The Daily Worker Newspaper, December 13, 1934, Page 6

den Page 6 ~ DAILY WORKER, NEW YORK, THURSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1934 Daily,.<QWorker MTRAL OBGAM COMMUNIST PARTY U.S.A. (SECTION OF COMMUNIST INTERMATIONAL) |UD, Daily Newspaper” “America’s Only Working Class FOUNDED 1924 PUBLISHED DAILY, EXCEPT SI COMPRODAILY PUBLISHING CO., INC., 5@ E, 13th Street, New York, N. Y. Telephone: ALgonquin 4-7 Subscription Rates hattan Bronx for a The Communist Party urges that against the program of the employers the heir own program—for higher w: 30-hour week for cash relief and unemployment insurance at the workers proclaim against speed- reduction in pay, h no expense of the bosses and the government. NDAY, BY THE NE tacked th The sales the workers, the 000 to $50,000,000. ‘Who Are Bread Snatchers’? NMAFAYOR LAGUARDIA on Tuesday at- ose who resist the sales tax as “bread snatchers.” : The Daily Worker somehow fails to get the mayor’s point. tax will yield from $40,000,- This will come in the main from small consumers. As a well-known Congressman once said, La- RSDAY, DECEMBER 13, 1934 Guardia by name: “A sales tax is odious. . . . To ——— oe : say that the tax is equitable is ridiculous. A family Fight Wall Street’s New Program | HE new drive of the big in cut wages still further, smash the trade | unions and the closed shop, i of work, is confirmed once latest speech of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., presi- dent of the J. Motors Corporation Sloan, addressing the Illinois M sociation, repeats the points made turers Association and American Industry. These points, agreed to by Rooseveit’s spokesmen, Roper and Richberg, are as follows: 1, The lower- productivity”; 2. to bargain with their employ- - an increase in working hours and productivity; 4. to provide the “largest total of wage payments.” ing of wages to ‘ councils of workers ers as against the closed shop; 3 ncreast It is clear that this is the progra: monopoly in the present period, which it expects to into effect with the full cooperation of the put Roosevelt government in the coming months. T is is made clear by Sloan’s that “the magical possibilities of ‘p! | no longer cast the spell of yesterday,” which is only | Sloan’s way of greeting Roosevelt's recent changes in the N.R.A. codes which permit the monopolies to | take more direct control of the codes without any | needless interference from bureaucratic hindrances. ,| | | Taken together with Richberg’s dustrialists to “go ahead full speed, is a warning to the American working class that it may expect new attacks on its living standards, that the Wall Street industrialists to restore profits by smashing the real wages of the workers. The cry of “more productivity” wart wages The employers are making no bones about their | plans. in It is the duty of every class~ the trade unions, especially, eve Coughlin’sProgram Has Wall St. Base (Continued from Page 1) nism and fascism” in order to mask the fact that he is paving the way for fascism. Coughlin’s program in the Union for Social Justice, for example, is “for nationalization of all natural P. Morgan auto monopoly, General | the national Convention of the National Manufac- | ng of new speed-up in the factories at lower to work for the building of a strong united front of all workers in spending $1,000 tax... . Such mayor! The bankers, trialists to are the losers. nerease hours | more by the ployed. than four times | sales tax. The really adequate The “bread Mayor, are the Sniveling tool! anufacturers As- in New York at the enlarged Congress of stores are the beneficiaries under this tax. masses of the people, including the small merchants, for subsistence . . . will pay $22.50 a burden is out of all proportion.” We agree with this Congressman—as against the the manufacturers, the department The Most important, it is not a tax for the unem- It is a tax for the bankers. | ceive $180,000,000 out of next year’s budget. payments were stopped the city would have more They will re- If these the amount to be derived from the unemployed could then be given relief. snatcher: bankers! ” it seems to us, You are merely Mr. their “free spreading work m of Wall Street ten years! jubilant remark lanned economy’ «+! What? call to the in- ” Sloan’s speech is a prominent are determined only means the cies with conscious worker | ... for ten years still Judas! | the abolition of private property as the only solution to the crisis, Leads to Monopoly Coughlin cunningly attempts to | confuse the workers by saying that |the Communists want “common | ownership of all things,” such as | homes, beds, clothes, <utos, etc. But this is a fraud. The Communist Party demands the common own- duction, of those instruments of production which the capitalists use in this country to exploit and plunder the workers. It is cap- Panken has been La Guardia’s strikebreaker. served La Guardia well in the taxi strike. been La Guardia’s “go-between” in all the major labor struggles, aiding La Guardia in putting over the bosses’ wage-cutting, union-smashing policies. The Socialist Party “old guard,” of which Panken services to La Guardia, resources” — this is the “radical” bait for the workers who are com- | ing to see that the capitalist system | where the country’s resources and industries are in the grip of a handful of capitalist monopolists is a curse to the majority of the popu- lation, and the basic cause of the crisis. But Coughlin quickly follows this “radical” idea with his planks number four and five: “I believe in the private ownership of all other property; I believe in upholding the right to private property, yet con- trolling it for the public good.” What is this if not the complete support of the very basis of cap- italism, private property? What is this if not complete support of the conditions which permit the em- Ployers to exploit wage labor in the factories? Supports Exploitation All of Coughlin’s windy tilting at “money changers” and “the wealthy” collapses in the face of this one cardinal fact, his support of private | capital, the basis of the capitalist system, the basis of the power of ‘Wall Street. The miseries of unemployment, the curse of insecurity, the wretch- edness of starvation wages and speed-up, evictions for non-pay- ment of rent, foreclosure of ruined farmers, the smashing of picket lines and the crushing of strikes— all these hated fruits of our present society spring from the one fun- damental feature of our society, private property in the means of production, private ownership of the factories, the mines, the banks, the Tailroads. It is impossible to truly fight for the interests of the workers without fighting to abolish private property. It is private property, capital, that gives a handful of parasites the power to hire wage labor, exploit it in the factories, plunder it of surplus value (pro: interest, rent) and concentrate ti country’s wealth into their own hands. Coughlin is, therefore, caught in one of his typical contraditions. He denounces monopoly, but supports private property, the economic basis out of which monopoly grows and on which it rests. His denunciation | of monopoly is therefore revealed | as a fraud that will not hurt the monopolies, but, on the contrary, will strengthen them. Every worker listening to Coughlin over the radio who has asked himself, why do tne Wall Street monopolies support this seeming enemy of monopoly, now has the answer in Coughlin’s sup- port of private property in the means of production. The Communist Party, showing how private property is the basis of capitalist monopoly and ex- Dloitation, organizes the workers ior italism, not Communism, which makes the worker propertyless and | Poverty stricken. It is Communism | which will give him a full life. Coughlin is fond of denouncing \“the wicked men who have cencen- trated wealth into their hands.” In | ion of the workers in the industry, | | ‘For Services Rendered...” ACOB PANK a judge—this time, not by “a popular mandate of the people,” but by appoint- * ment of the Mayor, Mr. La Guardia. His salary will be $12,000 a year—for After that, a pension for life, But political appointments come in exchange fer services rendered t Panken gets a judgeship fram La Guardia. But before that, La Guardia got something from Panken N has again been made most likely, he will receive Not bad, for Mr. Panken! He He has member, has likewise rendered They have boosted his | political fortunes in the city. They are allying them- | selves with the Mayor in his third-Party ambitions, They aid him in cloaking his banker-dictated poli- “liberal” | Truly valuable services! In return, Mr. Panken becomes Judge Panken! and even “socialist” phrases. !... at $12,000 per year! ... with a pension for life to follow! | Judas Iscariot has raised his price! ‘y factory to defend the needs of the workers. | But he’s millions in interest every three | months, and te whom the industry |must pay huge sums in the form |of amortization reserves to pay off |the purchase price! Wherever an |industry is “nationalized” under |capitalism, not a single essential of jthe robbery of the workers or the |plundering by the capitalists is |changed. Instead of having the ership only of the means of pro-| Wall Street monopolies exploit the | workers directly, it is now the Fed- jeral government that does the work |of managing the industry to pro- | vide a steady flow of plunder to the |bondholders in the form of inter- jest. The Wall Street bondholders |sit back and collect their gravy, |their power undisturbed. | And where does this interest come from? It comes from the exploita- Party Life Philadelphia Takes Up Challenge On Dock Recruiting | Section Committee, Section 1 | District 2 New York, N. Y. Dear Comrades: | The Section Committee of Section 1 of Philadelphia, has taken up the challenge of your section for a So- cialist competition in recruiting longshoremen