The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 14, 1934, Page 7

DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 1934 Page Seven “One of Our Chief Tasks Is the Struggle for Liberation of the Negro’ (Continued from Page Four) movement must be carried forward, but not at the expense of dropping the working class and Sommunist participation as has too often been she case. The American League in its program Proclaims that the working class is the basic The Struggle for Negro Rights ‘ One of the chief tasks of the Communist Party, which has conte sharply to the front of our practical work, is the liberation of the Negro people from the special oppression under which they suffer. In organizing and leading the struggle for Negro rights, the Com- | to rouse the Negro masses in the United States | munist Party is carrying out the slogan first enunciated by Karl Marx when he was or- force for the struggle against war; from the beginning it has never tried to avoid the issue of Communist Party participation in this broad united front. It is our task to see that the American League, organizationally, gets that working class foundation and active participa- tion of the.Communists for which its program provides. struggle for Negro rights. Let us consider, for example, the world famous Scottsboro case, which has represented one of the major political achievements of the Communist Party in the last period. How impossible it would have been in millions to the support of the Scottsboro boys; how impossible to have joined with them Sanizing international support by the Euro-| millions of white toilers and middle classes; pean workers to the emancipation of the Negro) how impossible to have stirred the entire world, chattel slaves in America, Marx said: “Labor! as was done—if the Scottsboro case had been in a white skin cannot be free while labor in|taken up from the liberal-humanitarian point @ black skin is branded.” The cause of the|of view, or if it had been approached from the emancipation of the Negroes from their spe-| narrow social-democratic viewpoint! The cial oppression is inextricably bound up with| Scottsboro case stirred America to its depths, the cause of the emancipation of the working! not merely because nine friendless Negro boys class from the oppression of capitalism. Be-|were threatened with an unjust death, but be- cause our Party, as a whole, has not yet firmly cause their cause was brought forward clearly as mastered the theoretical basis for our Negro|a symbol of the national oppression of twelve program, it is necessary again at this conven- million Negroes in America, because the fight tion to continue to discuss it. for their freedom was made the symbol for the From its inception, the Communist Party of! fight of the Negro farmers for their land, of the United States placed the demands for Negro | the fight for the self-determination in the Black rights in its program. In the first period of Belt, of the fight against lynchings, against Jim- our work, up to 1929, we cannot claim any im-|Crowism, against the smallest discriminations, portant results. This was because the for unconditional social and political equality Party, in spite of its correct general orienta- tion, did not have a clear Bolshevik under- standing of the Negro question as the problem for the Negros. Only the Bolshevik understanding of the Ne- |gro question makes possible such an effective of liberation of an oppressed nation. The Party fight for the smallest advance for the Negroes had not yet entirely emancipated itself from to realize their smallest demands; that is why the limitation of the bourgeois-liberal approach | historically it was left for the Communist Party to Negro rights, nor from the social-democratic| to be the first to raise effectively, on a national denial of the Negro question with its formula) scale, the slogan of Negro liberation, since the ‘hat the Negro can find their emancipation | almost-forgotten days of the Abolitionists. only with the establishment of Socialism, and) The Communists unconditionally reject the as ® part of the working class. The Party,| 5ocial-democratic approach of the Second In- however, was continually struggling with this ternational to the Negro question and to the question and constantly raising it again for|national question generally, which under the discussion, As a result of this, the problem | suise of a strictly “working class” evaluation was brought to the consideration of our World| Of the Negro question, in actuality carries Party at the Sixth Congress of the Communist | through the capitalist class program of national International, The resolution-there worked out, OPPression, That does not mean, however, that subsequently elaborated by a special resolution the Communist Party ignores the class divisions in October, 1930, finally armed our Party poli-| among the Negroes, or that it is indifferent to tically for a decisive step forward in rousing} What class influences and leads the Negro and organizing the liberation movement of the| ™asses. Negroes, in uniting Negro and white workers in) The Communist Party points out that the @ firm and unbreakable solidarity. jee also are divided into classes; that in The characteristics of the position of the | 2ddition to the class of Negro farmers, there Negroes in America as an oppressed nation is|{8 @ considerable and growing proletariat, a expressed in: 1) the fact that the basic Negro|Negro middle class and a Negro bourgeoisie. population, engaged in cultivating the land, is| The Negro