bourgeoisie, who in- evitably will try to direct the resent- ment of the agricultural masses into a@ channel of fascism, unless we separate theese agricultural masses from the well-to-do farmers, And in connection with this, the necessity for organizing the agricultural pro- Third, the struggle against fasciza- | letariat into independent trade union organizations becomes espe- cially sharp. Fourth, there must be the most consistent struggle to win the working youth, bringing them to Political struggle against fascism and war, on the basis of the defense of all their everyday needs; the youth organizations must break out of their narrowness with the help and lead- ership of the Party. In the development of ihe struggle against fascism and war, in the strug- gle for winning the majority of the working class from the reformist leadership and their influence, the tactic of the united front from be- low, becomes more and more a cen- tral question, During the period since the 12th Plenum of the ECCI there have been accumulated tre- mendous experiences in the united front struggles. It is impossible to go into a detailed examination of all of these international experiences, but we can sum them up by saying | | that the actions that have been car- tied through have proven to be es- sentially correct and of the most tremendous value for the Interna- | tional movement, that the Commu- nists have improve’ in almost every country the application of the tactic of the united front. and strengthened the revolutionary forces thereby. |IN STRUGGLE AGAINST FASCISM AND WAR MUST oa! LEADERSHIP OF WORKERS FROM REFORMISTS In the course of these experiences, of transforming our united front effozts into a conciliation of the social democratic leadersh‘p and ideo- logy instead of a means of sharpen- ing the struggle against them, further to separate the masses from them. This is the right danger, the main danger. We have experienced this danger in our work in the U. 8. It has shown tiself in very sharp forms in other countries, The British Party conducted a very valuable and fruitful united front campaign es- pecially in connection with the In- dependent Labor Party in England. There also we saw some sharp ex- amples of development of the right danger. Certain tendencies to orient- ate too much towards negotiations and maneuvers with the too lead- ership, not enough direct approach to the masses below and the winning of them to joint action on the basis of @ class struggle program, and bringing about the disintegration of the influence of the Social Fascist i on top. We had examples of this especially in the Czecho- Slovakian Party where for a period after the 12th Plenum the Party lead- ership began to orientate itself upon a wrong estimation of the Social Fascist leaders and to develop theories about the united front as a bloc with the Social-Fascist organizations, in- stead of the united front as a de- velopment of the united struggle from below to liquidate the influence of the social fascist misleaders, We felt the pressure of such ten- dencies in the United Stetes, in the development of the united front ac- tions in which we were involved with the Musteites. On the whole we can say that these activities which we carried through were yaluable and that our line was correct. We have suffered greatly at times in the con- crete application of these measures, especially in the localities where the comrades are not politically pre- pared for these tasks; we have suf- the | fered from the tendency to blur over and obscure the differences in prin- ciple hetween us and the reformist leaders, instead of sharply developing these differences on the concrete basis of struggle before the workers. At the same time there exists the danger of failing to make serious united front efforts, of making them 30 rigid and mechanical in form as to condemn them to failure from the beginning. When we examine our own efforts in the United States to develop the united front struggle we see that in many of our Districts this is the most immediate problem of ‘he united front. Many of our di- stricts have not yet seriously taken up the question of using the united front tsetic to engage actually in struggle together with us broad c'r- cles of workers in the A. F. of L,, in the Socialist Party, in the Musteite organizations, in the various inde- and other mass organizations. There Js still in many of our dis- tricts a sectarian separation of our- selves from these workers, We oscil- late back and forth between con- cillation to the opportunist leaders, to the point of blurring over of the political struggle, and s sectarian separation of ourselves from the workers who are led by these social fascist reformists. The problem of developing the united front is one of constant strug- sie, constant alertness against these two dangers, of struggle on two fronts. The 13th Plenum resolution espe- ¢lally emphasizes the