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Pane THE MILITANT May 15. 1929 May 15. 1929 THE MILITANT Page The Minneapolis Elections Uniting the Textile Struggles strike relief, class collaboration only particularly strikes ers on the job through their unions. fund administered by the unions for the relief of unemployment. The substitution of party designa; tion for the present system of non partisan Comrade Hedlund Is Our Candidate for Mayor filings for political office. The organization of a labor party. The recognition by the United By Vincent Dunne States of the Soviet Republic and the defense Minneapolis workers have the opportunity, Our Candidate In addition, our agitation in the campaign will in the 1929 municipal election campaign, to emphasize the need for the Our candidate for the post of mayor, of amalgamation vote for a Communist candidate. The entry of the crait unions and the strengthening of the comrade Hedlund for the post of mayor Hedlund, is qualified for the responsibilities of this fight by a life long record of left wing tion of the unorganized workers. Rank and file fighting power of the workers. The organizaby the Opposition has a meaning of more than ordinary importance for the revolutionary activity, the railroad unions as well as by control of the several strikes now going on and movement here. It signifies the adherence to years of membership and active life in the the rallying of the unorganized workers to the teachings of Lenin of those energetic and Party and finally the Opposition. His unhesi imperialist war. For the union of all revolutionby his complete acceptance support them. Against the growing danger of the platform of fighters the party by a small group of apparatus agents expelledans in keeping with his whole history ings in the fight for power in the United States.
of the Lovestone Foster regime.
in the labor movement. He has carried the In Spite of the Split banner of the Party in previous campaigns. In Comrade Hedlund has already spoken before It is a significant fact that after the split in this campaign, with the additional handicap of several workers organizations, and endorsement a fight against the Opposition by vicious and the platform will be secured from the Party in the Twin Cities caused by the a number of unions and other working class or cxpulsion of the inajority of the leading com unscrupulous Party, bureaucrats, we will have rades who constitute the Party mass con need of such a standard bearer. Comrade Hed ganizations. The comrades of the Opposition organize meetings in the different sections nections in the trade unions, the labor party fund, on a Communist platform, contested the of the city and as the weather permits we will and the Scandinavian clubs, the official tion last November and in spite of a full fight hold outdoor gatherings in support of the camParty has made not even a single gesture that by the Republican machine and a bitter fight paign. Literature will of course be distributed to the extent that available funds permit.
would indicate an intention to take advantage from the farmer labor officials received some of the splendid opportunity offered for Comtwenty four thousand votes.
We are out in the name of the Communist munist work in the present city clection. In The platform for the cacapaima ipathis piece marositizenjins the present electionesruggle to In spite of the fact that most of the expelled posals based on the needs of the workers in ganize against the Bosses. Against their state comrades were the very ones, because of their experience and ability, to be called upon to the industries generally, making up in the ag machinery! Against the bureaucrats in the gregate the following demands: carry out the Party program in the political labor and revolutionary movement! For regisThe right to organize, to strike and to picket tering a big Communist vote for our candidate!
campaign in Minnesota during the national election last fall, as well as in all past camwithout police interference. The abolition of all NOTE: Since this article was written, the Stalinites have entered their candidate in the primaries. Ed.
paigns, and did an excellent job by placing employment agencies and the placing of workMinnesota among the first few states in the whole country in the number of votes for the The Lost Leader Communist candidates, these same comrades are now singled out in the press of the Party In the normal development of a revolutionary movement its Pepper, who knows the racket, refused at first to take the as the ones who have no understanding of the leaders grow in the course of protracted struggles; they are tide. Insistent cablegrams, one after another, repeated the tasks of the Party and are, in fact, the ones tested and retested in responsibilities; they become widely demand. Still Pepper did not go America was his land of who deliberately tried to betray the Party to known to the rank and file and acquire a great moral authority golden opportunitry why should he leave it? Finally after the fakers of the farmer labor movement.
as a unifying and guiding force. This was the case through a peremptory demand threatening drastic disciplinary action, out the Comintern in Lenin day. He above all others under it was decided to give Pepper his ticket of leave. He forthShady Proposals of Lovestoneites stood the great role of leadership and explained, especially in with disappeared, and many naive comrades actually thought his brochure in The Infantile Sickness of Left Communism he was on the high seas.