bourgeoisie, also subjected to the systematically excluded from independent pos- SPe7ial oppression of the Negro people as a session of the land which it cultivates; 2) that Whole, has been corrupted into accepting this it is thereby reduced to a position. of semi-| Position of inferiority, and even capitalizing | serfdom in the form of specially exploited|¥POM this inferior position for its own class | tenants and sharecroppers; 3) that this special 8in. This Negro bourgeoise has become the exploitation is enforced by a system of legai| ‘horough-going agent of the white ruling class. and illegal discrimination, segregation, denial of It maintains a pitiful “superiority” to the Ne- political rights, personal subjection to indi-| ST Masses by means of the condescending sup- vidual exploiters, and all forms of violent op-| Port offered to it by the white ruling class. pression culminating in the most brutal and) It capitalizes a share of the double rents ex- barbarous system of murder, that it has become | ‘T@cted from the Negro masses by the white notorious all over the world as lynch-law. 1t|!@ndlords through the system of Jim-Crow seg- is difficult to find anywhere in the world such| 7esation; it earns these concessions from the examples of barbarous tortures as are used in| White ruling class by energetically exhorting America to enforce the special oppression of the Negro people. The historical origin and development of the Negro population of America as chattel slaves imported from Africa, together with their ready identification due to their special racial char- acteristics, have facilitated the efforts of- the white ruling class in the creation of the in- stitutions and customs of special national op- pression that were set up following the smash- ing of the system of chattel slayery in the Civil War. These things give the Negro ques- tion its character as that of an oppressed na- tion. The Negroes have never yet been eman- cipated. The form of their oppression was only changed fr6m that of chattel slavery, which constituted an obstacle to the further development, of capitalism, to the more “mod- ern” forms of so-called free labor (which means that the employer is freed from all obligation when he has paid the hourly or daily starvation wage), and half-fuedal forms of share-cropping, ete, whereby an imperialist nation oppresses and exploits a weak nation. The position of the masses of the Negroes, as farmers denied the possession of the land, is the foundation for the special oppression of the Negro people as a whole. All phases of struggle for Negro rights must take as their foundation and starting place, therefore, the struggle for pos- session of the. land by the landless Negro farmers. This can only be achieved by breaking through the rule of the white landlord ruling class, the ¢arrying through of the agrarian rev- olution, such as was carried through in Eu- rope in the first half of the nineteenth cen- tury when the foundations were laid by modern capitalism. The agrarian revolution, that is, the distribution of land among those who work the land, is historically part of the bourgeois- democratic revolution. But this revolution was never carried through entirely in any country, and hardly at all in the weak nations;-the pre- capitalist social and economic forms of oppres- sion and exploitation of the weak nations has been carried over to modern times and incor- porated into the systems of finance capital and modern imperialism, The struggle for the completion of the bour- geois-democratic revolution for the Negroes, as for other oppressed nations thus becomes today objectively a revolutionary struggle to over- throw imperialism. As such it is an ally of the revolutionary proletariat against the common enemy—finance capital. Such agrarian rev- olution can be realized only through winning national self-determination for the Negroes in lecessary for Daily Struggles These basic political considerations have been, by experience, proved to be absolutely necessary | sti . Weapons to make effectual eyen the smallest the Negro masses to be patient and long-suf- fering, to realize their own inferiority, to under- stand the position of white capitalists and Jand- ‘lords as their rulers as an inescapable visitation inflicted upon them by an all-wise God. As the Negro masses begin to revolt against |this position of inferiority, the Negro bour- |geoisie begins to develop srecial means of head- |ing off and controlling this revolt. They specu- jlate upon the distrust and suspicions created }among the masses against the white workers {generally through generations of oppression, | They appeal to the Negroes to make a virtue ‘out of their segregation, to voluntarily isolate | themselves, not to trust any white man, to rely upon themselves alone; they bring forth all sorts of utopian schemes, such as the BACK- |TO-AFRICA movement, the SUPPORT-NE- |GRO-BUSINESS movement, the so-called Paci- fic (pro-Japanese movement), and so forth, to create the illusions of some possible way out | of their misery without direct- conflict with the | white ruling class. All of these ideas, tenden- _ cies, and moods are what. we identify collectively | as bourgeois-nationalism, or national-reform- jism. Such a nationalism contributes nothing to the national liberation of the Negro people; on the contrary, it is an instrument of the white ruling class, just as is white chauvinism, to keep the white and Negro masses separated and antagonistic to one another, and thereby to keep both enslaved, We have had a thousand