call upon ali we have learned very concretely the | two main dangers that beset all this; work, There js constantly the danger | pendent unions, in the unemployed | sections of the Communist national to fight persistently for the realization of the united militant front with the sccial demecratic workers in spite of the treacherous leaders. The 13th Plenum made a general review of the whole problem of mass work of the parties and came to the conclusion that it is necessary to call whole of the mass work, a re-exami~ nation and overhauling of all phases of mass work of the parties, espe- cially the work in the factories and th trade unions, The factories and the trade unions represent the weak- est sector of the parties in all capi- talist countries. This is certainly true for us in the United States. The Open Letter which our Extraordinary Party Conference addressed to the Party concretized the whole problem for America. Our Open Letter can be taken os the chief directive for our Party in connection with the 13th Plenum of the E. C. C. I. There is nothing to be changed in it at all in the light of the 13th Plenum. The 13th Plenum resohztion puts furcher omphasis upon all directives con- tained in our Open Letter, chiefly on the need for concentrating upon the most important strata of the werkers, the most important industries, the most important factories, and the creation of Party strongholds in the factories as the basis of all our work, To carry trough this task, and with it the struggle against Right oppor- tunism, as well as against Left de- viations, the struggle for the line of the Party, is the basis of our actiyity, Our tack is to gather the allies of the working class, ovganize the farm- ers and direct their struggles, to win the broad sections of the impover- ished petty-bourgeoisie, to carry through these activities by the most concrete and energetic application of the united front tactic, especially to develop the revolutionary trade union movement in all its forms, the ‘ndependent leadership of the econo- mic struggles, the development of the struggles of the unemployed, as the basic features of the Party’s work, as the cbject for which all of our concentration is carried through. In our own experiences in ‘the development of the united frent we have signalized in the Open Letter, the danger of farmer-laborism. In our experiences we have found this danger becoming sharper. If we had heen more alert and moze active in the political struggle for the line of the Party and the development of our various united front activities, we should have been better propared to counteract immediately the steps | ‘hat are now being taken by the Mucteites for the establishment of their “American Workers Party,” which is one of the sub-divisions cf the farmer Isbor tendencies in this country which will be an outstand- ing feature of socisl-fascism. The Socialist Party is going through a vrocess of disintevration and re- orientation, It will in all’ probability merge with these other groups and tendencies into the farmer laborite movement in the United States. The degree to which thi: danger crystal- lizes on a mass scale will be deter- mined by how bad or how well we work. We can win these workers directly to the Communist Party. They do not need to go schools of reformism and social fas- cism in order to come to us. Proper united front work, foe aa ay all of the gal ions, a@ proper le epee Legerpona Sean Soles istortions, we can these workers directly to us. mass or- DANGER OF FARMER-LABORISM AND THE FIGHT AGAINST IT The tactic of the united front ap- les especially to the development of revolutionary trade union move- ment and the independent leadership of strike struggles. We have special features of this - lem in the United States, We have been, in the | the past year, facing unsol of Labor, not prepared to identify with the red unions of the Trade Union Unity League. We haye been trying to make a very sharp ‘urn in the development of the united front policy of our red unions and leadezship in strike struggles and have sharply aroused the Party to 4 mass |the necessity of much more serious work in a of RA ae ret oppositions inside American Fed- eration of Labor. We have now reached the point where we can give more concrete answers to the ques- tion of how we can develop the next steps in the organization of a broader class-struggle trade union movement, and at the same time greatly inten- sify the opposition work inside the American Federation of Labor. We are prepared now to point out that of th We must take steps to insure against Possible crystallization of these ved | independent unions into a separate central hody not only outside the A. F. of L., but also outside of our the | organized influence. To prevent such ® possible development we must e: through boldly and parecally ncteuee gainst |3-e for the fusion of all class strug- | the “le trade union