The expelled comrades of the Opposition its function, its organic coanection with the masses and the Came the dawn. And a Cablegram from Moscow asking formed the only bloc within the Party during importance of its stability and continuity.
where was Pepper and why. No answer and no Pepper. It the last campaign to put up a determined The regime of Stalinism, which revises and distorts all the was feared that he was lost, and the funny part of it all was struggle against the opportunist maneuvers of precepts of Lenin, reduces the Leninist conception of leader the fact that the American working class movement went the majority of the when they tried ship to a shastly caricature. Nowadays leaders are made to on in blissful unconsciousness of its misfortune. Then sudorder from above, their authority is artificially conferred upon renly Pepper turned up, and in New York City of all places!
time after time to go into some backdoor deal them and they rule by decree. The moral and political authorit seems that a keen eyed Fosterite, strolling around the streets with these same fakers. It is unquestionably ity of real leadership is replaced by the simple operation of of Manhattan in search of the mising Apex Theory, perceived true that the comrades of the Opposition, toapparatus mechanics. The Party members, who play no real the lost leader slinking in and out of doorways and alleys gether with the whole Party, had a false perpart in selection of leadership, never know from one day to around Union Square when he should have been slinking from another who their leaders will be; but experiences teach them boot to boot in Moscow. hue and cry was raised imspective on the development of the Labor to expect sudden charges and to be prepared to wake up any mediately, the tocsin was sounded, and, after securing consent Party, having been taught over long period morning to confront a new set of leaders without prior conby cablegrams from Moscow, Pepper was expelled from the by the leaders of the Party and the Comintern, same Communist Party out of which he had expelled us only the dangerous and reactionary theory of a politiche le bureaucra mielding cracist power face day and short few months before. In expulsion, as in death princes and paupers meet.
terludes when nobody, least of all the Party members, knows aid the farmers. Because of this numerous mis whether their leaders, politically speaking, are dead or alive But matters did not end there. It soon transpired that Pepper had been in New York all the time, living not uncomtakes were made in the labor party work. But and they stand like ticket holders at a raffle, waiting to see what number will turn up.
fortably at a decent hotel, and that Lovestone, prior ho his it is just as true that the comrades of the Opown departure for Moscow, had visited him there regularly position never made the mistake of advocating We are now witnessing one of these Strange Interludes, and even afther he was snpposed to have left the country.
the support of Democrats posing as Farmer the leader whose fate is spinning on the wheel is none other than John Pepper, the scoundrel who put Communists in jail These complications compelled a reconsideration of the deLaborites. as was proposed by Tallentire in in Hungary and who has made a political living in recent cision. It was decided to brazen the whole thing out and the 8th Congressional District, and again by years as a mercenary in the war against Trotskyism. Pepper helped with one of the most unique and fascinating alibis to whitewash Lovestone by whitewashing Pepper. The latter Lovestone, while denouncing Shipstead before is as transparent a charlatan, as characterless a demagogue as the C. last March and almost in the ever strutted across the stage of the workers movement. But briefly, as told by Pepper in all seriousness to explain his that has ever been concocted to our knowledge. The story, same breath proposing to put up the reaction50 much has corruptionist politics superseded the normal relations between leaders and masses and the natural selection of apparent violation of discipline, was as follows: ary county attorney Olson for Governor (see the former by the latter these qualities were no handicap He attempted to get to Moscow via Mexico. Disguised as Lovestone speech printed in the April 1928 to Pepper carcer in our Party. He bobbed up one day and a Hot Tamale he had crossed to the border when the Mexican Communist. assumed command in military fashion, putting the membership revolution broke out in full force. There he was seized by through some paces forced marches from which they are the rebels on a foraging expedition who discovered, when they It is also a matter of record that during the still leg weary and foot sore. He marched them to the Fedstripped the supposed Tamale of its corn husk, that the inelection work last November and also after the erated Farmer Labor Party and back again without a single side was all Pepper and no corn meal. This made them suspicious and they wrapped the corn husk around him again, campaign, the question of the Party partici the Third American Revolution and the Unarmed Spartacus bordet. He lie on his feet running north and kept going till pation in the Minneapolis municipal election was raised by the comrades now expelled. An history of the movement is written and everything can be told.
he reached New York City to tell the Polcom about it. He outline of the work before the Party in this was on his way to report when he was seen on the street.