practical examples of how this Negro bourgeois-nationalism works out in practice. We saw it in the Scottsboro case, when all the bourgeois Negro leaders held up their hands in horror because white and Negro Communists joined hands together to rouse the masses to save the Scottsboro boys, They declared that the Scottsboro boys were in danger, not from the white ruling class whose hearts could not be touched by quiet humani- tarian pleading, but that they were in danger rather from the prejudices raised against them by the fact that masses were demanding their release as a part of the demand for national liberation. It was clearly revealed that the ; bourgeois proposal that the Negroes “stand on their own feet” was merely a proposal to keep separate from the white workers, but to throw themselves on the mercy of the white ruling class, From all these facts flows the Communist Position on the Negro question. The Commu- nists fight everywhere against white chauvinism, against all ideas of Negro inferiority, against all practizal discrimination against the Negroes; especially the Communists fight against white chauvinist ideas in the ranks of the workers, and above all against any white chauvinist in- fluence penetrating the ranks of the Commu- nist Party, The Communists declare that the white workers must stand in the forefront of the struggle for Negro rights and against white chauvinism, At the same time, the Communists fight against Negro bourgeois-nationalism which is only the other side of white chauvinism, In this fight against Negro nationalism, it is especi- ally the Negro Communists who have to be the most active and alert, The danger of Ne- gro nationalism is at the moment especially sharp, precisely because of the fact that the white masters to a most active and bitter counter-offensive against us. The main organizational channels of the Tuggle for Negro rights are, first of all, the trade unions and unemployment councils, Here 2 | | The cause of the emancipation of the Negroes from their special oppression i s inextricably bound up with the cause of the emancipation of the work- ing class from the oppression of capitalism we draw in the Negro working class forces, we | secure the only reliable leading forces to or- | ganize the struggle of the Negro masses as & whole. Further basic forms of organization of the Negroes are the unions of sharecroppers and tenant farmers. It is one of our most proud achievements that we have been able through | our political influences to bring into existence | the Croppers’ Union in the South, which is already approaching 6,000 members. | A more broad and all-inclusive organizational:| eration, and further unite with them all other sections of the Negro population drawn towards this struggle, especially those large sections of the petty-bourgeoisie, intellectuals, professionals, who can and must be won to the national lib- eration cause. The L. S. N. R. must, in the first place, be an active federation of existing mass organizations; and secondly, it must directly organize its own membership branches composed of its most active forces and all sup- porters otherwise unorganized. The present | Special problems of the youth, although this | will be the subject of a special report and dis- form for the Negro liberation struggles is the | beginnings of the L. S, N. R. and its paper, League of Struggle for Negro Rights. This| THE LIBERATOR, which with only a little should embrace in its activities all of the basic| attention have already shown mass vitality, economic organizations of Negro and white| must be energetically taken up, and spread workers standing on the program of Negro lib- | throughout the country. | The Party Must Win the Vouk ee) to become larger than the Party; that means, that the youth must find a serious place in the trade unions and other mass organizations; that cussion The winning of the working class/ it must be helped to politically enrich the life youth is the problem not of our youth organiza-|of its organizations, to concretize its str 8 tions alone, but the problem of the entire Party. for the young workers’ needs, to broaden out In the past this has not only been forgotten,| the scope of its activities, to include everything but there has even been allowed to develop a/that interests, attracts and holds the masses J A few words are necessary here about the sort of organizational rivalry between the youth and adult organizations, a rivalry not in the| nature of socialist competition, but of the adult | organizations trying to grab away as quickly as possible from the youth organizations every rising young leader who shows special organi- zational or political capacity. The idea has been that as soon as the youth movement pro- duces a leader who is “good enough for Party work” that this means he is wasting his time if he remains any longer in what is looked upon as a sort of probationary kindergarten. This frivolous attitude toward youth work must be eliminated from our movement, Certainly, our enemies are more serious about winning the youth, and especially the rising Fascist groups. Who shall blame the unprepared, poli- tically unarmed, and desperate masses of young workers who fall victim to the demagogy of fascism, if we drift along without any serious, large-scale efforts to reach these youth, to or- ganize them, to politically educate them, to | fight for their daily needs, to raise their class consciousness, and to give them a recognized | place in the whole revolutionary movement? Every Party unit, and every Party