January 15, 1929.
THE MILITANT Page Page THE MILITANT January 15, 1929.
in the The Crisis HARD Malkin and Franklin Go to Prison German Party terial tions.
now do legal means in when erals suppressed.
ists should be who of militant workers firmly Party members Oppo criminal before its more, One dence position.
the same.
THE American Frame Up System claimed two TH given to comrade Malkin by the Opposition group, understand the part of the right wing leaders and more victims when the New York Court of which lasted till a late hour.
the Socialist Party in this infantous Frame up. The Appeals confirmed the conviction of comrades We will not forget comrade Malkin. His daunt workers must be shown that these elements have Maurice Malkin and Leo Franklin in the famous less courage in the darkest hours and the Com acted in this case, as they always do, as the direct Mineola furriers case. These two fur workers munist spirit with which he faced the prison or agents of the exploiters. Every worker who supentered Sing Sing prison on Monday January deal will remain with us as an example and an in ports them is supporting this class enemy, 14, 1929, to begin serving their sentences of two spiration to weld our ranks more closely together We put our hope and confidence in the new and one half to five years.
and battle onward for the victory of the proletarian Amalgamated Union. We call upon all needle Both of these new class war prisoners are rank cause.
trades workers to rally to it and build it into a and file fighters who have done valiant work on mighty power for the workers in the daily strug the picket line in the great battles of the Furriers gle and an instrument for the final liberation from FAREWELL NOTE FROM COMRADE MALKIN Union. Comrade Franklin is a non Party worker.
the slavery of Capitalism.
Comrade Malkin is one of the pioneer American Jan. 9, 1929.
Dear Jim: Communists who has been with the Party since In this parting statement want to make the am very sorry that did not find you home. following personal remark. stood up in the court its formation. Prior to that he was active in the wanted to say Good bye to you, Marty and Max, but at Mineola as an avowed Communist and in all my and the Left Wing of the Socialist Party. at A. so tell the bunch that they should excuse me hope we will see each other soon. am going in tomorrow activity, as a rank and file fighter for the Union The imprisonment of Comrade Malkin is a heavy for it. have been animated by my allegiance to the prin blow to the forces of the Opposition. He was Well, Good bye, and always count on me in our fight. ciples of Communism and to the Communist Party the first Party member to enlist in the struggle for which is the only party of the workers. On the the cause of the Opposition the Gen. MALKIN.
eve of my departure for prison reaffirm that Without an Army. standing alone, unfurled stand. It is in the nature of things that Commun the banner of Trotsky and the Russian Opposition be among the first to pay the price of on October 27. Malkin was not a shame faced prison, for the Communist Party fights at the head sympathizer, but a fought in the open not only in words but in deeds for his convictions. He was was the first to and this must be doubly true of those Communists our statement to the Party members and the first who belong to the ranks of the Opposition as to take a bundle of our Militant to sell before the do. believe that the Russian Workers Center. From the beginning of this hisOpposition and International Opposition under the lead toric struggle till the day of his departure for priof is son he was in the forefront, one of the most most active, day on an International scale the true prinmost tireless, most devoted and courageous wor ciples of Leninism, of the Russian Prokers for our cause. The group of Opposition Comletarian Revolution. consider my adherence to munists which grew and became hardened into an the cause of the Party Opposition to be an or iron solidarity under a drumfire of slander was in spired not a little by his infectious enthusiasm and ganic part of all my revolutionary and labor activito the Opposition unwavering confidence.
now. It is very sad that this support The tragic aspect of his imprisonment for the sition has brought about the temporary expulsion Communist movement is heightened by the fact of myself and other comrades from the party, and that this loyal Communist and fighter for the labor movement was expelled from the Party by counter revolutionists by people who have little the clique of bureaucrats a few weeks before.
right to speak about us. In spite of all this conSince then they have been very busy defaming sider myself a member of the party and will act his character. They hated this up standing milias such. In this, as in all other questions, am in tant, who told them to their faces what he thought full solidarity with all expelled comrades of the Op We are and remain Communists just him. Renegade. counter revolutionist and simMaurice Malkin Our expulsion can only be temporary ilar epithets were showered upon him till the very and the slander hurled against us will be refuted hour the prison doors closed behind him.
by our deeds.
The Daily Worker covered itself with infamy Malkin Statement Comrades, keep up the struggle! Down with by its deliberate sabotage of the publicity. They Regarding the decision of the Court of live the new Amalgamated Union. Long Live the exploiters and their Right Wing Agents! Long could not bring themselves to mention his name in the issue of January 7, which announced a proAppeals confirming the sentence of Communism!