organizations outside ‘so A. F, cf L., both independent end T. U. U. L, in each prriicular in- Cusuy, and to bring all such trad? unions tegether into an independent federction of labor. This means, first of all, concentrating on each par- ticular industry, laying solid founda- tions there, and then bringing to- gether upon a federated basis, the various industrial unions thereby ereated, Such work can only be suc- | cessful if, at the same time, there is a tenfold more serious cevelop- ment of work inside the American Federation cf Labor, and the creation of a reaily serious opposition move- ment there Inter | for a genuine reorganization of the | This perspective that we unfold, for the development in the trade union field, has two dangers, The most immediate danger is that we will confine ourselves to phrases and pronouncements about it and go throuzh the motions of reorganizing ourselves and at last find ourselves with exactly the same forces, under different names. But the proposals that we make in this respect are not merely @ re-shifting of the existing forces under different names. What we propose is to broaden the organ- ized base of the class struggle trade union movement. When that is achieved and we begin to move for- ward we must be keenly conscious of the deve'onment of the other danger which is the chief danger: i | | that we will submerge ourselves in weakness @ broed and undifferentiated move- ment, will tend to develop a trade unionism that will imitate the Amer- ‘ean Federation of Labor and thereby disarm the workers in the struggle | problems, against the A. F. of L. bureaucrats, | We must find the way to achieve a/ much broader development of mags | trade union organization on a clas: eater * ‘ struggle basis. At the same tim: "+ plod hese acnd work, we sharpen ali the fundamental | 17 falaeke GE oa ‘sues of struggle between us and the | 5,515 A. FP. of L., we must create within|() “Ss the ranks of the A. F. of L. a strong Isr Seg os movement closely allied with the in- the a dependent revolutionary union move- ment. I speak only of the main cut- lines of this question. Other com rades will develop it in more detail. | them s | TRADE BROADEN ORGANIZED BASE OF CLASS STRUGGLE directives them the UNIONS Tn connection with this general aspect of the trade union work it is especially necessary to mention two of our weakest features which must begin to receive more systematic and more serious development. The first of these is our Negro work. We have spoken of this many times. We have made certain beginnings in drawing the Negroes into the revolutionary ‘rede unicn movement. If the fizures compiled about eight weeks ago are { U. L, membership is Negro. Ty spotty and confined almost ly to the lightest of the light industries (with the exception of steel in Buffalo). This question is of the most profound importance, not only for the trade unions as such, but for every phase of our Negro work. We cannot give the proper proletarian direction to the Negro liberation movement until we have laid the foundation of Negro mass work in the basie industries. Comrades, we inust orientate our trade union work on this question much more seriously than we heave. The second special question in the trade union field that we must em- phasize is the serious organization of the agricultural ‘workers. Here eeoin, we have not merelv the trode union question. Consideration of this suestion is of primary importance for us not only because of the fact that the agricultural workers num- ter sever?! millions in the Un‘ted States and become increasingly im- vortent in the economy of the coun- try, but also the fact that the or- ganization of a mass trade union of agricultural workers is one of the basic necessary instruments for giv- ing revolutionary direction to the whole agricultural population. What I have said concerning the trade unions, in all general asnects, “pplics also to the unemployed. We have already given a very clear pro- eram for the strugzle for unity in the unemployed Sel¢. Our slogan is the correct, about 10 per cent of the T. U.! This growth of Negro membership | fusion of all mass organizations of | the unemployed into one unemployed | organization. Our program is the | program of the development of strug- gles. The united front of struggle di and, in t nstae study of hings are the building the for relicf, the struggle feature of relief that can be pressed out of local, state and national go ernment; and above all, the devel “omen, cf mass demands, the mes fight for social insurance, which still remains the w t phase of the unemployed work of the United States. be more | must hay | comrades, The demand for unemnloyed in-! How been surance becomes especially central) brouzht i Y he last now, when even relief measures are | year? Approximately 2 hum- being abolished, and the whole treat- ment of the unemployed is being /or a little transferred over on the