into the Party. We accept the number of ten longshore- men to be recruited from the Phila- | delphia waterfront by Lenin Mem- orial Day. our Party among the basic section ;of the working class, to establish the influence of the Party amongst the masses of longshoremen, as a prerequisite for successful militaht | struggle. To this end the Section Committee has worked out a plan | until the Lenin Memorial meeting which includes: | 1, Organization of a shock brig- jade, consisting of the Section Or- ganizer, two members of the Sec- | tion Committee and two other com- rades to be responsible for the con- centration, | 2. The concentration units to as- | sign comrades to sell the Daily Worker and other Party publications on the waterfront regularly and to | canvass the territory where the longshoremen live. 3. All the longshore contacts to for one month free of charge, or |language papers, and pamphlets |such as the West Coast General [eens Why Communism, etc. These their homes and eforts made to re- |cruit them into the Party. 4, One Red Sunday during the |drive in which the entire Section membership will canvass the ter- ritory where longshoremen live. | 5. Weekly open air meetings on |the waterfront with leading com- |rades of the District to speak; the | regular issuance of the “Waterfront Worker” and a weekly forum near the waterfront. |. We have already recruited one longshoreman and we are confident that through these activities we will surpass the number of ten. We will send in reports on the progress of the drive every two weeks to the Daily Worker. Fraternally yours, Section Committee, Section 1, Philadelphia, oot wa. wl ¥. C. L. Helps Establish Workers | School | JN WASHINGTON, D. C., for the first time in the history of the working class movement, we have been able to establish a Workers School. We have been able to mo- bilize our entire Y. C. L. to attend the school. We have found that since our comrades have been at~ tending school, our work has im- | proved—our comrades seem to have |@ clearer understanding of the role \of the ¥. C. L. and our present | tasks. | One of our greatest weaknesses | up until now has been the low po- |litical level of our comrades. We tried to get them to read and study | by themselves, we tried to organize | classes of our own, but they didn’t seem to work, We find that when we have a regular school, with reg- | ular classes that our comrades study | more, Our classes are conducted so that | comrades bring in the problems of | their individual activities and have |them clarified. All the comrades | Sain from each other's experiences. We feel that in this manner, by combining our practice with con- sistent theoretical training our |League has really become a school | for Communism, Some of our leading comrades who have become instructors in the this way he hopes to blind the work- | Just as before, when the industry | School find that the fact that they ers to the real economic basis of |W@S not “nationalized.” The exploi- | capitalism. For it is not the per- sonal ‘ |Strous concentration of this country, | It is the very nature of the sys- jtem itself, based on private prop- \erty, that inevitably gives rise to |concentration and monopoly. In his |great work, “Capital,” which every |worker should read and study, Karl |Marx, the founder of scientific so- |cialism and the organizer of the \world revolutionary movement of the working class, showed how priv- ate Property, no matter who owns it, must inevitably give rise to con- |centration of capital in the hands Jof a few powerful capitalists. The | Rockefeller monopolies, the Mor- |gan monopolies, the Mellon mon- jopolies, the duPont monopolies are }mot due to the personal traits of |these capitalists: They are due |solely to the fact that modern in- dustry in its vastness and complex- lity, with its ruthless competition, |inevitably creates monopoly. | Change the owners of the mon- |opolies, and will you change the monopoly? The monopoly will still \exist, no matter how “wicked” or |how “good” the monopolist may be. |Coughlin’s ideas of “wicked men” jonly serve to block a real fight against the economic basis of mon- | opoly. | “Nationalization” of Industry | Coughlin dangles the idea of “na- tionalization” before the workers as |a seeming attack against the priv- jate capitalists and the power of | Wall Street. But “nationalization” under capitalism does not take one jcent of profit from the capitalists, |does not diminish their grip on the |country’s life by one iota, nor does \it solve a single contradiction of capitalism which has plunged the wealth in foundest crisis in history. What is the process of “na- tionalization” which leaves priv- ate property intact? It is merely the process whereby the govern- meni buys certain industries from their private owners in Wall Strcet. How does the government pay for these industries? By is- suing government bonds to the private owners in Wall Street. So instead