Maurice Malkin test meeting on the case, speaking only of two 272 to years in prison for activfur workers who were sentenced to serve from two ity in the Furriers Strike of ARREST PHILLY COMRADES at the convention of the Amalgamated Fur, Dress Comrades and Fellow Workers: His speech 1926.
As we go to press, we are informed by Comrade Sol and Cloak the Lankin of Philadelphia that comrades Morgenstern, Leon Goodman, Kravetz and another sympathizer of the Op. The decision of the Court of Appeals confirm great ovation given him by the asposition in Philadelphia were arrested for selling The sembled workers, was omitted entirely from the ing the sentence of two and a half to years in Militant at the Daily Worker Anniversary affair on Jan.
Daily Worker reports convention.
prison against comrade Leo Franklin and myself Ilth. Only Opposition comrades were arrested, Those who have recently become the leaders of is another act of the judicial system proving its the International Labor Defense as a a result of fac class character and its role as an instrument of the members who proposed to search them (9) Naturally tional machinations have also made a shameful capitalists in their war against the workers organi against us ordinarily only by Dicks. of men, etc.
record in this case. They announced a protest zations.
So our union must regard it and point it scuffle developed. Comrade Morgernstern, who wears meeting on the case for January 7, but refused to out to all workers as another proof that justice for glasses was struck in the eye, and the broken pieces of the workers can come only from their own organglass entered his eye.
put comrade Malkin on the speakers list, and likeHe was rushed to the hospital.
His eye is seriously damaged, and it is not known yet wise refused his request that comrade a ized power. Our sentence, intended to terrorize whether he will be blinded in that eye.
member of the National Executive Committee of the workers, can thus be turned into a means of The two sympathizers of the Opposition were bailed the and its National Secretary from its overcoming illusions about class courts and class out by the But the took no action on foundation in 1925 until October of 1928, should justice, our comrades so far as we have been able to find, and also speak at the protest meeting. When pressed Our conviction and sentence is a result of the our comrade had to devise ways of bailing Goodman and Morgenstern out. This was finally done.
for reasons to justify such an unprecedented pro operation of the Frame up System by means of Comrade Morgenstern had been held as a material wit cedure, comrade Wagenknecht said: The Party which many fighters for the working class have ness. In police court on Saturday Jan. 12, our comrades has decided you cannot speak. Rose Baron, New been victimized in the mad campaign of the rul naturally, would not press any charges against anyone.
York Local Secretary of the said: Neither ing class and its governmental agencies to smash All four were discharged. The comrades report increase Malkin nor Cannon can speak because of their the labor movement. Mooney and Billings are ing sales of the Militant and interest in the Opposition program political views.
life sentence through the frame up sysserving a When confronted with the declaration that com Our glorious martyrs, Sacco and Vanzetti, rade Malkin would attend the protest meeting were done to death by it. The Centralia prison called in his name and ask for the floor, they called ers, the prisoners THE MILITANT of the Passaic strike, the Ziegler the meeting off. period of ten days went by, miners, the previously convicted members of our Published twice a month by the Opposition Group in the from the confirmation of the sentence on Decem own left wing in the needle trades (Furrier Samuel Workers (Communist) Party of America ber 31, till comrades Malkin and Franklin entered Kurland. all these and many others have fallen Address all mail to: Box 120, Madison Square Nassau County Jail on January 10, prior to trans victim to the American Frame up System. Now Station, New York, Publishers address at 340 East 19th Street, New York, fer to Sing Sing, without a protest meeting by the it is our turn. We are rank and file fighters, but Telephone: Gramercy 3411. in their behalf.
we will hold our heads up under this blow and Subscription rate: 00 per year. Foreign, 50 Fortunately, comrade Malkin was still free when serve our cause in prison by conduct worthy of 5c per copy Bundle rates, 3c per copy.
the first public meeting of the Opposition was held revolutionary labor militants.
Editor the Labor Temple on Tuesday, January He This frame up against us is the joint work of Associate Editors Martin Abern spoke there and the ovation given him by the as the employers, the State government and judicial James Cannon Max Shachtman sembled workers was a warning to the factional system, the of machine, the right wing Maurice Spector upstarts who trifle with the great principle and leaders in the needle trades and the Socialist Party.
VOL. II. JANUARY 15, 1929 No.
tradition of solidarity with all class war prisoners. We go to prison as a direct result of this conspir After the mass meeting a farewell party was acy. Every needle trades worker must be made to.