committee, must take as a part of its daily concrete tasks, the work among the youth, the establishment of their organizations, the solution of their poli- tical problems, and material help to their move- ment. The Young Communist League, instead | of being less than a fourth the size of the of young workers, also including their social, sport and cultural needs. Special attention is also necessary to the | tasks of winning and organizing women indus- trial workers and housewives in the revolution- | ary movement. The capitalist class has drawn |than we have drawn into revolutionary activi- |ties and organizations. We will continue to | lag behind the capitalists in this respect only |lutionary movement. This question becomes all |the more pressing because we are faced with |@ perspective of imperialist war in the near future. Under war conditions, everybody knows vast additional masses of women will be drawn into industry and especially into munitions |lization of men workers into the armies will |¢reate gaps in our ranks which can only be filled by the bold promotion of women workers. | That means we should long ago have been seriously and systematically preparing the wo- | men forces, and boldly promoting them to lead- ing responsible posts. The mobilization of masses of women workers requires special attention to | their particular needs, formulation of special demands, the creation of special opportunities | to consider their problems in connection with | the problems of the whole working class, through | conferences, etc. Especially, it requires more | Systematic recruitment of women into the trade Party, must be expanded in the next period | unions, and above all, into the Communist Party. When we insist upon action, tell us we have bad manners, that we are Problems of the Struggle toy the United Front The increasingly sharp attacks against the out in action, workers raise more insistently than ever the | they necessity of establishment of the working class | fighting front to resist these attacks and to! win the demands of the workers, The work- ing class in the United States is still largely unorganized, That part which is organized is | largely under the influence of the A. F, of L. bureaucracy, which keeps it split up in innum- | erable ways by craft divisions, by discrimina- ; Stand, and further confused by the shouts of | tions against the Negroes and foreign-born, by divisions between the skilled and unskilled, etc, That smaller section which has begun to| | question the capitalist system is further divided | between the leadership of the Socialist Party | and the Communist Party, while a considerable section stands aside, still bewildered by these | divisions and the problems it does not yet under- those small hut active groups, the renegades | from Communism, the Musteites, etc. | What is the road to working class unity in| the midst of all this disorganization and con- | fusion? The A. F. of L. and Socialist leaders | | shout that the Communists are splitters and} disrupters, This charge is repeated by the! renegades and the Musteites. The capitalist | press is especially active in spreading this ex- planation of the divisions among the workers. | According to them, if the Communist Party | could only suddenly be abolished, the working class would find itself miraculously united and happily on the road to the solution of its problems. These gentlemen will excuse us if we cannot accept their version of the problem of work- ing class unity, We cannot achieve the united front of the auto workers under the leadership of William Green and the A. F. of L., for ex- ample, in the fight against the recent sell-out and legalization of company unions, because it was precisely William Green who signed his name to that sell-out, and who is using all his efforts to prevent the workers’ struggle against it. We cannot get the United Front of the steel workers to fight against the monstrous! ‘steel code under the leadership of William Green | and the other A. F. of L, bureaucrats, bezause Green is one of the sponsors of this code. We can't build the united front under the A. F. of L. and 8, P. leaders in the fight for un- employment insurance, the Workers Bill (H, R. 7598), and give their support to the ‘Wagner Bill, which is a refusal of unemployment in- surance, We can’t have the united front led by these gentlemen and the Negro reformists for Negro rights, because it is precisely they who deny the rights to the Negroes in the trade unions, who, declare the Negroes themselves pro- voke lynching by the demands for equal rights. A united front with Norman Thomas and 8. P. leaders, to develop strike struggles of the work- ers would be immediately wrecked by the state- ment of Norman Thomas “Now is not the time to strike.” No, it is clear, unity behind these gentlemen means a united surrender to the capitalist attacks, That is not the kind of unity the workers need. We need a united fighting front of the workers against the capi- talists and all their agents, But that means that unity must be built up, not with these lead- ers, but against them. That means not a united front from the top, but a united front built up by the workers from below in the organization and struggle for their immediate needs, The Communists set no conditions to the) united front except that the unity shall be one of struggle for the particular demands | agreed upon. But on this condition we must be sternly insistent, Sometimes we find people who want to make a united front with us in Words, but who seriously hesitate