of having certain in- dustries owned by private capital- lists directly, we have the Federal government running the industry— | but the same clique of private cap- |italists and banks holds the bonds upon which the industry must pay whole capitalist world into the pro-/| \tation of the workers, the miseries ickedness” of any single Of the crisis, the starvation and| capitalist that has caused the mon- | speed-up all remain, | Nationalization of industry un- der capitalism, without smashing the private property basis of all wage slave exploitation, merely is what Lenin, the great revolutionary leader of the Communist Party described “as making the capitalist State the manager of an industry to save the investments of the million- aires.” Must Smash Capitalist State In the Russian Revolution, where the workers and poor peasants, led by the Communist Party under the leadership of Lenin, smashed the power of the Czar and the Russian capitalists and set up their own Soviet government, they also “na- tionalized” industry. But this “na- tionalization” really meant some- thing to the workers, really ended the yoke of wage slavery forever, because this “nationalization” took thrown the capitalists, after the | workers had completely abolished | the capitalist government power and had set up their own power in the form of a Soyiet government. Here in this country, the Com- munist Party declares that the grip of the Wall Street pirates of finance capital can never be broken unless the workers abolish the whole government power of the capitalists through the revolution- ary overthrow of the capitalist sys- tem. Once the workers in this they can nationalize industry with- out giving the capitalists a single red cent in return! Then, and then only, will “nationalization” do away with the power of the capitalists, and permit industry to be run in | the interests of the working class and all toilers, The Communist Party is also for “nationalization.” But it is for na- tionalization by expropriating the capitalists, taking from them by the mighty revolutionary power of the working class what they have concentrated into their own hands. If Coughlin is such a fierce enemy of the Wall Street exploiters why is he so vicious an enemy of | the Communist Party, which leads the fight to seize power from the | Wall Street monopolists and expro- | priate their wealth? If Coughlin is such a “radical” fighting the monopolists, why is he so fearful of striking a real blow at them by advocating their expro- | place after the workers had over- | jcountry have seized power, then) must teach. others what they know is in itself a marvelous training, and enables them not only to un- derstand but also to explain to | others, We feel that comrades in other cities should gain from our experi- ence. We would propose that Y. C. L. Section Committees should take up the question of forming Workers’ | Schools, where there are none. They should propose to the Party that such schools be organized. The Y. C. L. should give its full coopera- | tion in building schools, We would | propose that where there are Work- ers Schools, the Y. C. L. commit- tees should take up the question of | making every Y. C. L. member a | student in the school. | Forward to a mass movement of | Workers Schools! Every ¥, C, L. member a student! Make the Y. C. L. a genuine school for Commu- nism, | F. P., Y.C.L. Section Organizer, priation and organizing the work- ers to take control? How does it happen that Cough- lin, instead, proposes a “national- | ization” scheme which only means giving the Wall Street monopolies new billions in government bonds, increasing their profits and tight- ening their control? Because Coughlin is earning his salt from the Wall Street employ- ers who are supporting him, be- cause his program is a program cal- culated to sidetrack the growing revolutionary feeling of the masses into harmless, utopian, confused and reactionary channels. A worker who wants to fight Wall Street, who wants to force the rich capitalists and their government to provide adequate cash relief for himself and his children, who de- mands unemployment insurance, who wants to provide himself and his family with security and a way out of the terrible crisis of capital- ism, can never follow Coughlin. Coughlin will only trap him. Cough- lin will only blind his eyes to the real cause of his misery, the rule of the capitalists. Coughlin will only fill him with honeyed words to keep him from joining with his class comrades in mass struggles for im- mediate benefits and against the whole system. We have seen that the Wall | Street groups supporting Coughlin know what they are doing. In sub- | sequent articles we will examine Coughlin’s ideas on trade unions, strikes, taxes, money, fascism and | Communism. We recognize the need of building | be supplied with the Daily Worker | contacts to be visited regularly in| EARNING HIS KEEP! wrote when he recently contributed Worker fund