basis of | part of the ‘orced labor to public work projects, | average up, tebor camps, etc. we fell It is necessary io say a few words mea: about developing the anti-war and | all: ke snti-fascist movement. We have a! mer st Kk beginning in the United States of | 1084 § got to be en a scale erganizational crystallization of a|we never dreamed of before. broad united front on these questions | come out to the in the American League Against War snd. Fascism. This beginning that| _ we have made is very promising and | | constitutes one of the most positive | | features of our mass work in the} | nest vear, Buti comredes, we must | | say it has not been followed up seri-| |. jber as in 1932, mz tle e t nS W task. Reer in ich If we end of this year SHOP PAPERS TRONGHOLDS lard here I “|Party messes, that fs, literature, ti mi~ | n gn, | Dail: S ORGANS OF THE PARTY we will have failed in ow in our duty under the presen’ This imeans also through the ins! uilding of pbout reaching instrument for the non- winted word. Our Party literature, x the Daily stematic, the mos: i effective. ain progress, ec- ne Daily Worker, In ns‘orming it into a mass paper We must make it much more of 2 > | teading ¢ e instrument of the Party ‘or mass contaci progress that w made proves the tre- dous possibilities of using th: per for the building of the Part ‘or the building of the mass orgar tions, than it le eireuls usly, by spontancously if it does heppen spontaneously o inndequate that it doesn’t fit the ituation at all. The Daily Worke culation is growing now as w expect it to grow spon- ly; but we must realize hoy y workers are ready to take th’ ly Worker gladly as their paver; id the only reason they don’t is ause they do not know thore is a | Daily Worker, have never seen t. {nobody has ever brought it to their attention; and they never will s it until they pick one up on t or we in an organized, sys- tic, stubborn way, over a period, yp the new contacts for the j Worker among those circles | that are ready for the Daily Worker | This is a primary task for the Party; j and all the other tasks that we have |spoken about depend upon carrying out this task. ion to iteel nar IN THE SHOPS ously. | In connection with this also} 2 p we have a very serious Inck| _ Then another feature of the same of attention and indifference to| -hing—shop papers. the question of our reletiess i + revolutionary movement in the onies, especialiy in Latin Amc: ; and hans partiedlart in the Carib- |‘ 80es out of fashion and everybody bean. How can we differentiaie our- | forgets about it, Shop papers used selves from the social-fescists, if in| to be very fashionable in our Party. ile SrereNy Penge ee fe il ca j1 can remember when no D, O. would American imperialism, we deal with |S°! UP in a Party meeting without Why is it we *|ceem to have periods in our Party | when something is fashionable, then | them only when we are writing the “esolutions or Manifestoes of the Central Committee? MOBILIZE U. 8. WORKERS TO SUPPORT CUBAN REVOLUTION What actions have we carried through in support of the tremendous veveluticnary upheaval of the Cuban workers, right at our door? How have we mobilized the workers in support of the Cuban revolution? We can say that we have made & very ood journalisie campaign in the Daily Worker. How far have we gone beyond that? And especially on the issue of support to Soviet China, jn which American imperialism is di- rectly financing and in all Ways, politically and materially, the armed itions against Soviet China. what have we done to ex- Pose this activity of American im- verislism? Here we are weak even on the journalistic side, not to sneak |or organizing mass protest with re- zard to these issués. ‘These matters must become a more serious part of the everyday life of our Party, and that doesnt mean only ‘n the columns of the Daily Worker. It meens in the activity, in the vianned work of our sections and distzict_ committees. Our sect‘ons end district committees are a most ‘mpovtant oad of the leadership of cur Party because they are the part that conducts the work closest to the masses, reaching the broadest masses of workers, and the develop- ment of this activity on « section and istrict scale as well as directiv by the units becomes the secret of the whole future development of our Party. Tt is necessary to = tew words about the most general aspect of the struggle for Negro liberation and the efforts to give this struggle tional form in the League of Struggle for Negro Rights. I have said several times that we ean make no advance jin this work unless we first create @ solid projetarian base in our trade unions and in the unemployed move- ment. It 18 necessary to give first place also to the development of such organizations as the Share-Croppers Union. But the necessity for em- vhasig upon these basic forms of or- ganization in no way relieves us of the duty of organizing the