His most recent campaign was against American Trotskycampaign was made and generally accepted by ism. He made the report against us at the December Plenum, Before the Fosterites could think up an answer to this story, Pepper faction confederatesrushed through a motion modifyng the then majority of the C. Since that presented the motion for our expulsion and wrote all the time events have demonstrated the correctness theses and declarations against us. He spoke there the expulsion so as to allow him to proceed to Moscow and to refer the case there for final disposition. Thereupon, we of that estimate. The Labor officialdom have brief five months ago. as the leader of the party hurling mud are informed, Pepper left for Moscow immediately and was at people who were fighting on the side of the workers when gone over more and more to the side of the last sighted rolling Eastward through Germany disguised as he was toasting the war with Austrian Generals. But, alas!
a keg of beer.
adventurous political charlatans in the Farmer Life is full of changes and uncertainties. Already the mighty Labor Party. This, together with the still more modern Caeser has fallen and there are none so poor to do him Meanwhile the question of the party leadership hangs in the balance. How it will be settled the party membership have recent collaboration of the trade union officials reverence.
no way of knowing since they are not consulted in the matter.
with the so called labor representatives in the The campaign against Trotskyism was his undoing. So But one thing is certain there will be other Peppers; they grow plentifully on the tree of Stalinism. This one who becity council, who are part of the machine of the much of the varnish was scraped off the party leadership in the came a leader of the American Party without election, who local gas and street car company, in preventing big her eat the enting up of a new front became a matter the development of a real rank and file fight little matter of the flirtation with Bucharin in the Comintern leadership without even the knowledge of the party members wielded authority without accountability and who departs from on the big scab building job of the Na to look into more closely. The pushing forward of Foster as or the left wing workers who follow the party, is symbol tional Bank, presents an opportunity for revocandidate for Party Secretary in place of the discredited Love of the degeneration which has taken place in questions of lutionary campaign work which must be stone was the first move to change the appearance of the party administration since the death of Lenin. Here, as in party leadership. The next was the demand that Pepper be all decisive questions of policy, the situation in the Russian utilized.
taken for a ride to Moscor.
Party is reflected in all the parties of the Comintern.
gains If this tactic is properly pursued, these workers will demand of the McGradys why they refuse to accept the left wing proposals for united struggle.
It is difficult to obtain completely rounded textile field for an onslaught against the pow We would emphasize that this policy has and accurate information of all the details of erful mill barons. It is necessary for the left nothing in common with the one pursued by line inand in reniesce boys reading the frothy meron maintain that you are for improving the that workers militaneye alone and there was accounts in the capitalist press, or even the blissfully optimistic reports in the official deeds. Let the ranks of the workers be united policy, is insufficient. We are not for turning Communist Party press. But sufficient mathe struggle so that more forces will be orthe workers organized by the lei: wing over terial is available to make it possible to estito the of bureaucrais without exganized to resist the murderous conditions immate the situation with a fair degree of sure posed by the bosses. Instead of separate strug.
tracting any guarantees from the latter, and ness.
gles, with separate appeals for without safeguarding the movement by mainmost sensational feature of the North let us have joint action in a common battle.
taining the independence of the left wing, its right to criticize, its right to its own leaders, Carolina strikes, particularly in Gastonia, has It is true that the McGrady, Greens and undoubtedly been the leadership of the Naetc. éte. This suicidal course virtually destroyWolls will reject this demand. They are not tional Textile Workers Union, with its Comed the Passaic union.