through this departm Irving Gamm M. Moore ... $2 to the Daily Previously Re ent. Total ... by Burck| 4 Burck will give the o1ginal drawing of his cartoon to the highest contributor each day towards his quota of $1,000, SHORT AND TO THE POINT “For Burck—a convincing artist” was that E. F. B. By L. G. + | FROM the secret chambers of the | Baron Aloisi Committee, dele- gated by the Council of the League of Nations, to make recommenda- tions concerning the Saar Plebiscite forthcoming on Jan. 13, 1935, a German-French agreement has emerged. In spite of the usual | sensational headlines, this agree- ment did not come as a surprise to big business and diplomatic circles. The tremendous advance of the United Front among the ranks of the Saar electorate, the determined swing of all strata of the working population to the united defense front of the Saar against the on- slaught of murderous Hitler fas- cism, has inspired a fear in French and German industrialist circles |that the very foundations of the bourgeois order are increasingly menaced by the tremendous inten- sity of the struggle and the align- ment of the forces against fascism in the Saar. Roechling Is Mining Lord Mr. Roechling, mining lord and heavy industrial ruler of the terri- tory, is, in spite of his National So- cialist flag-waving and patronage over the “Deutsche Front” (the present form of the Nazi Party in the Saar), also member of the polit- ically very influential leading or- ganization of the French heavy in- dustry and mining, the “Comite Des Forges,” since the Saar mines and foundries of Roechling are strongly supplying the French armament and war industries. The very important Dillingen Mining Corporation in the Saar has not only prominent French indus- trialists on its board of directors, but is also represented on similar boards of the Eastern French Lor- aine Mining and Foundry Com- bines. French and German capital are closely associated in the Saar enterprises. They are both con- cerned over “dangerous anti-capi- talistic developments.” A few weeks ago the continental press reported that the leading French banks had already made an agreement with the Deutsche Bank to take over their branches and in- terests in the Saar territory and | become responsible for the neces- sary settlements and the continuity of the administration of certain in- dustrial investments. Monsieur Dupuy, owner of the Petit Parisien, one of the largest French newspapers, openly an- ;It seems that German and French THE GERMAN-FRENCH P nounced on his arrival in New York ; that he sincerely hopes that the, Saar territory would return to Ger- many after the plebiscite without any disturbance and in an orderly way. It is obvious that certain inter- ests regardless of their nationality prefer to see Hitler’s policemen, the S. S. and S. A., and the wage slash- ing labor front officials active for | the preservation of the “order” of the Saar, than the status quo, un- | der which the anti-fascist move- ment would continue as a forceful | and ever-growing factor in the working class struggles for a Social- | ist Germany. Strong Unity The United Front of hundreds of | thousands of miners, foundry and | steel workers, Catholic trade union- ists and farmers in the Saar is already a tremendous generating force against the anti-fascist move- ment, not only in Germany, but | also in France and in all of Europe. capitalist © monopolies therefore | joined their forces to build a dam against the victorious and militant trends toward unity and against! war and fascism now asserting themselves in the Saar. | What are the main points of the} new agreement? In addition to the usual assurances of “fair play” among the powers concerned, the agreement provides that the Ger- man workers and farmers shall pay 900,000,000 French francs as indem- nity for return of the Saar mines, which were owned by the French State Mining Administration. Whether this 900,000,000 francs will also go to the Comite Des Forges, | as the Saar coal went thus far, as an “indemnity for the mines de- stroyed by the German armies in Pas de Calais,” remains to be seen. | The political part of the agreement | provides for “guarantees” for those whom the high contracting parties term “political, racial and religious” minorities. It is superfluous to discuss those guarantees seriously. They are given by those who, according to the revolting evidence of the Reich- stag burning and the Thaelmann and other cases, have elevated mur- der, arson, fraud and torture to regular governmental functions in their two years of rule in Germany. Must Rely On Own Strength In face of those “guarantees” the workers, farmers and professionals of the Saar must rely upon them- selves and continue for the protec- tion of their own lives, families and homes to carry on their united struggle against Hitler. It would be of interest, however, to mention the reasons which prompted both sides to sign the Saar agreement. As far as the Hit- ler