general liberation movement of the Negroes, 5 we have outlined these propos! Struggle for Negro Rights and its paper, The Liberator. This is one of the tasks of the day for the en- tire Party organization. That means, developing mass activities, not leav- ing it on paper, net leaving it in the realm of abstract prcpaganda but devsloping tasks for the loc] or- vanizations upon the basis. of the general program laid down. (Interject‘on by Petterson: And in- toncifying the fight against chau- vinism.) Tht is a part of the struggle for the Party, end here as in all c harss cf the firht for the line cf the Party, it is a fight on two fronts. In the Negro field, the main danger is white chauvinism, the sharpest and most specific expression of op- portunism in the Negro work. The other front is the resistance against the penetration of petiy-hourgeois nationalist tendencies, an influence especially dangerous in the ranks of our Negro comrades, sometimes in- fivencing white comrades also, and which at moments in the develop- ment of the work become a very dif- ficult obstacle in the reaching of the masses with revolutionary leadership, sometimes creating a distinct danger of the movement getting into the “hands of our class enemies. STRUGULE FOR BUILDING PARTY IS STRUGGLE FOR LEADERSHIP OF MASSES All of this work can be accom- lished only by building the Party. We have made a certain progress in tions; but comrades, this growth still is so small that it is entirely out of proportion to the tremendous growth ef our tasks and our possibilities. If we should judge by the objective sit- uation, the speed of development of crisis of capitalism and the break down of all the old influences in the minds of the workers, the doors that are open for us, then we would have to say thet in the year of 1634 cur task is to become a Party =f 100,000 to 150000 members, how can we think in cuch terms when we grow a few here and there, and the fluctuation is so great, that we lose 60 per cent of what we gain? How can we becom: a mass Party when we approach the building of | Tt is net simply a matter o? recruit- ‘ng like reeruliing into an army |The problera of building the Pi y | 13 in the first place a problem of a struggle for the Party line among the masses. If our recruiting power is weak, then it is weak because of the we of our struggle for the line of the Party among the masses. We have had the development of mass trade unions in the last year from which we have not recruited Party, we hed no struggle for the Party line; and that means that our leadership in that Union is very weak and precarious and we may lose it at any moment. The struggle for the building of the Party the struggle for the leadershin cf mecses; and that means also, planned work, concentration work, Party dis- ciplinc, the development of the ac- tivity of the Party, the bringinz of And| ‘the Party members directly into the | mass work, the bringing of the mass ef our Party members into the trade unions where they are not yet. Most of them sre not yet in the trade unions, and not even in the unem- |} Ployed councils. It means making the Party in such a careless manner? | every Communist a leader of the ers will be The problem is noi g simple one.jnon-Party masses. You Jeaderchip over them, and the weak- nesses of our Party recruiting, the for the building of the League uf | ying how many shop papers he had |and what their names were, and now | when we are especially concentrating |upon shop work, no one ever talks jabout shop papers, We are going to jPenetrate the sheps of the U. S,, | out we are gi to forgct all about | chop papers while we do it! Now we have another problem. We are not only penetrating the sho) but we sre also greatly emphasizing the “rade union work; so that when any- wedy does think of a shop paper now, | well, i¢ must be a trade union shop so Party shop pavers are be- liquidated, even ‘atl What does this mean? How are we seing to build the stronghold of the Party in the shops if in the first place we ignore and neglect shop papers, are there we silently agree or actively assist jn transformi: them into | trade union orgens, when they should be Party organs? It is not so very |meeessary to have trade union organs {in the shon right now. | may come when that will b: e very im- |Portant. The trade union press is ‘mportant, but the plece to develon ‘he trade union the general tra: ‘he onty orsan’ | nrope! tly develop a h of s become an important point on ‘he order of in every section end in every district as well as in the ventral office of the Party. And to the degree to which we recover our f |line on thi of the |Name, we can begin to perform this j tremendous task we have set our- |selves of establishing the Party | strongholds in the shops. | | and in the second place when they | The t'me| A word about the language press. Our language press is becoming not of less but of greater imvertance for us. It is more importany than ever vefire, The moze we Armericanize our Party and develop the English |press, the Daily Worker, trade union s and chop rapers, {he more in- | fuential aud effective om language | Press js becoming among those sec- |tons of the population which still |tead their original language. 