to carry it) disrupters; that we are breaking up the united front. For example, only last August, here in the city of Cleveland, we participated in a con- ference together with delegates from hundreds of workers’ organizations, including Muste and his associated leading group. We worked out ® program of struggle against the N, R. A. for unemployment insurance and relief, and the unification of the unemployed mass organiza- tions. From that conference we went out to fight, to carry out the program adopted. Mr. Muste and his associates left the conference only to forget all about the decisions taken there, to which they had signed their names. They never turned a hand to realize the deci- sions they had agreed to, They had pledged themselves to support the Workers Unempioy- ment Insurance Bill, but they have maintained ever since the silence of death on this ques- tion. Instead, they support the Wagner Bill along with the Socialist and A. F. of L. lead- ers. They pledged themselves to help merge the unemployed mass organzations; instead, they have done everything possible to prevent any unification from below, and have them- selves refused to even answer any letters on the question so far as the top leadership is concerned. They pledge an uncompromising jfight against the N. R. A.; but instead of this, they carry on an agitation copied from the Socialist Party, asking the workers to use the “good sides” of the N. R. A. to achieve the “benefits” that it grants them. United front with such leaders on such terms is no united front at all. The Communist Party will con- tinue in the future, as it has in the past, to denounce all such “unity” in words which is violated in deeds, Fight For United Front is the Fight ‘Against Social-Fascism In spite of all of these enemies of the real united front, the Communist Party moves |steadily forward in building a broad united front movement. Let us examine just a few of these successful united front efforts. of all, the movement for unemployment insur- ance: It was the Communist Party that popu- larized the issue of unemployment insurance, formulated the Workers Unemployment Insur- |ance Bill; it took the lead in bringing into existence the broad mass unemployment, coun- cil movement, which popularized the bill; it helped to initiate the A. F. L. Rank and File Committee for Unemployment Insurance, which has held two national conferences in support of the Workers’ Bill and has secured the en- dorsement of 2,000 unions, over a dozen cen- tral bodies, and several state federations; it was the work of the Communist Party which resulted in the endorsement of the Bill by dozens of city governments, including that of the city of Minneapolis, which joined with the pressure of the whole mass movement, caused Ernest Lundeen, Farmer Labor congressman, to introduce the bill in Congress although his Party refuses to support the bill. It was the Communist Party which took the political lead and did most of the practical work which gave organized expression to the support of this bill by a million to a million-and-a-half organized workers. Truly, this is a united front in strug- gle for unemployment insurance. The A. F, L. leaders, Socialist Party, the Muste group, the Lovestoneites, the Trotskyites, one and all, they sneered at the Workers’ Unemployment Insur- ance Bill, they sabotaged the fight for it or openly opposed it; they threw their support to the Wagner Bill which is the Roosevelt gov- ernment’s attempt to head off unemployment insurance; they did everything possible to pre- First | | up there, vent the unity of the workers in support of the only unempl before the countr ‘ance bill their disruptive efforts. In this we have lined up all the aw: intelligent elements i: nited the sympathizing midd 1 welcomed them, one and all. to the united front. We have ma and easy their participation in it; we have been- the force that brought this united front into ence and we have jealously guarded its unity Another illuminating experience was our re- lations with the Socialist Party leaders in the U. 8. Congress Against War, and in the A ican League Agi that is But we Communists have buils up the united front of the workers over the heads of these leaders, and against all of front honest: and main exist- r- st War and Fascism that set The National Executive Committee of | the Socialist Party voted to join this united egro” Each and all proclaim-thé fiers, and that the Communis upters, beginning of this movement, are the di From t th Commur Party safe-guarded itself agains all the lying accusations of its enemies b having a large majority of non-Communist in dividuals in every controlling committee of th movement. The Communists threw all -thet forces into s We sinnthoar sport of the U.S. Congress Agains welcomed every person and every or the movement, ant ar. came reed to support its declared objectives. Th political and organizational platform of- th Amercan League: was ado} unanimously » a Congress of 2,616 delegates, from 35 states rangin peace s0 , Socialis ous organizations, workers al clubs, fraternal societies, revolutionar} front. Eleven of their nomineers were added to’ tr: the Arrangement Committee; their first act was to propose to exclude from the Congress the revolutionary unions of the T. U. U. L, a proposal which was, of course, refused. Their second act was to demonstratively withdraw from the Congress Committee in an attempt to disrupt the Congress before it was held. Surely the workers will not gain unity through follow- ing such leadership. e unions, A. F. of