government is concerned, it is confronted, on the eve of the worst starvation winter Germany has ever seen, with its most fateful isolation among the imperialist powers. The debates of the British House of ;Commons and the menacing tenor of the war speeches of Winston Churchill and Stanley Baldwin have clearly shown that even Britain, a potential ally on the anti-Soviet front, is not willing to support Hit- ler in a war against France. Hit- Jer has to get credit and co-opera- tion from his fellow imperialists. He must consider returning to the League of Nations, in spite of the demagogic agitation he has carried on against the same institution previously to his exodus from the League, endorsed allegedly by forty million votes. To pave the way back to the League, Hitler needed the Saar agreement with France as the first step to his submission. It is not less interesting to con- sider the French motives for the agreement. The French fascist or- ganizations have long striven to find another alternative to the for- eign policy of the recent French government of rapprochement with the Soviet Union. A German pact on the Saar can be considered from this viewpoint as the first step to- ward a general agreement with Germany, sanctioning the German rearmament on the basis of a Hit- lerite guarantee for the Versailles frontiers. Needless to say, that if those at- tempts to find “a new foreign pol- icy” for French fascism would turn out successful, the Hitler-Rosenberg Plan of armed aggression against the Soviet Union, would find the support of the fascists of France. Here lies one of the most serious aspects of the German-French Pact on the Saar. The Soviet-French protocol signed after the Saar agreement, and re- affirming the peace aims of the Soviet-French co-operation, was a blow to the German fascist efforts to destroy the Soviet’s peace moves not only in France but through the Eastern Locarno security pact. Japanese Ambassador Praises Hitler Regime TOKYO, Dec. 12.—“The friendly relations existing between Germany and Japan are easily understood,” Japanese Ambassador Nagai de- clared here in the course of an in- terview on his return from that country. “Not only is there a similarity between the national characters and economic conditions of the two countries,” he added, “but there is even a resemblance between their international situations.” Nagai hoped that Hitler would not rejoin the League of Nations. He considered that the present naval conference at London was of great interest to Germany because ‘of analogous demands made by | Japan for “equal rights.” Nagai answered the back-scratch- ing of the fascist press, which is using tons of ink in “studies” of the | “destiny” and “superiority” of the Japanese, by lavishly praising the Nazi regime and commenting on its “stability.” Hamburg Ship Crisis Puts Workers in City On Verge of Starvation COPENHAGEN, Dec, 12.—The re- signation of the directors of the “Hapag” (the Hamburg-American line) is causing much panic on the Hamburg Stock Exchange, the in- fluential newspaper, Politiken, here declares. The economic crisis at Hamburg daily reaches more alarming propor- tions and appeals to the Hitler gov- ernment from municipal authorities and various economic bodies become evef more urgent. According to “Politiken,” one of these appeals, addressed directly to Hitler, con- tains the statement that the popula- tion of Hamburg is reduced to a starving condition. In the future, “Politiken” states, the Hamburg-American line will be directed by Nazi officials, 12 Are Seized in Spain For Aiding Revolution MADRID, Dec. 12.— Accused of taking part in the recent revolu- tionary uprisings, two functionaries of the U. G. T. (General Trade Unions), Jose Rodriguez Alvarez and Angel de Avila Fernandez were ar- rested here today. Alvarez is a street-car inspector, Fernandez a tax-collector. They surrendered their offices to the Revolutionary Com- mittee in Oviedo. Ten other revolutionary workers! were seized and indicted by the fas- cists on the charge of having be- longed to the revolutionary militia. HITLER PRESS LOSES READERS BERLIN, Dec. 12.—The number of foreign newspapers introduced into Germany in the course of the year amounted to 8,300,000 copies, i. c., 600,000 more than in the preceding year, according to figures furnished by the Post Office headquarters here. On the other hand, the num- ber of German newspapers sent to other countries during the same year diminished by 6,300,000 copies. | World Front | ney HARRY GANNES -——' Beediss Fascism’s Distase | Mussolini Preseribes | The Party of Revolution | pan fascism is suffer- |* ing from a very grave dise ease of its circulatory system. \ It already shows marked sink. jing spells on the international |capitalist thermometer, the ;Stock and bond exchanges, Mussolini, much concerned, is trys ing two methods to attempt to check the ravages of the greatly aggrae vated financial crisis of fascism. His first remedy, rather