munist direction. The bourgeois and yellow for the unity of the working class, they stand But to react against the Passaic distortionsocialist press have been unable to conceal for split in any motenent in which are militants of sust the perversion of the united front tacwing is engaged. They lead struggles only tants in this strike situation. For the first (a customary corrective in the Party nowato strangle them and turn them over to the time on any consequential scale, the Commudays) would be profoundly wrong. The Party and its press is nists have appeared in the Bourbon South with mercies of the bosses whom the of speaking of the North Carolina serves. That is one side of the coin. But the strikes now as if the left wing had the South a militant program of demands in a strike by the throat, as if it did not at all have to construggle, have succeeded to a reatively great other side is this: The left wing, which is followed so far only sider the hundreds of thousands of workers ers that divided the Negro workers from the by a sinall minority of the workers, will dem who do not yet follow the left wing.
white, and have begun to teach many of the onstrate to the textile strikers in all four states It will not do for a moment to minimize the strikers their first concepts of class organiza that the A, F, of reactionaries will not lead collosal dificulties in the way of tion and struggle the workers in successful struggle. The left textile workers and leading them along the organizing the The Successes Achievci stands for unity in the fight, for the greatest of class struggle and out of the swamp The militancy of the workers espite their consciousness of these almost total lack of class consciousness in owners, which is what the strikers are interest sistence are prerequisites for victory. Necess against the mill difficulties, militancy, level headedness, perthese few weeks of the half a dozen or more strike in the three Southern states is a re ed in now. The left wing will strengthen sary above all is a shunning of sectarianism futation once and for ail of the myth about the its support not and isolation, and the pursuit of a course that impossibility for the labor movement to breakers now following it, but it will create a move represents the interests and actual needs of the workers in general, and lays the basis for bourgeois theory expressed in the Communist ranks of the workers now following McGrady. achieving solidarity and unity.
movement by Lovestone that the South is another Ruhr for the American bourA Letter to International Labor Defense geoisie, that is, an almost inexhaustibl reservoir for capitalist growth and hade reaction.
The progress already made for the March 22, 1929. which has elapsed since October. Otherwise any form of labor movement in the Southern International Labor Defense must responsibility will become impossible for us.
be zealously guarded so that the 80 East 11th Street, Room 402 be not We request you to call a meeting of the National Executive New York City Committee without delay.
dissipated. This has happened too often in the Dear Comrades: Yours fraternally, past. It is quite true that absolute guarantees The undersigned members of the National Executive Committee for succes do not exist and never did. But a JAMES CANNON of the wish to call your attention to a number of correct policy of struggle, it is MAX SHACHTMAN equally true, inportant matters relating to the work of the which in our opinion should be considered by a meeting of the gives the only guarantee that is possible under National Executive Committee.
the circumstances of the moment. Such a NOTE: Since this letter was written, we have been informed policy has not yet been sufficiently applied. The Christmas Fund. We have seen statements in varthat a socalled meeting of the Executive Committee of the ious papers and have also been informed from other sources in this situation that the failed to make the customary distribution was called together by the faction agents of LoveThe strike situation is not limited to the of funds to the class war prisoners and their families during stone and Foster, to which comrades Cannon, Shachiran and struggles led in North Carolina by the National tha Christmas period for which the Christmas fund was pri Karsnee despite the fact that they are regular members of marily instituated. Are these statements true? If so, what Textile Workers Union. The vicious conditions the Executive were not invited. The essential purpose of this were the proceeds of the Christmas fund and how were they in the textile industry have caused similar outdistributed.
meeting was apparently to officially the replacement breaks elsewhere. In Elizabethton, Tennessee, The Monthly Relief for Class War Prisoners and Dependants.
of Wagenknecht as secretary by Juliet Poyntz and the juggling a strike is in progress under the leadership of We have been informed that the during the recent of other positions in the organization by the factionalists.
the United Textile Workers Union, the Another act taken was the arbitrary removal from the Comof organization. In, Stroudsbuciate sick tributions to the prisoners and their dependants which was the establshed practise of the carried out unfailingly mittee of comrades Cannon, Shachtman and Karsner. No over a period of more than three years since the fund was reasons were given. No charges were preferred. The comWorkers. In South Carolina, spontaneous tex started. Are these statements true? If so, what is the reason rades were not informed either of the meeting or the removals.