ARDLY had the ink dried on the resolutions heart out of the Communist Parties everywhere. less and portentous when we see that they do not of the Sixth Congress of the Comintern which What the Stalin leadership of the Comintern fear stand alone but that large sections, whole Party noted the growth of internal consolidation in all fully refused to recognize is that material corrup districts, stand behind them, and have suffered the sections, than the racking fever of factional tion flows from a condition where the Party func their fate by the hundreds.
struggle rose to a more menacing degree than has tionaries, appointed in one way or another from The line of the Brandler Thalheimer right is been experienced in the Comintern for some time. above, easily and light mindedly succumb to ma not yet clear. Their platform is limited and vague The elements of a devastating crisis are at hand temptations because they realize that there is in many respects. They have not said a syllable in their full, diseased bloom in the most important no control from below, from the ranks. Because about the tremendous, burning issues raised by the parties of the International: the German, Russian, they realize that the worker in the ranks has less Trotsky Opposition, or their attitude towards them.
Czecho Slovak, Polish, French and American sec and less to say about the policies or leadership of On the contrary, there are indications that they his Party. Because they realize that an uncom In the German Party the crisis is proceeding with plaining and unquestioning readiness on their part Tomsky Bucharin)
in the Russian Party. But it is clear that thousands of the proletarians who are its sharpest expression. For the yes men in the easy going levity with which they undersign such supporting them so because that is their various Party committees throughout the Interna.
of of the Russian Opposition, the Chinese and Bric and resentment of the bureaucratic and corrupt reexpressing their antagonism tional it is the simplest thing to put their scal to the resolutions approving the offi which tish policies of Stalin and Bucharin that all this gime. To have supported the expelled Urbahns the hope that this guarantees them protection from the delinquenc group, which is the best representative in Germany will serve to dismiss the issues of the struggle and ies or crimes they may themselves commit. Because of the line of the Leninist Opposition, would solve the problems raised by them. flourish they realize that the condition for the continuation have meant forthwith expulsion for any Party worof the pen, a few slanderous denunciations in the of Stalin opportunist domination is the installment ker. In the Brandler Thalheimer fight they thought press, many expulsions and removals as are nec to find this legal or semi legal means which as essary to behead the minority and a new victory thought but of willing martinets with no past of these workers are now being expelled for this of revolutionists capable of objective, independent. the bureaucratic lid had But hundreds though the principle questions involved remain un(or worse, a malodorous one) and no future in the also. What hysterical fear of the worker masses settled.
movement, creatures like the Thalmanns, Neu in the Party must impel the bureaucrats when they The crisis in the German Party was brought to manns, Stoeckers, Smerals, Cachins, Petrovskys, are obliged to take such drastic and fatal steps a head in the notorious Wittorf Thalmann case. Martinovs, Lovestones and Peppers.
can ill af Wittorf, the secretary of the Hamburg Party disBrandler, who had returned to Germany after ford these luxuries of expulsion, particularly in view of the catastrophic trict, was finally expelled from the Party after the an exile of five years in Moscow, together with campaign, so rich in revolutionary pos elections; hic collapse of its cruiser stories that accused Wittorf of mishandling and menced a sharp struggle against bureaucracy and its loss of votes in the recent municipal stealing Party funds. But we had here no ordi corruption, gaining wide support from the of its loss of prestige following the Wittorf Thalparty nary case of individual corruption. Standing be membership. To a certain extent they were cov.
mann disgrace; of its loss in Party membership hind Wittorf was his factional colleague Thalman, ered by the Ewert group. Ewert, it will be re(the Berlin organization fell from 18, 000 to 12, 000 the chairman and leader of the Party, who, alsix months. of its loss, by expulsion, though he was fully aware of the guilt American Party its 1927 convention where of the revolutionary fighters who have rallied of Wittorf, kept the information from the Party carrying out instructions of Stalin and Bucharin, around our comrade Urbahns in their fight against committee, denied his own knowledge of the facts he turned the Party over to Lovestone once opportunism and for Leninism.
and protected Wittorf until the overwhelming evi after having helped him gerrymander district The warning of Trotsky that the victory of finally permitted of no further concealment. convention after another. Incidentally, he was one Stalin over the Opposition merely foreran Stalin The proved complicity of Thalmann in the of the fathers of the Menshevik Panken policy of shipwreck has been realized. The policy of bureauruption scandal compelled the Central Committee the Party, together with Lovestone and Weinstone) cratic order, of telegraphed command from Mos.
under pressure of the right wing (Brandler group) The criticisms of the Right group were immediately ershiphas had its black day in the Comintern. Its and conciliators. to remove amann crises that rend the and most important political prestige of the Party before the proletarian tionary movement when men like Brandler. Thal Parties of the International.