80 it jis not a question of the development \of the Daily Worker and our English press making the Freiheit and Elore and all other language papers Jess jimportant for us; rather they come to a new high stage of effectivness as our Party grows and we become more effective as a Party. This is true, however, only if the editorial quality, the political quality of these papers improve at the same time and <eep pace to some degree with the development of the Party and the whole movement. On the whole we can say this quality is improving: but on the other hand we must sa; it lags even behind the Daily Worker in becoming # Bolshevik mass Weapon, and we must state as one of the tasks of our language buros, that a decisive improvement of the poli- tical influence among the masses, of the language papers, is necessary A word on the problem created by our Party on the expected and pos sible government repression azainsi our movement, problems of illezality for our Party. To a certain extent semi-legality exists in some sections. as in the South, and there is a possi- bility we may have a very sudden change in the situation in America end almost oyernitht we mizht be faced with a condition of legality for our Party. In svch a world situ- ation in which we live at the pres- ent time, such things are possibilities and probabilities for which we must |Prevare. The whole problem of the tematic development of our cadres \is a basic thing—the testing and | knowledge of our cadres and their | development. Besides this, there are all of the special features of organ- zation for the quick possibility of egality of our work. {pre | | | 1 ENTION OF OUR PARTY IS NOW ON THE ORDER OF THE DAY All of these features of the tasks |of the Party are foundations on |which must be developed the whole Party program. All issues lead directly to the struggle for power | Which is on the order of the day for | the international protetariat. All the | Problems of the struggle for power |must be raised and clarified before the working class today. In clarify- | ing these issues on the basis of the development of the immediate strug- swers to the workers as to what is the alternative of the capitalist wey out of the erisis, how do the Com- |munists propose to reorganize the world, how such reorganization must be brought about and what it will jmean in the life of the workers. Here we must make use of the les- sons of the Soviet Union on the bas’s of American conditions and experi- >| ences, mating use of a'l of the special features of Amorican life which con- tribute to an explanation of ‘all the reorganiza- s , wien is in a ma- terial way better prepared in Amer- ica than anywhere else in the world. The 1$th Plenum of the E. C. C. I. jhas issued the call for prevarations |for the Seventh World Congress. | This will be held in the latter part | of 1934. The agenda and the report- Siished about the first pub cannot |of June, and until that time our/ Party recruit workers into the Party until) Party and the other parties have the | Bolshevi lyou firs; have won some degree of | duty of making whatever proposals’ to face | we have in mind for the agenda, and for the get meral preparations for the gles, We must give more concrete an-| | Congress. At the coming Convention |of our Party we will also have to “make arrangements for the selection ‘of the American delegates to the | World Congress. The Eighth Convention of our |Party is now on the order of the |day. The Political Committee has already sent to all members of the | Central Committee proposals for this | convention, proposing the date for April 3. We have ls from some of the districts ‘that, the place jbe Cleveland. The detailed probe lems of organizing the convention | will be dealt with separately with o | Special report by Comrade Stache). Here I only want to raise the ques- ; tion in its connection with the whole | task of the Party; to emphasize that | the convention and all of its activities, discussions, mectings and elections that take place around it, are to be used as instruments for carrying through and nepy ung the r2sol- Cons and os of the Thirteenth Plenum of the F. 0. C. 1, the Oper Letter of our Extraord’aary Part? Conference, the control tasts which jWe have set ourse!ves—thet is, the carrying through of the decisive turn | to the develonment of a mass move- | Ment, mass organizations. and mas: | struggles in the United States under the cership of the Communist to consolidate a strong mass ik Party in the United States the tasks which arise in this | country, and to prepare the Ameri- ‘ean workers for the seizure of power,