tile strikes have broken out which have no for the failure and what steps are being taken to overcome The only possible reason for the removals is the fact that the definitely organized leadership. Numerous three above named comrades support the Communist Opposition. The Mooney Billings Campaign. What is the reason for That is how the Stalinite splitters maintain the non partisan struggles, tremendous possibilities, untouched the failure to develop this campaign for which the ground reservoirs of strength on the one hand, separmass character of the We will treat of this matter had been fully prepared before, we left the office of the ate organizations, separate leaderships, sepa last October, and which Mooney had publicly enmore extensively in coming issue. Ed.
rate appeals for support on the other hand.
dorsed? Is there any truth in the report that Mooney has repudiated the If so, what steps are being taken None of the competing unions in the field is Stalin Praised by Labor Foe to adjust matters and come to an agreement for the active sufficiently strong to completely dominate the participation of the in a United Front struggle for The Saturday Evening Post of April 13, 1929, says in itt situation by itself.
the freedom of Mooney and Billings?
editorial on The Kellogg Pact in Practise. The workers who are engaged in struggle, The question of maintaining the non partisan policy of the It is reported in Europe that the Soviet Government and those who can be brought into struggle in defense of the rights of all workers to free speech of Russia has concluded broad agreements with the gove and assemblage. The was founded on the principle ernments of Poland and of the East Baltic States under are interested primarily in improving their con of non partisan defense of workers rights, regardless of party which their future relations are to founded on the ditions and building a movement that can en or other affiliation and it carried out that line in practise. One spirit and the letter of the Kellogs Pact. In view of force the maintenance of constantly better con of its first important cases was the defense of the Anarchist the delicate problems involving boundary relations beditions. That section of the working class that workers at Fall River, Mass. Recently comrades have been tween these countries, the agreements represent an exdenied the right to sell the Militant at affairs traordinary step forward in principle. Significant, also, can best represent and fight for these interests in New York City although the Daily Worker and other is the fact that the scope of the Kellogg Pact has is the section which will rally the textile slaves Party publications were given this right. The same attempt to been found a satisfactory basis for agreements between to its baner. These interests are paramount for prevent the sale of the Militant was made at an meet governments as far apart in type as that of Russia ing in Chicago. Not only that, but at the Bazaar now. Just as McGrady and Hoffman in Elizabethon can hardly organize the and those of her neighbors to the northwest.
an organized group of hoodlums, claiming to speak in the It seems to be taken for granted in Europe that this name of the New York Section of the attempted attitude of Russia corresponds to the policy of the to deny the right to sell the Militant on the sidewalk outmoderate right wing, the group of Stalin, and represents nism in the textile fields, so the side the Bazaar. Is this the present policy of the another public victory over the left wing, the group can hardly organize the Gastonia strikers for or does the organization as such condemn such acts of dis of Trotsky.
mass resistance against the of bureaucrimination and suppression.
We believe these questions are of such great importance for The Post represents all that is reactionary, low, smug, anticracy. What the workers want is an end to the labor, anti Communist, anti Soviet in bourgeois America. Its the work and future of the as to make a meeting stretch out system, to long hours and short praise of Stalin and Litvinov is well deserved by the latter.
of the National Executive committee absolutely imperative. The bourgeois reactionary Post knows how to estimate its wages.
Since October, enarly five months ago, there has not been a friends and its enemies. It knows the direction in which The Task of the Militants single meeting of the National Executive Committee. There Stalinism is moving, and it is more than satisfied with Stalin The task of the militants and the left wing but since we, as members, bear a ser canim public repribishe bor boispublic victory over the left wing. Stalin delivery in the situation is to agitate constantly for the for the work and affairs of the we decm it necess the Communist movements pays to buy praise for Stalin from unification of all the forces available in the ary, in view of the questions which have arisen, to have pre the organ of black reaction, the Saturday Evening Post. Lot cise information and reports on the activities of the period every Communist think!
ROSE KARSNER it?
strikers for