L. unions, independent unions, fa ’ organizations, Negro organiza- tions, youth organizations, the Muste groups (including even the Lovestonites), and 130 dele- gates from various branches of the Communist Party. Was there ever a most promising be- ginning of the establishment of a united front in movement against war and fascism United States? Since the start has been. mad front thro’ the Some of the. “left” socia with the Congress, a: such as J. B. Matthews interesting to re-read tod: Matthews, spoken only a few months ago. He said: “This Congress proves beyond any dispute leaders remained i the Lea sincere]; ‘ascism. It isstrue and there 5 work because we Communists mistakenly refrained from press- ing ourselves forward, hoping that ou itiative that the United Front of working class ele- ments, of pacifists, of middle-class wa isa possibility . . . This program presented to | you is the basis for continuing this Union—for ) Strengthening it step by step. We must stand | women into industry on a much larger scale | jat the price of continued weakness in the revo- | manufacturing. Furthermore, large scale mobi- | together. We dare not fail.” But the Socialist Party leaders. put heavy pressure on them and threatened them with expulsion (and incidentally the loss of their jobs.). Then these valiant “left” leaders quickly found an excuse to withdraw and make another attempt to disrupt the united front against war and fascism. They abandoned this program to which they had publicly pledged themselves, Already their names are signed to a new pro- gram issued by S. P. and Liberal leaders which sees the war danger in the movemenis of the Red Army in Siberia. In this latest effort to break up the united front, the Socialists have found their most | energetic helpers in Reverend Muste, Mr. Can- his agents. ee non, and Mr. Lovestone, who have attacked us with a bitterness of vituperation that is surely the envy of Ralph Easley and Matthew Woll. The renegades furnish most of the ideas for the struggle against Communism, This is especially true of the counter-revolutionary Trotsky and They lead the shouts for smashing the Communist Party. All this is done in the would be taken up by the non-Communists "| Thet was a weakness and mistake on our part. It only encouraged every enemy of unity, every jackal of a renegade, to rally their forces for their latest attempt to disrupt the League, Again we have defeated the disrupters. The place of the deserting leaders is being taken by new recruits to this united front, non-Com- munists, whose ‘influence reaches wider than that of the deserters. Into the front ranks must be drawn trade unionists, especially A. F. of L. We are calling upon all Communists and | sympathizing organizations to boldly step for- | ward in comradely co-operation with all other elements, to build the League in every locality to circulate its excellent monthly journal, FIGHT, and to prepare for the great second U. 8. Congress Against War, which is being | called for next October. We could recite a thousand local examples of the successful application of the united front tactic, initiated by the Communist Party. The Communists are the only organized political group in America that is always, day in and a: out, consistently, earnestly and loyally striving to build up the united front of the workers and their allies in the fight for their immediate political and economic needs. Immediate Demands and Revolution | Haverhill at this moment. They will aliow Zimmerman to talk all he wants to about some future revolution as long as he doesn't fight.too hard for the immediate demands of the Haver- hill workers, This is the reality behind every concrete ex- Our enemies accuse us that we are not really. interested in winning these immediate demands. They say that we only use them as a means to an ulterior purpose, which has no relation to these demands, the revolution. They say we only use the united front in order to manipulate | our associates as cats’ paws to pull our own revolutionary chestnuts out of the fire. For example, I have a recent issue of the Haverhill, Mass. Evening Gazette, which con- tains a vicious editorial attack against the Com- munists. The occasion is a shoe workers’ strike that has been going on for, more than three weeks. The Haverhill shoe employers want to defeat the workers’ demands by forcing them to submit to arbitration. Some of the leaders, among them the Love- stoneite, I. Zimmerman, wanted to submit to the bosses’ demands. The Communists showed the workers how defeat has come to all workers who have submitted their cause to so-called impartial boards, They called upon the workers to strike until the bosses grant them their very reasonable: demands. The Communists have been the most active and devoted organizers and leaders of this fight. This enrages the Haver- hill Evening Gazette. Let me quote a few para- graphs from its editorial: “Today Haverhili’s shee industry with its scores of factories and thousands of workers is in grave danger of destruction. "Yhe industry cannot survive under ‘he terms laid down by the strike leadership, To yield to those terms is to submit to industrial death. To compromise with this leadership is to make a fatal dicker with an evil force. “This leadership does not care what becomes of Haverhill. Let Hayerhill become an indus- trial leper, Let the homes of the Haverhill workers be lost because Haverhill jobs have been destroyed. Let the hopes of Haverhill workers be doomed because their means of livelihood have been taken from