drastic, is halting the flow of gold and gold credits out of Italy. He has virtually |put all foreign credits held by Itale jian citizens under government cone trol, The second remedy is more medi« jeval, the old panacea of blood-lete jing. The working and peasant masses jare bled freely and constantly in order to relieve the apoplexy of the huge financial indebtedness of the | fascist regime. Mussolini works along the idea jf the totalitarian state. Since reae | sons he, all of so nose: of various indu cers, ndicates—bankers, jalists, big land: owners, offi- Idiers, sailors, peasants and worker-—then the body politic as a whole should feel the beneficial effect cf this blood-letting, especial- |ly the upper strata, who in this par- |ticular disease, are the most. sensi- |tive to Mussolini's type of remedial measures. * ew HOMEHOW, while Mussolini was able to save the lira from falling more heavily, Italian bonds dropped precipitately on Monday. Italian Government bonds, Italian Public Credit bonds, City of Milan bonds, and City of Rome bonds — all dropped from $3 to $5 each, a sort of mounting vote of lack of con- fidence by the international finan- ciers in Mussolini's ability to cure fascism’s financial crisis. Latest official (and there- fore inadequate and understated) figures show a big increase in bank= ruptcies, a growth in unemployment, and a drop in wages. Whereas the official wage index was 90 in 1931, it is now 83. Unemployment, which in 1931, at the beginning of the crisis, was officially recorded at 707,000, to- day is given out as 1,057,000. The public debt which was 80 (due chiefly to war expenditures), Now it can’t stand the strain any |more. billions in 1930, jumped to 97 bill- ions in 1932, and 103 billions in 1934 | feo Pees: IN this situation certainly there is growing mass discontent with fas- jcism, in the classical land of the brutal, open, chauvinist dictatorship of decaying capitalism. The ques- tion is often asked, therefore, since the masses after 14 years of Fas- cism in Italy see how it works why is there no greater evidence of revo- lutionary resistance and action? This question is fully answered by Comrade K, Roncoli in the latest issue of the Communist Interna- tional, No. 22, in an article entitled: “Basic Lessons of the Struggle of the Communist Party of Italy against Fascism Under the Condi- tions of the Totalized Regime.” Comrade Roncoli points out that, unlike in Germany, where the Com- 'munist Party had deeply rooted it- self among the masses before the advent of Hitler, in Italy the Com- jmunist Party had hardly come into terror rule and to raise illusions of probable benefits among the Italian masses. Mussolini, also, came to power at the beginning of |the relative stabilization of capital- ism in 1921, which gave the fascists an opportunity to consolidate their ing effectively wiped out, and along |with this has taken place a re-ore- |ganization and strengthening of the ;Communist Party of Italy. rns Tan: S far back as 1924-6, the Party under the leadership of Antonio Gramschi (now in a Mussolini dun- geon) re-organized and built up new, splendid cadres, but because these could not involve greater masses, they were picked off by Mussolini and virtually destroyed by death and imprisonment. In 1930-32, the Party center re- stored contacts with the majority of the existing lower organizations, and began to develop greater mass ac- tivity, combining legal with illegal forms of struggle. The energetic and bold conduct of the thousands of Communists be- fore the penal courts (such as the defense of the woman comrade whose testimony we quoted in this column not so long ago) has won the admiration and respect of large masses of Italian workers. The Party which was reduced to a party of “immigrants” in 1928-29, by 31-32 was a fighting organization of thousands of actives. But Mussolini has had a long time to entrench his system of terror, and the fight is a difficult one. Nevertheless, the forces of revo- lution are gaining rapidly, Through the censored news come reports of grewing day to day struggles of the peasants, workers and unemployed. The aggravated financial crisis now will have its effect in arousing deep= er and wider mass discontent, ex- pressed in organized action under the leadership of the Communist Party. We would urge all of our readers who wish to know more of the prob= lems and struggles of the Commu- nist Party of Italy to be sure to ovtain a copy of the latest issue o, the “Communist International,” No. 22. You can get it at all Workers Book Stores (New York, 50 E, 13th Street), or by mail from Workera Library Publishers, P. O. Box 148, |Station D, New York City. KNOWS WHAT HE LIKES “Enclosed check for $5 (previ- cusly listed) is to be credited to Harry Gannes’ ‘World Front.’ In- ternational Communist news get my preference,”—Joseph Lencer, Phila- delphia. L, Burke ..... . Unit 1 and 2, Wyoming, Pa.. Previously received ... Total $2.25 $370.36 «$373.61