masses. Before Thalmann removal by the Centralheimer, Frolich, Walcher and their colleagues, who The blows are heavy, and the wounds are alCommittee had taken effect, the Execu are not only the last of the leaders of the old ready gaping wide. For the dilletantes and adtive Committee of the Comintern ordered the Par Spartakusbund of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Lieb venturers everything is halcyon and as it should be.
ty to reinstate Thalmann to his position and at knecht, but highly qualified mass leaders and poli. The serious Communist fighter, however, pauses tempted to force the entire attention of the Party ticians, are summarily expelled from the Party, to think. There is yet time to heal the wounds away from his record in the scandal by raising despite the errors they may have made in 1923 and restore the militant health of the body. That and cry against those who had exposed him and today. Such a procedure is all the more reck task belongs to the stubborn fighters.
the rights and conciliators. The Comintern mag nanimously excused Thalmann by saying that his he had tried to prevent the crippling of the cruiser campaign that would follow the Wittorf expos. These remarks on American trade union questions by dle the question still more, comrade Pepper launch the General Secretary of the Red International of Labor Unions are reprinted from the Official Organ of ed the theory of the possible growth of the But the facts entirely reject such an apology for American Federation of Labour. Why did he do this German agent of Stalin faction. Thalmann Things, however, are different in the United this? This was done in order to divert the atten not only knew of Wittorf peculations prior to States. Here the Central Committee instigated an tion of the Party from the immediate problem that the beginning of the cruiser campaign but, armed opposition against the Fourth Congress faces us of organising the unorganised, to with this very knowledge of Wittorf guilt he decisions on the American question. Even previous the future problems that will rise if the American Federation of Labour begins to had proposed him, in the Spring of 1928, as Par to the Congress there was much dissatisfaction in grow again. All ty candidate for the Reichstag. Moreover, Thal the Central Committee of the American this teacup guessing had only one political meanman not only continued to maintain factional con my sharp criticism of the erroneous attitude of the ing instead of concentrating attention on the most leadership to Educational urgent to dispel the attention of the Party. no intend now to take the latter expulsion, but he haditionele en gebruiken. unorganised workers, its incorrect attitude up ha Above all, the Comintern failed to explain since workers Federation of Labour. This dissatisfactoday he is all at sea in American affairs. He and the take upon ly frequently lost his bearings in European affairs, when it is proper for any individual way it regarded the he Negro merely say that whereas comrade Pepper previous himself the responsibility of protecting the tion was expressed in the protest of the American could be truly named: the muddler of the two hemispheres.
informing the proper committee of his self sacri pean peal to the Conference, held in Decem Let us leave comrade Pepper and take up the ficing and heroic intentions.
of the American Party. The American ComThe demoralizing effect of the rehabilitation ber, 1927, because in this appeal the necessity munist Party declared itself to be against (by decree only. of Thalmann was accompanied stressed. This was further expressed in several arunorganised in the trade unions was the Fourth Congress resolution the American question. Why did they come out tack upon the Brandler Thalheimer group and the ticles, among which comrade Pepper articles de against this resolution? This the is concealing.
Ewert Gerhard group of conciliators, in short, by The Communist comrade Pepper published When the members of the arrived in Moscow the spurious and hypocritical campaign against an article to prove that American capitalism is ex and saw that to oppose the decisions of the Fourth the right danger whose existence was only yesR.
be vigorously denied by the spokesmen of mely strong, that the American working class declared in Moscow that they had long ago very expedient, organised, that the Party is weak, the International.
and that there are many difficulties in general in expressed support for the Fourth Congress deciThis campaign could not hide the bitter facts America. This is what he said also at the Congress. sions. It was certainly comic to find of the alarming state of affairs in the German Comrade Pepper sees nothing but the power of meetings that whereas the majority of Party. Not only in Hamburg, but in other sec American capitalism, and discovering America the had expressed support for the decisions, tions on the Party also similar cases were dis anew, although this discovery was made long ago, comrades Foster, Bittleman, Cannon and Johncovered cases of material corruption which were completely passed over those vital problems raised stone, members, declared that there was not the expression of the political corruption, which, in my articles on the eve of the Fourth a word on the subject to be found in the minutes under the Stalin Bucharin regime; is eating the Congress in the order of self criticism. To befud of the a hue mapan anda beren in the interna de teren Party, cha Muddler on an American Scale. by Lozovsky Makers, ist, and the ure.
of the conc today, Party with Cannon, in detail CC tem.
on Congress would not terday so is very poorly they at several November 28, 1928, at the post Entered as second class mail oder the act of March 1879.