them. What does this leadership care? It doesn’t care. “This leadership's motive is political; its purpose, revolutionsry. Maverhil! Say [> deliberately selected as the site for a demon stration of Communist Power, The demon- stration is now taking place. It is part of the grandiose Communist scheme for an American revolution.” Then the Gazette draws the conclusion that the workers must “forget for the moment nego- tiations to end the strike, forget compromises on an agreement, forget everything but the urgent necessity of ridding the Haverhill in- dustry of this evil, dangerons, strike leadership.” | This attack is.a typical concrete example of the general charge against the Communists that we are not really interested in winning imme- diate demands, but only in an abstract “revo- lution.” Keeping this in mind, let us analyze this concrete charge a little more closely. What is the substance’ of it? It is, that if the bosses grant the demands of the workers (to recognize the union and give a small wage increase) that “the industry cannot survive.” The bosses can- not afford to grant the workers what they demand. The leadership of the workers is “evil” and “dangerous,” because this leadership refuses to abandon the demands of the workers, refuses ample of the charge against the Communists that we sacrifice the immediate interests of the workers to the future revolution. Is it true that there is a determining rela- | tionship between the fight for immediate de- mands and the revolutionary goal of the work- ing class? ‘Yes, there is such ‘a determining relationship. But it is not that put forward by the Haverhill Gazette and all the other enemies of the Communist Party. The réla- tionship is quite different. Let us take the case of a group of leaders heading a fight for immediate demands of a particular body of workers. They unitedly formulate these de- mands with the participation and approval of all the workers; they present demands to the boss; the boss says: “No, it is impossible for me to grant such demands without going out of business.” The workers in other shops and industries are putting forward their demands. All the bosses get together and say: “It is im- possible to grant such demands without sac- rificing profits. Profits are the mainspring of the capitalist system. To sacrifice profits means to destroy capitalism. This means to destroy the jobs of the workers, Therefore, in the in- ter of the work: we must fight for lower wages as the only way to preserve capitalism.” Among the workers’ leaders there takes place a division into two groups—one group says: | “Of course, we're not trying to overthrow capi- |talism; we're not trying to put our boss out of |business; we're not revolutionists; if our de- mands endanger the boss or the capitalist sys- tem, we're ready to compromise them or aban- don them altogether, and even submit to | worsening of conditions; we're willing todo | whatever is necessary to save our boss and ithe capitalist system.” The other group says: “The workers’ demands are just and necessary; fhey must be granted; the productive forces of this industry and the entire country are sufficfgnt to provide this and many times more; the c@pi- talist is only anxious to protect his own profits; he can easily afford to pay; but even ifthe can't, then so much the worse for him andshis system.” “We understand that the workers sooner or later must do away with capitalfsm and establish a Socialist system. If our fight for higher wages now, hastens the comingsof Socialism, hastens the coming of- the working ‘class revolution, then so much the better, “We | will fight all the harder for higher wages.” | This gives an example of the true relation between immediate demands and revolutionary ‘aims, The A. F. of L. leaders and the Socialist | Party set as their guiding rule to do everything |to avoid revolution, to save capitalism; that:is |why they join Roosevelt in putting across the |New Deal and the N.R.A.; that’s why they say “now is not the time to strike”; that’s why if the | workers strike in spite of them, they try -to |break the strike and send the workers back | without gaining their demands, to tie up the . | workers’ organizations in arbitration courts, to hand them over to a supposedly impartial | That is also why those who are revolutionists, tribunal to decide, The complaint is that this those who are preparing the working class ‘to leadership is fighting, too uncompromisingly, to | establish Socialism, to overthrow capitalism, achieve now the immediate demands of these | they are the only ones who can at all times workers. That's why the Haverhill Gazette pro- and in all places be depended upon to fight ‘to poses to drive this leadership out of town and the last ounce of energy for the winning ‘of tries to rouse mob violence against it. They | the immediate demands of the workers, without are interested in preserving the profits of the | consideration of what result this has in decreas- bosses at the expense of lower wages to workers. ing the profits of the bosses. We revolutioniéts They don't give a rap about the hypothetical | know that in America we have productive ca- revolution that they talk about. That's why pacity sufficient, if properly used, to give every they speak very kindly about other leaders and man, woman and child, a comfortable and happy Mr. I, Zimmerman, who also claims to be a/life. We're going to organize and fight for the Con munist and for the revolution, but who is| pain read, to abandon the workers’ demands in i eossicarecce nap austen: ner’ l